Vivien Siu's Blog

Coding For Fun: Categorizing Photos by Date Taken

2010-04-25T01:26:00.000-07:00

The Problem

I was trying to organize photos of my cats on my hard drive today, they all sit in this one folder called "Cats", unsorted and with no hierarchy. Since I wanted to keep track of my cats' growth progress and sort photos according to the different periods, logically, I decided to place them into different subfolders according to which year and month they were taken. Sounds like an excellent solution, doesn't it?

The Solution

Look at photo
Check the Date Taken field of the photo
Create folder with the photo's taken year and month in format "YYYY.MM"
Move the photo into the corresponding folder
Repeat all steps above for the next photo

Here's what I did manually for about 20-30 photos... until I realized I have over 2000 photos waiting for me to go through. So I was thinking, there must be a better and faster way to do this. In other words, guess it's time for the nerdy side of me to kick in ;)

The Better Solution

Yes, let's build an app to automate it! I went with .NET 4 since I just installed it along with Visual Studio 2010 a few days ago (and I love to try new things out!) and built a simple interface using XAML in WPF:

It's very quick and easy to build an interface like this using XAML in WPF, especially if you're familiar with XML. For the interface I have above, I simply started off by defining the grid columns and grid rows using Grid.RowDefinitions and Grid.ColumnDefinitions and continued by placing the UI components into the grid. In particular, I defined 4 rows and 2 columns for the interface above:

TextBlock on Row 0, Column 1 for program description (Note: Grid rows/columns in WPF begins with 0)
"Directory" Label on Row 1, Column 0
TextBox for retrieving target directory on Row 1, Column 1
Two buttons - Categorize and Reset - on Row 2, Column 1
Copyright TextBlock on Row 3, Column 1

For example, to place the label "Directory" on Row 1, Column 0 of the grid, all you need is to specify the Grid.Row and Grid.Column position in the XAML for the label:

<Label Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="0" x:Name="labelDir" VerticalAlignment="Center" Padding="2" Margin="2">Directory: </Label>

Here's a brief introduction to the WPF Grid Control blogged by Brian Mains: http://dotnetslackers.com/Community/blogs/bmains/archive/2007/07/27/Introduction-to-the-WPF-Grid-Control.aspx
More details on MSDN: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb613551.aspx

After creating the interface, I proceeded with the backend work. The basic logic of the program is very similar to the manual solution we listed above, i.e. loop through all the photos in the target directory, check their Date Taken value from the metadata, and place them in their corresponding directory (create one if one does not exist). Now the harder question is, how do we read the metadata and retrieve the Date Taken value using C# in .NET 4?

Fortunately, since .NET 3, we've been able to retrieve metadata from basic photos using System.Windows.Media.Imaging.BitmapSource via image piping. For WPF, supported formats include BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, and TIFF images. Once we have created the BitmapSource object for our image, the BitmapSource.Metadata property can return all metadata associated with the image. Therefore, we'd be able to retrieve the Date Taken value of the photo as required:

Here's an excellent blog post written by Bret Patterson about how to retrieve image metadata in .NET 3 (also works for .NET 4) with a working code example: http://blog.bretpatterson.com/post/2007/12/06/Working-with-Image-Metadata-in-NET-30-Part-I.aspx

Finally, we just need to parse in the Date Taken String (it's returned as a String from the BitmapSource.Metadata property), create a directory if needed, and move the file to their corresponding subfolder. These steps could be achieved using System.IO.Directory and System.IO.File.

Final Results

The program was able to go through all supported format photos from a specified directory and move the ones with an existing Date Taken value into their corresponding folder (in "YYYY.MM" format for the ease of sorting)! In particular, the program automatically went through over 2000 of my cat photos and moved all 1265 valid photos into the correct subfolders (took approximately 5 minutes with no special optimization). What's better is that I can now re-use this tool for similar scenarios in the future!

Successfully moved 1265 photos to their corresponding subfolders.

Successfully moved 1265 photos to their corresponding subfolders.Subfolders are created in the target directory when needed.

Photos are moved into their corresponding subfolders. These photos are taken in June, 2006.

...and this is one reason why I love technology and why I like to code for fun! I hope this post helped those of you who are interested in creating tools alike. If you're interested in getting a copy of the tool, feel free to contact me in the comments or email me at emailviv@viviensiu.com.

For those of you who are NOT geeky...

If you use Windows Live Photo Gallery and have included your photos in the library, you can easily sort or filter the photos by Date Taken with just a few clicks: In the navigation pane, under Date taken, click a year to see all of the photos and videos taken during that year, and then select a month or date if required.

Happy coding! Meow!

Migrating Windows 7 Sticky Notes

2009-11-04T19:59:00.000-08:00

Very similar to the previous post, simply copy and paste this file from computer A to computer B:

C:\Users\Vivien\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Sticky Notes\StickyNotes.snt

You're done!

How to migrate Windows Live Messenger emoticons

2009-10-23T21:07:00.000-07:00

Windows Live Messenger (latest version at the time of this post was Build 14.0.8089.726) does not come with an export/import function for migrating emoticons from one PC to another. However, this can be done simply by copy and pasting the hidden emoticon folder.

Emoticons are stored in the AppData folder under your Windows account. For example, if you are on Windows Vista/7, given that your account name on Windows is "Vivien" and that your Windows Live ID is "vivien@hotmail.com", the emoticons should live in this folder:

C:\Users\Vivien\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Messenger\vivien@hotmail.com\ObjectStore\CustomEmoticons

Now copy this folder from Machine A and paste it into the same named folder and path on Machine B. Restart Windows Live Messenger on Machine B, and you should now see all your emoticons on Machine B!

Note that the AppData folder is hidden by default. The simplest way to get to the folder is by typing in the path directly to your Windows start menu search pane. If you prefer browsing to the folder via Windows Explorer and you're having trouble finding the AppData folder, make sure to show all hidden folders.

My Photography site powered by SmugMug

2009-10-10T00:21:00.000-07:00

After 2 weeks of trial and a bunch of research, I decided to go with SmugMug for hosting my photos. It has the most attractive interface among all the photo hosting sites I've tried out (that includes Flickr, Picasa, Shutterfly, etc.). It's clean, beautiful, and professional. Besides the interface, I was also attracted by the unlimited storage, site/gallery customizations, image protection, and presentation styles/themes. It's also completely ad and spam free! They have a lot of other great features as well (backups, videos, custom watermarks, etc.) so it's best to refer to their pages for the complete overview:

I chose to go with SmugMug instead of Flickr mainly because of SmugMug's image protection and privacy controls. Although the Flickr community is a lot more active than SmugMug's, I prefer keeping my photos safe with SmugMug's size restriction and right-click protection. I also wanted to have the ability to customize my site (a feature that Flickr lacks). However, I will probably make use of the free Flickr basic account to upload low resolution version of my photos and point them to SmugMug to gain some audience.

If you're trying to find an online home for your photos, I strongly recommend you to give SmugMug a try:

SmugMug 14-day trial - it's credit card free.
Enter this referral/coupon code to save USD$5 on your purchase: AuHp5xHk2dHX6
They're currently giving out free SmugMug camera straps for SmugMug members, too!

Third-party tools that I use to interact with SmugMug:

Jeffrey's "Export to SmugMug" Lightroom Plugin - export and upload to SmugMug directly from Lightroom
Facebook App: Simple Mug - automatically pulls your SmugMug updates to your Facebook feeds (you can also choose to show private SmugMug galleries to your Facebook friends, but that requires the gallery to be external link enabled and password free)

Reviews on SmugMug:

So where is my SmugMug site?

Vivien Siu Photography - http://viviensiu.smugmug.com/

Feel free to leave comments, photoranks (hover over a photo to give thumbs up/down), etc. You don't need a SmugMug account to leave comments/photoranks :)

Using Canon CR2 Raw Formats in Windows and Photoshop

2009-09-13T17:24:00.001-07:00

.CR2 is the raw image format supported by Canon. Models that support CR2 include:

EOS 400D
EOS-1D
EOS-1D Mark II
EOS-1D MarkIII
EOS-1DS
EOS-1DS Mark II
EOS-20D
EOS-30D
EOS-350D
EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT
EOS-350D DIGITAL
EOS-40D
EOS-5D

[List provided by http://www.imageconverterplus.com/help-center/about-icp/supported-formats/cr2]

If you use any of the above models and have a habit of shooting in raw, you may wonder how to preview these images in Windows like all other Windows supported image files (such as .jpeg, .bmp, etc.).

Lucky enough, Canon provides a free codec software for consumer download. To download the software, all you need to do is to specify which Windows operating system you're using:

Canon RAW Codec Software: http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&fcategoryid=225&modelid=15206

The installation process is also very straight forward with its setup wizard.

Now that you can preview the CR2 files in Windows Explorer, you may wonder how you can edit these CR2 files directly in Photoshop. Adobe offers a free Canon raw plug-in that's available at the following link:

Camera RAW 5.4 for Adobe Creative Suite and Photoshop: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=4524

The installation instructions are on the same page near the bottom. Basically, you just have to add/replace the "Camera Raw.8bi" file under your Photoshop Program Files directory "Plug-Ins\File Formats" folder. Note that the zip file contains two different 8bi files; one for 32-bit systems and one for 64-bit systems. Be sure to copy the correct .8bi file to the directory for the plug-in to function.

Here's a short but very useful video tutorial on Camera Raw 5:

Adobe TV with Julieanne Kost - "Camera Raw 5 and You": http://www.str8photography.com/str8photography/Camera_RAW_5_and_you.html

Change Default Search on Mozilla Firefox

2009-09-11T23:44:00.000-07:00

In my last post, we talked about how to search from the Windows 7 Start Menu. If you're a Mozilla Firefox user, and you've tried the Start Menu search from my last post, you would realize that Firefox defaults it search engine to Google (even if your actual search bar, located on the top right corner in the browser, is set to an alternative search engine). In this post, we'll go through a simple trick to set your Firefox's default search engine to your favorite search provider:

Open Firefox as you normally would
In the address bar, type "about:config"
You'll be brought to a warning page, click "I'll be careful, I promise!"
In the filter box on the configs page, type in "browser.search.defaultenginename"
Double click on the row "browser.search.defaultenginename"
Enter your favorite search provider's name in the pop-up box (value)
Hit OK

Now try searching from the Windows 7 Start Menu as described in the previous post. As long as your default browser is Firefox, it should bring you to the search results of whatever search engine you set in step 6 above.

How to search the Internet with your Windows 7 Start Menu

2009-09-11T23:05:00.000-07:00

Wouldn't it be nice to search the Internet through your Windows 7 Start Menu without pre-opening your web browser?

Here's how you can do it:

Hit the Windows Start button
Type in "gpedit.msc" and hit Enter to open up the "Local Group Policy Editor"
In the navigation menu on the left, select "User Configuration" > "Administrative Templates" > "Start Menu and Taskbar" > and double click on "Add Search Internet link to Start Menu"
In the "Add Search Internet link to Start Menu" policy window, select "Enabled" and click "OK"
Close the "Local Group Policy Editor"

Now you're all set. Just click "Start" and start searching! It'll bring you to the results from your default search engine on your default browser. :)

This one is truly global...

2009-02-06T21:39:00.000-08:00

Got this from a forwarded email: (Warning - It's somewhat racist)

<--------begin forwarded email-------->

This one is truly global...

A World wide survey was conducted by the UN. The only question asked was: "Would you please give your honest opinion about solutions to the food shortage in the rest of the world?"

The survey was a huge failure, In Africa they didn't know what 'food' meant, In India they didn't know what 'honest' meant, In Europe they didn't know what 'shortage' meant, In China they didn't know what 'opinion' meant, In the Middle East they didn't know what 'solution' meant, In South America they didn't know what 'please' meant, And in the USA they didn't know what 'the rest of the world' meant!

<--------end forwarded email-------->

Thoughts?

My opinion: Funny, yet sad at the same time. Observe how all the terms used here are actually critiques on each nation's attitude/behavior/mentality/morality except for 'food' for Africa. If I were to pick, I'd much rather be criticized on the absence of material than to receive critiques against my conduct. Perhaps we should all spend a few minutes to think and reflect. :)

Setting Up Dual Boot for Vista and Windows 7 Beta - All for Free!

2009-01-17T05:41:00.000-08:00

Compiling the basic steps, options, as well as helpful tools and links for setting up dual boot for Vista and Windows 7 Beta - all for free!

Checking the Requirements
- Official Windows 7 requirements here
Backup Your Data
- If you're running Windows Vista Home Basic/Premium, you can use "Control Panel\System and Maintenance\Backup and Restore Center" to backup all your important files, but this will NOT backup your programs. A Full PC Backup is available for Windows Vista Ultimate/Business/Enterprise versions.
- Backup your drives before you move on to defragmenting and/or partitioning. DriveImage XML is a free backup software that offers backing up drives to image files, or even copying directly from drive to drive.
Defragment Your Drive (Optional)
- You may run into problems when you move on to partitioning and shrinking your current OS drive in Step 3. Therefore, this is an optional and recommended step for those that run into shrinking problems in Step 4. Here's two handy software that you could use for defragmenting your drive:
- Trial Version of PerfectDisk 2008
- Auslogics Disk Defrag
Shrinking and Partition Your Drive
- If you're running Vista, "Computer Management"/"compmgmt.msc" may do the job for you. You can also operate it through command line with "diskpart.exe".
- EASEUS Partition Manager 3.0 Home Edition is also a great and easy-to-use partitioning tool. Free, GUI based, and compatible with Vista.
- GParted is a well known partitioning tool from Gnome. You may want to follow the instructions here to avoid problems.
Download and Burn a Windows 7 Beta DVD
- If you have an MSDN subscription, here's the link
- If you don't have an MSDN subscription, here's the link
- If you're using Vista, and you don't have any DVD burning software, here's a great solution for you.
You're Ready To Go...!
- Now all you have to do is to put your DVD in and install Windows 7 Beta on your newly partitioned drive!

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: This is a reference guide only. Meant for intermediate computer users. No guarantees. Please backup all your data before attempting.