Image xBReeZ - Privacy Policy

Image xBReeZ only stores the paths to existing pictures on your device while it processes them to enlarge them using the xBRZ scaling routine.

No data is uploaded to any server.

The app only rescales images that you send to it, and saves them back to the designated folder.

Here is a link to the app in Google Play Store:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.intrepidis.imagexbreez

Side-swept fringe - Men's Hairstyles

The perfect option for men who are not keen to flaunt the straight bangs. The side-swept fringe look will suit almost every face cut and men also find it less troubling in maintaining these side fringes. It also makes your cheekbones look more prominent.

Jackjack - playing cards game

Jackjack - playing cards game

(A.K.A. English Blackjack, a variation of Knock Knock and Crazy Eights)

How to play

This is for 3 to 6 players ideally. Use 1 deck of cards, although it's possible to play with more decks. To win you must empty your hand of any cards. You can lay down a card by matching it to the number or suit of the previous discard, i.e. the same number with a different suit, or the same suit with an incrementing or decrementing number. There are many wild cards to alter the gameplay for your opponents.

Deal 7 cards each, for a 3 or 4 player game, or 5 cards if there are more players. Place the remainder of the unused pack of cards face down on the table. Then take the top one, turn it over, and place it separately to form a discard pile of face-up cards. The player to the dealer's left goes first. If any player cannot go, they must pick up a card from the unused pack. If you run out of cards from the unused pile, then take all cards from the discard pile, except the top one, and turn them over face-down to replenish the unused pack.

Players must follow suit or rank, but they can lay down cards with as long of a chained run as they can, providing the card ranks match as they jump from suit to suit. For example, if the card at the top of the discard pile is currently the Six of Clubs, then you can play a chained run such as: Six of Spades, Seven of Spades, Seven of Hearts, Seven of Diamonds, Eight of Diamonds, then the Nine of Diamonds.

If playing with more than 1 pack, note that it's not possible to "change direction" mid-run (i.e. from incrementing to decrementing) unless you change suits. So you can't do the Three of Hearts, Four of Hearts, Five of Hearts, then the Four of Hearts again. But you can do the Three of Hearts, Four of Hearts, Five of Hearts, Five of Spades, Five of Hearts, then the Four of Hearts.

When a wild card is played, that ends the player's go. Although several of the same type of wild card can be played at the same time. The wild cards are as follows. Eights make the next player miss a go, and 2 Eights will make the next 2 players miss their go, etc. Kings reverse the direction of play. Aces change the suit and can be played on anything. Any rank of the same suit can be played after an Ace. Queens must be covered with another card, but it can be any card. So you cannot end a run with a Queen. This means that you cannot win the game if the only card remaining in your hand is a Queen, because she cannot be left exposed! Twos make the next player have to pick up 2 cards, effectively ending their turn, unless they can also play a Two, in which case the next player after them must then pick up 4 cards, etc. Black Jacks make the next player pick up 5 cards, but then again if the next player also plays a Black Jack, then the player following them must pick up 10 cards! However, a Red Jack can be played which cancels picking up any cards if played after a Black Jack, and that player can also then continue their run if possible (i.e. playing a Ten of the same suit, and so on). There is "Jacks on Twos" rule, where Black Jacks can be played on Twos, effectively increasing the amount that the next player has to pick up. So it's possible to play 4 Twos and 2 Black Jacks, making a player have to pick up 18 cards! (Hopefully they have a Red Jack to cancel it!) Note that Red Jacks cannot cancel out Twos alone, they can only cancel picking up if they're played after a Black Jack (and then the accrued number of cards is all fully cancelled out). Apart from Aces, all other wild cards must be played on the correct suit and rank, just as with regular cards (i.e. the king of clubs must be played after the queen of clubs, or another king).

The final rule. When a player can win the game, they have to say "last cards" before they start laying down their final run of cards. They can even say it while someone else is still playing their go. It just needs to be said before they play their last run, but after their penultimate go. If they neglect to do so, then they must pick up a card after they have discarded their entire hand. If they do make that call, then they must win on their next go. If they miscalled, and fail to win, then they must also pick up a card. So think ahead when you're down to a few cards. Don't start playing your hand until you know what you're doing, and only if you're sure you can win then say "last cards" and complete the game.

MS Office Word - copy text and it puts OLE bookmarks - a handy macro to stop this

Have you recently found that copying something in Microsoft Word causes the copied text to have grey square brackets surround it?

These brackets are showing because the "show bookmarks" option is enabled. Indeed you may want to keep that option enabled, as you have other bookmarks that you want to see while editing.

The new bookmarks are being created with a certain naming format, they are sequentially numbered and are named like "OLE_LINK##". These bookmarks are automatically created by Word.

Here is a macro to automatically delete the bookmarks straight after they're created. It doesn't delete other bookmarks, only the ones that start with "OLE_LINK".

The best place to put this is in the Normal.dot file. To find this, enable the Developer tab in the ribbon, and then click on the Visual Basic button. In there you can find a file called "ThisDocument" inside the "Normal" heading. Inside that file just put the following code and then save it.

Sub EditCopy()
    Selection.Copy
    DoEvents
    Application.OnTime Now + TimeValue("00:00:01"), "DeleteOleBookmarks"
End Sub

Sub DeleteOleBookmarks()
    Dim bmIndex As Integer
    Dim bmType As String
    DoEvents
    For bmIndex = ActiveDocument.Bookmarks.Count To 1 Step -1
        bmType = UCase(Left(ActiveDocument.Bookmarks(bmIndex).Name, 8))
        If bmType = "OLE_LINK" Then
            ActiveDocument.Bookmarks(bmIndex).Delete
        End If
    Next bmIndex
End Sub

Keep the monitor display brightness the same when the power source is changed to battery/charging

When using a laptop you usually have to adjust the screen's brightness based on the ambient lighting conditions. However, when plugging/unplugging the power supply Windows will change the brightness again. This can be a poor user experience, for example the reason for plugging it in was just to charge it, not to change the brightness.

Here is a PowerShell v3.0+ script and Windows Task Scheduler config file for fixing this issue. The schedule will run at system startup, and just runs the script. The PowerShell script will register a script block to some Windows events. One is the brightness change event, so when the user manually changes the screen brightness it will save that value to a temp file. The other event is when the power supply is changed to battery/charging, it will change the value back from the saved temp file.

Here's the PowerShell script, just copy this into a Notepad and save as "C:\Battery power display brightness.ps1".

PowerShell modules

Overview of PowerShell Modules

A module in PowerShell is basically a script with exposed members, such as Functions and Variables. It's best for a specific module to serve a singular purpose. There are four kinds of PowerShell module. (As documented in this Microsoft link: click here.)

• Script Modules -- PSM1 files that usually contain functions, but can contain any valid PowerShell code.
• Binary Modules -- Compiled DLL files, which can be created in .NET languages like C#, F# or VB.
• Manifest Modules -- These are Script Modules which contain a manifest.
• Dynamic Modules -- In memory modules which haven't been persisted to permanent storage.

How To Create A PowerShell Module

At the basic level, a PowerShell module is a text file with a ".psm1" extension. Here's an example:

• # A private variable.
• $prefix = 'Some text'
• 
  
• Function Get-Prefix
• {
•     $prefix
• }
• 
  
• Function Append-Prefix ($suffix)
• {
•     $prefix + $suffix
• }
• 
  
• Function HiddenFunc
• {
•     # do something...
• }
• 
  
• Export-ModuleMember -Function '*-*'

Here the functions "Get-Prefix" and "Append-Prefix" are exposed, but the variable "$prefix" and function "HiddenFunc" are not exposed.

How To Use A PowerShell Module

A module can be imported into the PowerShell console directly, and also into script files. Importing the module brings all of the functions and variables into that PowerShell session. To do this you can import a module called "C:\foobar.psm1" in the following way:

Import-Module C:\foobar.psm1

Android Preferences Time Picker

When developing the preferences page for an Android app you can add a time picker with this class.

import android.content.*;
import android.content.res.*;
import android.preference.*;
import android.util.*;
import android.view.*;
import android.widget.*;
import java.text.*;
import java.util.*;

/*
* Use in preferences.xml like this:
*   <net.intrepidis.library.prefs.TimePreference
*       android:key="mytime_preference"
*       android:title="@string/mytime_preftitle"
*       android:summary="@string/mytime_prefsummary"
*       android:defaultValue="00:10"
*       positiveButtonText="@string/ok_button"
*       negativeButtonText="Close me" />
*/
public class TimePreference extends DialogPreference {
private final Calendar calendar;
private final TimePicker picker;

public TimePreference(final Context ctx) {
this(ctx, null);
}

public TimePreference(final Context ctx, final AttributeSet attrs) {
this(ctx, attrs, android.R.attr.dialogPreferenceStyle);
}

public TimePreference(final Context ctx, final AttributeSet attrs, final int defStyle) {
super(ctx, attrs, defStyle);

calendar = new GregorianCalendar();
picker = new TimePicker(ctx);

// Set 24-hour display.
final boolean is24 = is24HourSystemDateSetting();
picker.setIs24HourView(is24);

// Positive button text.
{
final int resId = attrs.getAttributeResourceValue(
null, "positiveButtonText", -1);
final String text =
attrs.getAttributeValue(null, "positiveButtonText");
if (resId != -1) {
setPositiveButtonText(resId);
} else if (text != null) {
setPositiveButtonText(text);
}
}

// Negative button text.
{
final int resId = attrs.getAttributeResourceValue(
null, "negativeButtonText", -1);
final String text =
attrs.getAttributeValue(null, "negativeButtonText");
if (resId != -1) {
setNegativeButtonText(resId);
} else if (text != null) {
setNegativeButtonText(text);
}
}
}

@Override
protected View onCreateDialogView() {
return picker;
}

@Override
protected void onBindDialogView(final View v) {
super.onBindDialogView(v);
picker.setCurrentHour(calendar.get(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY));
picker.setCurrentMinute(calendar.get(Calendar.MINUTE));
}

@Override
protected void onDialogClosed(final boolean positiveResult) {
super.onDialogClosed(positiveResult);

if (positiveResult) {
calendar.set(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, picker.getCurrentHour());
calendar.set(Calendar.MINUTE, picker.getCurrentMinute());

setSummary(getSummary());

final long millis = calendar.getTimeInMillis();
if (callChangeListener(millis)) {
persistLong(millis);
notifyChanged();
}
}
}

@Override
protected Object onGetDefaultValue(final TypedArray a, final int index) {
try {
final String s = a.getString(index);
// Use 24-hour format for the default setting.
final DateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat("HH:mm");
final Date date = df.parse(s);
final long l = date.getTime();
return l;
} catch (ParseException e) {
return null;
}
}

@Override
protected void onSetInitialValue(
final boolean restoreValue,
final Object defaultValue
) {
final long def =
defaultValue == null
? System.currentTimeMillis()
: (long)defaultValue;

final long time;
if (restoreValue) {
time = getPersistedLong(def);
} else {
time = def;
if (shouldPersist()) {
persistLong(time);
}
}

calendar.setTimeInMillis(time);

setSummary(getSummary());
}

@Override
public CharSequence getSummary() {
// Format time as per user's locale.
final DateFormat df =
SimpleDateFormat.getTimeInstance(SimpleDateFormat.SHORT);
final Date time = calendar.getTime();
final String s = df.format(time);
return s;
}

public static boolean is24HourSystemDateSetting() {
final SimpleDateFormat f = (SimpleDateFormat)
SimpleDateFormat.getTimeInstance(SimpleDateFormat.SHORT);
final String pattern = f.toPattern();
final boolean is24 = pattern.indexOf('H') >= 0;
return is24;
}
}