Venkatarangan Blog

When you are writing technical articles or a spagetti blog (with general, travel and also Technical entries) like this, you will need to use screenshot images.

The problem with screenshots (especially with today’s high-res displays) is that the saved image files are huge in size. To solve this, you will generally resize the images. With reduction in size, Screenshots becomes unreadable.

While doing such a screenshot today for an earlier entry,  using Adobe PhotoShop Elements (PSE) and Zabgrab (the free utility I use to capture a portion of screen) I came across a nice option in Photoshop elements. It is called “Adjust Blacklighting” available under the “Enhance” menu option in PSE.

1) The original screenshot  I started looked like this (753×688)
2) I resized the image to 400×365. It looked like this, with unreadable text.
3) Next I used the Adjust blacklighting option like this
4) Finally with Auto Levels and adjusting Contrast, I got the final output like this. This definitely looks readable even at the 50% reduced size.

I guess this entry will be useful for non-photoshop pro’s like me. Did you find this tip useful, post your feedback below.

Download ZAPGRAB2.zip (9.41 KB)

HTTP Trace
When you are doing some HTTP upload or download development, like in a Web Client it is useful to do a HTTP Trace. A HTTP Trace basically dumps on screen or in a file the entire dialog that takes place between your client (typically your Web Browser) and the server (Web Server).

One handy HTTP Trace tool I use is called Fiddler. Fiddler is free and is developed by a Microsoftie. The good thing I like in Fiddler is that it works without any configuration. You just browse from your favourite browser or client application as normal, and fiddler is tracing it in the background. In fact, Fiddler doesn’t even have an options dialog box!.

There is also an useful Page in Fiddler website that links to useful HTTP/HTML Resources on the Internet.

Web Service Trace
If you are programming SOAP/Web services, it is useful to have a SOAP Trace utility. A SOAP Trace tool is a specialized HTTP Trace tool that understands SOAP messages and displays them accordingly. If you are programming with Microsoft WSE 2.0, then a good free tool is available from Mike Taulty. Once you have downloaded the application, you read the example.config file. It has a small portion of XML Configuration code, that you need to insert in your web.config or app.config files for tracing to begin.

Mike’s WSE 2.0 Tracing Utility is written in .NET Framework 1.x. I loved this tool so much I used in my WSE Security session in this India Tech Ed 2004.