Windows 7 has a simple Picture Viewer application inbuilt which supports basic image formats like JPG & PNG. Nearly four years ago, Windows Vista introduced a modern and extensible imaging framework called Windows Imaging Component (WIC). WIC made it possible for 3rd parties to add support for additional image formats to the operating system, complete with thumbnail views in Explorer, previews and slideshow in Windows Photo Gallery / Photo Viewer and on Window 7 Home Premium and Ultimate, also in Windows Media Centre.

Since I moved from ACDSee to Windows Live Photo Gallery for all my image management needs I was missing the ability to preview Photoshop PSD files. With ACDSee, such codec was already available, but there is no such codec available for Windows from Adobe due to which we cannot preview PSD files in Windows without having Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Bridge.

Preview helps, as most of the time I don’t want to edit the images, I just want to see which PSD is for what. I want a small preview, that’s all. If you have Photoshop installed then by default the PSD files will open in it which takes time to open such a big application & opening it just for a 10 second preview is again, useless. Thankfully, there is a way.

I found that Microsoft Expression Design 3 has the ability to import Photoshop PSD files in it, which means it has a compatible decoder codec. By using a simple trick you can enable preview of PSD files in Windows Explorer & Windows Photo Gallery.

1. Expression Design 3 comes with a compatible PSD Decoder codec called PSDCodec.dll which can be found in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Expression\Common\Imaging\3.0.269.0
2. If you do not have expression blend then just download the trial from here. Then Using 7-Zip, open ‘Blend_Trial_en.exe’ and in the ‘Setup’ subfolder, open ‘BlImp.cab’ then extract ‘PSDCodec.dll’. You can also download the codec from my skydrive.
3. Keep the codec file somewhere safe in your PC. I recommend keeping in C:\program files\Codecs\
4. Now register this dll by going to command prompt with Admin rights & run command “regsvr32 C:\Program Files\Microsoft Expression\Common\Imaging\3.0.269.0\PSDCodec.dll”. The file path can depend on your installation of Expression Design.
5. Right click on any PSD file & click on “Open with –> Windows Live Photo Gallery” & check the box below the application selection which says “Always use the selected program to open file of this type”.
6. Now, when you will double click on the PSD file, it will open with Photo Gallery app & you will also be able to see each layer of the PSD file individually.

If you want even more codec support, consider buying FastPictureViewer Codec Pack 2.1R2

Now, that was just one trick. These days, people use many social networking services like Facebook & Twitter. How about uploading images to Facebook directly using Live Photo Gallery application? You can do that by using Live upload to Facebook. Once you install this plug-in, you will be able to upload to Facebook, by clicking on Publish in the toolbar & then “Live Upload to Facebook”. You will need to authenticate your account though which is a requirement of using Facebook.

My M.V.P lead Mr. Abhishek Baxi called me few days ago all of a sudden to tell me about the urgent opportunity to meet Mr. Somasegar S, Senior Vice President of Microsoft, Developer Division. Whose going to miss such an opportunity, so I packed my bags, took the first bus available to Delhi as train tickets were not available on time & reached Delhi.

I had no place to stay so stayed with my brother in his college hostel & thanks to his contacts I was able to locate Oberoi Hotel. I reached there on time for the meet to start.

Its rare to get a chance to meet such influencing personality like Mr. Somasegar S from Microsoft who is the reason why we developers & designers are able to create such magnificent solutions for Windows. He creates the hammer, using which we chisel out the craft.

I wasn’t expecting many people but to my surprise there were many people all from there own field of expertise. It was an honor to meet Mr. Vijay Malhotra again who inspired me to start paying attention to Linguistic when we make a software at InfraniX. I was also able to meet Mr. Vinod Unny, regional Director Microsoft.

I hope I didn’t make the attendees angry by throwing maximum question at Mr. Somasegar. I asked question like integration between Photoshop & Expression Blend, Microsoft DreamSpark initiative etc. Despite of having just one hour with us, Somasegar Sir were able to answer many of our questions.

You can view all the pictures at the Flickr Photo stream of Abhishek Baxi. I am adding some to this post.

Group Photograph

Even Grace Agrees, I am still fat.

Other then what I do for living, I am good in one thing only…Talking. People usually call me a Devil or sometimes Rake, better known as a maestro of words.

I had 3 presentations lined up this week in 3 Colleges of Lucknow with the marketing guys of my company. They wanted me to talk instead of them, so I had a good opportunity to stretch my Rakeness.

Today I had presentation & seminar in Sagar Institute of Technology & Management, in Barabanki, near Lucknow with the Third Year students of B.Tech – C.S & I.T.

As usual, I didn’t take any PPT with me or anything else, I just barged in & went on to talk with the students. The students were mostly mum & taking things lightly. I tried to ask them “What you don’t like about computers & how do you think you can fix or change it"?”

I found the same complaints which I have myself faced in academic life…

1. Education & B.Tech is regarded as a way to get a degree only.

2. Students have ideas & innovation, they just don’t know how to implement it. Most of the time when they do try, they are told by the teachers to concentrate on there course only.

3. They are unable to think out of the box.

Well, the situation has not changed a lot since the time when I passed 12 & when I decided not to go for B.Tech. I told the students just one thing, To hell with the system.

The job market is under recession right now due to which companies are not hiring fresher. They are instead going for people with some experience, but students are not able to get experience without proper training. All I told them that never let an idea die. If the teacher isn’t supporting, don’t take his help. If your parent’s are not supporting, don’t take there help. Its your life & do what you think you can do instead of being told what to do. Sometimes even the parents are not supportive so we cannot blame the students completely either.

At last, my life long childhood dream of becoming a Guitarist is complete….Ah! I love Rock ‘n’ Roll

Taken by my Nokia N79 in HomeTown, Saharaganj, Lucknow. Edited using SnagIt Editor.