Tag Archives: Google

Google’s Nik Collection photo editing software is now free

Nik Collection used to cost $149 until a few days ago. Google has announced that the bundle will now be available for free. If you already own Google’s Nik Collection and have made the purchase during the year 2016 you are in luck as Google announced that you will receive a full refund.

Google’s Nik Collection consists of seven desktop plug-ins, all of them which support both Photoshop and Lightroom. Nik Collection provides a powerful range of photo editing capabilities — from filter applications that improve color correction, to retouching and creative effects, to image sharpening that brings out all the hidden details, to the ability to make adjustments to the color and tonality of images.

  • Analog Efex Pro – Explore the look and feel of classic cameras, films, and lenses.
  • Color Efex Pro – A comprehensive set of filters for color correction, retouching, and creative effects.
  • Silver Efex Pro – Master the art of black-and-white photography with darkroom-inspired controls.
  • Viveza – Selectively adjust the color and tonality of your images without complicated masks or selections.
  • HDR Efex Pro – From natural to artistic, explore the full potential of HDR photography.
  • Sharpener Pro – Bring out hidden details consistently with the professional’s choice for image sharpening.
  • Dfine – Improve your images with noise reduction tailored to your camera.

More information and download links regarding Google’s Nik Collection can be found in Google’s Nik Collection website.

Hardware Requirements

Windows

  • Windows Vista®, Windows 7, Windows 8
  • Adobe Photoshop CS4 through CC 2015
  • Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 through 13 (apart from HDR Efex Pro 2, which is not compatible with Photoshop Elements)
  • Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 through 6/CC

Mac

  • Mac® OS X 10.7.5 through 10.10
  • Adobe Photoshop CS4 (CS5 for HDR Efex Pro 2) through CC 2015
  • Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 through 13 (apart from HDR Efex Pro 2, which is not compatible with Photoshop Elements)
  • Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 through 6/CC
  • Apple® Aperture® 3.1 or later

Force HTTPS using IIS

Google announced in their blog that it will start favoring websites that use HTTPS. Google ranking and increased security for your users is two major reasons why you should consider getting an SSL certificate and moving your website to HTTPS.

If you are using IIS you can use the below snippet in your web.config in order to redirect all HTTP requests to HTTPS.

For your convenience, in case you are not familiar how to use the snippet below, I have attached an image to illustrate how the rewrite rule will look using IIS’s interface, so if you are having trouble with the web.config, simply mirror the details in the image.

Please keep in mind that to use the snippet below you will need to have URL Rewrite module installed and enabled.

Force HTTPS using .htaccess

As mentioned in a previous article, Google announced in their blog that it will start favoring websites that use HTTPS. Google ranking and increased security for your users is two major reasons why you should consider getting an SSL certificate and moving your website to HTTPS.

If you are using an Apache web server you can use the snippet below in your .htaccess file in order to redirect all HTTP requests to HTTPS.

Google Earth Pro is now free

Google has announced that Google Earth Pro, which was before priced at $399 per year before, will now be available for free.

Google Earth Pro is of course a fairly known, perhaps a bit forgotten by a lot of people, 3D interactive globe that can be used to aid planning, analysis and decision making. In a nutshell you can think of Google Earth to be a more advance version of Google maps.

If you are interested in trying out Google Earth Pro, you can download it for free. The process is fairly straight forward and only takes a few minutes for you have everything up and running.

How to set a custom page zoom value in Google Chrome

By default Google Chrome has predefined values for the page zoom setting. But what happens if none of those values satisfy your needs ? Since Google Chrome doesn’t provide you with way to set your own custom value we will need to use a workaround to achieve that.

The following workaround works by modifying the HTML code of the settings page allowing you to add (or remove if needed) more options from the drop down list. Another advantage of this method is that it doesn’t require an extension to be installed therefore not consuming extra unneeded memory.

Lets get started!

Access Google’s Chrome settings page by visiting chrome://settings/.