HOWTO: get a high-resolution version of an image on Blogger

Here is a quite big garbage JPEG picture made of pseudo-random noise.

A noisy picture thumbnail

Thumbnail URL:

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3IBd5kptNGk_R6iYcCcVRbGPr-qznzJQXl51zG2kB8fPm5ksrpPdG3t4LrsNMq4kdsupZI3QBQ2RzvmdAXPtP6B4ZmwAur6IyQIZAA74UmNbOFE59MtXcTPyCwPlIrVPx4dAyhxT5oYg7/s320/noise01.jpg

"Big image" direct link URL:

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3IBd5kptNGk_R6iYcCcVRbGPr-qznzJQXl51zG2kB8fPm5ksrpPdG3t4LrsNMq4kdsupZI3QBQ2RzvmdAXPtP6B4ZmwAur6IyQIZAA74UmNbOFE59MtXcTPyCwPlIrVPx4dAyhxT5oYg7/1600/noise01.jpg

And now we can guess a link to even bigger-sized version:

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3IBd5kptNGk_R6iYcCcVRbGPr-qznzJQXl51zG2kB8fPm5ksrpPdG3t4LrsNMq4kdsupZI3QBQ2RzvmdAXPtP6B4ZmwAur6IyQIZAA74UmNbOFE59MtXcTPyCwPlIrVPx4dAyhxT5oYg7/2048/noise01.jpg

Tips: where to find the photos in your Google account

You can try to find your photos in different "departments" of your Google account:

• Photos - Google Photos
  • Albums - Google Photos
• Google Album Archive
• Google Dashboard (see the "Photos" count)
• Download your data [Google Takeout] (refer to the "Google Photos" section)
• Google Photos - Google Drive (somewhat deprecated)
• Photos - Google+ (discontinued)
• Picasa Web Albums (the classic option; unfortunately, discontinued)

And don't forget about the trash folder(s):

• Trash - Google Photos
• Trash - Google Drive
• Photos - Google+ (discontinued)

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Last updated: 2018-03-01

HOWTO: get a highest-resolution version of an image on Last.fm

Sometimes you can find an interesting picture on Last.fm, but don't have an obvious option to zoom in. Fortunately, sometimes you can view it in a better quality too (it depends on the originally uploaded image resolution):

1. First of all, copy the URL of a necessary image; you should get something like this:

   http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/64s/35346791/RJ+Test+Artist+1+knifefighttypepadcom.jpg

2. Then you'll need to modify the URL a little; just replace the entire substring consisting of alphanumeric characters between the two slashes after the "serve" word and before the image number with a single underscore:

   http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/_/35346791/RJ+Test+Artist+1+knifefighttypepadcom.jpg

3. Just paste the modified image URL into your browser's address bar and enjoy the (big) picture!

Nonsensical minor long-running bug in Ubuntu

The file containing a default Ubuntu wallpaper is still named 'warty-final-ubuntu.png' (in honor of the first Ubuntu release, 4.10 "Warty Warthog"), but this PNG image actually became a JPEG one sometime in 2008!
The following "bug" still affects the "ubuntu-wallpapers" package versions found in the current Ubuntu stable (13.10 "Saucy Salamander") and development release (14.04 LTS "Trusty Tahr") repositories:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/296538
Nobody cares. Enjoy! :)

HOWTO: get a high-quality image from an eBay listing

Well, sometimes you can find an interesting item on eBay, and then you want to take a nice look at the photos. Unfortunately, the pictures are often displayed in a low resolution (and without a "zoom in" option). Luckily, often you still have a chance to get good quality images (with resolutions up to 1600 * 1200; it depends on the original quality of the picture the seller has uploaded).

Notes. The sites are in process of migration to HTTPS, so you'll often see image URLs beginning with "https://" instead of plain "http://". And it should work for all regional eBay sites (i. e., ebay.com, ebay.co.uk, ebay.de etc.), and also for "eBay Kleinanzeigen" (German eBay classified ads site).

1. An old image URL style.
   1. First of all, copy an URL of the needed image; you'll get something like this:

      http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Some-nice-item-For-sale-/00/s/S0mE-W1LD/$GaRb4gE~~60_12.JPG

   2. Then you'll need to modify the URL a little; just replace the last number found in the URL (it's preceded by a '_' and followed by a '.'; in this sample, it's "12") with "10":

      http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Some-nice-item-For-sale-/00/s/S0mE-W1LD/$GaRb4gE~~60_10.JPG

      or with "57" (I don't know what's actually better):

      http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Some-nice-item-For-sale-/00/s/S0mE-W1LD/$GaRb4gE~~60_57.JPG

   3. Just paste the modified image URL into your browser's address bar and enjoy!
2. A new image URL style. The method remains similar.
   1. Get an image URL:

      http://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/GaRbaG3/s-l64.jpg

   2. Change the appropriate URL fragment to "1600":

      http://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/GaRbaG3/s-l1600.jpg

   3. ...
   4. Done!

References:

1. getProductDetails : thumbnail How can I get high resolution picture of catalogued item. - eBay Developer Support / Customer Help
2. getProductDetails - API Reference - Product API - eBay Developers Program

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Last updated: 2017-03-14

HOWTO: radical lossless JPEG image optimization (in Linux)

(The sample commands are tested under Debian Wheezy).

First of all, don't forget to install the JPEG manipulating programs package:

# apt-get install libjpeg-progs

And it's the optimization itself:

$ jpegtran -copy none -progressive input.jpg > output.jpg

Notes:

1. yes, it produces a progressive JPEG output image; if you don't like it (or it's unsupported in the target environment), use -optimize switch instead of -progressive (but the output image size will be bigger);
2. there's also a non-recommended option (an -arithmetic switch) to enable arithmetic coding; it allows a more efficient compression than traditional Huffman coding does, but (unfortunately) it's not widely supported in JPEG decoders due to some historical patent restrictions;
3. -copy none option removes all extra markers (comments, tags, thumbnails and other metadata) from the output; if you need to save them, use -copy comments (or even -copy all) option instead;
4. you can add a -grayscale option, and it will omit color data from the output image without re-encoding (very useful for grayscale / black & white / monochrome images);
5. more reading:
   • jpegtran -help and man jpegtran
   • JPEG - Wikipedia
   • libjpeg - Wikipedia

HOWTO: make Jigdo use local APT cache

If you like to build Debian install CD images with Jigdo (i. e., with jigdo-lite), you may consider using packages from your local APT cache to save some network traffic.
To make it easily selectable from the Jigdo interface, make sure to add the following line to the ~/.jigdo-lite config file:

scanMenu='/var/cache/apt/archives/ /media/cdrom/'

BTW: /var/cache/apt/archives is a local APT cache directory (containing already downloaded DEB packages); /media/cdrom is a standard CD mount point, so you can reuse the files from the mounted CD image you've previously generated with Jigdo.

References:

1. More About Scan Sources - Debian Jigdo mini-HOWTO