The Pleasures of Upgrading a New PC - Irfan View

I'm in the middle of a migration.  No, I am not flying North for the Summer!  I am moving into a New-To-Me laptop.  The oldest one died, the daily driver is getting unreliable but will be "repurposed", and this is the newest one of the lot.

If you're so inclined, you can read the story here:

First the story of how I decided that it was time to move with limited funds.
Second, how I actually installed the Operating System and the minimum software needed.
Third, how annoying it can be to get PDF to work smoothly on a new install.

Today, I have to install graphics software.

As a part of the volunteer work that I do and all of the web development work that I have picked up over the ages, I require better than the very basic software that Windows 7 comes with to get pictures and text to the web.  Sure, for most folks this is enough, but you can get much more without spending any money.

Here is how I do it.

Irfan View - a Swiss Army Knife for picture viewing.
Ifran view does a lot more than just view pictures.  The software is amazingly flexible and takes the attitude that you don't need to be complex to get a lot of complexity done.  You can do some simple editing with crop and paste, play around with editing color schemes and remove things like that annoying kid who insisted on putting gang hand signs on his chest when you got the family photo back in 2005 at Christmas.

Yes, Jonathan, I am talking about you.

I have been using Irfan View for more than ten years now.  It is so easy to use that you forget just how much power you have at your fingertips.  If I need to take a picture for the web, I'm not going to post the original.  Typically I shrink them down from the massive to slightly smaller than "standard def TV sized" with this software.  I have used it to snip a single flower to share with my growing audience, and to have a little fun playing with pictures.

But enough of that.   Here's how to get it... and you really do want this software as your default viewer on Windows!

1) Surf http://www.irfanview.com

2) Click the handy "Irfan View" link on the right under "Downloads".  I'm not giving you the direct link because he really has done some amazing work and your going there directly will help him know how many people like his software... so play along, ok?  :)

3) That previous link will pop you onto another page with a link to download the base software.  Click on the Download Now link and it will ask you to save the file.  Remember where you put that file...  This time I'm downloading iview428_setup.exe from CNet.com

4) Run the file, and once it launches it gives you the option of Creating Shortcuts, selecting how many users, and where to install it.   Simply accept the defaults and click "Next>". 

5) You will see the window change to "What's New In This Version?" and just click Next.

6) the next window asks if you want to associate any extensions with IrfanView.  I click on "Images Only", and Next.

7) Unfortunately he has a deal here with Google Chrome to push a download of it to your system.  Reject this.  Uncheck the box with Include Google Chrome...   You can always get it on your own.  I don't want Google Chrome and am wary of that software due to my concerns about Privacy.

Remember Uncheck the box for Google Chrome and then click "Next".

8) There is a question about "Set INI Folder".  I'm ok with what is happening here so I clicked "Next".

9) I then got a warning about resetting my file associations - and yes, I am really sure - so click Yes.

10) Installation Done!  When you click "Done" Irfan View will launch.  It starts a browser window with a lot of questions and the program which really doesn't look like it has much other than a black window and options.  Since the purpose of this is to get the software on the machine ... I'm done here... start to play around with the program, it's one of those rare programs that you can use with the keyboard extremely rapidly to view your pictures once you learn how you want to work with it.  It's beautifully integrated with the mouse as well and I find it to be extremely fast at getting chores done.

It's not the Be All And End All of graphics processing, but a great shortcut.  Since I needed this for a task TODAY, I'm going to cut off here, do some work with it, and post tomorrow the next steps.

For Picture Editing, Gimp.
For Vector Graphics like web page headers, Inkscape