This is what you need to do:

1. Open Automator (easiest way: Access the Spotlight Search (CMD + Space) and then start typing “Automator” – it will give you the result so you can simply launch it from there)
2. Select “Service” from the available options
3. Find “Scale Images” and drag it to the right
4. Choose your preferred option whether to keep copies of the original images or not (I, personally, don’t like to keep copies; I know what I’m doing most of the time)
5. Select “Images” from the drop down that asks you for which kind of file types should be affected
6. Select “Finder” as the only application that this service works in
7. Select a width for the pictures (if the height of the image is higher than the width, it will scale it down so the height will be x px wide), e.g. “960″
8. Save the workflow (e.g. as “Image Resizer (960px)”)
9. Close Automator (CMD + Q) and that’s it, you’re done!

If you want to go real pro, you can add a shortcut in the system settings so you can easily access this useful service. In my case, I created 3 such services (resize to 540px, resize to 800px and resize to 960px) and I’ve assigned the shortcuts CMD + Shift + 5, CMD + Shift + 8 and CMD + Shift + 9.

You can now select any image in Finder (or several images at the same time), you merely need to enter your shortcut combination (or right click it and select the Image Resizer from services at the very bottom of the context menu) and you’re done! It’s a real lifesaver for me as I often need to bulk resize pictures; the time I save with this service will quickly add up!
Keep in mind that the service doesn’t create a copy of the image (although you can force this behavior by checking the right checkbox in automator). So make sure you got high res copies in case you need them!

I’m sorry, but it took me forever to find the time to write a status update in the first place. Unfortunately, I did not feel like translating it into English as well. So feel free to try your luck with Google Translate.

… and use your fucking brains people!

I’m afraid this won’t make any sense to you in case you’re reading the English version of the site (head over to the German version), however, there’s a hoax going round on Facebook where German people are asking all their friends to unsubscribe from their feed. They don’t do so consciously, they just read it somewhere else and fell victim to this “joke”. Somebody told them they had to click a particular field so they won’t share the status updates of their friends.

Obviously, this is utter bullshit; even though people keep claiming that Facebook isn’t really huge when it comes to privacy (not without reason), you don’t automatically share a story by a friend that you liked with the rest of YOUR friends. Unless people want their status updates to be visible to everybody, they’re only visible for their friends. So please people, don’t believe every rumor you’ve come across while surfing the web…

In a way, summer vacation started today! If you’ve been reading some of my recent articles or been following up some of my posts on Facebook and the WoW TCG forums (like the forum of the Bootcamp L.E.), chances are you already know what I’m talking about: 3 of my friends (Christian, Ronny and Schmalle) and I will take a trip to Rimini together in a camper van! We’ll leave Leipzig tomorrow afternoon and be on the road for pretty much the rest of the day. We should arrive Rimini sometime Thursday afternoon after spending the night somewhere in Southern Bavaria in the camper van.

Why Rimini, you might ask? Well, turns out the European Continental Championship of the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game will take place the upcoming weekend there. Naturally, we’ll all try our luck in the main event and why not spend some more days there, enjoying the sun and company of good friends?! I’m rather excited and can’t wait for the tournament to begin! On the one hand, I’m a little afraid I might scrub out early again, but I’m hopeful that my preparation will suffice and help me to advance to day 2 with a comfortable record.

On Saturday, we’ll be drafting. I love drafting and tend to think of myself as a rather competitive limited player, however, I wasn’t doing that well in the drafts parts of past events (save the iPod draft side events – I can’t complain about my record there). Let’s just wait and see how it will turn out this time, in any case, I’m hopeful.

Being the crazy fools we are, we decided to provide you with a coverage of our trip (some might remember an epic trip to Budapest which was featured in similar fashion)! We’ll start with that as early as tomorrow, when a first opening blurp will go live on www.BootcampLE.de. Be sure to check it out and leave some comments!

What else is there to say? Well, my business is doing OK, now that most of the hassles with German bureaucracy have been taken care of. I’m still waiting for a final decision regarding health care, but I guess I’ll do fine as long as I don’t get sick. So keep your fingers crossed!
Fabian found a nice appartment in Berlin and might take it, so we should soon be able to work on some projects together and I expect business to take off then.

So yeah, all in all, I’m doing OK. Sometimes it’s hard to find the motivation to do some of the work as I’m constantly at home; I still haven’t found a great solution for that particular challenge. If you can come up with some good ideas, be sure to pass them on.
On the relationship front, I’m doing great. Wincy is simply amazing, it’s just she doesn’t like some particular traits of this country too much (well, we share that passion in a way), so she can be a little grumpy at times. I still consider leaving the country together with her, but I don’t want to do so just now. First, I want to see if my own business can turn into a success and bring in enough money to make a living. If that won’t work out, I guess it will finally be time to leave Germany for good.

In a nutshell: I’ve been able to leave some bullshit behind (German bureaucracy) and there are exciting times ahead. First a vacation in Italy, then a trip to Dortmund to catch up with some old friends and then a trip to Madrid for the Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship Qualifier – European Championship. Who knows, maybe I’ll even start picking up a tan again with all that time in South European countries?! Let me know what you think and wish me well.

A few days ago I was ranting about eBay’s Customer Support. My problem in a nutshell: I tried to sign up for the eBay Partner Network, it wasn’t possible and all I received after contacting the customer support several times was auto-generated bullshit.

I’m certain that most of my dear regular readers are expecting a follow-up article with even more ranting at this point (see several articles about The PayPal Scam for reference…), however, I got some very good news in store for you: eBay really turned things around!

Kristina, who first commented on my blog post, got in touch with me via e-mail and was able to clear up the mess. It turned out that something during the registration process went wrong and once I tried a different e-mail address (I got a number of options…), I was able to finally sign up. I have no idea what will happen to the account I originally tried to sign up with, but I’ll leave it up to eBay to decide.

While the domains I submitted have been set to “invalid” (again), the first hits were tracked. So I’m rather hopeful and I might have already solved the issue by submitting the domains once more, but this time with “www” in front of them (I’m working with redirects via .htaccess to avoid duplicate content; that means if you’re trying to access “soulwarrior.net“, you’ll end up on “www.soulwarrior.net” instead). Maybe this is causing errors on eBay’s end, who knows…

Anyway, I want to thank eBay and more specifically Kristina for listening, taking the time to take a closer look and coming up with a solution for my problem. That’s certainly the way to go and will make me want to use eBay more again!

You should do so, too, so check out the advertisements on the right hand side of the page.