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Please note: Blue
Armadillo is provided free of charge from Tech4Learning and is
unsupported software. |
Blue Armadillo is a
free image batch conversion utility.
Use this software to convert an entire folder of images from one format
to another, one size to another, add a uniform effect to all of the
images, or any combination of these. Blue Armadillo requires Macintosh
System 8.1 or higher, or Windows 95 or higher.
Download Blue Armadillo
Download
for Macintosh OS 9 (3.6MB)
Download
for Windows (2.6 MB)
Using
Blue Armadillo Snack
The
Legend of the Blue Armadillo
Everyone knows about
the Leprechaun—the little guy from Ireland. But in West Texas, they
talk about the Blue Armadillo. Beady eyes. Buck teeth. Mostly, you just
hear the echoes of his laughter.
The oldest stories tell
of a Blue Armadillo with the power to transform metals into gold.
In 1540, Francisco Vasquez de
Coronado went in search of the Blue Armadillo. As the story goes, Native
Americans presented Coronado with a Blue Armadillo as he camped by the
Red River, near modern day Amarillo, TX. Coronado ordered weapons and
utensils and cooking pots brought before him and this wondrous little
blue creature. A pile six foot wide and six foot tall was created in the
center of the camp. Everything of metal that had been brought on the
expedition was placed in the pile. After the great pile of metal was
complete, Coronado placed the Blue Armadillo near the heap. There it
sat. For an hour the Blue Armadillo sat in front of the pile. The
Spaniards grew weary. It must be hungry, Coronado thought. So he ordered
food brought before the Blue Armadillo. The Blue Armadillo gorged itself
on the expedition’s food, the more it ate, the more food Coronado
ordered brought before it. “It must have a full stomach to perform its
miracles,” he pronounced. And soon the food of the entire expedition
was gone. The Blue Armadillo, with its wee beady eyes, and buck teeth
could barely move on such a full stomach; it just sat and stared at
Coronado. It must be thirsty, thought Coronado, so he ordered wine
brought before the Blue Armadillo. The Blue Armadillo drank the wine of
the Conquistadors. After the wine, the Blue Armadillo fell asleep, still
not approaching the pile of metal. “The creature must need to rest
before it performs its miracles,” Coronado pronounced. “We shall
rest too.” He ordered his men to sleep by the great mass of metal. In
the morning the Conquistadors awoke to the sound of laughter, a crazy
laughter. Coronado stood before the pile. There, atop the great pile of
metal, was the Blue Armadillo, looking down over the camp, laughing and
laughing. For two days Coronado stood before the Blue Armadillo. The
Conquistadors were starving, they had no more food or drink, but
Coronado would not let them leave. He wanted his gold. On the third day,
Coronado was convinced by his starving band to take the Armadillo south
with them, back to Mexico City. A year later, and still with a pile of
metal and no gold, Coronado returned to Mexico City. On his estate he
had an extensive burrow excavated for the Blue Armadillo to live in. Coronado placed pieces of
metal throughout the burrow, hoping one day
to find gold in its place. Four years later, Coronado died, still with
no gold, and no one knew what became of the Blue Armadillo.
The
powers of the Blue Armadillo have captivated pioneers, scientists, and
countless others since the time of Coronado.
Stories of the Blue Armadillo tend to revolve around
spring and the Vernal Equinox when its powers are at their peak.
It is believed that General Antonio de Santa Ana had a near-fatal
encounter with the Blue Armadillo after attacking the Alamo in 1836.
Wesley Smith, a pioneer
on the Texas frontier wrote this entry in his dairy on March 21st,
1850.
Myself and
a coupla ranch hands, ixplored south last week. As we were camping in
a narrow valley one evening we heard chanting and an erie laughter. We
krept among the sage and tumbleweed tward the noise. It was smoky and
hard to see, but it looked like a raligious saramony honoring a big
armored rat. The rat appeared to be standing precarryusly on a large
pile of metal objects. We culdn’t determine what was happenin and
eventually retreated when we thout they meant us no harm.
We
are now sure that Wesley Smith was referring to the Blue Armadillo.
After
an extensive search by a team of private investigators, Tech4Learning
located the Blue Armadillo on a small island just off of the Yucatan
peninsula. The Blue Armadillo showed an impressive grasp of Internet
technology for a seven hundred year old rodent, describing his dream of
helping modern explorers with extraordinary acts of transformation. The
Blue Armadillo decided to allow Tech4Learning to use his name and
likeness for a batch conversion utility, so we immediately dispatched
our crack team of engineers to Mexico. Little more than a year later,
the shareware application Blue Armadillo is ready for release.
“This
application will help Internet explorers, digital camera conquistadors,
and countless others worldwide to cope with the array of file formats
and image sizes,” said the Blue Armadillo in a recent press release in
the South American publication “La Rata.”
“I am thrilled with this opportunity for convergence, where my
vast knowledge of alchemy and transformation can be repurposed into a
tool designed to help today’s electronic explorers.”
When
asked about his abilities to convert common metals into gold, the
Blue Armadillo just laughed an eerie laugh.
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