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2009-06-27T19:09:00.001-07:00

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MakeUseOf Geeky Fun: Latest Picks
10 Great Apps to Convert Audio & Video Files in Linux
Scoopler - Cool Real Time Search Tool for Twitter
How to Convert PDF to an Editable Word Document [Windows]
3 Beginner Computer Tips That Are Often Neglected
How To Make A Budget And Wipe Out Debt With Quicken Online

Posted: 27 Jun 2009 06:00 PM PDT

Check out the top picks from MakeUseOf Geeky Fun during the last week.

Browser Comparison Microsoft Style (pic)
Yeah, What Is A Browser Anyway? (video)
I Was Stealing Your Images And You Took Them Down? (pic)
If Google Were Your Roommate… (video)
This Is Why Parents Should Not Join Facebook (pic)

If you would like to keep up with all latest Geeky Fun additions, please subscribe to Geeky Fun feed here. You can also subscribe and get latest additions via email.

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Posted: 27 Jun 2009 01:20 PM PDT

With the different audio and video formats available, there is often the need to inter convert amongst them - sometimes for quality and sometimes for compatibility. Here are some of the better software, that you can use to achieve the inter conversions on your Linux box.

Sound Converter

Available via the package manager, Sound converter provides basic batch audio file conversion. Select the files or drop in an entire folder, choose the output format and bitrate from within Edit > Preferences and basically, you’re done.

Gnormalize

Gnormalize is a GTK based tool for audio conversion. In addition to converting audio (between mp3, mp4, mpc, wav, ogg, ape and flac), Gnormalize can adjust the volume of sound files to compensate for varying recording levels. You can also use Gnormalize to rip CDs, edit metadata and play your songs as well.

SoundKonverter

KDE users can try SoundKonverter. It has all the features of Gnormalize like reading tags, replay gain calculation but supports a few additional audio file formats.

OggConvert, WaoN and flac

You always have a plenty of choices at your disposal when choosing software in Linux. Here are some command line tools that are good for specific audio conversion tasks. OggConvert provides you tools to convert almost all major audio formats into Ogg. flac and WaoN are good to use use when working with Flac or mid files respectively.

SoX

Then there is SoX - Sound eXchange. Although not just a conversion tool, geeks swear by it. You just cannot write an article about sound and not mention SoX. It does some hundred different amazing things and is rightly called the “Swiss Army Knife” of sound-processing programs.

WinFF

FFmpeg pretty rules the roost here. You can get all geeky and learn the command line switches or you can try WinFF. WinFF provides a frontend to FFmpeg. It works on Windows and Mac as well. It (actually FFmpeg) can be used for batch conversion of audio and video files. Just add the file(s) you wish to convert, choose the desired format, apply device presets if you desire. Once you are set, hit the Convert button and out pops the command line with one big ass command! Glad we don’t have to type in that ourselves, thanks to WinFF.

You can do pretty amazing things with WinFF or FFmpeg in general. We saw how we can use it to create actions so that you can convert video for your iPod with a right click in Nautilus. Studying the command line that WinFF pops out, you can create more of such custom actions. You can for example, write an action to extract audio out of videos, the possibilities are endless.

Handbrake

Handbrake is a popular multi-platform video transcoder. It can be used to convert DVDs to MP4, MKV, AVI and OGM. It offers additional features like chapter selection, burning subtitle into the picture, cropping and scaling.

DeVeDe

If Handbrake converts your DVDs to MP4s, DeVeDe takes in video files and creates DVDs and CDs that you can run on your regular home CD/DVD players. DeVeDe is available for Windows as well.

There are plenty of choices for you to consider and choose from if you are looking for some good Audio/Video converters for Linux. Did we miss out on your favorite software? Let us know in the comments

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Posted: 27 Jun 2009 12:10 PM PDT

One of Twitter’s coolest uses is as a real-time search engine. News tends to break and spread faster on Twitter than anywhere else, and generally speaking, people know things there before anyone else picks them up. All the stories should be taken with some healthy skepticism, but Twitter’s proving itself to be the place for real, up-to-the-second coverage.

One of my favorite stories regarding this topic just happened a few days ago. Shaquille O’Neal, a popular basketball player and a popular Twitterer, found out via Twitter that he was being traded. Funny stuff. But the point is, if you want to know what’s happening, immediately, Twitter’s where you want to be.

Unfortunately, Twitter’s search engine leaves a lot to be desired. The native search frequently brings up incomplete results, both in a current search and going back. Plus Twitter search seems to frequently be down, and always be shoddy.

The best alternative, and a great way to track and search Twitter, is Scoopler. Scoopler is a fast, real-time or in other words live search engine for Twitter – that’s also got some cool features of its own. It does its main job well, and adds just enough features to make it miles ahead of Twitter’s own search.

For the sake of full explanations, Scoopler also searches results from Flickr, Digg, Delicious, and a few other sites – given the relative slowness with which these sites are updated, Twitter tends to both dominate search results and be the most functional use of Scoopler’s search.

Scoopler’s search is truly real-time. When you search for a word or phrase (pick your own, or use one of the popular ones Scoopler suggests), you’re taken immediately to a waterfall-looking column of tweets, that updates as new ones come in. Frequently, it’s too fast to read, especially if you’re tracking a popular subject; you can easily pause the updates if you need to catch up.

In addition, Scoopler does an excellent job with multimedia stuff – videos, images, links, and the like. Within the stream of tweets on your topic, Scoopler extracts all the videos, image, and links to a convenient sidebar, where it organizes them by type, and by the number of shares. If a video is being passed around, you can see it without digging through the stream to figure out what it is you’re looking for. You can easily share anything on Scoopler, too, just by clicking “Peek.”

One thing I like to do periodically is click the “view all” button on the home screen – this tracks all of the most popular topics at once. First of all, the speed at which they update is crazy. Second of all, it’s a lot like skimming news headlines, and is a great way to get caught up on what’s happening.

One day, I predict, Twitter will fix its search – it’ll probably look a lot like Scoopler, actually. But for now, Scoopler seems to be one of the best of a small number of Web apps that let you search and track what’s happening on Twitter and in the world, pretty much at the speed of light.

As Twitter becomes even more of a source for breaking news, editorial opinion, and the like, keeping tabs on what’s hot on Twitter will become even more important and useful. Scoopler’s an excellent and simple way to do exactly that.

How do you search Twitter? Is there even a need to? Go ahead and discuss in the comments.

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Posted: 27 Jun 2009 10:00 AM PDT

This 2.2 MB file sure packs a wallop!

Have you ever had a PDF file that you needed to convert to an editable Word document? Your boss is yelling at you to copy and paste 500 pages from a PDF into a Word document and you are scared that you will have to type this whole document out - fear not MakeUseOf readers, we have a solution for you!

How about copying a block of text or a chart from a PDF to Word or another text editor?

I can assure you that it has been literally torture over the years. There have been a few costly programs that did what I wanted – but even then, it was not done well. I’ve searched for a lot of different programs that would let me convert PDF to an editable Word document in the past, read an older review here.

Now, a free product comes moseying along and does the deed AND WELL!

Let's take a look at AnyBizSoft's PDF to Word Converter.

You need to download the application and submit your email address to get a free registration code.

Without registering, the program will only convert 3 pages. So I gave in and gave them my address. I got an email back quickly with my registration code. Next, you will hit the Register button in the upper right-hand corner next to Help. Put in your email address and serial key. It will thank you for registering and then we can start converting!

Hit the Add PDF button in the middle of the window and point the program towards your PDF file that you want to convert to Microsoft Word. On the bottom of the window are your output settings. I set mine to a custom location but you can also have it save in the same folder as the source by checking the top box.

Once you select your PDF, all you have to do is hit the big blue Convert button. That will start your PDF processing. It took about 45 seconds to convert a 5-page PDF that was made up of shaded columns.

The program told me it was complete. I hit OK and the Microsoft Word document loaded.

The document was so on the money it was scary. Because of some graphics overlapped with lines, there was initially a spacing issue. That was easily corrected – because EVERYTHING WAS EDITABLE!

Wow, this is simply awesome!

Do you have a favorite tool that you use for conversions like this? If so please share it with us in the comments!

Found this article interesting? Check out other articles discussing ways to convert PDFs to editable Word documents:

Convert That PDF To Word. Get That Text Back!

PDFtoWord: Accurate PDF To Word Converter

ConvertPdfToWord: PDF to Word Doc Converter

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Posted: 27 Jun 2009 08:00 AM PDT

To get more out of your computing, you don’t really need newer equipment or fancier software packages. To do your computer work faster, there’s not always a lot of sense in going out and buying more RAM or a new CPU. All you have to do is become a better user. After all, a good plumber doesn’t blame his tools.

Being a better computer user doesn’t require you to sign up for course at college or to read those huge books that geeks have on their desks. Truth is, we don’t read them either. We just refer to them every now and again when you stump us with a question.

Being a better computer user just takes a willingness to learn and to try. Here are a few computer tips for the beginner that should help you immediately.

1. Learn to Use Your Keyboard

Since PCs with a mouse attached were introduced, almost every user has become dependent on it. It seems like a good idea, but don’t you hate it when it dies, or gets clogged, or the right-click gets worn out? I know I do.

Learning how to type and use your keyboard shortcuts will help you to avoid the mouse. Remember, the keyboard was invented before the mouse, so everything you can do with your mouse, you can do with the keyboard.

There are plenty of freeware programs available for learning how to type, we mentioned several of them in our recently published productivity guide. It just takes patience and practice to master typing. When I started, I was a hunt-and-peck typer and now I can type almost anything without looking at the keyboard - which drives my wife nuts as I type and “listen” to her. She really hates it when I transcribe what she just told me. I don’t recommend doing that, guys.

Keyboard shortcuts are awesome. Possibly the biggest time saver is the Tab key. It might say Tab on it or it might have two arrows - one pointing right and one pointing left. What the Tab key allows you to do is to move your cursor from field to field. This is especially time-saving when going through a form. Try it, just hit the Tab key a few times to see where the focus ends up. You’ll see a dashed line around whatever you tabbed to, or a blinking cursor if it’s in a text field. If you go one field too far, hold down your Shift key and then hit the Tab key once to go back one element. I use these shortcuts all the time when the batteries in my mouse are dead.

You can get printable shortcuts for Windows, Mac OS X, Firefox, Gmail and several other programs by subscribing to our RSS feed. Look for MakeUseOf Downloads link.

2. Be Picky With Software

How many toolbars do you have on your web browser? Do you have toolbars from Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask, and more? Just pick one - all the others do pretty much the same thing and just get in the way.

How did you end up with so many toolbars? Chances are you downloaded and installed something and didn’t read about the fact that the free software was going to install a toolbar as well. In the military, we had an initialization known as RTFQ - the G-rated version is Read The Full Question.

How much software do you need on your computer? Allow me to ask this another way. Do you put every scrap of paper that goes through your hands into your filing cabinet? If you did, how soon would it take for the filing cabinet to burst, leaving you to curl up in the fetal position wondering where your birth certificate went.

Same thing happens with your computer when you add every little piece of software you see to your computer. Be picky. If you aren’t going to use that software at least once a week - you probably don’t need it on your computer. If you haven’t used a piece of software in a few months, think about uninstalling it. Check out some uninstallers from Stefan’s post.

3. Find a Way To Get Organized

Carrying on with the file cabinet analogy, you also need to get your computer organized. I’m sure you’ve seen those computer desktops with a bajillion shortcuts on it. That’s no better than leaving papers all over your office. There’s a reason geek-speak calls them files and folders. Treat them like their real world companions and they will be easier to find, work with, and be more secure all at the same time.

For organizing your desktop, I recommend Fences by StarDock. It’s like setting up work-zones on your computer desktop and keeps it from getting cluttered. I’ve even seen people do this with their real desktops - setting up folders or taping off areas for specific ongoing projects to sit in. It can work, but you need to be vigilant. Entropy is a universal force - it cannot be overcome. But Fences sure can help!

Working on these three areas can only lead to a more productive day, with less effort and confusion. That means a lot less stress for you! And that’s a good thing.

Have you read the MakeUseOf Productivity guide? Do you have any beginner computer tips on being a better computer user? Have any of these ideas helped you out? I’d love to hear your suggestions and stories in the comments below.

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Posted: 27 Jun 2009 06:00 AM PDT

I admit that I tend to overcomplicate the whole “budget” thing. It drives my wife crazy. My Excel budget spreadsheet includes all sources of income, utilities, expenses, mortgage, credit card debt, as well as an array of sheets and charts that estimates debt payoff out to the next five years. In all honesty, the spreadsheet is probably one of the most confusing documents I’ve ever created, and attempting to keep it updated is a complete nightmare.

Keeping Track is a Full Time Job

No matter how meticulous you are, keeping a spreadsheet updated with your actual spending patterns and financial situation is just about impossible. Thankfully, I recently discovered a free online money management tool offered by a trustworthy major name in the financial world - Quicken Online. The truth is, I took a close look at the other budgeting sites, and while many of them look promising, I have a very difficult time submitting my login information for my bank accounts and credit cards to just anyone. I’ve used Quicken’s tax software before, so I know they’re a legitimate and trustworthy company.

When you first sign up for your free account, you have an opportunity to add all of your financial accounts. Quicken is one of the few online services that actually has a comprehensive library of banks - it even had access to my small, local credit union.

Once you’ve added all of your accounts (you can even add your Paypal account!) - then you’re ready to start tracking and managing your spending in a more streamlined and automated format. On your accounts screen, with one glance, you can view the balances on all of your accounts - no more need to log into ten different websites just to check balances.

Organize Transactions for a Smarter Budget

The real power behind Quicken’s free budgeting tool is how accurately you can tell the Quicken software exactly what you’re spending your money on. Most of the time, cheques or cash withdrawals are put in a “cash” category because the software doesn’t know exactly what the money was used for. If you go through, on a monthly basis, and just take a few minutes to accurately organize the month’s transactions by category, you’ll find that the following month’s estimated budget and the historic trending charts are all more accurate and helpful.

Organizing your transactions is as easy as just selecting the correct one from a dropdown box. For a month where you have a hundred to two hundred transactions, organizing the categories may take ten to twenty minutes, but the software promises to “learn” from your selections when adding future transactions. So, in effect, doing the work up front will make the system work much more effectively for you moving forward.

The Charts Tell the Truth - You’re Overspending!

Now, I’ve always considered myself to be a very frugal and thrifty person. I never overspend… or so I thought. To my surprise, when Quicken Online put the cold, hard facts right there in front of my face, I was a bit surprised.

Quicken takes your actual spending based on the money flowing out of your bank account (not the estimates floating around in your head), and lays out the numbers right there in black and white (or in this case in green and red). The software automatically creates goals based on your average past spending, and attempts to balance your budget so at least your spending doesn’t exceed your income. These graphs provide an excellent representation of which categories of spending you need to cut back on in order to get your budget back on track.

My favorite parts of this free online application are the pie and bar charts that break down your entire spending by category. You can see what percentage of your income goes to mortgage or rent, groceries, dining out, and everything else. The bottom line shows you what you earned, what you spent, and the difference. If you spent more than you make - you’re alerted that you are “living beyond your means.” Don’t even bother arguing, because by this point Quicken “sees” all of your financial accounts, so you aren’t fooling anyone.

Additional Quicken Online Features

A few additional features of Quicken that makes this online tool really stand out for me are the alerting features and the well designed main overview page. The “alerts” that you can set include both mobile and email settings, and you can set up the software to alert you regarding a number of conditions related to your account.

Some options include upcoming bills that are due (upcoming transactions), status reports regarding your current balances, alerts if your credit card spending is excessive, and a number of other valuable options you can use to keep a closer eye on your spending.

Every time you log back into your account, the dashboard on the main page provides everything you’re looking for at your fingertips. This is most likely where you’ll spend most of your time, as it provides all account balances, a “risk of overdraft or low balance” and a valuable reminder tool that lets you know about upcoming bills that are due (if you’ve enabled that alert).

Quicken Online is a valuable free tool that gives you the power to not only get your spending under control, but it will allow you to pay down your debts in a methodical and affordable way, and it provides you with a constant, accurate view of both your bank accounts and all of your credit card accounts. The fastest path to financial freedom is constant monitoring and management of your finances. Quicken Online automates enough of that process so that sticking to a budget doesn’t have to be a chore.

Do you have any online budgeting tools you like to use? Share your opinion in the comments section below.

If you are stuck knee-deep in debt, I know 3 personal financial blogs that you need to read and might help you out. Moreover, if you prefer a desktop software to an online one and can’t afford Quicken desktop version check out 5 Free Financial Software Alternatives to Quicken.

Image credit: Daníel Starrason

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MakeUseOf.com

2009-06-26T19:10:00.001-07:00

MakeUseOf.com

Cool Websites and Tools [June 26]
How To Read and Interpret Body Language: A Quick Guide
Use VocabGrabber To Be A Better Writer
Gmail Tips: Four Degrees Towards Becoming A Gmail Ninja
Audition - Groovalicious MMO Dancing Game
Safari 4: Is It Time To Switch From Firefox?

Cool Websites and Tools [June 26]

Posted: 26 Jun 2009 04:00 PM PDT

Check out some of the latest MakeUseOf discoveries. All listed websites are FREE (or come with a decent free account option). No trials or buy-to-use craplets. For more cool websites and web app reviews subscribe to MakeUseOf Directory.

(1) AppGiveaway - Website where you can get free promo codes for iPhone apps. Using these promo codes you can download cool and latest iPhone apps for free without having to pay its retail price. Browse promotions by categories and view the latest giveaways. Read more: AppGiveaway: Free Promo Codes For iPhone App

(2) Assertize - As millions of people join services like Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed, Gmail etc, good account names are becoming a rare commodity. Some people are already buying and selling their online accounts just like domain names, and Assertize helps them with that. It acts as online marketplace where users can buy and sell online accounts. Read more: Assertize: Buy & Sell Online Accounts

(3) Lectr - New video sharing site that focuses primarily on educational content. It provides videos of lectures given by various teachers and professors on a variety of topics and subjects that could prove helpful for college students. You can search for videos by typing in the query or browse by categories. Read more: Lectr: Educational Video Sharing Website

(4) Vertex42 - Web resource where you can download free Excel templates, financial calculators, calendars templates and articles that are designed to educate, increase productivity and help people manage their time and finances effectively using Excel. Read more: Vertex42: Download Free Excel Templates & Calculators

(5) WorldTexting - Online services that lets you send and receive text messages on your computer free of charge. The SMS messages can be send and received almost to and from anywhere WorldWide. In addition to free messaging, it also provides users with a bunch of cool features like an account to organize all your text messages, automated forwarding for times when you are not in front of your computer, scheduling etc. Read more: WorldTexting: Send And Receive Text Messages On Your Computer

Submit Your Web App

These are just half of the websites that we discovered in the last couple of days. If you want us to send you daily round-ups of all cool websites we come across, leave your email here. Or follow us via RSS feed.

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Posted: 26 Jun 2009 02:00 PM PDT

Body language or nonverbal communication is a strong and often neglected form of communication. Although we instinctively use gestures to signal emotions, we are barely aware of it. Yet, we subconsciously react to these signals when we see them in others.

Understanding body language and using that knowledge can give you a huge advantage over people who don’t pay attention. What must be said though is that everyone is different, meaning not all signs typically associated with a certain emotion are true for every individual out there. The art is to be able to tell based on close observation. It’s a skill, it requires training, here are the clues.

Bodycom has a short quiz that will give you an idea whether you’re instinctively able to read and interpret body language. Once your score is good enough, you’ll receive a complimentary diploma.

So, what can you gain from being able to read nonverbal gestures?

Detect Lies

Our body speaks the truth. Most people don’t feel comfortable when they lie and their bodies will betray them subconsciously.

Fortunately, the Pinocchio syndrome is a myth and our noses don’t grow when we lie. Rather than the nose however, eyes are a very strong indicator of lies. They clearly display what is going on in a person’s brain. Do they remember something, are they making something up?

2KnowMySelf has an excellent set of articles explaining everything about How to know if someone is lying to you. Similarly, What’s This? has three comprehensive articles on The Art of Lying, which explains body language in part two.

Gain Respect

Other than reading and interpreting other people’s nonverbal communication, you can understand how others see you because of your body language and change it.

The article How to Command Respect at Even Happier explains how you can use posture, things you’re looking at, the way you are sitting, your head, face, and hands to air confidence and competence. A similar article also telling you what not to do can be found on InsideCRM - Leadership 101: How to Command Respect through Body Language.

By gaining the respect of others, they will listen to you. It’s not a magic formula for world dominance, but at least that way, you can get your point across. Given both your verbal communication and the points you make are smart, you will eventually become more successful.

Persuade People

Persuation has to do a lot with good communication and inevitably that includes nonverbal communication. Unlike gaining respect, persuading someone doesn’t mean you have to display your confidence, it means you show them that you’re on the same page, you sympathize.

The website Persuasive has a Persuade Someone in 5 Steps guide that makes body language its primary point. In fact, it’s a tool to positively step into the conversation.

Recognize Romantic Sympathy

Ever met someone interesting and were unsure whether you could make a move on them? Observing their body language will certainly tell you whether they are interested as well or whether you should rather move on quickly.

The Adult Dating Body Language and Attraction Blog has an article that provides you with 33 Ways to Tell She’s Definitely Interested In You. And wikiHow features an article called How to Make the First Move, which also explains how to react to signs and express your own interest.

What else?

The humorous James Dean Guide to Being a Body Language Bad*ss analyzes Dean’s secret tools. They say he was notoriously insecure, it’s not obvious.

Marc and Angel Hack Life has an excellent list on 25 Acts of Body Language to Avoid, which can serve as a quick reference as to what behavior you have to stop immediately.

Changing Minds has a repository of emotions that can be communicated using body language and detailed descriptions what that might look like. Using Body Language is an encyclopedic collection for those wishing to go into the very details.

How do you use body language to your advantage? Show it off in the comments.

Picture credits: mmagallan, Sauerkraut, Splenetic, duchesssa

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Use VocabGrabber To Be A Better Writer

Posted: 26 Jun 2009 12:00 PM PDT

So, you fancy yourself a writer, eh? You say you write for a living?

Then, why do you keep repeating the same words over and over again?

Well, lets put an end to that! Maybe we can help you improve your writing skills or at the very least show you a great new tool. A new website called www.VocabGrabber.com is a great tool to help you see the errors of your ways in writing. This fresh, new service allows you to enter a block of text into a box and hit a button that says Grab Vocabulary.

VocabGrabber analyzes your text and spits back a word cloud of terms used. From there, you can click on words and see synonyms as well as how many times you used a certain word.

You can click on words to see their relationship to other words. It is a great tool for any writer – even if you are a seasoned paid writer!

Check out the interface and we will walk you through how it can help you.

I grabbed the latest post from my personal website and pasted it into the box.

I hit the big green button and VocabGrabber instantly analyzed my text. It instantly (or at least it felt instant) spat back this word cloud.

The words that appear the most frequent have the largest font. From here, I changed the view into a list. This is easier for me to use. Below, you can see the button I clicked to show the list view – It is circled obnoxiously in red.

Ah now, I can see that the word backup was used 36 whopping times in that article. Maybe I should find another word to replace it with? VocabGrabber doesn't tell you that but it will help you if that is what you decide. On the right hand side of the screen, you will see a chart with your word and other similar words around it. You will see a few definitions for your word as well as have the ability to click on a word and have it open in a seperate mini-java Visual Theasaurus. This is not a free product but they do let you try it out.

In this instance, the only relevant synonym is Computer Backup and well, that just doesn't sound so much better. Let's try another word. I decided to pick “label” as you can see below:

So in this case, it suggested several words that can replace the word “label” – mark, tag or description. This is very handy and I would have killed for this in high school! Do you have some type of free writing tool that you would like to share with us? Then do so in the comments!

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Posted: 26 Jun 2009 10:00 AM PDT

What's with Google? Googlers seem to never put down their thinking caps and out comes this little nugget of a page called Gmail Tips.

A few posts back, I had put up something on 10 Little Known Google Pages worth a Second Look. Now, here's another section of Google which is far more useful and worthy of a bookmark.

Do you feel lost amidst the myriad options within Gmail? Some features pass by even the most involved users; I should know as I am one of them. Or on the other hand, you might have to explain Gmail to a rank babe-in-the-wood.

If its the straight and easy help one seeks on Gmail, then who could be better than the experts at Google itself.

The page is not immediately apparent from the home page of either Google or Gmail and one has to search and click twice to land here. So if you constantly need to refer to Gmail's help, it's better to bookmark the Gmail Tips page.

The way of the Ninja

The best thing about this section is that it takes a learner's (and leaner) approach instead of dishing out the usual 'Help and Support' geek-speak. What's with the 'Ninja' thing? The goal of Gmail Tips is to teach the user all the ins and outs of Gmail towards an ultimate goal of better email management. That's the way towards productivity.

The Gmail Tips page has been put together from the contributions of Gmail boffins and what they think are the best productivity ideas. The Gmail Tips page does not follow a straight-laced approach as we see in most help pages. That's what scares away most technophobes amongst us, I guess. The page is more of a 'How to'.

The page is divided into four sections each for a particular level of use.

White belt: I get a few messages a day
Simple tips like how to organize your email with labels.

Green belt: I get a dozen or so messages a day
For instance, ways to use Tasks as a handy to-do list.

Black belt: I get a lot of messages a day
Tip on how to enable offline Gmail and take it with you anywhere.

Gmail master: I get a massive number of messages a day
I didn't know about this one - Forget to sign out of a public computer? Sign out remotely.

Ninja gear for the course

The expanding list of tips and info are just one facet of the course. Also, included are embedded video clips which further help out.

Especially handy is the 600KB printable guide which can be downloaded and kept as ready reference for all the tips listed on the site page. Presently, just two-paged… I can imagine that it will grow as more tips get added (A free laminated version was also there for the taking but it has run out).

From a link at the bottom of the page, you too can share your own tips or upload a video to Google's YouTube channel.

The Gmail Tips page is an effective course for someone new to Gmail. But even old hands can pick up a tip or two.

Here at MakeUseof.com, we aren't doing too badly either with ways to make the most of Gmail. Whether it's the Ultimate GMail Collection of over 80 Tools and Tips or How to Stay Connected with Gmail , our complete list of posts on Gmail covers quite a lot of ground.

Also, you can’t be a ninja without downloading out cheat sheets! Check them out.

Would Gmail Tips find a place amongst your bookmarks? Let us know in the comments.

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Posted: 26 Jun 2009 08:00 AM PDT

Rhythmic games are “the shit” these days. After Singstar, games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band are now dominating the charts. It’s the retro days all over again.

Of course, for those of us who don’t feel like making the music but like experiencing it, we can trace our steps to the game that started it all: Dance Dance Revolution.

As there are many PC clones of Guitar Hero, like Frets on Fire and JamLegend, it’s not a surprise to find PC adaptations of DDR as well. However, so far we only reviewed online flash games and missed some of the bigger fish in these waters.

Today, we’ll show you one of, if not the most popular rhythmic dance games on the block. You better tie those shoelaces, because we’re getting ready for a dance battle.

DISCLAIMER - Playing these games will most probably not make you a great dancer. Even more so, if you are Michael Jackson’s offspring, you’d do better hitting the club. Burning some calories, you know.

Audition

Audition was based on a popular comic, and quickly grew out to one of the most popular rhythmic dance games since Dance Dance Revolution. Two summers past, Audition even made it to a PSP - and later, cellphone-adaptation, Audition Portable.

North American gamers were first supported by Nexon - the guys from MapleStory and Combat Arms - and support was later passed on to the now all Audition-dedicated RedBana. At the time, Audition is the playground for over 300 million dancers worldwide.

Gameplay

Gameplay is slightly different from most rhythm games. Players press the arrows displayed on their screen, and hit Spacebar or the Control key every fourth beat of a song. This starts out rather easy, but gets increasingly difficult, with more complex beats and the introduction of red arrows. When a red arrow scrolls by, you have to press the opposite directional arrow. Although you’re only using about four keys, your fingers will be quickly dancing across the keys.

Players can join an existing room, or create a new one (and seize the role of the DJ). This player is given control over the difficulty and choice of music. Creating rooms is especially fun when you want to play with a couple of friends, but there are enough rooms to join if you’re only there for a quick shake.

With great moves, players earn experience, and level up. Leveling up gives you a status in the game, but also makes it increasingly difficult to rise. Once you’re past level 5, you need to do a license challenge each time you raise a level. If you fail, you won’t have the license necessary to earn experience.

Community

Meanwhile, you can keep in contact with friends over the game. Hang out, or just have a chat. Audition comes with a built-in messenger tool, so you can view who’s online and where they’re at.

With the messenger, and in-game bulletin boards, Audition aims for interacting players and a community feel, and hits it right on the head. Audition is a great game to play with friends, or to make new ones, and it doesn’t stop after you log off. On the Audition forums, the show goes on long after the game has stopped.

Bana Cash

Like many free games, Audition does need a source of income, and if they don’t want to bury you under the ads, most of the time that means in-game money.

The currency used in Audition is Bana Cash, which is bought through mini-transactions. Luckily, all purchasable articles are fashion-related, and none are gamebreaking. If you don’t mind wearing last year’s virtual clothes, you won’t notice a difference between free and paid play.

What do you think? Do your (virtual) feet itch yet, or do you prefer to rock out on a guitar? Which are your favourite, free rhythmic games? Tell us all about it in the comments, we’d love to hear!

Minimum Specifications		Recommended Specifications
CPU	Pentium III 1GHz	CPU	Pentium 4 1.4 GHz
RAM	256 RAM	RAM	512 RAM
Video Card	NVIDIA Geforce2 32MB	Video Card	NVIDIA Geforce4 64MB
Direct X	Direct X 9.0c	Direct X	Direct X 9.0c
OS	Windows 98/Me/2000/XP	OS	Windows 98/Me/2000/XP

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New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

Posted: 26 Jun 2009 06:00 AM PDT

Steve Jobs once said that Microsoft's products lack "taste". At the moment, it started a war between Windows and Mac fanboys. But to many people, that statement was justified – OS X was considerably ahead of Windows from a design and usability standpoint.

Today, you can see that Microsoft has decided to give a lot more attention to the design of its products. Windows 7 is a testament to that endeavor. It does sadden me that the majority of the UI improvements are derivations or adaptations instead of innovations.

Safari 4 hasn't suffered radical changes since the beta version – except maybe for the tabs issue which generated a considerable amount of uproar – but it did a fantastic job of polishing rough edges. Safari 4 is fast, usable and has taste.

Let’s dig in a little deeper, shall we?

Unlike earlier versions of Safari for Windows, this iteration integrates beautifully with the default themes in Windows XP, Vista and even Windows 7. Whether we believe that "the new Nitro JavaScript engine that executes JavaScript nearly eight times faster than IE 8 and more than four times faster than Firefox 3" or that it "loads HTML web pages more than three times faster than IE 8 and three times faster than Firefox 3" is up to each one of us and the guys who benchmark milliseconds. It does however feel faster than Firefox and IE8 and about the same as Chrome 2.04.

For many of you running Windows 7 (if you aren’t, what are you waiting for? Here’s how to upgrade), Safari 4 has another surprise – it works with the Aero Peek feature the same way IE8 does. The latest stable version of Firefox 3 does not support this capability.

As for the Top Sites view, I can't really decide what to think about it. It’s not particularly useful – like the integration with Aero Peek – but it does look good and does not impede my usual browsing habits. Use it for a couple of hours, maybe a day, and the most visited websites will be nicely presented when you open a new tab. And, believe it or not, this Minority Report style interface doesn't take any longer to load than a new blank tab in Firefox. What is useful is the Cover Flow view for History – it makes finding websites a snap for people with good visual memory.

Another aspect that persuaded me to switch to Safari was the layout of the interface elements – compact, streamlined, bare bones – modifications that I did myself in Firefox. Even the menu bar is hidden to save space. However, I didn't manage to convince the bookmark list to stay on the side in Safari, a perk for wide screen displays.

Thanks to an AdBlock list and a CSS file designed for Opera by Fanboy you can now disable most of ads. All you have to do is download Element Hider CSS file and go to Preferences -> Advanced -> Style Sheet –> Other. Select the CSS file you just downloaded. Remember though that you're undermining the revenue model for MakeUseOf and the writers behind it as well as other web publications.

The only thing that’s missing from Safari right now is an add-on similar to NoScript. At that point, Safari is just an upgraded version of Firefox (without getting into a technical discussion about the different rendering engines, Gecko versus WebKit).

All the graphical candy takes a toll on the system memory. While I can’t say it’s a memory leak or something else, Safari with 4 tabs open consumed about 200MB of memory repeatedly. Firefox isn’t far behind with a jump from 90Mb to 160MB - one hour staying in idle mode.

You can also read my review of the Safari 4 beta as well as other posts related to Safari. Tell us in the comments what browser you use, why you like it and of course, your impressions on Safari 4.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Blog Solute

2009-06-26T19:09:00.001-07:00

Blog Solute

Nokia N-97 Specs Review and Price

Posted: 26 Jun 2009 03:57 AM PDT

Nokia N97 is the phone for which the world is waiting. After trying out their first touchscreen on the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, the Nokia brainiacs are ready for the next big thing. It will will certainly be the flagship smartphone of Nokia.

The Nokia N97 is by all means an exquisite looking handset and runs on Series 60 Fifth Edition OS and comes loaded with novel features. It’s a mobile computer with a large 3,5", bright nHD (640 x 360 pixels) TFT color display with resistive touch screen and tactile feedback.

The device provides excellent user experience for internet and entertainment by combining qwerty keyboard with touch UI and Home screen functionality. You can Use the N97 to connect to mobile broadband using WLAN or HSDPA (3.5G). Find directions and locations with the integrated A-GPS and included maps. Additional features include game titles with N-Gage, a 5 mega pixel camera with dual LED flash and automatic geotagging of images and videos.

Up-til now, Nokia N97 was available on pre-ordering basis only but prices are now unveiled officially which is Rs.36,119 (INR) in India and it will offered at commitment-free price of $699 in other countries.

Nokia N97 features at glance

3.5 inch widescreen 16:9 touchscreen
Haptic feedback
Full QWERTY slideout keyboard
5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss Tessar lens and dual LED flash
Upto 32 GB of storage
Upto 16GB additional memory via microSD
Symbian S60 5th Edition
Upto 37 hours of music / up to 4.5 hours of video
A-GPS and GPS
HSDPA, Wi-Fi, USB 2.0, stereo Bluetooth connectivity
3.5mm headphone jack.

MakeUseOf.com

2009-06-25T19:07:00.001-07:00

MakeUseOf.com

Cool Websites and Tools [June 25]
How To Get A Skype-In Number For Free
MindMapping Using Simple Idea Mapping Software [Mac]
5 Geeky Ways To Ask Someone To Marry You On The Internet
SmarterFox Makes You More Productive In FireFox
Meiga: One of The Best Linux File Sharing Programs

Cool Websites and Tools [June 25]

Posted: 25 Jun 2009 04:00 PM PDT

(1) Colnect - Social network for collectors and the place for managing personal collections (stamps, coins, phonecards etc.) online. The site has variety of collectible catalogs submitted and updated by collectors community. It is based on a wiki model, which means anyone can edit and update collectible catalogs, and as compared to printed catalogs, Colnect contains more up to date information on collectibles. Read more: Colnect: Site For Sharing & Managing Collections Online

(2) GetRidOfThings - DIY guide that provides you with helpful tips on how to get rid of stuff such as home pests, insects, stains, bad smell, abusive boyfriends and other annoyances. You can search or browse site content by category. Each guide includes short set of facts on the subject and a set of tools and solutions most effective for the problem. Read more: GetRidOfThings: Learn How To Get Rid Of Stuff

(3) IdiomSite - If you don't always understand some of idioms or sayings, you should check out this site, it contains definitions and meanings of common sayings that are often used in the English language. You can browse idioms alphabetically or search for a particular saying on the page using your search function. Read more: IdiomSite: Find Out Meanings of Common Sayings

(4) Meta-iPod - Free Windows-only desktop app that helps you to clean up your iTunes library. It integrates with your iPod, allowing transfer of tracks and playlists from your iPod to iTunes library. It locates and fixes issues such as iPod to iTunes tracks and playlists copy, missing play counts, album art, ratings and labels, duplicate files, missing tracks and more. Read more: Meta-iPod: Clean Up Your iTunes Library

(5) WhoAreIn - Dead simple event organizer that lets you organize meetings (parties, nightouts etc) and find out who will be attending. To start using it, you do not even have to sign up as it works with your existing Google credentials. The process is straightforward, you just need to create an event and forward it to invitees. When the recipients gets your invitation with event details they select one of the following options "Yes, I'm coming", "No, I'm not coming" or "Not sure". Read more: WhoAreIn: Easily Organize Meetings Online

Submit Your Web App

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How To Get A Skype-In Number For Free

Posted: 25 Jun 2009 02:00 PM PDT

A lot of us here at MakeUseOf use Skype to get in touch with each other. Skype, for those who may not know, is a Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) service which allows unlimited free calls between users using the desktop, mobile or iPhone application.

If you pay for Skype credit, you can call out from Skype on your computer to normal phones (wireless or landline) at a discounted rate. Also, for an additional cost, you may get a "Skype-In" phone number, which is essentially a Skype number disguised as a local land line, so that all calls to that number will be forwarded to your Skype account, allowing you to take the call anywhere and on any computer with Skype installed. This benefits the caller — if Skype is not available, he/she can always contact you simply by dialing a local number.

It's a cool thing to have, but outside of this site's staff I don't have much use for the service (many of my friends are still using AIM for goodness' sake). That changed today when I signed up for phone numbers to forward calls to my Skype account, and unlike the Skype-In service, they didn't cost me a thing.

Find out how I did it.

If you don't have a Skype account, please be sure to set one up first. You'll need to provide your Skype ID when you register at Ring2Skype.com, which is where you get your free “Skype-In” numbers. There are a lot of countries to choose from, and you may register multiple numbers. For example, I've registered numbers in Windsor, Canada and London, UK as well as a US (New York City) number. My friend in Manhattan can call me up as if I lived there. Co-workers in London and Canada can now call me without ringing up international charges.

Here in the US, we have but a few choices as to our number's calling area. I could get a number (with a three-digit extension) in California, Florida, Maine or New York. Japan's numbers are limited to Tokyo, and Israel to Tel Aviv. It's going to be a bit odd giving friends in Louisville my Manhattan number, but these days when long-distance and local calling are often the same price, it shouldn't be too big a stretch.

There really is no catch. Call quality for me was as good as a regular Skype, Gizmo or Mobile Phone call. I plan on giving these numbers out to business contacts, and once Google Voice (which I hope to review for you soon) allows forwarding my GV number to extensions, I plan on using this service with friends and family as well.

While you’re here, you might like 30 free tips and tricks to improve Skype which Kaly wrote some time ago.

How do you plan on using your Ring2Skype numbers? Let us know in the comments.

Posted: 25 Jun 2009 12:00 PM PDT

As a writer, I often stuck on a topic. Getting ideas is one thing, turning the ideas into a “readable and understandable” piece of work is another. I found that one of the best ways to expand and organize ideas is by mindmapping.

For those who are unfamiliar with the concept, here’s the quick description of ‘mindmap‘ quoted from Wikipedia:

A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged around a central key word or idea. Mind maps are used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid in study, organization, problem solving, decision making, and writing.

Basically, here’s what happen in the process of mindmapping: you start with a main topic or idea as the center of focus, then expand the ideas with related points through branches - or children as some people prefer to call them. Each of these children could also be expanded to grand children, great grand children, and so on. If the main idea is too general, you can pick one of the children to focus on.

Personally, I think nothing beats a large piece of paper and several color pencils for mindmapping, but there’s also nothing wrong about doing the process on your Mac. Especially if you have large monitor, and unreadable handwriting

Here are three free, simple idea mapping software for Mac.

1. Personal Brain

This could be used not only for mindmapping but also for other uses such as visual bookmark manager, web site planning and site navigation, and also event planning.

To draw mindmaps using Personal Brain, you write the main idea as the starting point. Expanding the diagram could be done easily just by clicking on one of the points and drag a new child out of it.

For those who want to learn more about the app, the developer site provide users with a Learning Zone and Tutorials. This app is also available for Windows and Linux.

The free version limits users to view only three generations of a map at one time. The ability to attach files is also reserved for the Core and Pro version. To get the complete list of what each version can do, you can see the features comparison between the versions. While this app has many powerful features, I think the price to go beyond the free version is a bit too ‘much’.

2. FreeMind

FreeMind is open source, simple idea mapping software written in Java, so you can use it in any computer which supports Java. I think the interface is not too intuitive and takes time to get used to.

I spent quite a moment sweeping through the main window trying to figure out how to start a mindmap diagram. Maybe it would be better if the “New” button is not so difficult to find. On the left pane, you can find so many icons without any explanation of their functions (I found out later that they are some kind of tags to mark the children).

If you don’t mind the appearance, and willing to spend time learning it, this app is actually very usable. You can even create several maps within one window. The new map will be opened in the new tab.

Then, if you feel like sharing your thoughts and ideas, you can submit your mindmaps in the developer’s wiki-style gallery.

3. MindNode

MindNode is a very easy to use mindmapping application. It features a very simple interface for quickly creating mind maps. Among the three, this one is the simplest. The interface is also the most Mac-ish.

The default starting page already contains a field to fill in the main idea and instruction to drag to create a new node (child). You can also adjust the position of each node easily.

If you want to have more bells and whistles, such as the ability to create cross-connections and use the full screen mode, you can upgrade to the Pro version. To know the difference between the free and the pro version, read the full comparison list. For me, the free version is good enough. There are also video tutorials available on the site.

MindNode is only available for Mac.

What’s Left On The Mind
It’s worth mentioning that I started the list with five examples of simple idea mapping software, and had to eliminated two because I simply can not give the apps a try. One is XMind, which refused to work because of Java error. The other one is Consideo Modeller which couldn’t be opened at all.

It’s possible that the error is at my side. I couldn’t be sure about that. But I felt it’s impossible to review any software without being able to try it first, isn’t it?

To list some alternatives, give Ekpenso, Bubbl.us and Text2MindMap a try. Also, don’t miss out on the 6 Excellent Brainstorming and Mindmapping Sites by Kaly.

Finally, if you have any thoughts, opinions, and experiences on the Mindmapping process and applications, speak up using the comment below.

Posted: 25 Jun 2009 10:00 AM PDT

One of the most nerve-wrecking times in a guy’s life is the day he finds someone that he realizes he actually wants to marry, and he needs to get up the nerve to ask her. If you’ve racked your brain for creative ways to ask someone to marry you, I’m here today to offer you a few suggestions that may help.

It goes without saying that these will all be Internet-based, so they’re perfect for the girlfriend who’s obsessed with the Internet - the one who can’t stop checking her Facebook account or surfing YouTube videos. These are also the sort of techniques that you can use to ask a girl to marry you when you’re in a long distance relationship, or maybe if you’re in the military and serving in a foreign country. Don’t let distance stop you. The following geeky tips will get her attention and they may even make her cry, but most importantly, they will also make her say “yes.”

How to Ask Someone to Marry You on the Internet (And Get Them to Say Yes!)

Let’s face it, it’s a web 2.0 world. The days of kneeling on one knee beside a restaurant table are long gone. Today, you’ve got text messages, instant messaging and email. Guys today need to be fresh and creative with their proposal ideas to capture the hearts of that special girl. If you’re one of those guys who have been thinking about “popping the question” for quite some time - stop thinking about it and start living! Ask her to marry you using the many web technologies that are now at your disposal.

1. Create a GPS Mission for Her to Find the “Ring”

This is probably the most creative approach to asking someone to marry you. Geo-caching has been around for a number of years, but it’s especially taking off with a vengeance since more mobile phones have built-in GPS capability and more websites (eg: Waze.com) are offering features that make use of GPS positioning or cell tower triangulation. If the person you want to marry has a GPS device or a mobile phone, you can use the free mission creator at GPS Mission to send the girl you love on a mysterious chase for a final secret discovery.

The great thing about this free online tool is that you can give her clues along the way. Make it extra romantic by tying each location to things that you did together in the past, and test her memory.

On the last waypoint, the “treasure” could be a picture of you holding the ring with the words “Will You Marry Me?” underneath. Or, if you want to be all James Bond-ish about it, you could hide a box with a DVD in it with a “watch me” note on it. When she goes home and pops the DVD into the player, she’ll see a video of you asking her to marry you.

2. Create an Instant Marriage Proposal Website

Recently, I wrote an article on several tools that are available for creating instant websites. In my opinion (and the opinion of several MakeUseOf readers), Weebly is clearly one of the best. You can aso try a Wix if you want a flash one.

Another method to ask someone to marry you would be to create a single page website that features a big header “CATHY, WILL YOU MARRY ME?” complete with photos, “will you marry” me poems, a long and heartfelt “will you marry me” letter, and a whole mix of other content that will overwhelm her with emotion.

She’ll be crying and yelling at the computer screen, “Yes! Yes, I’ll marry you, you big geek!”

With Weebly, you can build a great, meaningful one-page proposal website in no time, and when you’re done, just email or text message her the URL and wait for her reaction.

Okay guys, stop laughing at my sample website above… it’s just an example!

3. Create a Photo Gallery of Your Life Together - Including Marriage

If you really want to get the point across, use photos. Recently, MakeUseOf reviewed a great tool called MyLiveGallery that lets you build an online photo gallery quickly and easily. Using this free tool, you could piece together a stunning photo montage of all of the things you and her have done together. Trust me, by the time she gets to the very last slide where you display a photo of yourself on bended knee and holding out the ring - she’ll be in tears.

The ease of creating a photo gallery with this web tool is creepy. You basically just go through a few steps, as shown above, and your online gallery is finished.

You’re allowed up to 10 photos, you can select from a number of premade templates, and the quality of the final gallery isn’t that shabby! Once you’re done creating it, just copy the link and email or text it to her.

4. Write an Article on “How To Marry Your Best Friend”

Anyone who knows me very well knows that I love eHow because, not only can you instantly publish single-page “how-to” web pages for free, but they also pay you a portion of all ad royalties that your page earns. As a proposal tool, it’s very cool, because you could write a step by step, romantic “How-To” article on how to marry your best friend.

The cool thing about these eHow pages is that it’s a lot like the slideshow you created above, because in every step you can include a photo of you and her spending time together. The very last step would be, “Say Yes… Will You Marry Me?” She’ll be overwhelmed by the fact that you spent so much effort creating an entire article for her benefit. She doesn’t need to know that every time someone reads the article, you get royalties - that’s just icing on the cake!

5. Do It On YouTube For the World to See!

Almost from the first moment YouTube became popular, men have occasionally used it to propose to their girlfriend. While it’s not the most original technique to propose via Web 2.0, it’s still unique and fresh enough to make the top 5 list. All you have to do is use any video editing application, such as any of the 18 online tools that Kaly reviewed, to create a customized movie professing your love for her, and why you want to marry her.

Some guys get as elaborate as combining music, video, pictures and special effects, while other guys create a movie as simple as shooting streaming audio of themselves asking the girl to marry them.

Do whatever you feel would best convey your true feelings for the girl - but for Pete’s sake, do it right the first time. You only have one chance to get it right, and getting that simple “yes” is a moment that will last a lifetime. Do it right now, and it’s a memory that she’ll remember and treasure for years. Screw it up, and you’re likely to join the ranks of “losers” who couldn’t get a simple proposal right. No pressure or anything.

Would you ever consider proposing to your girlfriend online? If you’ve ever used online tools to ask a girl to marry you, what approach did you take? Tell us your preferred method in the comments!

Posted: 25 Jun 2009 08:00 AM PDT

Have you ever wanted to make your FireFox smarter?

I am talking about adding functionality to our favorite browser that well, should have been there from the get go. Well now, here is an awesome download called SmarterFox. It adds a bunch of new options to your already pretty awesome browser. First off, it allows you to search different search engines with text that you highlight via a pop-up bubble.

It adds functionality to Wikipedia by adding a related-articles box, among other things. One of my favorite features is its ability to change a plain text link into a working URL. The plug-in was created by Yongq.

To start, you would visit https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/9825 and install the add-on to your FireFox browser.

After you have successfully installed it and restarted FireFox, you should try it out. We can start by highlighting a chunk of text and checking out the pop-up bubble as you can see below:

Each of those icons represents a search you can perform on the highlighted text. This is a godsend for research!

To try it out, I highlighted some text from the add-on's page and hit the Google icon. It instantly returned the following Google Search page:

Not to shabby! Next up, we will take a look at its control panel that lives in your FireFox's Tools menu. Simply click Tools and then SmarterFox to see your options.

Here are the options below. Linkify text URLs is what I was talking about earlier. It will look for www.xyz.com that is not underlined or hyperlinked and actually make it clickable. This is very handy, so you don't ever have to copy and paste the link. The “add related articles to Wikipedia” feature will be shown a little further down and the enhancements to the AwesomeBar we did not try out because we do not use the AwesomeBar. But, according to the documentation, it will automagically add your search terms to the AwesomeBar as well as speed it up.

The copy and paste section hosts a lot of great features. By checking the “Auto copy selected” box, you can copy text automatically by selecting it and pasting it with another key. Wow, this is out of control.

The qLauncher can be activated by hitting Control and Space. It can be configured to open in a new tab. What the qLauncher does is give you a new search window with lots of choices for your search engine. You can see a shot of the qLauncher below its options.

The qLauncher

And the last option page lets us choose which search engines should show up on the bubble. You might also want to take notice of the “Display as a single row” button – this makes it easier to use with multiple options.

And as promised, here is the related-articles feature on Wikipedia. It is such a great idea – now why didn't the Wikipedia people think of that?

Do you have a favorite FireFox add-on? Give it a shout out in the comments and maybe you can help another user find their golden add-on or plug-in!

Check out our posts on other popular Firefox addons:
How To Twitter Quickly from Firefox, IE, Opera and Chrome
Top 6 Firefox Add-ons For The Movie Freak
5 Tools to Harvest the Potential of Your Firefox Bookmarks
10+ Firefox Addons To Enhance Google Search

Posted: 25 Jun 2009 06:00 AM PDT

Sharing files on a network generally requires some amount of configuration, know-how and time. Things get even geekier when you have different machines running different operating systems. Damien showed you how to use Giver back in March. There is however, a simpler solution if you don’t want to go through all the steps of setting up a share. Enter Meiga.

Meiga is one of the best file sharing programs to share files across your network or over the Internet. Meiga is available for Linux (you can access files from other operating systems as well). Download the deb packages for Meiga from here. If you use other non-debian based distributions, you would have to compile from source.

Once installed, fire up the GUI. (Applications > Internet > Meiga in Ubuntu). You would be greeted by a minimalist window like this.

Click on add and browse to the directory you want to share, choose the share name, you should remove any spaces and make the name as simple as possible.

That is it, you have shared the folder successfully. Was it easy or what?

The person on the other side doesn’t need to install anything as long as a web browser or an http download manager is available. She would have to know your IP address and the share name to be able to access the files. Meiga makes it easy by showing you the URL in the statusbar as you click on each share. This is the URL other person would have to visit to access the files.

If you are on a network (like your home network) chances are you would be knowing the IP addresses on your machines, so getting a file simply means browsing to http://[ip address]:8001/[share name] and you would see a list of all the files and folders within the shared folder.

If you are sharing files across the Internet, then of course, you would have to communicate the share’s URL to the other end via email or chat.

If you have a dynamic IP and want to make your shares available for a longer period of time over the Internet, you might want to look into dynamic DNS which we discussed briefly. dyndns would map your current IP to a domain name, so that it points to your computer, irrespective of IP address changes.

While the ability to share files with ease is the stronghold of Meiga, it can certainly do with some basic features like password protection the ability to view all shares on a particular computer. All in all Meiga is great for easy, no fuss file sharing with minimal effort.

Do you know of any similar application that’s also a great file sharing program? Share with us in comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Blog Solute

2009-06-24T19:09:00.001-07:00

Blog Solute

Microsoft Security Essentials Download Official release

Posted: 24 Jun 2009 02:12 AM PDT

Free Antivirus software by Microsoft in its beta stage is now available for download officially. It’s limited public beta is released restricting 75,000 downloads. Microsoft Security Essentials replaces Windows Live OneCare, and supersedes Windows Defender. It's targeted at users who can't pay or simply won't pay for a security product.

If you are interested in getting a free copy of its beta version then, head on to Microsoft MSE site. Once, you register yourself on Microsoft Connect website, you will be taken to MSE survey page but if you are not from US then you can directly go to to MSE beta survey page directly to register for the public beta.

Microsoft Security Essentials is available for Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 (both 32-bit and 64-bit for later two). Most importantly, the Windows operating system must be genuine and legit, and can pass the Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) validation.

For those, who are not lucky enough to get the download by invitations or fails even to register on site, here are Download Links for Direct downloading Microsoft Security Essentials version 1.0.2140.0 which is newer than MSE version 1.0.1407.00 what is served for download by Microsoft in the name of Beta.

Download : MegaUpload | DepositFiles

You can download like as a premium user using a simple trick of by-passing Megaupload download waiting time.

MakeUseOf.com

2009-06-24T19:05:00.001-07:00

MakeUseOf.com

Cool Websites and Tools [June 24]
Photoshop Pathing (Pen tool) Quick-Start Guide
Find Totally Free Unlimited Internet Access Almost Anywhere
Find Great High Definition Movie Trailers Online
The Best New Feature in Windows 7: The Taskbar
How To Pin Any Application Window To The Top

Cool Websites and Tools [June 24]

Posted: 24 Jun 2009 04:00 PM PDT

(1) YouFlow - Online service that lets search and browse YouTube with a stylish image flow interface and most importantly, play multiple videos in one browser. You can open and play as many videos as you like and easily scale them to your desired size . Read more: YouFlow: Browse YouTube & Watch Multiple Videos At Once

(2) PlugsMap - This page provides you with a map where you can quickly check the different types of electrical sockets used in different regions and countries worldwide. Read more: PlugsMap: Maps Types of Electrical Sockets Used WorldWide

(3) RecipePuppy - Website that lets you search for recipes by ingredients from multiple recipe websites and food portals. Just enter the ingredients separated by commas and hit search button. You may then filter the given recipes further by excluding and including the ingredients with one click from the right bar. Read more: RecipePuppy: Search Recipes By Ingredients On Hand

(4) StripeMania - Easy to use web application which allows you to generate stripes online. No registration or download required, simply choose the background color and the color of your stripes from a color table and start creating stripes. Read more: StripeMania: Generate Stripes Online

(5) TwitterFollowBadge - Nifty badge creator that can generate eye catching badges in a matter of seconds. The badges are unintrusive but at same time attention-grabbing. Plus, you can easily customize the badge in terms of color and orientation on the page. Read more: TwitterFollowBadge: Cool Twitter Follow Badge For Your Site

Submit Your Web App

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Posted: 24 Jun 2009 02:00 PM PDT

Good evening, Ladies and Gents,

Allow me to re-introduce myself, my name is Mike, also (hopefully) known in the online community as Commodore 64 or C64 for short. I have spent the last 12 years, since Photoshop 5.5, exploring the many realms of this staple of the graphic designer’s diet. Aside from the usual plethora of features, Photoshop offers tools for anyone ranging from budding photographer to astrononomer.

Throughout the years, I’ve known Photoshop to be ultra powerful in the pathing arena. The pathing tool, or pen tool, might very well be the most powerful tool in the Adobe arsenal mainly because of its origins.

I’ll keep this history lesson brief: The idea behind the pen tool, or less commonly known as the Bezier tool (pictured above) is that geometric constants can be used to create flowing, curvacious lines and designs. It was because of this tool, developed by Pierre Bézier in 1962 and then put to work in the auto manufacturing industry, came about the advent of curvy, smooth cars rather than the Caprice Classics of the day. Fast forward to 2009 - Adobe has put Beziers mathematic principles to good use in many of it’s previous versions of Photoshop and Illustrator up until today.

I use the pen tool primarily to make quick, smooth, profesh cutouts of anything ranging from a bikini model with hair blowing in the wind to a tree with a multitude of branches (in combination with some color specific selections).

Today, we’ll concentrate on pathing out a simple object from its background, let’s say a freshly cut orange with shadows on a white surface:

Firstly, we need to identify a few key features we’ll need to pay attention to as we path. First, the base shadow and the shadow reflection on the actual oranges. We will be removing the base shadow and leaving the shadow reflection on the orange for now.

Secondly, let’s choose our pen tool ().

We need to verify that the pen tool is set correctly for what we’re doing - the graphic below depicts how your pen tool options should be set:

Now, we begin to path. Usually, I like to start at a spot where two circular shapes meet at a rough, sharp angle. In this case, it’s on top. Click once there as shown to create your first anchor point.

Next, follow (with your eyes) along to the right around the circumference of the orange. Since the orange is not a perfect circle, follow until you see a jitter of some sort in the smoothness of the circle, in this case its near the stem.

Click and HOLD the left mouse button where you see a jitter to create another anchor point and pull the handle it creates to manipulate the resulting path to snugly fit around the shape of the orange as shown on the left. Don’t be afraid to take the tool outside of the white work area. You can now release the mouse button.

The next step, while holding down the Alt key, grab (click and hold) the handle that extends in the direction you’re traveling with the pathing tool (clockwise), in this case the handle on the bottom right. Drag this handle point into the origin of the anchor point as shown and release. You’ve just created your first path line!

Note: The Bezier tool is only capable of creating partial circles with each pair of path points. Anything more than a quarter-circle will require another pair of anchor points as it will become oval, thus losing its roundness.

Continue these 3 steps while following snugly around the oranges. Make sure not to spread your anchor points too thinly.

Once you follow around the oranges, taking care to exclude the base shadow from your path as shown. Close the path by simply clicking and holding on the path point where you first started as shown, while pulling the handle out until the desired final shape is achieved.

You now have a completed path. You can use this path to create a cutout selection using the paths panel alongside the layers panel, while also knocking out the shadow that was previously given to this picture.

In order to knock out the shadows remaining on the oranges themselves, you have to simply grab the dodge tool at maybe 10% and start to lightly brush away the shadowy areas on the bottom until the area is a nice orange. On top of that, you can also create your own shadow and lighting direction since you will have knocked out the original shadow and now have a layer with an actual shape to it.

I hope this helps all of the aspiring Photoshoppers out there to begin delving a little deeper into the powers of the Photoshop. Thanks for reading folks.

Have questions? Drop them in the comments. Have comments? Drop them in the comments. See any discrepencies between Gimp and Photoshop? Drop them in the comments.

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New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

Posted: 24 Jun 2009 12:00 PM PDT

This is no joke. There are still Internet Service Providers (ISPs) out there offering free service. We’re going to look at a few ways to find totally free unlimited Internet access, legitimately and legally.

There are two routes to go here. You can go the WiFi route, which is far more popular and usually in the broadband range for speed. Or, you can go the dial-up route which is slower, however you can access it from the convenience of your own home or maybe from a hotel without WiFi service.

It may be slower than molasses going uphill in winter, but beggars can’t be choosers.

All Free ISP

All Free ISP has a simple way to access their database and find a service provider near you. A major benefit is that their database covers the United States of America as well as Canada. You are more likely to find free service in the U.S.A. than in Canada, so I was pleasantly surprised to find several providers in my home province of Alberta.

Just go to All Free ISP and select your State or Province. You can also search by ZIP or Postal Code. Then click on our friend, the Go button. I’m also partial to his cousins the Enter and Next button - really handy fellows, the whole bunch.

The website then shows you a page of free and cheap ISPs you can access from your area. Here’s what showed up for me.

See how it breaks the list down into cities? That’s a nice touch. How about the rating system and letting you know what platforms are supported? Pretty nifty. From here, you can click on the name of an ISP and find out more about them. Let’s do that, shall we?

This just shows you a basic overview of the ISP. Really, do I need to explain this? No, exactly! That’s why I like this site. If you go to All Free ISP and follow through to this point, you’ll see that there is way more information than I’m showing here. Based on what they present, you can make an educated guess about whether you want to use this ISP or not.

At this point also, you realize that nothing is really free. If you choose Juno, you’ll be subjected to large banner ads for the privilege of using their service. No different than watching TV really.

Freedom List

You might be living or travelling outside of the northern two-thirds of North America and be in need of dial-up service. Yes, believe it or not, there is more to the world than North America. I know, shocker isn’t it?! Freedom List offers a, well, list of free ISPs broken down by country. Just take a look! Pretty impressive, huh?

So, if your WiFi card is broken, or you just can’t sit at the cafe any longer, check Freedom List out.

Your ISP

Another place to check for free dial-up Internet access is your current ISP. Many of them offer you a certain amount of hours of dial-up access for free, if you have a paid broadband account. Some of them even have directories of dial-up numbers that you can use across the country or even internationally. If they have a dial-up number near to where you are staying, chances are you won’t even have to pay long distance fees.

The best way to find out if your ISP has free dial-up is to check out their website, or call their customer service number. Usually, they’re more than glad to help you. The hardest part will be trying to remember how to make a connection using a dial-up modem again. What was once second nature is now a chore.

Your Town or County

Municipal Internet Access or Municipal WiFi seems to be an on-again off-again project for most communities. While driving across the countryside of Alberta for my job, I’ve noticed my WiFi card picking up access points that are provided by the county. If I were a resident of that county, I could get an account and access the Internet for little to no cost. It’s provided for with my taxes.

Municipalities also often provide totally free, unlimited Internet access at locations such as the municipal offices, libraries and some schools. To find out more about what your community offers, contact your local government offices.

Editor’s note: Remember, there are always security issues when using a public internet connection. Karl teaches you how to protect your personal information while enjoying free wifi connectivity.

Know of any other interesting ways to get legal free Internet access? Share it in the comments. We all like a freebie now and again. Got a tip on access being provided by your government? Let everyone know - it’s good to use the services you already pay for.

Image credit: andrewgrill

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Posted: 24 Jun 2009 10:00 AM PDT

Before I had my daughter, I could not get enough cinema time. I love watching movies. Now, I have a hell of a lot less time on my hands. I also TIVO all my television shows so I almost never watch commercials. So, I never know what's new in the movies. Saikat proved helpful with his top 6 firefox add-ons for movie freaks.

I can't find a movie or a download if I don't know what I am looking for. However, I did find a great website that not only has movie trailers available for downloading but they also have HD movie trailers. I can save a bunch of these to watch on a 15 minute break and pick what I want to watch next. Yes, I am picky!

The website is www.TrailerFreaks.com and they offer 480p, 720p and even 1080p resolution trailers. And that means the trailers are going to pull you in even further and make you want to see that movie.

Let's check out www.TrailerFreaks.com and see what they offer.

First thing you will see when you hit the homepage is a listing of new movies and their movie posters. They also list the main stars and a link to the IMDB which is well-placed and simply awesome. You can click on the resolution buttons below where it says New Trailer and watch the trailer of your choice. You can see where the trailer is coming from by hovering your mouse over the link.

Next up, if you want to search for something that isn't on the homepage, simply use their search feature which utilizes Google Search. Below, you can see that I searched for Star Trek.

After hitting search, I came across 4 options in a Google search page. I choose the first one and was on my way…

Bam! There it is, a brief synopsis, a few links and then at the bottom there is the gold. Lots and lots of links to different trailers in different resolutions. I felt like I saw the movie already after watching 6 different previews. Is it just me or does it seem like they show ALL the best parts?

As soon as you click on your desired link, the trailer should start playing in your browser’s window. We can also save these files (mostly .mov) by simply right-clicking on the appropriate link and choosing Save target as….

Now, I will let you get into some serious time wasting. Oh and maybe you have some great recommendations for what I should watch next? That would be even more efficient!

For more suggestions on where to watch movie trailers, Tina has the low-down with the Best Sites To Watch Movie Trailers Online. How about loading videos onto your iPod — check this post out.

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Posted: 24 Jun 2009 08:00 AM PDT

I’ve been a PC my whole life, but have always harbored a secret Mac envy. I love how Macs are simple to use, that the hardware and software interface so well together, and that everything on Mac OS appears to be tailored to improving the user experience. There are a ton of advantages to Windows, but Macs have recently tickled my fancy.

About a week ago, I installed Windows 7 on my primary computer – it’s now the operating system I use all day, every day. We’ve already talked about how to install Windows 7, as well as some of the great things about the operating system. No nagging menus, for a start. But in the week or so that I’ve been using it as my primary OS, one thing in particular about Windows 7 has stuck out to me: the taskbar.

Now, the taskbar is that crazy thing that lives on the top, bottom or side of your screen, and lets you launch and switch between applications. There’s also a system tray, with a bunch of applications you can access that way. But all that existed already. The Windows 7 taskbar added a bunch of useful features and tweaks to make it even more useful.

The first thing you’ll notice is my favorite feature – there’s an almost dock-like quality to the new taskbar. Indeed, by right-clicking any application icon and selecting “Pin to taskbar,” you can add an icon to your taskbar that’s ready to be launched with just one click.

When an application is running, you’ll see a square around the icon in the taskbar. If there’s more than one window, you’ll see the edge of two squares around the icon (like the Firefox icon in the screenshot above) – or, you can choose to have different icons for every open window. Click the icon, and you’re taken to the application’s window. Launching a new window is easy, too – just hold Shift as you’re clicking on the icon.

These two features give the taskbar a Mac OS X dock-like quality, and make launching and switching applications a lot easier. That means, you can clear your desktop a bit, get rid of some icons, and use the taskbar as you would any other application launcher. By right-clicking on the Taskbar, selecting “Properties,” and then clicking “use small icons,” you’ll be able to fit a ton of icons.

And that’s not all. If you hover over an icon on the dock, little thumbnails show up of every active window of that application. This feature is called “Aero Peek,” and is a perfect way to figure out which application you actually want to change to. The thumbnails are live, which means that if you’re watching a video, the thumbnail shows the video in real-time. Roll over a thumbnail, and you’ll see the window, full-size, with everything else transparent. It’s the best way to switch applications I’ve ever seen, and the fastest way to figure out what you’re looking for – the more applications you run at a time, the more you’ll appreciate the taskbar.

Right-clicking on an icon like Microsoft Word or Windows Explorer brings up a list of recent items, that you can easily open with a single click. Apps will flash when they want to get your attention, rather than the annoying blinking that used to happen in Vista.

I used Quick Launch on Windows for a long time to launch apps, and the taskbar to switch. It was clunky, slow, and difficult to maneuver if I had a lot of apps open. With the new taskbar, opening, closing, switching and managing windows and applications is a breeze. Forget all the other stuff – that’s worth the upgrade right there.

Want to install Windows 7? Check out Jim’s Ultimate Upgrade Guide.

What’s your favorite thing about Windows 7? What’s missing? Share them with us in the comments.

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Posted: 24 Jun 2009 06:00 AM PDT

While I am using my Ubuntu (Linux), one thing that I found handy and useful is the ability to lock an application and keep it “always on top” of all other windows.

This is a native feature of Linux and can be easily accessed by right-clicking the mouse and choose “Always On Top” from the context menu. However, when it comes to Windows (and even Mac), I am surprised that this small, but useful feature is not available in all iteration of the operating system.

Here comes Deskpins.

Deskpins is a small and lightweight application that can keep your application window on top of all other windows at all time. Simply grab a pin from the Deskpins icons and click on the window, it will then automatically pin itself at the topmost of the desktop.

Installation

The installation is easy. Download the software (only 96KB in size) and run the .exe file to install it in your system. It shouldn’t take more than a minute, even if you are using it on an old system (like Windows 95). It is stated in its website that it is compatible up to Win XP, but I tried it on Windows 7 and it works flawlessly.

Usage

After you have launched the application, it should show up as an icon in the system tray.

Click on the Deskpins icon. Your mouse cursor will instantly change to a pin icon. Click on any window to pin it to the topmost level of the desktop. You will now see a pin on that particular window.

Configuration Options

Even though it is a simple and small application, it also comes with several configuration options for you to customize its behavior and look and feel.

First of all, if you are not a red lover, then you can change the pin color to your favorite color in the first tab menu. You can also change the tracking rate and to use a single or double click to activate the pin in the system tray.

Now, if you have a particular application that you want to keep it “always on top” at all time, instead of activating the deskpins everytime, you can create an Autopin rule such that the application is automatically pin to the desktop each time it is launched. This is definitely one nifty feature that will come in handy at all times.

For those who prefer keyboard shortcuts more than clicking the mouse, there is also an option for you to configure the hotkey to activate the Deskpins.

Conclusion

For a simple feature that should exist by default, but doesn’t, this simple application has definitely done its job well. It is small in size and only take up little system resources, best of all, it supports all version of Windows, thus making it an useful and versatile application.

This is definitely not the only app that can make an application “always on top”. If you have tried any other apps that perform the same function, share it with us in the comments.

On the opposite end of this productivity stick, Varun wrote about the top 5 desktop apps for multitasking. You should definitely check it out, if you haven’t already.

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2009-06-23T19:10:00.001-07:00

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Cool Websites and Tools [June 23]

Posted: 23 Jun 2009 04:00 PM PDT

(1) Cloverr - Web service that acts as an online hard drive for storing files from all over the internet. Instead of uploading files from your local hard drive it lets you save online files such as Flickr photos, YouTube videos, Google Maps etc. Adding files is easy, simply click "New File" and then select the source from where you want the file to be uploaded. Read more: Cloverr: Online Hard Drive For Storing Web Content

(2) Curculator - Easy to use currency converter and calculator. Select the input and the output currency, and enter the amount and it will give you the result in no time. The rates of Curculator are mid-market, i.e. average of the buy and sell rates and are extracted from various trusted sources. Read more: Curculator: Currency Converter And Calculator

(3) Filmaster - New social networking site for movie fans with personalized content and recommendations. Users can run their own movie blog where they can rate and review movies. It also helps them to connect with others who has a similar taste in movies. The recommendation engine suggests movies based on what users and their friends have rated and reviewed. Read more: Filmaster: Social Network For Movie Fans

(4) Popixy - Tabbed search engine that makes it easy to search multiple sites simultaneously. It produces different types of search results such as YouTube videos, news from Google news, images, web search, forum search and Twitter, all on one page in a tabbed interface. The best part - it is very fast in displaying the results and you can quickly flip between the tabs to navigate all kinds of information about your query. Read more: Popixy: Quick Tabbed Search Engine

(5) SongKick - This site lets you browse the entire concert history of popular musicians and bands, with over 1 million past and upcoming concerts in its database. Select your favorite artist and browse his/her concert history by date, by venue and city and even find out with which other musicians the artist played the most concerts. Read more: SongKick: Check Entire Concert History Of Favorite Bands

Submit Your Web App

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Related posts

The 8 Best Book Review Sites

Posted: 23 Jun 2009 02:00 PM PDT

Books, once considered the the pinnacle of human civilization, have slowly gone into retreat. Whether it's technology, modern society or time, the reason behind the demise is widely debated, but what we know for sure is that books today, are still a great way to experience adventure thrills, learn about faraway places and contemplate the future. Whether it's Huckleberry Finn, Fahrenheit 451 or The Universe in a Nutshell, books should find their way back into your daily routine, and that's why we compiled a list of the best book review sites.

So what's a book review? And what makes a book review good or bad? The first question has a simple answer. A book review is a form of literary criticism in which a book is analyzed based on content, style, and originality. Its length can vary from a single paragraph to a substantial essay. But what makes a book review good is totally up to the reader – personal taste. While some may prefer a short plot summary, some may prefer a long essay on the concepts presented in the book, along with the author's personal opinions.

That's why the order in which these sites are presented does not matter.

The New York Times

The New York Times, while some critics say it has fallen from the top ranks, still has capable writers which undoubtedly have the skills necessary for writing book reviews. Writing book reviews is actually very hard and requires the utmost attention to detail as well as an encompassing knowledge of other literary works. The reviewer must analyze even the faintest clues, implied meanings provided by the book author, decide on their importance and meaningfulness to the story. He has to address complex issues such as plagiarism and decide on the validity of the ideas and points expressed.

The New York Times presents us with book reviews situated somewhere in the middle, between a plot summary and a ten page essay, with most reviews situated around 1000 words. The quality varies from writer to writer but most of them provide an insightful view for the proto-reader. They have one of the largest number of reviews, which means you're going to visit them sooner or later. Overall, The New York Times Book section receives a warm recommendation. Visit it here.

Also worth mentioning – capturing almost the same type of writing and quality – are the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle and The Telegraph.

AllReaders.com

Next up is AllReaders.com, with a design stuck in 1999, the apogee of humanity according to the Matrix. Their library is comprehensive and the search engine highly customizable, but the reviews are generally short and superficial. “Gordon invites readers, authors and publishers to enter books and reviews in a process that takes about 10 minutes," and that's exactly the problem with the site. Instead of knowledgeable readers and writers, you will sometimes risk finding a common illiterate species: the internet troll. The advantage of reading through many viewpoints is undeniable so go on and visit it here.

BookPage.com

BookPage gives us a consistent library of well written book reviews, including a section on children's books, blogs and a newsletter. Nothing remarkable, but still worth a read. Visit it here.

BookReporter.com

Just slightly better organized than the other sites I visited, bookreporter.com hosts reviews about 500 words long, polls, blogs and various contests aimed at the diligent reader.

As always, you're invited to join the conversation, so post in the comments suggestions on other sites you’d like to read before buying a book as well as impressions on the ones mentioned in this article. You could even recommend us a book!

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Posted: 23 Jun 2009 12:00 PM PDT

On the move, however nerdy it might sound, it’s always practical to have a gaming device at hand. You never know when you’re going to end up in line, stuck in traffic, or locked in an elevator for three days in a row.

However, before I switched Windows Mobile, getting some decent games on my pre-historic cellphone was pretty much impossible, and one doesn’t string a PSP around his neck all day and expect to be popular with the ladies. So, imagine my joy when I discovered that there are free games for iPod that I can download!

These games, which were mainly meant to be downloaded from the iTunes store, could help you kill that little time that was still moving, and although gaming sounds highly impractical with a scroll-click-weel and a center button, they’re great fun.

However, paying for these games gets old quick. Especially because you’re paying 5 bucks (or 5 Euros - people really don’t seem to know how to convert prices) for games you’ve played in your browser a few years ago, like Tetris and music quizzes.

The problem with the iPod’s freeware games market is Apple’s overprotectiveness. It’s not easy to put games on your iPod that weren’t bought in iTunes. But today, we’re going to show you how it’s done.

Note that the iPods supported by this tutorial are the iPod Video 5G and 5.5G (pictured above). Trying this with iPod Nano’s, iPod Classics, or any of the newer models will be bound to result in failure (and there is no other alternative but installing Linux on your device).

Either way, everything described in this tutorial, you do on your own risk. MakeUseOf is not responsible for any potential problems, or damage to your iPod.

Let’s get started, shall we?

Prepping your iPod for free games

The process consists of three parts. First, we’re going to make sure iTunes won’t undo all our hard work with the next synchronisation. Then, we’ll need to copy the necessary files and folders to our iPod, and finally, we’re going to patch our firmware.

Configuring iTunes

First of all, let’s fire up iTunes and disable a few options. In Devices - iPod - Options in the Summary tab, make sure that Enable disk use is checked.

Also, go to the Games tab and disable the Sync games box.

Now, close up iTunes and make sure your iPod is mounted. If not, remove it and plug it in again.

Moving the files

Next, configure Windows Explorer to display hidden files and folders. If you’re using XP, go to Tools - Folder Options. On Vista, this option can be found in Organize - Folder and Search Options.

In the View tab, make sure Show hidden files and folders is enabled.

Open your mounted iPod in Windows Explorer and navigate to iPod_ControlGames_RO and extract the hex folder of your downloaded games. Read more about where to get these games at the bottom of the article.

Patching your iPod

For this one, you’ll need to download iPodWizard (v1.3) and the right firmware file - 5G or 5.5G. If you don’t know for certain which you need, the 5.5G iPod is the one with search function.

Fire up iPodWizard and make sure the edit mode is set to Firmware File. Then, browse to the correct firmware. Finally, press Write to iPod and follow the directions on your screen.

Congratulations, you should now be able to find your games on your iPod under extras. Have fun!

Download Free iPod Games

If you do a quick Google search, a few sites will pop up where you can find free games for your iPod that you can download, one of those sites is Emobilez. This site offers a wide variety of free mobile/portable software, and has a healthy arsenal of games as well.

Although I’ve got my doubts with some of them (e.g. Lost and Zuma), all games are believed to be in the public domain.

How do you find gaming on your iPod? What are your favorite iPod games? Let it all out in the comments!

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Posted: 23 Jun 2009 10:00 AM PDT

There are a lot of people out there looking for work nowadays. With the economy the way it is, people who are out of work are having a hard time finding new work and kids out of college are having a really hard time starting out.

So, you can use all the help you can get. I am going to show you a few sites where you can grab free downloadable resume templates. Some of the templates are in PDF format and some of them are in Word format.

The first thing you should do is grab an old copy of your resumé or a list of your past jobs and accomplishments.

That will help you immensely when you need to replace the generic information with your own.

The first site I found has very generic templates that will allow you to totally customize the resumé. This is just for the formatting, there is little to no content that you will be able to use.

These are called Blank Resumé Templates and can be found here: http://www.professional-resume-example.com/free-blank-resume-template.html

They offer three types of resumé templates and they are Chronological format, Functional Format and Combination. We will show you each of them here with a link to their respective PDFs

This is the plain Jane old school format. Still expected by older companies and should not exceed one page. The next up is a variation on the classic resumé and called the Functional resumé seen below:

And then there is the combination of the both of them:

And next up, we have http://www.collegegrad.com/resumes/quickstart with their resumé section located at http://www.collegegrad.com/resumes/quickstart. The difference between these two sites is that Collegegrad breaks up their resumés by major. So, you can find a more specific resumé geared towards you to customize. I choose computer science and got this: http://www.collegegrad.com/resumes/quickstart/compsci.doc

And last but not least, http://www.easyjob.net has free downloadable resumé templates broken down in 3 categories:

Free Sample Resumés for Extensive & Consistent Work History

Sample Resumé for Little or No Experience, Looking for His First Job

Sample Resumés for Short but Consistent Work Experience

And best of all – all this information is FREE! Between this site and browsing other people's resumés on Monster.com, Hotjobs.com or any of the other popular job seeking sites you can customize your resumé and make it pop! Remember a direct cover letter is just as important as a great resume!

Do you have a favorite free resume template website? Maybe you have some other job seeking tips? Well, if you do, leave them in the comments!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

Posted: 23 Jun 2009 08:00 AM PDT

Twitter is much more than just 'chirps' from one friend to another. It's now more of a roar as it has penetrated mobile phones, instant messengers, desktops, blogs and websites. It seems now we can Twitter from anywhere to just about anywhere. What finally made me a convert was when I heard that they are even twittering from space (nopes, not the aliens but NASA astronauts!).

Though Twitter is all pervasive, I have found that twittering becomes easier if it's always in my face and married into the tools I use almost as a habit for my daily web hops. Mark's comprehensive post on Tools, Apps and Bots to Improve your Twitter Experience became my first roadmap as I surrendered myself to the Twitter universe.

Mark put in mentions about how to Twitter from some of the popular instant messengers and even from the command line. To further my own user experience, I started looking for ways to say my 140 bytes worth in an uncomplicatedly fast way sans frills from the browsers I use often and almost live in. With the popularity of Twitter, it wasn't like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Twitter Addons for Firefox

CloudBerry TweetFox for Firefox brings micro-blogging to the browser. This Firefox addon for Twitter lets you tweet excerpts you like from websites with a click of the button and attach a short URL to the source page.

Download and install the Firefox experimental add-on. Restart your browser and add your Twitter username and password through the options dialogue of the add-on: Tools – Add-ons - CloudBerry TweetFox 1.0 – Options.

Select an excerpt from any interesting website and click on the Twitter icon on the toolbar. Tweet the selected text (or any message) from the TweetFox box. Optionally, you can also include the source URL courtesy of the URL shortening service from Chilp.It. Of course, make sure that the entire message is within the 140 character limit of Twitter.

The latter versions expectedly will see support for multiple Twitter accounts and also a feature to send replies.

TwitterBar is a similar add-on which uses the address bar to do the job. David has covered it in a previous post on 9 Ways To Use Twitter - No Website Necessary.

Twitter Addons for Internet Explorer

As above, CloudBerry's Twitter addon for Internet Explorer does the same job. TweetIE installs as a toolbar in IE. If it is not visible, select View – Toolbars – CloudBerry Twitter plugin. On first use, the plugin asks for your username and password.

Write your own text or select text from any website and click on the Twitter toolbar icon. Your 140 character limited message can now be dispatched with a click.

Twitter Addon for Opera

If it's add-ons and plug-ins with the last two browsers, then it's widgets with Opera. More exactly, the Twitter Opera Widget. The widget is light and installs in a jiffy. It can be accessed from the Widgets menu on the toolbar.

After logging in, this is how Twitter addons for Opera looks like –

The little menu on the top gives you access to all your tweets. Posts and updates are almost concurrent. On the minus side, unlike the Twitter tools for IE and Firefox, the Opera widget lacks a URL shortener. But as a simple lightweight Twitter tool, it scores.

Twitter Addons for Chrome

Chrome so far lacks Firefox's add-on richness or Opera's widget gallery. Though, Chrome extensions are on fast track development… till then, it’s a little bookmarklet that I must fall back on.

Twitlet (beta) is a Twitter javascript bookmarklet service that lets you post from the convenience of your browser.

Twitlet is fast and simple. All you have to do is insert your Twitter log-in details to get the bookmarklet. Drag it to your browser's toolbar and start using it with messages or selected texts. #link or #this can be used to insert the current page's shortened URL.

Big Tweet is a similar service but it gives better text control over Twitlet. Using the bookmarklet, you can post to Twitter or Friendfeed. With Big Tweet, you can post highlighted text from any webpage with a shortened URL. A significant plus is that it lets you easily insert special characters in your messages for that emotional appeal.

Big Tweet as a bookmarklet also runs with Firefox, IE and Safari.

If I knew that we would be so keen to follow each other's lives in 140 characters or less, I would have jumped in sooner. Are you are already in the deep end or are you a new believer like me? Either way, you can take a walkthrough of our huge list of posts on things that are Twitter. And of course, don't forget to comment or tweet on days spent with Twitter.

Posted: 23 Jun 2009 06:00 AM PDT

We all know the importance of maintaining backups and in the past we have covered quite a few tools for backing up your important files. Fbackup is another one such tool, it has some pretty distinguishing features you should consider while choosing your ideal backup software.

You can download and install Fbackup from here. Once installed, you can create backup jobs to quickly backup the files you want.

Create a job, specify the destination you want to backup to (local, external or network), specify the directories, include or exclude files using wildcards, encrypt and password protect the backed up files and you have a backup job set up.

You can then specify if you want to run any actions before or after the backup and schedule when you want to run your backups. So far so good, it does pretty much everything you would expect of a backup program. But wait, there is more, something that sets Fbackup apart from other backup software out there.

Its the plugins. Fbackup supports plugins that help you take better backups of your program data. What is program data, you ask? As an example let’s consider Firefox, all the extensions you install, bookmarks you create and other tweaks and customizations you perform — constitute the program data for Firefox. Something that doesn’t come with the software, and something you might lose if your hard drive crashes or if you re-install the operating system.

The savvy users would suggest to take backups of the %APPDATA% directory, that would include program data for a number of your programs. However, Fbackup makes the task even easier and almost a no-brainer with the help of plugins.

All you have to do is visit the plug-ins page (it’s for Fbackup and Backup4All-another backup solution from the same developer but not free) and download the required plugin. There are plugins for a wide range of software.

You can find plugins for Firefox, iTunes, RoboForm, Pidgin, Photoshop, Picasa to mention a few. Each plugin gives you a simple way to backup your profile/settings in that program so that you can easily restore it later.

Once you get plugin on your side of the tubes, go to Tool > Plugins. You can add, remove, enable disable the plugins from in here. With the plugins added, you can now find the corresponding entry under the sources tab when setting up backup jobs. Here is an example with the Firefox backup plugin installed:

Fbackup really makes it easy to backup program data along with other important files. The interface is clean and easy for the regular user without too many options.

It would be interesting to know what backup solution you would use? Would you consider Fbackup for its plugin and ease of use? Sound off in the comments and assuage our curiosity!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

Related posts

Cool Websites and Tools [May 16'th]

2009-05-16T11:18:00.001-07:00

(1) Tunes Trailers - Find and watch HD movie trailers. The site is easy-to-navigate, uncluttered and contains HD (high-definition) format movie trailers from all the major studios. Read more: Tunes Trailers - Watch HD Movie Trailers Free.

(2) PayItLink - Online tool that makes PayPal payment requests easy. You CAN simply type in your PayPal email address, add description, the price and click on the "Create Pay It Link" button. The application will generate a short link which you can include into your email, IM and Twitter message. Read more: PayItLink - Makes Paypal Payment Requests Easy.

(3) Pixer - Lightweight photo editor that includes only the most common image editing functions and effects like cropping, resizing, flip/rotate, blur/sharpen etc. Read more: Pixer.us - Lightweight Online Image Editor.

(4) Rendeznew - Here you can can find a find midpoint between four addresses. You can further narrow down suggested meeting points by type of food joints, bars, coffee shops, lodging, art galleries etc. Read more: Rendeznew - Find A Midpoint Between Two Addresses.

(5) Repper - Online tool for creating beautiful patterns. All you need to do is upload an image (or click for random one) and then use the on-site editor to make a beautiful pattern. Read more: Repper - Tool For Creating Patterns Online.

Collaborate and Share Screen Sessions with up to 15 People Using Microsoft SharedView

2009-05-16T11:17:00.001-07:00

Microsoft is just cranking out the awesome free apps nowadays. Today I came across a GotoMeeting like program that allows up to 15 people to connect and work on a set of documents. The only catch is that the presenter or organizer needs to have a Free Microsoft Live ID. You do not have to use it to send your meeting requests out nor do you have to force your users to sign up for a live ID.

Now you can collaborate across countries and time zones with ease and for free.

I started by browsing on over to: http://connect.microsoft.com/site/sitehome.aspx?SiteID=94

I downloaded and installed the 3.2MB application. Once it finished installing it prompted me to restart any and all Microsoft Office applications and Firefox… Wait… What?

Microsoft acknowledged that it is not the only popular browser on the market? WOW! That's a huge step for the boys in Redmond. Before we start let's take a look at the system requirements. That way we don't get you all worked up over nothing

System requirements:

Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1, Windows Vista Home Premium, Windows Vista Ultimate, Windows XP Service Pack 2
700MHz CPU

Memory: Minimum 256MB of RAM (512 MB recommended)
Hard disk: 10MB of free hard disk space
Display: Minimum 800 × 600 screen resolution (1024 × 768 recommended)
Applications: DirectX 8.0 or higher installed on your computer
Internet connection: Broadband Internet access, 300 kbps minimum. Slower connections may work, but the experience may not be optimal.
A Windows Live ID if you want to start your own sessions (you do not need one to join someone else’s session).

I did as I was told and restarted my applications. And then I fired up SharedView.

The box above was shown in my upper left hand corner of my desktop.

I signed in using my old school Hotmail account and proceeded to click on Start a new session.

It gives you the information you need to get to your participants. The users that will connect to your session will need all the above information. They do not need anything, not even a email address to connect.

When the users click on the link they will see this:

They need to click install and run the attachment like so:

They run through a brief installation and then you will see the attendee arrive and then they will be displayed in your participant count at the top of your screen.

Hit the share button and define what you want the participant to see:

The application does not have many options but here they are:

To see Microsoft's real world example you can click on over to here.

All in all this is a great free application that you may find very useful in your daily activities. Do you love another similar application? What are you waiting for – share it with us in the comments.

How to View Private Facebook Profiles

2009-05-16T11:16:00.001-07:00

I’ve always had a penchant for finding flaws within supposedly secure systems. Those sort of activities got me into a lot of trouble in high school, and certainly banned from the high school computer lab once or twice. Early last year I decided to join Facebook, and in doing so, I learned an intriguing fact about this fast-growing social network: Facebook profiles are usually private. Figuring out how to view private Facebook profiles became a brief hobby of mine for a few months last year, so I’m going to share what I learned over those few months

Is It Possible to View Private Facebook Profiles?

I like Facebook - it’s a great social network that MakeUseOf has covered in detail, such as my last article on how to email mobile photos to Facebook, or Tim’s great article on how to “friend” someone on Facebook and hide it from your status updates. What I learned during my nightly hacking sessions is this - whatever sort of hack you uncover today, Facebook will have it patched tomorrow. Early on there were different methods how to view private Facebook profiles by typing a URL using just the right format and code, and inserting the person’s Facebook ID into the URL. However, every time one method worked, it only took Facebook a few weeks or less to patch up the hack.

Why would anyone want to spy into someone else’s private Facebook profile? If you think about it, there are lots of valid reasons.

You have a crush on a really hot girl. You’re pretty much a stalker, and you’re okay with that.
You suspect your daughter is dating an axe murderer and you want to check out his Facebook profile for evidence.
You discovered your significant other is cheating on you, and you want proof.

Regardless your reason, whether moral or not - many people find that they have a need to peek into the private world of someone’s Facebook profile. Well, I’m here to tell you that there’s no easy way to “hack” into someone’s profile. Even if there was - it wouldn’t work long enough to be useful. However, thare are ways to work your way into someone’s private profile, but it takes a little bit of patience, and a lot of unique social engineering techniques.

How to View Private Facebook Profiles With Social Engineering

When I realized that it’s virtually impossible to peek into someone’s Facebook profile using my programming knowledge, I decided to borrow a chapter from the psychology class I took Freshman year in college. Social engineering is essentially the use of psychology to get someone to comply with your wishes. In this case, you want the person to grant you access to view their private Facebook account. Before you make things too complicated, the first and easiest way to access someone’s private Facebook profile is to simply send them a message and hope they reply.

Whenever you click on someone’s picture or name, whether it’s someone on your friends’ list of friends or search results from the Facebook database of users, you’ll find that you have three options to the right side of the person’s bio photo. You can either send them a request to add you as a friend, send them a message, or view their friends. Obviously the first option won’t help you much right now. However, you can use the second option, “send a message,” to work your way into the person’s private Facebook account. How does it work? Well, Facebook’s help section states that anyone who you add as a friend or send a message to “…will have temporary access to view a small portion of your profile. They will see Basic Info, Personal Info, Work Info, Education Info and Friends.”

1. Send them a message like, “Hey! We went to school together, do you remember me? I think we sat together in Geometry.”

2. They may respond with something like, “I don’t know who you are, get lost.”

3. You now have temporary access to view their profile.

The James Bond Approach to Accessing Private Facebook Profiles

If the person doesn’t reply to you, there’s still hope. This next approach makes use of of a form of social engineering called, “demand characteristics.” This is where you set up a group situation where the person adds you as a friend just to “go with the flow” because everyone else has. First, you need to create an identity that the person will recognize. Click “View Friends” in the bio preview box, and scroll through their friends to find someone who doesn’t have a profile picture loaded.

This person is someone who you know is a friend of your target, and the fact that they haven’t loaded an image means they may not use Facebook often and rarely keep in contact with your target. It also means that you can present youself to your target as this person, and they’ll never know the difference. You should also make note of at least 20 or so of the other friends on her list. Next, go to Facebook’s main page and sign up using the same exact name of the friend you found without an image.

Make sure to sign up with an anonymous email account. For help, check out the MakeUseOf review of MakeMeTheKing, or the review of noSPM. Once you get into this new “fake” Facebook account, ask the 20 friends of your target to add you as a friend.

Carefully add all twenty or so of your target’s friends to your friends list by using the approach above. Nine times out of ten, it’s human nature to assume that the message they’re receiving in Facebook is from the person they know, and they’ll always click “Add Friend.” Once you’ve accumulated a good list of mutual friends with your target, you’re ready to go in for the big win. Go back to that person’s profile on the search page, click “Add Friend,” and write one of the most convincing notes you can muster.

The reason you spent so much effort getting her friends to show up on your fake account before you contacted her was to make your “fake” account look far more convincing. She’ll see the number of mutual friends, the sincere plea for help, and just as group psychologists predict - she’ll “go with the flow” and add you as a friend just like everyone else did. The moment she does, you have access to her employment information, school information, photos and anything else she’s added to her account. With a bit of social engineering, you’ve gained the keys to her private Facebook profile. Well done.

Do you know of any other ways to view private Facebook profiles? Share your feedback in the comments section below.

8 Cool Tips & Tricks to Make Most Of Google Chrome

2009-05-16T11:14:00.000-07:00

The popularity of any software can be guessed from the number of hacks that trail it after a release. Or the number of add-ons. Google Chrome seems to be not only holding its own but also trotting along. As of April 2009, it is the world's fourth most popular browser. Not bad for a browser which is few months away from its first birthday.

As user opinions sally back and forth about browser preferences, one thing is not open to question. Firefox is definitely more expandable and customizable than all others out there (Don't they call it the Swiss Army knife for the web).

But if you like the Chrome's agility then there are ways to make it more versatile.

Here are some more ways to reach under the hood and exploit some handy Chrome features.

1. Make Chrome's consume less memory

By default, Chrome is a multi-process browser. Yawn! What's that? Simply, it means that each tab runs as a separate process asking for separate resources from the computer. The current working tab gets the most priority over the others. This was intentionally designed to make web apps run faster in Chrome. This feature makes the browser zippier and more stable even with multiple open tabs.

But if you aren't a heavy user and use the browser to surf only a single site at a time then disabling multiple processes can free up some CPU resources. To handle each web process Chrome has three settings –

–process-per-tab
The default mode; each tab gets an independent process of its own. This increases the rendering of webpages and makes the browser stable as each tab is a separate process from the rest. But it also consumes memory.

–process-per-site
One process for each unique website; for instance a user with two tabs open for Gmail and another for MakeUseOf will have the two Google tabs running under the same process.

–single-process
The simplest mode; all tabs run in a single process, much like the other browsers we have now. This setting frees up memory for other applications. This is what we are looking for.

Create a shortcut for Chrome. Open the Properties tab. Edit the Target field as shown in the picture by appending –single-process to the path.

Similarly you can create two more shortcuts for the other two processes to handle your web sessions in three ways.

2. Manage tabs with the Task Manager

This is an offshoot of Google Chrome's multi-process nature which allows each tab to run separate from the other. This allows us to manage, reload or shut down each tab without affecting the rest of our browsing. All this can be done through the Task Manager. Press Shift and Escape to start the task manager or right click on the blue top bar. An unresponsive tab can be shut down without bringing down the browser by a simple press of the End process button.

3. Some stats for nerds

There is a simple way to tell which browser is using the most resources on your computer. Chrome's task manager lets you examine the memory use of the opened browsers on your computer irrespective of make. Open task manager and click on the ‘Stats for nerds’ link at the bottom. A new tab opens with detailed memory info for all running browsers. The second part of the page also describes Chrome's process usage stats.

4. Some more stats on the Resources page

More for site administrators than for you and me but the resources page has a ton of info to offer. To track the resources used by a web page - right click inside the page. Select Inspect element – go to the Resources tab and reload the web page. You can view a list of images, scripts and objects from the web page and you can sort them by size or by loading time.

5. Drag to resize any text box

Do you feel that the size of a text box on any website is not worthy of your thoughts…then just place your mouse on the bottom right edge and drag to increase the size. Give MakeUseOf.com's comment box the first drag.

6. Split Chrome into double-pane view

This bookmarklet from Chromeplugins.org is incredibly useful. The dual view feature is useful when you want to compare two websites or search results side by side. Drag the Chrome Split Browser bookmarklet into your bookmarks toolbar. When you click the bookmarklet, it asks you to choose the two websites you want and displays them in a double pane.

7. Startup with multiple pages

On launch, Chrome opens up with the 'Most visited' area. But it also lets us set options for starting the day by opening our most favored sites in several tabs at once. Click on the wrench icon (Customize and control Chrome) on the top right corner. Under Options - Basic tab we can add the pages we want to open on startup.

8. Drag and drop downloads from Chrome

After finishing a download, you can copy it to the desktop or to any other folder by a simple drag and drop directly from Google Chrome.

Did I miss any of your favorite tips or tricks? Let us know in the comments and lets help each other create a more sleek Chrome experience.

How To Kill Unresponsive Programs without The Task Manager

2009-05-16T11:12:00.000-07:00

Windows is generally not known for its stability. Among other things there are frequent “Not Responding” applications. The reasons may vary from less RAM to Viruses to poorly designed applications. So what do you do when an application hangs up?

I bet you hit Ctrl+Alt+Del or fire up the task manager in some other way, reach for the application and choose “End Task”. Now there is nothing wrong with this approach, in fact as long as it gets the job done it doesn’t matter how you do it. However, ever had the situation where the task manager itself takes ages to load up? Of course it can happen because task manager does a lot of other things besides just ending tasks so it requires that much more resources. Apart from that, how about ending the hung applications with just a single click?

Yeah! you can do so. Its simple to achieve. Just follow along:

Right click on the desktop and choose New > Shortcut

In the dialog box that appears just type the following:
taskkill.exe /f /fi “status eq not responding”
Give it a name of your choice

Now just wait for something to start “Not Responding” and let loose your Task Killer!

So what did we do exactly? We just created a shortcut to run a command. The command being taskkill. Whenever you double click the shortcut you will invoke the said command which takes care of the rest. In particular the command we use says that kill all taskes whose status is equal to “not responding” and kill them forcefully (/f).

The /fi switch is used to filter and pinpoint the application to kill. We are using the Program’s status to filter the applications that are not responding and then kill them. You can filter(and thus kill) by memory usage (equal to, greater than, less than or not equal to), cpu time, window title and others.

In case you are wondering that its still not quite “the single click situation”, you can enable single click from within Folder Options, or better still - right click on the shortcut you just created, choose properties and assign it a shortcut key!

Do you know of some similar neat tricks?

EncodeHD- Easily Convert Media Files for Any Devices (Windows)

2009-05-16T11:11:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine was going on a trip and asked me if he could borrow my dusty PSP. I said sure thing. I got it and a 8GB Memory Stick for him along with my car charger and speakers. I handed him the package and he looked at me like a deer caught in headlights and said:

"What you don't have any videos for me to watch? I have about an hour and a half to kill each way hook me up!

I did have a crap load of new video files but nothing that was converted to play on the PSP. (This will work for almost all popular video playing devices.) Yeah that sucks. But I remembered a little application I had seen that would allow my friend to convert these videos himself – and easily.

This application is so simple anyone can use it that can click a mouse!

I burned the video files for him and a little program called EncodeHD. I downloaded the 5.5MB Zip file, Extracted and ran the EncodeHD.exe file.. He was almost ready to rock and roll.

I decided to show him how to use the application before he left and took screenshots of my actions for everyone to follow along. Before we get started I should tell you guys how it works. This awesomely easy front end launched these 3 great tools without you having to know how they work:

With that said let's see how she works!

The application is totally portable so there is no installation necessary. After launching the exe you will see a window like the one below. Select what type of device you have and want to convert your media for.

Drag and drop your media files into the window below like so:

If your computer can play it – EncodeHD can convert it! The advanced options are pretty simple but this is also where you can find the log file – if something goes wrong.

Check the box to specify an output folder if you do not want to write it to your source folder. You can select your PSP drive if it is connected to write the videos directly to your device so you do not have to copy them later. In this instance I am writing to a folder called EncodeHD on my D:\ drive.

Then simply hit start and you are on your way!

It seemed to take about half as long as the video to convert. So for example a hour episode of something took about 26 minutes to convert. Mileage will vary depending on your hardware!

EncodeHD will batch run each file and when it is complete you can happily watch your media anywhere you want it!

How do you convert your media? Do you have something that is even easier than this? We would love to hear about it in the comments!

Cool Websites and Tools [May 15'th]

2009-05-16T11:09:00.000-07:00

(1) Ecoder - Online code editor that supports many features of a locally installed app. It includes a file browser, file uploader, tabbed system and enables you to edit multiple files at the same time. Read more: Ecoder - Browser Based Code Editor.

(2) E-Mail Icon Generator - Email address to image converters that protect your email address from spam bots. It takes you email and generates a pleasant email image branded with a provider's logo. Read more: Email Address to Image Converter.

(3) Listhings - Free online dashboard to easily create and edit your personal notes. You can use it to save temporary notes and manage to-do lists online. Just start typing and your text will be saved automatically as you type. Read more: Listhings - Online Dashboard For Text Notes.

(4) Movylo - Comprehensive online mobile CMS platform that provides a variety of tools using which you can create mobile-friendly sites with content (text, images, videos and tones), aggregate and publish feeds, write blog posts, create and make surveys and much more. Read more: Movylo - Create Your Own Mobile Site.

(5) WikiAlarm - WikiAlarm is an online tool that lets you track Wikipedia edits on the pages that interest you and get email alerts whenever someone edits them. The site is easy to use and you can monitor unlimited number of pages. Read more: WikiAlarm - Track Wikipedia Edits & Get Email Alets.

How To Easily Remove Old Drivers from Windows

2009-05-16T11:06:00.000-07:00

I am a cleanup junkie. On my computer, I have the usual motley of cleaners, uninstallers and update managers installed. I thought my system was squeaky clean and safe as a house until I ran into some conflict issues. The culprit it turned out was an old sound driver.

Old hardware drivers are remnants of upgrades and un-installations. Like forgotten landmines, they often return to cause performance hiccups and driver clashes.

Normally, these old hardware drivers remain hidden as the Device Manager displays only the active devices. Using a special command, it is possible to force them into view. What is easy and neat about the whole thing is that the old devices appear grayed out – sighting and uninstalling them is just a matter of a keystroke.

So here is the short and easy method to prevent your computer from being bombed out by old driver leftovers. The process is the same for Windows XP and Vista.

Open Command prompt window in the administrator mode.
- From Start – All Programs – Accessories – Command Prompt – right click and Select Run as… - Administrator.
- Alternatively, Start – Run – Type cmd – press Ctrl+Shift +Enter to run as administrator.
Now type (or copy-paste) the following command in the window and press Enter.

SET DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1

This forces the invisible old drivers to reveal themselves in the device manager.

Now, we have to bring up the Device Manager. Type this command in the following line and press Enter –

devmgmt.msc

In the Device Manager, go to View – enable Show hidden devices.

The Device Manager now lists out all devices which are active and which are not. The inactive devices appear grayed out.

From the list, right click on the inactive device you wish to remove and select Uninstall to remove the driver.

In three minutes you have detected and demolished the old device drivers which were stealthily creating problems for your system. Hopefully, your system is back to its squeaky clean state. Mine certainly is.

If you liked this how-to, then you can check out this post on backing up hardware drivers too.

Hidden programs on Windows XP

2009-05-16T11:04:00.001-07:00

Windows XP installation comes from a series of programs, mainly utilities, ready to use, but for some reason they are not linked from anywhere and do not have easy access. But, curious people like Haris Nadeem always try to dig out things in every possible way. He has compiled a list of 43 such hidden applications.

These applications includes Character Map, IExpress Wizard, Microsoft Synchronization Manager, File signature verification tool, Indexing Services and many more useful utilities.

To access these all applications, you need to download a small executable file which creates shortcuts for all applications needed. Also, by referring the original post- you can run single application by Run command on XP.

List of Hidden Programs

Download Hidden Application Enabler

Sound Effect sources on web for free download

2009-05-15T19:30:00.001-07:00

I am going to mention and review about some free sound effects and loops download resources on Internet. Here are three such of a kind namely FindSounds, SoundSnap and FlashKit.
FindSounds is a great sound base with a large number of files in formats WAV, MP3, AIFF and AU. It’s a search engine with options to customize your search depending on File format, Number of channels, File size and Bitrate.

Each category includes several internal settings of various grades and forms can be downloaded directly to sounds the right mouse button, completely free.

Another resource library of sounds is excellent SoundSnap, which contains a greater variety of file formats and over 100,000 between loops and sound effects. It allows downloading files in mp3, wav and aiff in some cases. The only thing bad about this website that is not a premium user can download only 5 files per month recorded, one can listen the sounds indefinitely so that there is only well before deciding whether to download the sound worth it to not to waste opportunity. Still, the sound quality is excellent and have always found what I sought.

Finally, a utility rather old but always good to have on hand is FlashKit although contains a lot of tools for Flash, including a monumental sound base has been built for several years now since shipments of users can enter to go to the bank effects or to the bank of loops, with typical download formats combined format Flashtrack completely free and without limits.

If you know any more such sites then please share with us by commenting.

How To Edit or Delete a Locked File or Folder

2009-05-15T19:13:00.001-07:00

How To Edit or Delete a Locked File or Folder

Posted: 15 May 2009 04:45 PM PDT

So, you're doing your annual Spring cleaning. OK, your apartment still looks like an ECW match happened in it, but you're cleaning old files off your PC. You go to delete a text file you no longer need and…

Cannot delete file: It is being used by another person or program.

D'oh!

This is likely the most frustrating thing I've ever dealt with during my tenure as a computer nerd. I know for a fact that I haven't opened this file in years, let alone in the last few minutes. Yet, Windows still acts as if it's behind a thick pane of glass. You can't open, edit, delete, or otherwise change it. It's untouchable. Until now.

The free File & Folder Unlocker does exactly as advertised. You can use this portable application (no installation needed) to unlock any locked file or folder. With it, you may search all loaded system drivers and processes, and all files opened, whether locally or remotely. Searches can be complex or simple, i.e. "*.txt", or the offending file can just be dragged and dropped into the program. You'll be able to see which process, if any, has the offending file open. This program lists all open processes, so that you may check each one for locked files.

In this example from the program's download site, the file Myletter.txt is being held captive by a hex-editor program. With a right-click, the file can be made unlocked and free. From the File menu, you may list all open objects, but be ready to wade through a long list if you do so.

I recommend File and Folder Unlocker not because of its advanced features, but because of its portability. Honorable mention goes to Unlocker, which isn't portable, but installs in the Windows right-click menu, and has less advanced features. We'd love to hear how you deal with these problems, so give your favorite tool a shout-out in the comments.

Cool Websites and Tools [May 14'th]

2009-05-14T01:00:00.000-07:00

(1)Crrncy - Elegant and simple currency converter which lets you quickly convert between US Dollars, Euros, British pounds (GBP) and Swedish kronas (SEK). Read more: Crrncy - Quick & Simple Currency Converter.

(2) DivXSubtitles - Find and download subtitles for movies and shows. It currently contains over 97,000 free subtitles for DVD, Divx and HDTV movies and shows in over 40 languages. Search for subtitles, filter returned results by language, subtitle format, frame rate, quality rating etc. Read more: DivXSubtitles - Download Subtitles For Movies & Shows.

(3) EduPics - Educational photos and free coloring drawings for children. Drawings are organized into categories (e.g. animals, geography, circus) or can be searched using different keywords. Read more: EduPics - Colouring Drawings For Children.

(4) GraffitiCreator - Online utility that lets you create graffiti style writings online. Just go to the site, enter text and then customize it by applying different effects (coat, sunset, sunrise, shadows etc.), changing text width and height, repositioning individual letters, trying different colors and applying effects to each letter separately. Read more:GraffitiCreator - Create Graffiti Style Writings.

(5) Sperse - Meta search service that searches multiple sites and removes duplicate results in order to provide the user with more accurate and relevant results. In addition to the traditional web search, the application also allows you to search images, news, music, video and much more. Read more: Sperse - Smart and Accurate Meta Search Engine.

3 Great Sites for Following Conversations on Twitter

2009-05-14T00:58:00.000-07:00

3 Great Sites for Following Conversations on Twitter

One of the things Twitter doesn’t manage well is conversations. You’ve got people replying to your tweets, but who knows which one? And if you’re not directly involved in the conversation, all you see is short, out-of-context remarks that don’t make any sense. For an important and massive conversational tool, Twitter certainly has its drawbacks.

Realizing this, a few great applications have come out of the woodwork to make Twitter into a better way to have and follow a conversation. They thread tweets, track replies, and make sure you can understand the whole dialog, rather than just one small and insignificant part.

Here are three of the best ways to keep conversations under control on Twitter:

Twitoaster

Twitoaster is probably the easiest of the bunch to get started with – all you have to do is follow @twitoaster on Twitter. Then, Twitoaster goes to work for you. Every time someone responds to one of your tweets, the conversation is threaded on Twitoaster. You can see the number of replies (a number that’s frequently updated) to a given tweet, as well as see what people said. You can also log in to your Twitter account on Twitoaster, which lets you reply to your replies right from within the conversation.

Twitoaster also offers a couple of cool features – it tracks the number of replies a given account gets, as well as how you rank among Twitoaster users. It’s a full-featured way to track replies, as well as see who’s responding to your tweets.

Tweetree

Tweetree is really two great services in one – it creates conversation threads for replies, and it’s a total overhaul and improvement on the Twitter interface. First, the interface. Tweetree allows you to pull in external content – videos, images, and the like – and experience it directly within Tweetree. It also takes all shortened URLs, and shows where they actually go – a nice touch to avoid RickRolls and the like.

The conversation threading, too, is a great feature of Tweetree. It brings in all conversations you’re a part of on Twitter (even showing the tweets you replied to), and puts them in tree form, nesting the replies throughout the conversation. If you’re getting the “oh, how cool” tweets a lot, or replied about something you can’t remember for the life of you, Tweetree keeps track of it for you. You can do everything in Tweetree you’d want to do in Twitter, and actually a whole lot more.

ThreadedTweets

ThreadedTweets rocks the world of real-time conversation threading. You can sign up for ThreadedTweets without having to give your Twitter password, because it uses Twitter’s OAuth system to authenticate, rather than asking for your password. Once you’re signed in, you’ll get real-time monitoring of all the replies to your tweets, which are threaded into a conversation for you.

ThreadedTweets also keeps a list of Popular conversations, which you can read and view easily. Every conversation has a permalink, which makes it even easier to keep monitored and updated. There’s even an embeddable widget for tracking a conversation on another site – this makes ThreadedTweets both a conversation tool and a real-time search, which is a great combination.

One of Twitter’s best features is its ability to create quick, simple conversations. Twitter itself does a poor job of tracking them and keeping conversations intact, but these four applications do it incredibly well. What’s your favorite way to keep track of your conversations on Twitter?

SearchMyFiles lets you Search Windows without Leaving Traces

2009-05-14T00:56:00.000-07:00

SearchMyFiles lets you Search Windows without Leaving Traces

I recently had to perform a search on a computer that is not connected to our network and I was not allowed to leave any trace behind that I was there, installed any applications or ran any searches on the machine. I had to search the machine for all files created in the last 5 days and save my results.

I accepted my James Bond-esque task equipped only with a memory stick and a very small application called SearchMyFiles from my favorite handy dandy developer NirSoft.

SearchMyFiles is a portable improvement over the standard Windows Search option. Not only can you be stealth about your activities but it is a portable app as well. So you can throw it on a memory stick and scan to your hearts content. This will work on all Windows Operating Systems 2000 or better.

You can download the application from here. There is an installable version as well but where is the fun in that? So after downloading and running the 40kb application I saw this screen:

Wow that's a lot of options! So I quickly configured it to do my bidding as you can see below:

I configured it to search both local hard drives, excluding the Windows directory, return all files and folders created in the last 5 days. I hit OK and was on my way… Looking over my shoulder as I went. After about 5 minutes I saw what I was looking for…

Then I hit up View – HTML Report - Selected Items and like that I was done… I saved the HTML file to my USB Drive and I was out.

I hate being the rat but my job is my job and this tool helped me do it. Upon removing my USB drive there was no trace of the search.

Do you have a tool that you live by? Couldn't live without? Share it with us in the comments and let us know why it is so important to you!

FreakY TriKz

MakeUseOf.com

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