iRadar

Efficiently Manage Your Finances With GnuCash [Windows, Mac, Linux]

2012-02-13T13:49:00.000-05:00

Efficiently Manage Your Finances With GnuCash [Windows, Mac, Linux]:

Admittedly, there are plenty of different software tools that help you manage personal finances. However, a huge portion of those that are worthwhile cost money (sometimes a lot).

The solution, obviously, would be to use a worthwhile tool that doesn’t cost any money. But where can you find something like that? Usually the best way is to look for an open source alternative, which thankfully exists. Let me introduce you to GnuCash.

About GnuCash

GnuCash was mentioned a couple times before in certain articles here at MakeUseOf, but we’ve never had a full-feature review of the software. It’s even in our list of the best Linux programs. It is an open source tool to manage your money, packed with plenty of features that help you plan and visualize your finances. GnuCash prides itself by using the double-entry accounting system to reduce the number of accounting errors, but it seems to confuse a few home users. Treating the expense and income “accounts” like categories will help you understand the program a lot better.

Installation

Installation is simple, just like any other application. Windows and Mac OS X users can get the necessary setup file from their website, while Linux users can search for “gnucash” in their package managers. GnuCash is a very common application in Linux, so the chance that your distribution doesn’t carry it is highly unlikely. Once installation has completed, go ahead and launch it!

Setup

While the application loads, you’ll be shown a “Tip of the Day”, which you can disable if you like. However, these tips are good at telling you about certain application features that you may not have known about. When it’s ready to go, it’ll ask you whether you’d like to create a new set of accounts, import QIF files, or go through the tutorial. I recommend that you look at the tutorial, but I’ll let you do that on your own time.

For this article we’ll go through making a new set of accounts. You’ll first be asked what currency to use, and then be presented with multiple account presets. For most people, I recommend the default choice and it covers all main needs, although you can enable multiple presets at the same time. Finally, you can set opening balances for your accounts before you’re all set up.

Before you can get to work, you’ll be asked to save so that a file exists for your accounts and GnuCash has a place to autosave any changes. I recommend you do this, but GnuCash will still run if you decide to cancel the save window. You can now work with your accounts!

Features

You can do everything you’d expect to do in other programs, such as entering transactions, scheduling transactions, and importing bank account information in many different formats (primarily Quicken).

You can also pull up multiple different charts, graphs, and tables to show information about your finances. All those graphs and other visual info can be tweaked in many ways to get exactly what you want.

There are even some tools that help you determine payments for different loans. GnuCash also includes a few tools that are useful for small businesses, such as invoices.

Conclusion

GnuCash is a fantastic way to manage your money for free, no matter if it’s for you or your small business. There’s still plenty of potential in GnuCash for improvements, but it is already a very capable application as it is. If you have nothing else to use to manage your money, I highly recommend GnuCash!

What’s your favorite free money management tool? How does it compare to GnuCash? Let us know in the comments!

Insert your face into ‘interesting’ and funny photos with Photofunia

2012-02-13T11:45:00.001-05:00

Insert your face into ‘interesting’ and funny photos with Photofunia:

Photofunia is a free online service that can embed any photo it a number of image templates. It provides a very wide range of interesting images to choose from, and offers the option to apply a number of effects to the resulting image. Photofunia can run on mobile devices, with ad-supported apps for Android, iPhone and others.

I am sure you’ve seen something like this before; the internet is full of similar services, but that doesn’t make Photofunia any less fun. It is, moreover, a bit less cheesy and more tasteful than many others, and the sheer range of templates on offer is impressive, as is the range of topics/categories (see below left). Also pictured below – the Photofunia iPhone app.

Lastly, Photofunia does a really excellent job embedding your photo into the image template (see examples top of this post; and yes the mug is that of yours truly!)

Be sure to check out the ‘Lab’ section (which can transform your face to, say, a Lego brick portrait, an Oil Painting or a calendar, etc.), as well as the ‘Filters’ tab where you can apply a few color effects (e.g. sepia, black and white, etc).

The verdict: one of the best services of it’s kind; very fun and well done. The one thing I wish it had is the ability to create an account and keep all uploaded as well as output images. If this sort of thing seems like it might be fun to you, you will like Photofunia.

Visit the Photofunia web site.

Test drive GhostEdit, a new standalone WYSIWYG rich text editor, before it goes public

2012-02-13T11:45:00.000-05:00

Test drive GhostEdit, a new standalone WYSIWYG rich text editor, before it goes public:

GhostEdit is a brand new WYSIWYG editor focused on usability. Currently in private Beta, it will support most popular browsers like Chrome and Safari, Firefox and IE. GhostEdit features some familiar editing tools, as well as context sensitive buttons for the various controls.

What is a WYSIWYG editor and why would you need one? WYSIWYG stands for What You See Is What You Get, with the idea being that an editor of this kind will show you what the finished product looks like as you are creating it. In other words, what you see in the editor is what you get in the finished product, post, whatever. There are tons of places and reasons to use a rich text editor on the internet these days, as well as reasons to use one offline. GhostEdit, in particular, is meant to edit rich text for sites that have things like forums you can post on or other forms of post-based chatting or discussion, and there are three main features that GhostEdit offers as their big attractions.

First, nearly every WYSIWYG text editor uses something called a Ribbon. The Ribbon appears at the top of the interface, usually, and offers most of the various options for changing the text, images, links and format of the document or post in question. The Ribbon on GhostEdit is very reminiscent of the panel used in Microsoft Word, so many people will automatically be familiar with this layout and how it works. Those who are not familiar with it will find it easy to find what they need on it, as well as easy to get used to in the short term. All the usual buttons are here, along with some really great features to make your editing easy and fast. For example, GhostEdit offers you the option, in the Ribbon itself, to click on special characters and have them appear in the text exactly where you want them to. Normally speaking, you’d have to go through menus, fonts, maybe even some ALT key combinations to get those special characters but GhostEdit brings them to you without hassle or extra clicking.

Second, GhostEdit’s interface is designed to make pictures supremely easy. Simply drag a photo from your computer to the editor and drop it where you want it to appear in the text, or choose the Add Photo button and browse to the photo as normal. GhostEdit will automatically align the photo to the left or right of the text and will then allow you to switch the side by pressing one of two bright pink arrow buttons. The change to the other side happens instantly and without fuss, and GhostEdit aligns the picture perfectly without having to add a grid or other annoying work-arounds. Additionally, you can re-size any picture just by dragging the corner of it and it will automatically maintain the same proportions as you re-size it. Once you let go of the photo, the change takes effect immediately so you can see the end result. This is what a WYSIWYG editor is meant for; to be able to see the finished product as you edit it, without worrying about things like margin size and font scalability. GhostEdit is designed to be a ‘transparent’ WYSIWYG editor, meaning that you don’t see it or notice it as you are using it. Rather, it focuses on the text and its layout with the editor controls blending into the page seamlessly.

Finally, GhostEdit has what is called “contextual buttons” built in. Basically, these are buttons that appear only when you need them, where you need them. As an example, let’s say you have a link you want to change to plain text in the editor. Usually, the way this could be done with other editors, is to select and highlight the link, then search for the ‘unlink’ or ‘break link’ button on the Ribbon. With GhostEdit, however, when you put your pointer on the link, the button to ‘unlink’ appears automatically right there. No searching for the button you need, it appears when and where you need it without any prompting on your part. This kind of intuitive help is a great feature, in my opinion. It is very useful while being non-invasive like certain paper clips we could mention.

As mentioned, GhostEdit is in private Beta stages at the time of this article, but with the success they have already achieved in design and execution of that design, I think we can expect GhostEdit to become a new standard for people who want a WYSIWYG editor that without fuss. In this, I feel that Nico Burns (the creator and coder of GhostEdit) has done a great job already and I look forward to seeing what other features he plans to bring to it in the future. GhostEdit may not have all the extras and extraneous features of some other editors like TinyMCE or others, but instead Nico has decided to focus on the basic options that everyone uses and try to execute those options better than anyone else. That kind of attention to detail can only lead to better and better freeware. I look forward to seeing GhostEdit’s finished release but in the meantime I found the demo to be well worth a few moments of my attention for future reference.

Until next time, my friends.

Check out GhostEdit here.

Where To Find Some Of The Coolest Posters & Artworks Online

2012-02-12T19:49:00.001-05:00

Where To Find Some Of The Coolest Posters & Artworks Online:

Unless you work out of random coffee shops, your work environment is around you every day, all day long. Building your own custom workstation can go a long way towards making things more comfortable and productive, but what about inspiration? Having beautiful, amusing or thought-provoking artwork hanging around your office or home can seriously upgrade the atmosphere.

With this in mind, I set out to find unique and interesting posters and works of art for sale all over the Web. Scroll down for some inspiration, and perhaps you’ll even find one you’ll want to buy.

ThinkGeek

I know, ThinkGeek’s poster section is a bit of an obvious choice, but that’s why I’m starting out with it. This is a large collection of nerdy posters, including posters for fans of Portal 2 (shown above), Battlestar Galactica (these are awesome in real life), and Pac-Man. Some of the items are not exactly posters in the strictest sense of the word: That Pac-Man art is actually a self-adhesive wall decal (cooler than a poster, some would say).

20×200

20×200 sells artwork, not just posters, and these are certainly not aimed only at geeks, despite the nerdy work I selected for you (Old Phone by artist Todd McLellan). While you can find smaller images in 20×200, you can also focus just on larger pieces if you sort by size (this links shows only 30”x40” art).

Each work is produced in a limited number of copies, and they sometimes sell out. For instance, this gorgeous map of Amsterdam was available as a 10”x8” print for $24, but all of that size has been sold out. You can still get it in larger sizes.

One important note about 20×200: Prices are not cheap. A 40”x30” print goes for $2,400 – a bit crazy.

OMG Posters

OMG Posters! is not a store, but a blog for art lovers. It features amazing works like the one shown above, by artist Mr. Muju. At around £15-£20, this particular screenprint is not expensive. The blog also features works by big-name artists such as Shepard Fairey (the guy who made the Obama poster). If you just like looking at beautiful art, this is a lovely blog to subscribe to.

Better yet, if you’re actually looking to buy something, each of the items contains a link to a website selling it.

Despair, Inc.

Despair, Inc.is a website that requires a unique sense of humor (one I suspect our own James Bruce might appreciate). It’s basically motivational posters, inverted. Above you can see one called Potential, but there are many, many more where that came from. Might not be appropriate for every office (or every temper), but if these don’t actually demotivate you, they can make an interesting choice.

If you find they work too well, though, I would suggest swapping them with something more cheerful.

The Poster List

The Poster List strikes a fine balance – it features actual artwork, but at poster prices. All posters on the site (including the work above, entitled Projector on Wood), go for $10.99. I only wish they added an option for “variants” of a specific poster. Right now, if a poster is offered in several different color schemes, it appears several times in the list, making it unnecessarily long.

Still, if you’re looking for posters that look like art and aren’t overly clever, this is a great place for some affordable finds.

Your Turn

As you can see, I did my best to find some unique places where you can get artwork for your home or workspace. Still, it is very possible I missed one or more great websites. I’m mainly curious to hear about niche sites like those featured above. Do you know of an art site that really deserves a bit more love? Tell me about it in the comments!

Image: Modest Owl

Capture Video Footage & Screenshots From Your Games For Free With WeGame [Windows]

2012-02-12T19:49:00.000-05:00

Capture Video Footage & Screenshots From Your Games For Free With WeGame [Windows]:

Capturing videogame footage is a popular pastime, particularly for anyone burning themselves out from playing too many missions in WoW or SW:TOR. Video hosting websites have seen an explosion in the last few years of video game clips, often useful level/mission walkthroughs uploaded by helpful gamers or glorious moments of victory played in a loop for endless reverie.

While there are many ways to capture screenshots from video games, recording video footage isn’t quite as simple. There are two main choices. The first is FRAPS – the choice of pro gamers who want to keep a record of the action from their favourite games, FRAPS is quite expensive for anyone who doesn’t plan to use it regularly.

The second is WeGame. A free alternative, WeGame offers the ability to grab screens and video from games, saving it to your hard drive for you to upload to their own servers or somewhere else entirely, such as YouTube.

What Is WeGame?

Part screenshot and video capture tool and part games store and social network, WeGame is an unusual beast. It fulfills some very useful roles but does so in the most frustrating way. First is its insistence on joining your startup items when you boot Windows. There are only so many apps that you should be granting this sort of permission to. WeGame isn’t really something you want to be hanging around and waiting for when you’re starting your PC or laptop in the morning.

WeGame also has its own social aspect, presented through a slick user interface that pretty much wants to be a YouTube for gamers. It’s an admirable aspiration, but we’ll leave it to you to decide whether you want to embrace the community or keep your clips for personal/YouTube use.

Installing and Configuring WeGame Video Captures

To use WeGame, make sure you have either Windows XP, Vista or 7 installed as your operating system.

You will first have to visit the the website and sign up or use the Connect with Facebook option to become a member. Once you have done this find the Download Client link and get your copy of the application downloaded to your computer and installed. Note that one of the installation options is to run WeGame when you start Windows; you might prefer to disable this for a faster boot time.

After you have installed, run the WeGame application and then use the Scan for Games button to find the titles that you have saved on your PC.

You may find that WeGame downloads an update when run for the first time. Once this has been done, log in with your username and password, click Next and set your preferred hotkey for recording clips (you can change this later via Settings > Videos).

All it takes to start recording footage is to leave the software running in the background and open the game you wish to capture from; you’ll spot that WeGame is active via the green square in the corner so simply tap the shortcut key to start.

Should you find that the clips takes up too much space, use the Settings > Video screen where you can find options to disable or enable recording sound, adjusting the FPS, and even choose a recording mode. Also in this screen you can select a location to save your clips to – you would be advised to choose a drive or partition with plenty of free space!

Conclusion

If you want the best tool for the task of capturing video footage from your favourite games then the obvious choice is spending $30 on FRAPS. However, if you’re only planning on capturing action from a single game it is just as well that WeGame exists. While adding your games to the service isn’t the most user-friendly way of encouraging users to start capturing legendary gaming moments, WeGame fills the “free videogame capture” niche perfectly.

Let us know what you think of it. Do you have a preferred alternative?

Setup A Proxy On Your WordPress Site To Bypass Filters & Firewalls

2012-02-12T19:46:00.003-05:00

Setup A Proxy On Your WordPress Site To Bypass Filters & Firewalls:

Everyday the onslaught to our freedom and censorship of the internet continues to escalate, but you can help. If you want to ensure certain sites remain available, then look no further than a new, free WordPress plugin called RePress. It allows you to quickly and easily setup a web proxy without complicated programming – as easy as installing a WordPress plugin.

Requirements

A WordPress.org self-hosted blog (free WordPress.com blogs will not work).

A host that allows fopen function – I believe GoDaddy supports this on shared Linux hosting plans, but I can’t confirm other hosts. I tested on a dedicated virtual server.

Pretty permalinks should be correctly enabled (that means this won’t work if your blog still has post urls of the form yourdomain.com/?id=1234)

Warning

This plugin is still in alpha stage, and I don’t suggest you install it on anything mission critical or without backing up first. There is also an issue of bandwidth – since the page will be proxied by loading it through your server first, it will use your bandwidth allowance. Your hosting plan may specifically disallow this if it’s unlimited, or you may be charged additional costs if you go over your allowance.

No promises are made about legality. If your country or even your school prohibits the use of proxies, then this is a risk you take. If a particular site is illegal in your country, then this is likely also a criminal offence to open a proxy to that site. Make you own decisions, please.

Setup and Usage

Go ahead and grab it from the WordPress repository, or search within WordPress.

After activation, the single screen of settings can be found under the settings sidebar. The first setting is the permalink used for RePress. I’d actually suggest you change this right off the bat – though there are no vulnerabilities right now, a tool could be potentially released which would automatically scan for the defaults, just as tools that try to bruteforce hack the Admin user are available.

If you save the settings and visit that URL now, you’ll be presented with the basic interface of the proxy.

To prevent abuse, only URLs you specify will be accessible. Delete any you don’t want through the settings, and you can easily add any sites you do want to allow. These will be then listed on your proxy page.

Note: The plugin will force you to logout of WordPress before visiting any proxied sites to prevent possible abuse of the login data stored in your cookies.

Problems? Doesn’t work? The most likely problem is that your host doesn’t support fopen (a way of ‘opening’ a website in PHP) for security reasons. The is common on cheap shared hosting plans. I expect the plugin to add a variety of proxy options in future – using curl as an alternative to fopen for example – but for now I’m afraid there’s nothing you can do about this other than move hosting.

Summary

This is a great little plugin even as an alpha release. It could do with a few improvements – like masking the actual domain of the proxied site in the URL to prevent detection; and there’s also a few issues with CDN content on the proxied site that seem to be not served properly – but for the most part it works, and it works well. Will you be offering up a proxy for your friends in China?

Image Credit: Lock from Shutterstock

3 Funny RPG Video Remakes Of Today’s Most-Watched TV Series

2012-02-12T19:46:00.002-05:00

3 Funny RPG Video Remakes Of Today’s Most-Watched TV Series:

I am a huge sucker for RPGs and video games in general. You’ll see plenty of articles on both subjects from me in the future (and here’s an example). One thing I’ve never been too big on, though, are television series. I’m the only one. Dexter, Band of Brothers, The Wire, Firefly, etc.; there are lots of them and you’re all watching. But I just can’t keep up.

What I can buy some time to definitely do is watch a short RPG remake of an episode or summary of the series. Now you’ve got all of my nerd attention and you’ve turned me into a little bit of a fan. Tapping into nostalgia always seems to work.

CollegeHumor is one of my favorite places to waste away time. Very recently, they’ve added the TV RPG series to the CollegeHumor originals. It was an absolutely brilliant idea and it’s really catching on. If you’ve ever played any of the early games in the Final Fantasy series, Dragon Warrior, Chrono Trigger, or any other (S)NES-age RPG then the style of these videos is going to look very, very familiar. I’ll do the honors of introducing you to three of their most popular TV RPG series videos.

Jersey Shore RPG

Jersey Shore is one of those shows that you’re either absolutely obsessed with or you hate with every inch of your body. I personally can’t stand to sit through an entire episode, but this video is great.

The video takes on the style of Final Fantasy III (or VI, depending on your preference). The quest is to go out and bring home girls to decorate their hot tub with (in true Jersey Shore fashion). The SNESque (new word I’m now claiming rights to) music is awesome. The opening “Grenade” battle sequence is ridiculous and hilarious. The “GTL” move and fist-pumping in the middle of battle is great. Snooki pops up and then the crew goes home where you’ll see they’ve succeeded in their mission.

Breaking Bad RPG

I’ve watched a bit of Breaking Bad. It’s original, to say the least. This video is no different.

You take on the role of Walter White, where you’re then thrown into a scene that looks something like a mix of the early Pokémon games and maybe a Harvest Moon. We then break to a cutscene with Jesse and then you’re off to sell meth. After a brief battle, we’re headed to Mexico to play as Hank and watch the classic turtlebomb scene. We cut back to Walter and Skyler, and then a chase scene before running into Gus. After, we’ve got a little bit of Duck Hunt parody and a surprise sequel. Great video.

Game of Thrones RPG

This HBO series has people going nuts and the medieval fantasy was destined for an RPG remake. I’m warning you, this is somewhat NSFW (if that’s even possible with 16-bit graphics).

We “thrust” our way into a game that I don’t have a comparison for. The style and the music, it’s all fairly unique but has a nice retro feel. After beating up Brian, we’re headed in a new direction where we play a little “minigame.” This one is fast-paced and jumps around everywhere, ending with Ned’s beheading. Lots of little punchlines and inside jokes that you’ll only understand if you’ve kept up with the series.

If you loved these as much as I did, we have plenty of other articles on RPGs, TV, and funnies. Let’s hear your opinions, let me know which remake you thought was best in the comments.

PewPew: A Fast, Fun Retro Shooting Game [Android & iOS]

2012-02-12T19:46:00.001-05:00

PewPew: A Fast, Fun Retro Shooting Game [Android & iOS]:

For both iOS and Android, there are plenty of games that can waste a lot of our time. However, out of all the games in existence, there is a much smaller number of games that are actually high-quality and worth playing. Even more, how many of these games are absolutely free?

By the time you get to answering that last question, the number of games that meet those qualifications has gone down dramatically, so it’s important (for those that enjoy gaming on their phones) to know what these games are – both free and high-quality.

About PewPew

PewPew is a prime example of a game that fits all these qualifications. In a simplified descriptions, it’s a retro shooter game that may remind you at first of Asteroids, as you cruise around in a space ship, shooting down all your enemies. However, the developers have made numerous interesting twists to the game that make it action-packed, fast, and fun. I’d even go so far as to say that it’s one of the best games, hands down.

Installation

Installation is as easy as search and click in the Android Market (or follow this link). iOS users should do the same, or follow this link. If you search, you’ll see PewPew and PewPew2. Don’t worry about the differences, except that PewPew2 costs around $3. PewPew2 is mainly to support the developers while packing in a few more features, but the original PewPew should be good enough as it’s updated constantly with new stuff to keep you interested.

Soundtrack

One of the first things you’ll notice when you first start the game is the soundtrack, which is enabled by default but can be turned off by a single click on the main screen. I find the soundtrack to be high-quality, and it fits very well with the retro attitude of the game. The only complaint about the game would have to come from this department, however, because aside from the sound effects, this is the only background music, put on a continuous loop. I’m not sure how that can be fixed, as the music is good, but it just gets a little annoying after looping for over half an hour, like with every other song, no matter how good it is.

Game Modes

When you want to start a game, you’ll be shown plenty of different game modes for you to try out. There are so many, each with it’s very unique style of gameplay, that I won’t go into detail with any of them. Just try them all and find out for yourself! All you need to remember is that the left “trackpad” controls the direction of the spaceship, while the right trackpad controls where the ship shoots.

As far as PewPew is concerned, Pandemonium is the classic style of gameplay. It’s very fun to play, and is where you’ll get most of your fast-paced action. The screenshot above comes from the Pandemonium mode.

A Smooth Experience

Speaking of gameplay, I must commend the developers for doing an excellent job. I haven’t experienced a single game where the gameplay was smoother than in PewPew. There is absolutely zero lag during the entire length of gaming. Hardware-limited Android phones may still suffer some slight lag, but it will be better than with any other game of this quality.

Additional Features

PewPew also offers to record your high scores (duh), either locally or on the internet. However, PewPew also offers a feature that I was very surprised but pleased to see: replays. PewPew records everything that you do in every game that you play, and those recorded replays will be accessible from the high scores list by clicking on the Play button to the left of each score. Not only does this work for your own, local games, but you can also download the top high scores from the internet, and then look at the replays of those games. This way you can see how that one person in the top spot even got that score, which is almost as entertaining as playing the game itself.

Conclusion

Overall, I can’t recommend PewPew enough. If you’re a gamer and don’t have PewPew on your device, you’re seriously missing out. Even if you’re not a gamer, install PewPew anyways (our check out our recommendations for Android, iPhone, or iPad). That way it’ll already be there whenever you’re feeling a little bored or got some time to kill. Oh, and I’m not responsible for any addictions that may be the result of this article! Have fun!

How do you like PewPew? Is there any other game that you can highly recommend? Let us know in the comments!

How to declutter your Chrome toolbar without removing any extensions

2012-02-12T19:46:00.000-05:00

How to declutter your Chrome toolbar without removing any extensions:

If you use Chrome and have installed a large number of extensions, then you already know that the chrome toolbar can get congested with numerous extension icons that can even crowd out the address bar itself. If you want an easy way to get your toolbar cleaned up and organized, that can move unused extensions off the toolbar while keeping them available to you at the press of a button, then read on. This post will describe how to use a free Chrome extension called ‘Context’ to declutter extension icons in the Chrome toolbar AND keep them readily available when you need them.

Step 1: first off, some housekeeping. This is the hard part; familiarize yourself with the extension icons on your toolbar. Look for:

(a) Extensions that you don’t use and do not want. Uninstall these (right click ‘uninstall’ or ‘disable’)

(b) Extensions that you want but you do not use frequently. These are the ones you will move off the toolbar. Make a list of these.

(c) Extensions that you do want that have a visible icon on the Chrome toolbar, but where the icon is not really necessary, or for example where an entry in Chrome’s right click context menu can work just as well as the icon to access the functionality.

If you find any ones as described in (c), simply hide the icons (right click ‘Hide Button’, as shown below).

Note: there are extensions that are running in Chrome that do not have visible icons; don’t worry about those; and do not include them in the list referred to in (b).

Step 2: install Chrome extension ‘Context’.

Step 3: right click on the ‘Context’ extension icon and select ‘Options’

Step 4: you will see a list of installed Chrome extensions. Scroll down to the button entitled ‘New Context’ and click it.

Name it ‘Favorites’ (or anything you like), choose an icon, and click ‘create’.

Step 5: Next, proceed to drag and drop each single one extension entry from the list onto your newly created context.

Remember that for those Chrome extensions that do not actually display an icon in the Chrome toolbar, drag them into the context as well (that is, if you are interested in maintaining the functionality they provide).

Only exclude those extensions that you identified in step#1b above. Click the ‘save’ button when you’re done. Close the browser tab.

Step 6: left click the ‘Context’ extension icon, and select your newly created context (i.e. ‘Favorites’).

That’s it! You’re done. Your new context should be significantly less cluttered, and you can quickly revert back to ‘All Extensions’ in the same way.

Two final notes:

Note that ‘Context’ actually de-activates any extensions that are not included in the currently selected icons, and reinstalls them when you

FUTURE extension installations: will automatically prompt ‘Context’ to ask when whether you want to add these to your defined contex(s).

[Thanks go to reader Panzer for tipping us off about this Chrome extension].

5 Tips On Keeping Sensitive Information Out Of Your Chat Logs & Emails

2012-02-10T16:19:00.002-05:00

5 Tips On Keeping Sensitive Information Out Of Your Chat Logs & Emails:

So you’re talking to someone online and you need to share a password or another sensitive piece of information – what do you do? Send it in an email or instant message? Your sensitive information will sit around in email archives and chat logs forever. You’ll need one of those tricks up your sleeve.

There are many ways to share a piece of information without it appearing in your chat logs and emails. Whether you want to make the message self-destruct, use a password vault or send an encrypted file, we’ve got you covered.

Split The Secret Into Pieces

Sending a username, password and website address together is dangerous because the information has context. If you send each piece of information over a different communication method — say instant messaging, email and text message — you’ll be a lot safer. This doesn’t hide the sensitive information entirely, but it scatters the information around and removes the context, making its use unclear.

You can use the same method even if you only have a single secret to share. For example, you could split a password into three parts and send each via a different communication method.

Exercise some caution when doing this. Send an email to a Gmail account, an instant message over Google Talk and a text message to a Google Voice number and that’s one stop shopping for data thieves.

Send A One-Time Message

Websites like Privnote and One Time Secret allow you to send a message that can only be read once. Just access the website, enter your sensitive information and you’ll get a link you can send to your friend or colleague. After they click the link and access the information, it’ll be immediately deleted from the website. Anyone examining your old emails or chat logs won’t be able to click the link and access the information.

Another alternative is DestructingMessage, which creates messages that self-destruct on a timer. When the other person opens the page, a countdown starts and the message will implode and vanish from their screen when the timer reaches zero.

If you’re worried about trusting the websites themselves, you can use this in combination with the secret-splitting method. Send the username over email and send the password as a self-destructing message — the website will have no idea what that password is for.

We’ve covered Privnote, One Time Secret and DestructingMessage in the directory.

Share With A Password Manager

Password managers like LastPass contain built-in password-sharing features. Share a password with another LastPass user and it’ll appear in their LastPass vault. The same method works for secure notes, so you can use LastPass to share any bit of text in an encrypted form.

Beware the “Password Will Remain a Secret” feature here if you’re using LastPass. LastPass tries to hide the password from the other user, but anyone with a little technical knowledge can get around that and view the password when LastPass autofills it on a webpage.

LastPass isn’t the only password manager that can share passwords; PassPack and others can too.

Send Encrypted Files

Encrypted files are the classic, old-school way to send secrets. Write a simple text file with the information, then encrypt it with a password that only your friend or colleague knows. You’ll want to decide on this password ahead of time, ideally in a face-to-face situation.

The recipient can use a decryption program to decrypt your file and access the sensitive information. As a bonus, this method allows you to send sensitive files as email attachments. It won’t matter that the email attachments sit around because no one can read them without decrypting them.

We’ve covered quite a few ways to send encrypted files in the past.

Go Off the Record

Gmail and many desktop chat clients automatically log every message you send, but they also have an off-the-record mode. All logging is disabled in off-the-record mode, so you can send messages and omit them from your chat logs.

If you’re chatting from Gmail or Google+, you can select the “Go Off the Record” option in the Actions menu and both Gmail accounts will stop logging until you go back on the record. Be careful – if your contact is using a desktop chat client, their chat client may continue to log messages on their computer.

Desktop chat applications also have off-the-record plug-ins. For example, the OTR plug-in for Pidgin provides encryption and deniability for sensitive conversations, but it can also disable logging when you and your contact go off-the-record. (this option isn’t enabled by default, though).

How do you send sensitive information online? Do you have a better method? Let us know in the comments.

Image Credit: Shutterstock, Shutterstock

Mindjet Comes To Android – Would You Use A Mindmap App On Your Phone?

2012-02-10T16:19:00.001-05:00

Mindjet Comes To Android – Would You Use A Mindmap App On Your Phone?:

My initial impression of mindmapping was that it’s a not-so-obvious brainstorming tool that’s used by the very few. But after diving into it and also writing a few posts on brainstorming and mindmaps for MakeUseOf.com, I have realized that mindmapping has earned its place in the sun. A well plotted mindmap is much better than a list when it comes to looking at the big picture.

Mindjet is the one of the premier tools for mindmapping in the personal and corporate space. Recently, Thinking Space was acquired by Mindjet and combined into Mindjet for Android. The app which is available for free (unlike the earlier Thinking Space Pro and Mindjet’s very own desktop software) is clocking up a lot of downloads.

How handy is the mobile mindmapping solution? Do you prefer carrying it around in your pocket? Let’s count the ticks.

Mindjet for Android – Feature rich or basic?

My first impression of Mindjet for Android veers towards the latter. It is a basic mindmapping tool meant to pull you towards using mindmaps as a collaborative and productivity tool while you are on the go. After playing with the app, I think the Android brainstorming app fulfills its early promise.

Asking it to be as feature rich at information mapping as its desktop variant (Mind Manager Pro) would be a bit too much. It is not even as advanced as Freemind. For instance, you won’t get the variety of visual formats or the more advanced project and task management tools.

What you will get are the essential tools to get your mindmap up and running. Here are a five (among many) key features of Mindjet for Android:

Quickly create topics and subtopics

Mind maps are made up of topics and sub-topics. Mindjet gives you full screen support a vertical menu and a horizontal toolbar to build your map. The mapping and toolbar menu are pretty easy to grasp.

Creating topics and sub-topics is easy as tapping the icons and typing in the labels. To improve the map view, you can easily collapse (or expand) the topics branches. Mindjet also supports gesture inputs to edit your mindmaps.

Add Notes to better describe your topics and sub-topics.

A mindmap is about relationships

Mindjet comes with a few relationship styles. You can basically choose the colors and set the kind of end points you want to connect topics with. You can drag the curve to set its shape too.

Beautify your mindmap with colors and styles

Colors and styles can also be set for formatting topic color, topic shape, and sundry other things like text and background. For instance, you can tap a topic and set its shape and color as shown by the screen below. Also, to apply a topic shape or color to an entire branch, enable the Cascade mode. In this mode, the formatting is applied to the current topic and all its subtopics.

You can easily shave a few seconds from your work flow by selecting from the library of styles that the mobile mindmapping provides. Click the camera icon to save the style as a sort of preset.

Add images and hyperlinks

You can use an existing image in your phone’s image gallery and use it in your mindmap. The other option is to use the phone’s camera and directly insert the image.

The other way to highlight important topics and sub-topics is to use icon markers in your mindmap. Here’s a screen of the entire icon library available to you:

Hyperlinks are vital if you want to link your mindmap to files on your device. Of course, hyperlinks allows you to bring in other media files like sound recordings too. You can also link to other mindmaps on your Android.

Import and export your mindmaps

You can bring in maps from other mindmapping apps like Freemind and XMind. The AutoStyle option (get it from the Applications button on your device) helps you clear the formatting that might not be compatible with Mindjet even though it has basic compatibility with the two apps. I couldn’t find any Export option to send my mobile mindmaps to my PC or any other device, but you can attach it to your Gmail and also sync with your Dropbox account. Any changes you make to the mobile mindmap will get synced with your Dropbox version.

That just about rounds up the key features of Mindjet for Android. Mindjet gives you an easily accessible tool to take down your thoughts if you are on the go and need to get some brainstorming done. It’s free and completely ad-free. Come the opportunity, I would readily use recorded voice memos and align it with my mindmaps. How would you use it as a productivity tool? Tell us…

How To Export Your Outlook Tasks To Excel With VBA

2012-02-10T16:19:00.000-05:00

How To Export Your Outlook Tasks To Excel With VBA:

Whether or not you are a fan of Microsoft, one good thing that can be said about MS Office products, at least, is how easy it is to integrate each of them with one another.

Just think of the power that comes from having incoming emails automatically generating new tasks or new calendar appointments, or having a completed task automatically email your boss with the updated status report from the task description.

If you do it right, you can cut your entire day’s workload by a boatload just by automating things in an intelligent and efficient way.

If you follow my writing here, then you know that in the past I’ve covered things like integrating web browser features into Excel, automatically maximizing application windows, or automating chart updates in Excel.

Well, in this article I’m going to cover another automation task – actually one that I’ve used often more recently – to automatically update an Excel spreadsheet with all of your remaining active Outlook tasks at the end of the day.

Feeding Outlook Tasks To An Excel Spreadsheet

There are a lot of reasons you may want to do this. Maybe you want to track your unfinished tasks on a daily basis in a format that you can quickly mail off to someone (not so easy to do with Outlook tasks). Or maybe it’ll become part of a larger report that you’ll be typing up in Word.

Whatever the case may be, the ability to capture and output uncompleted Outlook task information is a useful thing.

For this example, here’s my sample Outlook task list with 5 remaining tasks that I still haven’t completed yet.

Everything we’re going to do here, is in VBA. In Outlook, you get to the VBA editor by clicking on “Tools“, then “Macro” and then choosing the “Visual Basic Editor“.

The code that you’re going to use to capture your task list and export it to Excel is actually not quite as complicated as you might think. The first step is to plug into both Outlook objects and Excel objects by creating the necessary variable definitions. Then, using the workbook object you’ve created, start off by creating the header in your spreadsheet.

Dim strReport As String
 Dim olnameSpace As Outlook.NameSpace
 Dim taskFolder As Outlook.MAPIFolder
 Dim tasks As Outlook.Items
 Dim tsk As Outlook.TaskItem
 Dim objExcel As New Excel.Application
 Dim exWb As Excel.Workbook
 Dim sht As Excel.Worksheet

 Dim strMyName As String
 Dim x As Integer
 Dim y As Integer

 Set exWb = objExcel.Workbooks.Open("c:\temp\MyActiveTasks.xls")

'  exWb.Sheets(strMyName).Delete
'  exWb.Sheets.Add (strMyName)

 Set olnameSpace = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI")
 Set taskFolder = olnameSpace.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderTasks)

 Set tasks = taskFolder.Items

 strReport = ""

 'Create Header
  exWb.Sheets("Sheet1").Cells(1, 1) = "Subject"
 exWb.Sheets("Sheet1").Cells(1, 2) = "Due Date"
 exWb.Sheets("Sheet1").Cells(1, 3) = "Percent Complete"
 exWb.Sheets("Sheet1").Cells(1, 4) = "Status"

So, here’s what the new spreadsheet looks like. Your Outlook app just created a new Excel file called “MyActiveTasks.xls” in the C:\temp directory, and created a header for the tasks that you’re about to insert.

So, now it’s time to extract your tasks and insert them into the Excel file. I use a “y” variable starting at two in order to make sure the first row that’s used isn’t the first, because I don’t want to overwrite the header.

y = 2

 For x = 1 To tasks.Count

      Set tsk = tasks.Item(x)

      'strReport = strReport + tsk.Subject + "; "

      'Fill in Data
       If Not tsk.Complete Then

       exWb.Sheets("Ryan").Cells(y, 1) = tsk.Subject
       exWb.Sheets("Ryan").Cells(y, 2) = tsk.DueDate
       exWb.Sheets("Ryan").Cells(y, 3) = tsk.PercentComplete
       exWb.Sheets("Ryan").Cells(y, 4) = tsk.Status
       y = y + 1

      End If

 Next x

What this script does is searches through your entire list of task items in Outlook, checks to see whether the item is completed yet, and if it isn’t, then it inserts that task information into 4 cells of the spreadsheet. If you wanted to, you could insert more information. Just explore what task information is available by typing “tsk.” and then browsing through the list of properties that pop up.

Now here’s what the sheet looks like.

Being a bit of a perfectionist, there’s still a problem. Notice how column A clipped the last task subject?” I don’t like that. So let’s add a little bit more code to autofit all columns in the Excel table.

'Autofit all column widths

For Each sht In ActiveWorkbook.Worksheets
   sht.Columns("A").EntireColumn.AutoFit
   sht.Columns("B").EntireColumn.AutoFit
   sht.Columns("C").EntireColumn.AutoFit
   sht.Columns("D").EntireColumn.AutoFit
Next sht

exWb.Save
exWb.Close

Set exWb = Nothing

The Save and Close methods in those last few lines will save the sheet and close it so that it doesn’t remain locked by the application, otherwise it would be difficult to open the Excel file until you closed Outlook.

So, now here’s what the finished spreadsheet looks like.

When do you set the script to run? Well, I set it up to run on the “Application.Close()” event, which runs when you exit Outlook at the end of the day. This will make outlook produce the Excel spreadsheet report at the end of the day, all on its own.

Can you think of any other cool uses for this technique? Maybe automatically firing off an email with the list of tasks, or outputting them to an HTML file and FTPing it to your web server?

With a little creativity, it’s amazing what you can pull off with a bit of scripting automation. Share your own thoughts and ideas in the comments section below!

Shutterstock

Boost Your Vocabulary With These Fun, Free Games [Android 2.1+]

2012-02-09T19:30:00.001-05:00

Boost Your Vocabulary With These Fun, Free Games [Android 2.1+]:

Quick! How many synonyms for the word “awesome” can you come up with, right now? If it took you more than a moment to come up with around ten synonyms, your vocabulary may need some help. Professional writers aren’t the only people who should know plenty of words. Everyone uses language every day, and there’s often a single word that can replace five other words and mean exactly what we want to say. The challenge is to know that word well enough so you can whip it out when the time is right.

There are plenty of flash-card applications around, including the amazing AnkiDroid. But while AnkiDroid is an incredible app, it’s not a game. I’m a big believer in education through games. I think learning should be as fun and engaging as possible, and that the more interested you are, the better your retention will be. So, if you like your study mixed in with a bit of fun, keep reading for two fine picks from the Market.

Word Jam

Word Jam is composed of several different games, all aimed at helping you learn and retain new words. Above you can see “recall words”, a mode that gives you a word and has you guess the meaning. And here’s Match Words, where you stretch lines between words and their meanings:

There’s also a Hangman game:

If you don’t know what the word is, you can give up and reveal it (or just “die”, in which case the game would show you the word).

Another game mode worthy of mention is the crossword puzzle:

There are better crossword puzzle games for Android (which I may cover in a separate post), but Word Jam is not just a crossword puzzle, and can engage you in six different ways. Apart from the four we’ve seen, the game also offers Word Jumble and Word Search.

In Word Jumble, you must reorder letters to create a word. Word Search provides you with a collection of related words around a theme (“Groupings of people or objects”), and then you must find those words on a board. All in all, a fun collection of games with a simple aesthetic.

Wordaholic

Wordaholic is actually two different games: Wordaholic – Free Word Find and Wordaholic – Free Word Search. Pretty confusing (why not make it into one app?) but still fun. Both games let you play a hexagonal board full of random letters, where your goal is to create words. The “Find” variant gives you just the board, and you find any words you already know. The “Search” variant, more relevant to this post, is more like a crossword puzzle. That’s the one you see in the screenshot above. The game gives you a little riddle, and you need to figure out the word first, and then find that word on the board. Pretty challenging, because it involves switching between two different modes of thinking every turn.

Some of the questions are very tricky, such as “???? is an atomic element with the atomic number 10”. This is where the Hint button comes in handy: Tap it once for a tiny hint (“Four letters, starts with N”). If you still can’t figure out what it is, tap it again and the game will reveal the word (“The word is NEON”).

The game also offers an Easy mode, in which the words are already listed at the bottom of the screen and you just need to find them. This mode is still useful for learning new words, because you can tap a word to get its definition within the game:

Quite a lovely game for picking up some new words. I like the form factor. Hexagons always remind me of strategy games.

Your Own Favorites?

When it comes to word games on Android, the most popular ones are Words with Friends and Wordfeud. That’s why I didn’t include them in the post (I did include them in the Best of Android list). But do you play anything else that has to do with words? If so, do share in the comments.

Image Credit: ShutterStock

What Everybody Ought to Know About Securing Their Mobile Phone

2012-02-09T19:30:00.000-05:00

What Everybody Ought to Know About Securing Their Mobile Phone:

As the processing power of mobile phones continues to increase, so their use as a de facto communications and storage device gains more and more users. The end result is a society of connected individuals carrying around expensive hardware holding all of their most important data from contacts to document, music to movies and photos and games.

Losing the data – or the phone itself – can prove difficult to deal with, depending on how highly you rate the phone and what importance you place on the data stored therein. Having a backup plan in case of emergency is certainly recommended. But to have a plan of action, you need to know what the threats are. Fortunately there are competent, free solutions available on all four popular smartphone platforms.

Anti-Malware

Let’s be realistic – modern smartphones offer more threats to your personal safety than a computer.

Skilled hackers can use malware to scrape personal data off your phone, leaving you in debt when they take credit out in your name a few minutes later. With an always-on Internet connection in your pocket you might get an email from your bank informing you of the huge overdraft you didn’t apply for, but by then it will be too late.

Although such cases are currently rare, you obviously need to be aware of the possibilities and protect against these types of threat. The best answer here is to avoid visiting unsafe websites and installing untrustworthy apps from unofficial sources onto your phone, but if you absolutely must do this, make sure you protect yourself with some anti-malware software.

Lookout Security & Antivirus for Android phones is a suitable response, while iPhone and Windows Phone owners should ensure their devices are not unlocked or jailbroken. Concerns about transferring data to your phone from your computer can easily be addressed by installing anti-malware software for Windows or Mac OS X.

Encrypting Data

Both remote threats and those closer to home (such as having your phone stolen) can be partially addressed by encrypting data. Personal data stored on your phone can then only be accessed by the person with the encryption key – you. Should your device be hacked remotely or stolen it will prove next to impossible for the perpetrators to be able to read the data you have stored on your smartphone.

Android owners can use SecureMemo to keep data, passwords, and other data secure while SecurePhoto, meanwhile, provides security for photos stored on your phone.

If you use iPhone 3GS or later, you will have the advantage of native encryption while the My Eyes Only – Secure Password Manager app is a popular choice for storing notes, passwords and credit card data.

BlackBerry also offers native encryption and you might choose to secure your data using an app such as iLocker Lite to lock specific software, preventing unauthorized access.

Windows Phone users meanwhile don’t have the advantage of native encryption but unlike Android handsets don’t have an (easily) removable MicroSD card. Hidden Pass is the most popular app for encrypting personal data on this platform.

Tracing A Stolen Phone

As we’ve already discussed, smartphones are increasingly popular targets for thieves who might be looking for personal data, a quick way to make a phone call or hardware that they can sell to support their chosen lifestyle.

Whether you have been able to protect the data on your phone or not, you should be prepared to trace the device in the event of loss or theft. This is something that can be achieved using native software or third party apps.

Android users can take advantage of the Plan B app which will email your phone’s location to your Gmail address when you use another device to text the word “locate”.

Apple iPhone’s Find My Phone tool will locate the device on a map and allow you to remotely play a ringtone, display a message, remotely lock and even wipe it. Windows Phone users have a similar option also called Find My Phone which offers the same functionality but is native to the platform.

BlackBerry doesn’t have a such a system, although lost devices can be wiped by your BES administrator.

Backing Up To The Cloud

If you have concerns over the safety of data on your phone you can store it online or at the very least save a backup to the cloud. This can then be accessed via a web browser from another device or computer, allowing you to at the very least keep your data if your phone is stolen.

Naturally Apple iPhones have access to the iCloud service which effortlessly backs up apps and data, while Windows Phone owners have SkyDrive. Meanwhile Android offers data synchronization with Google for standard data such as calendar, contacts and emails.

Dropbox apps are available free for all platforms, meanwhile, including BlackBerry.

Conclusion

With suitable responses in place to deal with any of these possibilities, you should find that in most cases you can overcome data loss and phone loss. There is even a chance that your device can be retrieved or returned to working order.

In the meantime, don’t leave anything to chance. Keep your phone safe at all times, use the apps suggested above to pre-empt any threats or misuse of your handset and remember to take insurance on the device. Your mobile phone network will be able to refer you to their favoured broker, although you should check if you have any suitable cover already via other insurance policies.

Find The Perfect Combination Of Colors With Agave [Linux]

2012-02-09T15:46:00.002-05:00

Find The Perfect Combination Of Colors With Agave [Linux]:

If you’re trying to redesign your house, redo your wardrobe, or create some form of art, you’ll more than likely be involved with choosing colors. However, there already lies the problem. With so many colors to choose from, which ones do you select? What if you want to have a certain color no matter what, but don’t know which other colors would fit? For this, Agave for Linux comes to the rescue.

About Agave

Agave is a lightweight application that is all about finding the right color combinations. It offers a number of different options to find just the right one in an easy-to-understand user interface. There are also other useful features that can spur inspiration or keep productivity-minded people happy. For a relatively simple application, it’s quite effective.

Installation

Installation should be easy as usual with any other Linux apps. Just search for Agave in your distribution’s package manager, as all major distributions except Fedora should carry it. Fedora used to offer Agave, but the package has been orphaned at the time of writing, but hopefully that will change. Once the download and installation has completed, go ahead and launch it from the Graphics section in your menu/dash/etc.

Features

When Agave launches, you’ll see a small window that packs most of the application’s features. Most importantly, in the middle you’ll see the color combinations that are suggested by Agave, the main purpose of the app.

You can change the main color by picking a color from the palette towards the bottom of the window. Agave also offers multiple palettes, so you’ll have more quick choices for certain colors.

If you want all the colors of the rainbow, you’ll need to click on the little button just below the first color box. Then you’ll be presented with Gnome‘s color picker window so that you have access to all the colors in existence.

Agave also offers plenty of different combinations. For me, some of them don’t mean much, but to those who know a lot more about art will surely find all combinations very useful. It includes complements, split-complements, triads, tetrads, analogous, and monochromatic.

Across the top of the window, you’ll find forward and backward buttons, as well as a random button to get a random color in case you don’t know which one to pick. Going farther along, you’ll also find four buttons that change some properties about the selected color. Two are responsible for increasing or decreasing the brightness of the color, while the other two are responsible for increasing or decreasing the saturation. This is really handy because you can easily make adjustments to the color without having to handpick a new color that is similar to what you’re targeting.

Last but not least, you can save colors as favorites, so that you can quickly and easily go back to certain colors that you like or want to remember. It is a much better solution to hunting down the color you are looking for.

Conclusion

Agave is a great tool for its purpose. The simplicity is much appreciated, and it does exactly what it’s meant to do. It seems to be extremely stable, with no need for added features, as there haven’t been any new releases in a while. Either way, that doesn’t diminish the quality of Agave.

What’s your opinion of Agave? Would it be helpful in whatever projects you have? Know of a better app? Let us know in the comments!

Image Credit: Shutterstock

INFOGRAPHIC : How To Create An Infographic

2012-02-09T15:46:00.001-05:00

INFOGRAPHIC : How To Create An Infographic:

Here at MakeUseOf, we get lots of infographic submissions sent to us on a regular basis. Some fall under the category “EXCELLENT!” while a lot others get deleted right away. A lot also falls into the middle category which I like to call the “meh” category (thank you Lisa and Bart Simpson).

The fact is that creating a quality infographic is not an easy task and not everyone can do it properly. It takes design skills, time, a good computer program and patience to get it just right. Unfortunately not everyone has those qualities and so as a result, a lot of infographics end up in the email trash bin. But done properly, an infographic can be a really beautiful and informative thing, a feast on the eyes.

Our infographic today comes courtesy of DIY Blogger and it shows you the 7 steps necessary to make a good infographic that people will want to look at. All you Mac fans out there will be pleased to hear that the first recommendation is not to make an infographic on a Windows computer but on a Mac instead.

What do you think of the infographic? Do you think it’s correct that infographics can’t be made on a Windows computer? Have you ever made your own infographic before? If so, did you follow the rules set out in the infographic? If not, how did you do it? How easy or difficult was it? Tell us all about it in the comments below.

Click on infographic for a larger version

Infographic Source: DIY Blogger

Image Source: Selva

Create your own web magazine in minutes with Scoop.it

2012-02-09T15:46:00.000-05:00

Create your own web magazine in minutes with Scoop.it:

Have you ever thought about starting a blog about a subject that interests you? A lot of people like the idea in theory, but writing posts regularly is not easy to keep up. What if instead you could write the occasional opinion piece and simply add related articles from other sites and blogs to your site as you go? That, in a nutshell, is what Scoop.it allows you to do.

Scoop.it is a cross between a blogging platform and a web clipping application. It is a powerful tool that allows you to create a site consisting of selected articles on any subject, in the same way that you might curate a group show of paintings where only some (or none) of the works are your own. The free version, moreover, is ad-free.

First off let’s get one thing straight about Scoop.it: we are NOT talking about plagiarizing content. While the illustrative thumbnail and excerpt may be copied verbatim, Scoop.it will link and send readers to the actual article or blog, such that content creators will be grateful for the publicity. (It was that, in fact, which lead me to discover this service in the first place, as some users where linking to Freewaregenius articles).

To test this service I created my own Scoop.It site; you can check it out here (warning: political content).

PROS: 6 things I like about this service:

1. So easy to add content: via the use of a bookmarklet placed on your browser toolbar, you can be reading or browsing an article and quickly add it to your site in a single click (see screenshot below).

There’s even an iPhone app that you can use to add articles on the go.

2. So easy to edit your site: and is in fact performed straight on the site itself, not in an admin/dashboard/backend section. If you’re logged in you can change the text, the thumbnail, tags, location on page, etc. straight away via drag and drop.

The screenshot below, for example, shows how changing the size and location of the thumbnail image is done, completely via pointing and clicking. The buttons towards the bottom enable you to perform various other editing functions.

3. No ads in the free version: at least not at the time this review is being written. Their monetization strategy seems to involve charging for ‘premium’ subscriptions, more advanced analytics, and the ability to add your own brand and/or custom URL to the site (see differences between free and paid plans here).

4. Users can suggest content: that they feel might fit with your site, which you as the ‘curator’ can choose to accept or not.

5. Broadcastable: via RSS (find the tiny green RSS icon to the right of your site’s slogan), or via widgets that you could add to other sites.

6. It looks pretty darn good: and in fact is customizable to a good extent, although less so in the free version than the paid versions.

Wish list: two features that would make the FREE version of this service even better:

1. A better looking URL address: as things are, Scoop.It provides a URL that looks like this (scoop.it/t/site-name-here). It would be better if (scoop.it/site-name) was possible, or a subdomain such as (site-name.scoop.it). I know that part of the attraction of paid plans is control over the URL, but I would consider paying a one time fee to get a scoop.it subdomain. In the meanwhile, TinyURL allows you to get a redirectable URL that looks like this (Tinyurl.com/site-name) provided it is available, and that might be easier to distribute and for people to memorize.

2. The ability to restrict access via a password: such that your site might serve as a private space for you or a tight knit group of people, without being broadcast to the world at large.

The verdict: an excellent service. So polished and well constructed, so easy to start, and thereafter easy to maintain and keep going. It has an addictive quality to it and for those who are interested in any topic, can be an extremely useful tool.

Go here to sign p.

How To Integrate Excel Data Into A Word Document

2012-02-09T15:45:00.000-05:00

How To Integrate Excel Data Into A Word Document:

During your work week, there are probably lots of times that you find yourself copying and pasting information from Excel into Word, or the other way around.

This is how people often produce written reports based on data that’s accumulated and updated in an Excel spreadsheet. We’ve offered a lot of really cool tips and tools for Excel over the years, such as Saikat’s article on producing professional looking charts, and Steve’s article on cool Excel templates for project management.

In this article, I’m going to dive a little more into the background VBA scripting that allows you to actually program connections between data that might be stored in an Excel file and Word documents where you may be producing reports.

It’s actually surprisingly easy to accomplish this once you know how to add the right references, and how to lay out the syntax of the background VBA code.

Integrating Data From Excel Into Your Word Document

In this example, I’m going to start out with a fairly simple Excel spreadsheet. In reality, the Excel file can consist of multiple spreadsheets with lots of data, it doesn’t matter.

So long as you know where the data resides in the spreadsheet, you’ll be able to reach in and grab it using VBA.

Here’s what my sample spreadsheet looks like. It’s a list of expense totals that have been calculated throughout the entire year.

Now, lets say you have a manager that would like to see a nicely formatted report that describes the expenses, grouping together like items and laying it all out in a layout that’s a little more pleasing to the eye (and easier for the big boys upstairs to understand).

You can do this by incorporating objects like textboxes or labels into your Word document. When you’re in Word, just click on the Developer menu tab, and then select “Design Mode” in the Controls box. Use the Legacy Tools dropdown icon to find where you can insert labels into your document.

Once you have the label placed in the document where you want it (not always an easy task), you’re ready to program the data feed. But first you’ll need to name the label so that the VBA can identify it. Right click on the label and go into Properties. Find the “(Name)” field and call it something that you’ll remember.

Now, add a Command Button from the same Legacy Tools dropdown list, place it in your document, and double click it to open up the VBA editor. When you get your code working later, you can modify it so that the code runs on the Document Open() event. You’ll see that in the object dropdown boxes in the editor window.

To get started connecting Word to Excel, you’ll need to reference Excel. Click on Tools, and then References. Scroll down the list until you see the “Microsoft Excel 12.0 Object Library” and select it.

Once you’ve done this, the rest is just a matter of writing a ridiculously simple VBA script to pull in data from an Excel spreadsheet and automatically update the label caption with the data. Here’s how that works.

Private Sub CommandButton1_Click()
Dim objExcel As New Excel.Application
Dim exWb As Excel.Workbook

Set exWb = objExcel.Workbooks.Open("c:\temp\expenses.xls")

ThisDocument.yrTotal.Caption = exWb.Sheets("Sheet1").Cells(12, 2)

exWb.Close

Set exWb = Nothing

End Sub

See how that works? The “exWb” Excel application object opens the Excel file at the path you provide it, and it’ll go right into the specific sheet and cell number, extract the data, and place it into the Caption property of the label that you named “yrTotal“.

Here’s the VBA macro in action.

The hard part with dealing with labels in Word is that it’s sometimes hard to align it at the end of a sentence or alongside any other text.

One way of overcoming that is actually incorporating some of the text alongside the data in the VBA code itself. As you can see here, I’ve put the static text right into the Caption when I create the label itself.

Now, all you have to do is include that text when you update the label with your VBA script, and just append the data from the Excel file to the end of that text. Here’s what that kind of code would look like.

Dim objExcel As New Excel.Application
Dim exWb As Excel.Workbook

Set exWb = objExcel.Workbooks.Open("c:\temp\expenses.xls")

ThisDocument.yrTotal.Caption = exWb.Sheets("Sheet1").Cells(12, 2)
ThisDocument.totHotels.Caption = "Hotels: " &amp; exWb.Sheets("Sheet1").Cells(5, 2)
ThisDocument.TotDining.Caption = "Dining Out: " &amp; exWb.Sheets("Sheet1").Cells(2, 2)
ThisDocument.totTolls.Caption = "Tolls: " &amp; exWb.Sheets("Sheet1").Cells(3, 2)
ThisDocument.totFuel.Caption = "Fuel: " &amp; exWb.Sheets("Sheet1").Cells(10, 2)

exWb.Close

Set exWb = Nothing

You can use the string concatenation “&” symbol to place connect the static text with the data extracted from the Excel sheet. Here’s what the final results look like in the updated Word document.

Again, if you don’t want to have a big, ugly grey command button in your word document, just have the data-update script run on Document.Open(), and it’ll all take place behind the scenes.

In fact, in many cases you could create the initial document once, and then you’ll never have to create it again. All you’ll have to do is open it, and all of the labels will automatically update for you with the data from the updated Excel file. All you have to do is click to Print, and submit the report to your manager. A 30 minute report just turned into a 1 minute printout!

Can you think of any other cool uses for this data-integration technique using VBA? Share some of your own ideas and thoughts in the comments section below.

Shutterstock

3 Awesome Tweaks For iOS 5 Notification Center [iPhone/Cydia Tweak]

2012-02-08T22:22:00.003-05:00

3 Awesome Tweaks For iOS 5 Notification Center [iPhone/Cydia Tweak]:

One of the coolest things about iOS 5 is the Notification Center. It is kind of ripped off Android’s notification system, but that does not make it any less awesome. Still, like all things iPhone, it is limited. I brought this up last week in a piece about expanding the functionality of Siri, and it holds true here. Apple locks down Notification Center, leaving some functionality that it is clearly capable of untapped. It is somewhat annoying, but Apple has always been a company that enjoys simplicity.

I, however, am not a person who enjoys simplicity, and that is why I jailbreak my iPhone. It allows me to take the Notification Center, even though it is not bad on its own, and make it so much better. iOS 5 has not been jailbroken long, and I must say, it is impressive how far the jailbreak community has come with the Notification Center. There are many tweaks out there, but these are three of my favorites.

Set Up

Each one of these tweaks is available in Cydia, so you will need to install each one separately in order for them to work. Once you install the tweak, you will need to go to Settings > Notifications and scroll to the name of the tweak and enable it. It works just like enabling an app to display notifications. Once you enable it, the tweak will automatically show in your Notification Center.

AppsCenter

As you might guess, AppsCenter allows you to launch apps from your Notification Center. By default, it will display all of your apps in a scrolling list. Obviously, this is not practical if you have lots of apps, so you will want to go to Settings and scroll down until you see AppsCenter to tweak this.

From here you can change many settings such as the number of apps it shows at one time, if it shows the apps in pages and whether or not it shows the labels for the apps. You can also set how the applications are sorted from this screen.

If you are like me, and have many apps on your phone, you will want to use the choose apps section to customize which apps are displayed in Notification Center. Personally, I just choose the four applications I use the most, and I am sure you will find a system that works for you.

RSSWidget

This is a cool way to take a quick look at your favorite website (which had better be MakeUseOf.com – or else!) right from your Notification Center. It only supports one feed at a time, which makes sense because otherwise Notification Center would be completely bogged down with information.

From the Settings screen on your iPhone, scroll down to RSSWidget and click it. On this screen is where you will enter the feed for the website you would like to see in the Notification Center.

After you enter the URL, open the Notification Center and you should see the most recent article from the website you added. You can swipe left or right over the article to see older or newer ones, and tapping on it directly will open the full article in Safari.

WeeSearch

WeeSearch is an awesome little widget that allows you to search YouTube, Google, Wikipedia and a dictionary right from the notifications center. Simply install the package from Cydia and enable WeeSearch in the Notification Center section of Settings, and the little search bar will appear.

To use WeeSearch, you simply type in what you are looking for, tap the service you wish to use and click “Search.” The widget will open Safari and search the proper site automatically. It makes it quick and easy to find whatever you are looking for on the web.

Conclusion

The Notification Center is awesome, and these widgets make it even better. It seems odd that Apple has a weather widget and nothing else, but it is great that the jailbreak community is stepping up and filling in the gaps. As time goes on, more and more cool tweaks will come out for Notification Center; this is just the tip of the iceberg.

What are some cool Notification Center tweaks you have tried? What would you like to see included in the future? Let us know in the comments!

Soup Up The Notepad++ Text Editor With Plugins From The Notepad Plus Repository [Windows]

2012-02-08T22:22:00.002-05:00

Soup Up The Notepad++ Text Editor With Plugins From The Notepad Plus Repository [Windows]:

Notepad++ is a worthy replacement for Windows’ in-built and much loved text editor, and comes highly recommended if you’re a programmer, web designer or simply someone who finds themselves in need of a powerful plain text editor.

Not only is Notepad++ free under the GPL licence but it is also possible to extend its functionality with plugins. Today I’ll be taking a look at the Notepad++ plugins repository which contains a few extra bells and whistles to take your text editor to the next level.

Notepad++ & Plugins

Notepad++ has already seen a few mentions here at MakeUseOf and has earned its place on our Best Of Windows Software list. We’ve also previously included it in our Windows text editor roundup, used it to find and replace words in multiple files and shown you how to switch out your default HTML source editor in favour of Notepad++. If you’ve not yet got it, head on over to the project homepage and download for free.

Luckily there is a healthy collection of third-party plugins, some of which have made their way into the latest Notepad++ release after proving their worth. The program has its very own plugin manager (which is ironically a plugin itself) from which to janitor your add-ons and updates.

Choosing the right plugins depends entirely on what you use Notepad++ for, and there are a good number to trawl through. Installing plugins used to involve downloading archives and extracting to the ‘plugins’ directory, and while you can still do this it’s much easier to choose Plugins from the main taskbar then Plugin Manager to bring up the repository.

Once the list has refreshed you will be presented with an array of available downloads. For a better idea of what each plugin does simply click and read the description. Installing the add-ons is easy – check the box next to the plugin and click Install. Multiple plugins can be installed this way which is great because Notepad++ requires a restart before they show up.

If you do want to use the traditional download-and-extract method you’ll need to find the plugins first. Luckily there are a good number located at the npp-plugins SourceForge project page.

Recommended Plugins

Once again there’s no one-size-fits-all here, and each of you will find your own preferred plugins based on primary usage. Saying that, the following plugins do have somewhat of a broad appeal:

Explorer – A simple file explorer that sits on the left-hand side of your screen. Double click and files will open, just like that.

Compare – A surprisingly useful plugin for comparing two files, side-by-side.

AutoSave - Always forgetting to save on time? Let AutoSave save for you! Can be configured to use a timer or when Notepad++ loses focus/is minimized.

Location Navigate – Quickly jump backwards and forwards to parts of the document that you have modified, rather than trawling through all the stuff in between.

Lorem Ipsum – One for the web designers, a simple Lorem Ipsum script for instant Latin copy text.

MultiClipboard – Provides access to the last 10 copied items. Ctrl+V pastes the last copied text whereas Ctrl+Shift+V lets you choose from a list of 10 memorised copies.

XBrackets Lite – Forgetting just one bracket can ruin your whole afternoon – never again with XBrackets Lite!

Falling Bricks – Who said plugins have to be useful? Here’s a very simple Tetris clone to distract you when the time is right.

Using The Plugins

Once you’ve selected the plugins you’ll want, hit Install and let them download. You will be notified that a restart is required, agree and Notepad++ will appear once again with your bounty of add-ons enabled.

To use the plugins, visit the Plugins menu in the main taskbar and select from there. Some will have multiple functions and options and others will be very basic “enable or disable” affairs. To remove plugins (or check for updates) launch the Plugin Manager again, choose the Installed tab, select a plugin and click Remove.

Conclusion

Hopefully you’ll find exactly what you’re looking for in this excellent plugins respository. It’s a fantastic way of turbo-charging Notepad++ to be even more useful, and the right add-ons can really help tailor the application to your needs.

If you have any personal favourites, plugins you can’t live without or if you prefer a different text editor entirely then let us know in the comments below this article.

3 Advanced Tips & Tricks For Using Windows Explorer

2012-02-08T22:22:00.001-05:00

3 Advanced Tips & Tricks For Using Windows Explorer:

Windows Explorer is the default Windows file manager. Last week I introduced you to 3 easy ways to improve Windows 7 Explorer by tweaking features and using it to its full potential. In this article, I will show you a small hack and share some tips to get the most out of Windows Explorer.

Change Default Folder (Option 1)

In Windows 7, the default location when opening Windows Explorer is the Libraries folder. Here is a simple trick to set a custom location:

Right-click on your desktop and select > New > Shortcut.

Under Type the location of the item enter: explorer.exe /root,path

Then click Next, enter a name for your shortcut, and click Finish.

Note that you need to give the full path to the desired folder. If you wish to point to Computer, paste the following location: explorer.exe /root,::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}

Once you have a working shortcut, you can pin it to your taskbar, move it to the QuickLaunch bar or use it from your desktop.

Change Default Folder (Option 2)

To simply change the default Windows Explorer startup folder anywhere, do this:

Right-click a folder or the Windows Explorer icon in the taskbar to bring up the jump-list.

In the jump-list, right-click on Windows Explorer and select Properties.

In the Shortcut tab change the Target to the desired location, as per the list below.

Alternatively, you can also change the properties of any other shortcut you are using to open Windows Explorer.

Potential locations:

Documents folder: %SystemRoot%\explorer.exe /n,::{450D8FBA-AD25-11D0-98A8-0800361B1103}

Computer: %SystemRoot%\explorer.exe /E,::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}

Recycle Bin: %SystemRoot%\explorer.exe /E,::{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}

Default (Libraries): %windir%\explorer.exe

For information on how to find out the GUID (Globally Unique Identifiers) for your desired location, check out the following article on How-To Geek: Enable the Secret “How-To Geek” Mode in Windows 7

Navigate Windows Explorer With Keyboard Shortcuts

Nothing is more easy and geeky than nifty little keyboard shortcuts. Here are some relevant key combinations to navigate through the Windows Explorer folder structure:

[Windows] + [E] = launch Windows Explorer

[ALT] + [RIGHT] = go forward

[ALT] + [LEFT] = go back

[ENTER] = open selected folder

[ALT] + [UP] = move to parent directory

[ALT] + [TAB] or [F6] = move between focus areas

[ALT] + [D] = focus on address bar and select current path

[F4] = open address bar drop-down menu

[F3] = focus on search bar and drop down search filter options

[ALT] + [P] = open preview pane

[ALT] + [ENTER] = view properties of selected file

[F2] = change file name of selected file

[F10] = jump to file menu

[F11] = switch to full screen mode and back

[CTRL] + mousewheel = change icon size (works almost everywhere, useful in browser)

Gently Terminate & Restart Windows Explorer

When an application hangs and won’t let you close it, or when Windows Explorer crashes, or to see the effects of editing a current user registry entry, what do you typically do? You either log off and back in or you reboot? However, closing and restarting Windows Explorer has the same effect and is much faster.

Here is a safe way to terminate and then restart Windows Explorer in Windows Vista and Windows 7:

Go to Start.

Click [CTRL] + [SHIFT] while you right-click an empty space of the Start menu.

Select Exit Explorer from the menu that appears.

This procedure will gently terminate Windows Explorer, meaning all your folders will close, your desktop will be empty, and the taskbar will be gone. Your system, however, is still running.

To bring Windows Explorer back, do the following:

Use the keyboard combination [CTRL] + [SHIFT] + [ESC] to launch the Task Manager.

Go to > File > New Task (Run…)

Type explorer.exe in the Create New Task text field and click OK.

Et voilà, Windows Explorer is back and fresh as rebooted.

Do you know of any other tips and tricks everyone should know about? Please share with us in the comments!

How To Send Emails From An Excel Spreadsheet Using VBA Scripts

2012-02-08T22:22:00.000-05:00

How To Send Emails From An Excel Spreadsheet Using VBA Scripts:

Using emails as part of any program is a nice way to automate important tasks, and it also significantly improves the value and functionality of any program or script.

In the past, I’ve used email a whole lot in my batch jobs and other automated scripts, just like I’ve described in past articles here on using tools like Sendmail or Blat to issue emails straight from the command line, or from within a command line script.

These are great for those times when you have a script that’s monitoring the health of a computer or the status of a specific process, but what if you want to automate sending emails from within Office products like Word or Excel?

There are a lot of reasons why you might want to do so. Maybe you have staff that update documents or spreadsheets on a weekly basis, and you’d like to receive an email notification of when those updates take place, and even a report of the data from within those sheets. There are a few techniques you can use to program automated emails from within Excel, but my favorite remains CDO.

Sending Emails From Within Excel

You’re probably thinking that scripting outgoing email into an Excel VBA script is going to be painfully complicated. Well, that’s not the case at all.

CDO is a messaging component used in Windows for a few generations of the OS. It used to be called CDONTS, and then with the advent of Windows 2000 and XP, it was replaced with “CDO for Windows 2000″. This component is already included in your VBA installation within Word or Excel and it’s ready for use.

Using the component makes sending emails from within Windows products with VBA extremely easy. In this example, I’m going to use the CDO component in Excel to send out an email that will deliver the results from a specific Excel cell.

The first step is to go to the “Developer” menu tab, click on “Insert” in the Controls box, and then select a command button. Draw it into the sheet and then create a new macro for it.

When Excel opens up the VBA editor, you’re going to need to add the reference to the CDO library. You can access this in the Tools menu, and then scroll down the list until you find “Microsoft CDO for Windows 2000 Library“. Select the checkbox and click OK.

Now you’re ready to use CDO to issue emails from inside Excel. To do this, you first need ot create the mail objects and set up all of the fields that will be required for sending the email. Keep in mind that while many of the fields are optional, the From and To fields are required.

Dim CDO_Mail As Object
Dim CDO_Config As Object
Dim SMTP_Config As Variant
Dim strSubject as String
Dim strFrom as String
Dim strTo as String
Dim strCc as String
Dim strBcc as String
Dim strBody As String

strSubject = "Results from Excel Spreadsheet"
strFrom = "ryxxxxxx@xxxxxcast.net"
strTo = "rdxxxxxx@gmail.com"
strCc = ""
strBcc = ""
strBody = "The total results for this quarter are: " &amp; Str(Sheet1.Cells(2, 1))

The cool thing about this is that you an build up any string you want to customize a full email message and assign it to the strBody variable. Piece together components of the message by using the “&” string to insert data from any of the Excel sheets right into the email message, just like I’ve shown above.

The next section of code is where you will configure CDO to use any external SMTP server that you want to use. In this case I don’t need to use SSL because my SMTP server doesn’t require it. CDO is capable of SSL, but that’s outside the scope of this article. If you need to use SSL, I highly recommend Paul Sadowski’s awesome writeup on using CDO.

Set CDO_Mail = CreateObject("CDO.Message")
On Error GoTo Error_Handling

Set CDO_Config = CreateObject("CDO.Configuration")
CDO_Config.Load -1

Set SMTP_Config = CDO_Config.Fields

With SMTP_Config
   .Item("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/sendusing") = 2
   .Item("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpserver") = "smtp.metrocast.net"
   .Item("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpserverport") = 25
   .Update
End With

With CDO_Mail
   Set .Configuration = CDO_Config
End With

Now that you’ve configured the connection to the SMTP server for sending the email, all you have to do is fill in the appropriate fields for the CDO_Mail object, and issue the Send command. This is how you do that.

CDO_Mail.Subject = strSubject
CDO_Mail.From = strFrom
CDO_Mail.To = strTo
CDO_Mail.TextBody = strBody
CDO_Mail.CC = strCc
CDO_Mail.BCC = strBcc
CDO_Mail.Send

Error_Handling:
If Err.Description &lt;&gt; "" Then MsgBox Err.Description

So there you have it. There won’t be any pop-up boxes or security alert messages, which can happen when you resort to using the Outlook mail object. CDO simply puts together the email and utilizes your SMTP server connection details to fire off the message. It’s probably the easiest way I know to incorporate email into Word or Excel VBA scripts.

Here’s what the message looked like that I received in my inbox.

No hassle – just the data straight from within the Excel sheet delivered right to my email account. If you’re creative with how you put together the body string variable with all sorts of data from your Excel sheet, you can just imagine the cool automated email reports that you could put together. And if you don’t want to use a command button, just have the script run on the sheet or application close event.

Can you think up any cool uses for CDO in your own Excel, Access, or Word projects? Share your thoughts and ideas in the comments section below.

Shutterstock

Piazza – A Q&A Forum For Students & Instructors To Be More Productive

2012-02-08T22:19:00.000-05:00

Piazza – A Q&A Forum For Students & Instructors To Be More Productive:

Last semester, one of my CS professors started class by saying that his superior was strongly encouraging (read: forcing) the teaching staff to use this new web-based discussion board called Piazza, which he would usually butcher by saying “pizzaz”. As students, some of us considered it a bit annoying to have to check yet another website in addition to the class website and Blackboard, not to mention our email inbox and Facebook.

Little did we know, this site actually became a very useful and heavily-relied-on tool. Piazza, which is Italian for public square or marketplace, doesn’t give you the answers to your homework problems, but it can assist in closing the gap that stands between class sessions and confused minds.

Don’t attending office hours and emailing the professors do that too, you ask? Yes, but conflicting schedules and full inboxes may easily get in the way. Facebook groups could probably help too, but professors nor teaching assistants can confirm peer-provided responses. Let’s check out why else professors and students should totally start using Piazza.

Real-Time Discussions

Instructors start by signing up at Piazza and adding their college-level courses. After activating their accounts, they can invite students and teaching assistants to join. Students and instructors (including TA’s) can then connect by posting and replying to questions and notes in real-time, just like Facebook, except Piazza can help you stay productive. You can even see when fellow students are actually replying to a question or editing an answer in real-time.

As you can see in the screenshot, Piazza is not only gorgeous but also absolutely functional, in contrast to many basic classroom websites lacking a commenting system and education boards that look like they could use a revamp in looks and features. The layout of Piazza consists of two panes, one of which is a sidebar containing a list of discussions, and the other one which is a larger area to see the conversation for a specific question.

Questions that have received a student response will have a green “sr” icon, while those that have received an instructor response from the professor or TA stand out with the orange “ir” icon. There might even be checkmark icons on questions that have instructor-endorsed student responses, which are always great since that means students that understand the subject can explain it it to their peers as simply as possible.

Students Can Ask Questions Anonymously

If you’re too shy to ask questions during class, ahem, like this author, Piazza will be a lifesaver as it allows you to post questions anonymously and/or privately. This is perhaps one of Piazza’s biggest benefits.

There’s a reason this site will get more action than your average class website, Blackboard or Facebook group. Students will feel free to engage in the discussion even if they might think their question sounded too “stupid” to bring up in class. Not only can students ask questions freely, they can also respond anonymously as well.

Piazza was founded by a former female CS student, a fact that I adore because only a student could know the pain of being shy and being confused by some obscure topic at the same time. Thus, being able to ask and answer questions anonymously is quite a welcome feature, at least to me.

General Efficiency

Not only is Piazza a great Q&A board to learn from some very lively discussions, it’s also more efficient and/or convenient for both the instruction staff and students, e.g. in cases where students sometimes cannot make office hours due to scheduling conflicts. Piazza is a good supplement (notice that I’m not saying substitute) to office hours because it can also help reduce redundancy. Students might ask a lot of the same questions so it saves time for both the instructor and the student to see a general place where one question can be posted and discussed, instead of emailing back and forth the same questions and answers.

Both sides will still get notification emails, but these are quite adjustable. As a student, you can skip real-time notifications and opt for a daily digest instead, or go with summary emails scheduled to be delivered anywhere from every hour to every 6 hours.

Other neat features include the ability to post notes (like illustrative YouTube videos and general class announcements), and polls. Not only can you post multimedia links, you can also embed images and post code with simple “<pre>” tags.

Piazza also allows you to use LaTeX expressions to type mathematical formulae and the like.

Piazza also has Android and iPhone companion apps for posting and checking answers on the go.

Overall, Piazza is an incredibly useful and well-thought-out product that you, as a student, should definitely request your professor to adopt, or as an instructor, should start using now! It will save you both time and you have nothing to lose by using it (unless of course, neither of you responds to the questions at all).

What are your thoughts on using an online discussion board for college classes? Feel free to share your comments below.

10 Websites Where Cool Computer Geeks Reside

2012-02-08T17:02:00.001-05:00

10 Websites Where Cool Computer Geeks Reside:

Geeks were once ridiculed and reviled. Or perhaps that was just at my school. Either way, as first computers hit the mainstream, and then the Internet entered into our lives in a big way, geeks became the people to know. In fact, they started being considered cool.

The Internet is now awash with places for these geeks to hang out, and they do so in increasing numbers. These are the online destinations to learn about technology, both in a broad sense and the narrower, more specialized fields. What follows are 10 websites which house computer geeks, whether they’re providing the content, offering opinions, or fielding tech-related questions only the geekiest will know the answers to.

Techmeme

Techmeme is essential for anyone looking to see what technology news is trending at any given moment. You could find stories breaking faster elsewhere, but who of us has time to scour hundreds of sites or read endless RSS feeds?

Techmeme offers a snapshot of what geeks are discussing, on news sites, blogs, and Twitter. It will lead you to other sites where the coolest geeks are keeping tabs on different parts of the tech sector so that you and I don’t have to.

Slashdot

Slashdot is the place to go when you’ve grown tired of the stories which everyone and their dog are discussing. It’s populated by stories concerning technology and science, and will likely offer up topics that are escaping mainstream attention.

If Techmeme offers a mainstream view of what is happening, Slashdot offers an alternative view. And unlike Techmeme, Slashdot offers the opportunity to have a healthy discourse over the finer points of each article cited. Only true geeks need apply.

Hacker News

Hacker News is another social news site that offers a snapshot of what the tech community is discussing at a particular time. Similar to Slashdot in that the stories promoted aren’t likely to be mainstream, opinion posts and in-depth discussions on niche interests rule the roost.

As the name implies, articles related to hacking also crop up regularly. As do articles related to the startup scene, with the site being part of startup funding firm Y Combinator. If you like keeping an eye on what the next big thing will be, Hacker News is the place to hang out.

Reddit brands itself the ‘Front Page of the Internet‘, and that’s not too far-fetched a description. The site has grown from being a niche competitor to Digg to being one of the biggest websites in the world. Every subject under the sun is welcome, but we’re only interested in the tech side.

The /r/Technology subreddit is full of stories concerning all aspects of technology. Delving deeper into further subreddits such as /r/Computing and /r/Programming can bring you face to face with some of the geekiest geeks on the InterWebs.

Digg

Digg is the final social news site to make the list. While it isn’t the eclectic place moving at a frenetic pace it once was (see Reddit above), it’s still a great starting point for geeks of all flavors. There are multiple different categories, but we’re interested in the Technology section.

Digg Technology has stories sorted by Most Recent, Trending, and Top over periods of time. They can also be sorted by Images, Videos, and Text. Vote stories up and down or enter into the always-lively discussions. There is also the Technology Newsroom which acts like Techmeme.

Quora

Quora is a site that grabs you and refuses to let you out of its highly-addictive grasp. The name quite simply refers to Qu or A, and that is the very essence of the site. You can ask a question or you can provide an answer. Or you can, of course, simply read everyone else’s input.

While there are questions on all kind of different subjects, there is a Technology board, and lots of other boards related to technology. The great thing about Quora is that you’re likely to have your question answered by someone actually involved in the subject matter. Which means computer geeks are present in abundance. As they are on our own MakeUseOf Answers, but more on that later.

PC Advisor

PC Advisor is a British-based site that has news and reviews, which are interesting but can be found elsewhere on the Web. Where the site comes into its own, however, is with its How-To, Forum, and Advisors sections dedicated to different aspects of technology and computing.

The forums have a Helproom for those in need, and a dedicated section for Absolute Beginners. We were all n00bs once, and we all needed a little guidance from those who knew more than us. This is awash with geeks happy and willing to help out their fellow man (and woman).

IT Toolbox

IT Toolbox is, like PC Advisor, a site with many different facets. There are traditional blog posts detailing different aspects of IT, all written by people who really know what they’re talking about. But there is more beneath the surface.

There are groups and communities built around subject matters such as cloud computing, coding techniques, and Linux. The people who hang out on IT Toolbox are more geek than they are cool.

Computer Forum

Computer Forum is a traditional vBulletin forum, which is refreshingly simple and easy to navigate in these days when flashy graphics are getting in the way of functionality when it comes to websites.

This particular forum deals with computer hardware, software, gaming, and the Web. It has (at the time of writing) over 46,000 members and 188,000 threads. And with hundreds of users active at any one time, the discussions usually move at a fast pace. If you can keep up with that pace then you can keep up to date with news and views from geeks aplenty.

MakeUseOf

MakeUseOf is THE place on the Web for computer geeks to hang out. There are writers with different interests and areas of expertise, contributors who really know their stuff and are keen to help out, and a huge community hanging out together in one place.

I would hope you already know about MakeUseOf seeing as you’re reading it right now. But just in case, MakeUseOf features numerous articles every day that, as the name suggests, you’ll be able to make use of. Including app reviews, how-to’s, and opinion pieces. There is also a collection of Best Of’s, Cheats and Guides, Questions and Answers, a Directory of Web Apps, and Geeky Fun.

Conclusions

If you need to find a computer geek in a hurry then these are the online destinations to head to first. You may join the throng hanging out at one, or follow links to other parts of the Web where the content and the content creators get even geekier.

This isn’t a complete list by any stretch of the imagination. So, as is the MakeUseOf way, please tell us and your fellow readers any websites you know of that house the coolest computer geeks. But not nerds, dorks, or dweebs. Those guys are in a league of their own.

6 Fantastic Ways To Discover Cool Music You’ve Never Heard Before

2012-02-08T17:02:00.000-05:00

6 Fantastic Ways To Discover Cool Music You’ve Never Heard Before:

If you’re a music lover, you’re familiar with the constant need to discover new music. You already know lots of good music you like, but the thirst for more is unstoppable. There’s lots of good music out there most of us never even heard of – Indie artists and small bands that haven’t yet made their way to the big websites or labels. But this doesn’t mean they’re not worth listening to.

If you have access to Last.fm, Pandora or Spotify, you may find all your new music needs there. But these services don’t include everything, and more importantly, they’re geo-restricted. So without further ado, here are 6 great ways to discover cool music you’ve never heard before, no matter where you are in the world.

Earbits Radio

Earbits is a fantastic website in which you can discover new music, listen to it, learn about new artists, chat and comment about them, and much more. To start, all you have to do is pick a station. Stations are based on genres, but there are loads of them to choose from. Whether you’re interested in experimental rock, funk jazz or street hop, you’re going to find it in Earbits.

If you can’t even decide on a genre, you can choose a shuffle station, or go for editor’s picks or listener’s picks stations. After you choose a station, the music will immediately start playing, featuring a huge image of the artist and a short bio and buy links on the bottom.

You can log in using Facebook to rate songs and comment (unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a way to so this without Facebook). You can also download the Chrome app, and get the Earbits iOS or Android apps. This is an awesome way to listen to new music you’ve never heard of before.

Musicovery

Musicovery is another great service which helps you discover new music. It’s not as eye-catching as Earbits, but it does the job well. To start, you can either enter a name of an artist you like, or choose your mood.

Musicovery will create a radio station for you, much like Last.fm or Pandora, which should feature songs that suit your taste and/or mood. You can listen to all the music you want this way. If you create a free account, you can ban songs from appearing in your playlists and mark songs as favorites. A paid account will get you some extra features.

Musicovery also comes as an iPhone app, and there are other goodies such as the widget and lab you’re going to want to check out.

Shuffler.fm

Shuffler.fm is a music discovery engine that is entirely based on music blogs. You can listen to music by genre, by popular tracks, or by blog. Simply choose your “channel”, and off you go.

If you choose to listen by genre, each song in the playlist will come from a different blog. The page will change accordingly, and you will get to view the actual blog post relating to the song you’re listening to.

You can create an account with the site, or log in using Facebook, to follow specific blogs and more. Shuffler.fm also comes as an iPad app.

YouLicense Mood Finder

YouLicense is actually a site aimed at letting people license music, but it also provides a pretty good way to discover some new music. The website includes a tool which lets you browse for new music by mood; there aren’t a lot of moods to choose from, but all the really important ones are includes.

When you choose a mood, a new window will open with a set playlist for that mood. In that aspect, there’s a limit to the amount of music you can discover with YouLicense, but it does contain songs by artists you’ve probably never heard of, and you can use it as a stepping stone to discovering even more great music.

If you create an account on the site, you can rate songs and create playlists as well. The website is not meant to be a music discovery tool per se, but it’s definitely useful as one.

From The Basement

We now move on to a different kind of websites: These websites don’t provide a lot of music to listen to, but do provide information and names of new artists you may want to listen to. And after all, that’s half the problem with finding new music.

The first one of these is From The Basement – a sort of podcast/live performances website created by Radiohead’s producer Nigel Godrich. The site features live shows shot by the website, which aim to create a relaxed atmosphere for the artist and produce the best performances possible.

There is a limited number of artists to choose from, some of which you’ve probably never heard of, and each contains 1 or more live performances, a picture gallery, and useful links. The videos are very well made – not something you would find on MTV, that’s for sure – and the minimalistic site is a joy to browse for any music lover.

Gnoosic

Gnoosic is a music discovery service that doesn’t include any actual music. You give it up to three names of artists you like, and Gnoosic starts giving you suggestions for more artists you may enjoy.

For each suggestion, you can choose whether you like it, don’t like it, or don’t know it, and the suggestions continue. For each suggestion you can also access a discussion board, and even cooler, see it on a music map.

The band you were looking at will appear in the middle, with other, similar bands floating all around it. You can use this to find music that is similar to music you already know you like. After finding some names that look interesting, you can use other services to find the actual music.

Looking for more online music sources? Check out:

10 Music Search Engines To Discover Cool Music, Musicians & Great Bands

Top 10 Free Ways To Discover New Music Online

The 4 Best Websites To Check Out New Music Releases First

Do you know of more cool ways to discover new music? Share in the comments!

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