MakeUseOf.com |  |
- Join MakeUseOf On Twitter!
- Cool Websites and Tools [July 23]
- How to Find a Free eBay Seller Template
- How To Customize Your Linux Desktop With GnomeART-NG
- 3 Useful Booklet Printing Solutions For Mac Users
- How to Make Your Hotmail Sign In More Secure
- 15 Best Windows 7 Tips and Hacks
| Posted: 23 Jul 2009 05:01 PM PDT
You’ll be notified everytime there is a new post on the MakeUseOf Blog, a web app review on the MakeUseOf Directory or something new on Geeky Fun. Plus we would love it if you would re-tweet the posts and discuss them, so more people get to know about us and join our community. Thank you! Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/ Related posts
| ||
| Cool Websites and Tools [July 23] Posted: 23 Jul 2009 05:00 PM PDT
(1) Best Of Wikipedia – This is a one man project aimed at surfacing interesting Wikipedia entries. A new manually selected article link is posted every 12 hours. The link also comes with short synopsis of the most interesting part of the article so you know what it is all about. Read more: Best Of Wikipedia: Read Interesting Wikipedia Articles (2) Crypo – Web-based text encryption tool that enables you to encrypt sensitive data. It uses the most advanced military grade 1280-bit encryption algorithm. All encryptions are carried out on your computer and your data is never sent to remote servers. Read more: Crypo: Encrypt Your Sensitive Data (3) DinkyPage - Web app for creating disposable web pages. With these webpages, you can quickly and effortlessly publish web content online. Simply go to the site, click on "Create your page" and start adding your content (text, images and web videos). Read more: DinkyPage: Create Disposable Web Pages (4) ManyEyes – Online resource where you can visualize statistics and interesting facts such as "Fertility rates in different US states", "Shakespeare favorite words" or "Alcohol consumption worldwide" on charts. All charts are interactive and allow you filter information, highlight different areas, zoom in/out and more. Read more: ManyEyes: Visualize Statistics & Interesting Facts (5) WhenDOUP – Web monitoing tool that serves two purposes. Firstly, it informs you when a site that was previously down/offline is back up on the internet. Secondly, it informs you when a particular site goes down due to heavy traffic or some other reason. Read more: WhenDOUP: Monitor Uptime and Downtime Of A Site
These are just half of the websites that we discovered in the last couple of days. If you want us to send you daily round-ups of all cool websites we come across, leave your email here. Or follow us via RSS feed. Related posts
| ||
| How to Find a Free eBay Seller Template Posted: 23 Jul 2009 03:00 PM PDT
This progression was a very long and slow one, and I had to learn a lot of hard lessons along the way before I was able to become a very profitable PowerSeller. One of the most valuable lessons I learned along the way is that your sales page template has a tremendous impact on the probability of successful sales and how much your item will sell for. Here at MakeUseOf, you’ll find a lot of awesome eBay resources, like Tim’s article on alternatives to the eBay smart search tool, or Mark’s article on managing your eBay auctions with Nabit. In this article, I’m going to show you how you can find a free eBay seller template online and how to insert it into your eBay seller profile. eBay’s Template Management SystemAnyone who has been involved with eBay for an extended time has probably noticed the gradual evolution of this massive online marketplace. In terms of a “seller template,” all you had to work with was eBay’s seller form, with a play box that you could insert either straight text or text including HTML formatting. Now, the formatting was nice because you could use cool HTML codes to spruce up your listing. Add a bold headline here, throw a color border over there – it certainly took some work to develop the first one, but after that you were golden. You could save the template in a text document, and each time you worked your way through the seller wizard to post another time, you’d just cut and paste the template, fill in the product details and then post. While you can still do that when you’re filling out the product detail form in the seller wizard, Ebay now offers a handy management system for your various templates. This means that when you do download and save a free eBay seller template off the web – you can store that template right within eBay. With a click of the mouse, you can select the template of your choice and your listing is 90 percent done!
Now, before we get to finding free eBay seller templates, you’ll need to know how to load the templates that you discover into eBay’s template system. If you’re starting from scratch and have no templates in your list yet, just click on “Create templates.” When you do, you’ll need to go through the wizard, which first includes entering the category for your template.
Once you make it through the first part of the wizard, the next screen is the one where you’ll enter in the title and some minor details about the product, but primarily what you’re most interested in is the text box located further down the screen.
This text box is where you’ll enter in the code to either create your own product template using HTML formatting, or you’ll insert the code from the free eBay seller template you’ve downloaded elsewhere. One of the coolest new features that eBay added to this screen, by the way, is the “Inserts” drop-down box. Using this very cool feature, you can define small HTML code snippets to save you a lot of time entering the same sort of formatting HTML with each listing. Of course, if you just download and use the same seller template, you don’t have to worry about doing any coding yourself. Where to Find a Free eBay Seller TemplateOkay, now that you know where to go in your eBay account to insert the free templates that you find, it’s time to go out there and get some cool eBay seller templates! Before you head out and start looking for sites where you can download an eBay seller template, keep in mind that eBay listings are straight HTML documents. So, if you’re at all skilled with HTML, you’ll probably pull the best template right out of your own efforts. However, if you’re one of those folks who’ve never learned a single line of HTML, there are a few options available to you. The first, Template-O-Matic is one of my favorites. Unlike the others, it isn’t just straight HTML code that you copy and past – this website actually generates the HTML listing code for you based on your selections within the design form.
This is a pretty cool site, and it’s probably the easiest way to whip together some cool-looking templates. Now, if you’re just looking for a place where you can copy and paste a template, another site to try is the Web Design channel over at LoveToKnow where there’s a free eBay seller listing separated into sections.
You can copy and past the element you like – whether it’s the title and description, image section, or detail section – and just paste it into your own template box within eBay. Use one or several elements – they’re all free. Another website with a fair number of free eBay templates is Shipscript’s Templates. The number of templates certainly isn’t pages long, but you can find a good number of clean templates, with a very easy cut and paste feature built-in.
Simply highlight and copy the HTML code (or click “Download file”), paste it into the eBay HTML box and your template is finished! All you need to do to post each product is to edit the sections highlighted “Begin Editing” with your information – cutting about 30 minutes of posting an item down to about 5 to 10 minutes. And when it comes to selling products on eBay, time is most definitely money. Are you an eBay seller? Do you have any tips and tricks to offer about creating quality eBay seller templates? Share your expertise in the comments section below! Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/ Related posts
| ||
| How To Customize Your Linux Desktop With GnomeART-NG Posted: 23 Jul 2009 01:01 PM PDT
No longer do you have to be content with a user interface having overly sized buttons and the weirdest of fonts. These days there are a wealth of themes, icons, login screens and wallpapers available for your Linux system on sites like gnomelook, kdelook, Gnome Art and the likes. You can visit these sites, look for what seems pleasing, download it and then copy the files to the appropriate directory to install. There is an application that streamlines all of these steps, its called GnomeArt-NG. GnomeArt-NG is a tool for the Gnome Desktop Environment that makes it easier for you to browse and apply themes, icons and wallpapers. Deb packages are available for Debian/Ubuntu. Other distro users can browse the download page for a suitable download.
GnomeArt-NG lets you browse backgrounds categorised into gnome, nature, abstract and others. You can choose different window decorations, icons, gdm greeters and splash screens all right from within the window.
Click on a theme, icon pack or background and you will see additional information about it in the right hand pane. In addition to the creator and basic description GnomeArt-NG also displays the download count and rating for the currently selected element.
You can even customize the download settings letting GnomeArt-NG know how often you want it to look for new themes and where to store the thumbnails and meta data on your hard disk. If you happen to be using a proxy you can also specify it here within the network setting. You can also run “First Time Download Assistant” again if you happen to experience any problems with the thumbnail previews.
GnomeArt-NG makes it super easy to customize your Gnome Desktop. If you are new to Linux and don’t know how to install themes and icon packs you will love it. If you are an experienced user you would still like streamlining of the whole customization process, but nothing ever stops you from digging deep and editing configuration files to get everything set up perfectly the way you want to in case you feel the need to do so. How do you install themes, icons and window decorations? What do you think of GnomeArt-NG? Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/ Related posts
| ||
| 3 Useful Booklet Printing Solutions For Mac Users Posted: 23 Jul 2009 11:00 AM PDT
Technology has shifted the reading habit of modern people to use soft copies of documents and books. Yet, among the flood of the PDFs and DOCs and RTFs and other electronic document formats, we often see this sentence written on the virtual pages: “Please print this document for your convenience”. That sentence is the polite way of saying that reading electronic documents is still “inconvenient” for most people. Environment issues aside, the fact is: people still print their electronic documents. And the most convenient reading format for most people is in the form of a book (instead of sheets of easy-to-be-scattered-around paper). So we are going to discuss the free and easy methods of booklet printing your electronic documents, the Mac way. (Im)positioning the pagesA booklet is a document which is printed in such a way that when you fold the printed pages in the middle and staple them, the pages will be in correct order as a book would be. This means the pages have to be imposed and sorted before printing and four pages are printed on one sheet of paper. For example, a document with 8 pages would be printed as:
You can do this manually if you wanted to. First, you rearrange the pages, then you set your printing job to print two pages of the document in one sheet of paper. It’s not a big problem with 8-page document. But with 20 or more pages, the task of rearranging would be a frustrating one. Believe me, I’ve tried it with 36-page document. Not to mention that the whole arrangement would be useless if you edited the document. Three free booklet creatorsLuckily, there are several applications to make the booklet printing process easier. 1. The first one is Create Booklet. This is a PDF service which can be accessed from the Print menu. Click the PDF button and choose Create Booklet from menu.
To split document with a large number of pages, you have to choose the range of the pages to print and repeat the process as many as necessary. The result booklet will be opened with Preview. You have to choose Print one more time to really print the booklet onto paper.
2. The second is an old booklet printing application called CocoaBooklet. This is a stand alone application which hasn’t been updated since 2006 but still working fine under Leopard. At the time of writing, the developer’s site is not online, but the direct link to download the application is still available.
To use this app, you just right-click any PDF file and choose Open with –> Cocoa Booklet. You can also open any PDF file from the application’s Open menu.
It will ask you where you want to save the file. Open the resulting file to print the booklet onto paper.
To split a long book, open the application and go to the Preferences menu. Choose Options, check “Split the document into several booklets” and decide the number of maximum pages for each sub-booklet. The application will automatically split the file into booklets with the set number of pages. No re-print process necessary like Create Booklet.
3. The last booklet printing tool is BookletCreator, a free online service for creating booklets from PDF. Since this one is online, this service could be utilized by all users under all operating system. You just upload the PDF document, decide how many pages you want per booklet and the size of paper, then click CreateBooklet.
Do you have other alternative of free booklet creator? Share using the comment below. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too. Related posts
| ||
| How to Make Your Hotmail Sign In More Secure Posted: 23 Jul 2009 09:00 AM PDT Microsoft's Hotmail, having gone through many revisions, has been around since 1996; which may as well be "eternity" on the Internet. If you use this service, good security practices are in order, and I'm here today to help secure your Hotmail sign in. If you're not a Hotmail user, many of these tips can still apply to you, as other web-mail services may have the same features.
When signing in to Windows Live, make sure that SSL encryption is enabled so that your login and password are encrypted before sending them out. Also, please make sure that both "remember" check-boxes are cleared, unless you're certain that nobody else will be using the PC which you are using.
Once you've gone through your Hotmail sign in, we suggest changing your current password into something more secure, especially if you're the type of user who uses the same password for other services. Click Options in the upper-right of the screen, then Windows Live on the next, then Password on the next screen. This is where you'll change your password. You'll have to type it twice to get it right. Also, it's suggested to check the box to make your password expire after 72 days.
For a good, secure, random password, view Stefan’s posts on 5 free password generators that helps you to create nearly unhackable passwords or visit GRC's Password Generator, then highlight 7-16 characters anywhere in the randomly-generated strings, then copy (Ctrl+C) and paste (Ctrl+V) them into your new password field. The only thing I suggest you don't do is use any of the strings in the above screen-shot.
Finally, just in case you may forget your new password during your Hotmail sign in, you may set a secret question which will allow you to reset your password. From the Options screen, under Manage Your Account, select to edit your personal information. Choose to add a password-reset question, then select your question and type the answer. This should be something that, much like your password, nobody else knows. Editor’s note: After you’re done checking your email, remember to log out. Optionally, you may clear the browsing history and empty the cache or restart the computer altogether. If you’re really paranoid about security, try using a portable version of Firefox, which you may find here. I hope that these tips will prove helpful for you and your Hotmail-using buddies. We have many more email tips on MakeUseOf, and we welcome any tips and suggestions in the comments. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/ Related posts
| ||
| 15 Best Windows 7 Tips and Hacks Posted: 23 Jul 2009 07:00 AM PDT
But now you want more. You want the cool tips and tricks that make Windows 7 fun! So here are the best ones to help you get the most out of your new OS. In this article, we will focus on the Windows 7 interface to get you started on the road to becoming a Windows 7 Power User. In Part 2, we will be looking at advanced tips for usability, performance, and security. 1. Use Keyboard ShortcutsUsing the mouse, you can drag-'n-dock windows to either side of the screen, or drag it to the top to maximize it. These keyboard shortcuts are even faster:
2.Rearrange System Tray Icons
You can rearrange icons on the taskbar as you wish and start new (or switch to running) instances of the first ten taskbar programs using Win+1, Win+2, and so on. The cool thing is you can also rearrange system tray icons. Reorder them on the tray or move them outside or back in the tray. Take control of what you want to always keep an eye on, and from which apps you’ll require notifications. 3. Access Jump Lists with the Left Mouse ButtonJump Lists usually show up when you right-click on a taskbar icon. However, they can also be accessed by holding the left mouse button and dragging upwards. If you're using a laptop touchpad or a touch screen, this is convenient because you do not have to click any button to access a context menu. 4. Add Any Folder to Favorites
You can add any library or folder to the Favorites section in Windows Explorer. To add a folder, navigate to it in Explorer, right-click Favorites in the left navigation pane, and select Add current location to Favorites. Now you get quick access to your favorite folders in all File->Save As dialogs! 5. Pin Frequently Used Folders to the TaskbarRight-click, drag, and pin your favorite folders to Windows Explorer on the taskbar. They will now show up in the Jump List when you right click on Explorer giving you quick access to your favorite folders. 6. Pin Control Panel to the Taskbar
You cannot pin the Control Panel to the taskbar via the Start Menu or by drag and drop. Open the Control Panel and right-click its taskbar icon to pin it to the taskbar. An advantage of this is that Control Panel’s Jump List allows quick access to recently used functions. 7. Create Keyboard Shortcuts for ProgramsYou can create keyboard shortcuts for any program in Windows 7. Right-click the program icon and select Properties. Select the Shortcut tab, click in Shortcut key, to set the keyboard shortcut for that program.
8. Open Command Prompt in Any FolderLike the command prompt? Miss the 'Open Command Window Here' Windows XP power toy? Press 'Shift' when right-clicking on a folder to get that option in the context menu. This also works on the desktop. No power toy required!
9. View Expanded ‘Send To’ MenuPress Shift when right-clicking on a folder to get an expanded Send To menu. 10. Adjust Screen Text with Clear TypeUse Clear Type Tuner for the best look on your LCD monitor or laptop screen. Run 'cttune.exe' from the Start Menu search box, or go to the Control Panel Display applet, and select Adjust ClearType Text from the left.
11. Get Exact Colors On Your ScreenIf you are an artist or you work with colors, use the Calibrate Color option in the Control Panel Display applet or run dccw.exe from the Start Menu search box. You can adjust gamma, brightness, contrast, and color balance, ensuring that colors are displayed correctly on your screen. 12. Customize the Power ButtonIf you restart your computer more often than you shut it down, change the default Shutdown power button to Restart. Right-click on Start, select Properties, and choose the Power button action that you use the most.
13. Customize Number of Items in Jump Lists & Start MenuRight-click Start, select Properties, click Customize and choose the number of recent programs to be shown in the Start Menu and the number of items displayed in Jump Lists from the Start Menu Size section below. 14. Search Internet from the Start Menu
Enable Internet search from the Start Menu using your default browser. Run GPEDIT.MSC from the Start Menu search box to start the Group Policy Editor. In the left pane, go to User Configuration->Administrative Templates->Start Menu and Taskbar. In the right pane, right-click to Edit and Enable Add Search Internet link to Start Menu.
15. Add Videos to Start MenuWindows 7 does not place a link to your videos on the Start Menu by default. To add a link to your videos on the Start Menu, right-click Start, select Properties, click on Customize. In the Videos section at the bottom, choose Display as a link.
Did you like these tips? Tell us or share your tricks with us in the comments! Don’t forget to watch out for Part 2! Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too. Related posts
|
If you have discovered MakeUseOf just recently and are one of our 80,000+ subscribers please consider 
Selling on eBay is not an easy business. People look at the many PowerSellers on eBay and dream about what it would be like to turn their treasures into cash. But folks, I’ve got to tell you that there’s a whole lot more to selling on eBay than taking a photo and listing your item. I worked my way up from selling small household items, to selling 
Linux has traditionally been known for its stability, hardware support and robustness. Recently however, winds have changed with some of the distributions gaining popularity and catering primarily to the desktop user.
No matter how well book lovers can adapt to the new technology of electronic documents, most of them will agree that nothing – at least for the moment – can replace the feeling of holding printed paperbacks (and hardbacks) in their hands.
You have 
| You are subscribed to email updates from MakeUseOf.com To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment