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- Cool Websites and Tools [ September 4 ]
- Synchronize Your Google Contacts, Calendar & RSS In Thunderbird
- The 4 Great Blogging Apps For The iPhone
- How to Upgrade to Snow Leopard & What You Should Know [Mac]
- 4 Easy Ways to Customize Common Dialog Box on Windows XP
- 3 Fun Poetry Video Games
- Convert A File To HTML Instantly With File2.ws
| Cool Websites and Tools [ September 4 ] Posted: 04 Sep 2009 06:01 PM PDT
(1) Get EXIF Info – Simple web application that lets you extract and view EXIF 'Exchangeable Image File Format' data from JPG images online. The EXIF is a standard for storing meta information such as the model of a camera used, image creation date and time, resolution settings etc, inside JPEG image files. Read more: Get EXIF Info – Extract and View EXIF Data from Images
(2) StoryLineOnline – If you have small kids then make sure to check StoryLineOnline.net. It is a project funded by Screen Actors Foundation which hosts online videos where children books read by professional actors and famous people. There are currently 22 videos featuring popular children books. Each video can be watched in full screen, includes subtitles and comes with additional activities. Read more: StoryLineOnline – Videos of Children's Books Read Online (3) ColorSuckr – Online resource which enables you to easily extract colors from images and then generate color schemes for use in your artwork, designs and elsewhere. Read more: ColorSuckr – Extract Color Schemes From Images (4) PHPAnywhere – Free online PHP editor based on Integrated Development Environment (IDE). It allows web developers to code and edit their web applications (written in PHP) from anywhere online and right inside their browser. The application includes a real-time syntax code editor and built-in FTP client that supports all web formats. Read more: PHPAnywhere – Online PHP Editor (5) Shmotter – This site helps you design your own outfits and wardrobe using various clothes and accessories. It offers 2 simple tools – Outfit builder and Wardrobe builder. Both are used to build your virtual collection of clothes, shoes and other outfits. Read more: Shmotter – Design Your Own Outfit Online
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. 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
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| Synchronize Your Google Contacts, Calendar & RSS In Thunderbird Posted: 04 Sep 2009 03:01 PM PDT
Synchronizing your Gmail email messages with Thunderbird is a breeze by using IMAP. Every change you make in Thunderbird is more or less instantly reflected in your online email account. But what about your Gmail contact book, your Google calendar and Google Reader RSS feeds? Although Thunderbird offers their own versions, I wanted it instead to synchronize with my Google accounts and keep everything updated as I made changes. The thought of having two versions, one in Thunderbird and one online, was not very appealing. Here’s how I finally managed to do it.
Synchronize Your Google Contacts With Thunderbird :This can be achieved by using an extension called Zindus. Just install the extension and after restarting Thunderbird, go into the options :
It’s very easy to set up. Just insert your Google account name and password. Then click the “test connection” button and it will connect to your Google account. Your contact book will then be downloaded and any further changes in Thunderbird will also be synchronized with your online account. Synchronize Your Google Calendar With Thunderbird This one has already been covered by Tina (which is the guide I used) but here’s still a quick summary. You need two extensions – Lightning and Provider For Google Calendar. When you install them and restart, you’ll then see your calendar on the right hand side.
To start the synchronization, find the XML link of your Google Calendar (found under the settings on your GCal page), insert it into the Thunderbird calendar settings, and bingo, your events are downloaded and synchronized. To get the full, in-depth process, read Tina’s excellent how-to. Synchronize Your Google Reader With Thunderbird This was the biggie as far as I was concerned. With over 2000 unread RSS messages, I wanted to be able to browse through the feeds and have it instantly updated online. I didn’t want to read them in Thunderbird but for them still to be sitting unread online. That would have led to chaos. Finally I discovered one possible solution. Basically what the following method does is install a mini browser in your Thunderbird. So technically you are still reading them online but inside your Thunderbird client instead. So it’s not an offline synchronization solution which is what I am really looking for. But for the moment this will do until I find a better method.
Do you have any better solutions to synchronize your Google accounts with Thunderbird? If so, I would love to hear about them. Let everyone know in the comments. Related posts
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| The 4 Great Blogging Apps For The iPhone Posted: 04 Sep 2009 01:01 PM PDT
In many regards, blogging is rapidly replacing the traditional personal diary. So powerful is the medium that jobs have been lost and people oppressed in countries such as Iran and China are arrested just for blogging. But blogging at your PC can be a pain. Sure it was fine a few years ago but now things are much better when condensed into the palm of your hand, ready to tell the world about your love of old films or your hatred of Christmas shopping in October. The iPhone, pretty much epitomizing the smart phone, is a great tool for the blogger when he/she has the right apps. Below is a list of my favourite blogging apps for the iPhone that I use for my own blogs.
Shozu
As you can see from the screenshot it supports multiple blogging platforms which many of us bloggers use. These include Google's 'Blogger', along with different social-networking and sharing services such as Flickr and Facebook. Furthermore, you can add similiar services to your list. While Shozu is primarily targeted at photo and video sharing its blogging capabilities cannot go unnoticed and it's a must download for any blogger who perhaps likes a touch of photography. It is available for downloaded here. LifeCast
Its interface is quite good as you can see from the screenshot and it's easy to use. The 'New Post' function allows you to add images and text at the same time into the one post which is something lacking or 'buggy' in a lot of other competitor apps. The bad part is that it doesn't get up close and personal with Blogspot itself which would have angered Google – nobody likes people getting up close and personal with their services. As a result, once you make a post you can't edit or delete it unless you log in on your computer and do so. However, to compensate you can save the post as a draft and decide when to publish it. LifeCast is available here. WordPress
All the shiny features such as adding images, links, changing the text size and font are included. You can have multiple blogs on the go at the same time and you can add as many blogs as you see fit. However, while this is nice, you can do all of this on the other apps. What makes the WordPress app stand out from the crowd is that you can effectively manage your blog from your iPhone. This includes moderating comments, editing and deleting posts, scheduling and pretty much everything your get in the WordPress admin screen of your blog. If you have any blog that uses WordPress or you host your own blog and use the WordPress platform then this one is worth a look. It can be downloaded here. TypePad
It's easy to use. You can view comments and indeed moderate them, but the main function of this app is posting and formatting that post. You can choose which kind of line breaks you want and how to align the text. All other features such as images and links come as standard. A nice app if you fancy telling the world why you listen to ABBA every morning in the car to work, without having to moderate all the astounded and hateful comments later! TypePad can be found here. So there you have it. For all our iPhone users, these apps should put an end to your ‘blog by email’ days once and for all. Enjoy being able to create great looking blog spots when you’re miles away from your PC. Once quick word of advice however: While blogging from your iPhone can be easy and seem like the best thing since sliced bread it can really damage your hand. Ever heard of Blackberry thumb? The name comes from people who blogged, e-mailed and transcribed the Old Testament on their phones – the same applies for the touch screen iPhone. You have been warned! What blogging apps for the iPhone do you use? Let us know 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
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| How to Upgrade to Snow Leopard & What You Should Know [Mac] Posted: 04 Sep 2009 11:01 AM PDT
While I was in London, I visited the Apple Regent Street Store to grab a copy of the latest OS to upgrade my Mac. Is it actually as simple as that? Quick answer – no. There happens to be some fine print that everyone should be aware of. Firstly, the $25 price is only applicable if you are already using Leopard. I spoke to a Genius about this and it turns out that Snow Leopard is actually an upgrade from Leopard. This means that if you are currently running Tiger, you’ll have to purchase the Snow Leopard Mac Box Set which sells for $169. But then again, this is all just legal mumbo-jumbo — there is no black magic preventing you from using the $25 disk to upgrade from Tiger. If you do this, however, keep in mind that the “automated upgrade” process won’t work for you and Apple will not support your Mac if they find out that you upgraded to Snow Leopard from Tiger. Secondly, as everyone should be aware of, Apple decided to drop support for all PowerPC machines. This means that if you have an older Mac, you won’t be enjoying the performance bump or any of the cool new features. So, as I said before, I’m a proud legal owner of Apple’s latest operating system that I’m eager to try out. Let’s get on it, shall we?
Preparing to upgradeUpgrading to Snow Leopard was undeniably the easiest upgrade I have ever performed. Before actually upgrading though, you should always have a backup of your files and documents. You could use Time Machine or Carbon Copy Cleaner to equip yourself with a copy of your hard disk for safekeeping. Or you could do it the old-fashioned way, like I did; manually backup these folders to an external hard disk:
Now that you have your precious files all backed up and secure, here’s another thing you need to know about Snow Leopard: you won’t need to restore them. You see, Snow Leopard automatically performs an Archive and Install procedure when installing itself. It will keep all of your files, folders, preferences and applications untouched while replacing essential system files. In a nutshell, your entire home folder will be backed up and restored after the installation process is over. UpgradingInitially, I was a little skeptical about the whole automated upgrade process. So after backing up my files, I decided to give it a try. Low and behold — after 40 minutes, I was greeted with the Snow Leopard intro movie and everything was still intact. Even my customized Geektool desktop still showed. Some applications have yet to support Snow Leopard and those were the only things that broke during the upgrade process.
When creating Snow Leopard, the techies over at Apple really had their wavelength synchronized with their user base. By making it as “noob-friendly” as possible, this will definitely encourage a lot of their current users to upgrade as well as reduce the number of unpleasant incidences while doing so. To further streamline this process, I suggest getting hold of an uninstaller and start getting rid of applications that you no longer use and documents that you have no need of. In other words, do some spring cleaning! By doing so, you are minimizing the number of unwanted apps and their preference files from being transferred over to the new operating system. Less clunk and less time wasted. Sure, some people will advice you to perform an Erase and Install — this method is a little bit more manual and shouldn’t be attempted by the faint-hearted. The benefits of this option are two fold:
However, this will also mean that you have to manually set up accounts and authorize plug-ins and re-download preference pane apps and re-installing applications and….you get the drift. If you do decide to head down this road, make sure to have everything backed up safely somewhere, remember your Keychain passwords and application serial keys. Advantages?The buzz on the InterWeb whispers something of Snow Leopard freeing up more disk space. Well, there is some truth to this. Since Apple dropped support for PowerPC processors, the OS X installation in Snow Leopard excluded the PPC component — hence, saving a couple of gigabytes. Furthermore, Snow Leopard calculates disk space using base 10 measurement. This may be a little hard for the regular user to comprehend but I’ll try to word it as easily as possible. In OS X 10.5 Leopard, the amount of disk space was calculated using base 2 (binary) measurement — 1MB = 1,048,576 bytes. That’s why you can only “see” 465GB from a 500GB hard disk. In Snow Leopard, disk space calculation is measured using base 10 (decimal) system — 1MB = 1,000,000 bytes. So, you will actually “see” 500GB from a 500GB hard disk. So there’s the mystery of the “additional recovered space” revealed. There is a discrepancy though: software and physical memory (RAM) are still calculated using base 2. However, this is a good thing. Most users don’t really understand why their 4GB thumbdrive only shows 3.7GB of free space. The new calculation system will help clear the confusion and generally make things a little simpler. Besides that, due to some unknown internal Apple voodoo, my system feels slightly (not dramatically) snappier and more responsive. Naturally, after I upgraded using the automated path, I couldn’t help but perform an Erase and Install. What I’m trying to say here is, your mileage might vary. Other cool implementations are:
Surely, there are more new features being bragged about Snow Leopard; these are just a few that I thought I’d share with you. It’s actually amazing to see that Apple can make an old machine work faster with a new operating system, unlike other vendors. How many of you have taken the leap and bought Snow Leopard? Are you satisfied with your purchase? What is your favorite new feature? The comments are yours for the taking. 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
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| 4 Easy Ways to Customize Common Dialog Box on Windows XP Posted: 04 Sep 2009 09:01 AM PDT
Perhaps he was an early advocate of simplicity. The world has leapfrogged ahead since he made this observation and so has computer technology. If we dissect the razzmatazz of technology, life has been rendered simpler in some ways. Launches of new apps and software suites continue to push the agenda for productivity. Where would Windows tips and tricks or say, Firefox add-ons be without this central idea? And we continue to search for productive ways to do the same old things. Even a simple thing like opening a file or saving it in default locations can be tweaked to shave a few seconds here and there.
The five normally should serve as quick access clicks to the most common areas of the computer. But every user has an individual idea of his commonly used folders and locations. With some simple tweaking it is possible to change the default locations in the Common Places bar to a more customized set. A few posts back Karl talked about the Places Utility from Simpli Software. Here are four more for the customization job. Hacking the RegistryOkay, that sounds scary. Novices shouldn't dive into the registry without a sense of what they are doing. And as with all engineering related to the registry, backup your registry before a tweak. To open the registry editor: Run – Type regedit – click OK. To back up the entire registry: in the registry editor – Click File – Export Registry File. Save to a preferred location. That done, drill down to the following entry – HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\. Here, we have to create a Place bar sub-key at this location as it is not present by default. Sub-keys can be created with a right click on an empty area.
With Policies selected, right click on an empty area and select New – Key. Type in comdlg32. Then, select comdlg32 and create similarly the key Placesbar.
The entire key looks like this – HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ comdlg32 \ Placesbar Five Key values will point to the five custom folders we can create for the common dialog box. With Placesbar selected, right click on the empty box and create five string values (Place0, Place1…Place4). Right click on each and enter the full path to the folder of choice. As shown in the following screenshot…
This is the finished look…
A few key points to consider -
Using the Group Policy Editor GPE can be used to as a user interface to make some convenient changes to the default settings of Windows. These settings are called policies and using the GPE we can tweak these to our convenience (remember the posts on blocking auto-updates of Google where we had used GPE?) GPE is a 'hidden' administrative tool. So we access it from Run – gpedit.msc. Click through to the following common dialog open location – User Configuration – Administrative Templates – Windows Components – Windows Explorer – Common Open File Dialog.
Double click on the Common Open File Dialog folder icon to access the settings given for common dialog open. Access the Properties tab for Items displayed in Places bar by either right clicking on it or by clicking the Properties link given in the description.
The properties box has two tabs – Settings and Explain. Enable the setting and enter the full paths to your choice folders (Also, explained in the Explain tab).
Click on Apply and OK to have your custom Common Dialog Places Bar. Note: The Group Policy Editor is not a standard feature of Windows XP Home Edition. Though, workarounds are available on the net. Tweaking with Third Party ToolsTweakUI is probably the most well known of Windows modifying tools. Though Microsoft 'officially' does not support it, it is considered to be a Microsoft PowerToy. TweakUI (ver2.10) can be used by your dog to do the stuff we sweated over in the earlier two sections. Navigate to the Common Dialog settings and use the dropdowns on the right to select any of the predefined locations or just type in your own. You can also go back to the default look or hide the Places bar altogether.
PlacesBar Editor is a neat open source utility that's right on the button for customizing the Common Dialog Box buttons. PlacesBar Editor allows you to set five custom folders of your choice. There's a second tab for changing the defaults for Microsoft Office too. If you goof up, there's the Default button to reset everything back. The only irritant is that this program, though free, is donationware. A Paypal window pops up once or twice requesting some openhandedness from you. PlacesBar Editor goes with Windows 2000/XP/ME/Vista.
All Done!For the sake of simplicity, you now have too many tools for the job. That's a bit of a clutter isn't it? But the choices are for us to pick. If you don't like installing programs, then there's the registry hack and the GPE. If you do, then there are the three applications we have covered over the two posts. Which one is your tool of choice? Image Credit: fatbwoy 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
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| Posted: 04 Sep 2009 07:01 AM PDT
This question has envoked a discussion that has been going on for the better part of gaming history. With pro’s and con’s, a definite answer is not present. Some claim gaming is indeed an art, but not one of the greater arts, like painting, poetry and literacy. But where do you draw the line? Some games integrate these ‘greater arts’ in a gaming concept. It’s hard to answer that same question again when the borderlines are fading. Today we’ve gathered three poetry video games – games that express, test, or are poetry.
Silent ConversationSilent Conversation – created by Gregory Weir as a ‘July project’ – might be best described as a physical reading game. Gregory tells us how as a child, he started to see the structure of words, sentences and paragraphs as something physical. This game grew out of that idea. “…the end of a paragraph was a fissure in a cliff edge, and each indentation was a handhold. I could visualize a little person running along the lines, exploring every crevice of the story.”
In Silent Conversation, you run and jump through lines of stories and poems. The objective of the game is to ‘touch’ as many words as possible, some of them with a higher ‘value’ than others. This process of chasing words, especially when they’re poetically arranged around the level, makes you read the works more closely and concentrated. It’s a very creative way to urge people into intensively reading stories and poems, and more so because of the grading system (see top right corner of the screenshot above). Perhaps if schools would work with a similar system for reading assignments, children would be a lot more willing to learn! PassageContrary to the other two games, Passage doesn’t use a single line of existing poetry. In the game, there isn’t even a single line of dialog or text. No, although the definition poetry video game doesn’t strictly fit, Passage may be considered as a poem itself. There isn’t much I can say about the gameplay without spoiling everything. My suggestion to you would be to download the game and play it yourself before reading on. The game runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, so everyone can partake in the experience.
Warning – the following paragraph will contain spoilers. If you haven’t played Passage at this point – please do, reading on will spoil the whole experience. In Passage, you are a boy in a small strip of 8-bit gaming. You’ll quickly notice that this is your vision, but does not limit the level around you. After you’ve wandered around for a while, you’ll encounter a woman. When you first meet, a heart appears around you. No words are exchanged, but the result is obvious. You’re now married and move as one. Together you wander on through the level. You’ll notice something changing about your character. Your hair is graying and you’re balding. After a while your wife disappears, a tombstone now in her place. It doesn’t take too long before you die as well. This is where your journey ends. Passage tells its tale slowly and subtle. Its tale is life. TruHangmanTruPoets is an online community, devoted to reviving poetry’s place in the cultural world. One of their members created TruHangman, merging the well-known game with a wide base of poetic knowledge. True, this isn’t the most artful media on the internet, nor is it innovating gaming material, but it’s a nice way to test your poetic knowledge.
The ground layer, hangman, works the same as always – guess a word letter by letter, but if you’re wrong too often, the little guy will hang. However, instead of using words, this game uses sentences from famous poems and pieces of writing, or quotes by writers. Are you wondering how much poetry you know? Do the (fun) test. Don’t worry, it’s pretty easy. Did you enjoy this article? If you’ve got any other poetry video games to add, surprise us and your fellow MakeUseOf readers in the comments section 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
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| Convert A File To HTML Instantly With File2.ws Posted: 04 Sep 2009 05:01 AM PDT
If you get a email with a Word document attachment all you have to do is upload it to File2.ws and it will convert a file to HTML and shoot back the link. Let's check out how it works. You start off by visiting their website. You will see a page that looks like this:
How awesome is that? I started with a Word document that was formatted and included highlighting. Let's see how it was handled. Hit browse and find your file. Then hit open.
You will see the filename filled into the box. There is a 15MB file max then hit the start conversion button. The file will upload to their site and the rest of the process is automatic.
Once your file has been successfully transferred to their site you will see a success screen with a link to your new webpage containing your document’s contents.
If you click on the link it will take you to the page. It should appear identical to your original with the exception of the Adsense or Bidvertiser ads at the top of your document directly under your title.
Next up let's upload a MP3 and see how that handles. I threw it a old “Tribe Called Quest” song called Start it up. It took longer to upload then the Word document that’s for sure. It took about 11 minutes to upload but then the track came back embedded into a website. Fearing copyright infringement I will not post the link to the track but here is the link to my Word document that contains no sensitive data.
I can think of hundreds of users for this free website including showing a client a proof, showing a document, Excel sheet, Powerpoint document, home movies…. I mean the possibilities are endless. the site goes on to talk about its features. I figured I would post them up so you can see them as well:
I can say the download speeds are WAY better than the upload speeds but what we here at Make Use Of LOVE is the no signup and software to install. This makes this site very versatile. Do you have a similar application that you use? We would love to hear about it? Maybe you have some creative uses for this service? Leave them in the comments and don't worry you won't be judged (maybe a little!) 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
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Today I started using the desktop email client 
When this app first came out a good while ago I dismissed it as lacking in many features – you couldn't even post to a 
Without a doubt this is the most 'compatible' of all the apps here, simply because it comes from the most popular blogging platform and software provider; WordPress. You get what you'd expect from this app.
The best way I can describe TypePad is a toned down version of the WordPress app. It's not for the power user; rather the guy who blogs on his way to work on the bus or relaxing on the couch. No need to worry about managing their blog as though it was a football team before the final.
The first impression I got upon hearing that Apple would be releasing Snow Leopard was that its price was unbelievably affordable. Personally, I wouldn’t hesitate upgrading if it only costed me $25 for a brand new operating system that would not only speed up my Mac but free up some hard disk space, as well as letting me at some really cool new features.
The humorist, Andy Rooney once quipped “computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don’t need to be done.”
Is gaming art?
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