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- Cool Websites and Tools [September 5]
- How Installing An ActiveX Control Can Open The Door To Hackers
- Pick 3 Icon Changer Programs To Customize Your Folders By Color
- Top 5 Yahoo Mail Classic Tips & Tricks
- Upgrading Your Mac To Snow Leopard Using Your USB drive
- 5 Websites To Keep A Kid Busy & Happy
- Create Your Own Magazine Covers With CoverDude
| Cool Websites and Tools [September 5] Posted: 05 Sep 2009 05:00 PM PDT
(1) TechPosters – Web resource that lists around 500 free IT-related posters with useful shortcut cheat sheets and manuals. These Information Technology posters are organized in different categories like Mac, Linux, PhotoShop, Exel, iPhone, Browsers, CSS, HTML and much more. You can search for posters, browse them by categories and download the ones you like with a click of a button. Read more: TechPosters – Download Free Information Technology Posters (2) Business Card Generator – Online utility that lets you make your own business cards for free and then print them out using any printer. All you need to do is enter your contact details, point to your logo and click on "Make Business Cards!". You can also customize text font and alignment. Read more: Business Card Generator – Make Business Cards For Free Online (3) PDF Pirate – Next time you need to unlock restricted PDF files head straight to PDF Pirate.net. It is a PDF restrictions remover that lets you do this in no time and without leaving your browser window. Read more: PDF Pirate – PDF Restrictions Remover Freeware (4) Typedia – If you love typography then you would definitely love Typedia. Launched recently by well known graphic designer Jason Santa Maria, Typedia is a web-based shared encyclopedia of typefaces. You can search and explore font arts, designs, learn about typography, participate in the forums, add and share your own creativity and print the nice typefaces you come across. Read more: Typedia – Online Encyclopedia Of Typefaces (5) DirectTextbook – Online book price comparison site that lets you quickly compare book prices across 30 major book retailers including Amazon, eBooks.com, Powell's, Buy.com, Walmart, Book Closeouts and more. Read more: DirectTextbook – Compare 30 book stores to find cheapest book prices
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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| How Installing An ActiveX Control Can Open The Door To Hackers Posted: 05 Sep 2009 03:01 PM PDT
Today, not only can browsers go to websites and view information but they can also interact with the websites they visit and that can end up leading to trouble if you’re not careful of what you download, specifically with ActiveX controls. A brief history of ActiveX before we start. ActiveX is a software and coding framework made by Microsoft in 1996 and now competes with Sun Microsystem’s Java platform. ActiveX controls are almost like “mini” pieces of software that can be used not just in Internet Explorer, but also in other pieces of software such as the Offfice product suite and Windows Media Player. When the controls are in your browser, they are usually used for visual plugins, such as specialized 3rd party media players, remote control applications, online virus scanners and other things of that nature.
You might visit a website occasionally which will prompt you to download/install ActiveX in your computer, and say “yes” to the couple of security confirmation prompts that come up not knowing what you’re really accepting, but this is exactly where the danger lies. Most people only care to get to the content they’re visiting, so they will keep clicking “yes” and “accept” as many times as it takes to see the final page, and that is where the danger lies for you to be opened up to viruses, trojan horses, spyware and even phishing attempts. ActiveX controls can be dangerous because, once installed, they have most of the functions a regular Windows program running on your desktop has, which is a significant security problem if the control was from a malware infested site or was downloaded by mistake. That’s why if you have a prompt for a questionable or suspicious ActiveX control from your browser, the worst thing that can happen will simply be that you won’t be able to see the site or page you’re trying to visit. If you think you’ve installed a risky ActiveX control, it is easy to remove. If you’re using Firefox, click on Tools, click Add-Ons, then click on the Plugins tab and disable the control that you’re trying to remove by clicking disable. In Internet Explorer, click on Tools then on Manage Add-Ons and make sure that the “Toolbars and Extensions” type is selected on the left menu. Click on the control you’d like to remove and then click disable by its information in the lower right corner.
Finally, a word about how to stay safe. Some online toolbars (such as the Google Toolbar) and many browsers (including Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox) can help by warning you that a site you are trying to visit is known for downloading malicious code to its visitors browsers so if you do get such a warning from a browser, be sure to pay attention to it. Most browsers usually show a red screen before loading the page to make sure you get the message! Do you have tips on how you stay safe while browsing? Share them with us in the comments 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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| Pick 3 Icon Changer Programs To Customize Your Folders By Color Posted: 05 Sep 2009 01:01 PM PDT
Changing the colors of our folders has certain visual advantages. Other than the superficial visual appeal, different colors for different folders can serve as visual tags. We can color code folders according to importance (for instance, red for red hot documents) or say, according to contents (green for country music, orange for grunge?) or whatever strikes our fancy. Looking at a bunch of yellow folders can make us unsighted as to the true value of the folders. And it's quite easy to inadvertently delete the wrong folder. With color labeling, we can easily make the important ones standout amidst the sea of yellow. So, let's begin to paint our folders in any colors other than yellow, with these three free applications.
iColorFolder
iColorFolder (ver. 1.4.2) is a small program that lets us color Windows XP folders with a right click. Choose from 7 different colors (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Pink and Gray) or eight differently colored folder icons. Selecting a new color is a cinch. Just right click on the selected folder and select Color Label to go into the sub-menu with the seven colors. And if you hanker for the old yellow, you can go back to it easily by selecting None. iColorFolder also comes with three skins – Agua, Mac OS X and Vista. Additional folder skins are available for download in a 7MB pack. The skins can be easily applied with the installed Skin selector. On un-installation, all icons return to the same ol' yellow.
The only two negatives I could observe were its tendency to realign my desktop icons when they weren't auto-arranged. The other peeve relates to the lack of skins. But beyond this, iColorFolder is a simple color labeler for our folders. iColorFolder is an Open Source project and supported by Windows XP. Folderico
Folderico (ver.3.7.2) is another program built for Windows XP just to give it some touch of color. Folderico is quite similar to iColorFolder but it has its individualistic pluses. Using Folderico, we can browse to the target folder and select any icon to apply from the five icon libraries provided. A further bit of customization can be added by putting in a custom tooltip for the folder that gets displayed with a mouse hover.
Additional Folderico themes (i.e. icon libraries) can be downloaded from the website. Using an associated program called ICL Builder (Beta), we can create ICL-files from standalone ico files. Right click integration is a matter of choosing the choice theme and setting it. We can opt for one theme and set it to apply on folders using the right click context menu. The best feature of this little free software (apart from the tooltip customization) is that it stores the folder's new icon within the folder itself. So, if we transfer the folder to another computer it will retain the new icon. Folderico is a free software and supported by Windows XP. StyleFolder
Customizing a folder's icon is just one feature in the repertoire of StyleFolder (ver.1.0.3). It goes one up on the first two programs by letting us customize the entire folder starting with its icon. Let's start with changing the icon – StyleFolder does not offer any unique sets of icons but we can use it with any available (or downloaded) icon resources. The folder can be given its own 'wallpaper' using any picture as a background. Set contrasts within the folder by giving the sub-folders names their own color. Like Folderico again, you can change the folder's info tip. Right click integration makes the whole process easier and if going back to square one is easy with a click.
Again, the best thing about this freeware (like Folderico) is its ability to keep the look 'permanent' even with a change in folder location, as the customizations are stored within the folder itself. StyleFolder is a free software and supported by Windows XP. As with all things related to customization, the ultimate goal is to create an intuitive system for ourselves. These three are just a few among the many tools which help us to change a bit of our Windows user experience. Probably, Varun's post on 10 Tools to Overhaul Your Windows Interface would make good reading for those bored with timeworn milk-and-water looks of our PCs. If you happen to read his post, then do also click through to the mention of Rainbow Folders , another of the ilk we talked about here. Are you caught up in colors and customizations? Or do you like your yellows just the way they are? 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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| Top 5 Yahoo Mail Classic Tips & Tricks Posted: 05 Sep 2009 11:01 AM PDT
At first, I couldn’t stand Google Mail because of the way emails are organized, the format and layout of the email account and other minor details related to personal preference. However, after a while these little idiosyncracies started to grow on me, and after a while I found that I preferred Google mail over Yahoo. The biggest clincher for me is that Google gives you POP3 or IMAP access for free, while Yahoo makes you pay for the Premium upgrade. Unfortunately, I have this long-standing Yahoo email account with thousands of archived documents, images and conversations going back for almost a decade – so I continue using my Yahoo email account. To make matters even more interesting, I stuck with Yahoo Email Classic to keep things simple while Yahoo worked through their Beta upgrade, and I’ve never switched. I’ve always been a Yahoo fan, as evidenced by my recent article on the Yahoo Go mobile email software, and of course the article on Yahoo Calendar. When it comes to Yahoo email, there are certain things I like about the Classic format, and if you’re a fellow Yahoo Classic mail user, I’ve found a few tips and tricks that can help to streamline and simplify the Yahoo email experience.
Organizing Your EmailThe first and most important way to optimize and streamline your email is to group up emails in a way that makes sense to you. If that means organizing emails by topic, then do so. If it’s easier for you to throw all emails from each of your clients into a separate folder, then that’s what you should do. Using email folders is a good way for you to customize your email experience and keep your main email folder cleaned up.
In Yahoo Mail, it really couldn’t be much simpler. In the left navbar, you’ll see a section titled “My Folders” which is probably empty. Next to it you’ll see the “[Add - Edit]” link. Click the “Add” link and a pop-up box lets you type the name of your new folder, and that’s all there is to it. This is an easy way to just create a folder for every potential category where you often get many emails. The next step is to move those particular emails into your folders.
Just select the emails that you want to move to a folder, and then click the “Move…” dropdown button at the top of your email listings. You’ll discover that every folder you’ve created shows up on the list. Just select the directory you want to move those emails to, and your inbox just got a little bit more clean. Streamlining New Incoming EmailSo you’ve created nice folders and you’ve nicely cleaned out your inbox after years of letting it get all built up and cluttered, but how do you keep it clean? Just like when you pick up the house after the kids make a mess, the very next day you know they’re going to do the same thing all over again. When folks send you new mail, it’s going to plop right back into your nice empty inbox. You could always work your tail off moving and organizing all new emails into their respective folders – but why do that when you can automate the process using email filters? You can access Yahoo’s email filtering system using the options button at the upper right corner of your email listings.
Just click on “Mail Options” and you’ll find that Yahoo email is a whole lot more customizable than you probably thought.
As you can see, you can automatically insert a signature into all of your emails, manage spam email (Yahoo email is configured to do this for you by default, but you can “tweak” the settings if you want), or configure a vacation auto-response. Pop & Forwarding is for Premium only. The option we’re interested in at the moment is the “Filters” link, so go ahead and click on it.
In Classic, the view for filters looks like the old format, but the premise is the same. You’re allowed up to 100 filters which, for my purposes, is far more than enough. Creating a filter involves filling out the three sections above – the filter name (make it something obvious), creating the rule for the filter and then which folder to move the emails to if the incoming email matches the description. The rules are pretty simple – you can filter incoming emails based on words or phrases within the header, To and CC fields, the subject or even text within the body of the email itself. Yes, you can also forward select emails to your mobile device by clicking the little box at the bottom. Little Known Features of Yahoo MailThere’s no doubt that Yahoo Mail is not an email account that you’ll be writing home about. However, there are a few little features that at least add a little bit of flexibility to your emailing experience while you’re there. The first feature is the ability to extract either all of the attachments or all of the images that are attached to any of your existing emails. You can use this feature by clicking either “My Photos” or “My Attachments” in the “Search Shortcuts” box on the left navbar. When you click “My Attachments” for example, you’ll find search results of every single attachment you’ve ever received. These are sorted into file types, as shown here.
This is extremely useful for when you know you’ve received a file from someone, but you just can’t find it. By being able to bypass the emails and just search by attachment or photo, you can quickly find the file that you’re looking for.
Composing emails in Yahoo isn’t anything to cheer about either, but there are a few little features that are worth mentioning. You can add a background template to your emails – either solid color, or one of those horribly annoying “picture” backgrounds. Throughout your email, you can embed HTML links just like a regular online editor (like WordPress), and you can also highlight a word using a variety of highlight colors – useful for when you’re editing someone’s writing or otherwise want to point out a section of text.
Finally, while Yahoo doesn’t allow you to connect to your Yahoo email account through POP, apparently it’s OK for you to add other email accounts to your Yahoo webmail account. While this is certainly an effective way to block users from using other webmail accounts to read Yahoo email, it’s also a great way to frustrate users enough so that they decide to opt to avoid using Yahoo entirely. I suspect (and hope) that Yahoo may change this particular free limitation in due course. Next time, I’ll switch over the “All New Mail” view and describe how Yahoo’s new layout is both better and worse than the Classic version. Do you like Yahoo email, or do you avoid it like the plague? Do you know of any useful features within the free webmail system? Share your thoughts 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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| Upgrading Your Mac To Snow Leopard Using Your USB drive Posted: 05 Sep 2009 09:01 AM PDT
One of the afterthoughts I have with another Mac user friend is about the installation process for Macbook Air which has no optical drive. It was a short discussion closed by a “using Remote Disc of course” statement and a few chuckles. But then I wondered whether it’s possible to install Snow Leopard (or any other version of Mac OS X) using a USB thumb drive (something like creating a portable Ubuntu installation USB that we’ve discussed here before). This would be useful for Mac users who have no access to a physical optical drive. For the sake of curiosity, I did a little Googling followed by a little experiment. Less than one and a half hours later, I knew the answer.
Utilizing the Disk UtilitySome readers have pointed out in the Ubuntu article that the whole process of creating a USB installation disk can be done the “GUI-way” using the Disk Utility (Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.app), so we’ll try that route in creating our Snow Leopard USB installation drive. As the installation DVD is almost 7 GB in size, we’ll need a USB thumb drive with at least that amount of space. I used an 8 GB thumb drive, but larger types or even a USB external drive with an empty partition above 7 GB could also be used. The first thing to do is to format the drive. Select the drive from the left pane of Disk Utility then click the “Erase” tab. Choose “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” from the “Format” option, then give a name to the disk and click the “Erase” button.
After the formatting process is finished, go to the “Restore” tab to ‘restore’ the content of the installation disc into the USB drive. Select then drag and drop the source image (Snow Leopard) and the destination (the USB drive) from the left pane to the corresponding place. Note: you can choose a disk image from a physical disc, an image file – on the hard drive or web location – as the source.
Then click the “Restore” button to start the process, which will roughly take about half an hour.
After the restoring process is finished, we can see that the USB drive has been transformed into an installation disk.
However, we can’t do the installation by clicking the “Install Mac OS X” logo. You’ll just get the warning sign ‘The application “Install Mac OS X” cannot be used from this volume‘.
Now, let’s continue with the real deal. The installation processEject the DVD but leave the USB plugged in. Restart the system and press the “Alt” key on the keyboard during restarting. You will have the option to boot from the hard disk or a USB disk; I guess you know which one to choose, right? The whole installation – or upgrade, some would say – process took about 50 minutes. Then you’ll get the thank you window saying that everything’s done.
There are some applications that are still incompatible with Snow Leopard, which is to be expected at the early stage of every new OS. They are moved to the “Incompatible Software” folder in the start up disk. If you’d like to find out who they are, click the “More Info” button. And I think now is the time to say hello to our new OS.
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| 5 Websites To Keep A Kid Busy & Happy Posted: 05 Sep 2009 07:01 AM PDT
I’ve had a colleague who sometimes had to bring her 3 year old son to work when the nanny was sick and no one else was available to take care of him. We all helped keeping him busy and now and then he would also enjoy some games on the computer. Here are five ways to distract your child for a few minutes when you absolutely need it.
MysteryNet’s Kids MysteriesThis website is suited for kids who can already read and love to explore. If you don’t want your kid to simply consume, but rather use their brain and learn something new, you should give this one a try.
In Solve-it and Quick-solve your kid can read short stories and solve difficult cases, based on the information the stories reveal. Was it the gardener? The Chiller section hosts scary stories. Finally, to impress family and friends alike, the website explains some simple magic tricks everyone can learn. KideoPlayerCertainly, the easiest way to keep a kid busy is videos. When the television is not an option, let me tell you, neither is YouTube. You never know what they will zap into next. Pre-filtered content is always the best idea.
KideoPlayer is a family safe YouTube player for kids. It’s extremely simple to handle. Load the page and videos will begin to play automatically. Don’t like the clip, hit the space bar for the next one. There is one button for the most popular videos and a second one just for moms. This makes the site suitable for very young kids. ZuiTubeYour child may be a little more demanding, wanting to select from a collection of clips. In that case I recommend ZuiTube, which claims to have the largest video collection for kids.
Your kid can choose from New TV & Cartoons, Movies, Funniest Videos, New Music, Dinosaurs, and Animation. I’m sure there is at least one category they will find exciting. Within the main categories, there are many more subcategories to explore. And while your child makes their selection, you can relax because you know the material is safe. Crayola ColoringKids love color and you can give them what they want with Crayola Coloring. It’s an ace up your sleeve when all you have to offer is a boring office and a computer. Besides, even if your kid is creative and tempted to color your walls, that’s not gonna work with these colors.
The kid can choose from different types of pens, tip sizes, and colors. The result can even be printed. Storyline OnlineDo you read stories to your children? It’s something wonderful to do and usually has a very calming effect on children, but it takes a lot of time. Why not give your children a little more of it, but have someone else do it?
At Storyline Online you will find many short stories read by many famous members of the Screen Actors Guild Foundation. Now they can always claim that a celebrity read them stories when they were small. We have previously covered games for kids.
What is the most fascinating and self-directed distraction for your child? Image credits: jmjvicente 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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| Create Your Own Magazine Covers With CoverDude Posted: 05 Sep 2009 05:01 AM PDT
Of course you have – who hasn't? But the probability of you actually getting there is slim to none. Sorry for bursting your bubble but chances are you’re not going to be famous. But maybe you want to feel famous or you want to create a little image trickery that will put you in the spotlight. CoverDude lets you create awesome looking magazine covers (albeit fake ones) very easily. Even though the magazines are not real pretty darn cool looking. All you need is an internet connection and a computer. The site is very easy to use and a well trained monkey could probably use it. But I don't know which cover a monkey would pick….but I digress. Let's check out the site. I browsed on over to CoverDude and got down to it.
Once you are at the site all you need to do is click on the Get Started On Your Free Mag NOW button located in the bottom right hand side of the site. Once you click on that, you will be brought to a wizard that will guide you through setting up your magazine cover. Yes you sitting in front of your computer reading this article can be on your very own magazine cover! How cool is that?
Next we will need to pick a template. These templates are essentially magazine covers with a blank cutout of a person. Your picture will be laid under this image like a layer in Photoshop. Each of the templates are listed in the screenshots above and below. Click on one to choose it or hover over it with your mouse for a close up look at the cover template.
This is a close up of one of the covers. You can see it shows where your image will go. This is a little misleading because it will put the entire image under the cover not just the image of a cut out person. This will become more apparent below.
After selecting your cover template, it is time to upload your image. The smaller the image the quicker it will upload (obviously). I worked with a PNG file saved using PNG-8 in Photoshop that worked dumb quick. Simply click on the white field labeled click here to upload a photo.
Once your image is uploaded you will see a screen allowing you to make some modifications to your image. Mine was already modified so I just moved it around a little with my mouse to center it.
When I was done I hit preview and saw my cover up close and personal. Then I hit Save Cover and it took me to this screen allowing me to share my cover on the intertubes know as social networks…
And without further ado here is my cover:
What do you think? Useful or a waste of time? Do you have a similar site you would like to share with us? Well then what are you waiting for? Hit me up in the comments. 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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Browsers are becoming more and more advanced as they develop. They started with viewing websites in almost black and white and any two-way interaction with the websites were rare. Now our browsers are one of the most visited pieces of software on our computers and cell phones.
How boring is yellow? The color brings on a state of yellow blindness when you have been staring at it for a decade. But ever since I can remember, that has been Microsoft's color of choice for its folders. Vista has brought in some changes, but for us Windows XP users it's the same old default without resorting to a total change of our icons. We can change icons but we fall short at changing its colors.
I’ve been using Yahoo Mail for many years, and I’ve suffered through several evolutions of the email system until finally being forced recently to make use of Google Mail.
The latest Mac OS X – version 10.6 – was released to the public on August 28. Mac users who pre-ordered Snow Leopard should already have their copy delivered and surely have upgraded their system by now. The Mac communities’ discussions are filled with the post installation experiences and thoughts and comments about the latest feline from Apple.
Sometimes you just have to get some work done, when all your child wants to do is play with you. While playing with your kid should be your top priority, you can’t always neglect your work. Being a parent sure isn’t easy.
Have you ever wanted to be on a magazine cover?
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