Latest Tips from MakeUseOf.com |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [October 22]
- How To Publish Your Own Book (In Print) Cheaply
- A Simple Guide To Set Up Your School On Facebook
- Technology Explained: What Is CGI Animation?
- How To Upgrade From XP To Windows 7 In 4 Easy Steps
- Create Impressive Documents and Templates on Mac With Pages
- Remove A Plethora Of FAKE Antivirus Software With This Free App
| Cool Websites and Tools [October 22] Posted: 22 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT
(1) ConflictHistory – Interesting mashup that combines a timeline of world wars with their geographical location and presents this data on Google Maps. The timeline starts from 3000 BC and covers all conflicts up to the 2005. You would be surprised to see the amount of conflicts the world has had just in the last decade. Read more: ConflictHistory – Interactive Map Of World Conflicts
(2) VersionDownload – It's a common issue when new software releases are found to be less user-friendly than it predecessor. In such cases, I tend to stick with the older version. The problem is that it's not always easy to find it because official websites tend to link only the latest version. VersionDownload is a website that archives older versions of software programs and lets you quickly download the exact version you're looking for. Read more: VersionDownload – Archive Of Old Software Versions (3) Twitter2Press – Cool Twitter tool, a WordPress plugin rather, which lets you easily self-host your Twitter images on a WordPress blog if you have one. You could either create a separate blog which acts as your Twitter image gallery or build a new page in your existing blog for the purpose. Read more: Twitter2Press – Easily Self-host Your Twitter Images (4) WhatUCollect – This site offers a web based repository of your personal collection which could be shared with the world or it could act as a private catalog containing information about all your collections. It could be a collection of stamps, coins, movies, music, books or anything else which you are fond of collecting. Read more: WhatUCollect – Share Your Cool Collections Online (5) Spectives – If you love RSS feeds but would rather prefer a different way of going through them instead of the conventional RSS feed reader, then Spectives is a site you should try out. It is a visual RSS reader that lets you follow your favorite sites on a sleek visual interface. Read more: Spectives – Visual RSS Reader
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
| ||
| How To Publish Your Own Book (In Print) Cheaply Posted: 22 Oct 2009 03:00 PM PDT
Thankfully there is a solution where you can publish your own book, or sell it in a bookshop. The best thing is, you don't even have to spend a cent. And here's how. Lulu.com allows you to sell your book in bookshops, online and allow buyers to purchase printed copies in a simple 5-step process. If you have created eBooks before, this is a service that you must use. You easily and cheaply get your book published in a printed format with its own ISBN number.
Before you start, it is a good idea to already have an eBook created. It is also advised that you thoroughly check it and make sure it has been proofread and edited. If in the future you do find mistakes, you can easily add a revision to the published book.
So lets publish our own first book. The first step is to select whether or not you want to have a hard cover and a paperback. There are advantages and disadvantages to both, but it is your book, so I'll let you decide which option you want to take. Once you have selected your type, you can now enter the title of the book. Remember that you can change the title later if you haven't thought of one yet. Next, select how you want your book to be distributed. If you want your book to have an ISBN and sold in shops and online bookstores, choose the last option. With this, you may have to purchase a Distribution Package. This can cost around $75. If you don't want any of these services, and have your book promoted to a global network, you can choose just to sell it on the Lulu Marketplace. The next step is to choose the size, binding, and colour of your book. It also gives you the manufacturing cost and this will be deducted from the total sale price of the book when it is sold in print. You may also want to check out the Book Pricing page which tells you how much cost is taken out of the book when someone purchases it.
If you have chosen to get an ISBN for your book, you can then choose one of the preferred options.
The next step is to upload the electronic version of your book. Simply click on browse and upload your file. Remember to ensure that your file does not have a cover page on it as this will be created later. Your upload may not be accepted by Lulu as well. Make sure it is in a format that they accept and the font the text is in is acceptable as well. Now, the fun part – creating a cover for our book. There is a simple wizard that you can use to make the front cover and the back cover of the book. You can add images, write a blurb, change the theme or change the layout to the many different that options Lulu offer. Make sure you have a look at all the themes and layouts and choose one that you like.
Now that our book is complete and we have a front cover, it is time to give our book a description, put it in a category, give it some keywords and add a license to it. This is to ensure people can find it on the Lulu Marketplace, or other locations where it may be viewed (such as Google Books)
Since our book is ready to be published, the next step is to set a price. I have decided I want to make $10 profit from this book. If you want to offer a downloadable version of the book, make sure you select the option. When setting your price, decide between your acceptable profit margin and readership. So it may be worthwhile to have a lower price and allow more people to buy it. This can benefit you in a number of ways. Firstly, the more people that buy your book, the more publicity and exposure it receives. Secondly, people have a higher chance of buying the book at a lower price which means more sales and effectively making up the difference in price if you would have set a high price.
We are now done. All you have to do is to review your book, and to make sure that all the information is correct. Once done, click Save and Finish.
Congratulations. You have now published your first book. All you have to do is promote it and watch the royalties role in. A good way to promote something is on a blog. So if you want to learn Java Programming, why don't you have a look at my published book on Lulu.com? Have any of you, MakeUseOf readers published a book? Here's your chance to share it. 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
| ||
| A Simple Guide To Set Up Your School On Facebook Posted: 22 Oct 2009 01:00 PM PDT
Firstly, you don't sign up a school on Facebook as you normally would when making a Facebook page for a school. Although you do need to have a normal profile to do so. On the homepage, when logged out, there is a link underneath the normal 'Sign-Up' option pictured below. Click on it.
This will take you into the registration process which will ask you to name the institution and give other details such as the location. Make sure you select 'Education' from the drop-down menu when asked for the type of organisation you're registering. The reason why you must click on this particular link is because Facebook’s name recognition technology won’t allow you to enter in a school’s name on a personal profile. Another reason is because much of the personal aspects of an organization’s page is taken away and replaced with more formal functions such as the ability to be a fan of the organization’s profile such as that of a band or a club – or in this case a school.
This will then take you to the administration page which will be bare. See ours (The MUO Academy) pictured above. Your first steps will be basic and should be focused on improving the look of the page. First, add a profile picture by placing your mouse cursor over the picture area. Then click 'Add picture' when the button appears. I suggest uploading a picture of your school or its coat of arms. Next, add a little bit of information about the school in the area below the picture. Then, click 'Edit Page' underneath the photograph. This will bring you to a page with options to alter pretty much anything about your page. For a school on Facebook, perhaps you would want to place a location or age restriction on the site for security reasons. Or maybe add a discussion board for the pupils and staff to chat. All of this can be done here. You can also set up your mobile version to publish status updates (I think this is aimed more at celebrities), and add notes, events, pictures and videos to your profile.
Clicking on the 'Ads Manager' button near the top of the page will bring you to the page where you can view your current advertising performance on Facebook. In the top right-hand corner there is a 'Create an Ad' button which will allow you to create advertisements to be displayed on Facebook for your school as seen below in the screenshot. However, these do cost money.
Do one last check over your page and ensure that you have everything there that you think will be needed. Find pupils and staff on Facebook by searching for their names and add them. Then, when the page is ready to go live, click 'Publish Page' at the top of the home screen. Your school's page is now available for all to see. Here, we come to the final, major pitfall that Facebook refuse to fix – logging back in. Because the School's Facebook page must be associated with a person's profile (i.e. yours), there is trouble logging in. When you enter in your e-mail address to sign in it will take you to your personal page. Facebook offers no link on their website to allow companies to sign in. I suspect this is to maintain the more 'people orientated' style. You can only sign into your school's page on Facebook to edit it via this link: www.facebook.com/pages/manage. For the remainder, it's all the same as using Facebook normally. There are small differences between business pages such as those for schools and pages for ‘Groups’. Groups are intended for websites and the likes where as pages for business are intended to have a large following of ‘Fans’. One piece of advice I'll give you is to ensure that you have permission from the proper authority within the school to make the Facebook page. Some schools don't like being associated with social networking because of cyber-bullying and some even look down on schools making profiles as unprofessional within their field. Does your school have a Facebook page? Is it a useful for an institute to be “socially available”? Think aloud 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
| ||
| Technology Explained: What Is CGI Animation? Posted: 22 Oct 2009 11:01 AM PDT
The evolution of this field of graphic design didn’t happen over a very long, extended period – but instead over a couple of decades. In fact, the rapid advancement of computer processing power is primarily what served as a catalyst for the explosion of CGI animation. But what is CGI animation, exactly? If you’re a computer graphic design artist, this post may not be for you. However, for those of you out there who are curious about this fascinating form of animation – read on for a brief history of the world of animation, and how computers completely transformed the art form. What Ever Happened to Plain Old Cartoons?Most of you can likely name at least one or two of your favorite childhood cartoons. Maybe it was Scooby Doo, the Flintstones or even the Jetsons. Maybe you’re a bit younger (or not) and you still enjoy your Saturday morning cartoons. However, most of the older folks out there probably started noticing that more and more cartoons look just a little bit different – just a little bit more real. What is it about CGI animation that gives the characters and the overall imagery more realism? The answer to that requires some history.
In this way, segments of an image could change from frame to frame without the entire picture being redrawn. You can see an example of layers in the image to the left. The blue arrow points to the background, the green arrow to the layer with two characters, and a red arrow pointing to the third layer with an image of a flying paper airplane. By manipulating the drawings in each layer from frame to frame, animators would create what many adults today remember as the traditional cartoon. Many movie fans may remember the hype surrounding the digital remastering of old films such as Star Wars, where computer animation was used to digitally enhance the film. The first stages of CGI animation included 2D animation. This simply involved computers doing what animators had been doing for decades – creating multiple frames of images each second in order to generate the visual effect of animation. The difference in this case was that as the field of computer graphic design advanced, the images gradually became much more advanced than most cartoon animators could manage by hand. The simplest form of this type of animation can be seen in the animated GIF files that became wildly popular on the Internet throughout the late 1990’s.
These images were created by packaging together a series of static images switched from frame to frame by a time delay defined by a control script within the GIF file itself. The time delay on most animated GIFS are pretty long, so it doesn’t provide for very fluid motion, but the concept of “animation” is still there. The picture below is an example of one such completed animated GIF.
This model is only somewhat like it’s 2D counterpart, except now computers have the ability to not only modify large parts of a 2 dimensional image as “layers” – they can calculate and modify very small sections of an object within a 3D world. Because of the level of programming and processor power required, this sort of animation was available only to the largest movie production companies who could afford the computer systems. However, today your own desktop computer can handle it – and there’s even free software like Blender, which Aibek covered in his article on 4 apps for a graphic designer on a budget, and Simon described one of the video games called Yo Frankie! which was created with the Blender engine. I installed the software on my own desktop and within 30 minutes the tutorial taught me how to create the start of a snowman character within a virtual 3D world.
The concept of today’s level of 3D CGI animation is an evolution from basic cartoon animation into a simulated world that seeks to represent realism as accurately as possible. It does this by slicing up the world into the smallest segments possible, and then controlling how those tiny parts of real world objects move, react and change based on the other objects and conditions within that 3D world. I remember watching The Polar Express when it was first released and thinking to myself how dead the characters looked. When they spoke, their tongues lay still like dead fish and their eyes were often expressionless. I actually thought, at the time, that computers would never be able to realistically simulate the real world, or at least a real person. But, you know what, while researching this article I came across this video of “Emily,” a digitally recreated face of a real actress. I have to say, I was very impressed and I think you will be as well. What is your take on the current state of the art for CGI animation? Do you think that it will eventually completely replace traditional animation? Share your opinion 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
| ||
| How To Upgrade From XP To Windows 7 In 4 Easy Steps Posted: 22 Oct 2009 09:00 AM PDT
Step 1: The checksFirst off, you would want to make sure your existing hardware can support Windows 7. Windows XP has been out for a long time and your hardware might not support the newer and comparatively more demanding versions of Windows like Windows 7. These are the official system requirements:
You can use the Windows 7 Upgrade advisor to see if your computer will run Windows 7. Once you are sure that you are good to go, hop up to the next step.
Step 2: Backup and MigrationIt is always a good idea to have backup of your important files and settings that you worked so hard to create. We have shown you various applications to backup your files and settings in the past. If you would rather not install any new software, a simple copy and paste would suffice for the time being. Just make sure to include everything you might need. While you might have set up your folders differently according to your taste, here are some key locations that you should check out and decide if you would like to back them up:
Another option you can use to quickly backup and transfer your settings is the Windows Easy Transfer tool that you can find on the Windows 7 DVD. Browse to the folder named support and then to migwiz on your Windows 7 DVD and launch migsetup.exe. This will launch the Windows Easy Transfer tool.
Choose how you would like to transfer the settings:
and then select what to transfer:
and Windows Easy Transfer will do the rest and give you a file you can store, on say a flash drive to transfer the settings to new installation later. Step 3: DriversNext up are the drivers. It is always a good idea to search your computer manufacturer’s website to see if they have newer drivers for Windows 7. Older drivers may not always work, or may not work as intended. This is especially true for drivers made for Windows XP. I was able to use an XP display driver with Windows 7 beta but it didn’t work when Windows 7 RC came out. You might have more luck with Vista drivers on Windows 7, but nothing is guaranteed. So if you are trying to get older drivers to work, you better be prepared to play around after installation. Step 4: InstallFinally, you are ready to install Windows 7. Pop in the DVD and restart your computer. Boot from the DVD and follow the prompts to install Windows 7. Choose Custom (Advanced install) when given the choice:
Then choose the system drive (which was your C: on Windows XP) as the partition you would like to set up Windows 7.
Wait for the installation to complete, and boot into Windows 7 once you are done. Installed, now what?Already here? Way to go. Now that you have Windows installed there are few additional steps you should take before you are ready to go. First off, make sure you install an antivirus before you start browsing the web or transferring files using USB drives. MS Security Essentials, AVG, Avast and Antivir are good free choices. You might want to look into commercial ones if you want something better. ESET and Kaspersky are good choices over there (Oops! Did I start a flame war?). Install your favorite applications now. This would be a good time to get the latest versions if you have been postponing pending software updates. Looking for some software recommendations? Check out the Mark pack.
Oh and don’t forget to restore the settings you backed up earlier. If you went the copy-paste route, its time to do some more copy-paste. If you used Windows Easy Transfer instead, click on Start button and type Windows Easy transfer, launch the application and let it know that this is your new computer, then browse to the location you stored those settings to and let it do the rest. Hope this helps you plan your upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7. Once you are done, use the comments area and tell us know how it went and if Windows 7 is worth the price tag! 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
| ||
| Create Impressive Documents and Templates on Mac With Pages Posted: 22 Oct 2009 07:00 AM PDT
One of the alternatives that we could use to create documents on a Mac is Apple’s Pages, part of iWork’s suite of productivity applications along with Numbers (spreadsheet) and Keynote (presentation). The suite is tagged at US$79 and available for 30-day free trial. While the price is far less Microsoft Office suite, paid is still paid. But I think Pages has great features that’s worth the look, even it’s only during the free trial. The Power of TemplatesAt the most basic level, Pages is a word processor. So you can use it for your everyday word processing activities from creating a document, writing and editing the text, importing other elements like charts and pictures, to printing or saving the document as a PDF.
But the true power of this app lies in its beautifully pre-designed templates. Users can use these templates to quickly create professionally looking documents. As Apple puts it, “Even before you start writing, your document looks great.” This template-based method is also used by iWeb, Apple’s webpage design application. There are over 180 templates for you to choose from, divided into two categories: Word Processing (work-related kind of documents) and Page Layout (more to the ‘fun’ type of documents). From the Word Processing category, there are Letters, Envelopes, Forms, Resumes, Reports, and Outlines; while from the Page Layout category, there are Newsletters, Brochures, Flyers, Posters, Cards & Invitations, Business Cards, and Certificates. Both categories also offer blank documents and miscellaneous templates. You can add your own templates and they will appear in “My Templates”.
Creating a good looking document using TemplatesMy first encounter with Pages was when my friend asked me to help him create a class newsletter. He was amazed at the stunning result that we produced in a short time. And the process of creating that document required no rocket science. Here are the simple steps for creating good looking documents using Pages’ templates:
Each template listed in the Template Chooser comes with several types of documents and each document consists of several types of pages. Playing with the combinations will provide you with a large number of choices and could keep you busy – in a fun way – for quite a while. But if you think that the pre-designed templates are not enough, you could add more templates – free or paid – from the internet. One of the recommended places to get free templates is iWorkCommunity.  You could just open the downloaded templates, but if you want them to appear in Pages template list, you should put them inside this folder:
 Creating your own templatesBut why stop at using templates from others? If you think you have an artistic side that you could be proud of, or if you think that you will consistently use a series of layouts over and over in your project, you could create your own templates, either for personal use or to be shared with others. You could start building your template from a scratch by opening a totally blank page or you could also do it by modifying another template.  If you are starting from naught, you’d want to add elements to your documents like text boxes, and shapes. This can be done by going to the “Insert” menu or by clicking the icon in the toolbar.  To fill in the text boxes, you could generate some “Lorem Ipsum”s from Lipsum Generator.  To add pictures, open Media Browser from the View –> Show Media Browser or by clicking the toolbar icon.  Then insert some pictures by dragging and dropping the items from media browser to document.  Every element of the page can be edited by selecting it and open the Inspector (View –> Show Inspector or Command + Option + I or the Inspector toolbar icon).  Add more pages according to your needs and repeat the steps. Once the layout process is finished, you should enable every element of the page(s) as a placeholder. This way, you are able to customize those elements later when you use the pages you’ve created as template. To do this, go to “Format –> Advanced –> Enable Placeholder Text Authoring” menu. Then select the text and choose “Format –> Advanced –> Define As Placeholder Text”.  To do the same with images, click on the item but choose “Format –> Advanced –> Define As Image Placeholder” instead.  The final step is to turn your document into template. Choose the thumbnail of a page and go to “Format –> Advanced –> Capture Pages” menu.  And name the page.  Repeat the process to other pages. You could manage multiple pages in a template from “Format –> Advanced –> Manage Pages” menu.  Then use the arrows to rearrange the order and the minus (-) button to delete the pages that you don’t need.  If you want to share your creations, they are available in the same location as your other imported templates: ~/UserFolder/Library/Application Support/iWork/Pages/Templates/ So far I haven’t found any free alternatives for template-based word processors similar to Pages. But if you know any, share using the comment 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
| ||
| Remove A Plethora Of FAKE Antivirus Software With This Free App Posted: 22 Oct 2009 05:00 AM PDT
Here is an example of one of these roguee programs. It is called Antivirus 2008 and there is another called Antivirus 2009 that looks identical to it but with the different year. If you have never seen anything like this… Then good for you! You are doing a great job at security (or you are using a Mac or Nix' box!)
I’ve found a great free app that helps remove fake antivirus applications. It’s aptly called Remove Fake Antivirus. Check out the list of applications that it detects and removes. Each of these links will take you to the author’s blogspot which will tell you more about the threat.
OK so I am assuming that you have one of these infections and you want to use Remove Fake Antivirus to fix your machine up. Let's see how we can do that. First we start by downloading the application from here. That is a direct link because the download page is polluted with Google ads and confuses users as to what to download. The author’s site can be found here. Run the application and you will first see its welcome screen listing the nastiness it can deal with and then you will see this screen:
Go ahead and hit ‘Yes’ and it will start scanning your local machine for the fake applications listed above. You can go ahead and click Show details to get a closer look as to what is going on: As it goes through each possible infection you will see it listed on the console. Don't be alarmed, this does not mean that your PC has the infections.
Up until now my only solution was Malware Bytes demo version. But now it looks like Remove Fake Antivirus 1.35 is going to be my go-to program. It took 6 minutes to run the full scan. I had originally located this application while battling Antivirus 2009 yesterday. And it worked like a charm! Once the application has completed you will see this screen:
Click Yes and all the files that Remove Fake Antivirus could not remove because the files were in use will then be kicked to the curb. The author’s site also serves up suggestions for how to deal with and prevent these types of infections. Among them is to set the UAC prompts to the highest levels – I guess I should not have mine disabled, eh? Remove Fake Antivirus – Download For more information about fake antivirus software, read Ryan’s post “Detect Fake Antivirus software & Spyware Removal programs“. How do you deal with rouge or fake antivirus or spyware applications? Do you have policies that keep this type of stuff out of your corporate environments? What do you do or use? Please share with us in the comments so we can learn from each other! Related posts
|
By now, you should have heard of eBooks. It is pretty much an electronic book. In the past few years, eBooks are becoming more and more popular as everyone can write a book and publish it on the internet. Just have a look at 
Creating a 
Have you ever found yourself sitting in the theater, watching a Pixar film, and contemplating what it is about CGI animation that makes for some of the best children’s movies?
The history of animation is both nostalgic and sad. Many decades ago, animators were traditional artists who drew pictures by hand. Traditional animation consisted of a whole team of animators who would draw and color images on “cels” – transparent sheets that were placed on top of a background image to create a multi-layered frame.
Now, all of this is grade school level compared to the impressive level that 3D CGI animation technology is at today. How did we get from 1990’s computer animation to the sort of iMax 3D cartoons you love to watch? The simple answer is processing power. With today’s amazing CPU processing capabilities, computer animators are now able to create a 3 dimensional “model” to start with.
When it comes to word processing, Microsoft Word is one of the most popular names in that business. But that is not the only name there is. There are many other great products available, each with its own unique features.
I hate, I repeat, I HATE fake antivirus programs with a fury! You know exactly what I am talking about. These are pieces of software that advertise their ability to protect and fix your machine, yet once they are installed, they take over your machine, disable your antivirus and hold your computer as a virtual hostage.
| 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