Latest Tips from MakeUseOf.com |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [October 24]
- 10 Features You Should Know About Your Digicamera
- How To Safely Uninstall Ubuntu From A Windows Dual-Boot PC
- Ninite – Easily Install All Your Favorite Free Apps In One Go
- VZOChat – How To Videoconference with Your Cameraphone Webcam
- Re:Subj – An Easy Temporary Inbox for Group Discussions
- How To Customize Windows Notification Messages with Snarl
| Cool Websites and Tools [October 24] Posted: 24 Oct 2009 06:01 PM PDT
(1) Linkli.st – New web tool that makes it easy to create lists of links and share them with others. It provides a browser bookmarklet for quickly adding links to your list. You can create as many lists as you like and keep them organized in one place online. Read more: Linkli.st – Create List Of Links & Easily Share Them
(2) ASCII-O-Matic – If you are an ASCII art fun check out this simple online utility called ASCII-O-Matic. It lets you upload an image and generate ASCII art picture from it. The application supports only JPEG format and has strict image dimension requirements. Read more: ASCII-O-Matic – Generate ASCII Art Pictures (3) TheNameEngine – Online recource where you can find and hear proper name pronunciations of famous athletes, politicians, actors, newsmakers, brands and more. The site was created as a tool to help radio and tv channel professionals when preparing for their segment or an interview. That being said, anyone can freely use and benefit from it. Read more: TheNameEngine – Hear Proper Name Pronunciations of Public Figures (4) Quotegasm – Website that aggregates quotations by famous people. The quotes are submitted by users and nicely organized into categories (Wisdom, Love, Politics etc). In addition to categories, users can browse quotes by author or search quotes using the search engine. Read more: Quotegasm – Quotations By Famous People (5) TweetAlert -This tool lets you can easily track subject of your interest on Twitter. When one of the subjects appears on Twitter, it will be automatically re-tweeted by TweetAlerts and you will see it in your actual Twitter feed. Read more: TweetAlert – Track Twitter Searches & Trends
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 Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too. Related posts
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| 10 Features You Should Know About Your Digicamera Posted: 24 Oct 2009 03:00 PM PDT
The following tips may be best understood if you take out your camera and its manual and try out the suggestions as you read this article. If you don’t have or can't find your camera's manual, you can go online and download a PDF copy of it from the manufacture's site. The illustrations used in this article are based on the Canon Powershot G9, but I will point out features that are typically found in most point-and-shoot and compact cameras. Basic Settings1. Setup Menu: First off, know how to find the setup menu on your camera. Most cameras come with default settings that you can customize for your particular needs or the way you shoot. Look in your manual to find out how to access your camera's setup menu. Notice what kind of menu changes can be made with the control dials on your camera and the menu settings that you can bring up and select through your camera's LCD screen. Some cameras, for example, will allow you to change the exposure mode of the camera with a dial on the top or on the back of the camera, while smaller pocket-size cameras will require you to open a menu setting to make those changes.
3. Review Time: One of the best features about digital photography is the ability to review photos after they are taken. The default time for reviewing an image may be only a couple of seconds, but you typically can change that time, making it longer or shorter. Look up the word "review" or "play menu" in your manual to find out how to change the review time. I have my photos display for 6-8 seconds. This gives me enough time to consider if I need to retake the shot. 4. Picture Count: If you never want to miss a good shot, you should know where to find the picture count for your camera. Typically it can be seen on your camera's LCD screen when you review the images stored on your image card. Based the size of your card and the resolution settings you're shooting in, the camera will display the number of photos you have shot. When you set the camera to take a photo, the number of captures you have remaining that your media card can hold should be displayed on the LCD screen. 5. Format Your Media Card: When you fill up a media card, it's best to reformat it instead of erasing the image files. Avoid filling up your card completely. Change the card when you only have 5-10 captures remaining that you can put on the card. Also, don't allow your computer or software application to erase images for you. Reformat your card on the camera itself after you have securely imported and backed up your photos to your computer. Look up the word “format” in the index of your manual for specific instructions. Advanced Tips6. Turn the Flash On/Off: Most with cameras come with a built-in flash. Your camera's automatic features may cause your flash to fire when you don't want it to; for example when you're shooting in a shaded area. So learn how to manually shut off and turn on your camera built-in flash. If you're shooting in Automatic mode, you most likely will not have the option to turn off the flash, and in that case you'll need to choose another shooting mode (like Program, discussed later) in order to shut off the flash. Likewise, if your photos are coming out a little blurred, it means that you may need the use the flash or increase the shutter speed on your camera. If you can't do the latter, it's best the turn on the flash for that will automatically increase your shutter speed to 1/60th of a second, which is a better speed for holding a camera than at say 1/10th of a second. (I will discuss flash later in a longer article in this series.) 7. Shooting Beyond A: Most beginning photographers shoot in automatic mode. There's typically a dial on your camera with a green Auto icon indicating that mode of shooting. When you shoot in automatic mode you're telling your camera to make all the decisions about exposure settings when you take pictures. Your camera will read the amount and type of light coming into the lens and hitting the sensor and it will make the best guess for setting the exposure.
But if you learn how to shoot beyond the automatic made, you can have more control about those settings. Even you don't understand what aperture and shutter speed means, you can more easily learn how to use Program mode, which is discussed in the next step. But in order to do this, you need to know how to change the shooting modes of your camera. 8. Program Mode: The first step to getting beyond Automatic mode is to use Program or P mode. This mode is similar to automatic in that it sets the exposure settings for the picture you're taking; however, in this mode, you can control better how much light is allowed to enter the camera. If you shoot a photo in Automatic and then shoot the same subject in the same lighting condition in Program mode at their default settings, they should look pretty much alike. But in Program mode, you can use what is called Exposure Compensation to adjust for lighting. Look up in your camera’s manual how to change the shooting mode to P or program. 9. Exposure Compensation: Okay, here's the hardest feature you'll learn in this series of tips, but it can make a big difference in the quality of photos you take. If you noticed that some of your photos come out too dark or too light, or that they just seem flat, you can use exposure compensation to adjust for lighting. To adjust for lighting, you can use what is called Exposure Compensation. You can only use this feature in Program, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority or Manual Mode. It is typically deactivated in Automatic mode because, remember, you’re telling the camera to make all the decisions for you. Look up the term, exposure compensation, in your manual and find out how to use it on your particular camera. It is typically a meter with a plus/minus scale for increasing and decreasing the amount of light coming into your camera.
In these two photos (both un-edited), the top one is shot in Automatic mode, and the bottom one in Program mode. In the first one, the image is slightly under exposed. With the second photo, using exposure compensation, I was able to allow more light in thus getting more detail on the subject (my daughter.)
Even if you don't understand aperture and shutter speed, if you learn how to use exposure compensation then you can have more control over the lighting exposure of your camera. So right after you read this article, find a subject and practice with the exposure compensation feature. With digital photography, you’re not wasting film, so you can practice, practice, practice, and not have to spend a penny extra. 10. Self-Timer: Often times if you're the main photographer in your family, you most likely don't get yourself included in many of the photos you take. So learn to use the self-timer and a tripod so that you can take photos that include you, the photographer. Also, the self-timer is a good way to shoot close-up shots of say, a flower or Ebay product shots. By using the self-timer and a tripod, you will get less camera shake in your macro shots and thus, less blurry photos. In the next few articles on digital photography, I will share some advanced tips for taking pictures. But it will useful to hear back from readers what questions you have about using your camera and the art of taking photos. What problems do you encounter when taking photos? 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 Safely Uninstall Ubuntu From A Windows Dual-Boot PC Posted: 24 Oct 2009 01:00 PM PDT
For a change, I will be talking about how to uninstall Linux Ubuntu (or other operating systems) from a dual boot windows pc, and still being able to boot into other OS without much work. So let’s get started right away. Backup your Linux filesIt pops up everytime, but backup really is very important. If you have been using your Linux system for some time, chances are you would have created files you wouldn’t want to loose. In such a case, you can boot into Linux, backup your files (check out your Home directory) on an external device or onto a Windows partition. Alternatively if you somehow managed to mess up and can’t boot into Linux, you can use ext2 IFS which allows you access to your Linux paritions. It can only read ext2 and ext3 filesystems though. If you are using other filesystems, you would have to look around a bit for a similar application. In any case, you can always boot from a Linux live CD to backup files if everything else fails.
Delete Linux PartitionsNext step: delete every Linux partition. That would include everything – boot, swap, home, whatever way you set up your system, it is time to delete all Linux partitions. There are a couple of ways to achieve this, easiest being from within Windows’ Computer Management. You need to:
Next, you need to identify Linux partitions. The Linux partitions generally don’t have a file system listed with them if Windows doesn’t recognize it, so this can serve as a clue. Other ways can be identifying by size or partition number. You can use partition managers, these are generally better at identifying filesystems. Go ahead, delete the partitions, just make sure you delete the correct ones. Linux is gone and so is GRUB, which allowed you to choose operating system to use at boot time. So currently, you cannot boot into any other operating system, without some help. We are going to fix that soon. Restore MBRAs we noted, GRUB is gone and so is the ability to boot into Windows. You would now need to boot from the Windows CD/DVD to restore the Master Boot Record. You can also use other Live CDs like one of my absolute favorites and highly recommended HBCD just in case you don’t have Windows installation media handy. Here are the steps:
XP users need to run the recovery console from Windows XP CD and then type fixmbr when at the command prompt. Reclaim free spaceRestart now, remove the CD and you should be able to boot into your Windows installation. Once there, you should go ahead and reclaim the unpartitioned free space which was previously occupied by Linux. Doing so is simple and straight forward:
The free space should now be accessible from My Computer like any other partition. Alternatively, you can create multiple partitions from the free space or resize existing partitions to suit your needs.You can use utilities like GParted, Easues Partition Master or any one of the many partition managers on HBCD to perform such advanced tasks easily. 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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| Ninite – Easily Install All Your Favorite Free Apps In One Go Posted: 24 Oct 2009 11:01 AM PDT
I find myself downloading Putty, VLC, Firefox and a multitude of other applications each time I install. The ones I downloaded the last time around are easily outdated. It is important to grab the latest and greatest versions to protect against bugs or other issues with the software. So you have a list of 10 items you need to download and install. Wouldn't it be MUCH easier if we could select these applications from a list or website and have IT download and install my applications? It sure would be! And now we will show you how you can do just that! Head on over to Ninite and once you are there it will be a breeze to get the applications you want on your system with a limited amount of clicking. (Note: Ninite currently works only on Windows PCs) Once you hit the installer app site you will see a screen that looks like this:
Under the instructions you will see applications and check boxes. You can install from a vast array of applications ranging from Skype to Firefox, Dropbox to Google Earth and back to Putty and Notepad ++. You will see the applications broken up into categories that include Web Browsers, Messaging, Imaging, Documents, Anti Virus, File Sharing, utilities, compression, tools and other items. The list is quite extensive but if something is not there you can suggest it!
Let's run through the list and check the check box next to each item you want to download. If you want FoxIt reader installed simply click the box next to it – it is that simple. When you are done selecting the items you want in your installer app, scroll all the way down to the bottom of the screen.
You will see directly under the entry for Eclipse there is a grey button that says – Get Installer. All you need to do is hit this button and a custom installer app will be created for you on the fly so you can install all of these packages with ease. I selected 3 items and hit Get Installer.
The screen changed and told me the download would start shortly – I can only imagine they are compiling your download at this point. And sure enough in about 1 minute another window popped up.
My new installer app was ready to be downloaded and installed. I clicked Save File and Firefox saved the file to my normal download folder. I navigated through the jungle that is my hard drive and double clicked on the executable. The file's name has all of the applications listed that you selected. That's nifty!
Once I ran it it started preparing to run which took about 30 seconds.
Then the application started downloading my installers at the speed of light. The three of them were complete in under 1 minute.
As soon as the downloads were complete Ninite started installing each of the applications silently. I saw NO prompts. Very cool!
And as quick as it started – it was complete.
Upon checking my start menu all of the applications I choose were installed with the newest versions. This is a very handy tool!
Does anyone else use something like this on Windows? We would love to hear about it 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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| VZOChat – How To Videoconference with Your Cameraphone Webcam Posted: 24 Oct 2009 09:01 AM PDT
It was actually writing that article that made me start thinking about other uses for my webcam. Then, as I sat there staring at the cellphone – an old HTC 8125 with just a 1.3 mega pixel camera – I started to wonder if there was a way I could convert this little phone into a portable webcam that could stream video from anywhere in the world where there’s a cellphone data network. That curiosity and a little bit of Internet research led me to VZOchat, an interesting free online service where you can configure your own video chat account and whenever you’re online you can receive direct video calls from anyone. So, what does this have to do with turning a Windows Mobile smartphone into a remote webcam? Well, the VZOchat service also offers a mobile version. This means that people can trigger a video conferencing call to your mobile phone, but it also means that you can set up your cellphone anywhere you like, and then fire off a call to the phone from your computer which will enable the streaming video feature of the VZOchat software on your phone! Want to spy on the room where you accidently “left” your phone? Maybe you want to stream a really cool rock concert to your friends with your cellphone. The potential uses for streaming live video from your cellphone are unlimited. As if that’s not cool enough – there’s one more little feature that VZOchat offers – the ability to embed the video call feature directly into your blog or website so anyone can video chat with you straight from your blog. I’ll cover each of these features in this article. Let’s get started.
Setting Up Your Own Private VideochatWhen you first sign up for your free VZOchat account, you’ll instantly have access to a special web page where you can find your embedded videochat room. You don’t even have to install any software on your PC, only a plugin for your browser so that the videochat room works properly.
Yes, I know I look tired. I’ve been staying up all night writing this article! Now, VZOchat is actually a video chat community, so if you want to you can set your status as public and let everyone on the social network see your profile and call you. I’m not exactly that much of a social butterfly, so I left that feature disabled – I’m only here for the cool Internet video chat software. All you have to do to call another user on VZOchat is click “start videochat” and type their name. For my purposes – I want to initiate a video chat with my cellphone, and I want the cellphone to pick up automatically. So step two is setting up the mobile version of VZOchat on your Windows Mobile device (Windows Mobile only). Setting Up VZOchat As a Cameraphone WebcamOnce you download and install the CAB file to your mobile and you log in using the credentials that you signed up with, you’ll see the following screen on your phone.
At this point, the green bar means that you’re online and ready to send or receive video calls. This means that you can remotely call your phone with your computer, but first you have to tell your phone to automatically pick up the call. Do this by clicking on “Options.”
Most of the settings within options are pretty self-explanatory. Most of the calling features you want to configure are in the “Integration” menu item. When you click on that icon you’ll see the following screen.
As you can see here, you can integrate the software to work with Outlook Mobile and the Today Screen – but what you really want to make sure to click here is the option to “Automatically accept incoming calls.” Once you do this, you’re ready to remotely fire up your cellphone as a remote cameraphone webcam! To test this, I placed my old Windows Mobile 5 PDA on my kitchen countertop facing a Halloween art project my wife and kids created – a small tree with ghosts hanging on the branches. Running back across the house to my laptop (I seriously ran, I was that excited), I clicked on the green call button and watched as the software initiated the call. Suddenly, the video window changed to a view of what my cellphone was pointed to at that moment.
Now, I should mention a few things about this image. My particular camera is ancient, and a 1.3 mega pixel camera is hardly comparable to the sort of resolution available on most modern smartphones. Secondly, I noticed my image updated about once every 5 seconds or so, which I believe was related to my data upload speed over the cellular data line – and I hardly had a signal in my house. Again, a newer model will most likely perform much better. Finally, if you do decide to use this technique to convert your cellphone into a cameraphone webcam, make sure you either have an unlimited Internet data plan or your phone is connected to the Internet over Wi-Fi. Embedding the Video Chat Feature Into Your BlogNow that we’ve accomplished the first task. I want to show you one more amazingly cool feature with VZOchat that had me smiling from ear to ear – the ability to embed a calling box into your blog or web page so visitors can initiate a video chat with you. Here’s how it works. When you’re logged into your VZOchat account, click on the “widgets” tab at the top.
Here, you’ll see two options. The first is a neat little VZOchat widget using the iframe tag that lets you embed your profile call gateway into your blog, which I’ve done here on my blog FreeWritingCenter.
Now, the value of just offering such a feature on your blog or website is tremendous. Allow visitors to interact with you directly to discuss a topic you’ve blogged about. Or, maybe you have a tech support website and you could use this feature to let your clients contact you directly video chat right from your web page. The one drawback with the widget is that when they click on it, it opens a whole different window on VZOchat for your visitor to talk to you. If you want them to stay right at your site, you can use the VZOchat Webclient code instead – and visitors can have a video chat with you right on your own web page. Here’s me having a chat with myself right on my blog.
After about 10 minutes, I found myself pretty darn boring, so I just hung up on myself. The embedded video chat is still there, as is the sidebar call feature (for now). I’m going to leave it there to chat with MUO readers and others unless I find a better service at some point. If it’s still there and I’m online, go ahead and give me a call and let’s chat! Can you think of any cool uses for turning your mobile phone into a cameraphone webcam? What about using the service in your blog, or combining the two features so visitors can call you on your mobile? Share your thoughts 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
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| Re:Subj – An Easy Temporary Inbox for Group Discussions Posted: 24 Oct 2009 07:01 AM PDT
I have and let me tell you it’s interesting, but very confusing. It definitely takes time to get used to and it has the potential to steal more of your valuable time and attention than any tool ever has. You can count on my word and people’s creativity. What if you’re looking for an efficient and simple tool to communicate that will not clog up your inbox, steal your attention or be complicated to use. Is there any hope? Would I be writing this if there wasn’t?
Setting up a temporary group inbox is easy as pie. Go to the website and fill in the blanks, i.e. a subject line, recipient eMail addresses, a first message, and your own eMail address. You can decide whether the inbox shall be public and whether you want threaded comments. If you’re unsure, don’t worry. Everything but the subject and your first message can be changed later on! Once you’re done hit the Create an Inbox button.
The cool thing is, you can choose whether you want to reply through your standard eMail and eventually check the entire list of replies and comments, or whether you prefer to read and reply through the website only. That way, everyone gets what they want. Following the link in the eMail, you will enter the temporary inbox and see an overview of what everybody has had to say so far.
You can post a new reply or, in case threaded comments are enabled, reply to a previous comment. If you’ve had enough and no longer care about the discussion, you can use the respective link in the right-hand menu to leave this inbox. The following screenshot shows what an temporary inbox will look like after a few replies and comments have been posted.
To add more participants, you can send invitations to their eMail address. You can also remove participants by clicking the red-Xed blue man next to their eMail address. As promised earlier, you can change the inbox settings, i.e. enable or disable threaded comments or make your discussion public after all. Finally, when the discussion has been completed, you can also delete the inbox.
As you move into My Inboxes, you should notice that the top right menu link changes from My Inboxes to Create new inbox. The list of your inboxes shows when new comments or replies were added to one of them. You can also hide messages to shorten the entire list of inboxes.
The My Inboxes overview is especially handy if you decided to not receive eMail updates. This can be done in your profile. And in case you didn’t yet notice the green window asking you to associate a name with your eMail, don’t worry, that can also be edited in your Profile.
And basically, that’s it. You now know everything about Re:Subj. It’s that easy! And the advantages should be quite obvious by now, but let me sum it up for you:
So when everybody and their mothers has an idea or comment to a simple question, you won’t have to sit there helplessly as your inbox clogs up with silly replies. Re:Subj returns some control and you can focus on serious eMails. What do you think? Does it sound useful to you? Image credits: spekulator Related posts
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| How To Customize Windows Notification Messages with Snarl Posted: 24 Oct 2009 05:01 AM PDT
Snarl is a universal notification handler for Windows. Under normal running, applications (or Windows) display bits of information in a comment balloon or a bubble in the area of the system tray called the notification area. They simply inform or suggest a course of action for us to follow – through the instructions or by clicking on the notification itself. Windows offers very little by way of customizing Windows notification messages. You can, at the most, change the color by modifying the Tooltip color or disable/enable them from some individual applications. There is no universal notification manager. Snarl is a freeware program which attempts to change that by giving some customizing power to the user. By the looks of it, it's almost similar to Mac's Growl (another huffy name!). Growl has a Windows counterpart too, which is in the beta stage now. Is Snarl worth a shout? Let's check it out.
Snarl operates in the background silently using a very light memory footprint. The interface can be accessed with a right click on the system tray icon. Working with a Snarl
So is it worth the shout?As a notification manager, yes it has lots of bells and whistles. The real essence though lies with the extensions and the program's extensibility to the wide range of applications out there. Some of the most used ones like Gmail notification, iTunes, Firefox, Sunbird, Google Reader, PidGin, Skype, Thunderbird and a couple of Twitter clients are covered. But definitely a lot more need to be added. Handling the app takes a bit of trial and error and though the Preview button on the program helps, a Help file would have been better. Snarl is pleasing to the eye with its gallery of looks enhancing styles. It is very light and does act as an attractive shell replacement program. Snarl is a free and open source program and is compatible with Windows XP/Vista What are your thoughts on the program? Have you used Snarl or a similar notification alternative? Related posts
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Just because some cameras are called point-and-shoot doesn't mean that they're literally supposed to be used that way. With the advent of digital photography, point-and-shoot and compact cameras include basic and advance features designed to help make the cameras easier to use, while also helping you improve the quality of images taken.
Linux is a great operating system and more often than not, it’s the installation of Linux that is the matter of discussion.
So when you get a new machine or you do a reformat what is the first thing you do? If you are not imaging your system, chances are you will need to install the pieces of software that enable your machine to be a tool instead of a big paper weight.
Here at MakeUseOf, we love doing cool things 
As the creator of a temporary inbox you will see a different menu to the right of an inbox than everybody else.
There is a small menu in the top right corner of the website. It shows you with which eMail address you’re currently using Re:Subj and you can access your inboxes and your profile.
A snarl is something you would associate with a really cross guy. But the software which takes the same name does its job ever so silently. 
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