Latest Tips from MakeUseOf.com |  |
- Roundup: 15 Free Must-Install Programs for Your New PC
- Cool Websites and Tools [November 15]
- 5 Sites To Find Free Alternatives To Popular Software
- SlateBox – An Easy and Quick Collaborative Visualization Tool
- How To Buy Used Stuff For Cheap On Facebook
- GeekTool – Display System Information on Mac in Style
- Wally- Awesome Wallpaper Rotator for Windows, Mac & Linux
- Twitip.com – Solid Twitter Tips To Help You Get Started
| Roundup: 15 Free Must-Install Programs for Your New PC Posted: 16 Nov 2009 03:53 AM PST Over the last three years, the writers here at MakeUseOf have profiled thousands of software apps on the website. With all these thousands being presented to you, it’s hard to decide which apps to use and which ones to discard. To make it easier for you, we have managed to compile a list of the top 15 absolute must-have tools for everyday tasks.
These are the essential programs that we recommend you install and keep on your arsenal.
2. AVG Anti-Virus (Anti-virus Software) 3. Auslogics Disk Defrag (Disk Defragmener) 4. Advanced SystemCare Free (System Maintenance) 5. Security 360 (Spyware Removal) 6. IZArc (Universal Archiver / Extractor) 7. Google Picasa Software (Photo Management) 8. doPDF (PDF Printer) 9. Memento (Post-It Notes) 10. xVideoServiceThief (YouTube Video Downloader) 11. Mozy (Backup) 12. Digsby (Multi-protocol Instant Messenger) 13. VLC Media Player (Video Player) 14. Foobar2000 (Music Player) 15. ImgBurn (CD / DVD Image Burner) 1. Firefox / Chrome (Web Browser)Both Firefox and Google Chrome are excellent browsers. They are both fast, user-friendly and known to be secure. So, which one do you choose? The rule of thumb here is that you should use Firefox if you’re looking to add additional features (i.e. ad blocker, password manager, video downloader, page translator etc.) to your browser.
You can see all add-ons for Firefox at https://addons.mozilla.org/. There are extensions for Google Chrome as well, but the choice is rather limited. See, 10 Cool Extensions for Google Chrome. 2. AVG Anti-Virus (Anti-virus Software)AVG Free Anti-Virus is the most popular free anti-virus software in the world. It’s also the most downloaded software program according to Download.com.
Most of the MakeUseOf authors use AVG and we highly recommend it to others. It’s easy to use, consumes a relatively small amount of system resources and auto-updates itself with virus definitions on a daily basis. Install it once and it will keep your system secure without your intervention. For those of you who frequently shop online and do regular online banking, AVG recommends AVG Internet Security. While it’s not free, it does offer complete Internet Protection that will keep you safe even from advanced online threats.
Download AVG Free: http://free.avg.com/gb-en/homepage (Platform: Windows only) 3. Auslogics Disk Defrag (Disk Defragmenter)Auslogics Disk Defrag is a must-have free PC maintenance tool that was designed to cure system sluggishness and prevent crashes caused by disk fragmentation. Windows already comes with its own disk-defragmenter but Auslogics Disk Defrag is considerably faster and much more efficient. It’s extremely simple to use, does not require any analysis phase and is faster than most of the other disk defragmentation software.
While there are several other free disk defragmenters, Auslogics seems to be the defragmenter of choice according to the poll results on MakeUseOf, Lifehacker and mega tech sites like CNET. Download: www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag/overview (Platform: Windows only) 4. Advanced SystemCare Free (System Maintenance)Advanced SystemCare (ACS) Free provides a simple way for non-techie users to perform routine maintenance and apply system optimization tweaks. It’s an all-in-one system utility protecting, cleaning, repairing, and speeding up your PC. Currently ACS is the most downloaded system utility according to download.com. The tool is very simple to use and comes with a "one-click fix" button that can automatically run all optimizations and repair tools with a click of a button.
There are a few things you should keep in mind before using system maintenance tools like ACS. While the program is VERY useful it needs some care on your behalf. Make sure to go through all the settings in the program and set it to create Windows restore points every time you run ACS. This will make sure that you can always revert your PC to an earlier state in case something goes wrong unexpectedly. The Advanced SystemCare Free integrates more diagnostic and repair utilities than any other alternative (i.e. CCleaner). But there is also a PRO version that comes with even more features including deeper registry scan, more comprehensive speedup tools, and scheduling capability. Highly recommended. Note: The installation includes a security toolbar for your browser, make sure to uncheck it. Download: http://www.iobit.com/advancedwindowscareper.html (Platform: Windows only) 5. Security 360 (Spyware Removal)This new security software comes from the same company as the above mentioned AdvancedSystem Care. Its purpose is to keep your computer safe from spyware, hijackers, keyloggers and other kind of milicious craplets. While the IObit Security 360 is a relatively new entrant, it already ranks in the top 10 security downloads on Download.com, outnumbering the extremely popular Spyware Search and Destroy.
Now, what you should know is that there are dozens of free spyware removal tools out there, but only a small number of those are known to be good and recommended in tech circles. These are Spyware Search & Destroy, Lavasoft and MalwareBytes. However, when you look at the free version of the above mentioned alternative products, you will see that none of them comes with a real-time computer monitoring. That it to say, these tools can remove spyware after it has been installed on your system, not prevent it from installing itself. The IObit’s Security 360 on the other hand includes a two level real-time protection that prevents spyware from installing itself in the first place. When it comes to spyware detection the Security 360 scores pretty good as well. It also claims to have the fastest scan. They even hold a $25.000 contest inviting amateurs and security experts to test Security 360 against ANY FREE or LIMITED USE anti-malware program. The IObit Security 360 comes both in a free and a PRO version (not free). The free version has everything you will find in the PRO version apart from automatic definition updates and automatic system scan. Those aren’t really essential unless you don’t mind running them manually once in a while. Note: The installation includes a a security toolbar for your browser, make sure to uncheck it. Download: http://www.iobit.com/security360.html?Str=download (Platform: Windows only) 6. IZArc (Universal Archiver / Extractor)One archive utility to rule them all. You no longer need a separate program for ZIP, RAR, ACE, 7-ZIP, TAR files and so on, IZArc can handle ALL of them.
Basically this unpacker/archiver gives you everything you get with other popular archivers (ex. Winzip, Winrar etc.) but with additional features and support for a huge number of archive formats. It can decompress archived folders in over 40 formats. It supports pretty much every format you’re likely to come across. There is something else, you can also use the IZArc utility to open CD image files like ISO, BIN, CDI and NRG. Do you know of any other free archiver that can do that? Note: When installing IZArc make sure to uncheck the "recommended" option to install PalTalk. Download: http://www.izarc.org/download.html (Platform: Windows only) 7. Google Picasa Software (Photo Management)Picasa automatically finds all the photos on your PC, wherever they are, and organizes them in seconds. It’s an excellent photo manager, editor and viewer for your computer. With Picasa not only you can nicely organize your photos but also fix common problems (i.e. red eyes), add cool effects and even browse photos by people in them. Yes, it includes face recognition!
Plus one really cool thing about it is that regardless of changes you make to your photos on Picasa the original version of each photo always preserved. Features include:
You can find out more about Picasa by watching this Youtube video. The Google team compiled a getting started guide for Picasa. Highly recommended for new users. Download: http://picasa.google.com/ (Platform: Windows / Mac / Linux) 8. doPDF (PDF Printer)Almost everyone once in a while needs to convert documents to PDF. The doPDF is the easiest tool that does exactly that. It installs a virtual printer on your computer that you can select using the print option from any program on Windows.
Whenever you need to convert a web page, Word document, Excel spreadsheet, photo or pretty much anything else to a PDF file just go to the print option in your program and select doPDF from the ‘Printer’ drop-down menu. You can set the resolution to anything from 72 dpi to 2400 dpi, and the "printed" files are text searchable. Download: http://download.cnet.com/doPDF-Free-PDF-Converter/3000-18497_4-10648880.html (Platform: Windows only) 9. Memento (Post-It Notes)Chances are you have never heard about this program before. Memento is a simple bare-bones post-it notes program for your desktop. It’s better than anything else out there because it’s extremely simple and yet a very effective tool.
Whether you want a program to keep track of your tasks or quick note taking, Memento can help. It’s very intuitive to use and consumes very few system resources. Highly recommended! It’s an excellent program – and I’ve compared many other free ones! I have been using this for the last 5 years and recommend it to everyone. The very first MakeUseOf article was about this app It’s also easily transferrable from one PC to another, it saves all your notes in Memento.notes file that is stored in the My Documents folder. Features: - double click memento icon on the taskbar to create a note Download: http://www.guyswithtowels.com/downloads.html (Platform: Windows only) 10. xVideoServiceThief (YouTube Video Downloader) Almost everyone is on Youtube these days. And the fact that Youtube has more searches than Yahoo is good indication of this. The only issue with Youtube is that there is no option to download videos so that you can watch them on your computer, PSP, iPhone, mobile phone, iPod etc. Fortunately there are lots of free software for that, and my favorite is xVideoServiceThief. Apart from downloading videos, it can automatically convert the downloaded video file to another format.
xVideoServiceThief can convert videos to several formats, including AVI, MOV, MPEG, DIVX, MP4 and several others.
Moreover, xVideoServiceThief works with other sites as well, not only Youtube. It can also download videos from Yahoo Video, Google Videos, Metacafe, Dailymotion, CollegeHumor etc. Platform: Windows / Mac / Linux Download: http://downloads.sourceforge.net/xviservicethief/xVST_2_3-static.msi 11. Mozy (Backup)Backups are very important! Here on MakeUseOf we have published dozens of articles explaining why you should always keep a fresh backup of important data. And Mozy is the perfect program for that. It’s an online backup and recovery service that allows you to select files and folders on your computer and safely back them up online.
It’s fully automated, just set it once and it will do the backups without bothering you again. What’s even better, whenever you make changes to individual documents or files within selected folders, your changes will be replicated on your backup copy as well. So your backup always stays up-to-date.
In the case of file corruption, accidental deletion or hardware failure, you may easily restore your backed up files from the web to the original computer or any another computer, be it a Windows or Mac. Mozy offers both free and premium accounts (only $4.95/month). The only difference between those two is that free account comes only with 2GBs of storage space. It should be more than enough for backing up important files and documents. On the other hand, if you want to backup your music library, photos, videos or maybe an entire drive then we recommend signing up for a premium account. (Discount for MakeUseOf users. When signing up for premium account use ‘ MAKEUSEOF’ (all caps) promo code to get 10% off.) Platform: Windows / Mac Download: https://mozy.com/registration/free/?ref=3f9a896b&kbid=38347&sub=newsletter&m=17 12. Digsby (Multi-protocol Instant Messenger)If you chat on a regular basis and are active on social networks then this is a must-have program for you. There is so much this app does that it’s hard to explain it all in a few lines. Firstly, it’s a universal instant messenger that allows you to chat with your friends on MSN, Yahoo, AIM, Google Talk, Facebook, Myspace, ICQ and Jabber, all from a single messenger.
Secondly, it allows you to read and reply to your emails. That’s right folks, whether you have a Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail account you can receive and reply to emails all from Digsby’s slick interface. Currently Disgby works with Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, AOL/AIM Mail, POP Email, IMAP Mail accounts.
And that’s not all, you may also monitor alerts and set status message notifications for Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and LinkedIN accounts. Pretty cool, huh! Other less important but still noteworthy features include: – chat history (with search option) (Note: Pay close attention when installing Digsby on your computer and make sure to deselect (uncheck) the additional components you don’t need. When the app is installed go to the preferences window and disable Digsby research.) Platform: Windows / Mac / Linux Download: http://www.digsby.com/?utm_campaign=makeuseof 13. VLC Media Player (Video Player)With over 67 million downloads so far and roughly 7 downloads per second it’s one of the most popular video players around. VLC is a highly portable multimedia player supporting most audio and video formats and can play pretty much any video files you throw at it, including physical media like DVDs. Plus it doesn’t need any external codec, program or codec pack to work.
The VLC can be used both by beginners as well as expert users for working with video files. The player can also play Youtube videos, convert video files, play subtitles, etc. Download: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ 14. Foobar2000 (Music Player)The foobar2000 is an advanced audio player for Windows and supports pretty much all popular audio formats. This is an audio player of choice for many audiophiles (the reader polls on MakeUseOf and Lifehacker confirm that). But what’s in it for you? Well, leaving aside its rich feature set, there are two things that make it stand out from the crowd.
First, when it comes to the appearance of the player, it’s HIGHLY customizable. There is NO OTHER audio player out there that can be customized as much. The Foobar2000 lets you change everything starting from buttons, layout, background colors, menus to visualization details. But the best thing about this gem, it needs very little of your system resources when compared to Windows Media Player, iTunes or Winamp. The Foobar2000 has also plug-ins for iPod support and things like lyrics and album art. There is also a portable version if you prefer to carry it on your thumbdrive. Platform: Windows only Download: http://www.foobar2000.org/download 15. ImgBurn (CD / DVD Image Burner)There are many reasons we need a simple, fast way to burn disks. ImgBurn is a CD/DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-ray burning application that is fast, lightweight, and completely free.
With ImgBurn you can: - backup your data or media files to DVD. ImgBurn supports a variety of image formats and almost all types of discs, so you don’t need to look any further for your disc burning needs. There is also a portable version that you can carry with you on your USB drive. For additional details see the MakeUseOf ImgBurn review here. Platform: Windows / Linux (needs Wine) Download: http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=download So there you go, the top 15 that you should have on your system and use on a frequent basis. Since everyone is different with different needs, you will probably disagree with us on some of these choices. If so, head on down to the comments section below and let us know which apps you would put in their place and why. 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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| Cool Websites and Tools [November 15] Posted: 15 Nov 2009 04:00 PM PST
(1) GetDeb.net – Continuously updated web directory where Ubuntu (Debian and Mint) users can get latest copies of Ubuntu applications not yet released in official repositories. It features lots of different apps nicely organized in respective categories. Read more: GetDeb.net – Get Latest Ubuntu Applications
(2) WorldClock – Online clock that along with the time, shows real time statistical info of the world. The info includes things like world population, birth, death, divorce, abortion, HIV, cancer incidence etc. You can view real time stats for one year, month, week and day. Read more: WorldClock – Displays Interesting Real Time World Statistics (3) SecondSpin – Popular online marketplace for trading used CDs, DVDs and games. You can buy used merchandise at lower prices from the site with 100% quality guarantees, and sell your own unused CDs and DVDs as well. Sign up on the site to start trading items. Read more: SecondSpin – Trade Used DVDs, CDs & Games (4) WebPagetest – Web tool that lets you test the load speed of your website. It puts your website through various load scenarios to test whether your pages execute quickly or not. Read more: WebPagetest – Test Load Speed Of Your Website (5) LeapFish – Multifunctional online startpage with real time search capabilities. It aggregates content such as news, videos, deals, weather, blog posts from variety of popular web resources and presents it on customizable interface, or what you can call your “online dashboard”. Read more: LeapFish – Start Page With Real Time Social Search
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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| 5 Sites To Find Free Alternatives To Popular Software Posted: 15 Nov 2009 02:00 PM PST
And sometimes there are software you find irksome and think things could have been better. In any case, I always like to try out a few alternative software choices before I settle with any particular application mainly for two reasons: One, you would never know how good or bad the one you are using is until you try some alternatives and two: a bit of choice and competition can only be for the good of us users! Your motivation might be different: perhaps you want to find a free software that does the same task as the paid software you are using or maybe your favorite Windows application is not available on Mac or Linux. Whatever maybe the reason, here are some sites that you can use to find alternative software and suggested applications. LinuxAppFinder
Missing your favorite Windows or Mac application on Linux? Try LinuxAppFinder. It provides a listing of popular Linux applications. Apart from that, it also lists popular Windows and Mac software and the Linux applications that can be used for similar purposes. Clicking on an alternative software listing will show you its description, rating and other related software. LinuxAppfinder is a great way to discover Linux software if you are new to Linux.
AlternativeTo
AlternativeTo lists a large number of Windows, Mac, Linux software. Click on the ones you use or need to find alternative software for, and you will be presented with a list of software with similar functionality. Likes ala Diggs are presented alongside each listed software, that lets you gauge the popularity of the software. Additionally, you can filter the mentioned alternative by platform, likes or recent popularity as well. AlternativeTo also lists webapps like Dropbox and Evernote, just in case you are looking to shift to the web! Osalt
Osalt is yet another popular site that offers similar functionality. It lists Open Source applications as alternative to popular software that you might be paying lots of money for. Many of the open source software have come a long way in functionality and usability and they cover almost every purpose you can use your computer for. Mostly open source software are also free, so you should definitely check out osalt and see if you can find some good open source software that can replace the ones you are already using. Wakoopa
Wakoopa takes a somewhat different approach. Wakoopa is a community where people share their favorite software. You can view most popular apps that other people are using on the Wakoopa home page. For personalized suggestions, you would have to signup and create a software profile listing the software you are presently using. In addition, you can also track how much time you are spending using each application. MakeUseOf
Actually, this one goes far beyond suggesting alternative software! However, we also do our part when it comes to reviewing interesting or new applications. You should always check out the MakeUseOf directory that lists hundreds of useful web and mobile applications that you can use for a variety of purposes. Do you have any applications you wish to switch over from? Sound off 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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| SlateBox – An Easy and Quick Collaborative Visualization Tool Posted: 15 Nov 2009 12:00 PM PST
SlateBox is a web application that may seem knotty at first. But grope around a bit and you soon realize its child's play. Is that why it's called SlateBox? Here I am getting ahead of myself – What's SlateBox after all? Very simply, SlateBox is a collaborative visualization tool. Visualization tools are apps which help us plot or draw an idea into an image or diagram. The diagrams are meant to represent relationships between the ideas on display. Mindmaps are what can be called visualization aids. We have covered a few awesome Mindmapping applications, both online and offline. SlateBox is a similar but also a bit different at the same time. SlateBox is a mindmapping application and a bit moreAlthough it can used as such, SlateBox helps you with the visual ideas and also enables you to collaborate and share those ideas with others in real time. The visual ideas are built on 'Slates' which are like a blank canvas. We mentioned mindmaps, but SlateBox can be a collaborative visualization that for a whole lot of things like – designs, organizational charts, flow charts, process diagrams, work planning etc. Let's see how SlateBox works
Working together on one Slate
The collaboration engine is still not fully explained and frankly, I couldn't try it out for lack of 'collaborators' in real time. But according to the site, collaboration will – broadcast changes in real time to all users logged under one shared account. The status panel will also reflect the user who initiated the changes. Changes can also be locked by a user so the Slate can be presented to all users simultaneously. SlateBox also provides a developer API which can be embedded in websites and used as small web applications. But that's beyond the scope of an average user. What a normal user would find in SlateBox is an easy to use and easier to setup collaborative visualization tool. An uncomplicated tool like SlateBox is a fit for small teams and tutor-pupil scenarios. Though in beta, SlateBox shows some promise as a fast collaborative visual mapper. What are your first impressions on SlateBox (Beta)? Image Credit: LukePDQ 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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| How To Buy Used Stuff For Cheap On Facebook Posted: 15 Nov 2009 10:00 AM PST
The first and quickest way to start is to simply use your status update feature to announce to all your friends that you have something to sell or that you are looking for a specific item. This is quick, easy, and painless. However, the audience is limited to your friends and you may not have too much success, particularly if most of your friends live hundreds of miles away and you are trying to sell a refrigerator. The next place to go is the new or used Facebook Marketplace. This site was launched earlier this year and allows you to find items for sale or to sell your used stuff. The site is powered by oodle. Stefan covered oodle at length in his March 2009 article Oodle – Another Craigslist, But Slightly Better. To list items for sale, you have to allow Marketplace permission, like other Facebook applications. The site has four primary categories: items for sale, housing, jobs, and vehicles. Beside each category is a small "+ post" button for you to add a post.
Marketplace is as easy to use as Craigslist, and to me, easier than ebay, since you don’t have to bid and wait. Via the Facebook interface, you can comment and ask questions about the items up for sale. When you go to the main screen and begin browsing, you can set your location and search area to limit the distance you want to search. You may find a deal 500 miles away, but shipping costs or a trip to pick it up may make it less cost effective. Once you select your location, a section of the resulting page will show you pictures and a brief description of the latest items listed for sale.
If you choose to browse one of the four categories, the page comes up in classical Facebook interface style. The "type your status here" bar is replaced with a "Post in ___" bar (fill in the blank for the category). You are also provided a choice to "post" a listing or "find" an item.
From the main page, if you have clicked the "+ post" button beside a category, you are given the choice to "sell it" or "give it away". Curb alert! Also from here you can post requests for items by clicking on the "ask for it" button.
You just can’t find what you are looking for in the Marketplace? Hunt up one of the Freecycle groups. If you’ve never heard of Freecycle, let me explain – at least a little. Freecycle groups exist in many locations and through various internet channels. Freecycling is simply giving away things that you would normally throw away or donate. A large majority of items are clothing related, but I have gotten some decent video games and books through Freecycling. Many people don’t have time or enough items to hold a yard sale, they don’t think the stuff is worth much money, they don’t live near an organization’s donation location, or they just don’t want to throw it away, so they list it through a Freecycle group. Freecycle groups are accessible through Yahoo, Craigslist and Facebook, among others. On Facebook, simply go to "Groups" and in the "search Groups" box, type in ‘freecycle’. Numerous groups will come up and you can browse for one in your area. Join the group, and you will get status updates when items come available.
Some groups, like those on Yahoo, are set up to send an email alert every time something is listed. Be forewarned if you live near a metropolitan area, you may get swamped with emails regarding items you are not interested in. You may want to establish a separate email account tied specifically to the Freecycle group or you may want to use email filters set for a particular item you are needing. If you use a Facebook Freecycle group, your wall may end up being flooded with status updates about items as well, so you may want to turn these off and just go look at the offerings when you are looking for something in particular. Yard Sale groups on Facebook are another way of finding good deals. Yard sale groups are relatively unexplored and there are only a few out there. Like the Marketplace, you buy and sell, but like Freecycle, this is done through a Facebook group.
I really like this concept, particularly if you have a group of friends who live relatively close to one another, but you just don’t have time to hold a yard sale or time to go to yard sales on Saturday morning. You can start the group, advertise via your status, and start a small local network of friends who can buy, sell, or trade items. Do you have any other creative ways to use Facebook to find good cheap stuff?
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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| GeekTool – Display System Information on Mac in Style Posted: 15 Nov 2009 08:00 AM PST
On my quest to find applications to utilize the wasted desktop space I found GeekTool, a PrefPane (System Preferences module) designed to display different kinds of system information on a Mac’s desktop: an ideal enhancement for the idle property. But it was not love at first sight. The tool was too geeky for me. While it did improve the desktop in the functionality department, it failed miserably in the looks department. The way it would display system information was actually made my desktop looked uglier. So I left this app behind and went on with my life. The second encounterThen one day, when I was in need of a tool to quickly display several system information, the GeekTool name popped out again. This time the function beat the form, I was ready to live with the unpleasant look as long as the purpose was served. While tinkering with it, I found out that GeekTool has adjustable elements to tweak the look. With a little creativity I could get the best of both world; cool functionality and stylish looks. (Please note that I’m using the 3.0 RC5 version. But for those who have doubts on using Release Candidate version, version 2.1.2 – with different UI – is still available to be downloaded.) The first step is to install GeekTool by double-clicking at the GeekTool.prefPane icon.  The app will be installed in your Mac’s System Preferences. Choose install for all users unless you want it to be accessible only by you.  The GeekTool System Preferences will automatically open after the installation. Check the “Enable” box to activate it.  An empty transparent “Geeklet Settings” properties window will appear. The content of this window will change according to which geeklet is selected.  You could also check “Show in menubar” and “Automatically check update” if you want to. The shell settingsThe next step is to pre-configure GeekTool. There are so many things that you can do with this tool for the geek, but for our today’s topic, we’ll just use the shell console. Drag the “Shell” icon to your desktop.  After the shell console is placed safely on the desktop, a new group called “Default Group” will appear under “Manage Groups” pane. The “Geeklet Settings” window will also turn into several setting options that you can edit. The first setting is the name and posistion of the geeklet. This is an optional value that you can skip if you want to.  The second is the command which will be carried out by the geeklet which will be displayed on the desktop. It could be programmed to display a simple line of text [echo "your text here"], date [date], calendar [cal], or the uptime of your machine [uptime].  These commands are UNIX command that usually run via Terminal. There are tons of them, and each of them can be customized using additional command strings. While it’s impossible to list them all here, you could always turn to the search engine for help. Don’t forget to fill the the value for “Refresh every XX s”. To keep the diplay always updated, you might want to go for the value of “1″ second. The last adjustment is “Font and Color”. Here’s where you can go wild. Using the combination of font type, color and the position of them, you could “dress up” your desktop to your liking.  There’s no strict rules on how to design your display of system information, just make sure that it would go along with your wallpaper. Here’s an example on how I adjusted the font and color to match the background.  Below is what I came up with after few minutes of trying GeekTool.  You could also look at how other people design their desktop using GeekTool in this Flickr Gallery. This short rumbling merely touches the surface of what GeekTool can do, but I can assure you that more about GeekTool is coming your way. Have you tried GeekTool? Do you have a GeekTool desktop to show off? Share using the comment below. Related posts
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| Wally- Awesome Wallpaper Rotator for Windows, Mac & Linux Posted: 15 Nov 2009 06:00 AM PST Staring at the same wallpaper everyday can become incredibly boring. On the other hand, having to go searching for new wallpapers is often a long and tedious task. This is why we, the neighborhood geeks, prefer wallpaper applications, more specifically wallpaper rotator applications. There are a multitude of wallpaper applications available – most freeware – but almost none as diverse as Wally. Wally – The Wallpaper RotatorWally is one of those ‘wallpaper applications’. It aggregates pictures and wallpapers from a variety of sources and flips through them while you’re working. If you set it up right, you’ll never have to worry about searching for a fresh wallpaper again. You’ll have one – every new day, hour or even minute.
The wallpaper rotator application is open-sourced and available for all operating systems; it won’t matter to Wally if you’re a Mac, PC or Linux fanatic. I’ve also tested it for Windows 7, and it works like a charm. Wally beautifully integrates in the dock taskbar. By right-clicking the icon, a list of options will enfold. The ones you’ll want to use is Play/Pause (to initiate and terminate the wallpaper rotations) and Next photo (if you don’t like the sight). If you’re really fond of a certain wallpaper you can also save it to your disk or explore the source. Wallpaper SourcesBut the real power of Wally over other wallpaper rotator applications is its incredibly wide variety of image sources. Where others are often targeted at a single wallpaper database or image search engine, Wally supports no less than ten image sites. You can create custom searches, or load several local image directories.
To add one of those online image searches, open the settings window and navigate to the relevant search engine in the sidebar and press Add. You’ll be asked for a little basic information.
Add the words you want to search for. I simply added ‘widescreen wallpaper’ (without the quotation marks), but you can search for cars, Apple iPhone wallpapers, or whatever you want. At the right of the screen, use the drop-down menu to classify your search (it will search all words as a default). At the bottom you’ll see another drop-down menu. If you don’t want any pornographic material to appear on your desktop, leave it as be. Otherwise – yeah, I think you’ll figure it out. Additional SettingsGoing down the left sidebar, you’ll see another ’settings’ tab. There are some other options you might like to configure. For instance, if you enjoy using Wally, I suggest you enable ‘Play automatically on application start’ and ’start automatically when system starts’. Other interesting options are ‘Choose in random order’ and ‘Only use landscape-oriented photos’. What these settings will do is self-explanatory.
At the top of the screen, you can also configure the rotation frequency – in other words, how often you want the background to be changed – and the background color. Default is set at 2 minutes, but most people will prefer a little more sporadic rotation. Did you enjoy Wally? Tell us in the comments if you know of any other wallpaper rotator software! 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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| Twitip.com – Solid Twitter Tips To Help You Get Started Posted: 15 Nov 2009 04:00 AM PST
The point is, Twitter can be quite the tool to get your proverbial head around. When things are tough, it’s nice to have a little help. It’s for that reason that a blog like Twitip.com comes in handy. Twitip.com shares tips about how to Twitter. In fact, that’s what the name means: Twit-tip.
There are 7 topics of Twitter tips Twitip.com covers. (1) Twitter for beginnersTwitip.com has help for the beginner Twitter user just learning how to Twitter. First of all, if you check out the bottom of the page, you’ll find a list of posts written specifically to help someone starting out.
There’s also a whole category of posts directed towards the beginner. Some good posts from this category are the: - Concise Guide to Understanding Replies, Mentions and Direct Messages on Twitter – Part 1 and Part 2 (2) How to get Twitter followers
One of the difficult parts of getting going with Twitter is building a following. It would be nice if we had more than our parents and best friend following us. One of the reasons for using Twitter is to be heard, right? With posts like - How to Grow an Interested Following on Twitter using RSS, we can get a little bit of help. (3) Twitter tools
As you know from reading MakeUseOf, there are many tools being developed to make Twitter a better, more productive tool:
Well, there just so happens to be a category on Twitip.com covering Twitter tools too. Sometimes it’s interesting to hear different voices, ideas and opinions on the same subject. Check out Tweepi – Twitter Follow Management With Stats and How To Use CoTweet To Join The Conversation. (4) General Twitter tips
It’s great to get tips from people who have experience! If we can find anything good to learn about how to use Twitter, it could be found in the Tips category. Check these tips out: When NOT to Tweet, Twitter – The Art of Influence, and Get More Mileage Out of Your Blog Archives with Twitter Teasers (5) Twitter for business
Businesses are getting into Twitter BIG time! There are several businesses I follow just so I can keep up with new developments. Businesses use Twitter in several ways, one of which is to build a brand. Apparently you can also use Twitter to find a job! Who knew? (6) Twitter Users
Twitip.com also has a whole category about how to find out WHO to follow. Are you new to Twitter and you don’t know who to follow? Find out who’s who and how to find the people YOU would want to listen to. Try these posts: The Top 12 Unique Causes to Follow on Twitter, Moms: The Spiders on the Social Media Web, and Twitter: The Real-Time Answer Engine. (7) Twitter news
This category is all about news about Twitter. For instance, since Twitter released its “List” feature, there’s been some buzz about it. Check out these 2 articles talking about it: Twitter Lists In Detail or, "Yo Dawg, I Heard U Like Lists!" and 8 Things to Consider Before Using Twitter Lists. If you like to read blogs (and hopefully you do because MakeUseOf is an awesome one!) and you want some help with Twitter, you really need to check out Twitip.com. It’s a blog that is offering help! Closer to home, don’t forget to check out our very own Twitter Guide: Best Practices and Tips [PDF Guide] to help you get started with Twitter. Image credits: MorgueFile.com 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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Everyone who spends a fair amount of time on the computer has a few favorite applications, the ones you like for one reason or another. Maybe they help you get your work done faster or you like their looks and feel or perhaps because these are free.
A beta web application or software conveys the promise of things to come. Yes, not everything may work seamlessly, but Twitter too was once just a chirp. The fun for us early birds is to check out the app and the technology behind it (and hope what we like, remains free).
When I try to sell used stuff around the house, I usually start with a yard sale if I have enough quantity. Once the yard sale is over, I will put the bigger or better pieces that didn’t sell on 
To me, one of the most unused properties of a computer is the desktop display. There’s nothing much to do with it. Sometimes I change the wallpaper with a new one and sometimes I go a little bit further by setting a series of pictures to alternate every few minutes. But that’s about it.
I remember when I started learning how to 
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