Latest Tips from MakeUseOf.com |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [November 20]
- Use F.lux To Sleep Better After Late-Night Computer Activities
- How To Quickly Fix A Phone or MP3 Player With Water Damage
- The 2 Great Websites for Atari 2600 Enthusiasts
- BookRix – A Community For Book Lovers & Wannabe Authors
- The Best Alternative Alarm Clocks (Windows/Mac/Mobile)
- 12 Ideas On How To Take Better Photographs
- Type Emails Faster with Texter Text Replacement Software
| Cool Websites and Tools [November 20] Posted: 20 Nov 2009 03:59 PM PST
(1) The Inflation Calculator – Nowadays, the dollar don't have the same buying power as it did, say in 60's, when a new home would cost you around $30,000. And the reason is – inflation. To find out how the value of the US dollar changed over time, check out this Inflation Calculator. Read more: The Inflation Calculator – See Value Of US Dollar Over Time
(2) LiftMagic – This fun online tool can take your photo, do some magic with it, and then show how you would look like after a massive plastic surgery face lift. While the result are questionable, it's still an interesting app for those contemplating about plastic surgery on their face. Read more: LiftMagic – See How You Would Look Like After Cosmetic Surgery (3) Brainshark – Cool web tool for enchaining your presentations online. It lets you upload PowerPoint presentations, videos, image slideshows or documents and effectively increase their interactivity by adding voice narrations. Read more: Brainshark – Add Voice to Powerpoint & Word Docs (4) TimeMe – Free web-based timer and stopwatch for your web browser. It can be used to time meetings, class tests or any other events. Due to its huge display it can be easily used in conference rooms with many people or classrooms with students. Read more: TimeMe – Large Display Stopwatch Online (5) DirProtect – If you are worried with snoopers viewing your web files, then you should definitely use DirProtect. As the name implies, this dead-simple tool protects your web directories by generating .htaccess and .htpassword files. Read more: DirProtect – Online .htaccess and .htpassword Generator
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
| ||
| Use F.lux To Sleep Better After Late-Night Computer Activities Posted: 20 Nov 2009 02:01 PM PST
You must be familiar with modern LCD screens, right? If you look carefully, most of them have a button to automatically change the attributes of the screen to adjust for the types of media which is being viewed: one specially tweaked for movies, another for photos, a separate one for text and there’s one we’re particularly interested about — night. You see, working in front of a computer screen at night raises a particular concern. The fact that you’re staring at a bright screen late at night when your body is supposed to be turning in, disrupts your circadian rhythm. A bit of medical jargon coming your way — during nighttime, darkness permits the production of melatonin by the pineal gland. Melatonin causes drowsiness and in tandem with the central nervous system, controls the circadian rhythm. In layman’s term, all this means is the bright light from the LCD screen screws up your sleep-wake cycle. That’s why there’s a customized “Night” setting on your LCD. Furthermore, there are several apps that will reduce the brightness of your screen while working at night; Shades is one example of a Mac app that will do just that. I don’t know if you’ve noticed the LCD’s reflection off a person’s face at night — it’s mostly bluish white. Technically, the specific colour temperature is 6500K; also known as daylight. That’s right. If you find it hard to fall asleep after using your computer, this is why. F.lux addresses this issue but it does it slightly differently. Instead of reducing brightness per se, it actually warms the colours you see on your screen and imitates the lighting in the room during nighttime. It’s quite hard to wrap your head around until you actually use it but I’ll do my best to try and explain it.
Here’s a short clip to show you how seamless the colour change is. I have to apologize for the video’s quality. The warming effect isn’t visualized in screencasts and I had to resort to using a digicam. The focus is invariably off. The point here is to show you that F.lux can actually warm the screen up quite a bit to compensate for the lighting conditions, especially if the room is lit with halogen or tungsten lamps. I can assure you that the colour changes evenly across the screen, even though it looks “top heavy” in the video. I’ve been using F.lux for a while and I cannot instinctively tell when the warming appears. It’s a natural transition, which I appreciate. It can also be temporarily disabled in the menu bar to work on colour-sensitive projects. One more thing I have to stress: using F.lux doesn’t mean that you will fall straight to sleep once you’re off the computer and in the bed. No, there are other factors governing sleepiness. F.lux will only help reduce stimulated wakefulness and assist you in adjusting to lighting conditions. If you find yourself skeptical, give it a try. F.lux is cross-platform and will work on Windows, Mac and Linux. If you think it works, share your experiences 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
| ||
| How To Quickly Fix A Phone or MP3 Player With Water Damage Posted: 20 Nov 2009 12:01 PM PST
What happened was this; I got bored so I decided to go for a stroll. After half an hour I found myself caught out in the rain. It got really bad and huge puddles started to form on the road. The worst I’ve seen it in a long time. At points, the roads were flooded right across with five inches of water covering the footpaths. Needless to say I got splashed three times by cars (I think one wise guy did it on purpose). I assumed my phone would be fine because it was in my jacket pocket – away from my jeans which were completely soaked through. But no. The flap which covers my jacket pocket at the front was tucked into the pocket creating a nice funnel for the rain and splash water to flow right into. My phone was literally submerged in water in my pocket. It didn’t work when I got home and went to check my e-mail. Shocker. However now it does because I worked my magic. Here are three tips to fix a phone with water damage.. Act QuicklyThe minute you discover that your phone is water damaged it’s time to act. Remove every cover and detachable part you possibly can. On my phone I took out the memory card, the SIM card, battery and back cover. Unfortunately, because it’s a touch screen the front does not come away. Using toilet paper or a thin cloth, blot away any excess water you can see inside of the phone. Be sure to get as much as you can. Failing to do so will mean that all this water will start evaporating and collecting in hard to reach places in your phone. Your phone may work now if it was only submerged for a short period of time. Like if you dropped it in the sink. If not, keep reading.
Quick DryingYour phone now has an appointment at the beauty salon. Get hold of a hairdryer and A warning: Don’t hold the hair dryer too close to the phone. Keep it at a distance whereby if you put your hand in front of the hair dryer it wouldn’t burn you. Any closer and you could damage your phones electrical components. No seriously. Try putting a hair dryer up against a sheet of paper for a few seconds. It turns it brown – would you want that happening to the inside of your phone? If 20-30 minutes of this doesn’t work – go to plan C. Long Term DryingThis is what I eventually had to do to fix my phone because it was so badly soaked. Put it in the linen closet or some place warm and dry in your house. Airing cupboards and next to boilers are good choices. The rule of thumb is that it must be a warm place where the phone isn’t in contact with direct or intense heat. So putting it on top of a radiator (despite what other guides say on the internet) is a bad idea as you can damage your phone by heating it too much and it will just rapidly evaporate the water on the inside causing it to collect – this is an ongoing cycle. By putting it in a warm dry place you allow the water to slowly evaporate and escape through the holes in the phone (remove the covers and battery when doing this). Some other tips for this method:
From my own experience and those of my family, you stand a pretty good chance of fixing your phone this way. I’d say there is a success rate of around 75%. For touch screen phones, the front won't come off which leads to moisture build up on the screen. However, there are normally tiny screws at the back which, when removed, should enable you to take off the front. This will allow you to dry the moisture from the touch screen. You do this at your own risk. Despite what the phone shops would have you believe, it is fairly easy to fix a phone with water damage. Many people assume that once water gets in that’s that. But really, phones are just circuit boards, a screen and a few other bits and bobs. The main reason for them not working when they’re wet is because water on the board or at the battery connectors is causing it to short out. This is a quick fix to a problem almost everyone will have at some stage. For more of my articles relating to cell phones – see my authors page. Or what if you got your Mac computer wet? Make sure to check out Jackson’s article on how to deal with spilled coffee or coke on your Macbook. Do you have any other secret methods for fixing water damaged phones? Let us know 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
| ||
| The 2 Great Websites for Atari 2600 Enthusiasts Posted: 20 Nov 2009 11:01 AM PST
The Atari 2600 was the console that popularized cartridge-based game systems as well as helped spur the emergence of third party game developers for consoles. Its legacy is with us today and in its heyday, the Atari 2600, also known as the Atari VCS, was one of the longest living consoles ever made. Thus, it is no surprise that collectors and enthusiasts go mad for the console and games made for it, even today. Because of the console's influence and timelessness, there are many sites on the web devoted to it, but which are the best? AtariAgeThough not strictly devoted to the Atari 2600 (the site provides information on 2600's brethren like the 5200, 7800, and the like), AtariAge provides a huge amount of information about the console and should be the starting point for any budding collector or anyone who just wants to know and love the 2600. The main feature of interest at AtariAge is the Rarity Guide, a huge database of pages profiling 2600 games. The Atari 2600 Rarity Guide can be navigated to by selecting "2600" on the homepage's navigation side bar. One there, you can search AtariAge's ample database for any game you desire.
Each game's profile provides valuable information for the collector and enthusiast alike. Things like rarity ranks, scans of cartridges and manuals, as well as links to eBay and other online auctions make AtariAge almost a one stop shop for a collector.
If you have little to no interest in actually owning the game and just want to play, then there is information for you too. Links are provided to reviews, tips and tricks, hacks of the game, as well as links to download the ROM of the game for play in an emulator. As would be expected, information is more complete for more popular games, but on the whole, profiles are usually pretty comprehensive and are getting more so every day. AtariAge is also a common stomping ground for homebrewers, people who make games today for the console, so if you want to get on the cutting edge of game design for the Atari 2600, AtariAge is a must. The website also provides tons of information about other aspects of the system and the culture that surrounds it. There is a nice list of available hardware, information for people who would like to program the console, the history of the console, and a forum. The forum provides even more information with some very dedicated posters providing seas of information about all aspects of the console. AtarimaniaLike AtariAge, Atarimania is not exclusively for the Atari 2600, but does have many helpful tools for people who love the console. Some of the coolest features include a bunch of old 2600 commercials, under "Video," after clicking "2600" at the top, and scans and photos of all sorts of Atari 2600 related paraphernalia.
Another big draw of Atarimania is the nice ROM collection provided by the site. You can get there by clicking "2600" at the top and then on "ROMs" in the navigation bar just below. It claims to be the best and most genuine collection on the internet and is in fact rather good. The site also provides a nice database of game profiles, similar to AtariAge, for your viewing pleasure. Just click on "Games" after "2600," like above. One nice leg up the Atarimania pages have over their AtariAge counterparts is the ability to play the games online through a Java based emulator that can run in a webpage, in case downloading and installing a third party emulator isn't your kick. Other than that, pretty similar information is provided.
AtariAge seems to be more useful for people wanting to get into serious collecting or programming of the Atari 2600 while Atarimania is geared more toward the casual gamers that want to try games made for the 2600 without putting in a huge monetary or time investment. The Atari 2600 will not go away any time soon, making this as good a time as ever to take advantage of the thriving community of gamers and collectors devoted to creating new content and providing accurately ported old content for and about the console. So, have you played Atari today? 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
| ||
| BookRix – A Community For Book Lovers & Wannabe Authors Posted: 20 Nov 2009 10:01 AM PST
Commonly all book lovers sites revolve around a community. An online ‘town square’ meet-up to see what others are reading and why they reading it. If you club together a few likeminded book lovers, you are bound to come across a lot of books. BookRix is just such a book lovers website, a community platform where you can read, rate and rant away on books. BookRix is also a place where new authors can present their own works. In that respect BookRix acts like an online publishing house for free via the medium of the browser. BookRix calls itself a portal on books. Let's find our way in with a simple registration and unwrap what the site has in store for a book lover and a hopeful author. Something seems to be always happening at BookRix. Immediately after my log-in, I am greeted with the message as depicted below.
The Personal Homepage is usually the starting point for all activities on BookRix. We have Boxes with different content like BookRix News, Your Favorite Categories, Book Recommendations, New Books etc, which are all snapshots of everything we do in BookRix.
The Books overview page is a place to search for all that's there in BookRix's collection. A search or an advanced search will throw up the book we want. BookRix also has a small collection of audio books and foreign language titles.
The Community is the place to hang out and discover other readers and authors. We can interact directly with other readers (i.e. both users and authors) or join Groups like the one called 'Give vampires a chance'…which reads and discusses books on vampires! Or, if we don't want anything that far out, we can always start our own group. Then again, we can pass the time playing a round of literary quiz that's on offer. BookRix also has a fledgling discussion Forum that affords another place to connect to the writers and readers network.
My BookRix is the operations room. Set up your profile and build a network by inviting friends. There's also a little pin board that we can use as a post-it peg. The pin board notice goes out to all our friends on the network.
The My Books section is an important place for an aspiring author on BookRix. Though this is a place to manage our book lists (those that are authored by us), this section also has the tools that allow us to upload our raw content and make a book out of it.
The BookRix Upload tool has a few processes that make it easy to transfer the basic PDF, DOC, ODT or any other file type and add some defining information like Title, Sub Title, Author, Page Format for the preset BookRix template etc. A press on Save sends the book through the processing machine. We get a preview of our work in the slick BookRix Reader and the book gets saved in our account. A similar process allows us to upload audio podcasts and illustrated books too.
Promote your book through the BookRix interface. BookRix hosts the authored book, but we the authors need to tom-tom it using good old fashioned email promotion or through web links. The advantage of a community can be realized for a shot of viral promotion.
The word has gone out. People are queuing for your signature and you are the toast of the literati. Not quite. Book authoring and publishing it (successfully) is a backbreaking and fortune crushing business. Just ask some of the famous authors whose books have been rejected thousands of times. So is the BookRix book lovers website worth it? Yes definitely because it lets you test the waters for free. The book reading community comments and gives your work an onceover. Productive appraisal is a vital ingredient towards the process of becoming a better writer. There are lots of book communities and online reading web apps out there, but BookRix is a no risk way of giving your penmanship a wider audience. If you are a book lover, ink a few comments on BookRix. Or take a look at three other alternatives profiled by Bakari. 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
| ||
| The Best Alternative Alarm Clocks (Windows/Mac/Mobile) Posted: 20 Nov 2009 08:01 AM PST
Without an extremely good (read: loud) alarm clock ruining the party, it’s all too tempting to stay in bed just a little bit longer. So if you don’t have a decent alarm clock, you know you’re in big trouble. A lot of people use their cellphone’s alarm, but that’s often just a mediocre solution. We’ve scoured the internet looking for free alternative alarm clocks; great applications for your PC, Mac, Windows Mobile, iPhone and even Android that’ll make waking up a delight. Or at least a little bit easier. (Windows) College Alarm ClockStrangely enough, free alarm clocks for Windows are the hardest to find. An incredible application, but sadly costing $12, is the Citrus Alarm Clock. When looking for a free Windows alarm clock, our biggest sacrifice is going to be the eye-candy. College Alarm Clock – these days unsupported by its developer, but still available for download – doesn’t look like much, but it comes packed with a truckload of functionality.
College Alarm Clock isn’t a big comfort on the eye, but it does everything a decent alarm clock needs to do, and more. (Mac) Alarm Clock 2Alarm Clock 2 was developed by Robbie Hanson. This alarm clock looks like a typical Mac app; a slick design and incredibly simple interface. Don’t be fooled, it has a few surprises under the hood.
The application wakes your computer out of sleep mode, so you won’t have to keep your computer running. You can set up as many alarms (and timers and stopwatches) as you want, creating a different alarm for each day of the week, if you need it. Play an irritating array of sounds, or pick soothing music right out of your iTunes library. (Web) Sleep.FMDon’t like the preceding two applications? Maybe you’ll like this one better. Being an online web-app, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a Mac, PC or Penguin.
You can set two personal alarms. Due to the limited interface, these can’t be recurring or date-dependent. More originally, you can choose to wake up with a weather broadcast, or a voicing of the current time or date. Prefer to wake up to a female voice? Check the top-right page corner. Tina has also previously profiled some more online alarm clock apps. (iPhone) Alarm Clock FreeThere are hardly any free alarm clocks available for the iPhone. True, most of them don’t even pass the one Dollar mark, but we still prefer free.
Alarm Clock Free, as you might’ve guessed from the name, is one of those scarce free alarms. Nevertheless, you’ll never need another one. This alarm clock supports all basic functionality, and does so in style. Set multiple alarms, wake up to a sound or to your own music, and better yet, be sure to use that big Snooze button! (Windows Mobile & Android) KlaxonFor Windows Mobile, I’ve long been a fan of G-Alarm. It’s an ex-freeware alarm clock that forces math puzzles on you before you’re able to snooze. The app has now turned payware, costing around €5. Klaxon is a Windows Mobile – and recently Android – alternative that (aside from the math puzzles) is very similar in style and quality.
It’s a slick, dark app that allows you to set multiple day-dependant alarms with your own music. One of the more original features of the alarm clock is that you can snooze by turning your phone upside down, or turn the alarm off completely by giving it a wild shake. Download Klaxon here for Windows Mobile, and here for Android. Do you ever use your computer or mobile to wake up? Tell us what (free) applications or websites you use 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
| ||
| 12 Ideas On How To Take Better Photographs Posted: 20 Nov 2009 06:01 AM PST
So in the spirit of sharing, the following are some ideas for those of you who haven't got out with your camera in a while and made some photographs. Your challenge of sorts is to shoot take 10 different photos in the next month or so. These ideas and photos don’t take a professional camera, nor do they require you to travel to some exotic place to take better photographs. As you will see, these photos are the kind that can be taken nearly anywhere. Start At HomeStart at home with everyday objects. Shoot something simple, but capture it as aesthetically as possible. As always, don’t settle for one shot. You’re shooting in the digital age, so taking several shots, from different angles and in different lighting conditions is simply not an expensive problem. This photo represents a part of my morning routine. A cup of black coffee. Nothing special. But what captured my attention were repeated circles of the white cup and saucer, and the black coffee inside. The light coming from the kitchen window was overcast, so I was OK in that area. I took a few shots from above the cup, moved the spoon over some, and settled upon this photo.
Capture Rain DropsI must have shot photos for like five years before I realized the beauty of shooting rain drops. I’m not the kind of person who likes getting out in the rain. I don’t like the itchy feeling you get from wet clothes. But with this image, when that rain settled I took out my Canon Powershot G9, set it to macro mode and tried to hold the camera as still as possible. I was too lazy to get a tripod, which would have worked better. But since the shutter speed was 1/125th of a second, I was OK. I of course increased the sharpness using Aperture 2.0 software.
Shoot An Out-Of-Focus ShotFollowing up on the rain idea, try another shot from your car window. But in this shot, don’t focus the shot. Just raise your point-and-shoot or 35mm camera and take several shots. Look for some color or shapes to seep through the blur. If your camera’s automatic focus won’t let you take an out-of-focused shot, then turn that feature off. Don’t let your camera boss you around and keep you from getting the shot you want.
Shoot Some ArtSome critics say that photographing art is not really photography. It’s like you’re cheating by making an image out of an image. But that’s not so. You can capture art in context. Or you can ignore the critics and just shoot art for arts sake, plain and simple. Don’t shy away from using one artistic medium to capture another one. I took this shot while at a stoplight. My camera was on the car seat; I saw the photo in my mind before I raised the camera and fired off several shots.
Street PortraitsOkay, this one is for truly brave shooters. For a year, I committed to a self-project of photographing 100 strangers. That’s right, people I didn’t know and would probably never meet again. I discovered the project through a Flickr 100 Strangers group. It is the most challenging photo project I have ever done. It got me out of my comfort zone when it comes to people. Stranger portraits are not candid streets photos in which you take photos of people when they’re not aware of you doing so. Street portraits are about photographing individuals you find interesting. To get these shots, strike up a conversation before you ask to take a photo. Tell the person about your project and politely ask to take their photograph. If they reject you, don’t take it personally. Just move on and find someone else. The best places to do these type of shots is in busy downtown areas or crowded outdoor events.
Go To The ZooHaving a hard time finding good subjects to take that better photograph? Go to the zoo. Take your kid or significant other along and see what you can capture. If your city zoo is anything like mine, the animals aren’t going anywhere, and most of the time they can care less about about how many photographs you take of them. So bring along a long range lens of a minimum of 105mm, and see what you can capture in the “wilds” of the zoo.
Old BuildingsOne the things I most dislike about where I live is that so much public space has been given over to commercial interests. Old buildings have been torn down, and there are few places that have survived from the demands of modernity. So when I’m out and about, I try to capture interesting old buildings, especially old churches and cathedrals. I’m not religious or anything, but I like capturing the architecture of these buildings. I captured this photo by driving up to the top of a high-rise parking lot, which gave me a parallel view of the religious crosses. That little extra effort in driving made a difference in the image.
Shoot SlowSometimes photos should show the motion of something moving. If you put your camera on what’s called Shutter Priority, you can set its shutter speed to like 1/25th of a second to capture the motion of a moving subject. Try this out on moving cars or trains, kids playing, or at a sports event. This is a great way to learn about shutter speeds and an equally interesting way to capture motion.
Shoot FastIn the same vein as the idea above, shoot to freeze action. Again, use your Shutter Priority, but this time raise the shutter speed to 1/400th of second or faster. If you need to, raise the ISO so that you get more light into the camera. See if you can free action of a moving subject. This shot is another one of my street portraits where I asked the skateboard rider if I could photograph him doing his thing. After I showed him some of the shots I took, he asked me to take a few more.
Paint With The ShutterOkay, this is the last one in regards to Shutter Priority. I got this idea from reading Understanding Shutter Speed, by Bryan Peterson. This shot is about lowering instead of raising the shutter speed to say 1/5th of second, in a well lit area. Raise the ISO to about 400-600 if you need to, to let in more light. As you take the shot, you, as Peterson says, “twirl, arch, jiggle, or jerk the camera in an up-and-down or side-to-side or round-and round motion.” In other words, paint with your camera. Because the shutter speed is slow, the lens opening will not close up so quickly. Do this several times and you’ll really learn something about slow shutter speeds, plus make some great art.
Faceless ShotPeople shots don’t always have to include faces of the people you photograph. Take some shots of someone’s legs, a hand or arm, or a person’s back. Get the face out of the picture and take on the challenge of shooting a faceless photo. This photo was taken very quickly as I crossed a downtown street. I saw these two bikes roll by and took the shot.
Mix Black-and-White With ColorThis one involves doing a little Photoshop work after the photo is taken. Select a photo in which you convert it to black-and-white and then brush back in some of the color. The process in Photoshop is fairly easy: Open the photo in Photoshop. Click on the adjustment layer at the bottom of the Layers palette. Select the Black & White adjustment. Make adjustments to your liking. Next, set the foreground color to black, and then select the Brush tool. Re-size the brush tool enough to paint back some color on the image. If you make a mistake, simply change the foreground color to white and paint back in the black-and-white part. This photo is of a dance class in which students a public performance.
Hope these ideas for taking better photographs are helpful. If you decide to try a few out, shoot me a link to your posted image results. Or perhaps you know some more methods to shoot some really great photos? Let us know what they are 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
| ||
| Type Emails Faster with Texter Text Replacement Software Posted: 20 Nov 2009 04:01 AM PST
The premise behind the text replacement software is simple – you type something and Texter expands it into something larger or more difficult to remember. How about typing addr and hitting the tab key to type out your mailing address? How about a few characters to spit out awesome quotes that you would never remember? If you are a coder you can use this for repetitive code-like functions you use over and over again – do you see where I am going with this? Let's take a look at how to install and use Texter. You can grab the installer from here. The download link is halfway down the page – you can’t miss it! Run the installer and you will be prompted for an install directory like so:
Once Texter is done installing it will take a few minutes on first launch while it configures things in the background. You will see the following screen:
Once the app is finished initializing you will see the graphical user interface below:
Hit the plus sign below and enter your first “hotstring” – don't be put off by the terminology – that is where you type your codewords. Then choose what will be its trigger. If it is a common few letters you will not want to use instant or you might be shooting yourself in the foot If you use a common word and use instant it would turn your common phrase into your replacement text right away. So for those instances use tab or space.
I love using instant! As you can see below I used the hotstring klg and it instantly turns into my name. Pretty nifty eh? This saves me a ton of time and typing during the day.
You can see below I created my work email, memo or document signature with Texter and when I type Thank and hit tab – blamo! Instant signature. That shaves 10 minutes off my day.
You can include as much text as you want, see below for my preamble to the United States Constitution. I type preamb and hit tab and automagically the preamble appears. Really I can't get enough of this!
Do you have another method for text replacement? Let us know about it in the comments. I would love to take it for a test run as improvements are always welcomed! Thanks Adam. Related posts
|
A couple of months ago, Varun wrote about a very 
Due to my own stupidity, I was left using my old, decrepit mobile phone for four whole days with minimum contacts, no media and no apps which I normally use for e-mail, RSS and Twitter.
start to dry your phone paying extra attention to the battery housing as this normally has small holes which allow air (and ironically enough, water) into the phone.
It's the early eighties. You and your friends are sitting around trying to figure out what to do on a boring night. One of your friends gets up from the sofa, walks across the shag carpeted, wood-paneled room and into a closet. The room gasps as he pulls out the wood textured, plastic modern marvel that is the Atari 2600.
You can't judge a book by its cover, but you can judge a book related website by what it offers. Agreed that the web is not the best place to read books but it is definitely a fine place to discover books.
Waking up can be very hard. And not only because it got that late yesterday night. No, beds are just too comfy these days.
Although I primarily photograph weddings and other special events, as a photographer who loves the craft of making photos I still need to get beyond my paying gigs and everyday family photos and explore other subjects to photograph. More-so, it's important to tear myself away from browsing and admiring wonderful and powerful travel photos posted by other photographers on the Internet, and get out and shoot my own.
Do you find yourself typing the same things over and over again? Maybe it is a canned piece of text that you are required to send to customers or perhaps it is your signature that you type over and over on forums, websites and emails. This awesome piece of simplistic text replacement software is brought to you by Lifehacker editor 
| 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