Latest Tips from MakeUseOf.com |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [December 3]
- How To Keep Flash Videos Full-Screen On A Second Monitor
- How To Send Mass Messages on Twitter Effectively and Get More Clicks
- 5 Tips To Reset The Administrator Password in Windows XP
- Qlock – An Awesome World Clock & Fancy Alarm For Your PC
- Diet Chromium – A Slimmer Chrome OS That Supports More Hardware
- How To Sync Your Mac With Windows Mobile Devices & More
- How To Rename Music Files from iTunes the Easy Way [Windows]
| Cool Websites and Tools [December 3] Posted: 03 Dec 2009 05:01 PM PST
(1) WebPrivacyCheck – Web tool that allows you to check what security related data is exposed by your browser when you surf the web. You can use this site to judge effectiveness of proxy or any other privacy solution in keeping your identity hidden. Read more: WebPrivacyCheck – Check Proxy Effectiveness in Hiding your Identity
(2) MailCounter – Online service that provides an embeddable "Email This" counter/button for your website. It offers your website visitors an easy way to share articles on your websites with others via email. Read more: MailCounter – Get 'Email This' Button/Counter For Your Site (3) Deals.Woot – User-contributed website where people can find and share the best deals online. This shopping portal works by listing deals submitted and voted by members of the Woot community. It is essentially a digg-like discovery tool for deal hunters. Read more: Deals.Woot – Digg Like Site For Deals (4) Virtual Museum – Website that lets you browse a number of European museums online, and explore the most remarkable items of European prehistoric culture and heritage. You can browse and view items by country, museum, time period BC and categories. Read more: Virtual Museum – Browse European Museums Online (5) Championship-Rings – Marketplace for authentic Championship Rings, Medals, Trophies and other sport memorabilia that belongs to famous athletes and coaches for both professional and collegiate sports. It includes trophies from almost all major sports leagues (NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS, PGA, NASCAR, CART, Pro Boxing, Olympics and others). Read more: Championship-Rings – Authentic Championship Rings, Medals & Trophies
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| How To Keep Flash Videos Full-Screen On A Second Monitor Posted: 03 Dec 2009 02:01 PM PST
It really isn’t that complicated to do this. The TV basically acts as a second monitor extending my screen to a second “desktop.” Now I can watch videos while still working, right? All was fine until I attempted to make the video full screen on the second monitor – the television – and still click on anything else on my laptop screen. You see, flash video tends to not hold the full screen if something off the screen is clicked. I’m sure there is a reason they have it that way but that is not the purpose of this post. The purpose of this post is to tell you that I finally found a way around this! Well, someone else actually figured it out, but I want to give some exposure to the trick because I’m SURE there are many people out there just living with this issue just like I have been. Please note that I am a Windows user and I use Firefox and Google Chrome and I don’t think it’ll work on Internet Explorer. So, to give a basic rundown, there is one file that needs to be changed. It’s called “npswf32.dll” and it’s the culprit. It’s found in C:\windows\system32\macromed\flash\. The cool part is that someone else has already taken care of the technical part and has been kind enough to post the modified file online for our downloading pleasure! Very cool, huh? Let me now take you through the process of fixing the problem so that you can watch videos full screen on a second monitor. Just follow 4 simple steps: find the file responsible, backup the existing file, copy the downloaded/modified file into the file, and close and reopen all browser windows.
STEP 1: Find The File Responsible
As I mentioned earlier, the file is found in C:\windows\system32\macromed\flash\ so basically just open File Manager and copy and paste that path into the box. STEP 2: Backup The Existing File
Anytime you are looking to replace an important file, like a DLL file, it’s good to back it up just in case the new file doesn’t work out the way you were hoping it would. So let’s go ahead and rename the file to something like “NPSWF32old.dll” so the new file doesn’t copy over it. To rename it, just right-click on the file, choose “Rename” and get your cursor in between the “2″ and the period and type “old.” STEP 3: Copy The Modified File Into The Folder
You can download the modified DLL file here. Note it is compressed in a zip file so you’ll have to open and decompress it before moving it into place. Some Windows versions will handle the zip file just fine for you. If not there are free utilities that can help decompress them for you. Then just move the new file into place. STEP 4: Close & Re-Open All Browser Windows
As far as the fix goes, that’s it. You won’t see any difference until you close all browser windows and re-open them. This will refresh things and put the new file to work! Disclaimer: I have tested this myself on my Windows Vista laptop using both Firefox AND Google Chrome and it has worked for me. I believe people have tried it on Internet Explorer 8 and it DID NOT work and I am not sure about Opera. In fact, if you try this running Opera, let me know if it works or not. Also, keep an eye out because this may work now but it may need to be fixed again after further Flash updates. Thanks to Polybore for posting this fix on his blog! Also thank you to d.i.z. for posting the modified file for the world to download. When a new version of Flash DOES come out, and it will, I would probably check back at d.i.z.’s page to see if he has another updated file. Do you have a better fix for this problem? Let us know! Image Credit : unimatrixZxero Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! Become a MakeUseOf fan on Facebook? – Our photos, MakeUseOf specials and more. Related posts
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| How To Send Mass Messages on Twitter Effectively and Get More Clicks Posted: 03 Dec 2009 12:01 PM PST
The only drawback inherent with the way Twitter distributes these endorsements is that the person reading the message usually has to be there at the time it's posted, otherwise they might miss it. It's also less personal, since an indirect message sent into the public stream has the danger of getting lost in the noise of all the other tweets rolling past their screens. Let's Get PersonalDirect messaging takes care of the problem of making your message personalized and ensuring they don't miss it, but Twitter doesn't offer an easy way to directly message large groups of followers at once. Enter a new web service named PubliciTweet. PubliciTweet is Twitter ad marketing software that takes this problem head on with its ability to create social media marketing campaigns using Twitter to focus your personalized message to groups of your followers. Let's take a look and see how this product might allow you to leverage Twitter's strengths to deliver your message efficiently and effectively to the most influential of your customers.
That's Easy For You To SaySetting up a campaign with PubliciTweet is about as simple as it gets – create a free account, write your tweet, optionally choose when it should be sent and to whom, and you're done. By default, your message is sent to your 500 most popular followers (or all, if you have less than 500 followers), and it gets to work immediately sending your message directly to them as a Twitter direct message. To stick to Twitter's rate limitation guidelines, your campaign is throttled to 100 messages per hour, up to 1000 messages per day – automatically. If you're inclined, you can set up groups of followers ahead of time and choose to send to more specific followers – perhaps localized in certain parts of the world, by age demographics, or to your most communicative followers. PubliciTweet claims that their calculations show click-through rates increase by up to 500% when sent as a direct message, and using their service might make you a believer.
How Do You Measure Up?As PubliciTweet’s system sends out your targeted message to your followers, it is also compiling a list of incredibly useful and detailed statistics – such as the conversion rate showing exactly how many times a link in your message was clicked, graphs that illustrate the effectiveness of your campaign over time, and even a Google Maps mash-up pinpointing where in the world your campaign is reaching, and which of your followers are acting upon your message. What's really impressive however is the way it brings to light the trickle-down effect that Twitter has, by listing the top referrers of your campaign – taking into account people who retweet, share your message, and act upon it among their followers. Of course, while you're on the go, you'll receive daily snapshot updates of these important statistics via (you guessed it!) a direct message on Twitter. You can quickly start to see just how powerful a targeted direct message can be through all of the metrics PubliciTweet provides.
Small Message, Big ResultsPubliciTweet is currently free while it's in public beta, and is available to sign up and use immediately at their site. You can follow them on Twitter (@pbct), and they also offer support using the ever-popular service, GetSatisfaction, to discuss new feature ideas, questions about the service, and report issues. While composing a compelling message that convinces your followers to click your link in less than 140 characters is the hard part of an online marketing campaign, PubliciTweet makes the delivery of that message quick and effortless. The added bonus of measurable success shown through their many statistics makes it a no-brainer addition to your arsenal of Twitter tools for efficacious communication to your customers. How Else Do I Spread The Word?In addition to the PubliciTweet Twitter ad marketing software, you might like to check out these other related services and articles:
If you have used PubliciTweet, please let us know in the comments what you think of it and how it can be improved. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! Become a MakeUseOf fan on Facebook? – Our photos, MakeUseOf specials and more. Related posts
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| 5 Tips To Reset The Administrator Password in Windows XP Posted: 03 Dec 2009 11:01 AM PST
Earlier in the month, Karl posted a tip on how to recover your Windows XP administrator password by using the installation disk. However, he forgot to mention a few other easier ways how to reset Windows XP password without having to go through the installation process. 1. Use Alt, Control, Delete & The Windows Welcome ScreenIf you have set your computer up to login via the Welcome Screen, there may be a slight chance that you will be able to login as the Administrator. Depending on who installed XP on your computer, there may or may not be a password on the Administrator's account. So simply press Alt+Control+Delete twice. You will be presented with a login box. Click OK to login without typing any user name or password in. If that doesn't work, type in 'Administrator' into the username box and press enter. If that doesn't work, so far, you are in bad luck. If you are able to log in, simply go to the control panel, go into User Accounts and change your password.
2. Login To Another Account & Reset The Password Through User Management (XP Professional Only)This will only work if you have Windows XP Professional, and you can login with an account. Right click on My Computer and select Manage. Then select Local User and Groups –> Users. Right click on your username and select Set Password. Follow the prompts and set yourself a new password. If you can't get into Device Manager because you don't have a user account to get into your computer, you can try opening Device Manager from another computer. Right click on where it says Computer Management (Local) and choose Connect to another computer… once you are logged in to another computer within your home network.
Then enter your computer IP or Name. For example 169.168.x.x, 10.1.1.x or \\DesktopPC. (replacing x.x with your computer IP address. You can also click on Browse –> Advance –> Find now to browse for computers on your network.
If you are granted access to the remote computer, follow the steps I mentioned above and set a new password. If not, continue reading. 3. Reset The Password Through Safe Mode & Command PromptIf the above steps have failed so far, you can try and boot into Safe Mode. To do this, press F8 while your computer is booting. Once in safe mode, you can try going into the control panel and reset your password. If you can't, you can try and open up a Command Prompt by opening Run and typing cmd. Enter net user [username] [enternewpassword]. For example, If I want to change my account which is Jack to password abcde, I would type in net user jack abcde and press enter. Your password should now be changed.
4. Use A Live (Bootable CD)If you are at this stage, and haven't so far managed to get into your computer, you may want to use a Live Bootable CD. You may want to have a look at the post 3 Ways To Reset A Forgotten Windows Administrator Password and follow those steps. Alternatively, you can use the Live CD so you can boot into your computer and access the files so you can back them up on an external hard drive or USB stick. If you can't get into Windows, this is your only option. 5. Remove Your HardDrive, Backup, Format, ReinstallOne final way, and probably a good thing to do if your computer is running really slow, or you can't get into Windows at all; take out your hard drive, put it into another computer, backup your data, format the hard drive, put it back into the original computer, and re-install Windows. You may want to have a look at The Idiot's Ultimate Guide to Building Your Own PC for some help taking out your hard drive. So these are my basic tips if I can't get access to a computer to a user account in a Windows XP computer. I hope these tips will come in handy. Do you have any other tips to get access to your computer because you forgot the password? Let us know in the comments. Image Credit : Max (Tj) Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! Become a MakeUseOf fan on Facebook? – Our photos, MakeUseOf specials and more. Related posts
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| Qlock – An Awesome World Clock & Fancy Alarm For Your PC Posted: 03 Dec 2009 10:01 AM PST
This means that if you’re going to spend a lot of time working and playing with others online, you better quickly get used to the idea that the concept of time has has much less power on the Internet. In a business office or a manufacturing facility, when there’s an important meeting at 3 p.m., everyone sets their watch and shows up right on time. Things aren’t so straightforward on the Internet. If you set a meeting for 3 p.m., who’s 3 p.m. are you talking about – the folks in China, Germany, Japan or the United States? When you’re an online author working for several clients, things get even more confusing with deadlines that occur all around the globe and in multiple time zones. In order to solve that problem, I decided to download and install Qlock, an awesome world clock that provides me with a glimpse of the time zones where my clients are based, and reminds me whenever certain important deadlines are due. Using the Qlock world clock, you’ll never miss another online deadline or meeting again.
Qlock – An Awesome World Clock That You Can’t Live WithoutI started using Qlock as an experiment. Before I started working for MakeUseOf, my only major client was a California based company. While it was a little annoying to constantly calculate the time zone difference so I wouldn’t miss any IM meetings, it wasn’t exactly rocket science. All I had to do was add a few hours to determine East Coast time versus West Coast time and I was good to go. However, when I started writing for MakeUseOf, that all changed. With the chief editor based in Germany and with editors and writers scattered all across the globe from Belgium to India to the U.S. – the entire concept of teamwork is now based upon how well you understand and manage global time zones. At the beginning, when our chief editor would set a deadline of 10 p.m. the day before publication, I would consistently run right up into the deadline and once I even missed it. For a guy that prides himself in never missing a deadline, this was quite humbling. So I hunted around for an app that could help. Just recently, Simon covered some cool alarm clocks, however those are based on your own time zone. Tina also covered some awesome alarm clocks, but again – one time zone. So, for those of you who lead the same multiple-timezone life that I do, I present – Qlock.
Once you download and install Qlock, you’ll instantly have desktop icons that display the current time in major cities all around the world. The default is 4 cities and the time is displayed in military time.
Changing one of the icons to another city is as easy as clicking on the city name inside the icon. If you want to add an entirely new icon, you just right-click the icon of the Earth in the taskbar and select “Create Qlock.” In this case I’m changing my New York icon over to Boston, MA because that’s the largest major city that’s closest to me. This will represent my home time zone. If you don’t want to search for your city, you can just click on the map and it’ll automatically select the city for you.
When you right click on the globe icon, in addition to “Create Qlock,” there’s also the option to sync your current time with any of the several government servers.
You can set up the clock to sync with the server using any interval you like, or you can leave it in manual. Once you sync your time with the server, you can rest assured that you have the most accurate time possible – now you have no excuse for being late for the Skype meeting! Customizing The Qlock DisplayMy favorite feature of this awesome Qlock world clock is the fact that you can easily place each individual time zone clock however you like on your desktop. They don’t intrude into your workspace, but they’re instantly available if you click on the globe icon in the taskbar. In my case I’ve added a California zone for my CA client. An England time zone for my buddy in the UK. My home time zone of Boston, and the German time zone for MakeUseOf. I like having all of my zones displayed together near my Vista Sidebar, so here I’ve stacked them up and there they’ll stay.
While this is cool enough – Qlock also offers a very handy alarm clock system which you can set for each individual time zone on your desktop. To set the alarm you just double-click where it says “No Alarm.” Once you do, the alarm clock screen for that time zone appears.
As you can see here, you can set up an individual alarm, or you can have it alarm on a certain day of the week. It’ll issue an alert sound, but you can also type in pop-up text as well. For each time zone you can set up to five independent alarms.
As you can see under the German time zone, your alarm date will countdown, so you can see how much time you have left to complete that article, or until the meeting. If you don’t like the current time display, you can change it by simply clicking on the time. I didn’t really want military time, so I changed them all to standard time with the “am/pm” display. I find that in this world of international friendships and global online partnerships, the ticket to success is understanding where and when your colleagues and friends are so that you can catch them when they’re not only awake, but also the most productive. By downloading Qlock, you’ll be able to overcome the time-zone confusion and take control of your global online activities and work. Do you do a lot of online work or play that crosses many time zones? Do you know of other tools that can help overcome time zone confusion? Share your insights in the comments section below. Related posts
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| Diet Chromium – A Slimmer Chrome OS That Supports More Hardware Posted: 03 Dec 2009 08:01 AM PST
As with any popular open source project, there are a number of forks, mods and releases of the Chromium OS on the interwebs already. One such release which has greatly impressed users is called Diet Chromium. An odd name for an Operating System, it refers to the amazingly small size of the release – sort of a “Chrome Lite.” A mere 300MB, it is by no means a trimmed down version of Chrome OS. In fact, it supports more hardware than Chrome OS. Heck, I even got it working on my aging desktop computer using a 1 GB USB drive I had lying around. That is what I expect and want a cloud based OS to be. Here is how you can get this Chrome Lite OS working as well: You can download Diet Chromium from here. After the download is complete, extract to get an IMG file. IMG files are to USB drives what ISO files are to CDs. So you would need a software to write the IMG file to a USB drive. You can use Win32 Disk Imager as Jorge suggested if you are on Windows. If you are using Linux for creating the bootable USB drive you can use the ever so handful ‘dd’ command like so: dd if=<path to IMG file> of=<path to USB drive>
The OS boots as fast as touted about. Almost instantaneously you are presented with the login screen, use your Google Account to login. After it signs you in you see a – yes you guessed it – ‘a browser’, Chromium to be precise. Gmail and Google Calendar open as separate pinned tabs by default. Everything is the browser and the browser is everything, so without much surprise the applications are all web apps. You can access them by clicking on the Chrome/Chromium icon.
The operating system is in early stages and not many options are available at this time. You can toggle ethernet or wifi on or off depending upon your preference (It detected LAN on my PC and WiFi on the laptop automatically).
Besides this there are a few options pertaining to Chromium itself that you can mess around with:
Help! My Computer Doesn’t Boot From My USB Drive!Have a really old computer that can’t boot from a USB drive? Fear not, we have got you covered. You too can have a piece of the Diet Chromium pie courtesy of VirtualBox! Although there are a few extra steps you would have to keep in mind. Remember that Diet Chromium is available as an IMG file. We created a bootable USB drive using the IMG file, well now we have to create a bootable virtual harddisk that Virtual Box will recognize. Doing so is easy, just run the following command: VBoxManage convertrawformat -format VDI <IMG file path> <filename>.vdi You might have to cd to the Virtualbox install directory if it is not included in the PATH environment variable. Now attach this VDI file as the virtual hard disk when you create a Chromium OS virtual machine. You can now start and use the virtual machine just like any other. Trying out Chrome (Chromium) OS is even simpler now. All you need is a 1 GB USB drive and a reasonably good computer and Diet Chromium. Check it out and let us know what you think about Google’s new operating system! Will you switch to it full time once it comes out in 2010? Related posts
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| How To Sync Your Mac With Windows Mobile Devices & More Posted: 03 Dec 2009 06:01 AM PST
You don’t need rocket science to figure out that life would be so much easier if that data could be synchronized. Nobody wants to go through so many devices just to find a name. Everybody says that I have the worst combination of devices there is: Mac computer and Windows Mobile phone. Both have large number of users but aren’t really compatible with each other. Natively, synchronizing data between the two is impossible (at least for now). You need help from third-party applications. Before You Sync a Mac with Windows Mobile
SyncMate allows its users to sync mac with windows mobile and many other devices such as a Windows computer, Sony PSP, Nokia series 40 mobile phone, and even with a Google Account. There is also an option to backup the data to an online storage solution. There’s a full comparison list of features between the free and paid versions on their website. Even though serious users would want to upgrade to the Expert Edition, the available free-basic features are sufficient for most everyday users.
The first step in using SyncMate is the pairing up process. A Device Connection Wizard window will appear the first time you connect your gadget to your Mac. Select your device from the list and click “Continue“. There’s an option to always show this window every time you start SyncMate.
Next is the Connection Settings window. Basically this step asks users to connect their device.
On the first connection, SyncMate will install a driver to the device to make it readable by your Mac. This installation has to be accepted from the device side.
The final stage is the customization stage. You can set your device’s name, picture, and connection icon.
The SynchronizationThe connected devices’ picture will appear at the upper part of SyncMate’s window.
Available plugins are listed on the left pane. The majority of these plugins are only available in the Expert Edition.
You can adjust how each plugin should work from the main pane.
After finishing tinkering with the settings, it’s about time to click the “Sync Now” button.
For first time synchronization, the process will go for a while.
To keep the data on your devices current, you have to do synchronization on a regular basis. SyncMate will remind you periodically to sync your devices. A nice feature for forgetful people like me.
You could set the reminder period by going to Preferences.
Going OnlineAnother useful features of this app is the ability to sync our data to online storage for backup and to our Google Account(s). To activate these features, click the “Add Connection” button next to the “Sync Now” and choose “Online Backup”
Click the “Register new online account” button to register, and fill in your email address and your chosen password.
A confirmation code will be sent to your email. Enter it in the next window to finish the registration process.
To add a Google account to the bunch, choose “Google Account” from the “Add Connection” window and fill in your Gmail address and password. Some Personal NotesEven in the crippled free version, I still think that SyncMate is a useful app that worth trying – especially for those who want to synch their Mac with a Windows Mobile device. But I also think that the developer should enable more features in the free version to get even more users to try. There’s also a little thing that the developer should fix.
Have you tried SyncMate? Do you know other free alternatives to sync your Mac and Windows Mobile? Share using the comments below! Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! Become a MakeUseOf fan on Facebook? – Our photos, MakeUseOf specials and more. Related posts
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| How To Rename Music Files from iTunes the Easy Way [Windows] Posted: 03 Dec 2009 04:01 AM PST
In less than five minutes, I had not only renamed all of my iTunes music files exactly as I wanted them, but also organized nicely into folders sorted by artist. Want to know how to rename iTunes files yourself? Read on! Organize and Rename iTunes Files and FoldersBefore starting, I’d like to note that The Godfather 0.71 is still in beta; however, you can download the stable version 7.0 from the same site instead, if you prefer. When you open the program, you'll see, at first glance, what appears to be a somewhat complicated interface. Don't worry! It's not as complex as it seems. You want to begin by selecting the main folder in the left-hand explorer pane that all of your music is stored in. It can be the entire C:\ drive, or a specific folder where all of your music is stored. In my case, I had imported everything into an “iPod Music” folder within the My Music directory, so that's what I selected. After selecting the folder you want, click Scan (the magnifying glass button), and every music file within that folder and its subfolders will be populated in the results. You will see an "If Renamed" column. The program defaults to an "Artist Name – Song Title" format, and shows you how the file names would appear here.
If you're not sure what the different row colors mean, you can view them by going to File > Options and clicking the "Colors" tab (or by referring to the screenshot below). There, you can also change the default colors if you like.
When you're ready to rename your iTunes files, click the "Rename" button, and The Godfather will quickly take care of the rest! It will also report any problems it might have encountered or files that it skipped. You can see those results in the lower left corner of the screen, as well as in the far right column in your music list.
The Godfather has many other features in addition to renaming and reorganizing your music files and folders, such as creating playlists, finding duplicates, encoding and decoding with LAME/Ogg Vorbis/MPCEnc, and editing ID3 tags. You can refer to the program's "Help" menu for an HTML help index that will explain more about the program's additional features. We have written a lot in the past on naming and organising your music library. Here are some of those posts : 4 Easy Ways Fix Music Tags & Organize Music Library Do you know of any other great music management programs? Tell us 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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The first time I came across this issue, I was attempting to send video from my laptop to my television via s-video. You see, at the time we did not have cable television (and still don’t by the way) so I was wanting to watch some YouTube videos with my wife while still working on other stuff on my laptop.
If you've ever used 
At Make Use Of, we have covered quite a few 
In this article, I’d like to introduce you to an awesome world clock that I discovered in the process of trying to solve a personal dilemma. One of the lessons that I learned immediately upon starting my online writing career is that the Internet is very much a global phenomenon.
The other day Jorge showed you how you can run Chrome OS off a USB drive in 
Most modern people work and live with many devices. So it’s only natural that people’s data – documents, contacts, music, movies, messages, calendar, photos, etc. – are scattered amongst their devices.
Looking at the vast market of such applications, I can’t help but wonder why there aren’t many available. One of the few is 
I recently had the unpleasant task of
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