MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [March 18th]” plus 10 more |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [March 18th]
- Join MakeUseOf On Twitter!
- How To Completely & Securely Erase Your Hard Drive [Windows]
- Top 3 Websites To Build A Free Resume Online
- Feed Readers – Web Apps Or Desktops Apps? Which Is Better?
- 10 Cool Websites For Teenagers Who Want to Stand Out
- FeelHome: Remotely Access All Your Files From Anywhere
- 5 Cool Websites With Guitar Tuning Tones
- The Definition Of A Client Server Network [Technology Explained]
- How To Easily Create Clouds In Photoshop
- A Simple Guide To Setting Up A Home Wireless Network
| Cool Websites and Tools [March 18th] Posted: 18 Mar 2010 08:31 PM PDT
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!
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| Posted: 18 Mar 2010 07:30 PM PDT
You’ll be notified everytime there is a new post on the MakeUseOf Blog, a web app review on the MakeUseOf Directory or something new on Geeky Fun. Plus, we would love it if you would re-tweet the posts and discuss them, so more people get to know about us and join our community. Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter Now Thank you! Related posts
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| How To Completely & Securely Erase Your Hard Drive [Windows] Posted: 18 Mar 2010 06:31 PM PDT
Wrong! If you just throw out your old computer, all of that personal information is still available to any tech-savvy thief. Merely deleting a file in the traditional fashion will not truly “delete” it. With a few techniques, a file sent to the recycle bin and emptied can be recovered if the deletion was recent enough.
Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that the following software and techniques will ERASE your hard drive and you will not be able to get your data back. That's the whole point. FormattingMost people’s first instinct would be to just reformat their drive to get rid of data. But there are all sorts of formatting that can be done.
First, you can perform what is called a high level format. Sometimes, this is referred to as a quick format. This method is not secure seeing as it only erases the boot sector and partition table, thus leaving all of the other files intact and accessible through purpose built software. There is also low level formatting, referred to officially as “disk reinitialization.” This process goes through your disk and sets values to zero and will erase a hard drive completely. For more advanced users, you can also change the number of passes that the format goes through. The more passes, the more secure it will be because the format goes through the disk the specified number of times and writes over the information with junk. As you would expect, more passes take more time, but more passes means your data is better scrambled and harder to recover. This process sounds like it would do the trick, but there are some catches. If you use a different file system than the one used to originally format the disk, or if you have multiple partitions, not all of your data will be thoroughly erased. Thus, formatting the disk is not the preferable way to really, securely erase your data. Instead, there are some freeware tools you can use to make sure your information is gone. If you do want to go the reformat route, MakeUseOf already has some good articles on how to do that here and here. You may have to use your OS disk, or software that came with your drive to perform the format you want. Darik's Boot And NukeIf you checked out Varun’s article linked above, you’ll notice he mentions Darik’s Boot and Nuke. Let’s take a closer look at that tool. DBAN, as it is shortened, is a nice little application that lets you completely erase your data. You can download it for Intel/AMD machines and Apple Power Mac machines by clicking "Downloads" at the top of the home page. You should see the following.
Download the ISO for your system and burn it to a disk. Next, pop the disk into your hard drive and boot from it. This may require you to press F12 at the BIOS screen (the first screen you see when your computer boots up) and choose to boot from your CD/DVD drive. After the CD boots up, you should see the following.
Hit Enter and the program should boot a few things up before settling on the next screen.
Hit Space when the arrow is pointing at the disk you want to wipe and hit F10 to start the process. The process will start and you should see something like this.
Let it run through the whole process and you should get a screen letting you know the process was successful.
DBAN is easy and performs well. There are other options to get rid of your data for good. Get Physical
There are a few ways to go about this. You could get some high powered magnets and wipe the drive a few times with them. This scrambles all the data that is written magnetically on the disk. Another option is to wail on the drive a few times with a hammer. Please remember to wear proper safety accessories such as safety glasses when using tools. Finally, you can always take the drive apart to make sure the disk gets completely demolished. To do this though, you will probably need a special T9 torx screwdriver. Or, you can try to simply pry the thing apart, but please, as before, use proper safety measures. On top of making sure you completely sure your information is gone, this can work out to be a good stress reliever. Now you have the tools to make sure your identity is safe if you want to get rid of an old hard drive. Know of any other tools or methods? Let us know in the comments below. Related posts
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| Top 3 Websites To Build A Free Resume Online Posted: 18 Mar 2010 04:31 PM PDT
You may wonder what the difference is between a CV and a resume? The main difference is the length. A resume is a one or two page summary of your education, skills, and experiences. A CV covers more details and is primarily used when applying for jobs in academia, education, science, and research.
1. CeeVeeDon’t be misled by the name. As I said, the main difference between a CV and a resume is the length. So simply limit yourself to the essential details and this CV builder will create a document that qualifies as a resume. CeeVee essentially works like editing an online profile. You’re not guided through the process step-by-step, you can fill in the information in any order you please. To customize your document, you can add sections to your resume, remove existing sections, and add as many entries to each section as you like. You can also choose from three different themes, which will affect both the display on the website, as well as the output document.
The resulting CV or resume can be shared online, downloaded as a PDF, or you can print it. 2. Free Resume CreatorThis tool isn’t as pretty as CeeVee, but definitely a more advanced way to build a free resume online. Another advantage is that you don’t have to sign up to use it. You start by selecting your desired resume style. In the next steps you fill in your personal information, education, employment, and any additional information. Before completing the document, you can choose font styles and colors.
The document can be printed or downloaded as PDF, HTML, or plain text. If you would like to save the document online to come back and edit it later, you will have to sign up. The PCman Website also provides online services to create a cover letter and reference page. 3. Advice Resources CV BuilderThis CV or resume builder leaves you with two options. You can either view a list of templates and download any you like or take the step-by-step builder route. Neither requires you to sign up, but to save your CV online, you have to create an account. However, this can wait until you have seen the result. Building your CV is done in 12 steps. The tool polls for your name, contact details, motivation, work experience, skills, education, additional qualifications, personal interests, referees, and finally your preferred layout. You can then download and check the result as a .rtf document and eventually go back and edit your CV.
As the screenshot above reveals, Advice Resources provide additional material to prepare yourself before building your CV. You can build your job seeking skills, your CV confidence, and your CV knowledge. Before you send a resume to a potential employer, make sure the service you used to build your resume works as expected and your document is thoroughly formatted and does not contain spelling errors. For more information regarding resumes, check out the following MakeUseOf articles:
Also have a look at The Riley Guide’s material on Resumes & Cover Letters as well as For Dummies’ The Essentials of Preparing a Resume. Good luck! Image credits: sibaudio Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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| Feed Readers – Web Apps Or Desktops Apps? Which Is Better? Posted: 18 Mar 2010 02:31 PM PDT
If you like to keep up with online content via feeds, you’re probably familiar with what a feed reader is. However, if you need more information about what feeds are all about, check out this article explaining a bit more about feeds and readers: What is a feed reader? There are two kinds of free feed readers out there. There are feed readers you log on and access online (web application) and there are the feed readers that you download and install directly on your computer (desktop application). Let’s take a look at the differences and discuss some of the pluses and minuses of each.
The Web-Based Feed Reader
Many people prefer the web-based variety of feed reader. Most of the time it is because they can log on and access their feeds from any computer connected to the Internet. These free reader programs (of which there are many) are hosted on remote servers so much of the resource load is carried by the remote servers. There are several popular web-based feed readers. My personal favorite is Netvibes mostly because I enjoy the interface. However, one of the most popular web-based feed readers is Google Reader which is very versatile offering many features. Minuses? Feeds aren’t actually downloaded for offline viewing like a desktop reader. You may also have to deal with a slower load time. Also, you need a browser window open whenever you want to keep an eye on your feeds which uses memory. Still, many still choose the web-based feed reader over the desktop feed reader. The Desktop Feed Reader
Many people also prefer a desktop feed reader. They make this choice for many reasons, including more features and not having to have a browser open. These people also like having articles available to read offline when the Internet is not available. There are a few favorites that people seem to like such as FeedDemon and BlogBridge. Minuses? While on other computers, your feeds won’t be accessible with the same interface. Also, your own computer’s resources will be used to load your feeds, etc. This may not be that big of a deal for everyone, but it may be for some. Also, not everyone can or wants to have another program installed. Conclusion?My own personal conclusion, if you choose to acknowledge it, is that it depends on each persons preferences and situation. For instance, if you jump computers a lot, a web based feed reader may be a good choice for you. If you are always on one computer and you don’t mind installing another program, then a desktop reader may be a good choice. You also need to look at how much access you have to the Internet. If you are always on, a web based reader will work fine for you. If access is spotty, or you travel a lot and there’s not always Internet available, a desktop reader may be more suitable. For me in my situation, I currently prefer a web based reader (Netvibes to be more specific). What is your choice? Do you use a free web based feed reader or a desktop feed reader? Or perhaps no reader at all? Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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| 10 Cool Websites For Teenagers Who Want to Stand Out Posted: 18 Mar 2010 01:31 PM PDT
How do kid teens stand out in the digital age? What sort of cool websites for teenagers are out there that can help? For one, they are producers and creators. The tools they have at their fingertips can spread a viral message in a matter of seconds. Awesome free tools like Animoto and OneTrueMedia help them take pictures, add some text, and spread a message.
YouTube, of course, is probably the best way to get noticed these days, as we see by that weird helium Fred Figglehorn kid. Get Creative: 5 Cool Websites For Teen ExpressionIf you type “teen expression” into Google, um, you will get waaaay more than you bargain for…BUT fortunately, there are some sweet pockets of awesome out there. The sites listed here are made for teens by teens and foster collaborative space to share, connect, and express themselves. Teen InkThis is a magazine by teens for teens. They can write stories, share work, and rate the work of others. They can use the free resources online or pay for a subscription to the live magazine. Judging by the activity on the site and the content, these teens are busy and their creative works are incredible! Young ComposersThis is a site dedicated to helping teens share their musical compositions. Registration is free, and the music is quite good.
Budding Writers NetworkThis is a place where teens can share their writing and get critiques from other teen writers. While the site is just a discussion board, the activity rate is high and teens seem to be sharing some pretty neat stuff. Teens offer encouragement to one another, and drafts can be resubmitted for review. Pretty sweet stuff.
ScenariosUSAWhile based in the US, this cool website for teenagers encourages teens to create and post films that deal with social issues. The films are pretty impressive, too. Topics include a full range of hot topics including drugs abuse, teenage pregnancy, and STDs.
Listen Up!This is another great site for teens but is authored by the Listen Up! Youth Media Network. The site has some hefty backing from the Kellogg Foundation, but encourages teens to submit their media projects to the repository.
Get Smart: 2 Sites For Smarty TeensSo what happens if you are a teen that wants to stand out without having to compose haiku at the drop of a cappuccino? Try out these two sites for the math and science lover: World Association of Young Scientists | Science, RemixedStudents interested in science can stand out by joining with other scientists; The World Association of Young Scientists (WAYS) is a global, volunteer-run, non-profit and community-driven collaborative science network. Become a member for free and gain access to a vast knowledge base, science resources, message boards and community. WAYS is the largest grassroots, collaborative scientific community for young scientists in the world.
Mu Alpha Theta – National HS Math AssociationStudents interested in Math can stop here, bond with other math fanatics over problems and solutions to math’s greatest challenges. Teens can start a chapter at their schools, too. Get Moving: 3 Sites For A Better WorldHabitat for Humanity Int’lThis is probably one of the best known volunteer agencies around. But their youth programming is stellar, and teens can really stand out by becoming youth leaders. Their program “Youth United” provides leadership opportunities for kids age 5-25. Kids can start their own local chapter and host events to raise money and awareness about global housing conditions. Students can organize and participate in Act! Speak! Build! Week, a “student-initiated week of advocacy on behalf of Habitat for Humanity and housing issues. Act! Speak! Build! Week empowers young people to educate themselves and their communities and move people to social action.” Instead of summer camp, teens between the ages of 16-18 can participate in a week long “Learn and Serve” program. Habitat houses are green and built for sustainability; students can learn about and advocate for green building.
Ronald McDonald House CharitiesRMH International helps families with terminally ill children by providing free housing near major hosptials. Teens can help RMH weekly as a volunteer at a location, or they can help by helping to collect toys, supplies, and funds ncessary to run the operation. The “tabs” program (saving tabs from cans) is an excellent leadership opportunity for teens that live far away from a House.
Great Kindness ChallengeIf students have no money to travel, but still want to stand out, the Great Kindness Challenge is perfect. On August 14, kids around the world will be doing random acts of kindness. This is an awesome challenge for teens from any walk of life. There are lots of great opportunities for teens to stand out. This is just a teensy list of cool websites for teenagers compared to all the offerings out there. If you want to learn about more opportunities, check out Wikipedia’s list of youth organizations for other options. Do you have any sites to share? Related posts
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| FeelHome: Remotely Access All Your Files From Anywhere Posted: 18 Mar 2010 12:31 PM PDT
Or you could just install and run a single program and access your computer remotely from any web browser. Sounds too good to be true? It isn’t. FeelHome, a relatively new service built on top of a variety of open source projects, makes it possible to access your entire hard drive from anywhere you have access to a browser. You can download and upload any document, from or to any place on your drive. All of this without having to muck about with your router or firewall.
What It Does
FeelHome could be compared to Dropbox, I suppose: you can access your files from the Internet. Unlike Dropbox, however, FeelHome is strictly a way to access files on your desktop. It does not sync your files between multiple computers, and it does not upload your data to a server for you to download from. Instead, FeelHome gives you direct, relatively secure access to files on your computer. The main advantage of this is you don’t need to upload your data to another server, meaning the service is usable as soon as you install it. The main disadvantage is that you’re limited by the upload speed of your home Internet connection. So don’t expect to download large files like movies from a friend’s house in a matter of minutes, but expect complete access to any file on your hard drive. Installation
Setting up this program is easy. Just head over to Nuxinov and click the “Download” link. You’ll be presented with downloads for Linux, Mac and Windows. Download the package of your choice. For Mac and Windows users the process should be straight forward: Mac types do their standard Fisher Price Drag ‘n Drop Dance and Windows users double-click to see various prompts which they have to click “Next” for. Linux users, unusually, have a few extra steps. Before doing anything you need to install FeelHome’s main dependency: libqt4. Ubuntu users can do this by searching their package manager for a package called libqt4-core, or by typing “sudo apt-get install libqt4-core” in the command line and pressing “enter.” If you use a different OS than that, I can’t tell you how your package manager works, but I can say that if you use KDE you don’t need to install anything. Once this dependency is installed you can run the feelgood program directly from the folder it’s currently in, or you can copy it to your “/usr/bin” folder by opening the Terminal, browsing to the folder FeelHome is in and typing “sudo cp feelhome /usr/bin“. (Note to the developers: create a .deb package! It would make using your service much easier to Ubuntu types.) Windows users are lucky, in that they can grab a portable version of FeelHome if they like. No installation here; just run the program and you’re good to go. Using The Web InterfaceOnce you get the program up and running you’ll be asked to either sign in or to create a new username. Creating a username is easy: just enter your name, email, a username and a password. Once you create this user profile, and the program starts running in your computer’s system tray, you can connect to your computer from anywhere. To test this, head over to Nuxinov and click the “login” link. Enter your username and password and you’ll be logged into your computer. You can now browse all of your documents from anywhere on the planet. The interface is really simple to use; it’s almost exactly like whatever file browser it is that you’re used to. Click a folder to open it; click a file to download it. You can even browse to a folder and upload a file to it by clicking the “Save File” button.
This is a great way to get a file onto your home desktop from work, or vice-versa. Clicking the “Desktop Mode” button will bring up a sort of virtual desktop. Of what use this is, besides being able to open two folders at once, isn’t altogether clear to me, but it’s kind of cool.
Overall, this is a pretty nifty way to access your files from a computer that isn’t your own. But that doesn’t mean it’s without risk. Security ImplicationsFeelHome’s website goes to great lengths to emphasize the service’s safety and privacy: your information is never stored on their servers, passwords aren’t accessible to FeelHome’s own team and all transactions are encrypted. These measures are respectable, but it’s still important to consider the security implications of installing a piece of software like this. No matter how good FeelHome’s security is, installing this program means anyone who gets your username and password have complete and total access to your computer. Don’t take this lightly. Make sure you select a quality password that you’re unlikely to forget and that you change it regularly. You might also consider only leaving FeelHome running when you need it, instead of leaving it running all the time. These two steps could help a lot toward keeping your data safe while still allowing you to enjoy the amazing convenience of FeelHome. ConclusionIf you want remote access to your computer, but don’t want to set up an FTP server or anything like one, this is a great way to get full access to your computer from anywhere. Best of all, setting it up takes minutes. What do you guys think? Is this a useful way to access your files from anywhere, or do you know of a better service? Are the security ramifications of such a service too steep, or are you willing to risk a potential breach for the convenience of accessing your data anywhere? We have a comment function; use it! Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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| 5 Cool Websites With Guitar Tuning Tones Posted: 18 Mar 2010 11:31 AM PDT
In my search for the best sites, I came across some pretty simple ones and some that are fairly unique. Ultimately, the function is really simple – you press a button and the computer should play the right note for that string. What I discovered is that a majority of the sites that offer guitar tuning tones play tones that aren’t quite “right” or at least they aren’t very clear.
A Guitar Tuning Tone For Each StringThe premise of these five sites is very simple. They just play the guitar tuning tone for that string. While the tone is playing, you just play the string and turn the tuning key until the sound of the string matches the computer tone. The first online tool I’d like to cover is the Gieson tuner, because it appears to be the most popular. This is probably because the tool also offers an embed code where people can place the guitar tuner right on their website or blog.
The front panel is creative. The little device features the five guitar strings, but you can choose to hear the sound as a tone instead (the tone option didn’t work on my computer though.) You can manually flip each switch by clicking on it, and the sound of the guitar string for that note will repeat. When you’re done, turn off that switch and flip the next. If you’re very fast at tuning, you can flip the “Auto Advance” switch, and the device will play the sound for each string a few times before moving on to the next note automatically. This allows for hands-free operation so you can focus on tuning your guitar. The next guitar tuner is offered by ChordBook. This well-designed guitar tuner provides a variety of options to customize the tuner depending on the type of guitar you’re working with.
There are a lot of features here. You can turn the tuning keys to adjust each note depending on how you want to tune your guitar, like turning D into D Minor, or E into E minor. Or, select one of the common alternative tunings from the list if you want to use something other than the standard. When you’re ready to tune, click on the “R” next to each key and the tone for that key will repeat until you’re done. HotFrets offers a stylish little online guitar tuner app that isn’t quite as feature-filled as the first two listed above, but it does have some entertaining animation.
Just click on each string and the note will play. Alternately, you can just press the number for that string and it’ll play as well. There aren’t any nifty features with this one, it’s just the standard tuning and what you see is what you get. The next site with guitar tuning tones is actually one of the favorites, only because the designers used a unique style for the thing. It’s offered by Tune My Bass.
The presets tab lets you choose what type of guitar you’re tuning, such as a 5 string bass or a 7 string guitar, and custom tuning lets you choose your sound types and also save your presets to a file on your PC. When you’re ready to tune, just hover the mouse over the string and as the tone plays it also displays the note. While you’re busy tuning, the app plays all sorts of animation for you. Yes, those are underpants flying in from the right side of the screen. The last site that I’d like to cover is aptly called Online Guitar Tuner. At this website, the first thing you’ll want to do is select the type of tuning that you require from the menu list on the right side of the main page.
In my case, I’m going to go for the Open G Tuning. Once you click on the tuner type, the next screen opens up with the strings and the tuner keys displayed graphically.
Just click on the note, and the tone plays in clear, crisp audio from your computer speakers. The only drawback with this tool is that the sound doesn’t keep playing automatically. You have to keep clicking on the button to hear the tone. If you are somewhat slow at tuning your guitar, this could become annoying – so you might want to consider using one of the online tuners above that offers a more hands-free approach. Do you know of any other useful guitar tuners online that play accurate, quality guitar tuning tones? Do you have your own unique approach to tuning your guitar? Share your insight in the comments section below. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too. Related posts
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| The Definition Of A Client Server Network [Technology Explained] Posted: 18 Mar 2010 10:31 AM PDT
For example, at this very instant your computer is acting as a client requesting this webpage from the MakeUseOf server, which is then happily responding back with the page you requested. The client then receives the page and shows it to you, enabling you to read this wonderful article! That is the gist of it. If you ever had to explain yourself or someone else what client server networking or client server computing is, explaining it with the above example will suffice. If however you are interested in diving a little bit deeper into the definition of a client server network, you are most welcome to follow along.
How Do Clients & Servers Communicate?I mentioned in the example above that “your computer requests the MakeUseOf server for a webpage”. You might ask how does that happen? Do they communicate in English or German or French? Actually none of those. There is no single language of communication either. Clients and Servers use special messages, which conform to a common protocol to communicate with each other.
The protocol and message format must be agreed upon in advance or else there can be no communication. As an example the “http://” you type into your browser’s address bar specifies that you are using HTTP or HyperText Transfer Protocol to communicate with the server. The image above shows a sample HTTP request when I wanted to go to Google India. Of Ports & ServersOkay, now you know that your computer can speak HTTP. So does that mean that all the communication over the Internet is using HTTP? Or else how would my computer know when to use which protocol? These are the questions I will attempt to answer in this section. First off let me clear up some things – so far I have presented a 10,000 feet view of the whole client server networking paradigm, in which the computers were acting either as a client or a server. It’s now time to zoom in and have a detailed look. Going back to the webpage example, it is actually your web browser that is acting as the true client. Since you can run multiple applications together on your computer, your computer can actually act as a client to multiple servers or get ready for this – with appropriate software, it can act as a client and a server as well. Still confused by this definition of a client server network? Allow me to clarify. Say you have Google Chrome and FileZilla (an FTP client, FTP is another protocol), now your computer can connect to a web server using HTTP and an FTP server, thus acting as a client and requesting content from two servers. Similarly install the appropriate software and you can communicate with any kind of server. The protocol implementation is all programmed into these applications.
Now, if side by side you also install something like IIS or Apache on your computer, then your computer can act as a server to other clients and serve requests for webpages (both IIS and Apache are web server software). In fact you can try “http://localhost” in your web browser and it will connect to the web server software you installed on your computer to display a webpage. You can even install multiple server software on your computer. So for example a single computer can be used as a web server to serve webpages and as an FTP server to transfer files. The server software essentially listens to what are called ports on your computer. Whenever a request comes on a designated port, the appropriate server takes action and responds. Apache for instance listens to port 80 and browsers know to send requests to port 80 by default. So whenever a request arrives on port 80 Apache would respond back with a webpage. So to summarize it all, software on your computer uses your computer’s hardware to initiate a request in a specific format. This request is then transmitted over the network to the appropriate server (using IP addresses) which then uses the installed server software to do some processing and responds with the results. Questions? Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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| How To Easily Create Clouds In Photoshop Posted: 18 Mar 2010 09:31 AM PDT
No doubt there’s a bunch of methods out there to get this accomplished, but if you’re looking for what is perhaps the simplest and quickest way to bring clouds into your photos, this tutorial is for you. As always, Photoshop makes it easy! Let’s get right to it and find out how to create clouds in Photoshop.
Next, select the area that you want to add the clouds to. I used the Magic Wand Tool (located in the tools palette) to quickly select the sky itself and not the buildings. Just hold down the Shift key and click to add the “marching ants” to areas you want selected.
Now, we’ll need to set the foreground and background colors. In your tools palette, click on the foreground color to open up the color picker. Feel free to experiment with other colors, but for now, this is going to be the color of the actual clouds, so select white (R: 255, G: 255, B: 255). Now hit the background color in the tools palette. This is going to be the color of the sky, so let’s pick a light blue.
Go up to the menu bar and click on Filter. Scroll down to Render and hit Clouds.
The filter simply uses random values between the foreground and background colors you chose to generate a soft cloud pattern. You can reapply the filter (Ctrl + F or Command + F on a Mac) for a slightly different pattern of clouds until you’re happy with the results. For a more stark look, just hold down the Alt key (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) as you select Filter > Render > Clouds.
Feel free to now make any adjustments to the effect by going into Levels (Ctrl + L or Command + L) and moving the input or output level sliders to your liking.
That’s about all there is to it. Pretty simple, huh? Here’s how mine came out:
Again, there’s plenty of ways to do this in Photoshop. If the pattern of clouds the filter produces isn’t exactly what you’re looking for or just doesn’t match your photo, another great method would be to simply download a couple of cloud brush sets from the Web and put them in yourself. Be sure to check out the 6 Best Sites To Download Free Photoshop Brushes for some excellent resources to help you get started. Don't forget to also read our Idiot's Guide to Photoshop. How did this method work for your photos and how do you go about creating clouds in Photoshop? Let us know in the comments. Image Credits : tipiro, swisscan Related posts
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| A Simple Guide To Setting Up A Home Wireless Network Posted: 18 Mar 2010 08:31 AM PDT
There are many advantages to having a wireless network over just a wired network. You can still plug machines into your router via an Ethernet cable but you also gain the additional benefits of having a wireless network.
A normal topology for setting up a home wireless network would look like this:
The wireless router gets connected to your Internet modem and servers out your Internet to connected computers. Wireless networking has come a long way since I first set up my 802.11a network about 10 years ago. To begin we will need to take an inventory of what equipment you have and then see what you will need to purchase. Let's make a list of computers and what type of wireless adapter they have in them.
So my fastest machines have a N adapter in them and my slowest has a B adapter in it. So I would want a wireless router that can handle 802.11N as well as be backwards compatible to 802.11B. If I wanted to save money I could find a 802.11N router and not be able to achieve the fastest speeds on my 802.11N machines. If any of your machines do not have wireless cards you can look into buying USB WiFi adapters, internal PCI cards for the Desktop or Mini PCI cards for a laptop. The USB WiFi adapters do not look like they used to. They can be incredibly small. Check out this one from Buffalo for $30:
I went looking and found this LinkSys Router for $60 here on Amazon:
This router has multiple radios meaning it can serve multiple machines at the same time. It is also very high tech looking! The router comes with four Ethernet ports so you can connect it to your Internet modem. Now we need to assess where the computer will be and find a middle ground to set up the router. You want the router to be in an area that does not block either antennae. Their path should not be hindered, placed near electrical equipment like micro-ovens or cordless telephones and not be in a room that is closed off. This may take some trial and error and you will probably want to first try setting up somewhere near your Internet modem. Setting up the router is a breeze. Most modern routers (this one included) comes with a setup CD. You simply pop the CD into your computer that has the Internet. Chances are you will be directly connected to your modem. The CD will then have you unplug your computer from the modem and connect the router to the modem. You can then plug your computer into the router to continue setting it up. Most routers are set up to be 192.168.1.1 but some of them use an IP of 192.168.2.2. Your set up utility should tell you what your URL is to access your setup. Below you will see the set up page from my Wireless G Linksys Router.
By default there will be NO SECURITY – this is a NO NO! You will want to enable WPA or at a minimum WEP. Both of them can be hacked but then so could your dead bolt. Some security is better than none! Once you set the security on the router you will want to rename your SSID. That is what your wireless network will be called. Then you will connect to your wireless router from each client and configure the same security that you set up on the router. Next I suggest turning off SSID broadcasting so people walking by your house cannot see or steal your network (without a bit of effort that is!) That's it! You now have your very own WiFi network! You can print wirelessly by sharing out a printer, check recipes in the kitchen or stock quotes in the backyard. Go ahead and pat yourself on the back! Good job. If you have any problems setting yours up, let us know in the comments and we’ll see if we can help. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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