MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [April 5th]” plus 11 more |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [April 5th]
- 10 Most Downloaded Windows Browsers [Movers & Shakers]
- How to Easily Remove Duplicate Tracks on iTunes [Windows]
- All You Need to Know About Editing RAW Photos in Adobe Camera Raw
- Top Deals of the Day [April 5th]
- How to Convert a PDF File to a Word Doc with AnyBizSoft PDF to Word Converter
- Redesign Our PDF Manuals Page and Win Free Hosting! [MakeUseOf Contest]
- How to Create a Screencast Like A Pro with These 6 Free Online Tools
- How to Publish a Children’s Book with StoryJumper
- 5 More Free Alternatives to Top iPhone Photography Apps
- Grsync — A Simple GUI to Help You Use ‘rsync’ Easily [Linux]
- Amazing Personal Cloud Computing with Tonido [MakeUseOf Giveaway]
| Cool Websites and Tools [April 5th] Posted: 05 Apr 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. We NEED Your Comments! Please do share your thoughts in article comments! Similar MakeUseOf Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 10 Most Downloaded Windows Browsers [Movers & Shakers] Posted: 05 Apr 2010 07:30 PM PDT
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| How to Easily Remove Duplicate Tracks on iTunes [Windows] Posted: 05 Apr 2010 06:30 PM PDT
I'm a Windows guy, so some of your options will certainly differ if you're one of those Apple types. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Remove Duplicates from iTunes – Before we startWe've talked about iTunes before. A lot! Relating to this particular subject, David Pierce explained how to use TidySongs to manage iTunes, and more broadly, Jackson produced a great eBook to help with all your iTunes needs. How did this happen?If only I knew. It's a combination of recopying files to the machine after the rebuild, using the wonderful SharePod to rebuild the library, and some peculiar choices in the iTunes options. Never mind. That's ancient history, and there are many paths to this place. Doubtless, you took a different one. Things to checkThere are two things you want to make sure of before proceeding to remove duplicates from iTunes, and one general word of warning. First, the warning. Please, please ensure you have backups in place in case any of this goes wrong. You are going to delete files, and you want to be sure you can get them back if nothing else. If you are allowing iTunes to manage your files, you can just copy the entire iTunes folder (and all the subfolders) somewhere else. If you are managing the files yourself, take a look and be sure where you stand. Missing tracks is much worse than duplicate tracks.
There are two different ways that you can end up with duplicate tracks listed in iTunes. We ware here to remove actual duplicates. But first you need to check if you have duplicate items listed, but they are actually the same files. You can do this by sorting the tracks in name order (click on the Name column header), then right clicking one of the duplicates, and choosing Get Info.
Click on the Summary tab, and take a look at the file path after the Where: and then click on the Previous and Next buttons and compare the duplicates. Make sure the file names are at least a little bit different, or deleting one will delete both. In my case I have an Africa.mp3 and an Africa(1).mp3, for example. The other thing to watch for is that the tracks are not near-duplicates. You know the stuff. You have the studio version, the live one, the unplugged one from the Nineties, the extended dance remix… be sure you really want to get rid of those. Oh, lose the dance one. Go on. Search and EliminateYou probably already know you have some, and sorting your library by Title will certainly make it more apparent. If you have a small library, perhaps that's all the help you need. It's not going to work for me. I'll still be working on it next year.
The first level of assistance is to ask iTunes to show you the duplicates. That's easy. With your library still sorted by Title, click on File | Display Duplicates. This was when I started to get concerned. That's a LOT of duplicate tracks. If you want to reduce the work here a little, you can also ask iTunes to take a little more care with the selection. By default it's only going to check the titles, but if you click on the Show All button to put things back to normal, and then go back through the process but this time hold the Shift key down while you click on File then you'll get a Display Exact Duplicates option. For me, this made no difference at all but your mileage will vary depending on how you got the duplicates in the first place. After that, the process consists of deleting the one (or more if necessary) duplicate files that you don't want. Getting help with the heavy lifting
You Apple folk also have a whole stack of Apple Script options, but I can't get near those. My next option was a free piece of software called Duplicate Music File Finder. This one works outside iTunes, so there's a need to clean up the resulting dead links afterwards. Hold your breath, start the app, point it at your music files, and let it check them out.
Just before we go further, a reminder. I'm trying to help, but the risk is yours. You need to have backed up all your music before you start. Click the Check All button if you are happy that the duplicates have been selected, and then click on Delete Checked Files to actually remove them. Click Yes to confirm.
The last step in the process is to tell iTunes to take a look at itself, and remove any items in the library which no longer exist. Unfortunately there is no simple way in the iTunes interface to do this, so we need to cheat, just a little. Apple has provided a script to do just this particular trick, and to make use of it you just need to do these things in order:
The script will open iTunes, and then start running through and removing dead links. In my case it took around ten minutes and correctly removed nearly two thousand links.
Give yourself a pat on the back.
I'd love to know how you go, whether you have found any more comprehensive tools, or if you can fathom how I got in this mess. In the comments, please. Do you like MakeUseOf articles! Please do share our articles with others! It’s really important to us. Similar MakeUseOf Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| All You Need to Know About Editing RAW Photos in Adobe Camera Raw Posted: 05 Apr 2010 04:30 PM PDT
Why this mode? Well, because it provides better options for editing images outside the camera. Unlike JPEG images, all the digital data captured in the camera and converted to RAW is retained on the camera media card. This means that RAW image files will often be three to five times larger than JPEG files (see screen shot below). JPEGs files are smaller because they are what's called a lossy format, which means that some data is not retained.
Most people can't see a difference between an image shot in JPEG or RAW mode. They will look the same on camera's LCD screen, but when viewed on a computer, you may notice some differences; such as a lack of color saturation, contrast and sharpness in RAW images. RAW image settings are not touched in the process of capture. This provides photographers better control over editing their images. All current dSLR cameras and some compact digital cameras feature RAW mode capability. You need to adjust your camera's menu settings to shoot in RAW mode. You also will need a RAW image editor to edit these images. The icons for RAW and JPEG images may looking something like this:
Adobe Camera RAWWhen you shoot RAW photos, you need to process them in a RAW image editor. The most popular applications for this are Adobe Lightroom and Apple's Aperture. But a RAW editor comes installed with the latest versions of Photoshop CS, and it's called Adobe Camera RAW (ACR). It works similarly to Adobe Lightroom, so basically, unless you're doing high volume photography, ACR should be sufficient for your RAW editing needs. To open RAW files in Adobe Camera RAW, you can select File>Open in Photoshop, and then select your RAW files, which will open up in the RAW editor. Or you can select and drag the files on the Photoshop icon and they will open in the editor.
ACR looks like this in Photoshop CS3:
Editing in ACRAdobe Camera RAW contains basic and advance editing tools that you find in applications like Photoshop, iPhoto, and Lightroom. Here's a break down of some of the basic tools:
One of the biggest advantages of shooting in RAW format is that you can correct the White Balance settings (see #1) in the editor. This can't be as easily done with JPEG files. So if for example, you shoot a photo in Tungsten WB in an outdoor setting, you can change it Daylight WB in ACR and get the correct white balance exposure.
The Exposure, Recovery, Fill Light, Blacks, and Brightness tools (items 2-7 in the screenshot above) can help you correct exposure issues. The Recovery tool helps you reclaim loss in detail in the white areas, and Fill Light helps add light to the shadow areas.The Blacks works similarly to add darkness to the shadows of images, by dragging the slider slightly to the right. Brightness and Contrast works like most other image editors. The Clarity, Vibrance, and Saturation tools work really well for portrait shots. They basically boost and intensify colors without destroying the skin tones. Experiment with slightly dragging these sliders right or and left slightly to get the desired effect. This panel also includes a Histogram tool in which you can click the top red and blue buttons to bring up highlight and shadow warnings in an image.
Other ToolsACR includes other tools such as Sharpening, Curves, Grayscale Conversion, Chromatic Aberration, and a Preset feature which allows you to save editing and adjustment settings that can be applied to future images.
Converting to Original SettingsLike with all image editors, you can revert back to the original previous settings by clicking on the button on the right side of the panel and selecting Image Settings or Previous Conversion.
Saving ImagesThe four buttons at the button of ACR are for saving images, opening them in Photoshop, or clicking Done to apply settings without opening the image in Photoshop.
While Adobe Lightroom and Apple's Aperture are leading RAW editors, there's no reason you should fork over the money for one of those applications before you take advantage of Adobe Camera RAW, which comes at no extra cost in Photoshop CS. Let us know us know about your experiences with RAW photo editing. Just because it's a tool used by most professional photographers doesn't mean it's inaccessible to serious shutterbugs. Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too. Includes cool extras. Similar MakeUseOf Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top Deals of the Day [April 5th] Posted: 05 Apr 2010 03:57 PM PDT
In addition, we’ve also managed to dig up a couple of freebies to share today. Take a look.
Freebies
Image credit: Modified from Svengraph’s icon set Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers! Similar MakeUseOf Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| How to Convert a PDF File to a Word Doc with AnyBizSoft PDF to Word Converter Posted: 05 Apr 2010 02:30 PM PDT
But PDF is a different beast altogether. If we talk of 'love triangles', the PDF format is quite like a prima donna. Sometimes vain and sometimes temperamental. But a clutch of free tools has arrived on the scene to smoothen out the conversion creases between the two and reduce our dependence on paid software.
We have taken a look at ways to convert Word to PDF: And we have also taken a look at ways to turn the thing around with PDF to Word or text conversion:
We as users are spoilt for choice and even then it doesn't hurt to have one more. And so we have – AnyBizSoft PDF to Word Converter. AnyBizSoft has a spectrum of PDF tools that are adept at converting PDF documents to the other common formats like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, HTML, Text and even EPUB (for eBooks). If you look at the solutions on offer, you will see that all the PDF tools are not free. Downer? Don't let it be, because the one you might use most often, the PDF to Word converter for Windows went totally free (for non-commercial usage only). An up to now, paid software going free does send the mouse running towards the download link, but let's pause awhile and see if the software justifies the “price” tag. Can You Easily Convert a PDF File to a Word Doc with AnyBizSoft? Yes!AnyBizSoft PDF to Word Converter (version 2.5.3) comes in as a 6.15 MB download bundle and it installs in a jiffy. You have to get a free key code for registering the product and it's sent to you in an email. Enter it to have the PDF freeware up and running. You can either open up the main interface or use the shortcut by way of the right click menu. The interface is grandmother-friendly. Browse to your PDF file, choose a location to save the converted file and click on the large Convert button. The important thing with all conversion software is not how they do it, but how well they do it.
Let's put off the end result for a while and look at three features you might like:
After the metamorphosis…A conversion job is always benchmarked against what's desired and what's acceptable. There is always a gap between the two. Underlining that, I sent our 20 page Linux Newbie Guide PDF eBook through the AnyBizSoft PDF to Word Converter. The eBook (You can get it from our MUO Guides section) has a fair sprinkling of images and colorful tables. Here's a view from the PDF file…
Here's the view in the converted Word document…
There was some misalignment in the tables but in my opinion, the results are completely acceptable as table conversions are the most difficult to maintain.
All links are preserved along with odd elements like text over background graphics and text formatting. For the sake of relating, I also sent the same file to the online PDF conversion tool at PDF to Word. The results came out the same with layouts preserved similarly but with some distinct disadvantages:
No such worries here as the desktop software gives me the flexibility to handle PDF conversion jobs as per my dictates. For simplicity, speed, sureness and security, the AnyBizSoft PDF to Word Converter is a download worth its bytes. AnyBizSoft PDF to Word Converter is also compatible with Microsoft Office 2010 and Windows 7. How do your conversion jobs go? Let us in on your tools for the PDF to Word tasks. We NEED Your Comments! Please do share your thoughts in article comments! Similar MakeUseOf Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Redesign Our PDF Manuals Page and Win Free Hosting! [MakeUseOf Contest] Posted: 05 Apr 2010 01:00 PM PDT
If you’re interested, here’s what you need to know. Email a quick and simple illustrated mock-up of what you think our PDF Manuals page should look like. Ideally, it should showcase our PDF Manuals. At the end of this week, we’ll pick 10 runner-ups with the most innovative designs and they’ll each receive a free 3-month hosting subscription by Awardspace. Use your free subscription to build a working model of your mock-up within 2 weeks and the designer with the best implementation will win 2 years worth of hosting by Awardspace! Are you excited yet? Read on for contest rules and requirements.
Remember, the closing date for the initial illustrated mock-up submission is Friday 9th April, 2010 at 2100hrs. The 10 runner-ups will be selected and announced the following day.
MakeUseOf would like to thank David from Awardspace for his generosity and sponsoring this contest. Interesting in sponsoring? We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with us via email. Image credit: Modified from Svengraph’s icon set Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf fan page on Facebook. Over 15,000 fans already!
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| How to Create a Screencast Like A Pro with These 6 Free Online Tools Posted: 05 Apr 2010 12:30 PM PDT
However, if you want simpler applications that can do the same thing without the heavy toll on your computer’s memory or your wallet, try these easy-to-use web-based solutions. Since all of the following offer the recordings for download, you can edit the screencasts to your liking in your preferred video editor, or start over with ease.
How to Create a ScreenCast in One Click with ScreenCastle
ScreenCastle dedicates its site to facilitate screen recording. It’s so easy to start using the recorder right from the homepage. There’s no nonsense that nags you to sign up. Click on the big, orange Power button to load a recorder size applet, which will sport a thumbnail of the webpage you were last on. If ScreenCastle isn’t part of what you want to record, go to the actual tab you’ll record and hit Refresh on the applet. This way, you’ll get a sense of how your screencast might turn out. To resize the recorder, either type the desired dimensions on the applet or drag the resizers.
You can also choose whether you want to record your microphone. After that, you’ll be able to load the recorder and let your imagination run wild! When you’re done, you can preview your screencast or publish it to ScreenCastle’s site, where you’ll get the direct link in to the file in FLV format (to download, plug this link in your browser address bar or download manager), embed codes, and even thumbnail images of your screencast. There’s currently no limitations of screencast duration, size, or even number of recordings, but videos published on the site that are not viewed for a year may be deleted. Screencast-o-matic May Just Shock You With Its High-Quality Screen RecorderScreencast-o-Matic conceals a very powerful screencasting application under its simple-looking website. But don’t be misled, it’s still so user-friendly that you don’t even need an account to publish your video on the site. Once you click on Create, SOM displays a resizable rectangle with all the recording options.
You can drag the resizers at the extremes of the rectangle or you can select any of the commonly used dimensions for videos (3:4 and HD). When you’re ready to record, make sure you choose a microphone (or none if you’re not planning on narrating) and press on ALT + P (on a Mac, that’d be Option + P) or the mighty red button. A good way to remember that P is the ability to Pause the recording with that same keyboard shortcut. You’ll also be able to move the recorder around (not available in the other services in this list) and pause to play what you’ve recorded so far.
If you’re not satisfied, the Restart button will save you, or you can record over the part you’re not happy with (just pause at the beginning of that part and hit ALT + P or red Record button), which is highly time-saving. You can record up to 15 minutes of desktop activity goodness. After you finish recording, you can add notes to specific time frames in the video. In Export Movie mode, you’ll also see that the videos are available to download in MP4, AVI, FLV formats. You can select whether you want to include the mouse cursor, mouse clicks, notes and even audio. You can also upload your video to YouTube. Even if you accidentally closed your browser, the site lets you continue with your previously recorded (unpublished) screencasts. One thing to keep in mind: Every screencast will have a Screen-O-Matic watermark unless you upgrade to a Pro account ($5). Screenjelly Records Your Full Desktop With Ease (And With A Bookmarklet)
Want to know how to create a screencast by recording your full desktop activity for 3 minutes? Look no further than Screenjelly. It makes recording super straightforward—just hit the mighty red button. When you’re done, you can view your recording and select whether you want to discard it or publish it with a Twitter (using OAuth so the site doesn’t store your Twitter account information), Facebook Connect or Screenjelly account. You can also share your screencasts by email and many social media sites. Screenjelly is the only site that doesn’t offer the video for download.
But what’s really cool (and almost hidden) is its absolutely genius bookmarklet, which puts a mini-recorder on whichever website you’re currently on. You can even place that mini-recorder on your own website. Since what you’re recording with Screenjelly is your full desktop, published videos will look way better played in full-screen, but if you want your audience to have an easier time viewing your videos without having to go full-screen, you can get the excellent and tiny ZoomIt system tray utility, or press CTRL++ on Firefox. ScreenToaster Makes Screencasting Fun And Offers Advanced Editing Options
ScreenToaster has evolved into a superb tool that captures your screencasts the easy way. It’s the only service in this list that lets you choose Playback Speed (half as fast, twice as fast, and up to 10 times faster), a feature you’d see on paid apps, such as the $99 ScreenFlow application for Mac. Other unique features are its offering to record from your webcam, add Subtitles, in a fashion similar to adding YouTube annotations (which you could do later since you can actually also upload the screencast to YouTube), and record audio for inclusion even after you recorded your screencast. There’re also two versions: the new Beta version records with HD quality.
While there are no limitations in duration, ScreenToaster recommends 20MB as the maximum size for “optimized performance”. Right after you have recorded your screencast, ScreenToaster will let you download the screencast in MOV and SWF formats (the latter is experimental so you may get errors), which you might want to do at that instance since this option isn’t available after you publish your video to the ScreenToaster’s servers. In the Beta version though, you get to download the screencast in MP4 format even after it’s published. Tweet Your HD Screencasts With Screenr
Screenr sits in such a polished-looking site, you’ll want to start screencasting right away. The recorder comes with resizers and preset dimensions to ensure optimized playback resolution. Screenr will let you record your desktop activity for up to 5 minutes. After you’re done, you’ll have the option to post your freshly made screencast on Twitter or just play the video on the Screenr site. You’ll get a shortened URL to the video for you to share, options to download the video in MP4 and upload the video to YouTube (after which should be extremely high-definition if you recorded with one of the preset 16:9 dimensions).
If you want to show your screencast to someone else while you’re not on a computer, Screenr’s site is optimized for mobile phones, so you can play your video on an iPhone. There’s also a Screenr bookmarklet that simply opens up another tab with the recording page. You can find it on the right sidebar of any screencast published on Screenr. ShowMeWhatsWrong Helps You Troubleshoot With Screen Recordings
ShowMeWhatsWrong comes from the skilled hands of the Screencast-o-Matic creators, but it’s molded with a more specific purpose—to aid that annoying problem when you want to help friends and family with computer issues, but are nowhere near them. They will basically record a screencast so you know exactly what they’re talking about. If you’re the troubleshooter, you just go to SMWW and insert your name and email. You’ll get a URL that you can share with your friend who’s got the computer problem.
When your friend loads that page with the special URL from you, they’ll be able to record whatever the problem is. When they’re done, SMWW sends your friend’s screencast to your email. The video will expire in 7 days but you can always download it in MP4 format. If you’ve used any of these, feel free to share your experiences. How do you create a screencast? For educational purposes, record PC games, etc? Are there any other web-based applications we missed? Photo credits: garryknight Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers! Similar MakeUseOf Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| How to Publish a Children’s Book with StoryJumper Posted: 05 Apr 2010 11:30 AM PDT
My children, for good or bad, are the beneficiaries of this talent and have, since birth, been prey to my creative tales. Over the years, the tales have generally revolved around whatever “thing” they were into…Spiderman Saves Lakeville…Thomas the Tank Meets the Ghostbusters (my kids are uber retro)…The Duke Boys Help CSI New York…
The second and newest series, The Adventures of Digger, are about truth, justice, and treasure and started as a way to teach my kids about manners. StoryJumper is a way to preserve these ludicrous stories by letting you actually publish a children’s book. StoryJumper is an easy-to-use program that allows you to create a children’s book with simple images, text, and photos in minutes. Not creative? No worries! They even offer a step by step guide. How to Publish a Children’s Book with StoryJumperThe first step to publishing your very own tales is to register on the StoryJumper site. This is uber easy and quick, and once you verify your email, you are all set to start a book!
If you need inspiration, simply click on the green “explore” bubble on the menu, and check out some of the other books created. You can even personalize some of them if the author allows it.
Once you have an idea ready and waiting in your noggin, start thinking about a catchy title, the setting, the action, and the characters. If you are stuck with writer’s block, fear not! StoryJumper offers a step by step helper to get you writing.
For each page, you pick a scene (background), add “props” (images) and write text. You can also load in your own photos. The StoryJumper repository of images and props are easy to use. You can search by category or type in a key word.
A page is complete when it has everything on it that helps you tell the story. On the image below, I am writing exactly what my son is saying. He picked the image of Digger and chose this background scene.
Once your book is complete, the sharing process is really easy. The site makes money if you buy a gorgeous printed version, but you can also print your very own free paper copy.
You can also send a link, embed the book in a blog, or place the book out for the public to view and order. If you want, you can allow others to tweak the story.
The awesome thing about StoryJumper is that you can create other things, too! You can print out a quick treasure map or use a pre-written story.
There are lots of other great programs that allow you to make your own books, but what makes StoryJumper unique is that it is really geared for children to use and allows free sharing and printing. Have you ever written a children’s book? Would you use this tool to make a quick holiday present? Image credit: Betsy Streeter Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers! Similar MakeUseOf Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 5 More Free Alternatives to Top iPhone Photography Apps Posted: 05 Apr 2010 10:30 AM PDT
If you want more iPhone app alternatives for free to replace popular commercial iPhone apps, check out The Best Free Alternatives to Top Commercial iPhone Photography Apps.
Polarize – A Free Alternative to lo-moblo-mob [iTunes link] is a $1.99 iPhone app that gives your photographs an old school feel, adding a cool effect and frame to your photos. A great iPhone alternative app for free is Polarize [iTunes link]. With Polarize, you can either choose a photo from your photo library or take a new photo. Polarize will give the photo that old-school polaroid feel, altering the colours and adding the frame. You can also add a caption to each photo, which appears at the bottom of the border, in a cool handwriting font. Photos created in Polarize are saved to to your camera roll.
Another app that deserves a mention is Format126 [iTunes link], which allows you to add one of 8 effects to a photo in your camera roll, or to a newly taken photo. The effects consist of ColorPlus, PolaColor, MonoPlus, Mono, ColorHint, LOFI, MonoHi and Neutral. All of the effects reflect the retro effect found in the 1960’s 126 film format.
Dash of Color – A Free Alternative to ColorSplashColorSplash [iTunes link] is $1.99 app that allows you to desaturate your photographs, while keeping certain details in colour. There are two free alternatives to ColorSplash in the iTunes App Store. Dash of Color [iTunes link] allows you to choose a photo from your camera roll to edit. The photo is automatically desaturated, and by swiping your finger over sections of the photo you can restore its original color. The app allows you to adjust the size of the brush, and if you make a mistake, can also alternate between adding or removing colour.
iQuikSplash [iTunes link] uses a different approach. Rather than swipe your finger over the sections that you want to colour – you tap the photo to choose one specific colour that will remain, while the rest of the photo will be desaturated.
The app has a second option, ‘Area QuikSplash,’ which allows you to restore the original colour only to certain sections of the photo within a defined area. Once you have edited your photo, you can either save it to your camera roll or publish it to Facebook.
Photo Philter Phun – A Free Alternative to Photo fxPhoto fx [iTunes link] is a $2.99 app that allows you to add a variety of filters to your photographs for interesting effects. There are a few free alternatives that photography buffs can use to add interesting effects to their photos. Photo Philter Phun [iTunes link] allows you to add effects to a photo from your camera roll, or to a newly taken photo. Filters include wave, noise, swirl, charcoal, sharpening and blurring amongst others.
With Photo Philter Phun, you can apply more than one filter to a photograph. The app allows you to save the photo to your camera roll in either a standard, medium or large size, and to share it through Facebook or Twitter.
PhotoTouch [iTunes link] is another free app that is packed with photo editing features. It allows you to automatically adjust the colours and contrast of your photos, as well as crop or alter the size of the image. Using PhotoTouch, you can also adjust the saturation, and apply a variety of filters including Sepia, Solarization, Softening, Mosaic and Pixel Movement.
Other cool free apps that add interesting effects found in Photo fx include Night Vision [iTunes link], uSketch [iTunes link] which allows you to convert photographs to sketches. Video Genius – A Free Alternative to iVideoCameraWhile the free app Video Genius [iTunes link] does not have the added effects that the $0.99 app iVideoCamera [iTunes link] has, it still allows iPhone 2G and 3G owners to record video on their iPhone for free. Videos shot using Video Genius are saved in the camera roll, and can be played back after they have been saved. Video Genius also allows you to record for 40-60 seconds at a rate of 12 frames a second, or longer videos at a rate of 8 frames per second.The app is free for the time being so get it while you can!
Shutter Cam – A Free Alternative to QuadCameraQuadCamera – Multishot [iTunes link] is $1.99 iPhone app that allows you to take from four to eight continuous shots, and add effects to the photographs. Shutter Cam [iTunes link] is a free alternative to to QuadCamera, allowing you to take from two to five continuous shots. You can choose to add a timestamp to your photographs and adjust the image size. Photos taken using ShutterCam can be shared either via email or through Twitter.
Do you know of any free apps that are great alternatives to the top paid photography apps in the iTunes store? Let us know in the comments. Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too. Includes cool extras. Similar MakeUseOf Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Grsync — A Simple GUI to Help You Use ‘rsync’ Easily [Linux] Posted: 05 Apr 2010 09:30 AM PDT
Recently I was using FTP for a project that involved frequent updates to the server. Maintaining a list of all the files which were modified to transfer them via FTP soon became a problem.
Soon, it was obvious why geek’s love it. At the core level, rsync is a fancy ‘file copy’ utility available as a command on most Linux systems. As opposed to some of the other command line titles, rsync has a pretty steep learning curve. With a host of options and things that you can use to modify your Linux rsync configuration, it is hard to initially know which are the best for the task in hand. A look at the rsync manual page is enough to dazzle a newbie starting out with the tool.
Perhaps that is the reason why a number of GUI’s exist for Rrync. Grsync is a GUI front end to rsync for your Gnome desktop. You can install Grsync by issuing the following command in Terminal: sudo apt-get install grsync Once installed, you will find Grsync listed under Applications > System tools. Go ahead and run it. The GUI is fairly basic and does a nice job of separating basic options that you are likely to use most often with rsync and the advanced options that help you tweak and customize rsync’s behavior to suit your needs.
First off, you need to create a session. You can add and delete sessions easily. A session will help you retain all the settings including the source and destination folders so that you can quickly come back to it and the settings will be there as it is.
The option labels refer to the various switches that are available when using Grsync. While the option labels try to do the best to explain what is what, you will need to refer to the manual occasionally. Hover over any label and a tool tip pops up displaying the corresponding rsync option that the checkbox will invoke.
In addition, Grsync offers some extra options as well. For instance, you can run other commands just before Grsync invokes rsync or after rsync has completed. You can defer rsync execution if a command returns an error. These options are excellent if you want to transfer files to and from an external device or network location that is not always present or mounted. Grsync is an excellent tool that makes it easier to manage your Linux rsync configuration without reading the 3000+ lines manual page or without learning it the hard way by making mistakes. Are you an rsync fan? Achieved something clever using rsync? We would love to hear about it. Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers! Similar MakeUseOf Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Amazing Personal Cloud Computing with Tonido [MakeUseOf Giveaway] Posted: 05 Apr 2010 08:30 AM PDT
It allows you all the flexibility of having your documents and files accessible from anywhere via a URL you create, with the security of having them still stored safely in your computer or external harddrive. The Tonido website, is a cloud-based gateway where you create an account which will then allow you to access all of the files on your Windows, Mac or Linux computer from anywhere, even some phones, and use all of the features they have installed on their cloud. This week, we will be giving away 20 WebShare Pro licenses and 4 Tonido Plugs, worth $700 in total. Find out how you can win one!
Some of the features of Tonido include:
Files also load with incredible speed on Tonido. I have used remote access programs, but what they do is display your desktop on another screen. The problem with that is that the whole desktop and remote software must load on the remote machine. That uses huge amounts of resources. At best you get a very slow machine. Tonido doesn’t work that way. It literally is a dedicated cloud system connecting you to your files. So they get listed immediately and load incredibly quickly, with minimum impact to the computer’s performance. One great companion to the Tonido software is the Tonido Plug which is a little box, that can be connected to any USB or thumb drive and serve as an external server and NAS device that can be accessed from any remote computer using your account URL. The little box (which costs less than $100) is a power efficient green computing device which comes pre-installed with all of the Tonido applications. It is based on a 1.2 GHz processor which runs the Tonido software on top of Ubuntu Jaunty Linux OS.
Setup takes about 30 seconds and once set, you can leave the plug attached to the hard drive and still access all your files or upload files to the hard drive without the need for a computer to store them. That is in itself worth the plug for me. All in all, Tonido seems to be ideal for those of us who love having access to our files but who also want to know they are not stored in some server somewhere; users who want to be able to share our files without concern for security and without having to upload them to various servers with size restrictions. And users who want to be able to listen to our music from anywhere or be able to update our financial information on the go. In a world that is now being changed by cloud computing, Tonido seems to be one step ahead with a new wave: The personal cloud… To get a jump start in personal cloud computing, we’re giving away 4 Tonido Plugs and 20 Webshare Pro accounts (view Pro features here) worth $700 in total. The Tonido Plugs will be sent to the winners anywhere in the world via FedEx. How do I become a winner?It’s simple. Just follow the steps.
This giveaway begins now and will end on Friday at 2100hrs PST. The winners will be selected at random and announced the following day. Spread the word to your friends and have fun! MakeUseOf would like to thank Venkat and CodeLathe for their generosity while participating in this giveaway. Interesting in sponsoring? We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with us via email. Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers! Similar MakeUseOf Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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