MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [April 22nd]” plus 10 more |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [April 22nd]
- The MakeUseOf Team Spotlight [April 22nd 2010]
- Feedling – Read Your Feeds On Your PC Desktop [Windows]
- Ubuntu 10.04 – An Extremely Simple Operating System [Linux]
- Hot Tech Deals [April 22nd]
- How To Upload & Sync Your Files To SkyDrive From Windows Explorer
- Search For the Best & Worst Local Businesses With Yelp
- Sikuli – Create Automation Scripts Easily Using Screenshots
- 20 Copies of WinX Cell Phone Video Converter [MakeUseOf Giveaway]
- How To Create Stunning Presentations Using Text Images [Mac]
- Convert Images To Text Online With Free OCR
| Cool Websites and Tools [April 22nd] Posted: 22 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. Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf fan page on Facebook. Over 17,000 fans already!
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| The MakeUseOf Team Spotlight [April 22nd 2010] Posted: 22 Apr 2010 06:31 PM PDT
As well as providing our writers with another form of online promotion, this feature also gives you the reader a wider range of posts to read. This month, we will be profiling blog posts from Karl, Evan, Jack, Jonathan and Abhigyan.
1. Lock Your Snow Leopard Machine When Connecting With VNCby Karl Gechlik @ Ask The Admin
Follow these steps to create a automator task to lock your screen and allow another user to connect leaving your screen locked. This way snooping people cannot see the work you are doing. 2. How To Never Use Your Start Menu Again With Launchyby Evan Wondrasek @ Techerator
Launchy is an open source keystroke launcher for Windows and Linux that allows you to open documents, folders, bookmarks, installed software, and system utilities with a quick keyboard keystroke combination. 3. How To Download Facebook Videos Without Softwareby Jack Cola @ Jack Cola
This is a quick tutorial of how you can download a video off Facebook without any software. 4. The Costs of Video Game Development and Publishingby Jonathan Bennett @ ZippyGamer
Jonathan goes into some detail about the costs of development, sales, and marketing. 5. The Best and Worst of the Apple iPadby Abhigyan Banerjee @ Technokracy
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| Feedling – Read Your Feeds On Your PC Desktop [Windows] Posted: 22 Apr 2010 04:31 PM PDT
One of my biggest problems following blogs and websites, even though I have a favorite feed reader, is that I forget to check the feed reader altogether. For me at least, the “out of sight out of mind” principle rings true. Am I alone here? That is why I decided to try out a new desktop feed reader. This time it is a desktop application and, as it turns out, it is open source. The reason I think it may be the answer to my problem is that the feeds are displayed directly on my desktop.
It is called Feedling. Join me as we take a first time look at a little known feed reader and perhaps you too will find it useful. Where To Find FeedlingBeing open source, Feedling happens to be hosted on SourceForge.
You can check out the Feedling desktop feed reader and download it from this page. This page will tell you a few things.
Installing Feedling.Installing Feedling is very basic. Just follow the normal program installation prompts. You will then find Feedling listed in your programs menu in the start menu.
Simply open the program to begin the process to read your feeds on your desktop. Setting Up the Feedling Desktop Feed Reader.When you open the program, you will find an orange icon in your tray.
Right-click the icon and click “Configuration.” This is where you can add feeds and change the way they look, such as the font size and color.
I didn’t even need to consult instructions to figure Feedling out, it was that easy. Add feeds by clicking the “Add…” button.
As you can see, not only can you insert the feed URL from this window, but you can also modify how it looks. I’d set up the hover color to be different because the reader doesn’t change the courser upon hovering the links. You can even change how often it updates. This is pretty straight forward stuff. Next, head back to the original configuration page and let’s see what the “Duplicate…” button is all about. Simply highlight one of your feeds (preferably one that you like how it looks on your desktop) and click the button.
As you can see, what is actually being duplicated is how the feed looks and is configured. This saves a lot of time because you don’t have to redo all the settings for each feed you enter if you want them all to look the same. Trust me, I will be making serious use of this feature. Also at the original configuration window you can edit and delete feeds and even import and export subscriptions from and to another feed reader (XML files). One other issue I ran into and figured out on my own had to do with the placement of each feed on my desktop. When I first set up more than one feed, they showed on the desktop on top of each other. You can place them anywhere you want to when you are in “Move Mode.” Simply right-click the orange icon and choose “Move Mode” and when you’re done, go back and click it again to leave it. Read Your Feeds From Your Desktop.I personally like this because now I don’t have to open or navigate to some reader to find my feeds. They’re all right there on my desktop. As you can see it really isn’t obtrusive and I can still see my wallpaper pretty well.
I’ll be soon adding more feeds and making some larger than others according to importance but you get the general idea. Feedling is pretty simple and minimalistic. I find it solving at least one of my problems (remember “out of sight out of mind”?). What are your thought about Feedling? Could a simple reader like this help you remember to check your feeds? Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Do share our articles with others! It’s really important to us. Similar MakeUseOf Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ubuntu 10.04 – An Extremely Simple Operating System [Linux] Posted: 22 Apr 2010 02:31 PM PDT
That’s the new Ubuntu in a nutshell. Yesterday I explained how Ubuntu 10.04 can integrate all your inboxes – including email, social networks and instant messaging – into one central place. But that’s not the only new feature that’ll come with the new release on April 29th: there are also a number of small changes that, collectively, give Ubuntu 10.04 a polish I’ve never seen in any Linux distribution. I’ve been using the beta version of this Linux-based operating system for a week now, and I have to say I’m really impressed. Ubuntu 10.04 is by far the best Linux release I’ve ever used.
Let’s take a look. No More Confusing Graphics ProgramsMy first example of polish: the Gimp is gone! Now don’t get me wrong: I love the Gimp. It’s a fantastic photo editor, and I’ll be using it for years to come. But it shouldn’t be included in Ubuntu by default. Ubuntu should be the distribution that’s easy to use. So with this release, Ubuntu leaves out the complex-by-design Gimp and instead offers basic image editing through F-Spot:
With these Ubuntu 10.04 tools, average users can quickly get done what they want to get done. I know, I know: this is basic functionality at best. But it’s impossible to make an advanced photo editor that’s easy to use, and Ubuntu shouldn’t include anything the user can’t figure out quickly – that can make people feel overwhelmed. Not including the Gimp by default shows a remarkable degree of maturity on the part of the Ubuntu project; they’re taking themselves seriously as an operating system, and not thinking of themselves as some mere Linux distribution. And for the user who already knows how to use the Gimp? A quick trip to the software manager and you’ve got it. Everybody wins. Additionally, the ugly and confusing Xsane is replaced with a new, easy-to-understand program called Simple Scan. Xsane always worked great for me, but I hated the interface. This solves that, and I’m happy about it. Built-In Video Editor
It’s always been hard to find a decent video editor on Linux. Ubuntu 10.04 has one out of the box: PiTiVi. Sure, it’s not an advanced video editor, but it does a pretty good job at what it’s for: putting together quick videos for the likes of YouTube. I managed to throw this video together using it, and it amuses me to no end, so I’m happy with video editing in Ubuntu. What else do you need to know? Games That Don’t SuckIt’s a relatively small thing, I know, but the games offered by default in Ubuntu always kind of bugged me. I had no idea how to play most of them, and the AI for “four in a row” was so difficult I never once managed to beat it on easy (and I’m not alone.) No more confusing or absurdly difficult games in this release, however: only five focused, quality efforts for your downtime. Check out the selection:
My favorite is gBrainy, which while being little more than an extended quiz is a fantastic way to wake up your brain in the morning. Fire up this game and you’ll see a series of questions testing your logic, math and memory skills.
I love it, and think you will too. Slick New LookAs you’ve noticed from my screenshots and pictures, Ubuntu’s gone through a bit of rebranding. Gone is the infamous brown, replaced by a sleek new look that’s still completely unique. Yep; it’s a Linux distribution with an eye for aesthetics. I’m shocked too.
The re-branding goes beyond the skin you see here: new logos for the program were designed and the Ubuntu website will be re-branded when 10.04 launches at the end of the month. The boot screen for Ubuntu 10.04 features this new logo, and I for one love it:
Ubuntu’s not really had a major re-branding since launching, so the fresh look is very welcome in my opinion. A quick note to those of you complaining about the buttons moving to the wrong side: get over it. The change is quite aesthetically pleasing, sets Ubuntu apart from both Windows and Mac, and only takes an hour to adjust to. If you can’t adjust simply learn to use keyboard shortcuts and forget the buttons are even there. Ubuntu One EvolvesOf course, this new release of Ubuntu offers further integration with the cloud-based Ubuntu One service. You’ll receive 2 gigabytes of Dropbox-style file syncing, as well as support for syncing your email contacts and more. There’s also the new Ubuntu One Music store, integrated into the default music player Rhythmbox. Any music you buy here will follow you on all your computers via Ubuntu One, a nice little feature if you want to automatically keep all your music in one place. Ubuntu One’s a great addition to the operating system, and gives Canonical (the company funding Ubuntu) a potential revenue stream. I think what they’re doing is fantastic and I hope things like this eventually make Ubuntu profitable for Canonical; they deserve it for providing us with such a great free operating system. Conclusion: PolishAny one of these changes would, alone, be superficial. Taken as a whole, however, and we see Ubuntu maturing as a vibrant, viable operating system with plenty of polish. Simply put, Ubuntu is not just for Linux nerds anymore. If you’ve any interest in replacing Windows or OSX with something different you should check this out, because you won’t be disappointed. Ubuntu’s proving it can not only build a community around an open-source project, but also work with this community to build a focused product. This is no small feat, and the Ubuntu team should be commended for this. Ubuntu 10.04 officially comes out on April 29th, but if you’re brave you can download it now. Well guys, what do you think? Is Ubuntu 10.04 as amazing as I’m making it out to be, or am I just a hopeless fanboy raving about a shiny new toy? If you’re trying the beta, is there a great new feature that I’m missing? Should I wipe my hard drive and install Gentoo, like a real man? Commenting doesn’t kill kittens, so feel free to do so! Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras. Similar MakeUseOf Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 22 Apr 2010 01:30 PM PDT
For more fresh hot deals, visit our Hot Tech Deals page, which is constantly updated.
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| How To Upload & Sync Your Files To SkyDrive From Windows Explorer Posted: 22 Apr 2010 12:31 PM PDT
SkyDrive could possibly even be a Dropbox alternative so you can sync files to SkyDrive. You can actually save yourself the work with either of the free Gladinet and SDExplorer tools, but this is another way to map SkyDrive using the downloadable Microsoft Office 2010 Beta or one open-source utility.
In that address, abcdef is actually a unique combination of six letters and numbers corresponding to your folder or album, while yourcid is the long ID code that appears in your URL bar after you log into SkyDrive. Nameoffolder corresponds to the name of your SkyDrive folder, of course. So let’s go over how we can figure out the abcdef codes. Retrieving The WebDAV Addresses Of Your SkyDrive Folders (Method 1)This method is for users who already have downloaded Microsoft Office 2010 Beta; otherwise, jump to Method 2.
Retrieving The WebDAV Addresses Of Your SkyDrive Folders (Method 2)This is for users who don’t have Microsoft Office 2010 Beta.
Accessing SkyDrive Folders From Windows ExplorerNow that you have pasted the address into the Folder text box in the Map Network Drive dialog box, delete the “https:” part of the address and change all the forward slashes (“/”) to backslashes (“\”). Your address should now look like this : \\abcdef.docs.live.net\yourcid\nameoffolder.
If you’re satisfied with the default drive letter (usually Y:) for your SkyDrive folder, check Reconnect at logon and click on Finish. Otherwise, choose another letter drive before you hit Finish. In a few moments, you should be greeted these:
Now, just sign in with your Windows Live ID (whole email) and password and you should see your SkyDrive folder as if it were another folder in Windows Explorer.
If you want to map your other SkyDrive folders, repeat the steps, making sure you copy the right and unique abcdef code of each of your SkyDrive folders. Also, when you type in nameoffolder, beware that ^2Public and ^2Documents may work instead of Public and Documents, so try those names if you have problems connecting. Names of photo albums should work the same as long as they don’t have any spaces or special characters in their names. If you still can’t connect, try saving your file to a different SkyDrive folder in Microsoft Office 2010 Beta (if you used Method 1), copying that address instead and repeating the previous steps. If you used Method 2, try copying the WebDAV address of another SkyDrive folder in the SkyDrive Simple Viewer and repeating the previous steps. Alternatively, try adding @SSL\DavWWWRoot\ to the pasted addresses in the Map Network Drive dialog box (e.g. \\abcdef.docs.live.net@SSL\DavWWWRoot\yourcid\nameoffolder). Uploading Files To Your SkyDrive FoldersNow that you have your SkyDrive folders mapped in Windows Explorer, you’ll notice that it can be a little slow to even open the newly mapped folder. That’s because Windows Explorer is downloading files and folders to your location. Dragging and dropping files through Windows Explorer to your SkyDrive folders may also take a while or even choke Windows Explorer into showing you “(Not Responding)” since Windows Explorer is actually uploading each file to SkyDrive. So if you have tried moving folders and Windows Explorer gets stuck, try copying files through the command prompt. Let’s say that you mapped your SkyDrive Documents folder in Windows Explorer using the drive letter T, and you want to copy the contents of your Documents folder in your PC to the SkyDrive Documents folder.
After you have uploaded files to SkyDrive, map your SkyDrive folders in your other PCs and you’ll be able to sync files! Of course, you’ll see most changes reflected online at skydrive.live.com in seconds (deleting photos in Windows Explorer doesn’t seem to work because you can still see them on the website). At the website, you can also download your files and share folders. Just upload them to your Public SkyDrive folder or edit the permissions for any other folder so that either a few people or the entire world can view your files. This is great if you want to share photos with family and friends because they don’t even need to sign in with a Windows Live ID. Just check Don’t require recipients to sign in with Windows Live ID when you’re on the Send a link page. Right-Click On A File To Send To SkyDriveIn Windows Vista, the drive you mapped for a SkyDrive folder appears on the Send To menu after you right-click on a file, but if you don’t see it, press the Windows key and R at the same time to summon the Run command. Type in shell:sendto and in the box that appears, right-click on the white space > New > Shortcut.
Now click on the Browse… button to find the drive to which you mapped your SkyDrive folder. In my case, I chose T: for my SkyDrive Documents folder. Click OK.
Click Next. Name it something like SkyDrive Documents.
And there you go, right-click on any file and send to your SkyDrive Documents folder right in Windows Explorer!
Do you use Windows Live SkyDrive? If not, which storage services do you use? We NEED Your Comments!!! Please do share your thoughts in article comments. Similar MakeUseOf Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Search For the Best & Worst Local Businesses With Yelp Posted: 22 Apr 2010 11:31 AM PDT
Jerry previously wrote about the Yelp iPhone app, where you could search for highly rated local restaurants to eat at near your location. In fact, numerous MakeUseOf readers have often mentioned Yelp. Personally, I thought Yelp was just another small fad social network attempting to build itself up upon the concept of mobile reviews of local businesses.
Are we entering an electronic era where the highest rated Yelp reviewers will be as revered by local businesses as the fine dining newspaper columnists were back in the day? Maybe not yet, but things seem headed in that direction. Yelp Helps You Out & Lets You Help OthersI have to admit, I learned about Yelp by accident. I was actually using a completely different mobile app on my Android called Where. Where is a pretty cool little app that almost acts like a mobile Yellow Pages – where you can search for local businesses through listings for local restaurants, shopping and more. I used Where a few times while I was traveling with the family, and noticed that each of the businesses had a little link labeled “Yelp Review.”
I wondered what a Yelp review was, and made a mental note to check it out when I got back home. Once I did, I was surprised to learn that it was a booming social network filled with user reviews for businesses in the US, Canada, Ireland and UK. Once I learned about the Yelp mobile app for Android, I switched to using it immediately. I have two favorite parts of Yelp – the ease with which you can quickly search for local businesses as well as something to do in your area, and the awesome social network of people who are out there actively reviewing local businesses.
Searching for local businesses is as simple as either typing a keyword or typing in your town. The fastest approach is typing your location so that Yelp can offer a listing of local businesses that have already been reviewed (as well as those that haven’t yet – if you feel like writing your own review.)
The listings include the business name, a quick reference for the rating (from 1 to 5 stars) as well as the address and phone number. The most recent reviewer’s comments are included on the listing page as well – so you can briefly get an idea of the business just from the listing page.
Once you click on the business name, you’ll get all of the details, including average price range, parking, whether there’s waiter service or if the business offers delivery. There’s even a cool slideshow of photos for most of the businesses listed in Yelp.
The restaurant above is one near me called DiMillo’s – my wife and I had one of our anniversary dinners there. It’s literally a floating restaurant, permanently at dock in Portland Maine’s Old Port. I may just post my own review! The Yelp CommunityThe number of Yelp reviewers are growing exponentially, and reading through the review section for any business is very entertaining. You’ll often see some reviewers going after the review of another reviewer – correcting it or explaining why they are wrong.
For some communities, where tourism is critical, reviews can really make or break the business – and many local business owners are starting to take online reviews from popular sites like Yelp very seriously. However, what businesses are learning is that the best way to ward off negative reviews is to develop a loyal customer base who are ready and willing to defend your good name and testify to the quality of your service or product. Communities like Yelp that encourage local folks to review businesses are really driving local businesses to excel and compete.
You’ll notice that the profile page for reviewers is much like a Facebook profile, except instead of status updates you have the main column with the user’s latest reviews. Other community members can actually rate those reviews as useful, funny or cool and they can forward reviews to friends. This approach keeps the reviewers themselves honest – because no one is going to give much credit to a reviewer who the rest of the community feels they offer poor reviews.
Best of all, on the main Yelp page you’ll see a link for “Yelp Mobile.” Here, you’ll find mobile versions of Yelp for just about every major mobile device – iPhone, BlackBerry, Droid and Palm Pre. I’ve downloaded it to my Droid (as you can see above), and plan on using it any time we travel and we’re pressed to find a good local place to eat. Now you no longer have to ask the clerk at the front desk of the hotel where there are any good places to eat – just pull out your mobile phone and check out what all of the locals have to say. When you listen to local reviews for businesses, you will never be disappointed. Do you use Yelp, or do you have any other local business review social network that you like to use? Share your own insight and resources in the comments section below. Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf fan page on Facebook. Over 17,000 fans already!
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| Sikuli – Create Automation Scripts Easily Using Screenshots Posted: 22 Apr 2010 10:31 AM PDT
Normally such a feat requires running a series of commands and then somehow attaching them together so that a command is aware of the output of the previous command and whether it completed successfully or not. Obviously you have to be well versed with the command line and/or a scripting language to write an efficient script easily.
First off let’s head over and download Sikuli. Sikuli runs on the Java VM, so it is available for Windows, Mac and Linux. An installer and a portable version are available for Windows. Once downloaded fire up the executable and you are greeted by what is called the Sikuli IDE. This is where you will create your scripts. Allow me to demonstrate with the help of an example: Lets say you want to switch on your Internet connection at a said time. Here is the Sikuli script you will write for such an action:
Now that is not as complicated as it seems. You just have to tell Sikuli where to click and what and where to type. To let Sikuli know that you want to click you write “click” and enclose a screenshot of where you want to click within a pair of braces. You don’t even have to crop and position the screenshot, Sikuli does that for you. Just type “click(” and then press SHIFT + ALT + 2 and Sikuli lets you capture a screenshot. Be concise, while including a bit of context within your screenshot. Position the crosshair roughly where you want to click and make sure that your screenshot is fairly unambiguous. When you are done, Sikuli will place the screenshot in the IDE and you can close off the brace, getting something like the following:
That’s it, you are done. Repeat the same for the other steps you wish to execute using Sikuli. Use the type command to let Sikuli know what you wish to type. A complete list of such commands is available here. Here is a video demo to further help you along in creating your first Sikuli automation script. So far so good, we have seen how easy it is to create automation scripts using Sikuli. We have achieved fairly straightforward tasks in the example above but what if you want to do a bit more? For the programmer folks out there (or if you know the basics at least) Sikuli has much more to offer. You can use the screenshots as variables within programming constructs like loops, conditional statements and the likes.
The syntax resembles closely with Python (not a surprise since Sikuli was written in Jython) and with a little effort you can actually do fairly complicated tasks in a snap. The Sikuli site hosts a number of such clever tutorials. There are scripts that can check if a particular friend has posted a status update on Facebook and others that can star all mail conversations in Gmail. Definitely worth a look for learning some clever tricks that you can use with Sikuli. All in all, Sikuli takes a revolutionary approach to automation scripting and is excellent if you want to get started with scripting and automating tasks on your computer. That said, there are one or two issues that you have to keep in mind while scripting with Sikuli. Since most of the work is being done via image recognition, anything that changes the appearance of the areas you included in the screenshot is bound to break down your script. These would include things like changes in themes, icons and the likes. Have you tried anything as amazing as Sikuli? Let us know about your experience in the comments. Similar MakeUseOf Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 20 Copies of WinX Cell Phone Video Converter [MakeUseOf Giveaway] Posted: 22 Apr 2010 10:00 AM PDT
This app will allow you to quickly convert any video for playback on mobile phones. All popular formats are supported. For more information and to join in the giveaway, visit our Special Giveaway page. Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Do share our articles with others! It’s really important to us. Similar MakeUseOf Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| How To Create Stunning Presentations Using Text Images [Mac] Posted: 22 Apr 2010 09:31 AM PDT
I wanted my first time to be special, so I tried to find ways to make sure that mine was not going to be “just another boring presentation”. I noticed that most people paid too much attention to data and sacrificed the appearance. On the other hand, there are others who create a presentation that is too ‘flashy’ which distracts the audience from the real content. The perfect combination would be to use related beautiful images to complement the content of the presentation. Then your audience can digest your content without getting bored.
Creating The Perfect ImagesThere are many ways to acquire perfect images that go along with the content of your presentation. You can create your own, or find and use somebody else’s. If you are a good photographer with lots of stock photos, then the first option would not be a problem. But for those whose image capturing skills are below par, the easiest method to create your own image is to make the text itself as the image. This is a trick often used by one of the greatest presenters out there: Steve Jobs.
The key is minimal use of text and extra time on tinkering with font properties and background. For example, I would like to present the statistic of blogs from Technorati. Some copy and paste routines would give me something like this:
To modify the data into text images, I cut out the fat and deleted most of the text. I also changed the written numbers with real numbers to add some drama.
Then I did a quick change of the font type, size and color using “Formatting Palette“. I assigned white for the title and dark grey for the content.
You can also use the “Format – Font” menu for more comprehensive options.
I added some shadow and reflection to spice things up a little bit.
Centered text is so static and boring, so I moved them around. And the last step was changing the background using right click and “Format Background”
I chose a simple 90 degrees linear gradient color fill from dark to light to further emphasize the text.
I clicked “Apply” and here’s what I came up with.
Be sure to add real life context to the presentation. Using the blog statistic example, I’d show my audience the stunning slides while saying something like this: “In 2009, Technorati said that there were more than 130,000,000 blogs out there. That’s as much as all Japanese people in the world.” Adding Real ImagesTo take things a little bit further, you can also use real stock photo images. My favorite way to get free to use and free to modify photos is downloading them from Flickr. Just be sure to use the Creative Commons licensed ones. To find photos within that category, you can use Flickr Advanced Search while ticking on the CC boxes.
Or you can use Quix and “fc” command for faster results.
Use the downloaded image(s) for the background of your slide(s), and you can get something like this:
Using text images (and real images) is just one of the simple and easy tricks that will boost your presentation several levels above boring. If you have other tricks that you’ve used yourself to improve your presentation, please share them using the comments below. Image credit: Sham Hardy Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers! Similar MakeUseOf Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Convert Images To Text Online With Free OCR Posted: 22 Apr 2010 08:31 AM PDT
How about free OCR software that will undo the chaos and give you the text from the image so you can copy, paste or edit at will?
Let's take a look at Free OCR and how it works.
When we first arrive at their website we will see this:
The website is very straight forward. Just click on the browse button to point Free OCR to your image like so:
You can convert a JPG, GIF, PNG, TIFF, BMP or the first page of a PDF. I grabbed a picture of their homepage and wanted to see what it would do. Here is the image I used:
I saved it as a JPG with the highest resolution I could. After you submit your job you will see a progress bar.
When it is complete you will see a screen with your transcribed characters. On my first document it worked pretty swiftly and these were my results:
It was perfect! And the best part was I can now copy and paste the text by simply highlighting it and using control + c and control + v! Check it out:
Now let's see how it handles a read deal picture using my 5 mega pixel camera on my phone. Here is an image of a document. I pointed my camera at the monitor and snapped away.
The data contained in it was from Wikipedia. It was an entry on the Nintendo Wii. The above image has been scaled down and was originally a full 5 mega pixels. This is what the web application spit back at us:
It was a perfect paragraph. The hyperlinks obviously were not duplicated but I did not expect it to. But it did grab all the text. I tried it multiple times and realized that by dipping below 5 mega pixels the document was not properly transcribed. If I just grabbed a document off the web in a normal JPG format it mutilated it. So if you are getting unexpected results grab a higher resolution image! What do you use for OCR? We would love to hear about your favorite application in the comments! You can see some of our favorite OCR applications here. Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf fan page on Facebook. Over 17,000 fans already!
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Check out some of the latest MakeUseOf discoveries. All listed websites are FREE (or come with a decent free account option). No trials or buy-to-use craplets. For more cool websites and web app reviews subscribe to 
Welcome to another gripping installment of MUO Team Spotlight, the twice monthly post which lets you know what our staff have been getting up to behind our backs.
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So in order for you to see SkyDrive in Windows Explorer, you need to retrieve the unique location of each of your SkyDrive folders or Windows Live Photo albums which is generally something like https://abcdef.docs.live.net/yourcid/nameoffolder.
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Automation scripting is often considered a specialized form of programming. While there is nothing too difficult or cult about programming, it is generally considered a geek thing and something that “is not so easy and commonplace”. Creating an automation script is often used to automate repetitive or time consuming tasks on your computer, allowing them to be completed without much user intervention.
We have last-minute giveaway entry! Digiarty Software has provided us with 20 copies of WinX Cell Phone Video Converter to give away to our readers.
I guess it’s true that there’s a first time for everything. After years of watching people doing presentations, I finally got to create my own.
If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me why they could not edit a block of text in Microsoft Word I would be rich. A lot of times people will include images of text within their document. Maybe they took a screenshot of a block of text or they inserted an image that was provided to them.
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