MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [April 26th]” plus 10 more |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [April 26th]
- 10 Most Downloaded Home Inventory Apps [Movers & Shakers]
- 10 Copies of Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual [MakeUseOf Giveaway]
- 6 Interesting Flavors of URL Generation & Manipulation
- 5 Twitter Translation Tools That Help With Tweets In Other Languages
- Hot Tech Deals [April 26th]
- Record & Publish Podcasts On The Go With Your Mobile Phone
- Back Up Your Text Messages To Gmail With SMSBackup [Android]
- Audiochecker: Check The Origins Of Your Music Files
- Microsoft Fix It Center Offers Quick Streamlined Troubleshooting
- Supercharge Your Inbox with Postbox [MakeUseOf Giveaway]
| Cool Websites and Tools [April 26th] Posted: 26 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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| 10 Most Downloaded Home Inventory Apps [Movers & Shakers] Posted: 26 Apr 2010 07:31 PM PDT
These are the applications that help you keep track of what you own. Maybe it is your DVDs or Blu Ray Disks. Maybe it is your jewelery collection or anything that is important to you. Check out these top downloaded applications today.
Do you use any of these apps? If so, what do you think about them? Or maybe you have a different app that you prefer? Let us know in the comments! NEW: Download MakeUseOf iPhone App. FREE! Similar MakeUseOf Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 10 Copies of Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual [MakeUseOf Giveaway] Posted: 26 Apr 2010 06:30 PM PDT
We're giving away 10 copies of the ebook which you will be able to download directly from O'Reilly.com to enjoy on your PC, Kindle, Android or iPhone.
About the authorDavid Pogue is a highly respected figure in the Mac world. He is also the weekly columnist for the New York Times and co-wrote seven books for the “Dummies” series. His “Missing Manual” series now includes over 100 different titles.
If you are branching out to Mac OS X, it may actually be easier than you think. Especially with this ebook guiding the way. How do I win a copy?It’s simple. Just follow the steps.
This giveaway begins now and will end on Friday, 30th April at 2100hrs PST. The winners will be selected at random and announced via email the next day. Spread the word to your friends and have fun! MakeUseOf would like to thank Betsy and O’Reilly Media 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. Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Do share our articles with others! It’s really important to us. Similar MakeUseOf Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 6 Interesting Flavors of URL Generation & Manipulation Posted: 26 Apr 2010 04:31 PM PDT
URL shorteners have known a lot of fame lately, and although they’ve repeatedly appeared in articles, they’re mentioned in this article as well. But infinitely more interesting are the other, more special flavors of sharing URLs.
Shortening URLs (bit.ly)The big hype started with shortening URLs. Suddenly, people started realizing that big URLs could be kind of awkward. URL shorteners usually use a small domain and suffix to create a referral URL. When someone uses the tiny URL, they’ll be forwarded to the ‘real’ URL. And that’s how people can actually stay under the 140 character limit, or even tell each other the address of a website in writing or over the phone.
At the time of writing, bit.ly is on the rise. Besides shortening the length for sharing URLs, it also features tracking and sharing functionality. Other popular shorteners include, but aren’t limited to TinyURL, BudURL and Tiny.cc. Dissolving Shortened URLs (untiny)To everything there’s a downside. The same is true for URL shorteners. Since you can’t see the long URL, you are oblivious to the real ‘content’. What isn’t true for sharing URLs among friends, becomes exponentially more dangerous for links on unknown websites or Twitter accounts. For all you know, that seemingly harmless URL could be hiding a virus or an NSFW website.
URL dissolvers have made camp right across from the URL shorteners. The websites look mighty similar, but now you can reveal what’s behind those URLs. With Untiny, you can also extract URLs right from your address bar, by using “http://untiny.me?url=” and suffixing your short URL, e.g. “http://untiny.me?url=tinyurl.com/ericlewis“. Sharing Multiple URLs (Krunchd)Say you want to share the top 10 URL shorteners with a friend. Sometimes, your URLs aren’t as long, as they are many. A URL shortener doesn’t cut it there. But imagine the child of a link list and a URL shortener. You could refer to a number of related URLs by using a single, shortened URL.
Krunchd does just that. It takes a bunch of URLs, and forces it into a single shorty. You can add up to 30 different URLs this way, and there’s no need to sign up. Finish up by entering your email address (optional, but needed if you plan for revisions) and naming the collection.
Your Krunchd URL doesn’t just take you to a list of URLs, though. You’ll be taken to the first site in the list, and can swap to other items with the flick of a mouse, or even share it again over one of many social networks. Monitoring URLs (LinkBlip)Admit it, you’re always a bit curious if someone has clicked that link you mailed a few days ago. And sometimes you should. There’s a great number of professional situations where it really matters if you got through.
LinkBlip is a different kind of URL shortener and monitor. Now, if someone clicks said link, you’ll be instantly notified over email. Note, this should probably only be used if the information is important, intended to be accessed by a small number of people, or if you’re utterly unafraid of a mailbox tsunami. Self-Destructing URLs (VapURL)Other links just aren’t meant to be seen by a whole lot of people. Think about important documents, or that surprise party you’re planning behind your best friend’s back. What’s needed for those is the URL equivalent of those self-destructing CIA tapes.
With VapURL, you can create a time limit for your important URLs. After a set number of visits or hours (or days), your URL will vaporize, never to be seen again. Do note that there are still plenty better security measures than VapURL. If you want absolute guarantee that information doesn’t leak or get exposed, use that mouth thingy we’ve been working on. Lengthening Normal URLs (HugeURL)Ok, this last one isn’t as useful as it is funny. Use HugeURL to transform your medium-sized URL to a dizzyingly large, finger-achingly long URL. Never mind short URLs. Bigger is better, right? Also useful for an especially irritating IM or email correspondent.
That concludes our URL manipulation round-up. Do you know any other cool and useful twists on URL generation? Be sure to let us, and the other MakeUseOf readers know in the comments section below! Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras. Similar MakeUseOf Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 5 Twitter Translation Tools That Help With Tweets In Other Languages Posted: 26 Apr 2010 02:31 PM PDT
But as Twitter grows in popularity in remote corners of the world, so will the use of other languages on it. Twitter itself says on its blog that 60% of registered Twitter accounts come from outside the US. Twitter itself speaks six languages. But the world speaks so many more. Add to the mix, the increasing mating between cell phones and Twitter apps and very soon multilingual tweets will be flying about from one corner of the world to the other.
Here's a look at five of these online Twitter translation tools. Most of the Tweet translation services are mashups of Google Translate. Ultimately, the only thing that sets them apart from each other is the way they take in your tweet and tweet out the result. Twanslate
Twanslate is an experimental Firefox add-on that adds a feature to translate an incoming tweet into English. Using Google's Translate service, the add-on functions as a simple button (a little globe icon) below any tweet that’s in another language. You can then click it and convert the tweet into English. The add-on works in your Twitter stream as well as an individual user’s public tweets page. Twieee
Twieee is a Twitter translation tool that gives you eight languages to tweet in – Arabic, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, and Portuguese. And English of course. You can pick a language from the homepage and log in with your Twitter credentials. Your Twitter stream is displayed in the original language and the one you opted for. Using the language choice dropdown, you can also enter a tweet and directly submit it as a translated one. The service is in beta. A few page errors that crop up while submitting and the absence of a How-to on the way the web app works are two early minuses for Twieee right now. Twieee also uses Google Translate. Twinslator
Twinslator lets you type in your tweet and sent as a translated text in any of the languages in the dropdown. You can choose to send only the translated tweet or both the original as well as the translated one (Twins your Tweets). From the dropdown, it gives you 42 languages to choose from. Tweetrans
Tweetrans detects the original language and gives you the option to tweet it in over 40 languages. You do not have to depend on Tweetrans as you can use your own Twitter client and the @tweetrans Twitter name with the translate language code. For example, @tweetrans 2fr your message here is the standard format. 2fr is the language code for French. Tweetrans detects your original language (say, English) and translates it on the fly to French. The other language codes are given on the site. Also, using the format (for example) – en2fr, you can give both languages in a language pair (i.e., translate from and translate to language). You will receive a @Reply with the translation in the specified language within 60 seconds. Twenglish
Okay, this one is actually not a serious Twitter 'translation' tool. Twenglish is for those who like to tweet like Twirds. Twirds is 'Twitterspeak' and a language of its own and if you are going to be a Twitter nerd, it's what you will talk in. You will get the purpose of this Twitter fun tool from the screenshot. I hope you get why it's a "twool that lets you tweet like a twird". And if you are a Star Trek fan, try out the Tweet in Klingon if you want to avoid doublespeak and keep peace in the Federation. These services give you the help to not only understand someone's natural language, but also create a bit of impact in 140 characters or less by tweeting in theirs. That's a small step towards living amicably in a global village – one tweet at a time. Tweet in and let us know if you find these Twitter language services helpful. And maybe you know a few other similar services that we missed? Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers! Similar MakeUseOf Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 26 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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| Record & Publish Podcasts On The Go With Your Mobile Phone Posted: 26 Apr 2010 12:31 PM PDT
Each of these apps makes it easy to automatically share your content on a variety of social networking sites, blogging sites, and even on iTunes. With time limits ranging from 3 to 60 minutes, to no limit at all, complete control over the recording process, with pause, resume and playback capabilities, as well as the ability to save your recording for later upload, these applications have left nothing out when it comes to putting together a professional podcast.
CinchCinch [iTunes link], an iPhone only app, allows you to connect your account immediately to Facebook or Twitter, using either of those services to log in. You can also sign up for a Cinch account if you prefer. Cinch is unique in that it does not impose any limit at all on the length of your recording – but they do encourage you to keep it short and sweet. However, the lack of a limit does make Cinch the ideal choice for serious podcasters.
Recording using Cinch is, forgive the pun, a cinch. You can pause and resume as you record, playback your recordings before publishing them, and add a title and photo to each recording. You can also record the podcast, close the application, and upload it later when you have access to a wireless connection, which can prove useful when conducting interviews when you’re out and about.
Cinch also has its own community, where you can browse other people’s recordings either directly on your iPhone or on their website. You can also follow other users, and their podcasts will be available under the ‘My Content‘ tab on your iPhone. One interesting feature available in Cinch is the ability to comment on other user’s posts, by recording your very own response.
Sharing with other social networking sites is limited to Facebook and Twitter, and you can set Cinch up to publish to either of these networks automatically, provided you have authorized them by connecting to your account. Cinch provides a US number for those who would like to call in their mini-podcasts rather than use the iPhone app, and recordings can also be made directly on their website.. ipadioLaunching the ipadio iPhone app [iTunes link] for the first time, you will be prompted to register for a free account. The information that they require includes your country of residence and your phone number, to allow you to call in podcasts as well, if you prefer.
ipadio is limited to recordings of up to 60 minutes, making it another ideal option for the serious podcaster who needs an on-the-go solution. You can also record the podcast, close the application, and upload it later when you have access to a wireless connection. Learning how to make a podcast with ipadio is simple. You are given a 3-second countdown before it begins to record, after which you can pause and resume recording as you need to. The record screen displays a counter and the size of the file. You are also able to playback your recording before uploading it.
Once the file is ready for upload, you can add a title, tags and a description, and four accompanying photos. You can also choose, on a case-by-case basis, whether or not you would like geotag each podcast. All of your recordings will be available for playback on your iPhone, where you can also delete them.
Once you’ve registered on your iPhone – you are able to log in using your phone number and provided pin number on the ipadio website. From there, you can access all of your podcasts.
ipadio makes sharing your podcasts easy by allowing you to connect your account to a variety of blogging and social networking sites including Twitter, Facebook, Blogger, Wordpress and Posterous. If you publish your podcast on iTunes, you can also link your ipadio recordings directly to your iTunes account. If you would rather call in your podcast, you can call in the UK number provided. From your iPhone, clicking on ‘Live Phonecast‘ will automatically close the app and dial the UK number to call in your recording. ipadio also has its very own community, where you can find other like-minded podcasters to follow. Playback on the iPhone is limited to the latest podcasts, but from their website, you can explore the latest recordings, explore by tags, or perform a search. iPadio is also available for Android phones, as Ryan recently wrote about, and recordings can also be made directly on their website. AudioBooAudioBoo [iTunes link] is a popular podcasting app but it limits you to recordings of up to three minutes long. This is certainly a drawback for the more vociferous podcaster, but you’d be surprised how much you can say in three minutes. Logging in on your iPhone for the first time, you can link AudioBoo to your Twitter account, or alternatively, you can create a new AudioBoo account.
Like recording on ipadio, after a 3 second countdown, you can start recording, after which you can pause and resume as you need to. You can also playback your recording before uploading it. AudioBoo allows you to record the podcast, close the application, and resume recording later, as well as upload it when you have access to a wireless connection.
Once the recording is ready for upload, you can add a title, picture, tags and a description. You can also choose whether or not to geotag your podcasts under the Account tab. Like both previous apps, AudioBoo has its own inbuilt community, and you can listen to and follow other people’s ‘Boos.’ The recordings can be displayed on your iPhone by location, popularity, by date, or you can listen to the featured recordings. Logging into your account from the website, gives you the opportunity to alter the settings on your account. You can automatically share your recordings on Twitter, Facebook, Posterous, FriendFeed and Tumblr.
You can also enter your Google Analytics ID if you would like to view statistics on visitors who are listening to your podcasts. AudioBoo also has a UK call in number for people who want to phone in their podcasts. Call their UK number from the phone you will be using to record your podcasts, and it will provide you with an access code and the instructions to set up your call in podcasts. AudioBoo is also available for Android phones, and recordings can also be made directly on their website. How do you record podcasts when you’re on the go? Let us know in the comments. Image credit: RAWKU5 Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf fan page on Facebook. Over 17,000 fans already!
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| Back Up Your Text Messages To Gmail With SMSBackup [Android] Posted: 26 Apr 2010 11:31 AM PDT
What this Android app does is allows me to back up text messages using my phone (either manually or automatically) to my Gmail account. At the end of this article, I will go over a few user cases that I personally have found useful that you may not think of right out of the box.
If you really are that die-hard anti-Gmail then you do have another option. Get a Gmail account anyway – but set it up to forward all incoming mail to your real email account. Then have your email account just filter the email from [your Gmail account] to a certain folder so it isn’t always cluttering up your inbox. Step 1: Configure Your Gmail For IMAPThis is really easy – log into your Gmail account and go to settings. Within settings, navigate to the ”Forwarding and POP/IMAP” tab. Once you’re in there, scroll down a bit until you see the “IMAP Access” section. All you need to do is change it from “Disable IMAP” to “Enable IMAP“. If you got stuck on this step, just check out the screenshot and do as I did.
Step 2: Get SMSBackupOn your Android device, hop on to the Android Market and search for “SMS Backup“. You’ll notice that there are ten or so applications with this name – pick the one with 4.5-5 stars by Christopher Struder. Go ahead and download/install the application on your device. Step 3: Configure SMSBackup With Your GmailThis step should be pretty intuitive, but what kind of person would I be if I left out the most important step? Start up SMSBackup and you’ll see the following screen.
This part is pretty straightforward; click “Username” and “Password” and put in your Gmail credentials. Once they verify, you can modify your advanced settings, or check/uncheck the “Auto backup” feature. For me personally I check this box – although it probably saps a bit of battery and does use a bit of my data connection, I think there are some benefits that outweigh the cons (and I’ll explain why at the end of this article). I also set the “maximum number of items per backup” (also in advanced settings) to 200, because that’s the maximum length per convo that my Droid keeps. Got a question? It’s probably been answered before in the SMSBackup User Guide. Check it out. NOTE: In “Advanced Settings“, I told it to upload items as “read” for my first backup. This is because I’ve read all the texts and when it uploads, I’ll get 100 “unread” SMS messages. I only want the NEW messages to be unread; so after my first backup I’m going to un-check that box so that my new messages are unread (and therefore I’ll know when I get new messages). Step 4: Run A BackupOnce you’ve configured everything you want (it’s very straightforward; just decide what you want) go ahead and tap “backup now“. The first time you run a backup, it’s going to take a few minutes maybe (depending on your connection). Later however, you won’t even notice it’s going on. After my initial backup, I went back to “Advanced Settings” and told it to upload new texts as “Unread” so that I’ll know when I get new stuff – and I’m not cluttered with the old stuff anymore. Step 5: Check Your GmailDid it work? Log into your Gmail account. The first thing you’ll notice is that there are NOT a ton of new emails in your inbox (unless you’re just that popular – but they won’t be your text messages at any rate). Why is this? Well, thankfully SMSBackup uploads them and labels them, then shoves them in that label folder. As seen below with my completely new Gmail account, the texts are tucked away in a little labeled folder called “SMS” (name configurable in the Advanced Settings panel in SMSBackup).
What I like about this is the fact that I can see when I have new TXT’s uploaded, but they aren’t intrusive. In this case I’d actually uploaded my texts as “unread” (accidents happen) so there are 95 “unread” SMS-labeled messages. To show you what a thread is like, I texted Google (466453) asking for my local weather. Since I had selected to automatically back up my texts, about 30 seconds later I got the conversation thread in my Gmail account SMS folder.
Have you ever received a text with a person’s address/email/name (for Facebook, etc) or something related? Well, now you’ve got that information in your Gmail which makes it that much easier to access and manipulate (I’m sure you can think of something). Earlier I mentioned that I like to have mine automatically sync to Gmail rather than manually backing it up. I do this for several reasons. If I lose my phone or have it stolen, I can instantly see any text activity on the phone right from my Gmail. I can figure out if the phone is even ON by texting it from another phone, and seeing if it uploaded a received text to my Gmail. There are several other ways to use this sort of capability, but at a basic level I have already found good use of the aforementioned feature. Additionally, this makes it REALLY easy to go find past text messages. I don’t know about you but if I want to find a message that I sent/received more than a week ago, I have to scroll up quite a bit and get a little lucky before I can spot what I’m looking for. Now that your texts are in your Gmail, you can search them with the Gmail search algorithm which is FAR superior to anything on my phone. I’ve used this quite extensively and found it to be an excellent method of sifting/reading text threads very quickly. What did you think? Do you find this kind of application useful? After using this free app, I can’t think of anything else that I want it to do – it’s perfect for me the way it is. What about you – did you like it too? Let me know in the comments section; I’d love to discuss this! Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Do share our articles with others! It’s really important to us. Similar MakeUseOf Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Audiochecker: Check The Origins Of Your Music Files Posted: 26 Apr 2010 10:31 AM PDT
Many popular music players, save a few large exceptions, such as iTunes, support FLAC natively. Since FLACs are lossless, you can be sure that you are getting all the sound that the original artist intended. Or can you? How can you be sure that all the FLACs you have are truly lossless conversions from CDs and not just, say, reconverted MP3s, which as we all know are lossy?
For a beginner, this method is completely ineffective. Unless you really know what you’re looking for, you really have no idea what’s going on in the spectrum graph. So how can you really be sure? Luckily, there is an easy to use, lightweight software that checks the origins of music sound files to decipher their origins. Audiochecker, which you can download here, is a quick download that is simple to use. You should download the beta version located under “New beta available!” on the downloads page. I find the beta has more features and is stable as far as I can tell. The software doesn’t need an install, just extract the ZIP and click “apigui.exe” to run the program. You should see the following.
It may look a little complex, but there are only a few things you really have to worry about to uncover the origins of music you have on your PC. If you want to select an entire directory, hit “Directory” under “Select source.” If you want to select files individually, hit “File(s).” Depending on what you select, a prompt with a a navigation window should pop up. After you select some files, they should appear in the Queue like below.
Then hit “Start” and the process should start and you should see some text in the Event Log and a status bar.
It may take a little bit, let it do its thing and you should see a result in the Results Summary section.
Here we see that the FLAC I tested returned as a CDDA, meaning it came from a CD rip, so it is in fact lossless. The percentage next to the type is the software’s guess about how accurate its analysis was. As you can see, the software is 100% sure of the veracity of the file. Sometimes that number dips a little bit, but I find that it’s usually pretty accurate. You may be thinking, well, that’s all well and good, but how do I know whether its analysis is all that accurate? I had the same sentiments the first time I used the software. That is why I decided to test the software with some controlled files. First, I reconverted an MP3 into a FLAC and ripped a FLAC from a CD. Since I knew the origins of each music file, I would be able to see how accurate the software was in determining the original format of each file. First, the reconverted MP3. I took an MP3 in my collection and converted it to a FLAC. After it did its magic, it returned the following.
As you can see, the software was able to determine that the FLAC was originally an MPEG, or MP3. Clearly this is good news. Now we know that if a FLAC is actually a reconverted MP3, Audiochecker will be able to tell. Just for posterity’s sake though, let’s check what the software returns if I use a FLAC that I recently ripped myself.
Audiochecker correctly determined that the file was a CDDA and thus in fact a FLAC ripped from a CD. Audiochecker is useful if you are suspect of the origins of many of your audio files. It is quick, efficient, and easy to use. Do you know any other good uses for Audiochecker or other software that help confirm the quality of your music? Let us know in the comments below. Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Do share our articles with others! It’s really important to us. Similar MakeUseOf Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Microsoft Fix It Center Offers Quick Streamlined Troubleshooting Posted: 26 Apr 2010 09:31 AM PDT
You might have seen such a wizard when there is an issue with the network setup or a software fails to install or run properly. Windows would list common solutions like running the software with more privileges or in compatibility mode and the likes to resolve the issue.
The software is called the Microsoft Fix It Solution Center. Once installed you need to perform some additional setup before you can use the software. Microsoft Fix It analyzes your computer and offers to download additional fixes depending upon your computer’s configuration.
Next up, Fix it Center offers to set up a Microsoft Fix It Center account. A Fix It Center account helps to keep all the information about all your devices you use with Fix It Center in one place. Microsoft claims that this helps Fix It Center offer personalized solutions based upon your configuration, Your data is secure and the account helps you view all your devices in one place easily and also lets you see all the repairs and updates that were applied to your computer. With the account setup out of the way, you are greeted by the Fix It Center home screen. The home screen lists a number of troubleshooters. Whenever your computer misbehaves, choose the one that best matches the issue you are having and click the Run button next to it. You can also click on the arrow under the detail column to know more about what the troubleshooter does and the approximate run time. Running a troubleshooter gives you a wizard that lets you select and perform necessary action to rectify the problem.
Fix it Center is not all about fixing problems though, it also helps you prevent them as well. It keeps track of all the changes on your computer and downloads solutions to the issues that can turn into potential problems in the future. If none of the troubleshooters can solve your problem you can always visit the Fix it Center online. Log in with your Fix It Center account you configured above and you will be able to look for solutions to common problems, grouped by categories and also by products.
All in all Microsoft Fix It Center is an excellent piece of software that streamlines the process of troubleshooting your computer. It can mantain a history of all the updates and repairs applied to your computer as well. It does however raise an important question, just how much caretaker software would you install to keep your computer running and in good shape? Let’s hear your thoughts in the comments section. Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers! Similar MakeUseOf Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Supercharge Your Inbox with Postbox [MakeUseOf Giveaway] Posted: 26 Apr 2010 08:30 AM PDT
Enter Postbox, a sleek and ultra-fast desktop email client for Windows and Mac. This week, we will be giving away 5 FREE copies of Postbox. But it doesn’t end there — we’ll also show you how to get 25% off the retail price, earn all of your money back and then some more!
Easy SetupPostbox takes the frustration out of configuring your email accounts. When I added my email account, I didn't need to do anything extra — Postbox figured out the server settings and ports all on its own.
InterfaceThe main interface displays a list of your accounts, folders, and messages. Taking a cue from web browsers, Postbox includes a fantastic tabbing system so you can easily jump between messages and searches.
Instead of Thunderbird's Tags, Postbox uses "Topics" to help you categorize your messages. These work just the same as Tags and I like using them to prioritize my messages. Tags can be automatically assigned to messages based on content or the sender.
MessagesMy favorite feature of Postbox is the extra details provided when viewing individual messages. Under the sender's name, you have access to quick links to find other messages, attachments, images, or links from that sender. Postbox displays a list of attachments and links from the message you are reading which is perfect for digging through messages to find something specific.
SearchSearch is probably one of the most important features when dealing with a large inbox. Postbox sports a very fast internal search engine, but after indexing your messages (a one-time process which can take quite a bit of time if you have a large inbox), performing a search displays the specific parts of the message that contain your search string. This is especially useful when sorting through similar messages.
A handy slider at the bottom of the search results allows you to expand or condense the preview text for each message.
Postbox contains 4 handy buttons in the top right: Attachments, Images, Links, and Contacts. Clicking these buttons creates a new tab and instantly displays a list of all media matching that criteria.
ConversationsLike Gmail, Postbox threads your messages to keep conversations together and help make sense of your messages. When collapsed, the message thread tells you exactly who was involved in the conversation so you'll never be digging aimlessly through message threads. If you select the main message thread, you can view all subsequent conversations in one window.
Sharing and Social NetworksIf you use Facebook, you can log in with your account and Postbox will automatically import your friends' email addresses and pictures. Postbox also lets you update your statuses for Facebook, Twitter, and FriendFeed from within the application.
Support for OmniFocus and ThingsStreamlining the Getting Things Done lifestyle, Postbox includes support for 2 of the most popular task managers, OmniFocus and Things. With Postbox, you’ll now be on top of your work, not drowning in it. It all sounds great, doesn’t it? Let’s get started — want to win a copy? How do I win a copy?It’s simple. Just follow the steps.
This giveaway begins now and will end on Friday, 30th April at 2100hrs PST. The winners will be selected at random and announced via email the next day. If you’re not picked as a winner, don’t sweat. Postbox has a very cool referral program which will allow you to purchase this awesome email client for $30 and then get all of your money back. Learn more about it here. If you have a coupon code, enter it in the comments; let others use it and earn some dough! Spread the word to your friends and have fun! MakeUseOf would like to thank Sherman from Postbox for his generosity while participating in this giveaway. Interesting in sponsoring? We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with us via email. Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Do share our articles with others! It’s really important to us. Similar MakeUseOf Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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It's time once again for our featured 
In this week's giveaway, we're featuring O'Reilly's 
The game is all about URL generation. Taking one (normal) URL, and creating a more useful one. How? The possibilities are endless.
The whole world speaks on Twitter, and today it has become a language of its own. As you are reading this in English, it's a high probability that you tweet in the language that has become the common tongue for the world.
If you’re in the market for a new computer, laptop, mobile phone, games and other accessories; don’t waste your time searching online. We’ve taken the liberty of locating the best deals tech deals and unifying them into a single post for your convenience.
If you don’t want to lug your laptop around with you everywhere, and are looking for an easy solution for podcasting on the go, you don’t need to look any further than your cell phone. If you want to know how you make a podcast with your mobile phone, there are free apps available for both iPhones and Android phones, and failing all else, you can call in your podcasts from any cell phone using your own personal access code.
My favorite thing about free products is the price – usually. SMSBackup for Android is an exception to this rule because I would pay real money in a heartbeat for an application as simple, efficient, and useful as this has proven to be to me.
For the audiophile, FLAC, short for Free Lossless Audio Codec, is an absolute gift. Since the codec is open source, software that will convert your CDs into this widely supported format is free and easy to find.
The recent versions of Windows are pretty smart and aware of the common problems that users face in their day to day computer usage. They can provide nice detailed troubleshooting tips and or wizards that are able to fix the problems more often than not.
I love email. It's fast, simple, and everybody has it. That being said, I've never been able to find a desktop application to really suit my needs. Web-based clients like Gmail are great but can be lacking for power users (not to mention offline support is still a little finicky) and Thunderbird can go for years without a significant update.
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