MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [May 11th]” plus 9 more |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [May 11th]
- The 8 Best Free Comic Readers For The iPad
- 6 Reasons GTalk is The Best Free Instant Messaging Service
- Get A Free SEO Report For Your Website With SEOrush
- Hot Tech Deals [May 11th]
- ThreatFire – Free Zero Day Realtime Virus, Trojan & Malware Protection
- How To Edit Existing RSS Feeds With Yahoo! Pipes
- Instinctiv – An Alternative Music Player For The Mac
- How To Set Up Mozilla Thunderbird 3 For Multiple Email Accounts
- myPaint – A Free Painting Application With Photoshop Features
| Cool Websites and Tools [May 11th] Posted: 11 May 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. Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Do share our articles with others! It’s really important to us. Similar MakeUseOf Articles
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The 8 Best Free Comic Readers For The iPad Posted: 11 May 2010 06:31 PM PDT
The iPad was made for this sort of task. With its large screen and crystal clear display, you can enjoy your comics like never before. In this article, I’m going to cover some of the best iPad applications that serve as free comic readers, allowing you to enjoy your favorite comics without actually reducing their value by physically touching/reading them.
Comics By comiXologyThe Comics app is a comic store in the palm of your hands. This reader features over 1,300 comics from various (20+) publishers, including Marvel, Image, Red 5, and Zenescope. There are over 80 free comics in the app.
This comic book reader uses comiXology’s Guided View (patent pending) , where the entire comic page is left intact and you are guided through the panels dynamically. Marvel ComicsThe official Marvel Comics app introduces a revolutionary new way to experience the Marvel Universe on your iPad. This app lets you download hundreds of comics featuring your favorite characters, like Iron Man, Spider-Man, and Captain America. Use either the guided view to view comics panel by panel, or regular pan and zoom to read them as you wish.
The application integrates with your Marvel.com account, allowing you to back up your comics in case you ever need to reinstall the app. iVerse Comics
The iVerse Comics app features over 40 titles available for a free download with over 1,000 titles in the store, with more and more being approved each day. You can find comics from some of the best publishers in the industry, including Archie, IDW, Marvel, Red 5, Image, and more. IDW Comics
This app features over 400 comics, with 10 free books included. IDW Comics offers some big names from film and television, like Transformers, G.I. Joe, Star Trek, Astro Boy, and CSI. Downloaded titles are seamlessly synced between your iPad, iPod Touch, and iPhone. Transformers Comics
Also by IDW Publishing, the Transformers Comics app is home to the entire Transformers universe. The app includes 3 free books with over 100 more to be added to your virtual bookshelf. The free comic reader application also features an integrated comic shop locator. Star Trek Comics
The entire Star Trek universe is in this app. There are over 70 comics, some of which feature new stories. 3 of the books are featured free, including the popular movie prequel Star Trek: Countdown #1. G.I. Joe Comics
Includes over 70 books (3 free), with comics from the new series continually being added. There are also all of the old classics from the 80s up for download. Archie Comics
This app lets you put all your Archie comic books in one place. There are over 50 Archie titles in the application with more being released all the time. 4 books are featured free. ConclusionIn conclusion, the iPad has the power to satisfy all of your comic book needs. Read comics you’ve never been able to afford or get your hands on with some of these apps from your favorite publishers. Also, you can discover new comics you never knew existed. Apps like these are what the iPad was intended for. What do you think of the comic book apps? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below! Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers! Similar MakeUseOf Articles
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 6 Reasons GTalk is The Best Free Instant Messaging Service Posted: 11 May 2010 04:31 PM PDT
First, I started with Skype so that I could get the benefit of free telephone calls. When the “free” part gradually disappeared and other free instant messaging services started offering VoIP support, I began branching out – trying Yahoo IM, MSN Chat, and most recently gTalk.
In this post, I’d like to show you 6 very cool ways that you can access your gTalk service no matter where you are. Install gTalk Chat For DesktopThe obvious solution is to install gTalk as a standalone desktop application on your PC. This is the way that I access my gTalk account whenever I’m home and working on my laptop. It’s non-intrusive, convenient and I can still surf the web and work on other applications while I have gTalk open off to the side.
The beauty of this desktop version of gTalk is the fact that when you open a new chat, it opens as a small, detached sub-window, which you can move around and place in any part of the screen that you’re not using at the moment.
This allows you to fit your individual gTalk chats in between the many other windows that you’re working with, so you won’t lose valuable, productive time even if you have a chat going on (although it may be difficult to get your work done…) Install The gTalk Browser AddonThere are also times when I just don’t want a bunch of applications running on my PC, or I may be using my wife’s mini-laptop that doesn’t have a whole lot of expendable memory. In these situations, installing the gTalk sidebar for Firefox is the best solution.
When you install the gTalk sidebar plugin, all you have to do is type Alt-G (or use the included Bookmark) and your gTalk friend list sits on the left side of your browser window – allowing you to keep your active chats conveniently located to the left of the online work that you’re doing.
When you open a new chat, it simply opens in the same sidebar space, but with a small tab so that you can quickly switch between all of the chats that you have open, but it doesn’t take up any additional screen space. Use gTalk In GmailGmail is actually the first place that I learned about gTalk. I had no idea that the IM even existed until it showed up as an automatic feature within Gmail. That’s when I started exploring gTalk and all that it has to offer. Gmail also seems to be the place where there are more features available than many other gTalk platforms.
The app shows up in the lower left corner of your Gmail account. In reality, it’s much like the sidebar browser plugin, except that Gmail works in just about any browser, and you’re also limited to using it only within the window or tab where you have Gmail open. When you do open up a chat with a friend, the chat window opens up in a box at the lower right corner of your Gmail window.
Now that I’ve covered the three most popular ways to access your gTalk service, I’d like to mention three more reasons why I love gTalk so much, and to show how many additional ways you can access gTalk no matter where you are. Connect To gTalk In DigsbyEver since the multitude of free instant messaging engines invaded the Internet, a mix of services started up that could aggregate all of your IM chat accounts into one place. The two most popular ones that lead the pack include Trillian and Digsby. You will find that whether you use Trillian, Digsby or any other of these services, gTalk is almost always included on the list of IM engines you can access, while many other IM services are hit or miss.
Personally, I prefer Digsby. From within Digsby, just go to Tools -> Preferences and select IM Account. Then, add your Google Talk account as shown. It takes seconds, and all of your gTalk contacts will immediately show up in your Digsby contacts window. Connect To gTalk At Work With CommunicationTubeAnother method that you can use to access gTalk is from a web based IM service that aggregates all of your IM services within your browser. Meebo is definitely the most popular one of these, but with its popularity comes limitations. Most large employers have already added Meebo to the corporate filter – so you can forget about chatting on Meebo during your lunch break. However, there’s a scaled down version now available called CommunicationTube, or cTube for short. Here’s the main page where you can use the cTube gTalk solution.
Why use this over the Meebo solution? Simple – the scaled down approach lets you use this regardless which computer you’re on – at a friend’s house, an Internet cafe or at school. The main page lists several major advantages to using this service, including the following.
Access Mobile gTalk On Your AndroidLast, but not least, when you need ultimate portable chatting and if you own an Android mobile phone, then you can download a mobile version of Google Talk right from the Android Market. Since I’m almost always on the road, I use this service constantly to chat real time with research colleagues or manage communications with writers and clients.
Click on any of your online contacts and immediately open up a real time chat. Best of all, if you’re using a Motorola Droid with multi-tasking, you can switch between your active chat screen and check email or use your GPS mapping applications. Switching between apps is a breeze with the Droid! Do you have any other ways to access gTalk? Are there any unique applications with gTalk integrated into it that are missing from this article? Share your own love for gTalk in the comments section below! Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf fan page on Facebook. Over 17,000 fans already!
Similar MakeUseOf Articles
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Get A Free SEO Report For Your Website With SEOrush Posted: 11 May 2010 02:31 PM PDT
However, just because everyone can afford a website, it doesn’t mean everyone knows how to run one. A lot goes into running a site, such as design, content, and promotion. Should you design your own, find a suitable template, or hire a professional designer? What about the copy? Are you a good enough writer or should you also have that part delegated to yet another professional? And then there is the promotion, which is where we will land for the purpose of this article about getting some free SEO advice.
However, the subject of this article is a tool that helps to give you direction when you are attempting to set your site up to be found. It’s called SEOrush and it’s free, making it possible for any website owner to make use of it. SEOrush is as easy as entering the URL in the search box at the top of the screen and clicking the “Go!” button.
After giving it a few seconds, you will find the SEO results you will need to get an idea of the improvements you need to make. The first list of results has to do with what kind of site information pops up about the URL. You’ll find information like the domain name, whois owner, creation date, average loading time, the country of the owner and a description.
You’ll notice that it only includes the information that can be found so there will be some blanks. The next category of results has to do with how well the site is being indexed by the search engines.
It gives the number of pages indexed by each search engine and then a short conclusion as to what the numbers mean for the site and where improvement is needed. Next we have the “validation, meta, pagerank and traffic” section.
I found this section particularly helpful because it let me know that I had no meta description set for my blog. It found some WC3 errors that I should look into and it gave me a tip to help my Google Pagerank: “Try to get more linkbacks to your site” which I will do. The “site ranks” section lists several ranking sites and the ranking for your URL on each. Sites listed are Technorati, QuantCast, Alexa, and Compete.com.
Personally, I didn’t do so well in this category partially because I haven’t put much importance on some of the sites on this list. You may beg to differ, but that’s OK. The last but not least of the categories of results has to do with “social resources.” These days it’s quite important that the social web is talking about your site.
I see my site doing OK as far as blog links go and Digg (for my stage at least) but I wonder if they can eventually work out some results for Twitter and maybe Facebook seeing as though there is a lot of social activity going on in those places these days. As you can see, SEOrush can give you an idea about where you are doing well and where you need some improvement. For me, like I said, I noticed I needed a Meta description so I went ahead and figured it out. I also need to look into some W3C errors and improve my listings and rankings on some of the sites listed. We all need improvement, right? If you can take constructive criticism, SEOrush can help you too. Do you have any other free tools like SEOrush that can help you see where you need some SEO improvements? Do share! NEW: Download MakeUseOf iPhone App. FREE! Similar MakeUseOf Articles
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 11 May 2010 01:30 PM PDT
For more fresh hot deals, visit our Hot Tech Deals page, which is constantly updated.
Image credit: Modified from Svengraph’s icon set Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Do share our articles with others! It’s really important to us. Similar MakeUseOf Articles
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ThreatFire – Free Zero Day Realtime Virus, Trojan & Malware Protection Posted: 11 May 2010 12:31 PM PDT
Still confused? Worry not, as in this post we look at what the free ThreatFire virus protection software is and what makes it a must have in your defense arsenal against the hordes of web based threats out there.
So it's time again to remind ourselves of the need to protect ourselves against multiple threats with multiple layers of computer protection. ThreatFire fits right in the scheme of multi-tier computer security. What ThreatFire IsUsually, anti-virus applications work on recognizing known threats. Known threat have signatures or 'footprints', which is the key information we download with the updates. A lot of anti-virus software cannot protect you against zero-day attacks. Zero-day attacks are brand new virus files against which security tools have no known protection. Against this, ThreatFire works by homing in on behaviors or patterns which suggest malicious intent.
So, ThreatFire has an ActiveDefense technology which offers real time PC protection by using sophisticated real-time behavioral analysis. ThreatFire protects against spyware, adware, key loggers, viruses, worms, Trojans, root kits, buffer overflows, and other malware. There are programs like AVG Identity Protection which work similarly, but it is a paid download. Avast 5 has improved its behavior analysis engine and it has a real time behavior shield in its free anti-virus program. What ThreatFire Is Not
ThreatFire is not a standalone anti-virus tool or a firewall. It is meant to be one part of your computer's security set up that includes an anti-virus, firewall, and a spyware. ThreatFire is more geared towards active real time protection. It is not meant for cleaning up a computer which is already infected with malicious software. Take for instance, a virus which is lying dormant waiting for a trigger. As it is inactive, ThreatFire's technology based on recognizing behavior will miss the lurking threat. Though it can catch any malicious program that's active, and quarantine it. ThreatFire Works Behind The ScenesThreatFire (ver.4.7.0) from PC Tools is a small 8.59MB download. It is a no hassle set up and right away you will notice the features that are really likeable. The first concern on installing another security app on top of the ones you already have makes you reach for the Task Manager and look at the memory being eaten up. With ThreatFire, the memory footprint is small. In fact, it's smaller than running another browser or messaging app. You, the user, do not need to configure anything. ThreatFire sits quietly in the System Tray and does its watchdog act. Advanced users can set their own rules via the Advanced Rule Settings. The rules can be easily set up using the wizard.
Additional configuration options include a sensitivity slider for threat alerts. The default setting is good enough for less in-the-face actions from ThreatFire.
As it is a real time security shield, you do not need to actively scan your computer. But if you are really paranoid, you can start up the Rootkit scanner. You can choose for a quick check with the Intelli-scan or go the whole hog with a Full Scan.
The Threat Control Center is the place where you can manage the permissions for the processes. You can allow certain processes to run, deny selective ones, and manage the ones that are quarantined. The program maintains a protection log for all activities.
Get Active Protection From The Community
If Community Protection is switched on, you can send feedback via the program on any threats encountered. This information is automatic and helps to increase the real time efficiency of the program. The ThreatFire Secure Community is made up of active ThreatFire users who have volunteered to participate in the community program. The Protection Statistics screen above shows the numbers that go into the community screen. The site is pretty informative on various aspects of the program. There is also a Submit a File or Report a False Positive page where you can upload a suspicious file for a check. The running blog also makes for a good read if you are into the stuff on computer security and prevention. The free virus protection software is completely free for home use. It is compatible with Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit), Windows Vista (32-bit and 64-bit), Windows XP SP1, SP2 or SP3 (Home, Pro & Media Center Editions), Windows 2003, or Windows 2008. ThreatFire is a well rounded security application that should sit well next to your anti-virus and firewall. Let us know if it should. Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras. Similar MakeUseOf Articles
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| How To Edit Existing RSS Feeds With Yahoo! Pipes Posted: 11 May 2010 11:31 AM PDT
Yahoo! Pipes is a website aggregator’s wet dream. It is feed aggregator software that allows you to fetch, combine and alter all kinds of data sources, not least RSS. The problem with Pipes is its steep learning curve. In a nutshell, Pipes can be compared to visual programming, combining nodes and adjusting parameters. This article is intended, not only to introduce you to the Yahoo! Pipes feed aggregator software, but to show you a few simple RSS tricks that everyone should be able to pull off.
1. Using Pipes: The BasicsPipes works by building a linear string out of the different components; from data input, via modifier modules, to the Pipe’s output. Although Pipes supports a number of different data sources, we’ll focus on RSS feeds in this particular article. All of these modules can be found on the left hand side of the screen. You can find ‘Fetch Feed‘ under Sources and most of the other things we’ll be working with under Operators. To use them, simply drag and drop them on to your canvas, and connect the dots. Some of these Operators allow you to add parameters. This will tell them what to do, and where to do it. Don’t worry, we’ll help you out with the specifics in the examples below.
Once you’ve managed to build a Pipe, you need to save it before you can start using it. The Save button is located in the top-right corner of the screen, and helps you preserve the Pipe via your Yahoo! account.
A saved Pipe has its own page. Note that this is not the address of your newfound RSS feed – yet. You can find an RSS or JSON address on the page, as marked in red below.
Alternatively, you can also publish your Pipe, making it possible for all to see and use. Check out other, popular user-made pipes here. You can also share your Pipe via one of the many supported social networks. Note that we’re scratching the surface of Yahoo! Pipes in this article. I would be lying if I said I understood even half of the possibilities. With the use of (e.g.) regex and SQL, you can make formidable Pipes, albeit a bit too complicated to discuss here. 2. Hiding The Original FeedOne of the most simple uses of Pipes is hiding the URL of the original RSS feed. There are a couple of reasons why you might want to do this. Some feeds require a username and password embedded in the URL to work, as can be seen in Jessica’s article on using Twitter feeds for email and SMS notifications.
This Pipe uses only a single (input) module. You can find ‘Fetch Feed‘ in Sources. Enter the RSS feed, and connect it to the Pipe Output. That’s it! Mind you, do not publish this Pipe or its feed outright, as people can still find the original by playing with the URL – and thus find out your password! This is only useful to hide the original feed URL from a direct encounter, and from someone who doesn’t start digging any deeper. 3. Filtering Specific (Author) Posts From An RSS FeedNot all multi-author websites support individual RSS feeds for all of their writers. Or, as I found out the hard way, they are sometimes simply corrupt. If that’s the case, you can also use Pipes to filter the regular feed, and only take from it what you need. Although this example shows you how to filter by author, you can also use it to filter on other subjects. For example, leaving out all posts that talk about Windows Mobile, or only showing those that mention Android.
This Pipe uses the Fetch Feed module from Sources, and the Filter module from Operators. Put the Filter between input and output, and connect the dots. Next, set the filter to Permit all items that answer to the rule(s) below. To filter an author, Item.dc:creator must contain ‘his/her name’. Check the website to make sure how the author’s name appears. The Item.dc:creator attribute is universally used to indicate the post’s author. In the unlikely case another attribute is used, you can browse the debugger field at the bottom of the page where you can find the different attributes and their corresponding values for every RSS post in the feed. 4. Translating The RSS FeedAre you interested in a foreign blog or website? Perhaps you don’t need to fight your way through those articles, but can use Pipes to automatically translate the feed!
This Pipe uses the Fetch Feed module from Sources and the BabelFish module from Deprecated. After connecting the nodes, you can simply pick your source and destination languages from the drop down menu. Simple as that! 5. Leaving Out Part Of The RSS FeedThis one is especially handy if you use an RSS feed to generate content on your website. Instead of having it riddled with irrelevant content, you can simply select the items your interested in. Or rather, discard the rest.
This Pipe uses the Fetch Feed module from Sources and the Create RSS module from Operators. After connecting the nodes, you can generate a new RSS feed using items of the original. Use the above screenshot as a guide to select the right items from the drop down lists. It could very well be you’ve already dropped the redundant content by creating this standard RSS feed. Otherwise, leave the superfluous fields empty. Do you know any other simple Pipes? Or perhaps an alternative feed aggregator software? Speak your mind in the comments section below! Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers! Similar MakeUseOf Articles
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Instinctiv – An Alternative Music Player For The Mac Posted: 11 May 2010 10:31 AM PDT
Not only does iTunes gives its users superb sound quality, it’s also the official synchronizer between users’ music (and movie) library and iGadgets (iPods, iPhones, and iPads). Add the iTunes Store to the equation and you have Mac music player that no developer with a normal mind has the nerve to compete against.
Use Your InstinctDespite all of its greatness, iTunes is not without flaws. One of its strongest points is also its major weakness: iPods might be the most popular media player out there, but that doesn’t mean that everybody has one. How should people synchronize their library to other gadgets? And even though Apple has designed the interface to be as streamlined and as user friendly as possible, some people still think that it’s a bit crowded.
If a Mac music player wants to survive in a world dominated by iTunes, it should come with unique personalities that people can’t find in iTunes. Instinctiv does just that. It tries to fill the holes left by iTunes flaws. Aside from being a minimalist music player, it also offers a “synchronization to (almost) any device” feature. And as a bonus, Instinctive is also a social music player. Even though the synchronization feature is saved for the next discussion, other features are on today’s menu. After the routine download and install process, you can start using the app. The first thing that you will notice is that the interface is nothing like iTunes. There are only two simple panes: the small functions pane on the left and the bigger list pane on the right.
The app will automatically read and display the content of your iTunes music library. You can browse and play the tunes from there. Another way of navigating through the songs is to use the search function. Choose “Search” on the left pane and write down the search string(s). Click on the result to start playing.
To go back to your previous action, use the navigation function on the upper toolbar. It behaves like the back button on a browser. There’s also a Play/Pause button – along with fast forward and backward on the lower bar.
I also noticed something else while playing my songs using Instinctiv: it automatically adds cover art to most of the songs that don’t have one. Nice. Three Shuffles A Day Keeps The Tickets AwayNext feature is the “Shuffle“. Click the icon on the left pane and Instinctiv will give you three different ways of shuffling: Instinctive Shuffle, Play songs similar to…, and Random Shuffle.
After trying all three, I am honestly confused. I can’t tell the difference between Instinctiv Shuffle and Random Shuffle. Both options only play random songs. The “Play songs similar to…” option also did nothing but playing random songs. I wonder what really (and what should have) happened behind the curtain. Maybe the confusion is caused by the app that is still buggy, maybe my song list is not big enough, or maybe the app simply needs time to learn. I might’ve missed something here. If anybody can enlighten us, feel free to use the comments below. I also found out that the “Tickets” feature is still not working (at least not for me). I clicked on the icon and I got a blank pane with a non-functional search bar. The Face, The Book & The TweetOne feature that I think will make many users happy is the ability to tweet and to update your Facebook status with the currently playing song. If you play a song, you will see two small but familiar blue icons on the bottom right of the Instinctiv window. You can click on them to let the magic happen.
But before you can utilize the social feature, you have to make some modifications in the Preferences. Open the “Preferences” window (“Instinctiv – Preferences” menu or “Command + Comma“) and click the Twitter tab. Fill in the necessary data and close the Preferences.
Then every time you click on those social buttons, this will happen:
And that’s the first part of our discussion about the Instinctiv Mac music player. Tune in for the second one where we look at the synchronization feature. We NEED Your Comments!!! Please do share your thoughts in article comments. Similar MakeUseOf Articles
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| How To Set Up Mozilla Thunderbird 3 For Multiple Email Accounts Posted: 11 May 2010 09:31 AM PDT
In this article I’m going to show you how to set up Mozilla Thunderbird 3, how to work with multiple SMTP servers and identities, and how to get GMail’s SMTP server to play along.
How to set up Mozilla Thunderbird for Multiple AccountsFirst we’re going to have a look at options for setting up multiple accounts in Thunderbird 3. Initial SetupSetting up single accounts is straight forward. Go to > Tools > Account Settings and from > Account Actions in the bottom left of the Account Settings window, pick > Add Mail Account… This will launch a > Mail Account Setup window that guides you through the entire setup process. Just fill in your details, wait for Thunderbird to detect your incoming and outgoing servers and click > Create Account when you’re done. You may have to go with > Manual Setup in case Thunderbird cannot find your incoming and outgoing mailservers.
You can go ahead and set up more accounts the same way. Multiple Outgoing Servers (SMTP)You can add and use more than one SMTP server. This can come in handy when you need to send mail, but one of your SMTP servers is not available. Go to > Tools > Account Settings and click on > Outgoing Server (SMTP) at the bottom of the list showing all your accounts. All further steps are self-explanatory. Be sure to set a default server by clicking the > Set Default button while your preferred SMTP server is selected.
Here is a list of free SMTP servers in case you ever need additional ones. Now that you have a selection of SMTP servers, you can switch between them. Within > Account Settings, click on one of your accounts in the list. At the very bottom of the first page, that also lists the > Account Name, you’ll see a drop-down menu for > Outgoing Server (SMTP). You can select to > Use Default Server or pick any of your SMTP servers from the drop-down list.
Quickly Switch Between SMTP Servers
Note that his extension will only work, if you selected > Use Default Server in the SMTP settings for your accounts. GMail WorkaroundBe careful when using GMail’s SMTP server! It will overwrite the > From: address with your GMail account data. The mail will appear to have been sent from your GMail account, although you had selected another account. The workaround is to add these email addresses to your GMail account. Within GMail go to > Settings > Accounts and Imports and under > Send mail as: click the > Send mail from another address button.
Now GMail will recognized the > From: email address and it’s not going to overwrite it. When you have added multiple GMail accounts to Thunderbird, you can also use an individual SMTP server with the respective user name for each of your GMail accounts. Multiple IdentitiesSwitch Between Accounts & IdentitiesHaving set up Thunderbird with multiple email accounts, you can easily switch back and forth between these accounts upon writing emails. When you > Write an email, you’ll see a drop-down option under > From:. This is where you can select any of your email accounts.
Manage IdentitiesYou may also have spotted the option > Manage Identities… within your > Account Settings and wondered what it is. Some email providers let you associated multiple email addresses with one and the same account. You can use these eMail addresses for different purposes and still have them arrive in the same inbox. These are called identities. Using the > Manage Identities… button you can add multiple identities and specify their own sender name and address, reply-to address, signature, and many more settings. Basically, the additional identity is treated like a separate email account.
When you have added an identity to your account, it will be available through the previously described > From: drop-down menu. But again, when using GMail, you either need to set up and use a separate SMTP server using that identity’s email address or add this additional email address to your GMail account.
I hope this article about how to set up Mozilla Thunderbird for multiple email accounts taught you a few new tricks. Please let us know whether you found it useful in the comments. Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf fan page on Facebook. Over 17,000 fans already!
Similar MakeUseOf Articles
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| myPaint – A Free Painting Application With Photoshop Features Posted: 11 May 2010 08:31 AM PDT
Plus I wanted something simple I could open for my daughter to draw on and I wanted it to automatically open a new document the entire size of the window. So I went looking for a new free painting application. I found something called myPaint.
Now you can start painting or use the menu items to change your color or brush. You can use a eyedropper-like tool to sample colors and it even has layers like Photoshop. It has a lot of options and it is lightweight, but wait! There is more! It can do pressure sensitive drawing on a tablet or touch enabled machine. This means that if you hold down your finger or stylus the ink will get darker, just like you were holding down a marker or pen. Let's take a look at the color picking tools. It has a color wheel which they call a color ring. You can select this by going to Color –> Color Ring.
You can choose colors off the wheel or you can choose Colors –> Color Triangle.
From here you can really drill down the exact color that you would like to see. Now that you have selected your color, let’s see what brushes are available to us. As you can see below there are a lot of different brushes like Sketch Pencils, ink, charcoal and more. For example the charcoal brush will look like a piece of charcoal and a sketch brush will look like you are using a pencil. You can see some of the included brushes below:
I decided to play around with the ink brush and these were my results:
As I was drawing I noticed that if you right-click, you can cycle through your color history. So by accidentally right-clicking I changed my color mid-stroke. That is awesome. And a color history? Adobe should be taking notes from this little lightweight free painting application. Oh and did I mention that it was free yet? Moving onto layers. For those of you who do not know, layers is what Photoshop uses to differentiate between something being on top of or below another object. For instance I can have a text or image layer on top and then add a layer below it and paint.
The paint will stay behind the top text or image. To add a layer click on Layers – New (below current). This is what I did and then I painted a little:
So as you can see my yellow lines and sun stay behind my first layer. This is very cool stuff! Is anyone out there using this as a full fledged graphics editing application? We would love to hear from you in the comments. Similar MakeUseOf Articles
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 
Collecting and reading comic books has been a popular hobby for years. Although the interest for comics had died down some, it is quickly re-emerging with all of the new superhero movies being released. Comics are becoming popular again and are able to be read in new and exciting ways.
I have to admit, I’ve bounced around among countless free Instant Messaging services. I started out chatting, like many geeks, on the popular IRC chat rooms or the MUDD online gaming communities of the 1990s – straight from an IBM dumb terminal in the college computer clusters. As the Internet progressed and the recent “Web 2.0″ surge produced a surplus of IM engines, I tested the waters, like everyone else.
So you have your own website or blog. So many people do these days. Web hosting and domain name registration is so affordable, anybody and their uncle could afford it.
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.
A name like ThreatFire unambiguously points towards a security tool. For the sake of world peace, thankfully it's a computer security tool. In more precise terms, ThreatFire is a behavior based anti-malware protection system.
Let’s admit it, not all RSS feeds are perfect. Often you’re stuck with a lot of redundant, or poorly formatted content. RSS feeds are great to keep tabs on a number of sites, but for content generation, they aren’t always ideal. There’s usually not a lot you can do about it, except sucking it up.
When it comes to a music player in 
Using a desktop email client like Thunderbird has quite a few advantages. First of all you can access your email anytime, even when the internet is down. Then it’s very easy to add and manage multiple email accounts. Last but not least, there is a range of extensions available that make working with Thunderbird so much more comfortable.
If you frequently need to switch SMTP servers on the fly and don’t want to change your account settings every time, try the 
I was in the market for a new simple painting application. Microsoft Paint was getting on my nerves and Photoshop was too large and bulky to open every time I needed to do some simple work.
| You are subscribed to email updates from MakeUseOf.com To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment