MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [June 2nd]” plus 9 more |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [June 2nd]
- How To Setup Mozilla Sunbird As A Desktop Client For Google Calendar
- Bing Maps – Planning Your Car Trips Got Much Easier. Really.
- FastStone Image Viewer – Undoubtedly The Best Image Viewer, Converter & Editor Bundle
- Hot Tech Deals [June 2nd]
- DroppedBoxx- The Unofficial Dropbox Client For Windows Mobile
- How To Secure Your Facebook Settings The Easy Way
- How To Use Mint To Manage Your Budget & Spendings Online
- How To Get Dropbox, Skype, Adobe Air & Codecs Working on Meego (Netbook OS)
- Turn Your Photos Into Artistic Sketches Using FotoSketcher
| Cool Websites and Tools [June 2nd] Posted: 02 Jun 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. MakeUseOf has teamed up with zozi to provide you (and a friend) a FREE 7-day, trip to New Zealand. Sign up now!
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| How To Setup Mozilla Sunbird As A Desktop Client For Google Calendar Posted: 02 Jun 2010 06:30 PM PDT
I’ve always loved the extended functionality of most desktop calendar applications like Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla Sunbird, but I preferred the flexibility and mobility of all of the great online calendar solutions like 30Boxes, Yahoo Calendar or Google Calendar. In the end, I gave up the functionality of desktop calendars so that I could access my calendar from anywhere using the web based Google Calendar. For about a year I’ve been accessing Google Calendar directly online. The problem, of course, is that you need an Internet connection with either your computer or mobile device in order to view and edit your Google Calendar.
How to Sync Sunbird With Google Calendar Front-EndThe great thing about most Mozilla products is that there is usually a nice selection of add-ons and extensions to sift through. As I was looking through the add-on library for Mozilla Sunbird, I was very excited to come across the add-on called the “Provider for Google Calendar.” This Sunbird add-on basically enables a read/write connection between Sunbird and Google Calendar.
When you download the add-on, it downloads as an xpi file. You won’t double click and run it like Firefox add-ons, instead you need to select the file from within Mozilla Sunbird in order to install it. First, make sure you have the latest version of Sunbird, as this add-on only works with 1.0 and up. From within Sunbird, go to Tools and Add-ons. Then click Install. > A dialog box will open where you can browse to the xpi file that you downloaded earlier from the add-on website.
Once you install the add-on, you’ll need to reboot Sunbird in order to start using the features. Obtain your Unique Google Calendar XML AddressWhile Sunbird is rebooting, log into your Google Calendar account, because there’s a piece of information you’re going to need in order to connect your Sunbird app directly with Google Calendar. From your Google Calendar account, click on Settings -> Calendar Settings. Then, click on the “Calendars” tab, and click the link to “Share this Calendar.”
Finally, in this new area, click on the “Calendar Details” tab, and scroll to the bottom where you’ll find the following buttons.
This is where you can integrate Google Calendar with a number of applications, but for the purpose of plugging your Sunbird desktop calendar directly into your Google Calendar account, you’re going to need the XML URL under “Private Address.” Click on the orange XML button and then highlight and copy your unique URL. Now that you have your unique Google Calendar URL, you’re ready to sync Sunbird. Setup Sunbird to Read / Write to Google CalendarFinally, with your unique XML address in hand, you’re ready to enable direct syncing between the two so that you can use your desktop Sunbird whenever you’re using your computer or laptop, without worrying about whether the calendar updates or changes you made will carry over into Google Calendar. The days of having to remember to export and import your calendar files are over. Just open up Sunbird and select File -> New Calendar, and select the “on the network” option. You’ll see the following screen.
Select “Google Calendar” and then past the XML file address that you previously copied, into the “Location” field. You’ll need to type in your Google Calendar ID (gmail address) and password, and I would also recommend selecting for Sunbird to use the password manager to remember your ID information so you don’t have to re-enter it every time you open Sunbird.
If Sunbird can properly connect to your Google Calendar account, you’ll likely immediately get notifications for any alerts or events that you set up – just “Dismiss All” and you’ll return to the main window where you can review all of your scheduled events from your Google Calendar account.
One flaw I notice with the plugin is that Google Calendar Task List items are not brought over. However, since the bulk of what I use Google Calendar for is scheduling and planning work, having the ability to sync all of the scheduled events is a life saver. Now, instead of having to keep a tab open in Firefox all of the time, or even needing to have Firefox open at all – I just need to keep Sunbird running and I know that I’ll always have instant access to my Google Calendar account. When you’re away from home, you can still use the Internet to access and update your calendar – essentially utilizing Google Calendar as a form of cloud computing for your scheduling needs, but when you’re home, you can still use the more functional Sunbird desktop application and rest assured that you’ll be notified of your latest events, and that all of your calendar changes will safely and automatically sync up to your Google Calendar account. Have you ever tried to sync Google Calendar with Sunbird or any other desktop calendar apps? What’s your opinion of Mozilla Sunbird and a Google Calendar front-end? Share your thoughts and insight in the comments section below. Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| Bing Maps – Planning Your Car Trips Got Much Easier. Really. Posted: 02 Jun 2010 04:30 PM PDT
The new version of Bing Maps has a unique feature called Maps Apps, which are extra components you can add to their mapping software to unlock more functionality. In this guide, I’ll cover a few new Maps Apps that can help you plan your next trip better.
Using the New Bing MapsBefore you can get started, you’ll have to install Microsoft’s free Silverlight plugin to view the new Bing Maps. Silverlight is similar to Flash and allows your browser to run interactive web applications. Not sure if you have Silverlight installed? Just head over to the new Silverlight-powered Bing Maps and you will receive a notification if you don’t have it. To use Bing Maps Apps, you need to use the new version of Bing Maps. You can access the new version by clicking the Try it now link under Explore the new Bing Maps at the Bing Maps website, or view the new version directly by clicking this link.
Bing Maps is similar to other online map applications like Google Maps, so you should feel right at home when using it. Access Maps AppsTo access Maps Apps, click the Maps Apps button which is located in the bottom left corner of Bing Maps.
This will open a window that displays the 30 (and growing) Maps Apps that are currently available. To use Maps Apps, simply click on one to activate it. Below are some of the newer additions to Bing Map Apps. Calculate Distance Between LocationsIf you’re doing any serious trip planning, it’s always a good idea to figure out the distances between certain points of your route to plan for food and refueling. Bing Maps makes this easy with the Distance Calculator app.
To use the Distance Calculator, type in a location into the search box or drag the orange flag to a location on your map.
You can add your entire trip, destination by destination, in the Distance Calculator and it will show distances between each location. You can change the order of your destinations by using the arrows in the left sidebar.
In addition to showing you individual distances, the Distance Calculator will show you total distances for both flights and road travel.
Find a Parking SpotClick the Parking finder Maps App to get parking information for airports and cities utilizing information from BestParking.com.
The Parking Finder app supports several large cities and many airports. After you’ve added the app, click the Cities or Airports tabs to select your destination. Your map will then be updated with data from BestParking.com overlayed on top of your destination.
Find a HotelThe Hotel finder app makes it easy to find a hotel at your destination using information from Bing. Click the Hotel finder button in Maps Apps to activate this feature.
Small purple indicators will appear on your map showing the locations of all hotels in the area. Clicking these indicators reveals details about the hotel, and clicking the hotel’s name displays additional information (including reviews) in the left sidebar.
These were three of my favorites among the recent additions. A few apps not covered in this article, but would also be helpful when planning a trip are Current Traffic, Roadside Attractions (great for family vacations), and Local Events. Give the new Bing Maps a try and share your thoughts with us in the comments! MakeUseOf has teamed up with zozi to provide you (and a friend) a FREE 7-day, trip to New Zealand. Sign up now!
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| FastStone Image Viewer – Undoubtedly The Best Image Viewer, Converter & Editor Bundle Posted: 02 Jun 2010 02:30 PM PDT
There were some positive user recommendations in the comments section. A couple of them pointed to FastStone Image Viewer. FastStone Image Viewer is one of the best image viewers – it’s a viewer, converter, and editor that offers something for everyone. It is totally free for personal use.
It comes in three download options (exe, zip, or portable). FastStone Image Viewer opens at a pace that's a shade slower than IrfanView because it opens up on a startup folder. But once it opens up, it presents its array of image features in a familiar Windows Explorer like interface.
Most features are intuitive, but FastStone Image Viewer also has a downloadable tutorial file that's a great help to have around. Taking them all up would be too much of a read, so let's look at 10 really cool ones. Support for Lots of Image Formats
Supports many digital image formats as illustrated in the screenshot above. Choice of Skins and Languages
You can select from 10 skins and 19 languages. The interface gives you three ways to navigate through your images – a folder tree window, a thumbnail window, and a preview window. Download Photos from Card Reader or Camera
FastStone has an easy to use automatic Download Photos feature that lets you read the photos directly from the attached device, save it to a folder, and rename it on the fly. You can also create folders for the images as you go. The Full Screen ViewUnlike lots of image viewers, the full screen view also throws up lots of features for viewing and manipulating images. You can move between the images in full screen view. Moving the mouse to four corners of the screen brings up different control panels. Move the mouse to the right corner to bring up the File and Attributes window. At a glance you can check image data like EXIF, Histograms, and you can even add your comments here or see the added ones.
Moving the mouse to the top corner pops up the Thumbnail Browser Window like a photo strip. You can use this to jump to different images.
A mouseover on the left side of the screen brings up the File Management Window. You will find here many of the file and image editing functions.
The bottom corner is for the Control Bar and the Navigator Window for other program functions.
Comparing Images in the Comparator View
A very useful tool for photographers is the Compare Selected Images feature which lets you view a maximum of four images side-by-side. You can view them with different magnification settings, move them around the window, and also compare histogram and EXIF data. Image Management with Sort and Tag
Sorting rearranges how the thumbnails are viewed in FastStone. You can arrange them in many ways from the Sort Box in the toolbar. You can also drag 'n drop images to custom sort them as you wish. FastStone remembers the order when you come back to the folder. For more image control, you can tag (and untag) images via FastStone. By default it is off. Tagging is a way to select different files and perform operations on them without touching any of the others. Use the Draw Board
The Draw Board is for adding text, graphics and watermarks to images. It is like a small editor for adding text, lines, callouts, ellipses etc to a selected image. Creating and Saving Slideshows
Many image editors will play a slideshow with a single click. FastStone does one better by letting you create and package one using the Slideshow Builder. You can select images, add text, music, and choice of 156 transitions to make one in a jiffy. You can stylize the slideshow with an opening cover image, set a quality setting, and save it as an EXE bundle. Emailing Images Across
With FastStone it's not only about sending images as attachments via your email client. In fact, you can resize, rename, modify image quality, add border effects, and compress them into a zip file. As a Screen Capture Tool
This is what we web workers always need. You might too. Check out the screenshot above which shows you the screen capture prowess of FastStone. Some features that have gone unmentioned I have covered some of the bells and whistles which I really liked. In the interests of space, I have left out a few more advanced features and the more obvious ones. Worthy of mention are - Batch processing tools which can resize, resample, convert, add a watermark etc to a bunch of images. - Image manipulation features like redeye removal, changing color tones, special effects like drop shadow, framing, bump map, lens, morph, waves etc. - Image EXIF metadata support and comment editing for JPEGs. - Image collection tools like Contact Sheet Builder, Multi-page File Builder, and Image Strip Builder. Also included is a Multi-page File Splitter which can extract images from a multi-page file. - And try out the Set Wallpaper Anywhere on Desktop feature which creates stylish montages from a bunch of photos and sets it up as wallpapers. Just the thing for those family photos. The long list of features that FastStone Image Viewer offers can seem overwhelming at first. But try them out with a bunch of photos and you will get the hang of it in no time. I did, and now the image tool is an indispensable part of my PC. Will this great freeware prove to be the same for you? Got Questions? Ask Them Now for FREE on MakeUseOf Answers! Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| Posted: 02 Jun 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 Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf fan page on Facebook. Over 20,000 fans already!
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| DroppedBoxx- The Unofficial Dropbox Client For Windows Mobile Posted: 02 Jun 2010 12:30 PM PDT
This is a beta application designed by someone who wanted this functionality. It is still being developed so keep an eye out for new versions and features.
You will need to sign up for the forum to download the application. You can do so here. After you sign up and download the application, you will need to copy it to your Windows Mobile device. I do so using ActiveSync and the explore option. I then copy the cab file to my storage card like so:
Once the file is copied, you can run the installer (CAB) file on your device to start the installation. You can use your File Explorer to browse to the cab. Then click on it to install. The file name is droppedboxx.cab.
After choosing to install it, you will be prompted as to where to install it. I recommend using your storage card but if you have enough room you can use your device's memory.
The application will then install on your device:
When it is complete you will see this screen:
Now we can launch the application which will appear at the bottom of your start menu like so:
Go ahead and click on it to open it up. The first screen you will see is the login screen. Here you will need to input your email address and password. These are the same credentials you use to connect to DropBox. When you have entered your information you can click on the login button.
Once you are logged in you will see a screen that looks like this:
It shows your devices documents. You can navigate through your files, folders and subfolders. Just select a document to upload and off it goes.
Now if you click on the Lego piece with the green arrow on the main screen you can navigate through your DropBox files and download them to your device. The button looks like this:
You will see your familiar files and folders. You can create new folders with the folder icon (with the green plus sign) the folder icon with the red minus sign will delete a folder. The camera button will allow you to take a shot and automatically upload it to your DropBox folder.
I went ahead and clicked the camera button and it immediately activated the camera on my device within the application like so:
And after returning to the application, the image was already uploaded to my account. This is an awesome feature. I really do not know why DropBox has not released a Windows Mobile application yet but this is a great start! I hope you guys are listening! NEW: Download MakeUseOf iPhone App. FREE! Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| How To Secure Your Facebook Settings The Easy Way Posted: 02 Jun 2010 11:30 AM PDT
Even if you aren’t paranoid about security, or if you don’t put up sensitive information on Facebook, you still need to consider the fact that your entire identity could be up for grabs on the Internet. Scared yet? Don’t be. We at MUO always try and bring to you the easiest ways to do the most complicated of things.
1. ReclaimPrivacy – Get A Control Of Your Facebook PrivacyThis is the first bookmarklet out of the two that we are going to talk about. ReclaimPrivacy is more a risk assessment tool, rather than a solution. It’s an easy tool to secure your Facebook settings and privacy. However, it is very important to us, at it lets us check the status of our Facebook privacy settings very easily. In fact, all it takes is one tiny little click. Grab hold of the bookmarklet here. Once you are done with that, you can follow the steps below to go about determining the kind of exposure you have (or not) to external parties.
2. SaveFace – Get The Most Secure Facebook SettingsThis second bookmarklet makes it very easy for you to set the most secure Facebook settings. It goes about setting your privacy settings to “Friends Only” for the following areas of your profile:
As before, head over to the SaveFace website and get the bookmarklet for yourself. The process remains the same (just drag the bookmarklet over to your toolbar.
Once you are through with that simple step, do the following:
The TestThe final thing that you need to do is check whether your new settings work or not. You could do this in two ways. One is the tedious method of posting something, and then signing out viewing your profile as an anonymous user. The second, and far easier method is to simply run ReclaimPrivacy again. As you can see in the screenshot below, all the previous loopholes have been plugged by our use of the SaveFace script. Note that a few of my settings show “Caution” because I changed a couple of settings back to earlier ones to suit my needs better.
Those few steps have gone a long way in reassuring me of my privacy on Facebook. Have you tried changing your privacy settings? Have you ever been victim of a Facebook privacy slip-up. Let us know your Facebook privacy experience in the comments below. Image Credit : stock:xchng MakeUseOf has teamed up with zozi to provide you (and a friend) a FREE 7-day, trip to New Zealand. Sign up now!
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| How To Use Mint To Manage Your Budget & Spendings Online Posted: 02 Jun 2010 10:30 AM PDT
Mint is a free, automatic online finance tracking and budgeting platform much like Microsoft Money and Quicken. Since adding my financial accounts (Paypal, credit cards, banking), I've stopped using similar software applications on my Mac and iPhone. Mint does all the personal accounting work for me. In this article, I'll share some tips on using the features of Mint to track and budget your spending.
How to Make a Mint Budget – Setting Up CategoriesWhen you add your financial accounts to your Mint account, about a year's worth of your past and current transactions get added to your account. Using your past transactions, Mint assigns your transactions to various categories. For example, credit or debit card transactions you make at Target will be assigned the Shopping category. A transaction from Best Buy will get assigned to Electronics & Software. You may find that many of your transactions get assigned appropriate categories, but you can also change or create categories for any transaction. Here's how to do it.
In the resulting dialog box, select "Always rename Amazon as Amazon and categorize as Books." This new rule will change all existing and future Amazon transactions. Notice also, you can assign tags to transactions, which is great for keeping track of tax related expenses as opposed to personal expenses. By clicking “Manage your tags“, you can change, add, and delete tags. When you first set up your account and add transactions, you may find there are numerous transactions which are uncategorized. Taking the time to set up rules for uncategorized transactions will inevitably help you monitor your spending. Also, one useful tool in this regard is that you can click on the “Show all“ button on the right side of your Transactions page to get a list of the total spending for all transactions for a particular category, sub-category, or store.
Setting BudgetsOne of the best reasons for using Mint and taking the trouble to categorize transactions is that you can make Mint budgets, especially for discretionary spending items and services. For example, I like to make sure I'm spending a limited amount of money on books and iPad/iPhone apps per month. If I don't monitor my spending on such items, I tend to overspend and even sometimes waste money by not tracking those expenses. Again, when you set up your Mint account, Mint creates a few default budgets which you can change or create new ones. To do this, click on Planning in the menu bar of your account's page. Select the budget you want to change or update. Or click the Create Budget button to create a new budget.
For an existing budget, you can increase or decrease the amount by clicking on the left and right triangles. You can make additional changes by clicking the Edit Details tab, in which you can change the time period of the budget, and check whether or not you want the selected budget to roll over to the next month. As you spend money toward those budgets, the bar color will change from green to red when you are over your budget. Almost everything about Mint is automatic. So once your transactions are updated for your accounts, all your categories and budgets get automatically updated. You never have to manually input that data. Setting Up Email AlertsAnother useful Mint feature which helps you monitor your finances is by sending you email alerts for when you've gone over budget, when your balance is low, when a bill is due, and so on. You can configure the settings for alerts by clicking on Your Profile on your accounts page. In the drop-down box, select Email and Alerts to set up changes.
Get the Free Mint iPhone AppIf you're an Apple mobile user, you can download the free Mint app to view your online account. Transactions, however, may not immediately show up on your Mint account. It may take an hour or two to get updated. But using the mobile app also allows you to add tags and/or change categories for new transactions. Your new alerts also show up in the app.
There are many more features in Mint, and once you get your accounts set up, you'll see that it provides you with a wealth of information about your finances, as well giving you tips on how to save money. Mint.com may not be the best solution for say tracking a large business account, but for personal and small business accounts, the service is a huge time saver. The biggest drawback to the service, however, is that it doesn't provide a way to print out reports of your transactions, categories, and summaries. You have to download the data and then set up a spreadsheet to create reports. Hopefully the developers of Mint will address this problem in future updates. Let us know if and how you use Mint.com. Has it helped you budget your spending? MakeUseOf has teamed up with zozi to provide you (and a friend) a FREE 7-day, trip to New Zealand. Sign up now!
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| How To Get Dropbox, Skype, Adobe Air & Codecs Working on Meego (Netbook OS) Posted: 02 Jun 2010 09:30 AM PDT
For me, necessary programs include Dropbox, Skype, TweetDeck and proprietary codecs. It took me the better part of my Memorial Day evening, but I’ve managed to get all those things working with a little help from the web. Let's take a look.
1. How To Install Dropbox on MeegoDropbox, to me, is the netbook killer app. Files I change on my desktop are automatically transferred to my netbook, making my netbook the perfect portable supplement to my desktop. What could be better?
MeeGo, however, does not include a simple way to install Dropbox. Getting it working is a bit of a challenge, but not impossible. To start go to the Dropbox Linux download page and grab the Fedora x86 package. Then open up your Terminal (click “Applications” on the tray, then “System Tools,” then “Terminal.”) Type “cd Downloads” followed by "Enter" to change directories to the Downloads folder, and then type “sudo yum localinstall nautilus-dropbox-0.6.2-1.fedora.i386.rpm” (making sure, of course, that the version number in the command matches the version number of the file you’ve downloaded.) Just like that you’ve installed Dropbox. You can open Dropbox whenever you want, and for most people it will work.
If you attempt to move the folder your Dropbox is located in, however, you’ll find that Dropbox crashes instantly. I did, and so did Bry who wrote about this struggle on Monday. I eventually found a solution, however. Open the “.dropbox-dist” folder in your home foler (in Nautilus press Ctrl+H to reveal the hidden folders.) Simply delete the file "libdbus-glib-1.so.2" and you’ll find changing the location of your Dropbox now works perfectly. Want to know why this works? Find an explanation here but be warned: it’s geeky stuff. There’s one more thing you should do, or you’ll find that yum will stop working. Open up your Terminal again, then type “cd /etc/yum.repos.d/” followed by “sudo rm dropbox.repo“. This will remove the Dropbox repo automatically added when you installed Dropbox, which does not work on MeeGo. 2. How To Install Skype on Meego
I don’t have to get into the awesomeness of Skype; it’s been explained here before. Getting Skype working on MeeGo isn’t as easy on MeeGo as other distributions, but it can work — this post on the MeeGo forums explains everything. Basically what you need to do is head over to the Skype Linux download page and install from the command line as explained in the Dropbox section above: “sudo yum localinstall skype-2.1.0.81-fc10.i586.rpm –nogpgcheck” Note the added word, “–nogpgcheck“. The installation will not work without this, as Skype is not signed. 3. How To Get Adobe Air Apps Working on MeeGoTry to install an Adobe Air app in MeeGo and you’ll quickly learn that the browser-based installation does not work. There is a way to get this working, but it’s a little bit of a hack. Go to the Adobe Air download page, then click “Download.” You’ll find the .bin file in your Download folder. Right-click it, then click “Properties.” In the “Permissions” tab click “Allow executing this file as a program.”
Open up the Terminal, then type “cd Downloads” and hit enter. Then type “./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin” to start the installation process. Once you get this working you’ll notice that simple going to the Tweetdeck or the Times Reader website won’t work for installation; you’ll get find the following sad-face:
There’s a workaround: you need to download the .air files directly and install them using the Adobe Air Program Installer found in “Accessories” in the programs menu. Finding these direct .air downloads can be challenging, but not impossible. TweetDeck is here and Times Reader is here, and some Google-fu can probably help you find any other app you’re looking for. After doing all this, I found that Flash no longer works in Chrome. There’s a simple fix for this: uninstall and re-install flash. Open a terminal and type “sudo yum remove flash-plugin” and hit enter. When this process is done type “sudo yum install flash-plugin” to re-install flash. You’ll find everything works after doing this. 4. How To Install Proprietary Codecs on MeegoI personally don’t use my netbook for much media, but if you do you’re going to want proprietary codecs. I tried to make everything in this guide as simple as possible, but there’s no easy way that I’ve found to set up MeeGo with proprietary codecs. You’ll find instructions for compiling all the codecs you could ever want at the MeeGo forums. These instructions obviously aren’t for the faint of heart, but they work. If MeeGo is worth it to you than check them out and work your way through them, but I can’t find an easier way to explain to you how to get started. ConclusionNone of these things are nearly so hard to do on other netbook systems, such as Ubuntu (which has pre-made packages for all these things) or Jolicloud (which allows for one-click installation of Adobe Air, Dropbox and Skype and also includes all codecs by default.) MeeGo, however, has a cool user interface and is very speedy. For now it’s possible to get MeeGo working with everything by using the guide above, but a much simpler solution would be a third-party repository containing all of these things. If anyone reading this has the know-how to build such a repository I’d love to see that happen, and will be sure to give you exposure if you do so. If you’ve got any other things you’d like to see working on MeeGo I’d love to hear what they are in the comment below. I’d also love to hear about any help you need with the steps, or any easier methods you’d like to point out. Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers! Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| Turn Your Photos Into Artistic Sketches Using FotoSketcher Posted: 02 Jun 2010 08:30 AM PDT
The abundance makes ordinary images difficult to stand out. To turn daily pictures into something special, extra efforts are needed. One of those efforts is to turn your photos into artistic sketches, and the tool that can take the paint out of the process is FotoSketcher (Windows only).
How To Turn Photos Into SketchesAny avid Photoshop user will tell you that creating artistic images out of ordinary photos is as easy as snapping your fingers. While that might be true, not everybody is comfortable using Photoshop. The price tag is also another obstacle for ordinary people to overcome in order to obtain that giant app. This is where FotoSketcher comes in. This Windows-only app is built to help everyday people like us to quickly convert their photos into artistic sketches. And the price tag is right: free. You can download the main version (with setup and uninstall option) to be installed on your PC, or the portable version to install on your thumb drive and use on any Windows machine.
The following walkthrough was created using the main version of the app, but the portable version will be the same experience. FotoSketcher allows you to modify images one by one or by batch. To do the latter, go to “File – Batch processing” menu.
The Batch processing window will open. Click the “Add files” button.
Choose the pictures that you want to convert from the list.
Decide on the location of the result files, and click the “Process” button to continue, or the “Cancel” button to abort the process.
Then you have to decide on several “Drawing parameters“. Start with the “Drawing style“.
There are many effects that you can choose from the list. Starting from “Pencil sketch” to “No effect” at all. To familiarise yourself with these effects, you would want to experiment with them all individually.
You can also add frames to the images, regardless of the drawing style that you apply to them. Just check the box next to the option and choose the type of frame that you want to add.
Another touch that you can add to your picture is “Texture“. Basically this option will give paper/canvas surface texture feel to your pictures.
You can also add custom text to your images, and you can adjust the font, color, and position of the text.
And after all of the adjustments, you can click the “Draw it!” button and the process will start.
Although I only explained the steps to modify photos in bulk, all of the above steps can be done individually to single images using the tools on the toolbar. And if you find the app useful, you could click the coffee cup icon on the toolbar to give donations to the author of FotoSketcher.
Now you can share unique and artistic sketches of your photos to your friends and relatives and make your ordinary pictures everything but ordinary.
Have you tried FotoSketcher? What’s your opinion? Or do you know other similar applications? Share using the comments below. Image credit: juliejordanscott MakeUseOf has teamed up with zozi to provide you (and a friend) a FREE 7-day, trip to New Zealand. Sign up now!
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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 tech deals and unifying them into a single post for your convenience.
Do you use 
The recent spate of privacy flaws pertaining to Facebook has nudged even the biggest optimists into having second thoughts about what they are putting up on Facebook, and whether or not that data is safe from prying eyes. With close to 
When I recently discovered that my local bank had finally been added to 
MeeGo is a fast operating system for netbooks with a lot of great ideas, as I outlined in a 
With today’s widespread availability of digital cameras, everybody can shoot digital pictures whenever and wherever they want. Sharing the images is also as easy, anybody can post almost any picture to one (or all) of the social sites for everybody to see.
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