MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [June 30th]” plus 8 more |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [June 30th]
- How To Sync Files & Folders Between Computers With Windows Sync
- How To Convert ePub & PDF eBooks Into iPhone’s iBooks [Mac]
- Hot Tech Deals [June 30th]
- Take Control Of Your Facebook Privacy With PrivacyDefender
- 5 iTunes Tips For Your iPad [Mac]
- Bring Accessibility Features To All Websites With TechDis Toolbar
- The 4 Best Photo Album Managers For Linux
- Use Font Frenzy To Manage Your Windows Fonts Effectively
| Cool Websites and Tools [June 30th] Posted: 30 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. Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Don’t forget to share our articles with others! It’s really important to us. Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| How To Sync Files & Folders Between Computers With Windows Sync Posted: 30 Jun 2010 04:31 PM PDT
Imagine heading down to your local coffee shop to edit some photos only to find, when you arrive, that you forgot them on your USB drive! Such a scenario has happened to me a few times, and it is more than a little annoying.
Installation & SettingsTo begin you’ll need to download the Microsoft Sync tool on the two (or more) computers you wish to sync up. Microsoft Sync is part of Microsoft’s Windows Live platform, so you will need to have a Live login in order to use the program. If you don’t have a login yet, you will have to register. Once you have downloaded and installed the Windows Sync program you will notice that a new icon has appeared in your task tray. The icon looks like two blue arrows pointing in opposite directions. This indicates that Sync is running. The interface which you will use with Sync in order to share files and folders is actually web based, but before we go to the Sync website we need to change a setting that will make it possible to sync files and folders. Go to More –> Settings.
Your login information should already be inputted from the installation process, but if you don’t see it, or it looks wrong, go ahead and change it now. Also, click the checkbox next to “Allow remote access to my computer.” This setting must be turned on in order to properly sync files and folders. Let’s Sync It UpNow that the proper settings are enabled, we can go ahead and sync up our files and folders. This is performed using the web interface, so go ahead and launch the Windows Sync website. You can do this by clicking on the Windows Sync icon and then clicking Website on the drop-down menu.
When you open the web interface you’ll have two options. One is to create a Personal Folder and the other is to create a Shared Folder. The Shared Folder option lets you create folders that can be shared with other Windows Live users. It is a handy way to share information, but it is also outside the scope of this tutorial. We’re just going to be focusing on the Personal Folders, so go ahead and click Create a Personal Folder. The next screen will ask you which computer you’d like to create the folder on. This doesn’t really matter. You are going to be creating sync folders on both your computers during this process and all files in all of the folders on all computers will be transferred. I suggest simply selecting the computer you’re currently using.
The next screen will display an Explorer view of the computer you selected. You need to select the folder in which the contents you want to sync are contained or will be contained. For example, you might make a folder in My Documents and call it My Sync Folder. When you have accessed the folder you want, click Sync Folder Here. Note that you need to be in the folder you want to sync. If you wanted to sync My Sync Folder you would have to click the Sync Folder Here option after you have opened My Sync Folder. If you click the option while you are in your My Documents folder your entire My Documents will be synced. Syncing With Other ComputersYou will now see a menu which is labeled “Sync with Another Computer.” The computer on which you already selected a folder to sync will be grayed out. From the list of other machines select the machine you want to sync with.
This will bring up another Explorer view, and again you will need to select a folder. Obviously, it would be best if both the folders on both computers have the same name. However, this doesn’t have to be the case. If you want to sync two folders with entirely different names, you can. The next screen will ask if you want to use Automatic Sync or On-Demand Sync. Automatic Sync will always sync files, while On-Demand Sync will only sync files when you request them. I suggest choosing Automatic Sync, as it eliminates an extra step. Then click Finish.
Your folders will now begin to sync. You can see this activity by clicking on the Windows Sync icon and then clicking Activity from the drop-down menu. This will open a window which shows the files which are currently being transferred and their status. You will also now the sync folder you created in the drop-down menu. You can access the local version of the folder by clicking on it in the drop-down menu. Always Have Your Files On HandOnce you’ve set up your Automatic Sync folder between two computers you don’t have much else that you need to do. Files which are placed into the folder on either machine will be automatically transferred to the other machine. Of course, both computers do need to be online for this to happen, and both also need to be running Windows Sync. Those requirements aside, the process is completely hands-free once you set it up. In the past, we have extensively covered the topic of synchronization. Check them out! Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras. Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| How To Convert ePub & PDF eBooks Into iPhone’s iBooks [Mac] Posted: 30 Jun 2010 02:31 PM PDT
Another piece of good news is, aside from ePub – the open source digital book format used in iBooks – users can also open and read PDF files. So let’s see how you can convert ebooks to iBook within your iPhone.
Upgrading To iOS4 & Installing iBooksGo to the iTunes Store and download the app. It will be installed automatically the next time you sync your iPhone to your computer.
But make sure that your iPhone OS has been upgraded to iOS4, otherwise the iBooks app can’t be installed on the device.
Now that you have the reader installed, you need to fill your bookshelves with books to read. Here are some methods that you can use to put your digital books into an iPhone. 1. Dragging & DroppingIf you already have (lots of) ebooks in PDF and ePub format that you want to put on your iPhone, you can add them to your iBooks library by dragging and dropping them onto iTunes. They will be placed in the “Books” folder.
You also can convert your other digital literature materials into ePub or PDF so that you can put them in the library. Sync the device and your digital books will be transferred to your iPhone.
2. Acquiring From The StoreThe second method is getting the ebooks from the iBooks store. Open iBooks from your iPhone.
You can see the books that you add via iTunes on the shelf. To get some more books, click the “Store” button at the top right corner.
Go to the “Purchases” tab and see what’s inside. Since I haven’t downloaded anything, it’s still empty. The account information that will appear here is the one that you will use in your iTunes.
To choose the books, you can use several options at the lower part of the screen. You can see what’s currently featured, sort by ratings, browse around, or search directly for the books that you want. Just like an ordinary bookstore, you have to buy most of the books inside the iBooks store. But there are also choices of free books. Just use the search function to look for “free”. Along with the release of the iBooks app, Apple gives us a complimentary copy of “Winnie the Pooh” by A. A. Milne. Just do the search for that book.
Select the book from the search results, and you will go to the individual page of that book.
You can see more information about the book here, including the price and the option to get a sample.
Click on the price button (in this case it’s free) to download the book. You will be asked to provide your iTunes Store account and password. The book will be downloaded onto your iPhone and will sit on the shelf, waiting to be read.
You can see that there are two book shelves, the one entitled “Books” is to store ePub format ebooks (whether you get it from the store or not), and the other one is for PDFs. 3. Snatching Books From EmailsThe third method to fill your iBook shelves is to get the books from your email. If you receive emails with PDF attachments, you can move those PDFs to your iBooks shelf. Tap on the PDF attachment.
You will get a preview of the file. Choose “Open in iBooks“.
The PDF will then be opened and stored on your iBooks shelf.
Reading eBooks using iBooks on your iPhone is a different experience. Even though it’s not as powerful as iBooks on the iPad, it exceeded my expectations. I will save the story for the next post, along with several tips to enhance the iBooks reading experience on the iPhone. Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers! Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| Posted: 30 Jun 2010 01:30 PM PDT
For more fresh hot deals, visit our Hot Tech Deals page, which is constantly updated.
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| Take Control Of Your Facebook Privacy With PrivacyDefender Posted: 30 Jun 2010 12:31 PM PDT
PrivacyDefender is a new web application from identity-protecting superpower ReputationDefender. PrivacyDefender makes it easy to view and change your Facebook privacy settings, and allows you to easily reset your privacy settings to ensure you have total control over what others can see.
Using PrivacyDefenderPrivacyDefender can be enabled in 4 very simple steps. To get started, visit the PrivacyDefender page on Facebook and click the Allow button. This will give PrivacyDefender access to your information which is necessary to properly analyze your settings.
Next, drag the grey PrivacyDefender button to your bookmarks toolbar. If your bookmarks toolbar is hidden, you can easily enable it:
The PrivacyDefender button is a bookmarklet, which is a small string of Javascript code that can interact with websites.
Now that the PrivacyDefender button is sitting comfortably in your bookmarks toolbar, click it to evaluate your current privacy settings.
After PrivacyDefender does some thinking (it can take a few minutes to calculate your Facebook privacy settings, be patient), you’ll see a graph of concentric rings illustrating your current privacy settings. As you can see, I have some work to do.
Understanding The Privacy Graph
PrivacyDefender’s privacy graph shows you exactly what information is available to the world. Each ring of the graph represents a privacy tier, i.e. “Who can see what”. The core is only you, followed by friends, friends of friends, and everyone. The graph is also broken up into “slices”, with each slice representing information on your profile such as photos, profile pictures, and contact information. Your current Facebook settings are colorized, so when your information is available to everyone it will be bright red as a warning. It is also very important to note the boxes to the right of the privacy graph. These three boxes show you information regarding what your friends can share about you and how advertisers can interact with your profile. Even if your profile seems secure, it can still be possible for your friends to share information about you (we’ll fix this next though, don’t worry!).
Fixing Your Privacy SettingsIf you see a privacy graph like mine and are now a bit skittish about how exposed you are, this is the part where we make it all better. PrivacyDefender identifies three different privacy tiers, My friends, My Social Network, and Everyone but not everything, so you’ll have plenty of flexibility when picking your privacy settings.
Check out the following settings and identify which one best suits you: My friends: You use Facebook solely to interact with your existing friends and are not looking to add more. My Social Network: You use Facebook to grow your network through your friends but don’t want to share any of your information with the public. Everyone but not everything: You don’t mind if your Facebook profile is public but you still don’t want to share your birthday, contact information, or photos. To change your Facebook privacy settings, simply drag the slider to the area where you feel most comfortable. You will immediately see the result of this change in your privacy graph above the slider. Since I’m only mildly paranoid and don’t mind friends of my friends interacting with me, I opted for the My Social Network setting. Once you’re finished, click the Fix My Privacy! button.
(Note: Some privacy tiers only allow certain groups to find you in Facebook search and add you as a friend. If you want your profile to be searchable to everybody, visit Facebook’s privacy settings page, select & click view settings under Basic Directory Information, and make the appropriate changes). ConclusionFacebook privacy settings can be tricky, and even with Facebook’s simpler controls it can still be difficult trying to figure out which settings are right for you. PrivacyDefender takes the guesswork out of the equation and keeps your information accessible to only the people you choose. For more information about PrivacyDefender, check out their FAQ, and make sure to check out the rest of our articles about Facebook and privacy topics! Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| 5 iTunes Tips For Your iPad [Mac] Posted: 30 Jun 2010 11:31 AM PDT
If you know how to navigate the iTunes music player on your computer, then you won't be scratching your head trying to figure out iTunes on your iPad. But if you're new to the device, here's five iTunes tips that you will want to be familiar with when using the application.
The Interface
The iTunes interface is pretty easy to understand. It consists of the following:
Playing MusiciTunes on your iPad is the only application which can be played in the background. So when you start playing a song or playlist, you can close out the application and open others. If say you're browsing in Safari and you want to change or stop the currently playing song, you can double-click the Home button on your iPad and it will bring up a mini iTunes control which you can used to navigate iTunes without leaving the application you're presently in.
Creating PlaylistsOne the of newest features of iPad iTunes is the ability to actually create playlists and Genius playlists within the app itself. So say you have a few hundred songs that you have added to your iPad iTunes library. You can create a new playlist from your collection.
After creating your playlist, you can still come back and edit it, deleting and adding more songs.
Genius PlaylistsIf manually creating playlists is not your thing, Apple came up with a really easy way to put together a playlist based on the songs you have in your library. It's called Genius, and basically what it does is makes a playlist based on a song that you select. Here's how you do it:
More Navigation & Display iTunes TipsThe best thing about the iPad is the awesome way it displays visual content. With iTunes, you can not only play music, but you can use the iPad to display full screen the album covers of songs you're listening to. While the iTunes interface is open, simply click the Now Playing album cover icon.
This will expand the cover to full screen.
Tap in the middle of the screen size album and it will flip it around to reveal the album's playlist and other navigation controls.
This full screen feature is great for parties when you want to show off album covers as songs are playing. While you can't carry around the iPad in your pocket like you can with the iPhone and iPod touch, it nevertheless is a great music player. Let us know how you like the iPad iTunes. Do you keep your iTunes brimming with songs? Let us know a few of your own iTunes tips by sharing how you use the program. Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf page on Facebook. Over 24,000 fans already!
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| Bring Accessibility Features To All Websites With TechDis Toolbar Posted: 30 Jun 2010 10:31 AM PDT
Web accessibility has been quite an issue for some time. Enter TechDis Toolbar. TechDis Toolbar provides a number of important web accessibility tools when browsing the Internet. It adds much needed features to almost every website out there, making it easier to access and interpret content.
The installer is available here. This would give you the full blown version of the toolbar and is available for Windows only. If you are on another platform or just want to try things out, you can use the lite version of the toolbar. The lite version is available as a userscript or a bookmarklet. For userscript installation it is best that you visit this page and then follow the instructions for the particular browser that you use.
Those interested in the toolbar can simply drag this link onto your bookmarks bar and click it whenever you need TechDis Toolbar on a site. Let’s now have a closer look at the features TechDis Toolbar has to offer. First and foremost you can increase or decrease text size on just about any webpage. Such a simple feature that one expects on every site, but it’s seldom included. Note that this is different from the standard zoom-in, zoom out feature on most browsers, which tends to magnify everything on the page making images look blurry and pages go out of shape. Here though, you are only playing with the size of text on the web page. You can also change the font of the webpage if you so please. Not only can TechDis Toolbar make the text more legible, it can also read it out to you. Select a part of the text and then click on the Text to Speech button. You can tell TechDis Toolbar to read out only the selected portion or the entire webpage. Simply awesome, imagine having that for every page on the web.
The page dictionary is another feature done well in the toolbar. Dictionaries are nothing new on the web, however TechDis Toolbar implements the feature very well. Like a number of browser dictionary extensions all you do is select a word and then hit the dictionary button on the toolbar. TechDis Toolbar will then go and fetch the dictionary entry for that particular word and display it as a popup dialog.
In addition, TechDis Toolbar can also pull out references from a webpage and also allow you to change the style of the toolbar and the webpage. There a number of pre-configured styles that you can use to quickly switch back and forth. I for one use the white or yellow on black style frequently when reading in the dark!
TechDis Toolbar is a wonderful addition to your browsing experience. The lite version, available as a bookmarklet, is an ideal addition to any web browser. You can quickly turn the toolbar on and off and use all of its feature anytime you need them on any site you want them on. Do you know of any other web accessibility apps that makes it easier for people to access the web like this? If so, let us know in the comments. NEW: Download MakeUseOf iPhone App. FREE! Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| The 4 Best Photo Album Managers For Linux Posted: 30 Jun 2010 09:31 AM PDT
This is just as true on the Linux platform as any other. Photo management was a weak point of the Linux desktop very recently, but a number of projects have sprung up to address this. As such, if you’re looking for the best photo album manager out there for Linux, you’ve got a few options. Let’s take a look at the four major programs on the platform and see what you think!
Shotwell
Soon to become the default in Ubuntu (and perhaps in Gnome itself) Shotwell is quickly becoming the go-to photo manager on Linux. At least, what’s what I concluded in my recent piece when I called Shotwell the future of Linux photo management. Here’s why I think this program is good: it connects really well with social services, including Facebook and Flickr. Beyond that killer feature however, Shotwell excels in that it’s really simple. The interface is clean and photos are sorted in a logical manner. You’ll find Shotwell in the repositories of most newer Linux systems, but if you can’t find it, check out the official Shotwell page for installation instructions. Picasa For Linux
Picasa is not just a killer web service from Google; it’s also a pretty fantastic desktop photo editor. Thanks to technology borrowed from the Wine project it works on Linux, although it’s not as frequently updated as the Windows or Mac version of the software. There are upsides and downsides to this Linux version. It’s more integrated than simply running Picasa in Wine, but it’s fairly obvious to the end user that it’s not a native application. Expect some quirks for sure, but also expect to have access to Google’s amazing photo manager on Linux. Picasa includes everything from basic editing to creating albums to changing your desktop wallpaper to, of course, uploading to the Picasa web service. Find out more about Picasa in our series of tutorials, Google Picasa 101 by Jim. Go ahead and download Picasa for Linux; you just might like it. F-Spot
The default photo manager in Ubuntu for quite a while, F-Spot is a pretty good photo album manager to have around. Some people love it, some people don’t, but everyone can agree on one thing: it’s there by default. F-Spot arranges your photos, uploads to social networks, allows for basic editing and even allows for extensions. You’ll find F-Spot in the repositories of your Linux distro, assuming it’s not already installed. Digikam
I have to admit, I don’t really use KDE, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t include Digikam in this list. The default photo manager in KDE is powerful, attractive and complex. You’ll find all the features you’d expect from a photo manager along with a number of extensions for adding more functionality. It can even grab photos from your iPod, which could be useful. Digikam works on any Linux system; even Gnome ones. Check your repositories for a download or take a look at Digikam’s homepage. Conclusion: Good Old FoldersI don’t use any of these systems, because I’ve found a superior method: folders. It may seem like work, but organizing your photos into folders named by event is easy to use and works on any platform. There’s no substitute for organization as far as I’m concerned. Still, it’s nice to have the option of using a photo management tool, so we’re lucky that Linux has four great ones to choose from. What do you use to manage your photos? Did I miss any good ones? Sharing in the comments below is an awesome thing to do, and I’ll think less of you if you don’t. Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| Use Font Frenzy To Manage Your Windows Fonts Effectively Posted: 30 Jun 2010 08:31 AM PDT
Did you know that the amount of fonts you have installed on your Windows machine has a direct impact on your boot time? Well now you know! We have found a font manager application for Windows that will make it much easier to manage windows fonts.
There is no registration required and you do not need to give your email address. When you are finished downloading and installing, follow the prompts and then launch the application. It will look like this on the first run:
There are 5 buttons across the top of the screen that are titled: Defrenzy, FrenzySnap, Refrenzy, FrenzyMan and FrenzyInfo. Lets take a look at what they do. Before pushing any of the buttons make sure you run a FrenzySnap so that you do not lose any fonts. Defrenzy will remove all user added fonts from your computer. This means it will DELETE all fonts that did not come with your operating system. So anything installed with any other programs or any fonts you added manually will be removed. This is a great way to start over and just load up the fonts that you need. Remember to run the FrenzySnap before running Defrenzy so you will be able to restore your fonts if need be. To begin, click on the Defrenzy button and then click Defrenzy Now:
After hitting the button you will see a confirmation window asking you to close your other applications:
When you are finished closing your other applications click Yes. You will then see this box asking you for the font directory. Leave it as the default and hit OK.
You will be prompted to take a snapshot and name it before continuing. Please do so. Hit OK and it will save your snapshot and then remove all fonts that did not come installed with your operating system. You can view a log file of what has been removed when it is complete. If you want to reinstall your fonts you can use Refrenzy which we will cover shortly. FrenzySnap will take a snapshot of all installed fonts on your machine. Think of this like a system restore point for your fonts. If you remove some of them you can revert back to this backup and restore all the fonts you removed. Click the Save Snapshot button to save the snapshot.
Then you will be prompted for a name of the saved set.
Hit OK and it will save your snapshot. When it is complete you will see the snapshot appear in the left pane so that you can see the points that you can restore from:
To restore from this font set we will use the ReFrenzy option which we will walk through next. This process brought me from 198 fonts to 63 fonts. ReFrenzy will allow you to selectively choose to restore fonts from your previous Frenzy Snapshots generated by Frenzy Snap.
Simply highlight the set you want to restore and then hit Restore. You will be told to close any other open applications. It will then ask you for the path to your font folders – again leave them at the default and hit OK. It will restore the fonts from this set now and you will see this when it is complete:
FrenzyMan is the actual font manager that allows you to add and remove fonts easily from your system.
Using the buttons on the left panel and selecting fonts on the right, you can perform any of the actions listed. It is very easy and intuitive. Finally, FrenzyInfo will simply bring up the application’s information showing you pertinent links to the authors website, help and email support. Do you have another favorite font manager to manage windows fonts? We would love to hear about it in the comments! Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras. Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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