MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [January 23rd]” plus 7 more |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [January 23rd]
- Thank You To MakeUseOf Friends!
- How Much Have You Spent On iPhone/Android Apps? [MakeUseOf Poll]
- How to Watermark Images Using Photoshop
- 10 Free MP3 Albums To Download [Sound Sunday]
- Latest Hilarious Picks [MakeUseOf Geeky Fun]
- How To Set Up A Second Hard Drive In Windows: Partitioning
- Lapdawg and 360Amigo System Speedup PRO Giveaway Winners
| Cool Websites and Tools [January 23rd] Posted: 23 Jan 2011 07:31 PM PST
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. Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras.
    
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| Thank You To MakeUseOf Friends! Posted: 23 Jan 2011 06:31 PM PST
Thank you, guys! Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Don’t forget to share our articles with others! It’s really important to us.
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| How Much Have You Spent On iPhone/Android Apps? [MakeUseOf Poll] Posted: 23 Jan 2011 05:30 PM PST
From the 189 votes collected, we got the following results: 40% of voters have downloaded less than 1 GB video from YouTube; 22% have never downloaded a video from YouTube; 13% voters have downloaded 1-5 GB video from YouTube; 12% have copied 5-20 GB video from YouTube; 9% have downloaded over 20 GB video from YouTube. Full results and this week's poll after the jump.
This week's poll question is: How Much Have You Spent On iPhone/Android Apps? Let us know about any smartphone apps, really. Include anything spent on iPad apps, too! If you have recommendations for your favourite apps, feel free to let us know in the comments! Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf page on Facebook. Over 24,000 fans already!
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| How to Watermark Images Using Photoshop Posted: 23 Jan 2011 02:30 PM PST
The most obvious offline method of watermarking your images is using Photoshop, and while at first, it might not seem to be the easiest, it gives you the most flexibility and allows you to watermark your images exactly the way you want to. And once you create your watermark using Photoshop, you can easily automate the process using your very own Photoshop action, and even batch watermark images. Creating a Text WatermarkTo watermark your image, first select the colour you want the text to appear in – we would suggest white. Next, select the Text tool, and type in the text you want to appear as your watermark.
Once you’ve determined the size of the text, and the placement, you’ll probably want to make the text less opaque. Go to Layer > Layer style > Blending options.
Under Blending Options, drag the opacity bar down until the watermark looks the way you want it to. Usually an opacity of about 50% should do the trick.
The watermarked image will look like this.
You can also use a similar method with logos and images, preferably in PNG format. Simply open the image or logo you want to use as your watermark, copy and paste it onto your image in Photoshop, and as described above, decrease the watermark’s opacity. If you want to get creative, play around with some of the other options found under Blending options such as Bevel and Emboss, to create a more elaborate watermark. If you want to rotate the watermark to appear diagonally across the image, select the Marquee Tool, right click the text and select Free Transform.
Hovering the mouse over any given corner, you should see a small curved arrow indicating that you can rotate the image at an angle. Creating a Symbol WatermarkUsing the copyright symbol found under Photoshop’s shapes, you can create a very simple watermark that allows you to protect the entire image. This symbol can of course be replaced with any other shape you choose to use. After opening your image, create a new layer.
Next, using the Shapes tool, select Custom Shapes.
Select the copyright sign, and draw the shape on your image, determining the size and colour. With a symbol like this, it’s possible to place it over the entire picture without detracting too much from the image itself.
When using a symbol as a watermark, using the additional Blending Options can really come to life. For example, with the copyright symbol, select Soft Light from the drop down menu, and make sure that Bevel and Emboss is checked.
The watermarked image will look like this.
Another method is to create the shape, using black as your colour, and then applying the Emboss filter to the shape. After drawing the shape on your image, go to Filter > Sytlize > Emboss.
When Photoshop asks you if you want to rasterize the shape, click OK.
Next, go into Layer Styles, and from the Blend Mode drop down menu, select Hard Light.
The watermarked image will look like this.
If you want to add text beneath the copyright symbol, use the same method. Create an Action and Batch WatermarkIf you want to create an action, to make it easier to batch watermark images, record the steps that you choose to take and watermark your images at the click of a button. To create your action, follow the instructions outlined here, with the steps outlined above for your preferred watermark. Once you’ve created your action, to run the action on an entire folder of images, go to File > Automate > Batch…
From there you can select the source folder that contains the images you want to watermark, the action you want to use, and where you want to save your watermarked images.
And of course for those of you want to make life as easy as possible, there are free Photoshop watermark actions available for download, such as PSNick’s action downloadable from DeviantArt. Do you have any tips on how to watermark your images using Photoshop? Let us know in the comments. Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Don’t forget to share our articles with others! It’s really important to us.
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| 10 Free MP3 Albums To Download [Sound Sunday] Posted: 23 Jan 2011 11:31 AM PST
At the time of writing the article, the downloads are free. Unfortunately, Bandcamp limits the amount of free downloads, the artists may change their minds, or the record labels may reach their quota. So over time, most downloads will go from free to pay. This is why I recommend you to check in early every Sunday and get the albums while they’re hot. If you have any suggestions, feel free to flood the comments or drop me an email [tina at makeuseof dot com]. Stephen Hunley – Wait and SeeGenre: acoustic, blues, soul, pop rock Wait and See is Stephen Hunley’s debut album. A soothing voice, simple melodies, and arrangements that keep the listener engaged. In short: music for the radio. The skill of this talented young singer / songwriter and the quality of the album may have to do something with the fact that he is the nephew of country vocalist Con Hunley, but that is pure speculation. Download Wait and See free from Bandcamp. Stephen Hunley MySpace and Homepage. TFPP – Lost In TimeGenre: electronic, pop Lost In Time is one of two albums from TFP and a third one, Chill Crosby 2: Rave to the Grave, is expected to be released through Circuittree Records soon. A preview is available via Soundcloud. On Bandcamp, Matt Hettich (aka wake) and Bob LaDue (aka ddb) state that Lost In Time is ”free and available for dating.” Unfortunately, both guys are taken and not available for romantic encounters. Lost In Time is a free download from Bandcamp. TFPP Homepage. Electric Assembly – How To Make MistakesGenre: indie, experimental, shoegaze, post rock This album contains “a collection of unreleased tracks, works in progress, rough mixes, studio outtakes, remixes and alternate versions.” David, Paul, and Steve of Electric Assembly, a London-based indie experimental band, have released the sampler in November 2006. You can download How To Make Mistakes from Bandcamp. Electric Assembly MySpace and Blog. David Shultz and The Skyline – Rain in to the SkyGenre: indie, acoustic, americana, folk, rock Message from David: “I encourage you to download this album, and to share it. 300 copies of this album were pressed, but those are all gone now. The band and I put a lot in to this, and we’re very proud of it. Love – David” Rain in to the Sky can be downloaded for free from Bandcamp. David Shultz and The Skyline MySpace and Homepage. M.Island – Yes!Genre: hip hop rap, lyrical
Download Yes! from M.Island’s Homepage. M.Island MySpace and Homepage. The Nico Blues – Blame the Boredom, Blame the BasementsGenre: alternative, indie, rock
You can download Blame the Boredom, Blame the Basements from The Nico Blues’ Homepage. The Nico Blues MySpace and Homepage. Dropa – A Well Orchestrated PlanGenre: alternative, indie, experimental, ambient, electronic, new wave, pop Dropa is the “solo indietronic, electro synth pop venture” of Micah Tamblyn from Portland, Oregon. The name he chose for his hand is rather interesting. Dropa, also known as Dropas, Drok-pa or Dzopa, Chinese: 杜立巴, was the name given to dwarf-like extraterrestrials that, according to legend, landed near the border between China and Tibet about twelve thousand years ago. A Well Orchestrated Plan is available for free from Bandcamp. Dropa MySpace. Impossible Nothing – MontechristoGenre: experimental, electronic, hip hop According to Darwin Frost, the man behind Impossible Nothing, Montechristo is a Comic Hip-Hop Meta-Narrative. It is one of three free albums available on his Bandcamp page. If you enjoy this one, you should also give Bananas and Banana Peels a spin. Montechristo is a free download from Bandcamp. Impossible Nothing SoundCloud and Twitter. MR Cluck – Birdbone AltarGenre: experimental, ambient, electronic, minimalist, acoustic, tape music MR Cluck is an all around talent. Writer, musician, and artist in general, he presents us here with an album of predominantly tape loop based music that, in his own words, “documents a fall from grace into regrettable cyclical behavior.” There is no accounting for taste or art. Get Birdbone Altar for free from Bandcamp. BackBeat SoundSystem – One Step ForwardGenre: pop, dub, roots, reggae The list of genres caught your interest, didn’t it? The music of BackBeat SoundSystem is very unconventional. Pop with traces of reggae and electronic music, swaying from one side to the next like a palm tree in the wind. Or as they say it: “Made with movement in mind. Traditional reggae music slapped upside the head with a party stick. Stomping bass, dub synths & steady grooves.” Excellent stuff! One Step Forward is a free download from Bandcamp. BackBeat SoundSystem MySpace and Homepage. Still got room on your mp3 player? Browse past editions of Sound Sunday. You can also get in touch with me [tina at makeuseof dot com] to share free material, suggestions, and feedback or simply post it into the comments below. Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Don’t forget to share our articles with others! It’s really important to us.
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| Latest Hilarious Picks [MakeUseOf Geeky Fun] Posted: 23 Jan 2011 10:12 AM PST
If you would like to keep up with all latest Geeky Fun additions, please subscribe to the Geeky Fun feed here. You can also subscribe and get the latest additions via email.
Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Don’t forget to share our articles with others! It’s really important to us.
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| How To Set Up A Second Hard Drive In Windows: Partitioning Posted: 23 Jan 2011 09:30 AM PST
Even if you didn’t crack open the case and add in another drive, you might still want to read on if you’d like to learn about the drive management system in Windows, and what partitions are. Background – Partitions, and FilesystemsI’ll be throwing around some fairly technical terms today so it’s important you have an overview of what all these terms mean. To begin with, a partition is a block of space on a hard drive. In Windows terms, you might think of a partition as a single drive letter (like C: or D:). Windows also likes to refer to a partition as a “volume“, but they are the same thing for our purposes. A single hard drive may consist of one, or many partitions – each of which will be assigned their own drive letter in Windows. For most people, a single partition is enough – however most home computers actually have another partition, hidden from Windows, on which recovery programs are placed. If your computer has a message like “Press F2 to enter recovery mode” when you turn it on, chances are you have a secret partition. Some people like to partition their drive so that Windows runs from a small section of the disk, with the data stored on an entirely separate partition – this means that re-installing Windows won’t overwrite your data. In other cases, a hard drive is partitioned in order to allow multiple operating systems to be installed at the same time – on booting the computer, you can then choose which partition you will boot from. A Filesystem is the particular method by which data is stored on that partition. Which filesystem to choose has been known to cause violent arguments among many geeks, but suffice to say Windows XP used FAT32, Windows 7 uses NTFS, and Linux and Macs use something different entirely. Each filesystem has limitations and advantages, but for our purposes it is useful to know just that: (a) If you’re planning on dealing with large files (like 4+ GB movies, etc.) you should use NTFS. (b) If you want to swap drives between systems, you should use FAT32 as Mac OS X cannot write to NTFS without additional software, but you won’t be able to deal with large files. If you’ve installed a second drive into your Windows machine, I suggest you use NTFS. To make matters more difficult though, a lot of drives come pre-formatted as FAT32 – grrr, what a headache! Partitioning and Formatting Your Drive in WindowsLaunch the disk management app by clicking Start, and typing in diskmgmt.msc – click the application that pops up in the search results. You should see a screen similar to this:
The top half of the display shows what partitions currently exist. The bottom half displays the physical devices – the drives – in your computer. In this case, I have a single 64 GB NTFS partition, which is my C: drive where Windows is currently installed. Beneath it, we have my new 50 GB drive, shown in black because it is currently all free space. Your setup may different though – Windows 7 often creates a 100 MB hidden partiton called “System Reserved” for recovery options, for instance. Note, if you drive came preformatted as a FAT32 partition, Windows may have already assigned a drive letter to it. Make sure you identify exactly which is the new disk. You can perform various operations on the partition, or the empty space, by right-clicking on it. If you have an existing FAT32 partition you want to get rid of (be very sure this is the new second drive and not something else), then simply right-click on the existing volume and choose either Format or Delete Volume. Choose Format if you’d simply like to make it into a fresh NTFS partition instead of FAT32. Choose Delete Volume if you’d like to make more than one partition on the drive – for example, one for music and one for movies. You can also choose Change Drive Letter and Paths if you’d just like to change the letter that Windows has automatically assigned it.
Now, having deleted your existing partition or if there wasn’t one to start with, we can go about creating a new one. Right-click on the black empty space to create a new partition by choosing New Simple Volume. You’ll be greeted by a standard wizard opening screen, and after clicking Next, you can choose how large you partition will be. 1 GB is roughly 1000 MB. The default setting will already be the maximum size, but in this case I’m going to split the drive into two 25 GB partitions (25000 MB) to store different kinds of data.
On the next screen, you can assign it a drive letter. Choose NTFS as the format and give it a suitable name so you can identify the drive. You can then repeat the process by clicking on the remaining Unallocated free space. If it’s the last partition you are making, just leave the size option at the default to use all remaining space. Now you should have some more drives, so check Computer from the Start Menu to see:
I hope you’ve learnt a little about disks and partitions today. They might seem scary and somewhat high level at first, but in reality they’re quite simple. So long as you are careful about what you’re deleting, managing your own disks and partitions is a lot more rewarding than simply taking the options that the manufacturers give to you. There are also some alternatives to the built in Drive Management application that you might want to consider – like the Free Partition Manager, or Paragon suite of tools. Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Don’t forget to share our articles with others! It’s really important to us.
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| Lapdawg and 360Amigo System Speedup PRO Giveaway Winners Posted: 23 Jan 2011 08:00 AM PST
Okay, so here are the winners. Lapdawg
360 Amigo System Speedup PRO
Congratulations! Be sure to join us tomorrow for a new giveaway — we’re offering SyncMate 3 Expert Edition for Mac. And don’t forget about our Mega NAS Giveaway! MakeUseOf would like to thank P360Amigo and LapDawg for their generosity while participating in this giveaway. Interesting in sponsoring? We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with us via email. Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers!
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