MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [February 23rd]” plus 10 more |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [February 23rd]
- Manage Your Unread RSS Feeds Better With These Tips
- Zenphoto – A Mighty Powerful Photoblog Engine For Your Website
- How To Use Voice To Text Dictation With Express Scribe
- Hot Tech Deals [Feb 23rd]
- 5 Websites To Make Your Own Personal Movie Lists
- Easily Back Up Your Online Accounts For Free With Backupify
- Mega NAS Giveaway and Folx Winners
- 15 Control-Clicking Hints To Make You More Productive On Your Mac
- Download From RapidShare Without Waiting With Tucan Manager
- A Review Of The New Features Included In Windows Media Player 12
| Cool Websites and Tools [February 23rd] Posted: 23 Feb 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. Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf page on Facebook. Over 24,000 fans already!
    
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| Manage Your Unread RSS Feeds Better With These Tips Posted: 23 Feb 2011 05:31 PM PST
What's better than showing you your feeds to read right on your desktop? You could benefit from any built-in gadgets that can show you bits of news to help you catch up with unread pieces. Be Selective With The Feeds You're Trying To Keep Up WithIn order to reduce the number of items to read, you could also narrow down the topics you're interested in, edit the RSS feed yourself (unless your favorite blog offers feeds by categories) to remove items that you’re not going to read or care about anyway. If you want to be in total control of what shows up in your feeds, you can also create your own feeds by learning a bit of code.
To save yourself some time, there's Skeedy, a web-based app that helps you follow your favorite topics, instead of any specific blogs. You could also try your luck with tldr.it, which summarizes long articles or frequently-updated feeds to smaller, more manageable versions. Making Your Feeds Come To You (Display Them On Desktop)If you're more like me and have a few favorite blogs you're always looking forward to read but don't have enough time, consider displaying your feeds on your desktop with gadgets for Windows. While Windows Vista's sidebar gadgets often left the user with more to be desired, Windows 7's gadgets have a few additional features. You can make the gadgets a bit bigger, and for the feeds gadget, you can even add and edit the feeds (which I don't think you could do in Vista). The list of feeds on the feeds gadget by default are, according to Internet Explorer 7 , the feeds you've subscribed to and ones that you might be interested in. In order to add your favorite blogs to the RSS reader gadget in Windows 7, you'll need to first visit the webpage you wish to see on your desktop (for instance, CNN) in Internet Explorer and subscribe to the feed.
You can double-check that you've added the site by going to Favorites > Feeds. Now, right-click on the desktop and select Gadgets.
Once the gadgets show up, add the RSS gadget and click on the wrench icon for Options on the side of the gadget.
You should now have the recently added feed in the drop-down list.
You can now select how many entries to display and click OK. If you resize the widget, you'll probably get a better view of the feeds.
The benefit of having a gadget on Windows 7 is that it won't be too resource-intensive and you don't need to download anything extra, just a tiny bit of set up in Internet Explorer. Using additional, third-party RSS feed viewer gadgets include Feed Viewer, Hermes auto-scrolling reader and RSS Reader Plus can be a great idea because they are usually steps above the simple (built-in) RSS reader. With RSS Reader Plus, for instance, you can customize everything in the feed displayed, including fonts, color and sizes.
It even provides scrolling text, especially useful when you're trying to get an overhead of everything that's being expressed. One thing about the RSS Reader Plus is that it's currently very young so there are typos in the gadget.
If you prefer full-blown programs, you could benefit from using Feedling, which sticks your feeds on top of your wallpaper, perfect for this purpose (see Timmy’s screenshot above). Don't forget there are many traditional desktop applications, such as the cross-platform Google Reader app, and the open-source RSS Bandit. How do you manage keeping up with the constant stream of updates from your favorite news sources? Share your tips in the comments! Image credit: pandemia Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers!
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| Zenphoto – A Mighty Powerful Photoblog Engine For Your Website Posted: 23 Feb 2011 03:31 PM PST
I originally used Zenphoto a few years ago, and immediately noticed that the project has come on leaps and bounds since then. I’ll be looking at version 1.4.0.2 in this article, which at the time of writing has only been out for a couple of weeks. If you couldn’t be sicker of Flickr and fancy hosting your own hard work then step inside. Setting UpMuch like Pixelpost, ZenPhoto is designed to run on a web server and you’ll need your own hosting package to install. You’re going to need an Apache server with PHP version 5.2 or greater and MySQL 5 or better. As of version 2.0 it is now possible to use PostgreSQL and SQLite databases as well. The installation process is a fairly painless experience, and one that Zenphoto prides itself upon. You can download the latest version from the homepage in .ZIP or .TAR.GZ format. Once downloaded (it’s around 6MB compressed) extract the folder to a location on your hard drive.
Now upload the folder you just extracted to the desired location on your webserver. If you upload Zen to your root folder (usually a folder called “httpdocs”) your Zenphoto gallery will be found at yoururl.com/zenphoto. You will need an FTP client to upload, something like Filezilla is perfect. The upload process can take a while, depending on your upload speed so whilst that’s completing you might as well create a MySQL database. Your hosting company probably provided you with a web control panel like Plesk or CPanel to complete such a task. Once done make a note of the database name. You’ll also need to add a user to the database, make a note of both username and password. You’re now ready to install, simply visit yoururl.com/zenphoto/zp-core/setup.php and follow the instructions.
Admin DutiesOne you’ve set database options and defined a username and password, you’ll be taken to the admin panel. Zenphoto’s admin interface is definitely more attractive and probably easier to work with than Pixelpost, though the general layout remains the same.
One of the first stops you’ll want to make is the Options tab, which can take you a while to work your way through. Here you can customize the general settings related to your Zenphoto installation including RSS, plugins, your theme, upload settings, image display and comments.
When you’ve finally set everything up (and it can take a while) you’ll probably want to upload something. Luckily you won’t need to create any albums before uploading, as there’s an option to do so on the fly. Tags don’t quite operate in the same way and do need to be added on the Tags tab and then be attached to each image.
Batch uploading is possible as Zenphoto will accept .ZIP archives that contain recognised image types. Arranging everything just the way you want it is made infinitely easier thanks to the drag and drop interface and galleries can be manipulated in this way too. Once you’ve uploaded an image or .ZIP collection, you can then add titles, descriptions and individual attributes to your photos. There’s even the option to take care of watermarking for you and a fantastic thumbnail editor, allowing you to get the perfect crop.
EXIF data can be extracted from your images and put to good use, for example using the Google Maps plugin you can show visitors where the image was taken using the latitude and longitude stored in the image (if your camera supports it, of course).
You can add all these settings manually for each image of course, and once you’ve filled it all out you’ll probably have something that looks like this:
Whilst viewing your site’s front end you may notice there’s a handy Admin Toolbox in the top right corner, allowing you to manipulate various pages. From this box you can go straight into editing an image, log out and get back to the admin panel. This is a really handy little feature which means you won’t be constantly fumbling around with bookmarks or the address bar when you want to change something.
ConclusionAt this stage Zenphoto probably looks a bit drab and boring, and there’s still plenty more that can be done with it. I’ll be following this up with another post about themes, integrating your galleries and even turning Zenphoto into a blog-style CMS centred around your images. The exhaustive list of features supported by Zenphoto makes for a thoroughly impressive cost-free package. Let us know what you think of it or share your own gallery in 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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| How To Use Voice To Text Dictation With Express Scribe Posted: 23 Feb 2011 01:31 PM PST
For years, I’ve been looking for a high-quality free voice to text software solution that will automatically take an audio recording and transcribe it to text. Such an application will put a lot of transcription companies out of work, but it’s a dream that I believe will come true some day. Recently, I conducted another hour-long interview and in my search for such applications, I saw Jeffry’s article on how to transcribe audio using Express Scribe.
Dock & Speech Recognition to Transcribe Your VoiceObviously, the first thing I wanted to do with Express Scribe (Windows/Mac) is to stream an audio file to automatically transcribe the interview. This is my pipe dream, so I had to try. Although the odds were good it wouldn’t work, because the computer would only be able to learn my voice. Either way, the first step is to enable the built-in voice recognition service in Windows 7 and train it to understand your voice. Go into the Control Panel, click on “Ease of Access“, and then select “Speech Recognition.”
First select “Start Speech Recognition“, and this will enable the feature as part of your Windows experience. I very highly recommend that you click on “train your computer to better understand you” and go through the training sequence at least twice – it only takes about 5 to 7 minutes at a time. Speak as plainly and articulately as possible.
To enable speech recognition in Express Scribe, just click on Options and select the “Speech to Text” tab. You’ll see the default profile show up in the dropdown box. This is the profile that you’ve just trained to recognize your speech pattern. Click on “Add” so the profile shows up in the list.
Now that it’s ready to transcribe, the first thing I wanted to try was bringing in voice audio files and seeing how well the software transcribed them. You do this by clicking on “Dock” and then choosing the Audio File Transfer Method.
Using this selection, you then choose a folder where your external recording device, like a digital recorder, downloads files to your computer. This will import all of those files to Express Scribe. I used this feature to import audio files from my interview folder. Here’s what the transcription looked like.
As you can see, the transcription was pretty much garbage. Nine times out of ten the transcription can’t even get started, and when it does it will write a few words and then completely bomb out. Obviously, the automatic transcription of audio files that I dream about still hasn’t come true, but that doesn’t mean I’ve given up on Express Scribe. There’s still the fact that it is trained to recognize and transcribe my voice. So I could still make use of the software to transcribe my own voice recordings and dictations. To do this live (with your microphone), all you have to do is plug in your microphone and then click “Dock” and choose the Audio Cable option. The following screen will appear, showing the audio level of your microphone and that it’s actively streaming in the live audio. Go ahead and start dictating.
Of course, if you’ve recorded your dictation on a digital voice recorder, all you have to do is hook up your voice recorder output to the microphone input of your computer, and this feature will stream in the audio (that’s actually what it’s intended for – docking your recorder). When I was finished dictating a long sentence, I clicked “done” to see how well the software performed. As you can see below – pretty stellar. Only one word wrong (and should have been “can”), but that was because I stumbled when I spoke.
This is pretty impressive, and I can see using Express Scribe to transcribe a whole lot of recordings that I make while I’m mobile – it’ll save a whole lot of time in transcribing my audio, because I’ll only have to go back and edit any small mistakes. The accurate transcription from audio to text is not an easy feature to find in most free voice to text software, so it was surprising to see Express Scribe do such a good job. Another nice feature is the “Incoming” feature within the Options menu. Here, you can configure a certain recording directly on your hard drive for automatic syncing.
Configure a Dropbox account linked to this directory, and you have a fast way to upload your recordings from anywhere straight to the directory where your Express Scribe software is waiting to transcribe your dictation. In Express Scribe, you’ll have a really fast and convenient way to quickly transcribe any of your own audio recordings accurately and fast – especially if you automate it by syncing it to a Dropbox account. So, give Express Scribe a try and see how well it transcribes your voice. Share your experience in the comments area below. Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers!
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| Posted: 23 Feb 2011 12:30 PM PST
For more fresh hot deals, visit our Hot Tech Deals page, which is constantly updated.
Image credit: Modified from Svengraph’s icon set Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers!
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| 5 Websites To Make Your Own Personal Movie Lists Posted: 23 Feb 2011 11:31 AM PST
The true blue fan will shirk both and instead opt for the many online movie cataloging applications that have come into the picture (pun intended). But cataloging movies is a humdrum way of looking at it. Building custom lists of movies (for example, a list of movies I haven't seen) is an exercise of fun and discovery. The best part of it is that it helps you dig up movies you never even heard of. IMDb – My Movies
What better place to create your personal movie list than with one of the web's topnotch movie sites. Sign up or log in with your Facebook account. Strangely, it didn't let me sign up with my Gmail account. It is also a bit confusing because a free trial of IMDb Pro tries to sidetrack you with its paid offer. But once you are in, you can use the site's huge database to create your personal movie list, sort them into categories, tag them with your own notes, and also use the advanced search feature to go through your extensive lists. You can search the site as you normally do. On each movie's page, you will notice an icon that says “Add to MyMovies.” If you click it, the movie will be placed in your “Pending” bin. This is the simplest way to start with your list. A new feature lets you share the list publicly. Flickchart
If making your own list of movies sounds like plodding stuff, Flickchart brings the fun back. Mahendra did a complete review when it went beta. Flickchart helps you make a list by showing you posters of two movies at a time. You can click on either or both if you haven't seen them. You can set it to show you movies by genre, by date, by title, by cast, and by studio. Your user profile lists and ranks the movies you haven't seen yet. You can also quickly build up other custom lists by using the dropdown filters. iCheckMovies
This website doesn't let you create custom movie lists as yet, but it hosts a lot of lists of its own. You can browse these lists and pick up movies to watch. The different top lists are – IMDb, Critics (For example: The Best 1000 Movies Ever Made), Prizes (For example: BAFTA Best Film), Websites (For example: 250 Quintessential Noir Films), Institute (For example: 100 Best British Films), and Miscellaneous lists. The site uses your favorites to feed you recommendations of movies you should see. You can add movies to your watch list or even dislike a movie. As you go through the movies and finish watching them, you can tick them off the lists (see directory mention). Flixster
Flixster is a social network for movie fans. As a community member, you can share your tastes in movies with others and discover new movies while exchanging notes on the ones you have seen. Despite its share of criticism, the site is on the popularity charts of movie websites. A user's profile page has the My Movies tool where one can create custom lists and add movies with a search (by movie or actor). You can create as many personal movie lists as you want and share them or lock them as private. Related Lists is a shortcut to discover what others have favorite and movies you might have missed. MListr
Maybe there are some movies you plan to watch during an upcoming vacation? Or there's a list you want to create for your kid? MListr not only aspires to be the database for your personal choice of movies, but it also wants to use your tastes and recommend a few choice ones to you using its recommendation engine. MListr also has a few contests going where members are awarded for their lists. You can search for a movie and quickly add it to any of the default lists or the custom one. Some of the titles and their user reviews that come up in the search may have spoilers. The site could do with a better design and more user participation, but it makes creating movie lists a quick search and save job. My own custom movie lists have served one important purpose. Many times these lists have saved me from buying a movie I have already watched. Thanks to the recommendations, they have also saved me from watching a bad one. Check out 8 Online Guides To The Best And Worst Movies Of All Time by Mahendra and let us know what your personal movie lists have done to your movie viewing experience. Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers!
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| Easily Back Up Your Online Accounts For Free With Backupify Posted: 23 Feb 2011 10:31 AM PST
Still, there are people who don’t do backups – especially of their online data. The reason may be because the process requires a little bit more than just a simple effort. People want everything to be automated, including backups. Automation is exactly what you will get from Backupify. What Is Backupify?Backupify is an online service that will help you backup your online account data automatically. It offers 2GB of online backup storage in the free personal plan which you can use to link to five social media accounts. The free plan will back up your social accounts on a weekly basis and it supports social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Google Docs, Blogger and WordPress. 2GB of backup storage might sound small, but it should be more than enough for personal use. If you’d like to try out the service, sign up and choose the Personal/FREE option.
After logging in, long time Backupify users should see the old platform with the list of service settings and services in beta.
There’s a notice on the right side of the window asking long time users to switch to the new platform.
The new platform looks different with only one group of services. However, I found that some of the services from the old platform like WordPress, Basecamp, and Hotmail are not available in the new platform. So if you need to back up your data from those services, you can go back to the old platform by going to this address: “https://secure.backupify.com/settings“. The new platform address is: “https://app.backupify.com/settings“. The difference between the old and the new is that the old uses “secure” while the new one uses “app” in their URL.
Other differences between new and long time users that I spotted are the limit of backup storage and the maximum number of supported accounts. Even though both are taking the free plan, long time users get 10 accounts and 5GB storage.
While the new users only get 5 accounts and 2GB storage.
Building The Backup ListTo add a service to the backup list, click the “Add” link next to it.
The next step is to authorize Backupify to access the service. In this example, I tried to add my Facebook account to be backed up. If you are a heavy Facebook user who uploads lots of photos and videos, backing up your account might be a good idea.
Then you should allow Backupify to access your Facebook account so that it can perform the backup.
After the service is added, you can configure it the way you want.
In the case of Facebook, you can configure which type of data you want to back up. Click the “On” radio button next to the items that you choose. Don’t forget to save the configuration.
Repeat the process to add other services. One service that I personally think should be on your backup list is Google Docs.
If you want to, you can delete a service from the list by clicking the “Remove” link next to the service name. You will get a confirmation window before the service is really deleted.
Backing Up A WordPress BlogIf you are a longtime user and want to add your self-hosted WordPress blog to the backup list, you have to go back to Backupify’s old platform, locate WordPress in the “Services in beta“, and click “Manage“. You will get the link to download the WordPress plugin.
Download the plugin and install it from the plugin section of your WordPress blog. Go to the “Upload” area of “Install Plugin“, choose the zip file, then upload and install the plugin.
The Backupify settings will appear in the sidebar menu.
Inside it is the “Initialize Plugin” button. Clicking on it will bring you to the Backupify website and your blog will be added to the list.
The backup will be accessible from the “Archives“.
There’s a problem about adding services from the old platform if you are using the new platform: both platforms are not integrated (yet). So, you have to go back and forth between the two platforms to access the backups. I also don’t know whether the trick will work on the new users. What I like about Backupify is its ability to back up data from various social medias. Since everything is done automatically, all that the users has to do is set up the services once then forget all about it. Have you tried Backupify? What do you think about it? Do you know and use other alternatives? Please share using the comments below. Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers!
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| Mega NAS Giveaway and Folx Winners Posted: 23 Feb 2011 10:00 AM PST
Are you lucky enough to be one of the winners? Will you be getting a brand new toy today? Read on to find out. Folx Download Manager
Mega NAS Giveaway
Congratulations! To the Folx winners, an email containing download and registration details has been sent to you. To the NAS winners, we’ve emailed you for your shipping information. Please reply within 48 hours. Thanks everyone! We hope you enjoyed yourselves. Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Don’t forget to share our articles with others! It’s really important to us.
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| 15 Control-Clicking Hints To Make You More Productive On Your Mac Posted: 23 Feb 2011 09:31 AM PST
After you go through the list below, you’ll discover how much faster you can get things done by control-clicking instead of heading to the menu bar to perform similar actions. How It WorksMost new Macs now come with a Magic Mouse – a two-button mouse in which the right side is the Secondary Click or control-click button. If you don’t have such a mouse, you can purchase a third-party one at a pretty cheap price. To use it, simply use your third finger to click the button, and it will reveal a set of menu items.
You can also use the Control key on your keyboard to do the same thing. Simply hold down the Control and then click the main left button of your mouse. It works like holding down the “Ctrl” key on a PC using Windows. 1. Control-Clicking The DesktopTo quickly learn what control-clicking can do, place your mouse’s cursor on your Mac desktop and control-click using the instructions above.
In doing this you get several options, including the ability to create a New Folder, open the Change Desktop Background feature in Preferences, and additional items for managing items on your desktop. If, for example, you have a bunch of files on your desktop, control-click it, choose Clean Up, and watch all your files get neatly ordered. 2. Control-Clicking FilesClicking a file on your Desktop or in the Finder, will also deliver over a dozen hidden items.
You can, among other things, duplicate the file, make an alias of it, or send it to the trash. 3. Control-Clicking The DockControl-clicking an icon in the Dock allows you to reveal it in the Finder or have it open when you log into your computer. You can also launch the application this way, or remove it from the Dock all together.
If you control-click on the dotted space near the right side of the Dock, you can turn on the hiding feature or reposition the Dock on the screen.
4. Empty The Trash
No need to take your hands off the mouse to empty the trash, control-clicking on it reveals the menu item to do that. 5. Control-Clicking A ToolbarControl-click a toolbar of a Finder window and you will get options for quickly changing the views of the window. Notice also there’s a button for quickly removing an item from the toolbar.
And the Keep Item Visible button? Well, you select it after you click on a item in the toolbar that you want to remain visible when resizing the window containing that item. In other words, the item never gets hidden. 6. Control-Clicking TextControl-click some text and you will get lots of time saving options, including the ability to copy and paste that text, Google search a word or phrase, or perform spell check functions.
7. Control-Click To Compress FilesIf you have a bunch of files you need to email or post on a server for downloading, you can select and control-click on those files, and then choose "Compress…items" from the contextual menu.
This action will copy all the files into a zip file that can be opened up by you or the recipient of that file.
This saves you the trouble of emailing or uploading all the files individually. 8. Control-Clicking SafariControl-clicking in Safari gets you several time saving contextual menu items. If for example you control-click on a bookmark in the Bookmarks bar, you get the option of opening the bookmark in a New Window or a New Tab. You can also choose to edit the name of the bookmark or its address.
Click on an empty spot in the Bookmarks bar and you can quickly create a new folder.
9. Control-Clicking WebpagesDepending where you control-click on a webpage, you can get several menu options. Click on a blank space on a page and you get the option to reload the page, print the window, or tab backwards.
If there's a photo or a wallpaper file on a webpage, you can control-click on the file and do several things, including adding that image directly to your iPhoto Library or saving it to your Downloads folder.
If you click on a wallpaper image on a page, you can select the "Use Image as Desktop Picture" and instantly have your desktop background changed to that selected image. 10. Control-Clicking Mail
If you control-click the Mail icon in your Dock, you get the option to start a new message or note, or to manually download new incoming mail. 11. Control-Clicking Mail MessagesControl-clicking individual messages in your Mail application allows you to quickly reply to or forward that message.
There's also items for marking a message(s) as read or unread, or deleting it all together. 12. Control-Clicking iTunes IconSimilarly, control-clicking on the iTunes icon in your Dock allows you to do a number things like rate a playing song, pause play, or move to the next song.
13. Control-Clicking In iTunesWhen you control-click on a track in iTunes, you get more than a dozen options. In fact nearly every significant item in the iTunes menu bar can be reached in its contextual menu.
In the latest version of iTunes, you can favorite a track for your Ping account, pull up information about the track, rate it, or create an AAC or other MP3 file format of the track. 14. Control-Clicking In iPhoto
Control-click on a photo in iPhoto and you get the options to rate it, hide it, copy it, throw it in the trash can, or open it in the editor. 15. Service Menu ItemsIf you want to create your own contextual menu items, check out my article, How to Create Your Own Services Menu Options on Mac. Using an application called Automator, you can create actions to automate all kinds of tasks, including resizing folders and batch changing the names of files. By now if you have got the hang of control-clicking on items, you will discover that different applications also feature contextual menu items that can save you the trouble of heading to the menu bar or using shortcut keystrokes. So before heading to the menu bar, control-click first to see what you get. If you know of other hidden contextual menu items that I overlooked in this list, please share them in the comment section. And if you're interested in learning more about Mac automation tips, check out my free MUO Mac Automation Guide. Image credit: Shutterstock Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers!
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| Download From RapidShare Without Waiting With Tucan Manager Posted: 23 Feb 2011 08:31 AM PST
Skip this nonsense and get your files. Tucan Manager makes downloading files from single-click file sharing sites as simple as using BitTorrent to download files. The program bypasses the requirement to wait a minute or two before clicking on a download link, and can even queue multiple files for successive downloads if you like.
Using The ApplicationSo you have a link to a file on the likes of RapidShare, but don’t have time to babysit the downloading process. No problem. Just file up Tucan Manager and click “Add Downloads“.
As you can see, all you need to do is paste your link. You can even post multiple links, if you want, with the use of a comma. Once you’ve entered your links you can test to make sure they work:
This will let you know whether the link you’ve copied is valid or not. Some files are taken down from these services (particularly illegal ones), so that might be the explanation for an error. If not, check to make sure your link is a valid one by visiting it with your browser. If this is possible but Tucan doesn’t work, keep reading to find out how to update your services. Anyway, assuming your links are valid, Tucan will start downloading. The obligatory waiting period still happens:
But, unlike when you use RapidShare with your browser, you don’t need to wait until the waiting period is over. Heck, the program will even solve any captchas for you. Your download will happen automatically:
If you have multiple files set to download Tucan will work through them all in order without your input. This can make using these sites a lot easier, so enjoy! Supported SitesWhich sites, you ask? Well, as mentioned, Tucan Manager supports 13 different sites as of this writing. These sites include:
Tucan Manager includes a nifty internal updating feature, meaning the scripts that enable downloading from these different sites are kept working for you. If one of these sites isn’t working check the “Service Configuration” panel in your preferences. If updates are available you’ll find them there. Coming FeaturesWhat else could this program do? Well, uploading files. The team at Tucan Manager say this feature is in the works, and there’s even a button on the main toolbar for doing so. Here’s hoping uploading is added soon, and Tucan becomes a complete manager for all things related to file sharing. I always like finding programs that make life simpler, and Tucan certainly counts. If you want the hassle to be taken out of downloading certain files I highly recommend it. Do you like Tucan? Let us know in the comments below, and also feel free to recommend any other simple file sharing services. Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers!
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| A Review Of The New Features Included In Windows Media Player 12 Posted: 23 Feb 2011 07:30 AM PST
As Saikat pointed out a while back, Windows Media Player 11 had a lot of shortcuts, plugins, and nifty features to make your experience more enjoyable. But what does Windows Media Player 12 have to offer? In this new release of Windows’ popular media player program, you’ll see improvements in supported formats and streaming capabilities, new playback modes, and more.
What’s New Inside Windows Media Player 12?
As I stated earlier, if you’re a fan of Windows Media Player, you should enjoys the changes made to the latest version. The first thing you might want to know is that Windows Media Player 12 plays more types of media than its predecessors. Aside from supporting most AVI, DivX, MOV, and Xvid files, WMP 12 has built-in support for many popular audio and video formats, including 3GP, AAC, AVCHD, MPEG-4, WMV, and WMA. What does this mean for Windows 7 users? No need to worry about installing codecs!
Aside from having the ability to play more file types, you can now play those files in more places as well. Windows’ new “Play To” feature allows you to stream music and video to other PCs running Windows 7, as well as other compatible devices around your home.
To use Play To, just righ-click the tracks you want to play from your library, or add them to your WMP 12 playlist, and click Play To. This feature makes it easy to stream music, video, and photos from your computer to other PCs, TVs, or stereos on your home network. For example, you can stream music from your PC to your home entertainment system or stream slide shows/videos to your TV.
Likewise, Remote Media Streaming allows you to tap into your WMP 12 library over the Internet and enjoy your files while you’re away from home. To use Remote Media Streaming, both computers must be running Windows 7. Windows Media Player will walk you through the steps to turn it on, which will require you to associate both PCs with an online ID, like a Windows Live email address. Once you’re all set up, however, then you can connect to your library from afar.
Other features of note include the new Now Playing mode, while being very minimalistic, gives you a new taskbar thumbnail with playback controls, smarter DVD playback, 15-second song previews, and jump lists for fast access to your favorite media. ConclusionIf you haven’t upgraded to Windows Media Player 12 just yet, you can download the application here. You can see most of these features in this video walkthough. Let’s hope this article has helped you to get fully updated on what’s happening inside Windows Media Player 12. Now you can get back to watching movies, listening to tunes, downloading YouTube videos, and all that good stuff. I’m a fan of WMP 12 and will continue to experiment with it to see what else it lets me do. Stay tuned! What’s your favorite new feature on WMP 12? Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf page on Facebook. Over 24,000 fans already!
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