Latest Tips from MakeUseOf.com |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [November 14]
- Be A MakeUseOf Fan On Facebook!
- 3 Ways To Manually Backup & Restore Critical Windows XP Data
- How To Convert MKV Files To Burn As A DVD
- Alice Teaches Object Oriented Computer Programming To Kids
- How To Add Cool Free Animation to PowerPoint Presentations
- How To Make A Quick and Easy Web Comic
- Playfire (Beta) – A Social Community For The Addicted Gamer
| Cool Websites and Tools [November 14] Posted: 14 Nov 2009 04:00 PM PST
(1) Quick Image Downloader – Experimental Firefox add-on that lets you quickly save multiple images displayed on any webpage with a single click. All you need to do is to install the add-on as usual, and after restarting your browser you will see a green download arrow at the bottom-right corner of your browser. Clicking it will download images on any web page. Read more: Quick Image Downloader – Download Multiple Images At Once
(2) UnitConverter.org – Web resource that freely offers an extensive collection of unit converters for converting almost anything. It lists around 80 different converters organized in categories such as Common converters, Engineering converters, Heat converters, Fluids converters, Sound converters, Light converters, Electricity converters, Magnetism converters etc. Read more: UnitConverter.org – Free Embeddable Unit Converters (3) Unhid – Dead simple online tool that does one simple thing, it reveals the actual URL behind any shortened link. This comes in handy if you received a suspicious short link and not sure whether it is safe or not. Read more: Unhid – Reveal URLs Behind Short Links (4) HerdictWeb – Web service which tracks inaccessible sites in real time. It collects data on websites from users in different countries. Here is how it works: First you visit the homepage and enter the website URL that you can't access. Then hit "Enter" to view current reports. Read more: HerdictWeb – Check Accessibility of Popular Sites (5) VirtualRadio – Online application for Java enabled cell phones which allows the user to listen to Internet radio stations on their cell phone, without shelling out for an expensive smart phone. The app uses the GPRS internet connection available on almost all cell phones to download the audio at a rate of 32kbps. The audio quality is very high and music is crisp and uninterrupted. Read more: VirtualRadio – Listen To Radio On Your Cell Phone
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. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/ Related posts
        | ||
| Be A MakeUseOf Fan On Facebook! Posted: 14 Nov 2009 03:00 PM PST
We also often post there premium software giveaways. In addition to that, you’ll have the chance to participate in MakeUseOf polls and discussions; and ask our MakeUseOf writers technically-related questions or just tell everyone how much you love reading our site! Our Facebook fan page is the perfect way to interact with our readers — that’s you! So grab some friends and be our fans today! Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too. Related posts
     | ||
| 3 Ways To Manually Backup & Restore Critical Windows XP Data Posted: 14 Nov 2009 02:01 PM PST
The registry is the central part of the system data and the one most likely to cause problems. It contains all information about installed software, drivers, plugins, updates, and more. After countless edits due to software being added, changed or removed, errors and bad entries pile up in the registry. This can make your computer slow or even unstable. Here are 3 ways to backup the registry, two of them along with other critical system data. 1. Export Specific Registry KeysIf you are going to make changes to a specific registry key, you can selectively export or restore this key. BackupClick > Start > Run, type > regedit and click > OK. The registry editor will open. Select the key you wish to backup, right-click to open the menu and click > Export.
In the same fashion you can export an entire registry branch or the registry as a whole. RestoreTo restore, you simply double-click the backed up REG file and it will automatically update the registry with its contents. 2. System State BackupWindows XP Pro and other NT based Windows versions have an internal backup feature, which can be used to backup essential system data, including the Boot file, the COM+ class registration database, and the registry. BackupGo to > Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Backup Option. The Backup or Restore Wizard will open. Click and switch to > Advanced Mode and open the > Backup tab. Select the files you would like to backup, in this case > System State, which can be found under > My Computer. Be sure a path is displayed under > Backup media or file name. If this is not the case, click > Browse… and select a destination. You can also change the name of the backup file. Then click > Start Backup. A window summarizing the backup data will open. Change the backup description and eventually make further settings. Then click > Start once more. This backup can take up to 5 minutes. RestoreTo restore a system state backup, open the Backup or Restore Wizard in Advanced Mode as described above. Switch to the > Restore and Manage Media tab. Your previous backups should be listed. Select the one you would like to restore and click > Restore Backup. 3. System Restore PointWhen you set a system restore point, several files are saved, including files in the Windows File Protection (Dllcache) folder, the local user profile, COM+ and WMI databases, IIS metabase, all files that are monitored due to their file extension and the registry. With a system restore point you can return to a previous system state. This can be helpful in case changes to the registry, new drivers or program installations have caused damage. Your personal documents, such as browser bookmarks, eMails or photos are not affected. BackupTo create a system restore point manually, click > Start > Run, type > %SystemRoot%\System32\restore\rstrui.exe and click OK to launch the tool. On the welcome page select > Create a restore point and click > Next. On the following page enter a name for this restore point and click > Create. Stefan recently reviewed a tool called Single Click Restore Point, which significantly speeds up this process. RestoreTo restore previous computer settings and an older registry, you open the System Restore welcome page as described above, select > Restore my computer to an earlier time and click > Next. On the subsequent page select a recent system restore point from the calendar and click > Next. The Confirm Restore Point Selection page displays the restore point you chose. Click > Next to continue. Your computer will now start to restore the previous Windows XP configuration and reboot. If you’re running into issues after installing hot fixes or patches from Microsoft, you might want to know How To Roll Back Windows Hot Fixes & Patches in XP. Fortunately, Sharninder has explained it in a recent article. Did you ever ruin your system or the registry to the point where only a backup could save it? Image credits: flaivoloka Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too. Related posts
     | ||
| How To Convert MKV Files To Burn As A DVD Posted: 14 Nov 2009 12:01 PM PST
So you have the last episode of the Sopranos to watch and no way to get it to play on your DVD player? I will help you learn how to burn mkv files to DVD with a free application! The application is called E.M. Free MKV Video2Dvd V3.10 (Freeware). It can be downloaded from here. Once you download and install it you will be ready to convert and burn your MKV files to a DVD directly or to an ISO file to burn later on. Either which way you will be on your way to watching your video file in no time. You will then choose between Easy Mode and Advanced Mode. The easy mode is well um….easy! So that is the way we went. If you need to modify the menus, chapters, subtitles or other good stuff choose the advanced mode option.
Locate your MKV file in Windows Explorer and drag and drop the file in the white portion of the window above. Repeat the process for any other files you want in the same compilation. Could it be any easier? Yeah well they could do it for you right! But this is pretty damn easy. Once you get your files in there can you guess what we do next?? If you said hit the Burn Now button – shame on you Make Use of reader! We should look at the settings before burning! If you don't want to hit Burn Now choose your output files as ISO or burn to DVD and you are done. You will see choices for NTSC and PAL on the TV system pull down menu on the left hand side. And then on the right you will see the display aspect ratio. You can drop that down to choose widescreen or normal old TV options on the aspect ratio. 4:3 is normal for those of you who don’t know. You can also hit the change profile button to see the pre-configured profiles for quality. I left mine on the Automatic adjustment setting. You can choose the best setting for yourself and obviously the worse the quality the more you can fit on the disk. Now you are ready to burn. Hit OK on the settings screen and Burn Now on the main interface. From there you will see your two options. One for a DVD disk burn and another for a straight ISO image. You can burn the ISO later. Once you select your burn now preference you will see the progress of the burn. My video was just a sample 5 minute clip and it finished almost instantly. I saw this and knew I was done. I now had a ISO I could burn. If I had a DVD burner in this machine I would have burned directly. How do you deal with MKV files? Share your thoughts with us in the comments! Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/ Related posts
     | ||
| Alice Teaches Object Oriented Computer Programming To Kids Posted: 14 Nov 2009 10:01 AM PST
One of the coolest memories I have as a kid is when my brother and I would copy BASIC programs from the computer magazines of the day (1980’s) into the old Franklin 64 desktop computer with one floppy drive and a whopping 64k of RAM. I’ll never forget when we finished typing the last line of that first program and then entered the command to RUN – how the screen started flashing characters and the miniature speaker beeped through a pathetic rendition of “Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy.” Pure magic. I was only 9 years old, but at that moment I was hooked on computers for life. For anyone who has never created an application, it’s hard to describe the feeling of creating something from nothing. Programming is a lot like any other form of art in that way, except instead of the canvas we’ve got the computer screen, and instead of the paint brushes we have the various programming platforms. Here at MakeUseOf, we believe in the importance of simple learning tools that can teach complex skills, such as computer programming. For example, Guy covered how you can learn to write a program with SmallBasic, and he also covered a cool application called Scratch that can teach kids how to program. Today, I’d like to cover another innovative software application called Alice that can teach kids how to program in object oriented languages.
Alice 3D Programming – What It Is & What It Isn’tAlice 3D is a programming environment offered by Carnegie Mellon University. It’s provided for free as a public service, through the funding of various programming and computer giants, such as Electronic Arts, Sun Microsystems, the National Science Foundation and other major organizations. Alice is not a scripting tutorial where students will learn about the correct syntax used in various programming languages. It isn’t about developing the best structured For Loop. Instead, Alice provides students with a virtual world – a 3D modeling environment where students can learn how putting together various components, which each individually have their own properties, can create a larger, working project. The 3D environment is meant to show students, in a simple way, how the concept of object-oriented programming works. The software itself has a built in tutorial, which makes sense because it’s main purpose is to serve as a teaching tool. The first screen allows students to choose from one of the tutorials, open a recent world they created, see examples or open a world they’ve saved on the computer. The option I want to show today is how a student can start from one of the available templates and create their own 3D animation. For this example I’ll go with the space scene. If you’re a programmer, the first thing you’ll notice are the panes on the left side of the screen where all of the objects and the associated properties, methods and functions are listed. The interface is so intuitive that students don’t even need to understand what objects and methods are, just by adding objects and using the interface to manipulate them, they’ll be slowly learning the concept of object oriented programming. Adding an object to the screen is as simple as pressing the green “Add Objects” button. In the object gallery, students have dozens of very fun “objects” to choose from. These include characters, machines, vehicles and even special effects like fire and thunderstorms. In this scene, I’ve added the moon surface, a lunar lander and an astronaut. As you can see in the upper left window, every object is made up of many components, each individual objects with their own properties, methods and functions. You can control any one of these by dragging and dropping the component into the programming area at the bottom of the programming interface. When you do drag the object in, a pop-up screen shows you all of the available methods and functions you can use to program the behavior of that particular object. This is similar to how, in most object oriented programming languages, the programming platform typically offers this same feature. Once you drill down through the available functions and select the one you want, it gets inserted into the program. The program itself can be as simple or as complex as you like. As you can see here, it’s possible to create intricate and highly functional programs by using If/Else statements, While loops and other standard conditional statements that are a part of most programming languages today. Within a few minutes of playing around with this addictive learning program, I created a 3D animation where the astronaut moved closer to his lunar lander and waves “goodbye.” The camera pans in closer, and then as the lunar lander launches without him on board, he says, “Uh-oh.” The exciting thing about this fantastic free learning tool from Carnegie Mellon University is the fact that it can be a very simple learning tool for very young kids to learn basic programming skills, or it can be a useful tool for even high school kids to generate very intricate and ingenious programmed 3D worlds. In either case, this is one of the best programs that teach computer programming to kids that encourages children to engage with their computers in ways that they may never have considered – with a depth of understanding kids just never really achieve when all they do is chat on IM and update their status on Twitter and Facebook. Alice helps kids understand the heart and soul of what makes computer technology and programming so cool. Would you ever consider using Alice in your own school or as part of your curriculum? Is this a learning tool you would consider sharing with your own kids? Share your insight and experiences in the comments section below. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too. Related posts
     | ||
| How To Add Cool Free Animation to PowerPoint Presentations Posted: 14 Nov 2009 08:01 AM PST
In this article, we'll see how you can add free animation for your PowerPoint 2007 presentations. PowerPoint Animation BasicsIt is useful to understand the four basic types of free animations for PowerPoint:
Now let us see some simple ways you can add animation to your presentation. Use Preset Animation for Text or ObjectsTo animate any object (text, shape, etc.), do the following:
2. On the ribbon, select the Animations tab. 3. Choose an animation effect from the Animation drop-down. Use Custom Animation for Text or ObjectsFor fine-grained control, click the Custom Animation button to bring up a task pane on the right. Clicking the Add Effect button brings up a menu with four types of animations from which you can select the one you like. You can also add multiple animation effects, and see them added to a numbered list in the task pane. To remove any of them, select the animation from the list and click Remove. As you add animation effects, you will see numbered tags added beside the object you have selected. You can further customize each animation effect using the three drop-downs. Start specifies whether the effect starts upon a mouse-click, starts simultaneously with the previous one, or starts after the previous one. The second drop-down depends on the effect and is used for customizing direction or other properties specific to that effect. The Speed drop-down selects the speed with which the effect is applied. For advanced customization, right-click an effect in the list to bring up the context menu. Select Effect Options from the context menu to bring up a dialog box with more options to customize the effect. You can reorder effects within the list using the Re-Order arrows at the bottom, and click Play to preview your animation. Add Transitions Between SlidesAnimations between two slides are called Transitions. To add Transitions, do the following:
You can optionally add Sound and change the speed of the transition using the drop-downs in the ribbon to the right as shown above. If you want to remove the transitions you have added, just select the slides and choose No Transition (first one) from the list. Add Motion Path AnimationTo make a graphic object move in a certain path on the slide, use Motion Path animation. This works best for graphic images with transparent backgrounds, as the graphic moves across other elements on the slide. To add Motion Path animation to an object, do the following:
You can also check out a gallery of preset motion paths by selecting the More Motion Paths… menu item. Add Animated Clip ArtYou can also check out free animated clip art graphics on the web. The Clip Art section on Office Online has a huge library of clip art, including animations. You can filter your search at the bottom to find only animations related to your search term. In this way, you can get some cool free animations that are ready to be added to your presentations. Another website to check out animation clip art is Animation Library. Do your presentations come alive after adding animation? Tell us in the comments! Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/ Related posts
     | ||
| How To Make A Quick and Easy Web Comic Posted: 14 Nov 2009 06:18 AM PST
I used to draw them when I was at school a few years ago. Mostly just little characters with funny expressions when I should have been doing physics or French or something. So the other day I had an idea for my new blog; I’d start a weekly web comic. Why not? People like them, they’re fun to make, more memorable than an average post and they keep people coming back when you post them on a regular basis. But there were a couple of obstacles in my path when I considered how to make a web comic. The first one was that I hadn’t picked up a pencil in almost five years. The second one (and perhaps the bigger problem of the two) was that my scanner is currently out of operation. And what I mean by that is I lost the power cable and the adapter. However, there really is no extreme need for a scanner if you’re only making a basic web comic. So my first task. Draw my cartoon. I decided that I’d make my first strip a quick one using the same image three times. The joy of drawing cartoons is that they don’t have to be good. Just draw it big. Really big. An A4 page will make up one panel. Then, when you shrink it down and edit it a little your mistakes will become so miniscule they won’t matter. In fact, blemishes and bad effects add character to a drawing.
This is where technology works its magic. Send the drawing to a Photoshop program. I used Gimp because it’s free but you could also use Adobe or another program similar to that. If you need to brush up on your Photoshop skills I suggest reading MUO's Idiot's Guide to Photoshop. The first thing we want to do in Photoshop is blow the picture up to 200%. This is normally found under the ‘Image‘ tab along the top of Photoshop programs. This is so the editing tools used later on will be more accurate. Then we want to highlight the different areas and separate the lines from the open spaces. To do this, lower the level of brightness and up the contrast like in the screenshot below. This will give you red areas with deep black lines like they’ve been inked beforehand. Now it’s time to clean it all up. Using the eraser tool (on its largest setting) clean up all the spotty and blotchy areas from when I altered the brightness and contrast. Don’t try to be too perfect as you’ll be there for hours. Just get the big areas and the blemishes in noticeable places. All the bad areas will be further cleaned up as you go along and then made smaller when downsizing the image.Your image should look like this when you're erasing all the blemishes. Now that you’ve got all the main blemishes and marks removed, fill in the large areas with the colours and textures that you want. I chose to go with the simple ‘fill with colour‘ tool but you can use different brush styles and patterns to replicate hair, leaves, sky etc. It all depends on what style you want your drawing to be. Since I’ll be posting mine weekly to my blog I want to keep it simple so it won’t take up too much of my time. When all of your main areas are coloured there will still be marks and the image won’t look good at all. No really I mean it, it won’t. Click ‘Save‘ and then open the file with MS Paint. The reason I’m using Paint to finish off the editing is because it has some good ‘line tools’ to make the objects look better and it’s easier to work with.
Then use the line tools and the box tools to make regularly shaped objects look better. You can see how I made the table appear better by using the deep, bold lines but I’ve still left in some blemishes and crooked lines because that’s the style of my drawing. If you’re going to use the same drawing in multiple panels like I did then select it with the cropping tool. When you have it selected, right-click on it and click ‘Copy’ and right click on the page and paste the drawing in again. Then move it into the next panel area. Use the shape tools to add panels (don’t be afraid to experiment with different style panels – when they’re all the same it can get boring. It’s not a spreadsheet!). Finally, resize your image to a good size for your blog. Six hundred pixels wide is about the max you can hope for on the web. The final task is to add captions and speech bubbles. You do this last because resizing text ruins it completely. Enter in the text where you want it to go in the panel. Then surround it with a shape which will form the basis of a speech bubble. Erase one of the corners, and by using two lines make a little point towards your character. You can used curved lines for this if you wish. Here is my finished comic strip. Nothing fancy as it was largely just a test to see if I could do it. It took me about 45 minutes from start to finish. It would have taken less if I had a scanner – that would have meant less cleaning up in the beginning. Here are some tips for how to make a web comic on your PC:
Of course, if you have a drawing tablet you can simply draw it directly onto your PC and forget about all that cleaning up! How do you manage to draw and produce your web comics? Any tips you’d like to pass on? Thumbnail Image Credit: atibens Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too. Related posts
     | ||
| Playfire (Beta) – A Social Community For The Addicted Gamer Posted: 14 Nov 2009 04:01 AM PST
A war cry that wouldn't need much urging, because gamers have a clannish streak in them. You will find them in dedicated groups in every online game community worth its name. You come across a name like League of Shadows or Terran Warrior, and you know that there's a hardcore gamer hiding behind it. Gamers are a large community and they tend to find their own, especially with the rise of multiplayer games. The seriousness with which people pursue this hobbyhorse has given birth to the term Electronic Sports or eSports. You have amateurs and professional pitting themselves against each other. An amateur, I wouldn't bracket myself with the term “addicted”, though once upon a time I came pretty close. Occasionally, I do try to clear the dust and answer The Call of Duty. But gamers who are still in the thick of things now have a new hangout. Playfire is one of the coolest free online game communities exclusively for the gamer. The online social networking application is still in beta, but by the sleek looks of it, can soon jump out. Playfire – What's it all about?
The First Level – A Signup and a ProfileSignup is simple and the profile setup is also easy but with a twist. In three steps, you let the site know your gaming platforms, what games you have played and then a bit about you – your level of gaming interest. But that's just for starters. To complete your profile, you have to furnish a few more details like your profile pic, describe your gaming rig, choose your gaming genres etc. After doing the basics, go into your profile page and deck it up. You can select Themes, showcase your game collection on a visual bookshelf, do a bit of microblogging, add videos and also connect through Meebo with your online friends. Climbing To the Next LevelsThe site is designed like a video game. To rise up, you have to complete certain activities. The completion stages help you garner points and the points in turn, help you rise up. The formula is, the more you participate socially, the higher you rise up with your points. Your Activity Feed page is the dashboard of all your activities (or lack of it). The highest points are reserved for bringing others into the Playfire fold by sending out invites. Submitting games, rating them and volunteering answers to game related queries also make you a popular member of your clan. The best way to get a bunch of points and shoot up the charts is to get a Playfire award or two. Answer 100 quiz questions correctly and you become a 'Smartypants'. Answer 1000 and you are a ‘Gaming Genius’. The Gaming CommunitiesPlaying is never fun alone, is it? So you have Playfire Groups, gamers who share a common passion, like a particular genre of games. Like The Final Fantasy group with nearly 1,175 members. There's also Girl Gamerz Rawk! (it's written that 40% of all gamers are female – I believe it!). Each group has a page of its own. Request membership by clicking on a blue button and then you can take part in the forum discussions. Clans are the other more narrowed down social circle. Clans on Playfire are group of players who play together regularly on multi-player games. You can search for a clan and join it or start one of your own. Clans again have their discussion boards and a request membership link. The community is a continuous gaming talkfest with Events thrown in. Events are gaming sessions between members…create one and announce it to your friends. You have Game Planners to co-ordinate all your online meet-ups. Discussions are all about shooting from your mouth but if you really want to walk that talk as a serious gamer, then take the Quiz and see how you fare against your pals. There's a lot to do on Playfire. For a diehard gamer it can be a port of call after playing a few rounds. In the few days spent there, Playfire felt like a complete gaming community. Some pages I think are still being worked out as told by a few broken links. That's like a single frame's glitch in an otherwise slam bang effort. Join up, and let us know your shout's worth on Playfire. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/ Related posts
     |
If you enjoy reading MakeUseOf and have a Facebook account, be a fan of our 
There are several critical areas of system data that can cause serious computer issues when they become corrupted. For such cases it’s important to have a backup of these files or a way to return to a previous system state.
Have you ever downloaded a file and waited patiently for it to come in? Then you realize that the file's extension is not an AVI or mpg and it is in fact a MKV file. MKV files are known for their high quality and their inability to play in most DVD players and media players without plugins.
Alice is one of the coolest programs that teach computer programming to kids. What is Alice? It’s an important tool schools and families can use to turn computer programming into a game-like experience to teach basic object-oriented programming to kids.
When used judiciously, animation adds emphasis and visual appeal to PowerPoint presentations. It can transform a dull presentation into a lively and engaging one. However, you should be careful not to overdo it. Too much animation can be distracting, reduce comprehension, and make a presentation appear flimsy.
Cartoons and comics have been a feature in print media for hundreds of years. They’ve taken many different forms from political statements to funny gags to chuckle at as you slurp your morning coffee.
Your image should look much bigger in Paint. Use this opportunity to go around with the paint brush and fill in any missing details and white areas. Use the colour matching tool highlighted in the screenshot to the right to match the colour exactly.
Gamers of the world, unite!
| You are subscribed to email updates from MakeUseOf.com To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment