Get Organized On Your Android Phone With Astrid
Category: Technology>Make Use Of

One of the issues that I deal with often, and have yet to find a good solution for, is personal organization while I’m on-the-go. I’ve used Google Calendar, iDailyDiary and even Excel. However, one problem that I always have is that when I have to travel a lot, or I’m racing from place to place, I lose track of those items that I needed to get done for that day.

Keeping up to date on a daily to-do list stored on a desktop or even an online application isn’t always possible when you don’t have constant access to a computer or to the Internet. Thankfully, once I got a new Motorola Droid and started exploring the Android Market, I stumbled upon one of the best mobile personal organization application that I’ve ever used – Astrid.

Mobile Personal Organization With Astrid

Astrid is a to-do list and “task tracking system” from the good folks at WeLoveAstrid. I’m not exaggerating when I say that Astrid completely transformed my time management style, and it dramatically improved my efficiency and the amount of work that I’m able to accomplish in less time. It does this by evaluating the information you provide and then prioritizing your work appropriately.

By inserting everything that you need to get done, when it’s due, as well as priority status and what alert settings you would like, Astrid becomes your virtual secretary that assists you with your personal organization – telling you what you need to do right now and how much time you have left to do it. This lets you focus on the most important things instead of jumping from task to task, because you can’t figure out what’s really the most important to do first.

This is the main list that you’ll review every day. These tasks include everything – the daily, weekly and monthly tasks that you schedule to repeat as well as the one-time tasks that you need to get done every now and then. The main screen provides you with a quick glance at your workload, with your most important tasks (by the priority you set and the deadline) listed at the top. On this main screen you can see the task title and when it’s due.

Adding a new task can be as quick or as detailed as you want it to be. The fastest approach, when you’re in a hurry, is to just type in the task at the bottom of the screen and then press the “+” character to the right. This immediately adds the task to your list without any deadline set. When you’re running around from place to place, but you really need to remember to do something, just type it in quickly. You can always set the deadline and priority later, but at least you know you won’t forget about it.

Later, when you’re ready to assign a deadline and priorities, just scroll to the bottom of your task list (since there’s no deadline it has the lowest priority) and then click on the Edit button.

These three screens – basic, dates and alerts – are where all of the magic happens. This is where time management professionals will tell you that you can really do a stellar job at more efficiently managing your time, and more effectively spending your time. On the basic screen, you can assign one of four priorities to the task. This is intuitive enough – one exclamation mark for not very important, and four for tasks that are critically important. Insert tags to categorize your task (if you want), assign how long the task will take once you start it (this helps with the timer feature later), and any special notes that you need to remember for the task.

The dates screen is the one that I’m on most of the time, because I have so many deadlines throughout the week that I need to remember. On this screen you can set both an absolute deadline and a goal deadline. I love this, because it gives me a personal “early” deadline that I like to shoot for, and if I miss it because life is too hectic, I know that I still have until the absolute deadline (when the task is really due) to finish it. You can also click “Add Task To Calendar,” which automatically inserts it into your online Google Calendar (very, very cool!) and if it’s due far into the future, you can also select to hide the task and only have it show up on a certain date. If you’ve partially completed the task before entering it into Astrid, you can fill that in – which also helps with the timer feature.

I don’t personally like a whole lot of alerts ringing my phone all the time, so I usually only set up Astrid to ping me with an alert either at the deadline itself, or as the deadline approaches. However, Astrid is flexible enough to really perform any alert structure that you like, such as alerting after deadline or can set it up to annoy you with constant reminders every so often if that’s what you like!

When you click on a task in your main to-do page, you have the option to edit the page or start a timer. The timer basically counts down the time that you have left to complete the task once you start it. If you believe writing an article should only take you two hours, Astrid will count down two hours. A lot of people like to use this because they need to move on to other things whether or not a task is completed in the assigned time. I personally like to work through my estimated time to task completion whether I estimated correctly or not, so I don’t use the Timer feature – but a lot of time management enthusiasts use it. So, it’s there for you if you need it!

I’m not kidding when I say that using Astrid has nearly doubled the amount of work that I’m able to accomplish each week. I’ve also better aligned my time toward the most critical tasks, and I’m much less likely to be quite as forgetful as I used to be about those lower-priority tasks. Don’t get  me wrong…some things slip through the cracks, but only because I forgot to enter them into Astrid!

Do you have your own personal favorite mobile personal organization application? Share them in the comments section below!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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5 Web Apps To Optimize Images For Use On The Web
Category: Technology>Make Use Of

Images form an integral part of the web these days. And as it turns out, images are one of the most common reasons of slow page load times. With loads of mobile devices accessing the Internet and the recent hints that the loading speed of your site would effect its rank on Google, you would definitely want to remove this bottleneck.

One of the ways to optimize photos for the web is to use CSS sprites. Sprites work best for images that are used inside navigation or other site elements, that are going to remain the same more or less. The other option is to optimize the image size by altering the amount of information contained in images, compressing them and removing any unnecessary metadata.

Here are some of the options you can use to optimize images for the web.

Use Your Image Editor

Most image editors have one or more ways to optimize images for the web. Photoshop and GIMP let you choose the quality of the saved file which can be used to control the file size. In addition Photoshop also offers a save for web feature, which not only optimizes the size, but also takes care of color profiles so that the colors in your images look the same on the screen as you intend them to.

Smush.It

Developed by Yahoo, Smush.It analyzes the file format of the specific image file that you are trying to optimize and then applies the specific optimizations for that particular image format. Great thing about Smush.It is that it doesn’t alter the quality of the image. You upload the images that you want to optimize, Smush.It processes them and gives back the results in a downloadable zip file.

Online Image Optimizer

Online Image Optimizer lets you upload a gif, jpg or png image of 300KB or less and optimize them. Just choose an image from your computer, upload it and Online Image Optimizer will do the rest for you. It presents you with a number of different versions of the image along with the size and optional preview. Depending upon the purpose you are using the image from you can choose from a set of options. There is evident degradation in image quality in the very low size images. Optionally Online Image Optimizer also gives you an option to convert the format of the image file to one GIF, JPG or PNG.

PNG Crusher

PNG Crusher is a Mac application. As the name suggests it specializes in PNG file optimization. The application gives you a container of sorts that lets you drag and drop PNG files onto it. The files are then compressed using OptiPNG as the backend. The site notes some PNG’s are already pretty optimized and PNG crusher can’t do much with them. The PNG files are replaced with the optimized versions only if the compressed files are smaller than the original ones.

GIFWorks

GIFWorks performs a number of operations on GIF files. You can upload an image from your computer or specify a web URL and then edit the GIF file, add transition effects between frames as well as optimize the GIF image. GIFWorks provides you with three options to optimize GIF images for the web, you can reduce colors, restrict the palette to only web safe colors, or split the frames to pick and choose which ones to keep. In addition GIFWorks also lets you create 3D text from scratch as well.

PunyPNG

PunyPNG lets you optimize GIF, JPG and PNG images for the web by converting them into compressed PNG files. There is minimal to no loss of quality during the compression process and the results are excellent. The site requires flash and has a maximum file size limit of 350 KB.

Which apps do you use to optimize images for the web?   Let us know all about them in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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5 Best Websites To Learn The GIMP Photo Editor Online
Category: Technology>Make Use Of

Are you into photo editing and image manipulation? If that’s a ‘yes’ then I’m sure you’ve heard of the GNU Image Manipulation Program, codename GIMP. The GIMP photo editor is a free and light alternative to Adobe Photoshop and is very capable of handling all of your image processing needs. If you’ve mastered MS Paint and don’t have deep enough pockets for Photoshop, GIMP is for you.

So you want to learn the GIMP photo editor? You see, that’s the thing with image editing programs, they’re extensive. You can literally do so much with them that it’s hard to figure out what all the buttons and settings actually do.

Luckily there are websites to handle this dilemma. We’ve covered one such resource previously here at MUO called VunkySearch. We’ve also taught you ‘How To Use Scripts & Plugins in GIMP’ and how to ‘Batch Edit Your Images with GIMP’. Additionally, the following is a list of 5 of the best websites to help you learn the GIMP photo editor.

GimpUsers

The self-proclaimed GNU Image Manipulation Portal is your one stop place for all things GIMP. The community that is GimpUsers has a forum, chat, GIMP hotkeys page, written tutorials page, and page for video tutorials. The tutorials cover a lot of information from the basics of the GIMP photo editor to the special effects and techniques. Downloading video requires a BitTorrent client.

GIMP

GIMP is where you go to download the latest version of GIMP, but did you know they have a tutorials page? The page has links to step-by-step tutorials that will help you with some of the more common tasks you might undergo with the program. They are separated into categories such as beginner, intermediate, expert, photo editing, web, and script authoring.

These tutorials are well-written, very in-depth, and incorporate pictures/screenshots for you to follow along. It’s not a bad place to learn GIMP, especially if you’re just starting out.

Gimp-Tutorials

Gimp-Tutorials has tutorials that are similar to those mentioned above, but there are many more of them. You can learn how to do a wide range of things with GIMP on this website. Their categories range from painting, effects, and textures to photo manipulation and website layouts.

Tutorials are broken down into easy-to-follow steps and include many large images to help you.

GIMP-Tutorials

GIMP-Tutorials is another similarly named website that has a lot of tutorials, nearly 1,000 manually added as of this writing. These tutorials are user-submitted and clicking on one of them takes you to the original user’s website/tutorial page. You can find an expansive amount of information there.

Gimpology

Like GIMP-Tutorials, Gimpology is a collection of tutorials from around the web. Submissions are listed in reverse chronological order and viewing them takes you to the creator’s page. You can also favorite them, leave comments, and rate them out of 5 stars. Some of the information is going to overlap with that of the sites above, but there are always new tutorials to be discovered.

In conclusion, there are a lot of places out there where you can learn how to use GIMP and all of its vast features. The websites listed above are GIMP-specific, but by no means do they cover all of the resources that are available to you. A lot of sites offering tutorials for Photoshop also have a GIMP page. Remember, Google is your friend.

As always, I hope you found these resources useful. Do you know of any other great sites to learn GIMP? If so, leave them in the form of a comment below, along with your thoughts, ideas, and other insights!

Related MUO Articles:

10 Free Image Editing Programs for your PC
4 Great Applications for the Graphic Designer on a Budget
8 Simple Free Photoshop Alternatives that are under 2 MB
Who Needs Photoshop When You Can Have Splashup?
Say Goodbye to Adobe Creative Suite

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Cool Websites and Tools [February 5th]
Category: Technology>Make Use Of

Check out some of the latest MakeUseOf discoveries. All listed websites are FREE (or come with a decent free account option). No trials or buy-to-use craplets. For more cool websites and web app reviews subscribe to MakeUseOf Directory.

Submit Your Web App

[thumb]https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/56503[/thumb]

Caveat Emptor – This firefox add-on allows you to check a product on any Web page against the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s database of recalled products. Simply select the name of the product and the add-on will automatically open a search results page on the CPSC’s Web site. Read more: Caveat Emptor: Instantly Check Recent Product Recalls.

[thumb]http://3outube.com[/thumb]		3ouTube – There are number of tools for downloading videos from YouTube, but none quite as simple as 3outube – the easiest YouTube downloading tool to use in the entire world. Don’t believe me? To download a video from YouTube using this tool, all you need to do is browse to your video and change the “y” in “youtube.com” to a “3″. Read more: 3ouTube: The Simplest YouTube Downloading Tool Ever.
[thumb]http://www.loseitorloseit.com[/thumb]		LoseItOrLoseIt – Sometimes it takes a real money wager to keep you motivated to accomplish hard goals such as losing weight. LoseItorLoseIt is a fun web service that lets you design your own 10-week weight loss program while betting to see if you can actually lose weight. You risk your money every time you fail to reach a goal and you get your money back if you meet your weight targets. Read more: LoseItOrLoseIt: Bet To Lose Weight.
[thumb]http://www.time.is[/thumb]		TimeIs – TimeIs is a nifty web service that gives the exact time at almost any point in the world. It checks computer clock accuracy and lets you compare times at different locations while telling you how much off your PC clock is. Read more: TimeIs: Checks Computer Clock Accuracy.
[thumb]http://www.iconspedia.com[/thumb]		IconsPedia – Extensive and free icon resource online. If you are looking for an update or new look for your website, you are sure to find what you want in this extremely diverse collection. Contributions from designers are included in IconsPedia and often these excellent additions are not available on any other site. Read more: IconsPedia: Extensive & Free Icon Resource.

 

Submit Your Web App

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.

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A Thorough Look At CamStudio As An Effective Screencasting Tool
Category: Technology>Make Use Of

Screencasts are those videos depicting a shot of a computer screen.  There are many applications for such a program such as tutorials and software reviews.  It is also often used to record video chat conversations.  There are quite a few tools for creating screencasts.  Today I would like to review another free screencasting tool that has actually been around for awhile.  It’s free, good at what it does and offers several key features.

The purpose of this article is to review some of those key features. So, buckle in and come along for the ride and see if CamStudio is the tool for your screencasting needs. I will touch on 4 different key features. When you try CamStudio, you will see that there are also other features and I think you’ll be pleased with them, but for the sake of this article I will be focusing on 4 key features of this free screencasting tool.

Regions

CamStudio allows you several different options when it comes to the region of your screen being recorded.  Choose “Region” from the Region dropdown menu and upon clicking Record, you will be able to draw out the square area you would like to see recorded.  Choose “Fixed Region” and you will be able to enter numbers indicating possition and size of the desired screen recording area.  Choose “Full Screen” and the whole screen will be recorded.

You also have the option to turn on autopan which will allow the recording area to follow the cursor around.

This will allow you to record a smaller screen area, effectively zooming in on what you’re working on, and still be able to use the whole screen.

Cursors

One difficulty that arises while creating screencasts is the difficulty to see the mouse cursor.  CamStudio offers some options to combat this issue.

As you can see in the screenshot above, you have several options such as using a different cursor, highlighting the cursor, and even hiding the cursor altogether.

Audio

There are several options with this free screencasting tool when it comes to the audio.  If you are planning on adding some kind of audio later on, you can choose to not record any audio.  However, you can also chose to either record your voice through the microphone or record the sound coming through your computer.

Screen annotations

CamStudio also gives you the ability to add screen annotations, little memos, speech balloons, arrows, etc. that can be added to a screencast to bring attention to areas of the screen.  Creating the annotations is quite simple but there is a bit of a trick to adding them to the screencast.  Don’t worry, we’ll go through it to make sure it isn’t all that difficult.

Find the screen annotations option under the tools menu.  Choose something from the list and double-click it.  Right-clicking on the balloon, cloud, etc. will also give you some needed options such as edit text, edit image, edit transparency and resize.  There are also options to save and clone the annotation.  Unless you want to mess around creating these things in the middle of the recording, you may want to save them for quicker access.

If you want to add the annotation to your screencast, simply pause the recording, go to the annotation you saved, place it where you want it, and continue recording until you want it to disappear.

Camstudio runs on Windows only.

It’s your turn to give your opinion and/or advice!  What tools do you use for creating screencasts?  In what ways to you use screencasting tools?  What are your thoughts about CamStudio?

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How To Properly Use The Image Playback Feature On Your Digital Camera
Category: Technology>Make Use Of

One of the most exciting features of digital photography is the ability to instantly review shots as they are taken. Just this one feature alone has practically changed the dynamics of how we take photos. Used effectively, the image playback of camera can help us greatly improve our image making.

However, if you’re just beginning with digital photography and not sure how to use a digital camera, you might be overlooking the useful information that image playback feature of your camera provides. If you have never really considered the details of image playback, grab your camera and the manual that came with it, and let’s look at this aspect of how to use a digital camera to reveal some of the possible information you might discover.

How to Use a Digital Camera Image Playback

I’m assuming that you know what button to push to play back images on your camera. Typically your camera will set up to automatically playback the most recently shot image, but you should also know how to pull up the images up at any time.

Review time

Next, you should locate the menu setting for the Review time that you images will be shown in playback. The default setting might be 2 or 4 seconds. Four seconds is good, but 8 may be even better in order to have ample time to better review your images between shots. A longer review time does increase battery charge but not significantly in my experience. And just because the review time is set for say 8 seconds doesn’t mean images have to remain on display for that time. Once you press the shutter button again, the image playback should disappear.

Image Type

Another piece of default information is the image recording quality of your photos. An icon will typically be displayed to show what type image quality you’re shooting in, such as small, medium, or large JPEG size or one or more RAW quality image types.

File Numbers

Image playback will also typically indicate how many shots you’ve taken and what is the number of the shot you’re currently viewing.

Now each camera will be different. The images of the information used in this article are taken from the Canon 50D. You may also have to push your camera’s information button more than once to get additional detail. On the Canon 50D, pressing the INFO button up to four times provides additional information.

Exposure Information

The most useful information in playback are the exposure settings (see image above). If a photo is not coming out right, you can check the exposure settings in image playback. If the photo is too dark or blurry, you can check the shutter and aperture settings for the photo. Typically if a shot is not sharp, it might be because the shutter speed is too low, say below 1/30th of a second. Or maybe the aperture is closed down at f/11 or or smaller. Image playback is a quick way to check that information.

Additional Information

Again, the information may be a little different, but typically additional information might include the following:

1. The date and time the images were shot.
2. The file size of your images
3. The White Balance mode of the shot
4. The shooting mode the shot was taken in, e.g. Automatic, Program, Aperture or Shutter Priority, Manual.
5. Metering mode
6. The Histogram, which is another tool you can use to analyze the exposure quality of your images
7. Color Space Mode. Typically this mode should be  set at Adobe RGB for highest quality. sRGB is primarily for images that will only be posted on the Web.
8. And finally there might icon to tell you what type of media card you’re using, e.g. Compact or SD.

RGB Histogram

Image playback might also include RGB information, which is a graph showing the distribution of the images brightness of each color (red, green, and blue.) On the graph, when you see pixel information bunched toward the left of the graph that indicates how dark or less prominent the color is. Pixel information bunched toward the right indicates how bright or overexposed the color might be. The RGB histogram and the regular histogram simply help you get a better understanding of the quality of exposure of your images.

Magnified View

You should also know that you can magnify your images in image playback in order to see just how sharp they are. Images viewed on LCD screen typically look twice as good as they do when viewed on a much larger monitor where you see much more image detail. So look for your camera’s magnifying button in order to zoom in on the photo to check its sharpness.

Multiple Images and Rotating Photos

Finally, in image playback you can also view multiple images at a time or play them in a slide show setting.

Images can also be rotated if need be in image playback. If images you shoot are not upright when reviewing them, check your menu settings to see if images can be automatically rotated to landscape view for the widest viewing.

If you’re new digital photography, also check another one of my MUO articles, 10 Features You Should Know About Your Digital Camera.

Let us know if you’re using image playback on your camera. How does it help you take better photos?

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The 5 Best Free iPhone Apps I Can’t Live Without
Category: Technology>Make Use Of

For me, the iPhone is a constant companion. I might say that the device itself is something I can’t live without, whether I like it or not. In general, having the iPhone with me 24/7 has been a good thing. After all, when I need to disconnect, there is always airplane mode.

Recently, I moved all my apps around so that the most used apps are all on the home screen. Surprisingly, many of the apps that ended up there are free. I say surprisingly because I’ve bought quite a few apps in the past few years.

This little exercise in efficiency made me wonder what the best free iPhone apps were for others. So here I ask: What are the 5 iPhone apps you can’t live without?

I will start things off by sharing the best 5 free iPhone apps that I can’t live without.

Skype [iTunes Link]

Many people I communicate with are die-hard Skype fans. So primarily it’s important for me to connect with them using a medium where they feel comfortable.

When I’m on the MacBook Pro, I generally have a Skype session open with several threads of conversation going. It’s great to continue those conversations as I step away into iPhone land.

I also appreciate and use the international calling features; however, that is not free. If you don’t have a Skype-In phone number, check out this post to get one free.

Google Voice

While not an official app, the new HTML 5 version of Google Voice gets the job done. I recommend that you make the app into an icon that resides on your home screen; when you go to the Google Voice page on your iPhone a small pop up appears that offers this option.

About 3 months ago I made Google Voice my primary number and most times, I forward those calls to the iPhone. Before this app, it was painful to make outgoing calls. Now it’s just a simple as making a call via the native iPhone phone app.

You can also send SMS messages, turn on the “Do not disturb” feature and change various other settings. I also like the ability to view your inbox and listen to voice mails (especially since the voice to text feature is still abysmal).

Lose It! [iTunes Link]

I am still amazed that this app is actually free. I suggest you download it now before that changes. As the name implies, this app helps you “lose it” and by “it”, they mean weight.

This app helps me keep track of my weight over time and ties that data with a diet log. There is a large database of pre-selected foods with the availability to add custom foods. You can also add what exercises you completed throughout the day and Lose It! will offset your daily budget of calories accordingly.

Recently, they added a feature where you can join up with friends on your quest to Lose It!

WordPress 2 [iTunes Link]

As a blogger, it is important for me to be able to respond to commenters when ever I can and make edits on the road when necessary. Usually the kinds of questions I get – especially the solution-based posts – are time sensitive and I know how important it is to respond quickly when someone is looking for an answer.

This app is also a good tool to store future blog ideas. Simply type in the title and perhaps a bit of brainstormed notes and save as a draft to be completed when you get to your main computer.

AppMiner [iTunes Link]

If you love free quality apps like I do, then grab this app right now and begin to smile. Granted, many of the apps I find here are garbage, so here are the methods I use to find the good stuff:

Method 1: Click the “Sale” tab and look for apps listed in the “Top” section and then click the “Free” tab.

Method 2: Search for the app you wish to buy on sale or free and then “watch” it. Then periodically check the “watch” tab for hopefully a good deal in the future.

You will also want to check out FreeAppAlert to find free apps and receive alerts via Twitter or RSS.

Your Apps!

Please take some time and share your “can’t live without” apps with us. Make sure the app is free and not one of the default apps that come pre-installed with the iPhone. Thanks!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Adding More Power To Your Bookmarklets With Quix
Category: Technology>Make Use Of

Despite the memory and system resource hog, many of us are addicted to Firefox because of its expandability. With the right set of plugins, you can turn the browser into virtually anything that you need, for example: a writing suite.

But expanding functionality is not a monopoly by Firefox. You can teach any browser a new trick or two by adding bookmarklets. You can find tons of bookmarklets scattered all over the web, each with its own functionality; from a simple “mail page to” script to “grammar and spelling checker” to “print easy to read web page” to mention just a few. Application developers also create their own bookmarklets to integrate the functionality of their apps into browsers. The following is a short bookmarklet tutorial on how to do some of the above with Quix.

In a crowded room

Even though they’re cross-platform and in general (much) lighter than Firefox plugins, bookmarklets have their own downside: they clutter the bookmark bar. Adding a new functionality means occupying precious space.

Most people need several must-have functionalities according to their preferences. And in no time, they will need a much bigger bookmark bar because the room’s already crowded.

So, what’s the best solution? Less clutter but heavy on resources or nippier but crowded? The answer is clear: lighter and less clutter. You can achieve this with the help of Quix.

All-in-one bookmarklets center

You can say that Quix is like a box where you put your collection of bookmarklets. Then whenever you need a specific functionality, you can easily run the one that you need.

Before you can use Quix, you must put it on your browser’s bookmarks bar. Go to the website, then drag and drop the bookmarklet to the bar.

Using Quix is almost similar to use any other bookmarklet: you just click it (or if you use Safari, you can use the assigned shortcut). But since Quix keeps many commands inside it, you need an extra step – typing a specific shortcut – to run the one function that you need. You could say it’s similar to Quicksilver.

First time users could need a little help in getting themselves familiar with all the available built in commands. That’s why the first logical step to do at the first time you open Quix is to ask for help. Type “help” in the box and click “OK“.

This command will open the help page at Quix site. Here you will find the complete list of default commands. Memorizing all of them would be a difficult task, but you’ll quickly remember the ones that you need most. For me, they would be “g”, “w”, and “fc”,

Add your own sets of commands

As extensive as the built-in command list might be, many commands are still left behind.

To fill in the gap, you can add your own commands to Quix’s list. But at this moment, the process is a bit too difficult for everyday users.

You need to go to the Syntax page to know all the necessary codes and steps – including making the command file available on the web.

Then you continue to the Extend page, put the address of the command file and drag the modified bookmarklet to the bookmarks bar.

Footnotes

After playing with Quix for a while – and without even touching the Syntax and Extend page, I could safely drop almost all of my existing bookmarklets and empty out the bookmarks bar.

So far, I have no complaint about using Quix. But if I could make some requests to the developer, maybe they would be to add the ability to:

1. Import existing bookmarklets to Quix – thus, simplifying the process of creating custom bookmarklets.
2. Synchronize those custom commands to other computers. This way, we can have our favorite bookmarklets available wherever we are.

Have you tried Quix? Or do you know other alternatives? Share your thought, opinion, and knowledge using the comment section below.

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The Top 5 Free Online Resources For Collectors
Category: Technology>Make Use Of

Fancy yourself a collector? Collections can be comprised of almost anything and there are lots of things you could collect. Today I will be focusing on 5 collectibles and websites with collectors’ resources. People need to know how much items cost and where they can find them.

The 5 collections covered in this article will be are as follows: coins, comics, guns, baseball and other sports cards, vintage dolls (Barbie and the like).

So first up, we will be looking at a site with collectors’ resources for you coin collectors. I found a site that covers coins and coin collecting; where you can find out their prices and other nifty resources. The site is called 2-clicks Coins.

When you visit their site, you will see this:

I clicked on Value of coins to start and looked up a few coins I have from my childhood. You will also find tips for the beginner coin collector or how to get your children involved with your hobby. Pretty neat.

The next hobby is comic book collecting; another favorite from my childhood. I still have boxes of old #1’s in Mylar. Back in the day, the only way to price comics was to purchase the wizard or another comic book guide for twenty bucks or more. So nowadays checking out Comic Price Guide and seeing its potential makes me think that kids have it easy now!

The site looks like this:

You will find a site that allows you to buy, sell, create wish lists and manage your collection. They have classified ads, places to learn about grading the condition of the books, storage and so much more. You can find out about particular brands or comic lines. This place has everything a budding new comic collector or a old school collector.

Now I hear some people collect guns. That is not something we are legally allowed to do in New York City but it is legal some places. The site I found is a section of UsedPrice.com. This site has pricing for all kinds of firearms. It looks like this:

Once you’re there, you will be able to drill down and check out specific makes and models of guns. Great collector’s resource.

And getting back to the main stream hobbies, let’s check out sports cards. Baseball cards used to be the big thing but it has exploded into every sport imaginable and the site Rookiestars lets you check out all sorts of information sports card pricing for free online. This is what the site looks like and covers:

You can click on any of the sports and then a specific time frame. Then you can see the pricing for all valuable cards. Another awesome resource.

And last, we have a hobby relating to buying, selling and collecting Barbie dolls and other “Fashion” dolls from way back when. The site is called Fashion Doll Guide and they offer up all types of information any budding doll collector should have as a resource at their finger tips.

Here is a shot of the site:

Maybe you have another hobby? Do you have sites that you consider to be an invaluable resource and couldn’t live without? We would love to hear from you in the comments! We have also covered a site that allows you to manage your collections over at the directory, check it out.

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How To Add A Cool Twisting Tag Cloud For Your Wordpress Blog
Category: Technology>Make Use Of

The vast amount of cool customizations maybe one of the reasons why people choose to go through hoops installing their own self-hosted wordpress blogs instead of using other free blog services. And one of those cool things is the wordpress tag cloud plugin.

For those who are unfamiliar with tag cloud, it is a visual depiction of user-generated tags, or simply the word content of a site, typically used to describe the content of web sites. Tags are usually single words and are normally listed alphabetically, and the importance of a tag is shown with font size or color. Thus, both finding a tag by alphabet and by popularity is possible.

This is what a wordpress tag cloud plugin looks like:

I never really put much attention to tag cloud, but one recent discovery altered the path of my focus a little bit.

It’s (not) gonna rain

What I discovered was a tag cloud with a twist – literally. What made it different from ordinary tag clouds was the way the content of the cloud twisted around in 3D. I personally thought that it was cool and it added the visual richness of the blog. Translation: I wanted it.

Problem was, I didn’t know what it is called and whether or not it will work with Wordpress. After some searching and asking around, I finally could exhale a sigh of relief because I found the wordpress tag cloud plugin to produce that kind of effect. The plugin is called WP Cumulus.

With a clear target to pursue, I went directly to the installation process.

Note: This plugin is Flash-based. So, there might be several factors (type of browser, browser plugin, internet connection, etc.) that might cause it not to display properly.

Installing Wordpress Plugins

I picked the easiest way to install the plugin. I logged in to my Wordpress dashboard and continued to the sidebar. I chose the “Plugins” link and “Add New“.

I did the plugin search, and…

Clicked the “Install Now” button.

After the installation, I chose to activate it directly. But if you want to activate/deactivate it, you can do so from the Plugins page.

Controlling the Cloud

One of the ways to tweak the display options of the wordpress tag cloud plugin is by going to the Tools > Settings > WP Cumulus menu from the sidebar.

There are many tweakable elements including the size of the WP Cumulus box, the font and background color and the rotation speed.

You can show WP Cumulus as part of your blog theme, use it as a widget, or insert it into post and/or pages using simple codes. Look at the plugin’s “Installation” page at Wordpress.org for more detailed instruction.

If you want to use it as a widget, you have to make sure that your blog’s theme supports widgets. If it does, go to the Appearance > Widget menu.

You will find the WP-Cumulus item in the widget list. All you have to do is drag it to the widget bar.

WP-Cumulus as a widget also provides its users with settings pane.

Don’t forget to click “Save” after adjusting the settings.

The color of the cloud

You will notice that all the colors used are written in hexadecimal HTML color codes. One trick that you can use to find out which code belongs to which color is to search for it via any application through the options to change the color of its element.

For example, you can use any word processor and begin the steps to change the font color. Then you can use the color palette to search for the color code. For those who work with graphics and images, you can utilize your graphic applications.

Or you could search the web with the search string: “web color code” or “hexadecimal color code” (or something similar).

Life beyond the cloud

Because the WP Cumulus plugin produces moving images, it’s a bit difficult to show it here. To see how this twisting tag cloud looks on a real site, there’s no better place to visit than the plugin creator’s page. The site is also a good place to start finding similar plugins for other blogging platforms.

There are other interesting variations of tag cloud plugins for Wordpress. To find out more, you could search for “moving tag cloud” (or other similar search strings) in the Plugins section of Wordpress.org.

Do you use tags to enhance your Wordpress blog visually? Do you know other cool tag cloud Wordpress plugins? Share using the comment below.

Image credit: kevindooley

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How to Change the Color of the Windows XP Start Button
Category: Technology>Make Use Of

For those of you using Windows XP and getting tired of the green start button, listen up! Here is a straight forward article showing you how to change the color of the Windows XP start button for free.

The XP start button consists of three layers: a bitmap file, a start text, and a hover text.

Thanks to this circumstance you can simply change the color of the underlying bitmap image layer.

Disclaimer: MakeUseOf is not responsible for any damage caused by making changes to your Windows system files. Please follow the instructions at your own risk.

This hack describes how to change the color of the windows xp start button from the “Default (blue)” and “Olive Green” sub-designs of the “Windows XP Style” to a color of your liking. The same procedure can also be used to change other elements and designs.

First of all, you will need to download and run a tool called Resource Hacker. It will show you the contents of the file that we’re going to edit.

Before you start, I recommend to make a backup of any files that you are going to change. To make a backup, open your Windows system root folder, typically found under C:\Windows. Alternatively you can go to > Start > Run, type %systemroot% in the field, and click OK. Within the folder, go to > Resources > Themes > Luna. You can also go there directly by tying %systemroot%/Resources/Themes/Luna in the Run dialog box. Make a backup copy of the file “luna.msstyles”.

Now run Resource Hacker and open “luna.msstyles” and expand the following folders: > Bitmap > BLUE_STARTBUTTON_BMP. Here, you see the dreaded green color background image that is going to be changed.

Save the bitmap image to your desktop through > Action > “Save [Bitmap: BLUE_STARTUPBUTTON_BMP: 1033] …” and leave Resource Hacker open.

Open the saved bitmap image in a program such as Photoshop or Paint and work on the colors until you’re happy. Don’t change the original dimensions of the image and save it as bitmap (.bmp file). For this demonstration, I simply inverted the colors.

Once you have a new image, go back to Resource Hacker, click > Action, > “Replace Bitmap …”, and a window will open. In the top left click on > “Open file with new bitmap …”, select the .bmp file you edited, and click > Replace in the bottom right.

Don’t forget to save your changes in Resource Hacker, then close the program.

To see your changes, you must either reboot or change back and forth between two Windows styles. Right-click onto your desktop, select > Properties, go to > Appearance and switch the sub designs. To the left, you see my admittedly ugly result.

As mentioned previously, this hack describes changing the start button color for the “Default (blue)” and “Olive Green” designs. To change the button for the Silver design, edit and replace the bitmap image for METALLIC within the Bitmap folder of the luna.msstyles file.

If you would like to change other elements of the XP start button, for example the text, check out Will’s article WinHack – How to Change the Windows Start Button (Win XP).

What is your favorite Windows hack?

Image credits: gradient

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How To Make A Printer Wireless
Category: Technology>Make Use Of

So you have yourself a wireless network and a printer. The printer is not wireless. The challenge is that you would like to print over the wireless network from any computer connected to your network either wired or wirelessly. How do do it?

The answer is quite simple and the logic behind it is quite sound. No matter what the make or model the printer is, you can simply send print jobs to it through the wireless network by connecting it to a computer that is always on and share the printer from that machine.

I will be using good old Windows XP as the client and print server to show you how it works. It will be a little more complicated on Windows 7 or Vista but if you have your share permissions down, it should be easy.

First things first. Make sure that you have the same username and password set up on the machine you want to use as your print server and the machine you are going to print from. This is required so that you can communicate with the other machine. Once you have the machines’ usernames and passwords synced up, you can turn to the machine with the printer attached to it.

From this machine (which we will call the print server), we will need to set up the printer on it (if it is not already completed). Test that you can print and the output is what you expected. Then we will need to go to Printers and Faxes in the control panel.

You need to right click on the printer that you want to share and choose properties like so:

When you get to the properties page for the printer, you will want to click on the tab that says Sharing. Chances are sharing will be turned off like it is in the screenshot below. Simply click on the share this printer button. That will enable the box to type in the printer’s name. It will be grayed out until you click the radio button to share it.

You will want to name the printer something memorable. I called mine HP1100 (this was the default the machine offered me)

Now depending on what other operating systems that may connect to the print server, you might want to click the Additional drivers button to load up drivers for other operating systems besides Windows XP.

That will take you to this screen:

Simply check off the system types you want to use and point it to the correct drivers. You may have to find the CD that came with the printer or go download them from the manufacture’s site.

Now, when you are done walk on over to the computer you want to print from wirelessly. Hit Start – run and then type \\ and your IP address or host name. Mine is 192.168.1.29 so I typed \\192.168.1.29

If you see this dialogue then you do not have the same password and username on both machines.

Hit Control+Alt+Delete on each machine and verify that the username is the same. When you are done, run the command again and you should now see this:

Double click on the printers folder, then on the actual printer. It will install the drivers and you will be good to go and able to print from any application as long as the print server is on.

To learn to share a printer over the Internet, check out an older post of mine.

Did you expect a more technical way to share a printer wirelessly? Would you modify your printer to enable printing over a wireless network? Tell us your solutions in the comments.

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Print From Your Android Phone With PrinterShare
Category: Technology>Make Use Of

More and more, our mobile devices are becoming tools to manage our business. No need to carry that big laptop everywhere, you can just check your email on your mobile phone!

With calendar synchronization and text processors, handheld devices like the iPhone or Android have grown invaluable. And yet there’s one thing still missing from the business setup: a printing utility.

Actually, most people don’t even think of printing from their mobile phone; at first it just sounds like a ridiculous idea. But when you come to think of it, why not? Many laptops come equipped with a wireless printer driver! And the possibilities aren’t restricted to business uses: think printing pictures just seconds after you take them.

With PrinterShare, this is possible. Not only to print at home, but from anywhere in the world.

Printershare

Karl Gechlik already tackled PrinterShare in February 2009, with his article on How To Share a Printer Over The Internet. Most of that is still applicable, but today we’re taking on the mobile side of business.

The supporting desktop application is available for both Windows and Mac OS X. In this article, we’ll tell you how to get it running on the Android OS, but note that there’s also an iPhone version available.

Unpleasantries

Before you read the rest of this article, let’s start of with the downsides. Albeit heavily outnumbered by the positivities, it’s nice to know that…

• You cannot print directly to a wireless printer, unless you upgrade to the premium version
• …so you must keep a computer running that has access to your printer
• Your printed pages will bear a banner watermark, unless you upgrade to premium

Although the premium has dropped in price from a monthly 20 USD to a mere 9.95 USD since our last article, the free version will perform well enough for most people.

Step 1: Installing PrinterShare on Your PC/Mac

First of all, we’re going to install the supporting application on your home computer. When you print a page from your Android, the job will be re-routed through the PrinterShare servers, and executed by the application. You can find downloads for Mac and PC on the site.

Somewhere during the installation, you’ll be asked to register or enter your account details. It’s a quick registration that needs nothing but your email address. Your user ID and password will be mailed to you.

After the installation, launch the application to choose which printers you want to share. Note that only people with your user ID and password (i.e. you) will be able to print through it, even though it is handled by a third-party service.

Step 2: Installing PrinterShare on Your Android Phone

To install PrinterShare on your Android phone, just search for it in the Android Market. It’s a quick and clean install and needs nothing else from you.

Step 3: Printing From The PrinterShare Application

With the application installed on your Android, there’s really little work left to be done.

Start by launching the application. You’ll see the possibility to print pictures, web pages, contacts, calendars and call logs. Pick any of those to mark a more specific selection.

Now, before you’ll be able to print, you need to link your Android app to your desktop computer at home. By pressing the menu button on your phone, you’ll be able to pick a printer, either by scanning the area for wireless devices or by entering your account info – on a free account, you’ve only the latter choice. After entering the information received by email, you’re done and the printing job will be sent over the net.

Do you know any cool alternatives to PrinterShare? We’d love to hear them! Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

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Cool Websites and Tools [January 30th]
Category: Technology>Make Use Of

Check out some of the latest MakeUseOf discoveries. All listed websites are FREE (or come with a decent free account option). No trials or buy-to-use craplets. For more cool websites and web app reviews subscribe to MakeUseOf Directory.

Submit Your Web App

Origami-Club – If you love the art of paper folding, then you will definitely get hooked with this website. Origami Club is a free comprehensive online resource for paper art lovers and origami enthusiasts full of free and easy origami diagrams. With this website, you can browse through various origami creations and find directions on how to create them. Read more: Origami-Club: Free & Easy Origami Diagrams Online.

		ImHalal – There are plenty of search engines on the web that focus on accuracy and relevancy even though that sometimes means displaying inappropriate and explicit content. ImHalal is a search engine design for the Muslim community that filters out all the ‘explicit’ content when displaying the search results. This allows people to use the internet in a clean and safe environment. Read more: ImHalal: A Search Engine For Muslims.
		Img4me – Despite the ton of spam everybody gets in their mailbox, it is sometimes vital to post your email address online in blogs or forums. An excellent way to prevent spammers from getting your email address is to turn email address into image so the bots cannot detect it. Img4Me is an internet tool that can help you with that. Read more: Img4me: Turn Email Address into an Image.
		MoveIdiot – Are you curious about the next country you are visiting or simply interested in trivial facts of other countries? If so, then you should bookmark Geognos. This educational website will tell you all the key facts on country’s around the world including the history, geography, people, government, economy, communications and transportation. Read more: MoveIdiot: Easily Manage & Plan Your Move Online.
		SnapSort – SnapSort does only one thing but does it very well. It lets you compare specs for digital cameras side by side. Start by going to SnapSort and typing in the name of any camera. As soon as you start typing, the auto-suggest feature will make it super easy for you to select the camera you want to compare. Once you have selected the two desired cameras, SnapSort will compare them with each other and tell you which one is the winner. Read more: SnapSort: Compare Digital Cameras Side by Side.

 

Submit Your Web App

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.

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How To Convert The MOD Camcorder Video Format To MPG Instantly
Category: Technology>Make Use Of

So your friendly neighborhood admin has been asked this question way too many times and I have decided to share this information with you here in the hopes that users will Google this issue before asking!

Camcorders such as the JVC Everio (pictured below) use a .MOD extension to save their video files. This is very frustrating for a number or reasons. The first reason being you cannot easily read .MOD files in Windows Media Player or many other top tier video applications – many people try hunting for a MOD file converter without success. The second reason that this format infuriates me is that users also have a horrible time trying to get their videos converted into DVD format. Most DVD burning applications do not know what to do with a .MOD file. And my final reason for hating this .MOD format is that this proprietary format is not proprietary AT ALL!

Huh? What?

That’s right. JVC and some other well know brands like Canon and Panasonic have decided to just rename the extension of their files. Can you believe that the files are actually standard MPEG2 sound files and thus should be very easy to manipulate, convert and <gasp> actually watch?

The devices we have seen that use this horrible file format are:

• JVC GZ-MG30
• JVC GZ-MG70
• JVC GZ-MG37
• JVC GZ-MG77
• JVC GZ-MG50
• JVC GZ-MG130
• JVC GZ-MG155
• JVC GZ-MG255
• JVC GZ-MG555
• Panasonic SDR-S100
• Panasonic  SDR-S150
• Panasonic  SDR-S10
• Panasonic  SDR-H18
• Panasonic SDR-H200
• Panasonic SDR-H40
• Panasonic  SDR-H60
• Panasonic  SDR-SW20
• Canon FS100
• Canon FS10
• Canon FS11

So now that you have acknowledged your issue, let’s show you the ridiculously simple way (not using a mod file converter) to solve your problem.  When you open Windows Explorer and look at your files, they are either unrecognized or you have a program like VLC installed so you can view them. We covered VLC’s awesomeness many times on MakeUseOf here.

This is what I see when looking at my file on my system after copying it from my camcorder.

Now if I try to open it with Windows Media Player this is what I get:

Then you think that you would be able to click on Yes and view your file in Windows Media player seeming that it is indeed a MPEG2 that Windows Media Player would have no issue playing. But alas, this is what we get after clicking Yes:

And if we examine the bottom of the Windows Media Player windows we see this:

And then after some unsuccessful requests, we finally see this error message:

But by deploying a little MakeUseOf magic, we do the following. First, make sure you have your Windows Operating System set to show file extensions. You can find this option under Folder Options in Windows Explorer. Then you can rename the file’s extension to be .MPG and make it work. You heard me correctly — by simply renaming the file, you will make it work in Windows Media Player or any DVD authoring or burning software just like that! Let’s see it in action:

Right click on the file and choose Rename like so:

Rename the extension from .MOD to .MPG and then you will see this warning:

Click Yes and that is it! You have successfully converted your camcorder’s video file without any sort of MOD file converter, but instead with a simple rename! Who knew it could be so easy!

Did this solve your problem? Have you ever encountered any other weird file formats when using camcorders? Would you like to share your solution with us? Hit us up in the comments!

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