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Mobile Media Converter: A Cross-platform No-Brainer Media Converter

Damien — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:39:29 +0000

Fancy a media converter that works in all Operating Systems and supports most of the widely used multimedia format? Look no further, Mobile Media Converter could just be the one for you.

The Mobile Media Converter (MMC) is a free video and audio converter for converting between popular desktop media formats like MP3, Windows Media Audio (wma), Ogg Vorbis Audio (ogg), Wave Audio (wav), MPEG video, AVI, Windows Media Video (wmv), Flash Video (flv), QuickTime Video (mov) and commonly used mobile devices/phones formats like AMR audio (amr) and 3GP video. iPod/iPhone and PSP compatible MP4 video are also supported.

Simple UI, great functionality

One thing that I like about MMC is that it is simple in design and does not contain any extra stuffs to misled its users. Regardless you are using Windows, Linux or Mac, you will get the same interface throughout. There is a +/- button for you to add/remove file(s), a button to select the output destination, a dropdown bar to select the output format and a Convert button to start the conversion. That’s it.

Its simple design is by no mean an indication of a lack of functionality. On the contrast, it is packed with plenty of features that you will find it useful.

Supports a variety of media formats

Be it video or audio formats, MMC has covered it all. It is able to convert between the commonly used formats, such as OGG, MP3, WMA, WMV, MP4 WAV, AVI etc. Unless you are using a device that required a special codec, MMC should have you covered.

Batch conversion

MMC supports batch conversion of videos/audios. Simply add a bunch of videos/songs to the application and it will batch convert them and save them all in the same folder.

Advance setting

Most of the time, you won’t have need for this, but if you are keen to change the output bitrate, codec, channel, size etc, then this is the place to go to.

Youtube downloader

We have previously covered several Youtube downloader desktop apps. Here’s another one to add to your collection.

The best part about this is that after downloading the Youtube video, you can convert it to the format that you want, or just to extract the mp3 track in the video. This is great if you just want to get the music out of the video.

Trim/crop

If you think that is all, then you are wrong. MMC also allows you to trim/crop your video before converting. One thing though, this functionality is hidden on its interface and you have to perform extra steps to edit the video.

On the Video entry, right click your mouse. You should now see the options to Trim/Crop. The Trim function is for you to determine the start and end length of the converted video while the Crop feature allows you to change the aspect ratio of the video.

Suggestions for Improvement

One thing that I found lacking is the ability to stop the operation once the conversion start. While testing this out, I accidentally clicked the Convert button and the conversion starts without showing a prompt. Neither does it provide a Cancel button for me to stop the operation. I have two choices: wait for 30 minutes for the conversion to complete or to kill the application completely. I choose the latter. It will be great if it stop the operation in mid-way.

Another thing that is lacking is the support for subtitle files. For converting movie to iPhone format, until it supports adding of subtitle files to the video, I will still stick with my XviD4PSP . Other than that, this is one of the best media converter that I have come across so far.

What do you think?

Image credit: Houkwing

Mobile Media Converter

Mobile Media Converter: A Cross-platform No-Brainer Media Converter originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Mastering Grub 2 The Easy Way

Joshua Price — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:38:33 +0000

If you’re running Linux, there’s a good chance your distro of choice uses Grub as the default bootloader. Grub has served well for many years, but it’s beginning to show its age. As with all software, it doesn’t take long before the latest-and-greatest becomes old-and-haggard. Features have been piling up in Grub without much thought going into revamping the core program. Eventually, this lead to a messy patchwork that no one really wanted to maintain. At this point, Grub2 was born. It’s a complete rewrite from the ground up using a completely redesigned structure. This new Grub gives us powerful features like conditional statements (if/then, etc), intelligent upgrades, and some greatly improved graphics.

Getting Grub2

Currently, if you want to use Grub2, your best bet is to run Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala). If you just want to toy around and see what it can do without risking your system, I’d suggest running it inside a virtual machine as described here, but of course with Ubuntu 9.10.

menu.lst/grub.cfg

If you’ve messed with the original Grub (now called Grub legacy), you doubtless know all about menu.lst. That was the file where Grub legacy stored pretty much everything. In Grub2, the closest equivalent is grub.cfg, also located in /boot/grub. One of the most important differences, however, is that you should not edit the grub.cfg file directly. Some of you may be thinking “Ha! Warnings like that are for n00bs!”. Well the reason for this rule is not because the developers don’t think you’re l33t enough, it’s because that file is auto-generated by Grub2 and will be overwritten without warning as a result of things like kernel upgrades.

Any time the update-grub command is run, Grub2 will read its various config files and use their contents to generate grub.cfg. These files are dealt with individually below.

/etc/default/grub

Many of Grub’s options that used to be in menu.lst are now here. This includes things like whether or not to display the Grub menu, and how long to wait before timeout. This screenshot is the default config in Ubuntu 9.10, and is set to hide the Grub menu, disable “recovery mode” options, and instruct the kernel to include a splash screen.

By the way, to force Grub 2 to show the menu on boot just hold down the Shift key while Grub is starting.

/etc/grub.d/

This is where things really begin to differ from Grub legacy. Where you’d normally enter all your boot options in the menu.lst file, Grub 2 takes a very different approach. The /etc/grub.d/ directory contains individual files, each representing a option for the boot menu. The following shows the files contained in the default install.

While it’s certainly a lot different than Grub legacy, you may notice something familiar about that folder. It’s set up in a way very similar to the standard Linux startup system, SysV Init. Each of the files shown is a shell script that executes in order. Order is determined by the numbers at the start of each filename, so the script in 00_header will always run before, say, 05_debian_theme.

/etc/grub.d/40_custom

Chances are, if you need to edit your boot menu, this is the file you’re looking for. This is where you add your custom entries to the menu. Since this is the last numbered file in the grub.d directory (as explained in the section above), any entries you place in this file will show up at the end of the boot menu.

By default, the 40_custom file is mostly empty. In this example, I’ve added a new menu entry.

Splash Images

You can easily download the Grub 2 splash pack in Ubuntu with:

sudo apt-get install grub2-splashimages

When it’s done, all the images will be stores as TGA files in /usr/share/images/grub/.

The file that specifies what splash image to use on boot is the 05_debian_theme file we saw earlier. So to set our new custom splash, we want to open /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme as root in whatever text editor you prefer. Look for a line similar to the highlighted one in the example below,

And change the filename to whichever splash image you prefer. Make certain the path points to the /usr/share/images/grub/ directory. Some older versions default to /usr/share/images/desktop-base/ and that’s not what we want.

Applying changes

As you may remember from the beginning of this guide, the grub.cfg file is auto-generated from the other config files we’ve covered. When you’ve made changes to those files, you’ve got to tell Grub to read them and pull together a new config file. To do that, simply run the following command as root:

update-grub

Once it’s complete, reboot your computer (or virtual machine) to see the results. Don’t forget to hold Shift while booting, if your menu is still set to Hidden.

Mastering Grub 2 The Easy Way originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How to Play Classic Console Games in Linux

Joshua Price — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:07:37 +0000

If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you grew up with classic video game consoles like the NES and Sega Genesis. For years Windows users have been enjoying high quality game emulation software, but many of the Linux options have been buggy or incomplete. It’s time to take a look at where things stand when it comes to playing console games in Linux. Here at MakeTechEasier, we’ve touched on console game emulation here and there, but never done a guide covering multiple systems. Today, we’ll show you how to run games for NES, SNES, Genesis, original Playstation, and Dreamcast.

Before we begin, it’s important to note one thing right up front – many console manufacturers do not look kindly on emulation, and some emulators require proprietary software (like the game system BIOS) in order to run. Because of the legal grey area occupied by some of this software, there may be some files or programs for which MTE cannot provide links, such as the actual game files (commonly called ROMS).

NES – GFCEU

We’ll begin with the system that brought video games into many of our homes for the first time, the Nintendo Entertainment System. NES emulators are often the easiest to find, install, and run. In my searching for quality NES emulators for Linux, I’ve found GFCEU to be my favorite.

Installation – It’s available in the standard Ubuntu repositories, so it can be installed easily with apt-get/aptitude/Synaptic, or with the command below:

sudo apt-get install gfceu

It is a graphical frontend for the console-based NES emulator FCEU, so if your distro does not have GFCEU in the standard repositories, look for FCEU to get the same capability.

SNES – SNES9Express

We’ve covered the ZSNES emulator before, so this time we’ll check out my personal favorite, SNES9Express. Like GFCEU above, this is a graphical frontend to a console emulator, in this case SNES9X.

Installation - Like the NES emulators above, both the graphical frontend (SNES9Express) and the emulator itself (SNES9X) are available in Ubuntu’s repositories, so they can be installed easily with apt-get/aptitude/Synaptic like most other software.

Genesis – Gens/GS

Gens/GS is a fork of the popular Gens Genesis emulator. Its goal is to combine the various forks of Gens into one clean, functional program. It can support a wide variety of games and runs on both Linux and Windows, but unfortunately does not (yet) fully support 64 bit processors.

Image by SonicRetro

Installation - You can download Gens/GS for Ubuntu (32 bit only) and Windows here.

Playstation – pSX

Since we’ve covered pSX in detail before in this article, I wont go into a lot of detail here. pSX allows you to play many original Playstation games from your Linux PC. It does, however, have the same drawback as Gens/GS in that it does not currently support 64 bit environments.

Installation - covered in detail here.

Dreamcast – LXDream

Running Dreamcast games on PC requires a fairly fast machine. My Core 2 Duo with Intel graphics wasn’t quite up to the task, so LXDream only gets about 20% native speed for me. On the plus side, 64 bit CPUs are fully supported. You will need the Dreamcast system BIOS to run any games, and that’s one of those files you’ll have to find on your own.

The only problem I had with LXDream was that it didn’t have any controls configured by default. Fortunately, setting up the keyboard is as simple as opening Settings > Controllers and choosing Properties on Sega Controller section.

Installation - Source and binaries for Mac OSX and Linux can be found here. The Debian package installed perfectly on my Ubuntu desktop.

If you know any other high quality console game emulators for Linux, let us know in the comments.

How to Play Classic Console Games in Linux originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How to Manage Multiple Google Analytics Accounts from Desktop

Soumen Halder — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 13:12:06 +0000

If you are a blogger or a webmaster, you must be using Google analytics to get detailed data about your blog. Undisputedly, It’s the best free web analytics software out there and provides you with valuable information about how your site is performing in search engines and which sites are sending you traffic etc.

If you want to check your Google analytics data from desktop, then here is a very good Adobe Air app called Trakkboard. It let’s you check Google analytics data of different website accounts from your desktop. You do not have to keep your browser open all the time and be logged in at Google Analytics anymore.

How to Download Trakkboard

In order to download the Adobe Air application, you have to first register with the site. Just head over to this page and submit your email address to request a key.

Hit the “request Key” button and you will receive an email containing the verification link to verify your email address. Click the verification link and you are done with verifying your email address.

Once you click the link, you will be redirected to a page containing your Trakkboard license key. After that click the “install now” button and the application will start to install Trakkboard in your computer.

Immediately after the installation you will receive another email containing your Trakkboard license key. Do not lose this License key as you will need it to start the desktop application.

That concludes the installation part. Now let’s see what Trakkboard has to offer.

How to use Trakkboard to View Google Analytics reports from Desktop

After the installation is complete start the application and put the Trakkboard license key and hit next.

The next step involves choosing a password for Trakkboard. This password is not your Google analytics account password. Instead, this password is used to protect your Trakkboard data in case anyone else wants to sneak peak into it.

After choosing your password, you have to enter your Google analytics account details. This will be used to Login to your Google analytics account and let you see the website data from desktop. If you have multiple Analytics account, don’t worry as you can always add another account later on.

That’s it. Hit the Finish registration button to complete the installation. Now you are ready to use this amazing software.

Using Trakkboard – Features , Widgets and Interface

The entire Trakkboard interface works in widgets. You have to select a website profile from the upper bar and select the corresponding widgets to display them into the application.

Just select a time span and the widget type. After that click save and your widget is placed in the application panel. Here is how the Trakkboard panel looks with all the custom widgets set up.

You can drag and drop widgets to your preferred locations. If you feel the application is getting cluttered with too many widgets, you can always open a new tab and organize your data.

Available Widgets in Trakkboard

There are quite a number of widgets to choose from. And they are :

Total visits over a definite time span.
Total number of page views
Traffic sources
Medium
Top Keywords
Bounce rate
Time on site

I guess all these features are more than sufficient for you to analyze the data. However the benchmarking feature hasn’t been implemented yet.

Adding a New Google Analytics account

If you have multiple Google analytics accounts, then you can add them up from the control center.

Well that’s about it. Have you tried out the new desktop client for Google Analytics ? tell us what you think about it.

How to Manage Multiple Google Analytics Accounts from Desktop originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Amaya: A Simple, Yet Useful Alternative to Dreamweaver

Shevonne — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:00:10 +0000

While on a project, where money was scarce, we were scrambling around looking for a free or open source HTML editor that can provide us the same functionality as Adobe Dreamweaver. During my analysis of the different HTML editor out there, I came across Amaya. What intrigued me about it was that it was created by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). As someone who loves Dreamweaver, I thought that I would never find something comparable to it that was free (open source), but I was wrong.

Amaya is an open-source HTML editor created by the W3C. If you don’t already know, W3C is an international community that develops Web standards. It was founded by Tim Berners-Lee, who is credited as inventing the World Wide Web. In 1998, Amaya was invented. Since then, there have been various releases that have given more functionality to Amaya.

Amaya is the most user-friendly HTML editor that I have come across. One of its features that is very similar to Dreamweaver is that you are able to split the screen to view the visual editor and the HTML code. In this way, you are able to code while seeing the changes, or you can do the other way around. It’s a great way to learn HTML, if you don’t know already. On the sidebar, you are able to easily modify the HTML, like in Adobe Dreamweaver. Different profiles can change the way they see the sidebar displayed.

Another great feature is the CSS functionality. With the press of a button, you are able to create a CSS stylesheet. You do not have to know CSS in order to create one, which is great for people trying to learn CSS and/or if you are trying to design a stylesheet quickly. This is a great way to have your site’s formatting and style be in a different file than the HTML code. It provides a way to add flexibilty to your web site/blog. It also has a debugger to check your code for errors.

One good thing about Amaya is that it allows five different user editing profiles, so if someone wants to change the behavior of the Amaya tool, he/she can have his/her own profile that is different from someone else. In addition, Amaya runs on Linux, Mac, and/or PC, so regardless which OS you are using, you will be able to use Amaya for your coding project.

What’s can be improved on?

Amaya is a quick and neat HTMl editor. I couldn’t find any issues, except that it needs to keep up with the new technologies. For instance, it isn’t made to build smartphones apps, which I saw in other free HTML editors. It also doesn’t support Ajax, which is being used more and more.

When it comes to features, Amaya is definitely not on par with Dreamweaver, but if you are looking for a free, simple, and useful HTML editor, then Amaya is a good candidate.

Have you use Amaya before? Tell us what you like/dislike about it.

Amaya: A Simple, Yet Useful Alternative to Dreamweaver originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Afloat 2.2 Adds Support For Snow Leopard and New Features

Damien — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:32:00 +0000

When Snow Leopard was launched, many applications broke because of compatibility issue. Afloat was one of them (mainly due to the plugsuit issue). The good news is, Afloat 2.2 was launched to patch up the issue. Now you can get Afloat running smoothly in Snow Leopard.

For those who have not heard of Afloat, it is an useful software that you can use to keep an application window “always on top” of all other windows. One thing for sure, Afloat 2.2 brings some new features that are not available in previous version.

Make windows appear in all spaces

If you are a great fan of Spaces in Mac, then you are going to love this feature. If you are working on a project and have several application opened in different spaces, instead of traversing between spaces to access your data, you can make the application window follow you around, without you having to do the manual work.

Resize windows easily

The usual way of resizing an application window in Mac is to move your mouse to the right bottom corner of the window and drag to resize. With Afloat 2.2, you can now press Ctrl + Command + right mouse click to resize the window from anywhere inside the window region.

Move window around without dragging the title bar

By pressing Ctrl + Command + left mouse click, you can move the window around easily and quickly (similar to the Alt + left mouse click feature in Linux Compiz).

Pin to the desktop

You can also pin a window to the desktop and make it persistent. With this feature turn on, even the “Show Desktop” command will not hide the window.

Existing functionality

For those who are new to Afloat, here are some of the functionality that existed since version 1

Afloat: keep the window “always on top”. Accessible via the shortcut key Ctrl + Command + A or via the Window menu. (Note: the shortcut key don’t work in Preview)

Add transparency to windows: Press Ctrl + Command + mouse wheel scroll to change the transparency of the window. This is useful if you just want to take a quick peek at the windows beneath.

Make window an overlay: This turns a window into an overlay. When this mode is on, it will not respond to any mouse click or keyboard entry.

One thing to note: Afloat does not work with all applications. It only works for Cocoa based applications, such as Safari, Preview, iChat etc. Carbon based applications like iTunes and Finder do not get the love.

Afloat 2.2 Adds Support For Snow Leopard and New Features originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

VistaUACMaker Makes Your XP Apps Compatible With Windows Vista & 7

Soumen Halder — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:20:17 +0000

Windows Vista and 7 come with User Account Control (UAC) that controls the permissions the users have for running each application. Due to this restriction, many program in Win XP that require administrators privilege will not be able to run smoothly in Vista or Win 7. In such cases, you can use the VistaUACMaker to change the permission in the application and make it compatible with Vista and Windows 7.

To achieve the goal that we have in mind, we need to alter the Manifest File of the app which contains the useful information that provides the privileges needed by the app concerned & its UI Interaction of the app.

Those are the three types of privileges that can be stored in the Manifest File.

requireAdministrator – Run the app as administrator.
asInvoker – Run with same privilege as that of the parent process.
highestAvailable – Run with highest possible privilege available to user.

Ok that is enough with the geeky talk, let us proceed to the HOW TO section which tells us how to perform the task.

1. Download Vista UAC Maker.

2. Run the Utility. Now using the Select… button browse & locate the app or program executable file.

3. Add some words in the Project Description field for future reference.

4. In the Required Privilege Level drop-down list select the privilege. The default is [requireAdministrator], but you can change it to whichever is suitable for the application.

5. In the last step where you are asked “Does your application interacts with high privilege windows on desktop?”, check the Yes box only if your app interacts with high privilege apps on UI level in Vista else leave it as No.

That’s it.

Now the configured app is compatible with Windows Vista as well as Windows 7 too. This works great in cases where you need to use a particular app meant for XP to be sound & working in Vista & Windows 7. Hope that helps. Share your experiences by putting in your valuable comments.

VistaUACMaker Makes Your XP Apps Compatible With Windows Vista & 7 originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

TonidoPlug: Your Personal Cloud Server in a Plug

Damien — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:47:39 +0000

Putting all your stuffs and confidential data on the cloud may seems like a good idea as it allows you to access to them anytime, anywhere. However, it can become a totally bad decision when the security of the cloud server is compromised or the third party providers wind up their services and all your data gone down with them. When such things happen, you might wonder why you have not heard of Tonido earlier.

Tonido is a free software that turns your desktop into a personal server and allows you to access and share your files, media, calendar and apps from everywhere. Be it Windows, Mac or Linux, you simply install the software and have your own personal cloud server up and running in no time. Forget all the complicated stuffs you have heard about creating your own server. There are no technical skills required to set up and run Tonido. The best thing is – all the data resides in your own computer and there is no need to worry about security or even data loss (unless your own computer crashes).

Introducing TonidoPlug

On the other hand, if all your important data resides on your external backup drive and you wish to have your own cloud server running at all times without having to turn on your computer everytime, then TonidoPlug is the one for you.

TonidoPlug is the hardware version of Tonido. It is a tiny, low power, low cost home server and NAS device powered by Tonido software. It comes with its own RAM and CPU (and preinstalled with Ubuntu). All you need to do is to plug it into the power socket and there you are, a server ready at your beckoning. It integrates nicely with all the features found in the Tonido software and allows you to access your files, music, pictures from anywhere.

Setting up TonidoPlug

Once you have connected up the respective cables (there are only 3 cables that you need to connect: the power cable, LAN cable and the USB cable), power it up. On any computer that are linked to the home network, go to the URL: http://tonidoplug.com/ip. This will detect your Tonido Plug. In some cases where it doesn’t detect, you can enter the MAC address (at the back of the plug) to get it identified by the network.

Once the plug is detected, you will have to create a new profile for the Tonido. Those who already have an existing profile can use this method to import them into the Plug.

In the dashboard, you will find the exact same interface as the Tonido. The software available in TonidoPlug is as follow:

Many of these apps should be familiar to already Tonido users, (Jukebox, Photos, Search, Thots, Workspace). The newer apps are WebsharePro, Torrent, Explorer and Plug Admin.

Here’s a quick summary of these applications.

WebsharePro: All the power of Tonido Webshare, plus the ability to upload, setting upload quotas for users, zip downloads, viewing currently downloading lists, change thumbnail and photo slide show image size
Torrent: Download Torrent files to your plug and control torrents via your web browser from anywhere
Explorer: Web based File manager and browser that allows common file operations like rename, delete, copy files and folders and even uploads
Plug Admin: Manage your TonidoPlug hardware, recover Tonido Profile passwords, Manage attached USB drives, Share USB drives over the network for access, Monitor CPU loads etc

If you are not in your own home networks, you can also connect to your TonidoPlug via the public URL: http://yourprofilename.tonido.com:10001.

In addition, TonidoPlug is also a DLNA device, which means you are able to connect to your PS3, Xbox, or even XBMC software and stream music over the cloud.

The Tonido software is free to download and use, but the TonidoPlug comes at a price of $99.

Considering that most Web servers with the same hardware spec as the TonidoPlug can easily cost you up to $40-50 per month, at a mere price of $99, TonidoPlug is really a great bargain; not to mention the unlimited amount of storage device you can attach to it and the security issue that you never have to worry about. This is really a no-brainer deal.

Note 1: Thanks to Venkat for sending in a test unit for review and providing a prompt support for all my doubts.
Note 2: MakeTechEasier is not affiliated in any way to CodeLathe, the company behind TonidoPlug, nor do we benefit from any sale of TonidoPlug generated from this article.

TonidoPlug: Your Personal Cloud Server in a Plug originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Unlock Hidden Mac OS X Settings With Secrets

Sharninder — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 13:00:41 +0000

Mac OS X is a wonderful operating system with one of the best and easiest to use graphical interface among mainstream operating systems. It is amazing to see how much thought the designers of the OS have put into each element of the interface striving all the while to make it easier for the user to use the computer without bringing in any complexity, and retaining the ability to configure the computer as the user wishes.

But, there is still so much more that OS X is capable of and it is not always possible to harness all that power from the Graphical interface, and that is where our application of the day, Secrets, comes in handy.

Secrets installs in the System Preferences Pane and provides you access to hundreds of hidden OS X settings. Almost all of these settings can be accessed from the command line also and if you’re a regular follower of the Mac OS tips website, Mac OSX Hints, you might have come across some of them earlier. But, with the hundreds of hidden settings that Secrets unlocks, you’re bound to find some that you’ve never come across and will find useful.

To install Secrets, just download the zip file, extract it and double click the Secrets.prefPane file that is a part of the zip archive.

Now, you can just click on the icon in System Preferences and OS X will launch Secrets.

Secrets divides all the settings into various categories that are displayed in a vertical sidebar on the left side of the window. This classification makes it easy to find what you’re looking for. For example, if you want to change the dock style from the default 3D type to the older 2D style dock, just click on Dock in the left sidebar and select the 2D style from the drop down menu under Dock Appearance.

If you follow the popular OS X blogs, you’d recall that this particular setting was widely published for users who wanted to go back to the older Dock style when Apple decided to change the default Dock appearance to the 3D style in OS X 10.5. I, on the other hand, actually like the 3D look more so that’s what I keep.

How about something more useful?

One of the features of OS X that I use most often is Quick Look. This feature lets you quickly preview a document right from the Finder without even opening the document. The feature works even if you don’t have the required application installed, and Apple has been nice enough to bundle plugins for the most common type of documents along with OS X.

I use Quick Look all the time to read Word and Power point documents even though I don’t even have Microsoft Office installed on my system.

By default, if I use Quick Look on a folder all it tells me is the size of the folder and the number of files in it.

The two Finder settings that I like to enable using Secrets is to let Finder display hidden files and enable the Quick Look X-ray folders which enables Quick Look to display thumbnails of all the items inside the folder.

Changing the above settings require you to restart Finder. You can do so by clicking the Quit This button at the bottom of the window.

Now, whenever you use Quick Look to view a folder, you’ll see thumbnail images of all the documents inside the folder. Isn’t that cool ?

Go ahead and use Secrets to customize OS X as you see fit. Let us know which are your favorite Secrets.

Unlock Hidden Mac OS X Settings With Secrets originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Manage your clipboard items in Mac with Shadow

Jeffry Thurana — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:00:33 +0000

I use Cut, Copy and Paste commands a lot, and computer’s basic clipboard ability to hold only one item at a time really annoys me. That’s why one of my must have applications is clipboard manager. It allows me to copy as many items to my heart content without having to worry about losing any entry.

There are several choices of clipboard managers for Mac users. We’ve discussed clipboard managers for Mac before. Jumpcut was my long favorite manager and it’s a pretty amazing one if I may add. It’s small, fast, and it does the job well. True that Jumpcut can only handle text, but my needs are simple.

So it’s a bit hard for me to switch to other application. But Shadow changes everything. It can do everything every other clipboard managers can do, and more.

Let’s peek at what lurks behind the shadow.

First step into the shadow

Just like most of other clipboard managers, Shadow will reside in the menubar. It can be summoned using configurable shortcut key.

To set the key combination, open Shadow preferences menu by clicking the menubar icon and choose “Preferences”.

Go to the “General” tab, click inside the HotKey field and hold down your chosen key combination.

And while you’re at it, why don’t you choose the Advanced tab and click on the “Start on login” button to make sure that your clipboard is available all the time. Here you can also decide how many items that Shadow should hold inside the clipboard.

Please note that even though you can set as many clipboard items as you want, the bigger the number, the bigger space you need to hold the items. So, those with limited hard drive space please beware.

Walk in the shadow

Using Shadow is as simple as letting it running in the background and quietly collecting clipboard items. You could do the usual Cut-Copy-Paste routine: cut or copy an item and directly paste it. But you can also use past cut or copy items to be pasted.

To do this, you have to bring Shadow window upfront (either by clicking its item in the menubar or by using the hotkey),

Choose one of the past items using the up and down arrow, and use Shift + Enter to paste it.

By default, there’s one clipboard that comes with Shadow called “System Clipboard”. You can’t modify nor delete it but you can choose to share it with others by clicking Edit (pencil icon).

However, the Shadow’s true power lies in it’s ability to create multiple clipboards and share them to other computer within the networks. To add more clipboards, open Shadow window and click on the plus (+) button below the window.

A new clipboard options window will appear. Fill in the clipboard name and choose whether you want to share the clipboard to others by ticking the checkbox. There’s also an option to password protect the connection should you need the extra security. The password allows you to choose which clipboard to share to which person.

The ability to store as many items as you want in the clipboard and to add as many clipboards as you want bring about new problem: information overload. When Shadow has stored too many items, using the clipboard will become difficult and impractical.

Luckily Shadow comes with search ability. All you have to do is put the search string, hit Enter, and all the clipboard items that match your query will appear. Choose the one that you need and press Shift + Enter.

Have you tried Shadow? Do you know other free alternatives to clipboard manager for Mac? Share using the comment below.

Manage your clipboard items in Mac with Shadow originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How to Share Files Securely with OneSwarm

Joshua Price — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:04:47 +0000

There have been a few attempts over the years at making a safe and secure way to swap files or interact online. Projects like Tor and Freenet have give us some of what we’re looking for, but often have drawbacks such as low speed or complex installation. OneSwarm takes a different approach. Essentially, it’s a multiplatform Bittorrent client with support for the OneSwarm network. With it, you can securely swap files over insecure networks, search for friends and content, and even play media like videos and music from within your browser.

What does it do?

There are two aspects to OneSwarm – the private, secure, friend-based OneSwarm network, and the standard P2P. The developers took an existing Bittorrent client (Azureus) and heavily modified it to include support for their private network. They added a web client (you can control your file transfers through a web browser, even remotely) and included software for finding and inviting friends into your swarm.

Even if you have no interest in the secure swarm aspect, OneSwarm makes a great torrent client. It’s built on the Azureus classic UI which is a high quality mature torrent client. All the P2P benefits of Azureus matched with the extra functionality of the web client gives OneSwarm a very powerful feature base.

How does it work?

There are two methods of using OneSwarm, a web client and a desktop client. Both are usable immediately after installation, but the developers seem to encourage use of the web client. That’s where I’ve found most of OneSwarm’s unique features. The desktop client is more or less a standard Bittorrent client. So far, I’ve found the web client to be the way to go when working with OneSwarm friend-based transfers, but the classic desktop client gives more options for standard torrent downloads.

Windows users who’d like to use the desktop client instead of web can do so by right-clicking the OneSwarm icon in their system tray and choosing Show Classic UI. Linux users – access to the desktop client could vary widely based on your choice of desktop environment. Because of this, and to highlight the unique features of OneSwarm, this article will focus on the web client.

Getting Started

If your system didn’t take you to the web client automatically, you should be able to access it by opening your browser of choice to http://127.0.0.1:29615/. There you’ll find the opening screen for the OneSwarm web client.

For those who aren’t networking geeks – 127.0.0.1 is the address a computer uses to identify itself. By putting that into your browser you’re telling it “open the web page running on this computer”. The OneSwarm web client runs a small webserver on your machine so you can access the web client.

Finding Friends

The main concept behind OneSwarm is Friend-To-Friend transfers. When you first connect to OneSwarm, you’ll be asked to add friends. The first, and easiest way to do that is to choose “Use Default Settings”. This will connect you to the OneSwarm community server. Within a minute or two, you’ll see names pop into your Friends list. Users of the community server can all see each other, but cannot, by default, see each other’s files. Everyone on the community server is a “limited” friend by default and cannot trade files.

There are multiple other ways to add friends, all of which can be found by using the Add friends button below your contacts list on the left. For me, the GMail/Google Talk option would normally be a great way to add my friends, but as of the time of this writing, that feature does not appear to be working correctly. I have settled for using email invites through the Redeem/Create/View Invitations option.

When my friends get the invitation in their email, they can install OneSwarm and click the link included in the invite to become a OneSwarm friend. For example, I sent an invite to Tara, who has named her computer “Hank”. She downloaded the OneSwarm client, clicked the link in the invite, and now OneSwarm sees us as friends. She shows up on my Friends list as well as the community server with which she’s registered.

Friend Access

As noted earlier, friends by default are set to “limited” status. They cannot see each other’s files or initiate any transfers. Fortunately, removing that limitation is quick and painless. You simply choose Friends from the navigation panel on the left, and you will have the full list of friends. Click the one you want to share with, and remove the check for “Limited”.

From now on, Tara can browse through all the files that I have shared and choose whatever she’d like to download. Speaking of sharing…

Sharing Files

At the heart of any P2P app is the sharing of files. There’s not much point otherwise. To allow certain files to be shared over OneSwarm, you just add those files or directories to your Shared list. On any section of the OneSwarm web client you’ll find the Share button near the top of the screen. This will let you choose what to share. Here, for example, is one user’s files that they’ve chosen to open to the OneSwarm network.

I can download whichever of these files I like and choose where to save them. In addition, OneSwarm appears to have read the ID3 tag information for the music files, and added the album art to the thumbnail view. A nice touch.

I’ve found OneSwarm to be a very elegant, well-designed system. I’ve often looked for (and written about) ways to securely transfer files over the Internet. Some of them are simpler than OneSwarm, but not nearly as friendly and versatile. I’ll be sticking with OneSwarm for a while.

What about you?

How to Share Files Securely with OneSwarm originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

The Top Three RSS Readers for PC Users

Shevonne — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:42:23 +0000

In previous weeks, we have discussed the best RSS Readers for the Web and the Mac. This time we will be talking about the desktop-based RSS Readers for the PC.

1. FeedDemon

FeedDemon is an application, made for the PC, created by the people behind NewsGator. It has numerous functionalities that will help enhance your RSS feed management. It has the basic layout: All Subscriptions, Unread Items, Starred Items, Shared Items, and tags.

During the installation, users are able to sync the FeedDemon with their Google Reader, if they choose to.

They are also able to decide if they want to allow FeedDemon to add default feeds, which is useful if you do not have any subscriptions. Another useful option is the ability to import subscriptions from Bloglines, OPML file, RSS Bandit, or a Windows Common Feed List.

There is also a featured called “Watch,” where you are able to add keywords. Whenever one of your feeds has one of those keywords, the folder is smart enough that it contains it. If you want to remove posts, you are able to do so using the Cleanup Wizard. It allows you to remove them by date, number of items, and folder.

Other useful features are desktop alerts that are customizable by time and feed; ability to share with other people specific items; and the fluidity with Internet Explorer. If you want to choose another browser, you can always open links outside of FeedDemon.

It’s definitely a great RSS Reader with tons of functionality, which is especially useful if you have tons of RSS feeds, like I do.

2. Feedreader

Feedreader is a simple RSS Reader that does not have the number of features that FeedDemon, but it does what it sets out to do. The layout is very similar to FeedDemon, which has your subscriptions, unread items, and starred items.

If you want to import your Google Reader (or from another service) items, you can do it by uploading the OPML file and picking the feeds to import in. Feedreader allows you to add default feeds to get you started.

There is this useful feature call “Rating” that you can turn it on. When it is on, Feedreader will monitor your behavior and suggest items that you might find interesting. If you do not want a keyword to be used to make these suggestions, you are able to blacklist it, so that the application doesn’t take it into account.

It also has desktop alerts that summarizes the unread items for each feed.

This is definitely an useful RSS Reader if you are just looking for simplicity.

3. Snarfer

Snarfer is a robust RSS Reader that really uses Google apps. the layout is just like the other two RSS Readers.

It is very similar to the other two that it allows Snarfer to import default RSS feeds to start off users that need the assistance. After you select the feeds you want, you are able to place them in preexisting folders or folders you have already created (or imported).

If you don’t want to put your feed into one of the folders listed, the application should give you the option to create a folder. Users are able to add two plugins: Google Reader Synchronization plugin and Google Reader plugin. These allows you to import and sync your feeds you are maintaining in Google Reader, and the ability to share interesting items with others. Snarfer even has a Google translate function, so you are able to translate feeds from one language to the next.

Snarfer also allows you to do three types of searches: ebay, keyword, or web. If you want to monitor items that you bid on Ebay, you are able to do this using Snarfer.

Like FeedDemon, you are able to watch certain keywords, and whenever it comes in, Snarfer automatically adds them to a “Watch” folder. You are also able to search by web sites. It really takes searching to another level. Snarfer is the most visually-pleasing RSS Reader of the bunch. Additionally, it has great plugins that enhance the reader even more. However, needing to add plugin, whereas with others, it is already built-in the app, is an extra step that isn’t needed. It also doesn’t have desktop alerts, which can be useful. Overall, it’s a nice RSS Reader application.

Which RSS reader do you use on your PC?

Image credit: dwingdwang01

The Top Three RSS Readers for PC Users originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Easily Create DVD Videos With WinX DVD Author (Free Download)

Damien — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 03:10:31 +0000

[Windows only] As part of the WinX DVD range of product, Winx DVD Author is a cool tool that allows you to author and create your own DVD easily. For those who are looking for a professional, yet easy to use DVD authoring software, WinX DVD Author could be the one for you.

At MakeTechEasier, we don’t usually review paid software as we are great believers of free and open source software. However, the WinX DVD team decided to give away a free 1 year license (scroll down for the download link), which makes it compelling for us to give this DVD authoring software a second look. And yes, we are not disappointed. Read on for the full review.

One good feature about WinX DVD Author is that it supports a wide variety of video formats such as AVI, ASF, MPEG, MKV, MP4, MOV, RM, RMVB, XIVD, DVIX, H264, OGG, QT (quick time), FLV, etc. Being an authoring tool, you are also able to add subtitle files, create DVD menu, clip video segment and many other useful features.

On the main screen, you can find the various options to manipulate your video files.

You can either:

Choose the DVD Author option and run through the wizard to create a DVD from your video file.
Convert the Video to Vob format and store it for later use
Convert existing Vob to DVD
and finally, burn the file to DVD.

Note that the first option DVD Author is just the combination of point 2, 3 and 4 in few clicks.

Authoring DVD

At the DVD Author page, you can see a variety of options to edit your video files.

Click on the +/- button to add/remove video files.

Change the start/end timeframe of the video.

Click on the subtitle button beside the track to add subtitle files.

Change the output resolution and check if you want to include DVD menu. There is also a one-click button for you to change between DVD-5 and DVD-9 format.

DVD title & chapter menu editing

Authoring the DVD Title & chapter menu is quite cool. Select background pictures, music and add texts that you may need to customize your DVD menu.

Burning DVD

Burning your edited video file to DVD is as simple as choosing the DVD-writer as the Device name and click on the Start button.

Suggestions for improvement:

Add text/tooltips to button

Most of the buttons found in the UI are graphical and does not come with any text description. The developers might feel that the graphic icons are self-explanatory, but I have completely no idea about the functionality of each button until I clicked on it.

Specifying supported video formats

It will be great if the developers can specify the individual supported file formats rather than just listing a Supported Formatted Files in the selection dropdown.

Add support for SWF

Not sure if this is too much to ask for, but it will be great if it can support SWF file.

Ability to create ISO images

ISO format? No?

Download link

As I mentioned above, this software costs $29.95, but is free to download until 31st Oct 2009. You can grab it at this link. This is the fully functional and licensed version, not the trial copy, so grab it while it is available.

The WinX DVD Author works in Windows XP, Vista and 7.

Thanks to Viola for sharing with us this promotion.

Download WinX DVD Author

Easily Create DVD Videos With WinX DVD Author (Free Download) originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

The New Facebook Desktop Client By Adobe And Why Should You Use it

Soumen Halder — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:00:32 +0000

If you are a Facebook fan then you must have used the official Facebook desktop application.The app is good but it’s not detailed and offers only limited features. You can’t see live notifications of new stories, can’t post a comment and if you need to upload a photo you have to open Facebook in the browser all the way.

If you are not quite satisfied with the official Facebook desktop application or other desktop clients have a look at Facebook –Photo uploader. It is a new desktop client for Facebook, released by Adobe with really useful features.

At first you need to download and install the application. You will also need Adobe Air, if you already don’t have it.

To get started with the app you have to enter you Facebook account information as a one time authentication process.

After that you have to grant permission to the application so that it can access your news feed and wall updates. Just click “Allow access” to grant the required permissions. The application will log you in. After you have logged in you will be presented with your Facebook timeline as shown below.

Updating Your status

Updating your status is easy enough. Just click on the last status message and you can edit it and share the new status with all your friends.

Comments

You can instantly comment on any link or story shared by your friends. But the downside is that you can neither see who else has commented in that story nor you can read the comments posted by others.

Facebook chat

This is what makes this app my favorite. You can chat with your Facebook friends from the desktop and without having to visit your Facebook profile in the browser. Just navigate to the chat tab and you can see which of your friends are online.

Mini Mode

If you feel bothered due to the fact that the high resolution mode is taking up much of the screen space, just switch to the mini mode with the touch of a button. Click the small arrow in the top right corner placed next to the minimize window.

Uploading photos

Uploading photos in your Facebook albums in also easily achieved. Just navigate to the “Upload” tab and the app asks you the name of the album where you wish to upload a photo. You can also create a new album and upload your photos to the new album straight away.

After selecting your album click “Add photo” or just drag and drop the image into the application. The photo will be uploaded and added instantly in your album. You can crop a photo, tag it and even rotate it from the application itself.

Apart from uploading photos you can also view the photos of your album with a complete full screen slideshow.

View a profile

Just click the name of any Facebook friend in your timeline and the profile opens up in the desktop client. You can see complete information of your friend including the pages he/she reads and the groups they have recently joined.

Apart from the above mentioned features you can also see the list of all your Facebook friends and various other event invitations that you have received recently.You can even browse to any Facebook profile and read his/her status updates, notes, pictures or other posted items. So if you are a Facebook addict and can’t imagine your life without it, then you must try this new desktop tool. This application runs on the Adobe Air platform so it will run in Windows, Linux and Mac.

Other Facebook desktop clients

Apart from Facebook photo uploader there are two other Facebook clients worth mentioning.

1. Tweetdeck: The popular desktop client for Twitter, Tweetdeck recently added Facebook and Myspace integration. Not as versatile as the Facebook photo uploader but you can read your status updates and the updates of your friends in much the same way you read your tweets. Again it’s very basic and you do not get “The Facebook feel” as they name it.

2. Seesmic: Another desktop application for Facebook lovers is Seesmic. Check them out if all you want is a very basic and compact Facebook lifestream on your desktop.

The New Facebook Desktop Client By Adobe And Why Should You Use it originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

6 Useful Web Apps To Help You Job Hunt

Trevor Dobrygoski — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 12:30:25 +0000

Job hunting these days is a battle. With fewer jobs available in certain industries, one needs to be efficient, streamlined and spot on in their quest for employment. Below are some things I personally use or have used to keep abreast of possible opportunities. Even if you are happy in your current career or company, it is never bad to be prepared in case you find yourself in need of a job.

1. Google Docs

Google Docs is a great place to design, store, and collaborate with other people on your resume. Your resume can be exported as a PDF, RTF or a Word document for easy viewing by your potential employer. With hundreds of easily customizable templates for both resumes and cover letters, this is a easy choice.

It is a good idea to keep your resume up dated. If you set a reminder in the calendar of your choice to update your resume quarterly, you will have less work if a lay off strikes. Another benefit to updating your information often is you are less likely to omit important details about your accomplishments.

2. Ingboo

Ingboo is a service that gives you a way to aggregate search results from a huge number of sites. In the job tab; Simply Hired, Craigslist and Hotjobs are 3 of the 11 sites from which you can be notified of newly posted job opportunities. The updates can be emailed in a daily digest, as soon as new results appear or at a selectable time of the day. Ingboo also can send updates right to your Twitter account. If none of these methods to view the results are appealing to you, going to Ingboo.com to see the results is always an option too. Ingboo is working on a Blackberry app which will help you keep up with your searches while mobile.

3. RSS

If you are using an RSS feed reader for viewing new posts on blogs and websites, using it for your job search will be a piece of cake. If you are not using any kind of RSS feed reader, Google Reader and iGoogle are good options to those who have a Google/ Gmail account. If not, other services for Mac, Windows and mobile devices are available.

The way to use RSS for a job search is simple. Create a search the same way you are accustomed to on a site like Monster.com. Instead of saving the search, scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and click on the RSS feed button.

You will be prompted to choose what reader you want to use. Once subscribed, all of the new jobs will arrive in this feed within moments of being posted. Here is what a feed would look like on your iGoogle hompage.

4. Google Alerts

If you are looking at a specific company’s career page, the odds of them having an RSS feed with job updates are pretty slim. In this case, you can set up a Google alert for when a page changes (if a job is added). The results can be emailed to you weekly, daily or as soon as a change happens. This is done with some advanced Google search formulas like these:

if you were looking for a job at Apple

(inurl:job OR inurl:jobs) site:apple.com

if you were looking for a job anywhere in Denver, Colorado.

(inurl:job OR inurl:jobs) denver

(inurl:career OR inurl:careers)

These alerts work well because most companies post job openings on a page with [job] or [career] in the URL. By adding in a site:operator or a location, the search is narrowed and becomes more useful to you.

5. InSide Job

Usually apps on Facebook aren’t thought to be very useful in the search for a job. Granted Facebook can be a good way to network (when you aren’t distracted by Farmville or Mafia Wars); this is one application however, is making a good argument to be on Facebook.

Here is how their webpage describes the app:

Inside Job lets you contact people who have interviewed, worked, or are currently employed at the places you want to work at next!
InSide Job users can also:
-Get the inside scoop on their prospective employer before the interview;
-Network with people in similar fields; and
-Find the right people to hire as service providers.

6. A Blog

A personal blog is a good thing to keep up on whether you are working or not. Many free blogging platforms (Wordpress.com, Blogger, Typepad…) give you an avenue to let people and potential employers get to know you. You can choose to display work accomplishments, personal stories, your thought on your industry news or anything you would like others to know about you.

The more positive information is on the web about you when a client or potential employer is looking you up on the web, the better. Job hunting is a full time job. You need to market yourself and control your online profile/ information in a way no other generation has before.

Leave any job searching tips and tools in the comments below.

Image credit bjmccray

6 Useful Web Apps To Help You Job Hunt originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Three Free RSS Readers for Mac Users

Shevonne — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:28:15 +0000

More and more, people are relying on RSS feeds for their way to get their news, videos, audio, etc. An RSS Reader is a must-have for anyone who is reading RSS feeds on a daily basis. It provides a way to organize RSS feeds in a way that makes it easier to manage. Before, I reviewed the top three web-based RSS Readers to use. Now, here are three free desktop-based RSS Readers for Mac users:

1. Shrook

Shrook is a powerful RSS readers that provides you with the capability of accessing and synchronizing your RSS feeds among all your Macs, iPhone, or PCs. This is done by registering an account with shrook.com.

When you first open up the Shrook application, you will see six listing under Source – Subscriptions, Feed Guide, Attachments, Flagged Items, New Items, and Scrapbook.

Subscriptions shows all your RSS feeds that you are currently subscribed to.
Feed Guide provides popular feeds that you might find interesting. It’s a great way to get started if you don’t have any feeds.
Attachments are items, such as podcasts, that are able to downloaded.
Flagged Items are items that you want to save to review later.
New Items are items that you haven’t read yet.
Scrapbook is similar to Flagged Items, except you would use it for items that you have read but want to save.

One of the unique things about Shrook, is that you are able to link it to your iTunes, which is great if you download a podcast. Another great feature is that it gives you the ability to blog about any item in your feed. Overall, Shrook is a very rich RSS feeder that has everything that you would need.

2. NewsFire

NewsFire is a very user-friendly RSS reader that allows even the last tech savvy person the ease of using it. Similar to Shrook, you are able to download podcasts from your RSS feeds into your iTunes.

One of the neat things about NewsFire is that you are able to find out the RSS feed URL of the current site your viewing without having to search for it. Another functionality is that it has a “Smart Feed” feature that allows you to group feeds with a query. It is very similar to the Smart Playlist in iTunes. It’s a great way to group feeds, even new ones that you subscribe to after you create the Smart Feed.

NewsFire is a straightforward RSS Reader that gives you the basic needs in managing your RSS feeds. If you want something simple, then this is the RSS Reader for you.

3. Vienna

Vienna combines the best of both worlds: ease of use and tons of functionality.

When you open up Vienna, it’s has three default folders: Marked Articles, Unread Articles, and Today’s Article. Like Spook the Marked Articles folder is for items that you want to review later. The great thing is the Today’s Articles folder. There are many times where you might just want to view the RSS feeds of that day. This allows you to do that. Your RSS feeds and groups are listed. Vienna also has the ability for you to create Smart folders, similar to NewsFire, that lets you create queries that will automatically group RSS feeds. Like Shrook, it also has blog integration.

Vienna is a great desktop-based RSS Reader that has so many features built into it.

Which RSS readers do you use for your Mac? Share it with us in the comments.

Three Free RSS Readers for Mac Users originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How To Organize Windows Folders and Applications in Multiple Tabs

Soumen Halder — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 12:00:55 +0000

Imagine a situation when you have a lot of applications and windows open and you have to constantly switch different windows. This takes away the focus from your work and kills your precious time. What if we could arrange all the windows folders and running applications in tabs just as we open multiple websites in Firefox?

Earlier we have used QTtabbar, which lets you import tabbed features to your windows explorer but WinTabber is even more useful. It is a free desktop tool for windows that lets you organize open windows and running applications in tabs. All the open folders can be grouped together which keeps your desktop clean and uncluttered. Another advantage of using tabbed applications is that you get a lot of space in the taskbar and the running applications do not get huddled together. (also see : useful Firefox extensions for better tab management)

Earlier my desktop used to contain a lot of open applications and took me quite a lot of time to figure out a particular program or window. Here is how my desktop looked

After using WinTabber the same desktop looks quite different.

As you can see, all the running programs and open folders are neatly organized in multiple tabs under one common explorer window. You can open almost any program in a new tab. This may include your browser,Microsoft word,command prompt or even a video playing in your favorite media player.

How does WinTabber work ?

Nothing that geeky. Following are the steps involved to use WinTabber :

1. Start the application and open a new tab or a new window.

2. WinTabber will ask you which applications and folders you want to dock. Select the desired applications which you want to group together.

3. The selected applications will open in a new tab inside the WinTabber window. You can drag and rearrange the tabs and change the position just as you do with Firefox tabs.

4. You can run multiple instances of WinTabber simultaneously. So if you are working on different browsers then open a new WinTabber window and dock all the browsers together. Similarly you can group all the open folders in another WinTabber window and so on.

5. Ctrl + tab moves to the next tab while Shift +tab takes you to the previous tab.

6. You can release a particular window or you can release all of them with a single click. If you want to close all the applications just hit “Remove and close all”.

7. If you have a large number of tabs open,you can compress the appearance of tabs just as it appears in Google chrome. Go to View–>Tab layout—>Compressed and it’s done.

8. There are quite a handful of themes to choose from so that you can give the tabbed environment your own feel. Personally, I like the Office 2007 theme.

There are two editions of WinTabber available for use. One is Free while the other one requires a one time registration fee of $5. The registered version allows you to open an unlimited number of tabs while the free edition limits you to a maximum of 4 tabs. Here is a quick rundown of all the features of WinTabber.

Other Tabbed applications for Windows

1. Window tabs: This app is quite similar to WinTabber. It lets you group similar windows and programs into a tabbed interface. Comes with a licensed version as well a free one.

2. Xplorer2 : Instead of organizing the open folders in tabs, Xplorer2 adds multiple panes in your windows explorer so that you can work on different folders at the same time.

Do you use any of the apps that we have discussed here? Do share your thoughts and ideas so that we get to know what makes you productive.

How To Organize Windows Folders and Applications in Multiple Tabs originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

10 Social Media Plugins for Windows Live Writer

Shevonne — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:00:43 +0000

Windows Live Writer is the best desktop-based blog editor for PC users. It allows you to manage different blogs and has rich functionality that makes it easy to create blog posts. Additionally, it provides a way for you to add social media features into your actual blog post, or notify services when you are publishing them. Here are ten plugins that will help your blog be social-media ready:

1. Twitter Notify Plugin

The Twitter Notify Plugin provides a way for you to tweet your blog post to your followers when publishing using your Twitter account. You are able to customize the format of the tweet in the Options area, or when you press the Publish button. In addition, there is a built-in URL shortener in the plugin. If you are a Twitter user, then this is a must-have plugin for your Windows Live Writer.

2. Delicious Notify Plugin

The Delicious Notify Plugin allows you to notify Delicious whenever you publish a blog post. In the Options, you are able to enter your Delicious userid and password, and check if you want to automatically publish your blog posts to the service.

3. TweetMeme Plugin

The TweetMeme Plugin lets you add the TweetMeme button into your blog posts. The Options allows you to add your Twitter name, use an URL shortener, and position the button on the top or bottom. When you publish your blog post, the TweetMeme button will appear. This allows your readers to tweet your blog post, so definitely a plugin to add.

4. DiggThis Plugin

The DiggThis Plugin adds the Digg button to your blog posts, so your readers are able to Digg it, if they want. In the Options, you are allowed to decide on four different types of button styles: badge, compact, button, or the little guy. You are also able to choose the alignment to be either to the right or left. Digg users will love this plugin.

5. WLW Bit.ly Plugin

The WLW Bit.ly Plugin lets you shorten all of the URLs in your blog post using the Bit.ly URL shortener. If you have a Bit.ly user account, you can enter it in the Options area. This allows you to use the Bit.ly statistics to view information like how many people clicked on a certain link.

6. Twitter Inserter Plugin

The Twitter Inserter Plugin provides a way for you to add your tweets into your blog post. You are able to select the number of tweets in the Options area. It’s great to use once in awhile. However, if you use too much, you might alienate your readers.

7. Flickr4Writer Plugin

The Flickr4Writer Plugin lets you add Flickr images from your albums or any image that is allowed to be blogged. You are able to select the image size, spacing, positioning, and alignment. It’s a way to add images to your blog without stealing images. One of my favorite ones, and I use it often. Definitely a must.

8. Zemanta related articles & images Plugin

The Zemanta related articles & images Plugin provides a way for you enter add links, related articles, and images to your blog posts. It is on the side of the Windows Live Writer window, so it provides easy access in allowing you to save time in finding items for your blog posts. Another one of my favorites. It helps you save time and enriches your blog posts.

9. Amazon Book Linker v1.3 Plugin

The Amazon Book Linker v1.3 Plugin lets you add book information to your blog posts. You are able to modify the image size and the template, which is how your readers will view the Amazon item. If you have an Amazon Associates ID, you are able to add that as well, so you can make profit on the books you add. Great for people who reviews books or want to share a great book with their readers.

10. xPollinate – Cross Post Plugin

The xPollinate – Cross Post Plugin allows you to cross-post a blog post, or a snippet, to your other blogs and post to Ping.fm when you are publishing. Ping.fm allows you to post to different social-media networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc., so you are able to notify your followers of your blog post by using this plugin. I am starting to use this plugin more often now. Ping.fm is one of the social media tools that I use often, so this saves me plenty of time.

Which social media plugins do you use for your Windows Live Writer?

10 Social Media Plugins for Windows Live Writer originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How to Create Your Own USB Linux Distro with LiLi

Joshua Price — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 12:00:59 +0000

Linux Live CDs have long been well known as a handy tool in PC repair. Personally I’ve used Linux CDs dozens of times to repair Windows problems, from virus scans to file retrieval to partition adjustments. As great as Live CDs are, they still have a few drawbacks, like an inability to save any new files or changes. Bootable USB sticks solve most of the problems with Live CDs. You can write to them, change the software or the whole system without burning a new CD, and carry them easily wherever you go.

There’s a new (Windows only, strangely enough) software tool out called LiLi USB Creator. LiLi makes it incredibly easy to create your own customized bootable Linux system on a USB stick, and even run it from within Windows using an portable copy of Virtualbox that’s included on the installation. Impressed? I am.

I ran LiLi on Windows XP Pro with Service Pack 3 and a 2GB Kingston USB drive. You can download the installer here. It’s a ZIP file and there’s no installer so you can just run it directly from wherever it was extracted. Once loaded you’ll get the main LiLi screen where all your choices are made.

Step 1: Choose a USB Key

If your USB drive isn’t already connected, connect it now and wait a few seconds before hitting the blue refresh button. When you click the drop-down list, you should see your flash drive in the list. Make sure you’re choosing the correct flash drive, as the program also lists your hard drives, and we certainly wouldn’t want to go wiping any of them. Which reminds me – in case this isn’t yet clear, this flash drive will be wiped clean so make sure there’s nothing important on there before we proceed.

Step 2: Choose a Source

LiLi needs to know what you plan to use as the base of your system. This is one of LiLi’s big strengths in my opinion. You can choose to use a Live CD ISO file you already have, a Live CD in your CD-ROM, or to have LiLi download an ISO for you. This last option is particularly impressive, as LiLi provides a list of some of the compatible distros and will automatically fetch and check the files it needs.

As for me, I went with Fedora because… well… pretty much just because I haven’t used it in a while. If you chose to let LiLi download a compatible ISO for you, then you’ve got a little time to wait while it downloads. Now might be a good time to make a snack, read a book, or better yet – browse articles on MakeTechEasier.

Step 3: Persistence

At this point, we can take advantage of the fact that we’re using a USB drive and not a Live CD. By setting some space for persistence, we can now save file and settings changes directly on to the USB drive. This is also the cause of some confusion when creating these live systems.

For clarity, we’ll use my 2GB Kingston flash drive as an example of how this all works. It’s actually about 1.9GB, and the files from the ISO will be using up about 700MB, so according to LiLi that leaves about 1.1 GB for persistent files to be saved. The math doesn’t quite add up, but I would guess that LiLi is using up a little more space than just the ISO contents for things like VirtualBox (discussed below). The slider bar in the screenshot above lets me choose how much of that space I really want to use. Unless you’ve got other plans for that space, you probably want to slide the bar all the way up.

If your USB drive is larger than 1GB and LiLi doesn’t let you move the slider past 0MB, just reformat the entire USB drive, reload LiLi and try again.

Step 4: Options

The first item in the Options section is whether or not you want to hide the system files on the USB drive. The only relevance this has is whether or not Windows will show the Linux system files on the flash drive. The benefit is that you won’t have to worry about a convoluted mess of files and directories on the drive if you just want to run VirtualBox (which we’ll cover in a moment). The down side is that it would be more difficult to access or edit those files from Windows, should you want to. Neither choice will have any significant effect on how your Linux system runs.

The second option is whether or not to format the USB drive in Fat32. Unless you have a specific reason not to, I’d recommend you allow the format to be certain that the drive is being wiped clean and installed correctly.

The last option is one of the really unique and interesting things about LiLi. As I hinted in the opening paragraph, LiLi is capable of adding a portable copy of VirtualBox to your USB drive. For anyone not familiar with VirtualBox, it’s a high quality free virtualization program. With VirtualBox on the drive, you’ll be able to run your new Linux USB system from within Windows, without rebooting. I’d recommend checking this option, so that your flash drive can be as versatile and useful as it can be.

Step 5: Create

Before clicking the lightning bolt to begin, there are a few things to check to make sure we’re not about to cause a disaster. First, make totally certain that the device you chose in Step 1 is the USB drive, and that you don’t mind wiping its contents. Next do a quick glance at the traffic light icons in the bottom right corner of each step. Each light should be green, indicating it’s got everything it needs in order to proceed. When ready, hit the lightning bolt icon, and go make yourself another snack.

Running your new USB Linux System

If you’ve followed this guide closely, then you now have two ways to start your new system. The first is from within Windows, using VirtualBox. Open My Computer to your flash drive, and you’ll see a Virtualbox folder. Open that and run Virtualize This Key. That will launch the portable VirtualBox to your Linux image and you can use your shiny new Linux system from a contained environment within Windows. Keep in mind, this method does give the benefit of being able to use both OSes simultaneously, but Linux will most likely be MUCH slower here than if it had been booted on its own.

The other method is to boot the USB key as intended, as its own OS. To do that, you insert the USB drive into whatever computer you’d like to boot, and restart the computer. Some computers may require you to open the BIOS settings to include USB in the boot devices. Others may give you an option when starting up like Hit F12 for Boot Menu, or something along those lines. Any fairly modern PC should be capable of booting from a USB drive.

Presuming all went well, you should now have a portable, self-contained, customizable USB Linux system installed on your USB drive that can be taken anywhere. This can be useful in repairs, file recovery, virus scanning, or just showing off. Files saved to the USB drive will persist across multiple reboots.

Other than a booting glitch when I tried LiLi with Crunchbang (which may or may not have been LiLi’s fault), everything seems to work smoothly. I was very impressed by LiLi’s simple yet powerful user interface, and the developers have clearly put a lot of thought and effort into making LiLi a quality piece of software. I’m a little surprised it only runs in Windows, but everything it does, it does well. Kudos to the development team.

How to Create Your Own USB Linux Distro with LiLi originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

42 Useful Portable Apps For Mac

Trevor Dobrygoski — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 12:26:28 +0000

A while back I posted 10 Useful Portable Applications to Run On Your USB Drive. I thought it was time to do the same type of post for all of the Mac folks. If you do not find something in this list to suit your needs, with a few Google searches you are likely to find something to work for you.

1. Cyberduck

Opensource Mac FTP client. If you aren’t using Cyberduck, here is a basic run through.

2. Portable VLC OS X

The play anything media player. Highly recommended if you are using multiple computers.

3. Portable Adium

All-in-one instant messenger (Google, ICQ, Yahoo, AIM, MSN…)

4. Portable Firefox Cross Plartform

Firefox for both Windows and OSX. Use Firefox with add-ons like Xmarks to sync your bookmarks.

5. Portable Thunderbird Cross Platform

The cross platform version of Mozilla Thunderbird will allow you to access your email application anywhere you have a computer with a USB port.

6. Netfixer

Easy to use webpage capture tool. Use the optional bookmarklet to activate the application.

7. Camino

An Opensource web browser built for Macs by Mozilla. Some Firefox-like add-ons are available, but not near as many. Greasemonkey scripts can also be converted for use with Camino.

8. Neverball

Game of skill and patience. Use the mouse to tilt the floor and move the ball; it sounds easy, but it isn’t.

9. FSuite

Over 40 portable apps spanning everything from games to word processors, media players to a BitTorrent client, you shouldn’t be lacking anything in this pack of applications.

10. SmillaEnlarger

A image tool used to resize, especially to magnify .BMP files in high quality.

11. iStumbler

Find AirPort, Bluetooth, Bonjour and other wireless signals and services. Lots of extra information about the networks available in the area.

12. Bean

Free rich text editor compatible with Microsoft Word.

13. ViewIt

Quick-to-open image viewer which supports nearly all commonly used image formats.

14. Inquisitor

Lets you find information on the web in the same way you use Spotlight. Start typing and it will begin to return sites based on your criteria.

15. iBackup

Simple, small application to help automate backups.

16. Paintbrush

A simple Cocoa-based image editor for when Photoshop would be too much of a hassle.

17. Maintenance

System maintenance and repair utility, with different versions for Tiger and Leopard. Some uses are: repair permissions, delete applications, reset Spotlight’s Index, run periodic scripts…