The short explanation of the Facebook Cover Art is this: when you are out someplace and you take a really great picture, you can create a new Cover picture and upload it right to your Facebook Timeline. Below is the specifics of how it works.

Using Facebook Cover Art for Android

When you open the application, you will be prompted to grant access to your Facebook account. This is important to do because if you don’t grant access, you can’t upload the new Cover art.

Once you have granted access, you are ready to get to making your first Cover picture. To start, you will want to find a picture you have taken. There are a few places you can look for a picture. You can choose from images on your phone, in your Facebook news feed or pictures you have already uploaded in your Facebook albums. These choices are listed across the top of the application’s main screen.

When you have found a picture on your phone that you want to use, press Use Photo in the bottom right of that screen. You will be asked to choose what you want to do with the picture: use it as a profile picture, as cover art or seamless mode.

Using pinch to zoom, you will need to resize and move the picture so it fills the area and looks the way you’d like it to.

When you have the picture the way you want it to be, you will have a preview of how it should look. If all is well, then click on Upload and Share. You should see a popup telling you to head over to m.Facebook.com and select the new picture as your new Cover art.

Other options for Cover art

There is a bunch of pre-made Cover art packaged into Facebook Cover Art for Android. If you don’t have any interesting pictures to use, try one of these.

What works well and what didn’t

The process was pretty easy to figure out and complete but there were a couple things I couldn’t get to work. These issues may have been related to my device specifically so do not let these hinder you from trying out Facebook Cover Art for Android.

When choosing pictures from my device, there were a few pictures that didn’t want to work. I believe they were pictures from a home screen wallpaper application I previously used. The other problem I had was, the end result of the Cover I created was not 100% the same as the end result. It took a little playing around to get the picture in the preview (before uploading) to be centered and look the same as the end result on Facebook.

Conclusion

I really like this application. It makes using your pictures for a Cover really easy. For people who are on the go more than at a computer, this is a great way to change up your profile on the fly.

Share your tips for using Facebook while mobile in the comments below.

The usage is simple. Create an account with Toggl. The basic account is free and allows up to 5 users. Beyond that, it will cost $5 per user/month. Once you are logged in to Toggl, you will see an input field “What are you working on?” and the Start button. To get started, simply enter a description for your task and click the “Start” button. How difficult can that be?

For more detail, you can also setup Projects, define your own start and end time and add tags.

For those who prefer a desktop version, you can also go to its widget page

This is how it look like for a desktop app.

They might be simple, but they are very usable.

Of course, it would be useless if you are not able to view or export the reports. In Toggl, you can view reports according to projects, user (for multi-users account), weekly or time entries. The export format it currently supported is pdf and csv.

For PRO accounts, you can also integrate with BaseCamp, Freshbooks, ActiveCollab, QuickBooks etc.

In short, Toggl is a simple, yet useful web based Time Tracker that you can use. If you are using multiple OSes and need to access your data at all time, Toggl is definitely one app that I would recommend.

The following five websites help developers and designers to validate websites and check the website code for any sort of error.

1. W3C Markup Validation Service

The W3C Markup Validation Service allows users to validate their websites by either providing a link to the HTML, XHTML, SMIL, and MathML file or by either uploading one in the same format, as mentioned before.

If you just need to check a specific part of code, you may manually punch in the code in the “Direct Input” tab to validate it.

There are various options available such as the Character Encoding option, showing source, showing outline or cleaning up markup by HTML-Tidy that you can choose before clicking “Check” to validate the code.

W3C Markup Validation Service

2. FAE

FAE, short for Functional Accessibility Evaluator, is a clean, easy to use website that allows users to validate the websites and get a rating of many different factors such as – Navigation & Orientation, Text Equivalents, Scripting, Styling and HTML Standards.

The website also breaks down the HTML Standards into smaller subtopics such as Titles, Sub-headings, Navigation Bars, etc and gives you a rating. Any sort of bug/error adds to the rating under the “Warm” or “Fail” heading.

FAE

3. Browser Shots

The Browser Shot is a nifty little website that allows web developers, and designers to check how their website looks on different browsers on various operating systems. This is something that every web developers need to do, but do not have the means to do it.

Using the service is easy. All you have to do is type in the URL of the website you want to check and tick the browsers that you want to see. Click “Submit” and you will see the a screenshot of the website for each browser.

Browser Shots

4. Pingdom Tools

Pingdom Tools is an online website that allows web designers and developers to test the load time of a page, the DNS health for the server on which the website is being run on, and also the speed at which a website connects to the server (ping rate).

To test any of the following items, just visit the website, enter the URL link of the website in the URL-link box, and click “Test Now”.

The website will automatically do the processing and display to you the required details you have asked for – Page load time, DNS Health or Ping Rate.

Pingdom Tools

5. W3C Link Checker

The W3C Link Checker is just like the W3C Markup Validation website; except that it is more widely used.

The W3C Link Checker allows developers to find any sort of issues in links, anchors, and referenced objects in a web page, CSS Style Sheet.

To check for any errors, just provide the W3C Link Checker website with the link to your HTML or CSS style sheet file and click “Check”. It will then automatically do the required proof-reading of the document and display any errors in the document to you (if any).

W3C Link Checker

If you are a web developer then you should try out, and use these websites as they not only make your work more “bug” free but also improves the whole site browsing experience for the users.

Image credit: ollesvensson

Windows 7 doesn’t come with a native application for you to track your Internet usage, but there are several useful and lightweight third-party apps that can easily get the job done.

1. NetStat Live

NetStat Live (NSL) is a small, easy to use TCP/IP protocol monitor which records all incoming and outgoing traffic (the bandwidth, not the data) and lets you see the exact throughput on both incoming and outgoing data. To put it simply, it measures your Internet usage and display them in a easy to read format.

If you noticed, NetStats Live is more than just a bandwidth monitor. It also tracks your CPU usage and show you how quickly your data goes from your computer to another computer on the Internet. So if your Internet connection is slow, you can find out which point of connection is slowing down the data transmission.

NetSats Live

2. tbbMeter

tbbMeter is a bandwidth meter to help you monitor your Internet usage. It comes with a graph to allow you to see how much data your computer is sending to and receiving from the Internet in real time.

The good thing about tbbMeter is that it is highly configurable. You can change the visual style to show animated icon, scrolling graph or bar meter and get it to display the traffic for all Internet connection or only for local connection.

There is also plenty of test tools that you can use to test your Internet connection. My personal favorite is the Speedtest that measure how fast my Internet connection is.

There are many more features in tbbMeter that are not mentioned above. You really have to try it out to see how useful it is.

tbbMeter

3. BitMeter OS

BitMeter OS is slightly different in that it is cross-platform compatible and it works from your browser rather than a standalone application.

Once installed and started up, it will fire up your browser and display the traffic graph in a new tab.

The main page shows the traffic graph, but you can also select to view the History, Summary, Query (for a specific date range) and even set a alert when your network usage goes above a certain amount.

For those who love a clean interface without clutter and need the ability to zoom into a specific date in the history, BitMeter OS is the one for you.

BitMeter OS

4. FreeMeter

FreeMeter is a small and portable application that acts like a widget on your desktop. It used to be open source, but the developer took down the Open Source tag because someone took the code, rebrand it and publish it as their own. The latest version is now closed source and is only available for download on the developer’s website.

This application is pretty simple. It tracks your traffic usage and show them on the graph, real-time. There is no history or summary feature, but you can run the ping utility to see if a site is up. For those who need a small tool to monitor a spike in Internet usage, this is the one to go for.

FreeMeter

5. Bandwidth Vista

If you need to know the geo-location and IP of the connection that you are making to and from, then Bandwidth Vista is the application for you. Once installed and activated, you will see a map of the world and the traffic graph at the bottom of the map. Points are placed on the map to show the countries/locations of the connection made.

Other features of Bandwidth Vista include a ping utility and an alert function to notify you of excessive data usage.

Bandwidth Vista

Which is your favorite application to track Internet usage?

Image credit: Big Stock Photo

1. Openproj

Openproj is so far the best free and open source alternative to Microsoft Project. Openproj is the best alternative because there is very little time and effort required to shift from Microsoft Project to Openproj. It can even open MPP and MPT files created from Microsoft Project but one drawback of Openproj is that it will not be able to save the file back to MS Project file format but rather save it in an XML file which can be opened universally by any XML reader.

Download Openproj

Openproj is compatible with Mac OS, Windows and Linux.

2. Gantter

Gantter is a free web based project management application that is especially targeted for small businesses and home users. The biggest feature of Gantter that I like the most is that it can be easily integrated with Google docs. You can also import your MPP files created in Microsoft Project but Gantter will save files in XML format. You can either save your projects locally or on Gantter cloud servers.

Visit Gantter

3. Teambox

Teambox is another free web based project management tool.  Teambox is much like a social network of all the people who are working on a project. You can easily assign tasks, leave comments and fix due dates and this functionality is given just like we post anything on Facebook or any other social network. This makes it stand off from other project management tools. If your requirement is heavy collaboration among the team, Teambox is the perfect solution for you. The free edition of Teambox supports up to 3 projects and 50MB of online space.

Visit Teambox

4. Rally Community Edition

Rally Community Edition is another web based free and easy to use project management tool. This tool is an ideal solution for small business free for up to 10 users. You can easily plan and track tasks with Rally community edition. The distinction of Rally Community Edition is that it provides personal dashboards for all the users and combines social media tools for better collaboration and getting the right things done at the right time.

Visit Rally Community Edition

5. FreedCamp

FreedCamp is another feature rich web based alternative to Microsoft Project. The thing that attracts me towards FreedCamp is their claim on their homepage:

Over 48 universities, and 31 thousand professionals from 188 countries use Freedcamp every day!

FreedCamp offers an extremely easy to use dashboard which even newbies can get familiar with easily. FreedCamp works in modules and you can install any application that suits your project. This approach is especially successful as people have the flexibility to work on only the tasks and tools that they would like to use. All extras will never be installed. You can install the basic apps during the signup process. The basic apps includes a to-do list, discussions, milestones, time and files.

Which is your application of choice for managing your projects whether at the office or at home? What do you think is the best way to manage projects easily? Is it through using the software or doing things manually?

Image credit: Big Stock Photo

There are a plethora of file storage and file sharing services available on the web. Many of them are free for a limited amount of space (often around 2 to 5 GB). For a lot of people, this type of service is sufficient, but if you want your own file storage system, need a lot more space, do not want to pay a third party service, and already have your own web hosting account for your website, ownCloud is a free and open source option you should definitely consider.

Installation

ownCloud is a simple PHP web application that will work on most Linux and Unix servers. A typical installation server will have Apache HTTP Server and MySQL or SQLite (if you do not want to use a database server). If you are running your own dedicated server or VPS, your Linux distribution may already have the ownCloud packages in its default repository. For example, to install on an Ubuntu server, simple type:

sudo apt-get install owncloud

It will automatically install dependencies, such as Apache, PHP, and MySQL. Once the installation is complete, you can point your browser to http://yourdomain/owncloud and start the “First Run Wizard”.

To install ownCloud manually, do the following:

1. Go to owncloud.org and download the latest version
2. Extract the contents of the archive to your computer. If you have SSH access to your server, you can upload the archive first and extract with

   tar -xjvf owncloud-2.x.tar.bz2

3. Copy the extracted files to the directory of your choice within the web-accessible documents directory of your server (i.e. public_html, htdocs, etc.)
4. Set the permissions. If you have a shared hosting account, use FTP or SFTP to create a directory called “data” and set the permissions to “750″. Then, set the permissions of the “config” directory to “777″. If you have root access, you can use this command:

   chown -R www-data:www-data owncloud/

   Replace “www-data” with whatever the name of your Apache user is.

5. Point your browser to http://yourdomain/owncloud to complete the installation
6. Enter a username and password for your administrative account
7. If SQLite is detected, ownCloud will use it by default. Alternatively, you can enter your MySQL database information in the “Advanced” section.

Using ownCloud

The software for ownCloud was developed by some of the developers of KDE and is designed to work with free and open source operating systems, unlike some proprietary cloud storage services. You can use your web browser to upload and manage files, but you can also use WebDav to connect to your files directly from your desktop file manager.

In Dolphin, follow these steps:

1. Click the “Network” option in “Places” or go to “remote:/”
2. Click the “Add Network Folder” button
3. Keep the first option, WebFolder (webdav), selected and click Next
4. Give the connection a name and enter your ownCloud username
5. In the “Server” box, type your full domain name
6. In the “Folder” box, type the relative path to your owncloud installation (i.e. /owncloud/webdav/owncloud.php)
7. Check the box next to “Create an icon for this remote folder”
8. Click Save and Connect.

After entering your password, it should connect to your ownCloud folder. You can now drag and drop files just as you would with a folder on your computer. Moreover, KDE apps are all integrated and should be able to use the folder as well.

Cloud Freedom

ownCloud gives you the freedom to use the cloud on your terms however you want. You can access your files from anywhere, just as you would with a proprietary cloud service, but the files and software are yours. You will not have to worry about privacy or the safety of your data. For more information about ownCloud in general, visit the project’s website. For more detailed install instructions, including those for other operating systems and web servers, see this page.

Having an online invoice not only gives you a backup of the invoices but also prompts the receiver of the payment as soon as the payment is made or so.

1. Freshbooks

Freshbooks is one of the best online invoice management tools out there. The service allows you to add clients quickly to the dashboard, along with the necessary details and email them the invoices.

Creating an invoice is really easy and user-friendly. You can also add some great checks to the invoice such as “Average” etc to get the best result from the invoice. You can even save invoice templates for quick use later on.

2. Invoicera

Invoicera is an advanced invoicing web service great for businesses and people alike. It allows you to easily integrate your accounts with your e-Commerce stores and many other tools such as PayPal, cubecart, VirtueMart, etc.

The service can also be installed on a personal server to create unlimited invoices whenever a person needs one. Templates can be made allowing brand identity to be demonstrated every time an invoice is sent.

3. Invoicebubble

A very easy to use and free online invoice managing and creating tool. Create professional invoices within seconds for no cost at all. No need to buy expensive templates, or software to make invoices.

You can also setup an automated recurring invoice system to send out invoices timely. Ability to connect and pay through PayPal is also available.

4. Invoice Machine

The Invoice Machine is an online invoicing service which makes invoicing simple and makes it look more professional with clean looks and easy to understand concept.

The Invoice Machine is a great tool for freelancers and businesses who want to easily manage invoices and get free from the hassle of paper work.

You can also send invoices directly to the mailbox of your clients with a PDF file to an email. This way both you and your clients will be required to do the least amount of work.

5. Tradeshift

Tradeshift is a great tool for every business, both small and large businesses. Large businesses can easily integrate their invoicing system with ERP packages, like SAP and Oracle.

Not only can the user send and receive invoices, but you also have the ability to connect, communicate and exchange documents all in real time. The user-friendly design and simple theme of the website makes it very easy for anyone to make an invoice using this service.

6. Invoicedude

Invoicedude allows you to not only create and manage invoices, but also allows you to automate invoices if any invoice is recurring.

The invoice can be set at multiple currencies, so you can bill your clients according to their respective currency. The user also has the ability to accept payment through PayPal by easily linking email and PayPal account.

The dashboard makes it easy for you to know how much cash you are owed, or how much you owe. The clients have their very own panel.

7. Ronin

Ronin is yet another online invoice management service that allows users to manage and schedule invoices. Even though Ronin relies on a user-friendly, clean theme with a simple back-end, the powers it holds are powerful and rich on features.

One of the best feature of Ronin is the ability for it to allow teams to collaborate and share and access critical financial information with each other.

Conclusion

Using these services is helpful as they allow you to manage and create invoices more quickly than doing paperwork. It can also be considered to be “environmentally friendly” since you are saving paper, but that is if you love nature so much. Do you use any online invoicing service? If yes, please share with us using the comments section below and tell us why you prefer that service.

Image credit: Big Stock Photo

1. 1calendar

1calendar is an amazing Google Calendar alternative that allows you to combine private activities, along with other personal and public tasks.

One of the best things about 1calendar is the fact that you can integrate it with Facebook, which imports all the events and birthdays. 1calendar is also an amazing tool for school going kids who can update their school timetable in real-time with push notifications.

A mobile app for 1calendar makes it one of the best easy-to-use, and portable alternative for Google Calendar. The mobile app has offline access so you can use it anywhere you want.

1calendar

2. Coolendar

Coolendar is not only a calendar. It takes things to a completely new level by combining your schedule and a lot more things together to make it the most effective.

You can use alerts to notify you of different events. The alerts can be sent directly to your e-mail, messenger, and web, desktop, mobile and even twitter.

One of the best things about Coolendar is the vast availability of the app. It is found not only for iPhone or for Android, but is also available for the Web, Amazon Kindle, Email and even Twitter.

Coolendar

3. Tungle

If you are a person who is constantly on the move, then you might want to check Tungle out.

You cannot only synchronize your Tungle Calendar with Hotmail, Google or Yahoo! Calendars but you may also wish to schedule events letting other people know when you are free or letting other people send you an invite!

The simple, user-friendly interface of Tungle makes it an amazing alternative to Google Calendar. A mobile app is available for Blackberry and iPhone.

Tungle

4. Scheduly

If you have an established business, just list down the services your business offers and whenever you require – direct your clients towards the page.

The client can then choose the best time for using your services by grabbing their desired time out of your available time slots.

You can even “Manage” your client pool to allow only authorized clients schedule your services.

Scheduly

5. Whichtime

Whichtime is a Google Calendar alternative that requires absolutely no app or program to be downloaded in order to be used.

Just use the online form to create point-and-click events and make your very own timetable in a few easy steps. Once done, you can either download the calendar or just access it from the web whenever you need it.

Whichtime

6. Timeshout

Timeshout is a place that not only lets you schedule events, but also allows you to promote them and share it with the world.

Create and post your events to show them off, you can even create bookable events and let people buy tickets and pay for them online.

The service is FREE to use and even has mobile access available for easy access.

Timeshout

Conclusion

There you have it – 6 of the finest or some of the best Google Calendar alternatives available on the Internet. There are a lot more, but all of these are FREE and effective at the same time. If you know about any other tool which can serve a handy scheduling web app, please share with us.

Image Credit: J_Moses

Think of all the clutter you will eliminate by inputting events such as the due dates of your bills, prescription refills or even monthly meetings.

How Romulist works

Firstly, it is in beta. You can get a quick invite if you tweet their message to your flock of Twitter followers.

When you get the invite, you just click on the link they DM you. You will be taken to a page to login.

On the login page, you can either use an email address to create your account,

or you can login with your Google account or your Google Apps account.

Once you are in, you may need to fill in some basic info. It may be already correct. The 3 main things you will need to look at are your time zone, that emails are enabled and set your contact time. Just give it a once over and move on if everything is all good.

Now is the part where you start adding in your reoccurring appointments. The layout is pretty self explanatory. Give the event a name, select the day it is on and how far in advance you want to know about the event. You can see an example of an event if you really need to.

As you add events, you can see them in a list. You will also start to see the dates on the calendar fill in with color. All of this can be viewed on your dashboard.

You can also see just the events under the events tab.

Event reminders

After you have all of your events added into your Romulist, you can sit back and wait for your first email. You will get an email reminder in the morning around the time you set. If you are unsure of what time you set, the default is 8AM. You can check for yourself in the settings tab. I know I am usually out the door before 8AM on days I am at the office so a 6 or 7AM email would be better for my schedule.

Ideas for using Romulist

There are a lot of uses for a service like Romulist. Here are a few examples.

• Write your monthly email newsletter.
• Schedule a lunch meeting with a friend.
• Refill a prescription.
• Pay rent.
• Pay other bills
• Bill a client.
• Backup your computer.
• Any reoccurring bank deposits into your account.
• Dates for any reoccurring bank transfers.

Conclusion

I think a service like Romulist is great for the people who do not use a digital calendar or for those who do, but hate to clutter it with reoccurring monthly events. The key to a web app like this is you need to be a person who pays attention to their emails. If you don’t, then it is just wasted time and effort.

How would you use a service like Romulist help you manage your monthly to-do list?

The beauty of a free website builder like Bellstrike is how easy it is to use. If you can fill out a form and upload a picture, you can build a site. Bellstrike will give you the chance to have a place to send people for donations and information about your event or cause. Here is a run-through on how- to set-up a free donation site for your non-profit fundraiser.

Starting your free fundraising site

There is a little bit of information needed to create an account. The name of your organization, an email address, etc. It is all pretty basic except for one part.

You will need to use WePay for taking donations. If you do not have an account with WePay, you can create one in advance to make the process go faster.

Once you have run through the account setup, you are ready to roll up your sleeves and get to the real work. Here is a look at what the default site looks like. There is no information here other than what was given during the account setup.

As you go through the settings, you will be able to modify most of what you see in the above picture. There are a surprising amount of options available as you will see. The first step is to tackle the look of the site. You can change the color scheme, add a logo and add a summary to your header.

Now it is time for all of the essential information. You can type up all the information about your organization. Members of your team, mission statement, add pictures of your team and so on.

In the contact tab, there is a spot to link to your main website, Facebook and Twitter accounts if you have them.

The programs can be an “In the News” section. You can add pictures, videos and other information to go into better detail about what you do. If you have multiple programs, you can add more than one of these pages.

What kind of site would it be without a blog? You can easily update everyone on how you are doing. Having a blog section is a good place to talk more about your cause. You can write little posts to keep people talking about you and sharing your site.

The most important part to a site like this is the donation page. You will have a shopping cart-like checkout page where you can add different items or “Needs” to the page. That way. someone can give you $50 intended for Office supplies versus $50 for entertaining clients. You can edit the information people will see on the when they are ready to check out.

If you have the need for it, there is an option to add additional pages to the site. You can add text, photos, videos and even upload files for people to download later.

When you are all done making your site, you can take a look at the live version by clicking on the View Website button at the top of your site editor window. Here is the mess I created while writing this article. I hope yours looks a lot nicer when there are pics, videos and real information on it.

Final thoughts

I like the ease of use and how many options there are to create a fast donation site. Many uses come to mind for anyone who needs to collect money for events like:

• Charity walk-a-thons or runs
• Non-profit fund raisers
• Small tournament registrations
• Club information sites
• Disaster relief donations
• School club or group donation sites

What are your thoughts about free site builders like Bellstrike?

Image credit: Big Stock Photo

ZeroPC is one such online desktop that aims to replace your computer desktop. It comes with a variety of (web) applications to help you stay productive and allows you to connect to your social accounts (such as Dropbox, box.net, Sugarsync etc) so all your online files are readily available.

Familiar User-interface

Once you have created an account and logged in, you will be greeted with a Windows-style interface. Doesn’t matter if you are from a Windows, Mac or Linux background, the user-interface will be too familiar to you, and that is good because you can start using it immediately.

There is a Dashboard icon at the right bottom corner of the screen which when clicked, give you an overview of your ZeroPC desktop.

Applications

There are a couple of useful apps available in the desktop for your usage. A music player with the ability to stream music from your social accounts, a messenger app for your IM needs, ThinkFree Office for document editing, a video player, an universal Inbox to check emails from various accounts. It doesn’t come with a image editor though.

It also has a series of bookmarks to popular web apps like Angry Bird, Ted.com, Wikipedia, LinkedIn etc. Clicking on the bookmark launches the web link in its own window, making it looks like a native app rather than a website.

Social Accounts

The best part about ZeroPC is the ability to connect all your social accounts in one place. The social accounts that are currently supported by ZeroPC includes

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Google
• Flickr
• Dropbox
• Box.net
• Sugarsync
• Instagram
• Picasa
• Evernote

Once you connect them to your ZeroPC desktop, you will be able to access all your files/folders/contacts/update right in the desktop. You can even search for the files, folders, documents, photos, video, and music, even though they are scattered all over the cloud.

Mobile app

To make it easily accessible, there is also a iPad app and Android tablet app.

Pricing

ZeroPC comes in both freemium and premium model. While you can sign up and use ZeroPC for free, you can also upgrade to the premium plan and enjoy desktop sharing, more storage space, bigger file upload size limit and several other premium options. The premium plan is interesting. Instead of paying a fixed price every month, you top up your ZeroPC account with credits and pay as you use the bandwidth and storage space. Based on its calculation, an average user who utilizes 1.8Gb of bandwidth and 3Gb of storage space pays about $2.61 per month, which in my opinion, is very affordable.

Stability

Even though ZeroPC is a web app, it still requires the installation of java plugin for it to work. On my Linux (Ubuntu) system and Chrome, it seems to have a conflict with the java plugin and keep logging me out of the session.

On another machine running Windows and Chrome browser, it works fine though. It could just be me (Linux system) that is having the above issue.

Conclusion

For everything that ZeroPC attempts to do, there is definitely a native app for your desktop that can do the same thing, regardless the OS you are using. However, if you are using a desktop-less PC, like the Chromebook, iPad or Android tablet, ZeroPC will be a useful app for you.

ZeroPC

1. GreatSummary

Great Summary is a useful website which allows you to summarize articles right from your browsers. There are two options to choose from: Document Summarization or GreatSummary Subscriptions.

The latter creates a news feed for a webpage to track any changes made in it. For e.g: making one for some Wikipedia page to know if some new information was added or altered.

The first option allows you to put any web-page link in the URL box, and choose in how many lines you need the summary. Click “Summarize” and you will get a brief paragraph on the article, with only the main points.

>GreatSummary

2. Smmry

A simple website that allow users to either summarize from a passage of text, from an uploaded file or from a web-page link.

You can also choose the number of sentence for the summary. The less the sentences, the smaller the summary.

Smmry

3. Free Summarizer

Free Summarizer allows you to copy a passage of text and paste it in the text box. You can then choose the number of sentences in which the summary should be made, and input your email to which the summary will be emailed.

A great tool if you want to send a summary to your teacher or fellow student in a quick moment.

Note: The email is not compulsory. If you do not enter an email ID, the summary will still be shown to you in your browser

Free Summarizer

4. TopicMarks

TopicMarks is one of the most advanced summarizing tools found on the Internet. It makes use of a complex algorithm to summarize text documents and display only the most important points.

To make the most effective use of TopicMarks, upload all files that are linked together in order to get the best summary. TopicMarks also allows you to upload or use files from Evernote and Google Docs and Google Reader.

However, to make use of the service, you first need to make an account on the website. Once you have an account, you can summarize and save summaries on their cloud-managed servers.

TopicMarks

5. Wiki Summarizer

Wiki Summarizer is a website specially made for summarizing articles found on Wikipedia. You can search Wikipedia right from the website and choose the article you wish to summarize.

Or, you can enter the keywords or link to the article you want to summarize and get the most vital points extracted from the article and displayed to you.

The user-friendly design really makes it easy for anyone to use the service.

Wiki Summarizer

Conclusion

There you have it, these are five good websites that you should make use of if you are in a hurry or too busy or read an article, yet want the most important points extracted from it.

Image credit: BigStockPhoto

A good solution is to compress the image to a size that is suitable for sharing and emailing. JPEGmini is a handy online utility which allow users to reduce image file size by up to 5 times and optimize them for online use. Later, those images can be uploaded, emailed, used in blog posts or simply anywhere. One good thing about JPEGmini is that it does not reduce image size without having major impact on its quality.

Usage

Using JPEGmini is really simple and straightforward. Open JPEGmini website and click on the Try Now button to get started.

All you have to do is click on the Select Photo button and browse the image which you want to optimize. The time it takes to process the photo depends on the size of the image and you Internet speed.

Once the optimization is complete, it will show the optimized image as well as the original one. It will also show you the how much size was reduced by JPEGmini. Just click on the Download Photo button to save the image to your PC.

Registration

If you like the service, you can sign up for a free account, which allows you to upload full albums, share the uploaded/optimized images on Picasa and Flickr and unlimited usage. Best of all, it’s completely free. Just click on Sign up button and fill the required fields. If you don’t want to go through the registration procedure, you can use your Google or Facebook credentials to login to JPEGmini. However, to do that you must authorize the application to access your Facebook or Google account.

Once registered, you can upload multiple photos and reduce their size. It will automatically create the album and you can name it to whatever you want. When you upload multiple albums, it might not show the images for a few seconds. It will be great if they can show a progress bar so at least you know they are processing in the background. Once its uploaded, you can download the entire album with one single click.

Sharing

If you sign up, you can share your album on Picasa and Flickr as well. Just click one Send to Flickr/Picasa button under the album and it will ask you to authorize JPEGmini to access your Picasa account.

It will automatically upload the selected album on Picasa.

Conclusion

JPEGmini is a really handy web application which can reduce image file size without affecting its quality. We tested the application by uploading several images of different sizes and the conversion rate was really good. It reduced images by more than 5 times. Do you use JPEGmini? If yes, please share your views using the comments section below.

Check out JPEGmini

We covered a few temporary email services a while back. This is an add-on to that post to give you a couple more choices.

1. 10 Minute Mail

10 Minute Mail gives you a random email address and inbox that is functional for 10 minutes. While this doesn’t seem like much time, most email newsletter auto responders are quick to reply with your free eBook link.

Here is how 10 Minute Mail works.

When you go to 10minutemail.com, all you need to do is copy the already highlighted temporary email address.

Use the email address to sign up for the service or get the free prize. If it is takin0g a bit for the reply email to come in, you may want to click on the link to reset the 10 minute timer.

When you receive an email, you will see it in the messages folder at the bottom of the page.

When you are all done, you can just let the email address expire. When you the 10 minutes is up, you will see a message telling you your email address has self destructed. If you need another email address, you can click the link to get a totally different one.

2. MailNull

MailNull is another service offering temporary email addresses. The difference is you have a bit more time to send and receive emails. MailNull works the same way. Here is a walk through. You will see the differences and probably see how differently the uses could be.

For starters, you need to set up an account to use the service. Requiring an account helps weed out more lazy people and spammers. MailNull also logs your IP address when you sign up.

To forewarn you, your account name will be a prefix for your email name. I chose MTE as my account name, so my emails are mte.whateveriwant@mailnull.com

Now that you have signed up and confirmed the link in the email confirmation they send, you are ready to create an email address. Log in using your account name and the password you chose. You can choose how long you stay logged in for on this screen as well.

In the left sidebar, click Add New Address. You will have another form to fill out.

One cool thing about having the option to fill out all of this information is, the bottom part of the form is an optional reminder to you where you used the email address and what it was for.

In this form you are also asked how many emails you’d like to receive or for how long you’d like the email address to be active.

After all the information is filled in, you will get a confirmation screen like this.

At this point, the email address is usable. When you receive and email reply to this address, it will be automatically forwarded to your real email address. If MailNull spots a spammy email, it will hold it in their system and not send it to your real email address.

Conclusion

Both of these services have their merit. They can both be used to sign up for services, make temporary logins to test services or one of the many other reasons you may need a throw away email address. I think MailNull is a bit more involved, but the added features make it better for anyone who needs more than a onetime use service.

What are some reasons you may need a disposable email address?

1. Google and Yahoo Calendars

This is probably the best choice and my default to use Google Calendar for my business reminders and Yahoo Calendar for my personal reminders. This includes different events, birthdays, tasks, invoices etc. I use Google Calendar especially for tasks that need to be performed again and again after fixed intervals of time. You can set the reminder to be emailed automatically at the event time or before the event.

2. Nyabag

Nyabag is just more than a reminder service. It can be termed as a personal diary of your life. Nyabag sends email reminders about the tasks that need to be performed after specified time intervals. I use Nyabag especially for the tasks that I need to perform again and again and keep a list of those tasks. These lists cannot be created with Google or Yahoo Calendars. This is unique feature of Nyabag. With Nyabag you can also see the daily events through the passage of time.

3. HassleMe

HassleMe is rather a unique service in the sense that it is not a fixed reminder service. It will send you reminder emails at semi-predictable intervals of time about the things that you need to do regularly. For example, if I want to check my accounting books after approximately 3 days, I will setup a reminder in HassleMe and this service will automatically mail me reminder about checking the accounting books every few days but not exactly 3 days. It will keep on nagging in my email about the task I have to perform. Very good service especially for tasks that don’t need exact time frames.

4. Remindr

Remindr is another simple online service that is only focused on one thing – reminding. I like the simplicity of Remindr. You only have to fill out a few fields and you will be reminded about the task in a number of ways including email, Twitter, Google Talk messenger and SMS. Currently, at the time of this writing, the SMS service is disabled. If you are not comfortable with the email reminders, you can use this service to be reminded through Twitter or Google Talk messenger.

5. Timerrr

Timerrr is not a reminder service like all others that I have mentioned. It is rather an online timer. But I use it for my reminders. While organizing myself, I need to complete my tasks in a timely manner so I don’t want to give more time to one task while ignoring others. So I make a daily schedule and the before starting each task, set the timer with Timerrr service. It will automatically remind me when the time for the task is over so that I may be able to start the next time on time.

All these services are not competitors but rather they can be used for different tasks depending on the nature of reminder we want to set. So select your reminder service wisely and then tell use what you have chosen and why in the comments below.

Image credit: Big Stock Photo

A Bit About “The Cloud”

As with many tech buzzwords, you might get a different definition of this term from each person you ask. Some might describe it as a way of scaling your computing resources to fit your needs.

Let’s say ABC Books, a local book store wants to run a site where their customers can buy books online. The “traditional” approach would be for someone to dust off a server, install an OS, run a webserver application and load their site on it.

When virtualization was becoming popular, people started using another method called the Virtual Private Server or VPS. With this method, you can have multiple operating systems running on the same machine, each with their own setup and applications.

This allows each user to have full control over their system, but without the expense of dedicated hardware. ABC Books, our example complany, would likely save money by switching to VPS, as they don’t need the server’s full power and can share the cost with other users. The “cloud” method takes virtualization even further. Since you’re already virtualizing the software, what happens if you virtualize the hardware too? The essence of cloud computing is taking a huge collection of computing resources and intelligently assigning them as needed. Take this diagram for example.

You can see that most of the portions are different sizes. ABC Books might only need a portion of one server, but Bob’s House of Free iPads might generate more traffic and need multiple servers. One of the greatest benefits of cloud computing is that you can scale your resources up and down as needed.

Let’s say a huge celebrity talks about their love of ABC Books, and suddenly the site is getting hundreds of times the amount of traffic it normally would. Their dedicated server is probably not equipped to handle that. Likewise, a VPS (though more flexible) will still need a hardware transfer or upgrade to keep up. A cloud based server, however, could just be “turned up” to handle the excess traffic. When the buzz has died down, you just reduce your resources back to normal.

Signing up for EC2

Note: The free account is indeed free, but during the signup, you will be asked for credit card information. See Amazon’s terms for details.

Log in or create your Amazon EC2 account. Unfortunately, new user registrations can sometimes remain pending for several hours.

Once your Amazon Web Services account is set up, you can access your management console by clicking the Sign In to AWS Management Console link in the top-right corner of aws.amazon.com or clicking here.

Creating an Instance

Once your account is activated and you’re able to access the AWS Console, you’ll probably want to start by creating server instance to run some software.

The first thing you’ll be asked to do is decide on a base platform. The Amazon Linux is a good bet if you’re looking to demo the service.

The next page lets you set some details regarding your instance. You’ll probably want to leave these settings as they are, seeing as how the free tier only supports the Micro instance type, and Availability Zone should make no difference at this stage.

The next page, Advanced Instance Options, should be left at defaults unless you have a specific reason to do otherwise.

The last step of your Instance Options is the one where you choose tags. This step is optional, and nothing will be broken if you specify no tags, but it’s recommended to at least apply a value to the Name key to make this instance easy to identify.

The next step is to create a key pair. Instead of passwords, EC2 uses cryptographic keys to identify users. If that sounds confusing don’t worry, it’s really not that complicated. The first step is to name and generate a key pair, then download that to your computer. I’d recommend saving it to ~/.ssh/.

Once you’ve got the keys saved, you’ll need to make sure it’s private. You cannot skip this step, as SSH will refuse to use a publicly viewable key. It’s quick and easy to set this, just open your Linux or OSX terminal and type:

chmod 600 ~/.ssh/MyEC2Key.pem

and to actually use it to connect, go with

#You will of course have to wait until your instance is actually running
ssh -i ~/.ssh/MyEC2Key.pem root@your-ec2-dns-address.com

Finally, you’ve just got to open a hole in the firewall for your app. The dropdown list contains several common network options such as SSH, DNS, and of course HTTP. If you want to enter a custom port, here’s your chance.

Once you review and launch your instance, you’re set! You can now use SSH as indicated above to connect to your public DNS (highlighted in the screenshot below).

Conclusion

From here on out, it’s your “server” to deal with as you wish. Applications can be installed and removed however you see fit. The service is can be tailored to exactly the application you have in mind – anything from a web server to VPN gateway to a place to host your files. Good luck and have fun on the cloud!

There are a number of really solid desktop diagramming applications. For many people, though, that software is overkill. The applications contain more features than you’ll ever use. On top of that, if you move between operating systems a lot, you’ll run into compatibility problems. And what happens if you’re away from your computer and need to whip up a diagram in a hurry?

You turn to the web, of course! Like just about everything else, there’s a web-based app for diagramming. Well, more than one. Let’s take a look at four of the best ones.

1. Gliffy

Let’s start off with what’s arguably the most powerful and flexible diagramming tool on the web: Gliffy. You can use Gliffy’s templates (and there are quite a few of them) or start off with a blank canvas on which you can build your own diagrams.

So what kinds of diagrams can you create with Gliffy’s templates? Website and software user interfaces, Venn diagrams, organizational charts, flowcharts, network diagrams, UML diagrams, floor plans, and even business processes. There’s pretty much something in there for everyone. On top of that, there are multiple templates for each type of diagram.

The interface is drag and drop, which makes placing objects in your diagrams easy. On top of that, Gliffy comes with a number of very comprehensive object libraries. If you want to use your diagrams in a document or on a web page, you can export them in multiple formats like PNG, JPEG, or SVG.

You get five diagrams for free. After that, you have to pay for a plan.

2. Lovely Charts

If you’re looking for a comprehensive online diagramming solution, you could do worse than Lovely Charts. As the app’s name implies, you can create some very nice looking flowcharts. But you can also build some impressive diagrams.

Like what? How about network diagrams, site maps, wireframes, and even people diagrams. All the work is done in a very spare user interface, one that keeps all the main tools that you need at your fingertips. Or, at least, at your mouse pointer.

Adding elements to a diagram is easy. Just drag and drop it from a library of shapes. If you want to change a shape, right click it and choose an option from the menu that opens. Doing that is definitely faster than deleting and starting over.

Once you’re finished, you can save your diagram as a PNG or JPEG image. Admittedly, Lovely Chart’s export options aren’t as flexible as those of Gliffy but they’re usable.

3. Flowchart.com

While you might think Flowchart.com is limited (if only based on its name), it isn’t. In fact, Flowchart.com is very flexible. It’s also free, which is a bonus!

How flexible? You’re not limited to flowcharts. You can also create mindmaps, family trees and albums, and even network diagrams. Much of that flexibility comes from the extensive clip art and symbol libraries that comes with the application. Just select what you want and drag it into the work area. From there, you can add other basic shapes, text, and lines.

Another key feature of Flowchart.com is its collection of templates. You can use them to create several different engineering diagrams, flowcharts (obviously!), mind maps, organizational charts, and project management diagrams.

One unique feature of this application is its ability to record all of the actions and additions that you are performing on a diagram. You can literally walk someone through a thought or planning process.

4. LucidChart

If there are two words that describe LucidChart, those words are simple and flexible. It’s written in HTML5, so you should be able to use LucidChart with any modern web browser.

Just like any good desktop (or web-based) application, LucidChart allows you to drag and drop elements of a diagram and even images that you upload on the application’s canvas. You can literally begin creating diagrams within seconds. On top of that, once you register – there are free and paid accounts – you get access to a large number of shapes and fonts. And with some paid accounts you can also upload and save your work as a Visio diagram and you even get revision tracking.

The web offers some powerful, flexible, and easy-to-use diagramming applications. They pack most, if not all, of the features that you need and they’re available no matter where you are or what operating system that you use.

Do you have a favorite web-based diagramming tool? If so, share your picks by leaving a comment.

Photo credit: Daniel Göhler (Own work) GFDL, CC-BY-SA-3.0 or CC-BY-SA-2.0-de, via Wikimedia Commons

The gap left by other blogging platforms is bridged by a site called “Papyrs” – a tool to easily create new webpages for any use you want.

Introduction

Papyrs is a wonderful web service that lets you create webpages. Using the site you can obtain a domain name as a subdomain of the site and start adding webpages to it. Your webpages are completely customizable. These customizations do not rely on your programming skills – you simply drag webpage elements into the position you want and edit them. Pictures, text boxes, etc. all can be easily added to your webpages. Additionally you can invite collaborators to work on your site and add elements to get user inputs. This facilitates group work and client interactions.

Usage

Your first step in using Papyrs is creating an account. In this step all you have to do is type in your email address, select a password, and type in your desired subdomain.

With your account setup and activated, you can log into your Papyrs interface. At first, you will see a welcome screen providing you with some sample pages for guidance and inspiration.

You can start adding your own pages using the “New Page” button in the top right of the screen.

When you create a new page you can type in a name for it, set its privacy level – either public or private – and optionally add collaborators as maintainers for the page.

When your page is created, you are taken to its URL. You might not be satisfied with the default design; to start modifying your webpage, click on the “Edit Page” option in the “Page” menu next to the New Page button.

You will be shown a guiding window that explains the element dragging feature.

You can close this window and start dragging various elements from the top row into your main page area. This “elements row” includes picture boxes, user inputs, discussion boxes, and a lot more. You can drag the element anywhere – to a blank space or on a previous element to make room for the new element.

Existing elements on the page can be modified anytime you want. Texts, for instance, can be changed; you can add special formatting, modify font style and size, and add hyperlinks to the text boxes added to your page.

In the right pane of the page, a gray area is reserved for special type of posts. To modify the type of posts or elements are shown here, simply click on the “Edit” link in the top right of this gray area.

A window will appear that lets you select the type of elements to show in this gray area. You will be able to select recent comments, favorite posts, recent changes, and recent form submissions to appear in this area.

To modify the colors on your page, you can simply access the Themes section under your account’s Settings options and set the webpage element colors according to your preferences.

If at any time you would like to invite members to your webpage, simply do so through the People tab under Settings.

All these options work together to give you a completely functional webpage that can be used for anything your desire.

Conclusion

As shown above, Papyrs has a lot to offer its users. Whether you want to run a small personal blog or a free company blog to interact with your clients in a simple way, Papyrs will serve your excellently. With color customization and collaboration features, Papyrs offers more than other blogging platforms offer for free. You should definitely check it out if you are thinking about starting a new blog.

Papyrs

Whether you believe that QR codes are here to stay or that they’re a fad, QR codes can be useful. Creating one is fairly easy. You don’t need any special software on your desktop, and you definitely don’t need to worry about fiddling with graphics.

There are a number of websites that will let you create your own QR codes. They have the same general features and functions, and save QR codes to your computer as a PNG file. Some generators, though, are better than others.

Let’s take a look at four of the best ones.

1. ZXing Project QR Code Generator

While it won’t win any prizes for looks, the ZXing Project QR Code Generator is easy to use and is very flexible. How simple and flexible?

Just choose the type of content that you want the QR code to contain. It can be any of the following:

• A calendar event
• Your contact information
• A geographic location
• An email address
• A phone number
• A short message to be sent by SMS
• A block of text
• A URL
• Login information for a wireless network

Then, you just type information in the fields on page and click the Generate button to create your QR code.

2. QRStuff

If you want even more flexibility, then you’ll want to check out QRStuff. It’s one of the most fully-feature QR code generators available, yet remains easy to use.

You get the same content options as you do with the ZXing Project generator, along with a few other options. These include PayPal Buy Now Link, links to various social media services, a link to content in the Apple iTunes Store, and a link to a video on YouTube. You can also use QRStuff’s built-in URL shortener – the shortened URLs begin with http://qrs.ly.

What really sets QRStuff apart, though, is the ability to change the color of your QR codes. Don’t like the standard black and white? Then change it to a shade of green, a nice red, or even bold blue.

3. GOQR

If you’re a back-to-basics kind of person, then GOQR might be what you’re looking for. It’s basic, but has a few options that set it apart from other QR code generators.

How basic? You can only create QR codes that contain text, a URL, a telephone number, and SMS message, or contact information. Nothing special, but not bad.

But, as I mentioned a couple of paragraphs ago, GOQR has a some very useful features. The first is the ability to change the size of your QR codes. Most generators create QR codes in three sizes: large (350 px by 350 px), medium (230 px by 230 px), and small (120 px by 120 px). With GOQR, you can use a slider to change the size of your QR code in five pixel increments. You can go as small as 60 px by 60 px or as large as 1000 px by 1000 px.

If you click the Options button, you can also change the foreground and background color of your QR code and add a margin around it.

4. Maestro

Maestro makes creating a QR code both simple and graphical. While it doesn’t offer a lot of options for the type of content to include in a QR code, it’s probably one of the easiest to use (and visually pleasing) QR code generator on the web.

You can use Maestro to create QR codes that contain:

• Phone numbers
• SMS messages
• URLs
• Map information
• Contact information
• Text
• Calendar events
• Links to content in the Android Market, BlackBerry App World, and the iTunes App Store

Maestro takes things a step further. You can add headings to your QR codes – sort marketing messages, for example. Maestro also generates an HTML image tag that you can embed in a website or blog (assuming you don’t want to download an image). On top of that, you can change the color of the QR code.

Creating your own QR code is quick and easy. While the four QR code generators we’ve just looked at are among the best ones out there, you can find more by doing a search with your favorite search engine.

Do you have a favorite QR code generator? Then share it by leaving a comment.

The problem with passwords is that they can be hard to remember. Or, at least, it’s hard to keep track of which password you use with which site or service. There are a number of excellent password management applications for desktop and mobile. But you’re not always at your own computer and your mobile device might not be handy.

Why not turn to the web? There are a number of services that let you securely manage and access your passwords, no matter where you are.

Let’s take a look at Passpack, a secure and easy to use online password manager.

Setting Up Your Account

While Passpack has paid accounts, you can also sign up for a free one. The free one lasts forever but is limited to 100 passwords.

When you sign up, you’re asked to create a user name and a password. Both are a minimum of six characters and are case sensitive.

That doesn’t seem too secure, does it? Even if you enter a long password, there’s always some doubt about its security.

But when you click Sign up Now, you still have one more thing to do. And that’s create a packing key. The packing key is a sentence (one which is easy for you to remember) that encrypts and decrypts your passwords in Passpack.

When you click Done, you’re ready to go.

Adding Your Passwords

Let’s say you’ve logged into your Passpack account. After entering your user name, password, and packing key you’re taken to a page containing information about your account and news about the service. Click the Passwords tab at the top of the page.

Click the Add New button to add a password to Passpack.

All you need to enter are a name for the site or service, your user ID, and the password for that site or service. Optionally, you can add a link and the email address that you signed up with. You can also add a note about the site. That could be anything from what you use it for to challenge questions and answers that might come up when you try to log into the site.

Notice that there’s a gauge below the Password field that shows the strength of your password. A longer, more complex one will be stronger.

Once you’ve entered all the information, click OK.

Getting To Your Passwords When You Need Them

OK, you’re somewhere and need can’t remember your login information for a particular website. What do you do?

Log into Passpack and then click the Passwords tab at the top of the screen. From there, find the name of the site or service that you want to log into. Passpack lists them alphabetically, and only displays 12 per page. You can click the previous page and next page links at the bottom of each password list to move through your collection.

In the list, just click the name of the site or service for which you want to get your login information.

Notice that your password is hidden. That’s to protect you from shoulder surfing. Click show to display your password.

Pros and Cons

Passpack isn’t for everyone. You need to have an Internet connection in order to use it. And although Passpack is secure, it’s only as secure as you make it. You need to create a strong password and packing key.

On the other hand, Passpack is quite secure. You can read about how the service secures passwords here. On top of that, Passpack times out after five minutes of inactivity. You’ll have to enter your packing key to get back in.

Passpack also has a desktop application and there’s a mobile version of the site. The desktop application isn’t anything special. You’re better off going through the web interface.

If you’re not afraid to put your passwords on the web, then Passpack is a good choice. It’s secure and easy to use, and your passwords are at your fingertips no matter where you are.

Photo credit: Mihut84