Podcastomatic allows the users to convert any blog post into a podcast and listen to it in their browser. There is nothing much you need to do to get it working. All you have to do is provide the URL of the article you want to listen and it will convert them into podcasts. You can also download the podcast as well.

The Easiest Way to Convert A Blog to Podcasts

Visit Podcastomatic homepage and enter the URL of the blog you want to listen to. Click Go when you are done.

It doesn’t matter if you are specifying the homepage of the blog or a single post page as the URL, because Podcastomatic only uses the domain name and grab the posts from the homepage (using RSS feed). This is what you will see after entering the URL. All the posts are organized in episode and you can click on any link to listen to that particular post.

To listen to the podcast, you can either get it to play directly in your browser, or download it to your computer so that you can listen to it later.

During my testing, I tried converting different blogs to podcasts (including Make Tech Easier) and the result always turned out well. However, you don’t expect real human voice for the podcast. In fact, you will have to bear with the monotonous machine voice (and try not to fall asleep).

You can also subscribe to the podcast using iTunes or opens the podcast RSS feed and subscribe to it.

Some Drawbacks

As mentioned earlier, Podcastomatic doesn’t care whether the URL is the homepage of the blog or a single post page. This means that you can’t create podcast for just a single post. Some blogs have 50 items in their RSS feed, so if you want to listen to just one of the 50 posts in the blog, you still have to wait for it to download all the posts and convert them to podcasts.

In addition, the playback service doesn’t come with a seek bar. That means, you are not able to fast forward or rewind the podcast. An alternative is to subscribe the podcast feed in your favorite podcast player, or simply download the podcast to play with your audio player.

Conclusion

If you are a user who wants to convert your favorite blogs to podcasts, or a webmaster who wants to offer a podcast subscription option for your reader, Podcastomatic will work fine for you.. If you don’t mind the monotonous machine voice in the podcast and some of the drawbacks mentioned above, you will definitely want to check out this tool and keep it in your bookmarks. For active podcast listener who prefer “real” podcast (with real human voice), this is not for you.

Visit Podcastomatic

The post Convert Blog to Podcast with Podcastomatic appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Optimizing the Remote Desktop Connection

Run Remote Desktop by right-clicking the bottom-left corner of the screen and selecting “Run.”

Type “mstsc” in the text field and click “OK.” This opens the Remote Desktop application.

On the Remote Desktop application, click “Show Options.”

Pay attention to these two tabs: Display and Experience.

Click the “Display” tab. Under the “Display Configuration” section, moving the slider to the left to decrease the size of the screen when you connect to the host. The lower the screen size, the faster Remote Desktop will be.

Under the “Colors” section, click the drop-down menu to change the quality. The lower the quality, the faster the connection will be.

Click the “Experience” tab. Under the “Performance” section, click the drop-down menu to change the connection speed. A lower connection speed will speed up the Remote Desktop connection. For the best performance, choose “Modem” (56 kbps) as it will disable resource-hungry features such as font smoothing and window animations.

Will This Really Speed Up Performance?

To understand how this is possible, take a moment to consider the settings that you are modifying. The changes shown above mostly have to do with graphics and animations of the host computer, which are often resource intensive. By reducing the color depth, changing the screen size, and simplifying animations substantially decreases the amount of network resources used during the remote desktop connection, and thus improve its performance.

The post Speeding Up Remote Desktop Connection in Windows 8 appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

While there are tons of parental control software out there, the fundamental question you should ask is whether you should allow your kids to access the Internet at a young age. Some parents want their kids to start early so they can start to learn how the Web works and hopefully become another Mark Zuckerberg, while others prefer to delay the process as much as possible to prevent their kids from accessing inappropriate materials from the Web.

We know that there are areas of the Internet that can be potentially dangerous to young people, yet the aforementioned parental control software is supposed to help guard against those dangers, keeping kids way from “adult” sites. On the flip side, the Internet can also be educational. Gone are the days of hauling out the encyclopedia set or hitting the library to complete work for a school research paper.

There is definitely no right or wrong answer, and it is never an easy decision to make whether to allow your kids to access the Internet or not.

Now is your turn to tell us: at which age do you think is appropriate to expose the kids to the Internet?

Do you have an opinion? Be sure to tell us what it is in the comments! We’d also love to hear why you made the choice you did, and what makes your choice the best for your children.

Image credit: Child using a laptop computer by BigStockPhoto

The post At What Age Should Kids Be Exposed to the Internet? [Poll] appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

What Does Cydia Do?

Cydia was developed by Jay Freeman, who is also known as saurik, and millions have since installed his software on iOS. Like Cydia, Cydia Substrate for Android doesn’t do anything special on its own, but it allows developers to modify Android software without needing access to the source code. They can then use Cydia Substrate to distribute these extensions and modifications to users.

Last month, IGN ran a piece highlighting what they consider to be the best apps available from the Cydia store: Dreamboard makes it easy for iOS users to change themes, Stride increases an iPhone’s security by improving upon its lock screen, Intelliscreen X ads widgets and other controls to the iOS lock screen, and CameraTweak gives the iOS camera more options.

Can’t I Already Do This On Android?

Yes, much of this functionality is already available for Android. Users who don’t like the default experience can radically alter their phones simply by switching the stock launcher out for one that is more extensible, such as Nova, Apex, or Action Launcher. The Play Store is filled with camera apps that can replace the camera that comes with most Android phones. Widgets are supported by default, and the vast majority can be installed without having to first root a device. Even the ability to modify apps without flashing new ROMs can be done using the Xposed Framework.

Nevertheless, Cydia Substrate for Android brings with it a welcome community and the potential for even more innovation. It can be downloaded directly from the Play Store, but your device must be rooted before you can take advantage of any of its features. Right now WinterBoard is the only Cydia app available for Android. WinterBoard, which went on to become Dreamboard on iOS, allows Android users to change their themes from the ones shipped on their devices. Themes can change backgrounds, icons, animations, and nearly every aspect of an Android phone’s visual experience.

What’s Cydia Substrate’s advantage?

Android users have long had the ability to customize any part of their experience that they dislike, but doing so generally requires flashing new ROMs to replace those that manufacturers ship. This process requires users to back up their apps and data each time, because flashing wipes a phone clean. The process can be daunting for first-timers, and even regulars can occasionally slip and lose priceless files. Using Cydia Substrate is easier than firing up the ClockworkMod ROM Manager, especially for those who just want to change a few icons or alter a lock screen.

In Summary

Cydia Substrate allows tinkerers to use their devices as they wish without having to take extensive risks. Once a community develops around the Android version and more software becomes available, users who aren’t that technical but still want to modify their devices will be able to do so with a significantly lower chance of bricking their phones. Cydia already has a sizable collection of software available for iOS, and just porting those apps over would make for a welcome addition to the Android ecosystem.

The post How Cydia Substrate For Android Frees Users From Flashing New ROMs appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

1. CPU-G

CPU-G looks almost exactly like CPU-Z, except that it works only in Linux. You can use it to view CPU info in Linux, as well as Motherboard, Graphic, Memory and general system information.

In Ubuntu (Quantal and below), you can add the PPA and install from its repository:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:cpug-devs/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install cpu-g

CPU-G allows you to view the information about your CPU, Motherboard, Graphic card, Memory and System. Most of the information are pretty straightforward (either you understand it or you don’t). You can view the CPU Vendor, Name, Core clock, cache amount, motherboard chipset and etc. For the Memory section, you can see the amount of free RAM that you can still use for other applications.

In the System tab, you can view information about the CPU architecture, your current operating system and kernel version.

2. I-Nex

If you find the information lacking in CPU-G, another application that you can use is I-Nex. It provides more information than CPU-G and display them in an easy-to-read manner.

To install in Ubuntu, add the PPA and install from its repository:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:i-nex-development-team/stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install i-nex

In addition to the usual CPU information, it also displays the temperature of the current CPU. There is also an “Info” button where you can click to read about your CPU online.

In the GPU tab, other than the usual graphic card detail, you can view your current resolution and the available resolutions supported by the graphic card.

Other information that can be found in I-Nex include Sound, Drives, Web, USB Input.

I-Nex also allows you to generate a report of your current hardware configuration. Click the Printer icon at the bottom of the window and it will prompt you to select the stuff you want to include in the report.

Conclusion

To view CPU info in Linux, both CPU-G and I-Nex are capable of doing the job. However, if you prefer to have more information at your fingertips, I-Nex does a better job at showing more and relevant information in a well-organized manner.

The post Two Useful Apps to View CPU Info in Linux (CPU-Z Alternative For Linux) appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Most people will leave just the Windows Action Center alone and let it do its jobs. However, with some simple configuration, you can get it to work more efficiently (and less annoyingly). This article show you how to make effective use of the Windows Action Center.

Opening the Windows Action Center

In Windows 7 and Windows 8, Action Center works quietly in the background. It keeps on running as a service (WSCSVC Windows Security Center) and alerts the users from the system tray. It will show a white flag in the system tray when there is an alert available.

If you are using Windows 8, you can simply search for “Action Center”.

Alternatively, you can open the Windows Action Center from the Control Panel under “System and Security”.

You can also open Action Center using the shell command. Just run the following command through run dialog:

shell:::{BB64F8A7-BEE7-4E1A-AB8D-7D8273F7FDB6}

This can be useful for software developers who want to open the Action Center right from their programs.

Disabling the Action Center Notification

The Action Center doesn’t work well all the times. Sometimes, it can display the wrong information. For example, if you have installed an antivirus which is not detected by Action Center, it will display an alert (saying that you are not protected) even though you have the latest updated protection installed in your computer. In this case, you can configure the Action Center so that it does not alert you for that specific item.

To turn off or disable Windows Action Center completely:

1. Open Action Center.

2. In the pane on the left, click “Change Action Center settings”.

3. Uncheck all the items, or specific items that you want disabled.

4. Click Ok.

One thing to note is that this doesn’t prevent the icon from showing up in the system tray. To remove the icon:

1. Open Group Policy Editor (Run -> gpedit.msc)

2. Go to “User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Start Menu and Taskbar”.

3. In the right hand pane, find and enable “Remove the Action Center icon”.

This will prevent the Action Center system tray icon from appearing again.

Finally, you will need to disable the Security Center service from Windows Services in order to make sure that Action Center is not taking any resources if it’s not running.

Using Action Center to your advantage

Unless you are connected to a corporate network, it is not recommended to turn off the Windows Action Center. However, there are some settings that you can tweak to make sure your computer is running smoothly.

Automatic maintenance

Automatic maintenance includes tasks like software updates, security scanning and system diagnostics. By default, automatic maintenance runs at 3 AM daily. If your computer is not running all the time, you should set the automatic maintenance to run when your system is running. This will make sure that all the maintenance tasks are run properly, and the Action Center will notify you of any problems in a timely manner. To change the automatic maintenance schedule, do the following:

Go to Action Center and click on Maintenance tab. This will open the maintenance tasks. Click on “Automatic Maintenance” to change the settings.

Adjust User Account Control

User Account Control notifies the users of any programs that are making changes to important parts of the computer.

By default, User Account Control is set to notifying only when apps try to make changes to the computer. It will dim the Desktop and display a warning dialog. This can be annoying, but can be adjusted accordingly.

To make appropriate changes, go to Action Center and select “Change User Account Control settings” from the pane on the left. Move the slider to whatever setting you are comfortable with. Just make sure that you are not turning it off, as this will make your computer vulnerable to spyware and other malware. One thing though, don’t over-reliable on the UAC protect your computer, as it can give you a false security.

Trust This PC

In Windows 8, Microsoft has given an option to connect and log in with your Microsoft account instead of the local Windows account. Using the Microsoft account, you can make your PC trustworthy in the eyes of Microsoft. This will make sure that all the user credentials for apps, websites and networks are synchronized in the cloud using SkyDrive. After synchronization, you will be able to use the same saved user credentials if you log in to another Windows computer using your Microsoft ID.

 Conclusion

Windows Action Center can help to monitor your computer and make sure that it is running smoothly without any security threats and other problems. Understanding the use of Action Center and tweaking it a little bit will make you understand your system better, leading to you being able to resolve issues in a timely manner.

Have you ever played with the Action Center? Do you even know its existence?

The post Making Effective Use of Windows Action Center appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

1. Install a Linux distribution

Most Linux distributions can be booted from live CDs as a means of trying them out before giving them a full install. In recent years, the trend has shifted towards creating live USBs instead. You can download the appropriate software for your distro of choice and burn an image to your flash drive, creating a means of testing out and installing Linux that is more durable than a CD-ROM. USB drives can hold more data than CDs, allowing you to boot up distros that are too large to fit on a disk.

2. Boot a Persistent OS

If you want something more permanent than a live USB, which do not save any changes you make, you can install several distributions directly to your flash drive. This way you can boot up your own personal operating system on other peoples’ computers and still have access to the files you’ve created and the programs you’ve installed. Pendrivelinux is one option, but at this point in time, even the major distributions such as Ubuntu supported persistent booting.

3. Run Portable Apps

PortableApps.com allows Windows users to bring their favorite programs and files with them on a flash drive without having to boot into a new operating system. When you plug in your flash drive, you can open what amounts to a separate, portable “Start” menu. Not every application is supported, and you may still have to transition to using open source applications to fully take advantage of Portable Apps. If you would prefer an alternative, there’s also LiberKey and winPenPack.

4. Use as RAM

In a case where you have a computer that’s slowing down and a flash drive with extra space, you can use the latter to give the former a speed boost. Using a flash drive to provide your computer with extra memory helps it to manage applications better, giving you a faster experience. Microsoft provides ReadyBoost as a means of speeding up your computer using your flash drive as RAM under Windows.

5. Partition hard drives

Installing Parted Magic to a flash drive helps you more easily re-partition your computer’s hard drive. Partitioning is difficult and dangerous to do when an operating system is running from the hard drive in question, but booting from a flash drive removes some of risk and makes the entire process much more straight forward.

6. Gaming

While it’s not exactly portable gaming, you can install certain games to flash drives, allowing you to get your gaming fix regardless of whose machine you’re using (granted they’re using the same operating system). Not every game supports this functionality, but Minecraft does. Considering how expansive that game is, it might be all you need.

7. Keep Files Private

You can turn your entire flash drive into an encrypted partition as a means of keeping private files safe from prying eyes. You also have the option to have your flash drive boot normally but containing a separate partition that encrypts any file placed in it. For an extra layer of security, you can also password protect your encrypted partition. Bitlocker To-Go makes this easy to do.

8. Unlock Your Computer

If you don’t feel that using a password alone is secure enough, and your computer doesn’t have a biometric scanner, you still have alternative options for securing your computer. Just turn your flash drive into a key and set your computer to only unlock when the drive is plugged in. If you use Windows, Predator is a popular tool for making this happen, but it’s not the only one out there.

9. Rescue An Infected PC

You have the ability to install virus scanners onto your flash drive driver to search for malware on infected computers. You can find offerings to restore your computer after a malware-related crash from well-known companies such as AVG and Kaspersky.

10. Automatically Sync Files

You probably manually drag and drop files onto your flash drive, but there is a simpler means of transporting files. By automatically syncing files between your computer and your flash drive, you can make a it nearly as convenient to use as Dropbox or Google Drive. SyncToy and SyncBack SE are two Windows tools that can make this happen. GoodSync2Go is a solution that works with Mac OS X.

Conclusion

USB flash drives are immensely useful tools capable of fixing computers and booting operating systems. They drop in price each year at the same time that their storage capacity continues to double, making them great for any tech enthusiast on the go. And if all else fails, they’re still good for storing files, too.

What other uses do you use USB drives for?

The post 10 Things You Never Knew You Could Do With A USB Flash Drive appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

How Non-EXE Viruses Work

First of all, a file doesn’t have to have the EXE extension to execute. Screensaver (SCR) and batch (BAT) files are good examples of this, and you’ll find plenty of viruses with this extension to this day.

Besides executable files, you can also have a virus that manipulates the program that opens it, like malicious Windows Help (CHM) files. A CHM virus will open the Windows Help program and use some of its features to harm your computer. Depending on how complex the program is, a virus can even collect information from your computer and send it home without any sign of wrongdoing. Every virus needs some form of access to the Windows application programming interface (API). Some programs offer some level of access (like Microsoft Word) and can really put your computer at risk.

1. Word Macro Viruses

One of the most common types of a typical viruses is the Microsoft Word macro virus. It’s grown to a level in which even Microsoft warns about them in its own site. One of the biggest attacks came from a macro virus known as W97M/Melissa.A. This particular virus would deliver itself in an email that contains a Word document attachment. Once the virus executed in Microsoft Word 97/2000, it would first send itself from your computer to all your email contacts. After that, the virus writes itself into your normal template (normal.dot) so that every document you start within Word would be infected. Although most viruses are dangerous, this particular macro virus posed a very small threat. Another variant of the virus (Melissa.V) actually destroys Excel documents after searching for them.

To protect yourself from viruses like these, it’d be wise to disable macros. The most recent versions of MS Word already do this for you and ask if you’d like to enable macros when you open such a document. The threat presented by these viruses shouldn’t be underestimated, though.

2. PDF Viruses

In the year 2001, a new kind of virus was discovered hidden within PDF files. Adobe’s Reader application allows PDFs to run embedded executable files, meaning that there’s a vast amount of potential with this. As far as carnage is concerned, this type of virus can rip your system (and privacy) to shreds. Another type of PDF virus also runs an embedded script, which can also wreak havoc on your system.

One such virus, known only by the name of “Peachy,” entertained you with a game and then ran a VBScript file once you won. The PDF document would then send copies of itself to your Outlook contacts.

The threat of these viruses has been minimized by Outlook’s upgrade in 2002 which detected any external attempt to grab its contact list. The program will warn you when an external source tries to get a hold of email addresses. The best way to defend yourself against PDF viruses is to put them under scrutiny (such as uploading them to VirusTotal) and heeding any warnings from Outlook when unauthorized scripts try to access its contact list.

The Threat Continues

Technology is evolving rapidly. Although PDF and Word macro viruses aren’t as threatening as they used to be, you shouldn’t breathe a sigh of relief just yet. Other viruses will take its place. The best thing you can do is make sure you exercise a certain degree of prudence when opening files sent to you via email. If you have any questions, pop them in the comments section!

The post 2 Unexpected File Types Where Computer Viruses Can Exist (And They Are Not .EXE) appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Login to your remote system, or open the terminal in your own computer.

Open the /etc/ssh/ssh_config file.

sudo nano /etc/ssh/ssh_config

and add the following line to the end of the file:

ServerAliveInterval 60

What this option does is to send a null packet to the server at every 60 seconds (of inactivity) to keep the SSH connection alive. You can experiment with the value, setting it to either higher or lower, depending on your system configuration. A value of 60 is a good starting point to start the experimentation.

Per user configuration

If you don’t have root access to the system or you just want to configure it for your personal account, you can edit the ~/.ssh/config file instead.

sudo nano ~/.ssh/config

If the file does not exist, this will create a new file.

Add the following line:

Host *
  ServerAliveInterval 60

Press “Ctrl + o” to save and “Ctrl + x” to exit.

Lastly, restart the SSH server.

sudo service ssh restart

That’s it.

The post How to Keep SSH Connections Alive In Linux appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Using Phrozensoft VirusTotal Uploader

To get started, go to the Phrozensoft homepage and download the installer. The installation process is simple and hardly takes a minute. Launch the application and you will find three different tabs: Upload Process, Awaiting Results and Available Results.

Under the “Upload Process” tab, it will show you the upload progress of the files. In “Awaiting Results” tab, it will show the files that have been uploaded to VirusTotal. After the file is scanned by VirusTotal, the results will be shown in the last tab.

When you double click on the files in the “Available Results” tab, a new window will open showing you the list of antivirus programs that were used to scan the files along with other basic information such as program version and the date when the virus definitions were updated.

Phrozensoft VirusTotal Uploader also comes with a widget where you can drag and drop files onto it. If you need to scan files regularly, you will find the widget to be a handy tool.

Another really useful feature of the program is that you can scan all the running processes using VirusTotal as well. Click on the “Process” option from the main screen, and it will show you all the processes that are running in the background. To scan any process, just check it and click on Submit. It will scan the process, and the results will be shown in the Results tab.

Apart from the running process, you can also scan startup programs, services and active network connections.

Conclusion

If you are an active user of VirusTotal, this Phrozensoft VirusTotal Uploader app will definitely be a handy tool for you. Not only does it save you the trouble to upload the files manually, you can also use it to upload multiple files at once, and save you tons of time in the process. Check it out and I am sure you won’t regret it.

Phrozensoft VirusTotal Uploader

The post Scan Files for Viruses Directly From The Desktop appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Downloading and installing

WinAero Librarian is available for Windows 7 and 8. Once you download the archive from WinAero’s web site and unzip it, you’ll see that it contains Windows 7 and Windows 8 versions. This allows you to open only the version you need and run its program to get started.

There is also a folder for Cool Libraries Icons within the archive; this can be used as a way to change the default library icons from WinAero Librarian. Wherever you decide to house the WinAero Librarian folder, store this icons folder in it, to be used later.

Creating a new library

WinAero Librarian utilizes a simple user interface.

In order to create a new library, click the “Star Icon.”

Name your new library anything you want, then click “OK.”

Clicking “Change Icon” will let you pick a new icon to represent the library. This is where the new folder of icons comes in handy.

If you click on “Browse,” you can navigate to where you stored the icon folder and choose a more exciting icon for the library.

If you want to change the type of library you’ve created, click “Library type.”

You can choose from a drop-down menu what type of library you’re creating or just leave the library as a generic one. For the most part, it no longer matters in Windows what type of library you create because you can link multiple locations to it.

From the New library window, you can click “Add” to add folders and locations to the library for easy access. There is no limit to what you link to your library.

Modifying existing libraries

If you right-click on any library from WinAero Librarian, you can click on “Change” to modify it.

For the default Windows libraries that it ships with, you cannot change the names, but you can change the icons, type and what folders link to it.

You can also delete the default libraries as you see fit by right-clicking the one you want to remove from Windows.

Other features of WinAero Librarian

WinAero Librarian also allows you to view the old-fashioned library locations where you can add or remove folders as necessary.

The only difference in using this versus Librarian’s interface is that with WinAero, Windows will show you whether or not a folder is public. This can be useful when working with a shared library.

Another useful feature of WinAero comes through viewing your libraries as a XML file.

If you need to import/export library structure from one Windows PC to another, you can use this information to do just that with WinAero Librarian.

Save the Notepad file as something unique, then transfer that file to another Windows PC using WinAero Librarian. Open up the XML file associated with the library you want to mimic the same settings. Copy and paste the Notepad file contents into it, then Save the XML file.

Conclusion

Windows always seems to give users the bare minimum when it comes to customizing the operating system. However, using tools like WinAero Librarian will give you more control over your Windows libraries.

The post Manage Your Windows Libraries with WinAero Librarian appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Scribble

Scribble is an attractive web app with contrasting colors and a manageable grid layout. This program doesn’t try to replicate the chaos of using real-life sticky notes, but it does capture the convenience. Notes can be as long as you want, but only the beginnings are visible from the home page. Notes can be color-coordinated and re-ordered as desired, and they’re all accessible even when you’re offline. The editing page removes most of the extra text from the interface, leaving you alone with nothing except a virtual notepad and your thoughts.

Stickeez

Stickeez models itself after that old cork board hanging over your desk. Just create a sticky note, fill it with text, pick a color, and pin away. The interface isn’t as clean as Scribble, but it’s definitely brighter and more vibrant. In terms of design, it might even be more familiar. Yet despite the appearance, notes are still arranged in a grid. They can’t be dragged around, nor can they even be re-ordered.

Stickeez also offers various themes for those of you who never dug the look of cork boards. Available backgrounds include a fridge, a whiteboard, and … skulls.

Sticky Notes

Sticky Notes doesn’t have the most original name, but its interface offers quite a few surprises. This web app defaults to free-floating notes, letting you drag them around to form your own organizational pattern, and they’re all accessible offline. You can still have notes arranged into a grid if that is your preference, and there is a single-note view intended for smaller screens. Sticky Notes lets you pop out notes to save yourself the hassle of switching back and forth between tabs. You are also given more options than the other apps on this list, with the ability to choose your font, create your own color, and resize notes.

Sticky Notes

While the name may be the same, this Sticky Notes for Chrome extension has no connection to the previous Sticky Notes web app. This option is for those of you who really want a no-fuss, no-flare note-taking solution. Once installed, a button will appear in your toolbar. Clicking on this button drops down a menu allowing you to take notes. That’s it. You get one note, and there are no options. Sometimes, that’s more than enough.

Conclusion

If you like virtual sticky notes, you’re quite the lucky individual. The Chrome Web Store is filled with such web apps. While some are good, some are pretty bad. These four apps are some of the best that don’t require you to create an account in order to use them. Simply install them and start taking notes right away. If you have any favorite Sticky Notes for Chrome web apps already, share them with us in the comments below.

The post Four Sticky Notes for Chrome Web Applications appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Note: Pencil is supported in Windows, OSX and Linux. In this article, we will be focusing on the Linux version of Pencil.

Installation

Pencil is no longer available in the Ubuntu repositories (as of Raring, at least), but it is an easy install via DEB package from the project’s website. Install by double-clicking on the downloaded package, or with the following terminal command:

sudo dpkg -i evoluspencil_2.0.3_all.deb

The only dependency is Firefox, so if you’re on a system that doesn’t include this by default, you’ll need to install it (or use a GUI package manager, which will handle the dependency for you).

Usage

Whereas with a program like GIMP or Krita, you generally need to create your own graphic pieces. Pencil provides you with a wide array of shapes you can quickly drag onto a page and modify to your liking. The pane on the left lists available shapes, in groups such as “Common Shapes” (basic squares and circles), “Desktop – GTK Widgets” (if you wanted to prototype a Unity or GNOME application), and “Sketchy” (one of my favorite for web mock-ups, which looks like a pencil sketch). Items in these groups can be mixed and matched.

To add one of these to the drawing, simply click-and-drag it onto a page (new pages can be added via the “New Page” button in the upper right).

Once on the page, the size can be changed by dragging one of the corners or borders of the shape, or via the “Location & Size” toolbar fields (useful if you need the drawing, such as a web mock-up, to fit a certain resolution).

Double-clicking most shapes allows text to be added, which can be customized with alignment, font, bold/italics, and point size using the “Text format” toolbar buttons.

Mock-up Basics

I draw wireframes and other diagrams all the time, and the basic process I use is as follows (using the example of a homepage mock-up for a website).

Background

For a webpage, this starts with the browser window – The “Window Frame” item from the Sketchy collection is used here for simplicity’s sake. To place this at 0px x 0px (i.e. the top-left of the screen), the “Location & Size” controls are used. The bottom and left edges are dragged so it fills the entire screen.

A “Box” shape is added all the way across the top to indicate the URL bar … sometimes placing things exactly with the mouse is difficult, but the arrow keys can also be used to move a shape once it’s selected:

Page Elements

A big slider can be added to the page at the top. The “Image” shape is used to indicate the slide, and two “Sketchy Triangles” to act as forward and back controls. Clicking twice on an object turns the edge/corner handles pink, which allows them to be rotated:

Lastly, three regions are added at the bottom to hold news, a video, and a contact form (The “Box” shape is used to outline each region). The news will just be a heading and some text (using the “Label” Sketchy shape with some varying text sizes), the video region is made by dropping a “Sketchy Triangle” inside a “Sketchy Circle” within a “Box” (i.e. a “Play” button), and the last will be a “Label” accompanied by three “Text Fields” and a “Button”:

By using the pre-made shapes, drawing programs allow you to very quickly (the above took about ten minutes) illustrate ideas in a way that others can understand. This Microsoft Visio alternative allows you to create diagrams in an intuitive and portable (Evolus Pencil itself is cross-platform, and drawings can be exported to PDF or PNG) way to share with colleagues.

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HelloSign is one good example. It allows you to sign a document sent to your Gmail address and sign it from there, without the need to install any additional software. It doesn’t even lead you to another website, or app. It’s integrated with Gmail, and it works seamlessly within the Gmail interface.

HelloSign for Gmail is a Chrome extension that you can download from the Web Store. After installation, you will notice another option beside an attachment which says “Sign”, in addition to the standard ones which are “View” and “Download”.

Note: Firefox user can find the extension here.

HelloSign can open most document files, including PDF, MS Word and MS Excel.

To sign an attached document, simply click on the “Sign” button. This should bring up the HelloSign pop up window and it should take a few seconds to open and load the document.

Once the document loads, you are then given the HelloSign interface, with four buttons on top. These buttons indicate what information you want to add to the document. In addition to signature or initials, you can also add a check box, the date signed and a text box.

Drag the Signature or initials box to where you want to insert your signature on the document. This will bring up another window where you can choose how to add your signature.

If this is your first time to use the app, then the best choice would be “Draw it in”, where you can use your mouse to draw your signature.

If you wish to use your initials, then you can choose “Type in signature” instead.

If you have an image file of your signature, or have taken it with your smart phone, then there are additional options available for these instances. Simply choose “Add image file” or “Smartphone” from the menu panel.

In the screenshot below, I chose to draw my signature using the mouse.

When you’re done, you can either choose “Insert” or “Save & Insert Signature”. I found that the second option is very convenient if you want to use the same signature in all future documents, to save time.

The signature should now appear on the specified area in the document, and you can drag the box to reposition or, drag the bottom right corner to resize it.

You can now click on “Save and Attach to Email” found on the top right corner, and the document should now be ready to be sent back along with your reply.

HelloSign for Gmail is an ingenious tool for signing documents right out of the Gmail interface. It’s brilliant for people who don’t have access to a printer but need to sign a document right away. With this tool, a user saves time, energy and resources when signing and sending important documents that are also very urgent.

Image credit: Businessman sitting at office desk signing a contract with shallow focus on signature. by BigStockPhoto

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Developing a search engine is complicated and requires a demanding amount of resources. Long before Google started hosting vast amounts of data in Gmail and Google Drive, the company needed to invest heavily in infrastructure just to sustain their initial search service. Suffice to say, most people cannot design and maintain their own web search engines, and there is a reason only a few key players dominate the arena. Yet regardless of which search provider you turn to, the process for how search engines work is largely the same.

1. Crawling

First, developers create Internet bots capable of reading hyperlinks and HTML. These web crawlers browse the Internet looking for web sites in order to index them. They are provided with a list of URLs to start with, and the bot scans all of the hyperlinks on each of these pages and adds them to the list of URLs to visit next. Crawlers can only download a certain number of pages within a given time period, which is why search results sometimes suggest websites that have since been deleted or removed. The websites these web crawlers visit are indexed according to the information the bots can gather by reading each site’s HTML.

2. Indexing

Indexing speeds up the process of retrieving relevant webpages. Searching an index is a substantially less intensive and time-consuming task than searching all of the possible websites. Imagine having to send out new web crawlers to discover the answers to every search inquiry. It would be akin to sending explorers out into the wilderness blind rather than using a map.

Indexes must be stored, and considerable time and effort goes into keeping indexes up-to-date, but the trade-off in speed makes the effort worth it.

3. Searching

Searching is the most visible step of the process. When you type a term into Google, Bing, Yahoo, Duck Duck Go, or any number of search engines, they search their respective indexes for the best results. This information is then displayed on search engine results pages (SERPs).

4. Making Money

Since search engines are free, how were some able to grow into such massive companies? Like much of the Internet, search engines make money by selling ad space. Some advertisers pay to have their products or services ranked higher in search results. Some engines, such as Google, run search-related ads alongside their general search results. As search engines became the most popular way of finding information on the internet, they also became the most popular way of advertising online. Potential consumers may not read the same websites, but they do turn to the same search engines.

Final Thoughts

The process is immensely complex, and there is a great demand out there for people who understand the intricacies of how search engines work. This guide just scratches the surface, but there’s a wealth of information out there. Thanks to search engines, finding that information is easier than ever.

The post MTE Explains: How Search Engines Work appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Let’s Get Started

Lets say I want to share a video about intelligent malware with a friend. They don’t exactly practice safe computer, and I want them to be aware of the risks. The first thing I need to do is find the video on YouTube and copy its URL.

You will then need a screenshot to insert into your email. For some reason, you cannot use just any image for this to work. Instead, do a YouTube search for the video you want to link to. Then take a screenshot of the correct search result.

There are many ways to create the image you need, such as using a screenshot capturing program that lets you select just a portion of the screen. While I tried opening a full screenshot inside an image editor and cropping it down, I found that this technique no longer worked with certain images that were edited. The less tampering you have to do to create the image, the better. Here is the image I will insert into Gmail.

Next, load up your Gmail account and start composing an email. Insert your cropped image into the email the way you would any other picture.

Now, select the image, and insert the hyperlink. You can do this by clicking on the image and clicking on the pop-up that appears. Alternatively, you can highlight the image and click “Insert link” in the toolbar at the bottom.

Your recipient should receive a video with a YouTube video still inserted at the bottom of the page. This bottom video can be expanded and viewed without having to open a separate page.

Yet if this were a longer email, you may not want someone to have to scroll all the way to the bottom before realizing there is a video available. Also, clicking on the video you personally embedded will provide for a better viewing experience than clicking on the video at the bottom. The screen will dim, and your recipient will be offered a near full-screen viewing experience that’s arguably better than watching the video on the YouTube site itself.

You’re Done!

Gmail has long embed YouTube videos into the bottom of emails containing links to YouTube videos. While this option is convenient, it isn’t the most attractive. By manually embedding your video, you take control of your email’s appearance and provide a better experience for your recipient. Go ahead, surprise someone with a video clip, and let us hear about your experience in the comments below.

The post How to Better Embed YouTube Videos Into Gmail appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Imagine how much easier things would be if you could display notification counts for messages and unread items on your pinned tabs. Luckily, you don’t have to imagine anymore because the Notifycon extension is here to save you.

Notifycon is a simple Chrome extension that can display notification counts on your pinned tabs in Chrome. It’s very easy-to-use and works right out of the box.

Here’s how to use Notifycon.

1. Install the Notifycon Chrome extension from the Chrome Web Store.

2. Once installed, you’ll see the new icon on your browser toolbar. There aren’t any options for the extension, so there’s nothing to customize.

3. When you click on Notifycon’s icon, you’ll see a small pop-up letting you know that you must pin the tab in order for the extension to work.

4. Click on the red “pin now” button in the above window to pin the tab. Alternatively, you can right-click on the tab (in the browser toolbar) and then select the “pin tab” option. You can also unpin tabs in the same manner (both methods).

5. Once pinned, you will see the notification count appear (if supported) for new and/or unread items. The extension is not very clear regarding the supported sites, so you’ll have to test it out for yourself. You can see from the image that Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Reader are all supported.

Note: If you have Gmail Lab’s favicon unread count enabled, you may want to disable it while using Notifycon.

With Notifycon, you can save tab space on your browser without missing a thing. Now your notifications are in clear sight and you’ll immediately know about any new messages and notifications.

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1. Is Bitcoin a safe currency?

This question is kind of tough to answer, considering the complex algorithms it uses to generate new units of the currency and the significant decentralization of the currency itself. There’s one universal law in digital cryptography which applies to Bitcoin: Nothing is 100 percent safe. But you probably didn’t want to know whether it’s absolutely safe. Rather, you are curious about how safe Bitcoin is.

Its method is tried and true. Bitcoin cannot be hacked on a catastrophic/holistic level. Your wallet’s safety, however, depends on how you take care of it. If you attach weak passwords to your wallet, expect mayhem at some point in the future. Bitcoin itself may be impermeable to attacks because of its decentralized nature, but your wallet falls entirely in your hands.

But just because Bitcoin is cryptically safe doesn’t mean that it can’t be exploited. I came across an article about a Trojan Horse that forces computers to mine Bitcoins for the hacker that infects them. So, it’s not a perfect system, but even those hackers aren’t going to hoard their Bitcoins forever. Eventually, that money will fall into someone else’s hands, and so on, and so forth. The economic cycle continues whether or not the system was exploited. So, there’s no real harm.

As a recap: Yes, Bitcoin can’t be hacked conventionally as a whole. Your wallet is an entirely different story.

2. Is Bitcoin impermeable to government intervention?

The short answer: No.

The long answer: It depends on what you mean by government intervention. If you’re talking about some pieces of paper passed by Congress, it can totally happen. If you’re talking about government action against Bitcoin, it’s… complicated.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the U.S. tax collection agency. They are working on ways to tax the flow of Bitcoins between individuals. How would they manage this? The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) gets notifications when U.S. bank account holders make transactions. They can forward this notification to the IRS at any time. If you make a transaction for Bitcoins, they’ll know that you converted that money. What they have a little difficulty tracking, however, is the Bitcoin-to-Bitcoin exchanges themselves (since they happen on decentralized peer-to-peer networks). Although the Internet is very difficult for governments to regulate, you still should be concerned.

This brings us to another question: Exactly how concerned should you be? Read this. At the exchange level, it’s easy to regulate and seize assets. In the linked article, the author describes how the Department of Homeland Security (another U.S.-based government doohickey)  got a hold of Mt. Gox’s accounts. Here’s the surprising thing: Mt. Gox is a company in Japan. However, a U.S. authority managed to seize accounts. Of course, the situation is more complex than that. Mt. Gox violated U.S. banking law by lying on its application to register Mutum Sigilum LLC and open a bank account for the company. The bank it was opening the account with asked if the business was engaged in monetary services. In short, Mt. Gox answered “no.” While this was deceptive on behalf of the company, it’s clear that government can entangle itself with Bitcoin in significant ways that we have yet to see.

3. Is Bitcoin a worthy investment?

This is a tough one. On the one hand, you have a currency that’s practically inflation proof. On the other hand, you have a currency whose value rises and falls sharply at some points when compared to the U.S. dollar and Euro.

Some people mistakenly consider a currency that’s less susceptible to inflation as an asset with a stable value. This is completely wrong on many levels. The aggregate demand of the currency is subject to change, which also changes its value. What “inflation-proof” means, in this case, is that Bitcoin is limited only to a certain number of units (there’s a hard limit of 21 million). While the number of Bitcoins in circulation grows, it will never pass 21 million. If you’re looking for a currency that doesn’t lose its internal value, this currency will be worth the investment.

However, if you’re looking for a currency that has a very stable U.S. dollar, EU, Rupee, Ruble, Leu, or Cordoba value, you”ll be very disappointed. Bitcoin has a large number of booms and busts that make it a less-than-ideal get-rich-quick currency. Don’t buy Bitcoins expecting to make a fortune out of them later on. It’s a relatively volatile market for the moment.

Also, competitors to Bitcoin are popping up, making the market more diverse. You have many other currencies to invest in now, such as Litecoin, Namecoin, and PPCoin. Here’s a little secret: Litecoin has the strongest encryption algorithm out of all of them (scrypt).

BONUS: Is there such a thing as a “physical” Bitcoin?

Yes, there is! Casascius makes physical coins that represent a value in Bitcoin. They also sell a gold-plated 100-BTC bar. The offer is very lucrative if you buy from a business that accepts Bitcoin as legal tender, although I don’t think that this will ever really happen.

Here’s how they work: They contain a tamper-free hologram that protects a private key which can be used to decrypt the coin’s “address” on the Internet. By decrypting it, you can redeem your funds at any time online.

The coins really don’t have practical uses except for storing your money within a physical object that you can carry around. The coin would also make a great conversation piece. Of course, the cost of a physical coin is slightly higher than the value it represents (i.e. a 25 BTC coin will actually cost you 26.20 BTC). This covers Casascius’ cost of production and a little bit of a markup for profit.

Conclusion

I hope this answers any potential questions you may have had about Bitcoin. I have attempted to make it as factually accurate as possible. If you’d like to add something to the discussion, leave a comment below and we can talk!

The post 3 Questions About Bitcoin Everyone Should Ask (And Their Answers) appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Setting up WebCopy

The first time you open WebCopy after downloading and installing it, click on “Tools,” then “Options” to take a look at its settings.

General, Copy and Notifications Options are all basic and require no real walkthrough.

Appearance Options, however, are a way for you to customize how the saved websites look. You can change the variable and fixed fonts as well as how the Sitemap created for your offline website looks and feels.

Saving a website

For the purpose of our walkthrough, we’ll be using Cyotek’s tutorial web site to show you how to get the most from WebCopy.

1. Enter in a URL in the Website field, then click “Copy Website.”

2. If everything goes smoothly, WebCopy will begin the process and save the website for offline viewing.

Depending on the website and hierarchy of how it’s designed, it’s possible that WebCopy may not be able to actually download it for offline use. If this occurs, the copy will be halted and you will see an announcement.

You will also be given the opportunity to look at the error logs to hopefully determine what the problem is. However, most likely there will not be much you can do on your end to correct it.

3. Once the website is finished downloading, there might still be errors detected, and you will still be alerted and allowed to go through the various results.

4. Click on the “Green Arrow” next to Save folder.

This will open the folder where you website has been downloaded, if you click on any of the web pages, it’ll open in your brows navigate through the site as you would normally.

WebCopy saves the layout, and by generating a sitemap of the web site, it can create a natural direction through the site as if visiting it in real time. This is where the real beauty of WebCopy comes into play.

5. Click on the “Floppy Disk” icon to save your new saved website.

Saving your website project allows you to come back to it, re-download components and use the website offline any time you need.

Working with the wesite panels

After you save websites for offline viewing, these results show you what was downloaded properly, what errors occurred, the background files downloaded to load your offline site and more. This can be a way to piece together what pages are missing, what changes have been made between fresh downloads of a single website and issues you might encounter when browsing a website offline.

The first panel you’ll work with is the Results. This will give you a breakdown of how WebCopy downloaded a website. You can see if a page was successfully downloaded, if an error occurred and other information.

The next panel you work with is the Errors. This will show you every error that occurred during the download, such as 404 errors.

The Sitemap panel gives you a look at how the sitemap organizes after the download.

The Skipped panel shows what pages were skipped in the website hierarchy during the download. In most instances, any domain linked outside the original domain you wanted to download offline will not actually download as part of the overall structure.

The Files panel showcases everything that was downloaded to create your website offline, including HTML files, images, JavaScript applications and more.

Finally, the Missing panel will show you what downloaded in a current website copy that may not have been included in previous downloads.

These panels give you an overall picture of the website hierarchy which can be useful for creating rules to govern how a website is downloaded for offline use.

Utilizing rules for offline web site downloads

WebCopy lets you create a set of rules to apply when downloading a web site for offline use. For instance, you might not need the images from a website when viewing it.

1. Click “CTLR + R” to open the Rules Editor.

2. Under the “Rules Properties,” in the “Pattern” text box, type “\.jpg” or substitute whatever image type you want to exclude from your website downloads.

3. You can select what Options you want for the rule, in this case, we’ll click “Exclude.”

4. If we click “Enable this rule,” this will exclude all JPG images from downloading when you get a new copy of a website for use offline.

You can create a variety of rules for a particular website and save them all within the Project for use whenever you update your offline sites.

Conclusion

WebCopy gives you control over how you save websites for offline viewing. It’s an amazing utility for websites you visit frequently and would like to have available when you can’t get online.

The post Save Websites for Offline Viewing with WebCopy appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Getting Started

Using the Wikipedia example, the first step is to create a folder and name it “Wikipedia.”

You then need to find an image to use as your web app’s icon. The file must be named “icon_128.png” and resized to 128 by 128 pixels. Pixlr Editor is a Chrome Web App you can use to resize .png files and preserve their transparency. When you’re done, save the image into the folder you just created.

Before getting started, you will need to have a text editor installed that can export to a .txt file. Scratchpad won’t cut it, as it cannot export a .txt file, but you can create a .txt file inside any browser using EditPad.

Copy and paste the following text into your text editor. If you want to create a web app for another website, change the references to Wikipedia to your website of choice.

{
"name": "Wikipedia",
"description": "App description (132 characters or less, no HTML)",
"version": "1.0.0",
"manifest_version": 2,
"icons": {
"128": "icon_128.png"
},
"app": {
"urls": [
"http://www.wikipedia.org/"
],
"launch": {
"web_url": "http://www.wikipedia.org/"
}
}
}

Save your text file inside your Wikipedia folder and rename it “manifest.json”. Your Wikipedia web app is now complete and needs to be imported into Chrome. Go to the extensions page and enable “Developer Mode.”

Click “Load unpacked extension…” and select the folder you just created. Your completed app should appear in both your list of extensions and your app drawer.

What About The Browser?

If you don’t use Chrome OS, the same process will work for creating custom web apps inside Google Chrome. You can stop here, and as long as you don’t delete the folder containing your app, it will continue to work.

If you want a more convenient solution, you can package your app. Return to the extensions page and click on the “Pack extension…” button. You will be prompted to select the folder containing the extension you want to package. Select the folder you just created and click “Pack Extension” when you’re done.

A .crx file should appear on your desktop. Drag this file into the folder containing your web app. Uninstall the version you previously installed so that it doesn’t conflict with the new version, then drag the .crx file into the Chrome browser to reinstall your application.

Notes on Creating Web Apps.

If you create a web app that happens to point to your own website, you are free to submit it to the Chrome Web Store. Be sure to back up all of your custom web apps afterwards, just in case you accidentally delete the folders containing them. Web apps may cease to work as desired if they can no longer find their target folders.

Conclusion

Creating custom web apps may not be as easy as creating a bookmark, but it saves time having your favorite websites placed front and center. If you have any questions about creating custom web apps for either Chrome OS or the Chrome browser, feel free to ask them in the comments below.

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