As with all other things, the art of magic has grown into an online community. This has been a tricky transition, as magic is something that inherently relies on secrets. Many magicians feel that the internet has made it too easy for people to post “reveals” on the most popular tricks. Even in writing this article I wondered if I would be opening up the magic community to too much press. In the end, I feel that education is more important to the future of magic than secrecy is to its present.

Over spring break I picked my childhood hobby back up again. Once I came back to magic, I discovered that the way in which people learn and interact with magic has completely changed. Magicians no longer rely as heavily on magic books (though they are still very important) and often have a catalog of DVDs, video files, ebooks, and other multimedia resources. YouTube, whose users are notorious for revealing secrets, posting tutorials, and performing so poorly that they expose their secrets, has also been a good way for magicians to get new presentation ideas and explore new kinds of magic in a visual way.

Magicians have a number of great websites that can help you find your way in the world of magic. This article is meant to help anyone looking for resources and support in their hobby. Here are a few of those resources:

The Magic Cafe

With over 35,000 registered users and more than 2 million posts, this forum has the best advice for every kind of effect. There are some forums for beginners, specific forums about different kinds of magic, and even access-restricted forums for long-time users who have proven their worth. Most of the posters are serious magicians who have experience and advice for any questions you may have. They have a very positive attitude about new magicians and will bend over backwards to help you out. The Magic Cafe is the cornerstone to any online magic experience.

One great resource for new magicians can be found on this thread. It is an ebook compiled by one of the Cafe users that has the collected wisdom of the “New to Magic?” section. It is very well written, spans over 6 years of posts, and any newbie will appreciate it.

Talkmagic

This UK-based site is another forum that often provides a good alternative to The Magic Cafe. In fact it is very similar to its bigger brother and many magicians troll both sites for tips and valuable discussions. They are particularly known for their product reviews, so it might be a good first stop when considering a new trick or piece of equipment. Also, both forums will lead you to other magic sites that the community of magicians has recommended.

IBM and SAM

The International Brotherhood of Magicians (IBM) and The Society of American Magicians (SAM).

These two organizations are major players in any event that brings magicians together IRL (in real life). While the websites both detail how to join up, my suggestion is to just look up your local chapter and stop by. If it’s anything these clubs love, it’s new magicians who are taking the time to learn the craft as it should be learned. Most chapters will let you come to several meetings while you decide whether or not you want to join.

You may be wondering what the main difference is between the two organizations. IBM is very focused on lectures and demonstrations, while SAM traditionally gives more opportunities to perform in front of a polite and helpful audience. These are just generalizations though, as each chapter has its own style.

Magic Shops

For previous generations, the only way you could learn magic was from a book, a fellow magician, or a brick-and-mortar magic shop. Magic shops can be great resources for magicians of any level, but depending on where you live, you may not have any nearby. Fortunately, the internet has thousands of online magic shops where you can not only purchase new books and trick, but also watch video demonstrations. I won’t publish any particular shops here, but after a short while you will begin to discover where to go for your magical needs. For more specific advice check the forums above.

Where to Go From Here

The toughest thing at the end of the day isn’t finding the magic tricks, learning the secrets, or even practicing. Most importantly, find out what kinds of magic you like to do and figure out why magic fun for you. Learning the magical arts can take a very long time, so it is important to set goals, stay organized, and make sure you’re enjoying every second. This holds true for any hobby, but especially magic.

To new magicians, I say, “Good Luck!” If you’re an established Illusionist, please post your ideas and suggestions below.

[Hat image from Dr. Nic]

(By) Jimmy Rogers is a biology major at George Mason University and an avid freelance tech blogger. Check out his blog, Mason Tech Beat.

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iTunes Freebies

With millions of song downloads, the term “internet and music” can’t be separated from iTunes and the store. So, it’s natural that many people turn to iTunes to find (free) music.

There are lots of them that you can find there, listed under the menu iTunes Store’s Home –> FREE ON iTunes and because the iTunes Store has expanded their line of business, you can also get free videos and movies. Strangely though, not all the freebies are listed there.

To get the full list of iTunes freebies available, you need help from this site. On the front page, they show you the latest freebies from all categories (including free audiobooks), with links to the individual category freebies pages. They also give the option to get the latest updates using RSS.

If you think that is not enough, you can also download a free album with 34 songs from various artists. One of them is a group called “Harry and the Potters”.

Also keep an eye on a website called OCulture. Their RSS feed is worth subscribing to because they often tell you of free iTunes content worth downloading including music, audio books, podcasts and much more.

Finally, make sure to subscribe to MakeUseOf podcast here.

Getting an iTunes Account

Sadly, the freebies can only be downloaded by people with an iTunes account. This means that those who live in a country with no iTunes store (such as mine) cannot enjoy the goodies.

But there’s a solution to that problem. Using the free 34 songs offer above, anybody from any country - with or without an iTunes store - can get an iTunes account. Here’s how:

1. After getting the code, go to the iTunes Store from iTunes.
2. Click Redeem in the Quick Links panel at the iTunes Store’s Home page.
3. Enter the code and click Redeem. These three steps will be done automatically if you follow the link from TuneCore’s page
4. If you don’t have an account yet, click Create an Account.
5. Follow the steps and you’ll get the account.

Free iPhone Ringtones

Many people believe that Apple shouldn’t charge their customer more to have the purchased song converted into an iPhone ringtone. The people at Nakko have the same opinion. That’s why they provide a free tool to do just that. Sign up and start pimping that iPhone (their words, not mine).

If you know of any other freebies for iTunes, throw them all in the comments below. Where do you get your free legal music, audiobooks, videos and podcasts?

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Amic v2.0 simply is an email backup and restore software program. It supports most of the major email clients like MS Outlook, MS Outlook Express, Eudora, Incredimail, Opera Mail, Pegasus, The Bat, PocoMail and Netscape Messenger. It also covers the entire spectrum of content within an email program - email and news messages, address book, account settings, message rules, signatures, stationery, multiple user identities and also doesn’t miss out on the blocked senders list.

There are three core functions which Amic takes care of.

1. Mail backup

2. Mail restore

3. Backup scheduling

Amic gives the user a choice between two interfaces, Standard and Wizard. Both interfaces are simple to understand and use, though my personal mouse click would be for the wizard. The ‘cool quotient’ beats the blandness of the standard mode hands down.

The Mail Backup Process

Hey! We are not talking rocket science here. The process to backup your mail is as simple as 1-2-3. The software also saves you a bit of trouble by detecting all the mail clients on installation. Select the email client, choose the items to backup, specify the location of the file and presto - it’s done.

The Mail Restore Process

Again, simplicity in reverse. Choose the backup file to restore from, choose the items to restore, now choose to directly restore to the mail client or restore to a custom folder (for later import using the mail client), and the job’s done.

The Backup Schedule Process

Select the mail client, identities if any and the items to backup. You can now schedule it according to hours, days, weeks or months. A start date for the backup plus the time completes this simple process.

Please note that for scheduled backups, Amic runs as an ‘EmailAutobackup’ process in the background and it installs a shortcut in the start-up folder. It runs invisibly and in slower computers you might notice a slight performance hit for the minuscule duration of the backup. It took me about 110 seconds to backup a year’s worth of data on my machine.

The Options on view

Few but sufficient would be an immediate assessment.

• Gives a choice of backup to a new file or to overwrite an existing one. The files are easy to understand as they have the date appended, which even my four year old can understand.
• Gives an option to keep a fixed number of the most recent backup files or all of them.
• Significantly, a user can password protect all the backup files on the go. (Backup and secure all those emails from your ‘ex’ maybe!)
• The choice of backups can be broken down to user specified zip sized or CD sized chunks (i.e. if you are an email clutterer, you could request, say, 700 MB chunks that would fit on a CD).
• You can also backup all your IE Bookmarks.
• Supports all versions of Outlook and Outlook Express (i.e. versions 2000, 2002, and 2003). Although the ‘Read Me’ does not mention compatibility with Vista or Outlook 2007, it ran without a hitch.

Small and nice…but with room for improvement.

Huey Lewis & the News sung ‘It ain’t a perfect world…’ and so it isn’t. At the risk of nitpicking here are some of the misses.

1. It glaringly does not support ‘Thunderbird’. With Mozilla going great guns, this miss is top of the heap.
2. It is only compatible with Windows so far among the operating systems.
3. It cannot backup e-mail files from a network drive because it reads the email settings from the local Windows registry.
4. It can restore only to the same type of email client from which it was created originally.
5. An option to specify a default folder path would have been a slight time saver.

For now, let us disregard the five points; for a small adware-free download at 1.3Mb, providing ease of use and a freeware to top it all is worth a distance run.

What email backup programs do you use? Are their features much the same as Amic? Better? Worse? Let us know in the comments.

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Is adding a cartoon like bubble with text in it somewhat outside of your technical grasp? Maybe you don’t like Photoshop and you don’t know what Gimp is?

Then Kyolo is for you. Kyolo lets you add simple speech bubbles to existing images and it is super easy. Just bypass their login and upload a image directly onto their homepage. Browse to it and click upload.

They have some funny images professing their undying love to Kyolo on their homepage as well. You will find multiple different bubbles, you can change their size and shape and you can add multiple bubbles. Check one out…

Ok so maybe making Paris Hilton and her dog shout their love for a new web service isn’t your cup of tea. How about the President of the United States giving me his finger of approval?

Or maybe you just want to make something cute to brighten someone’s day or just kill some time…

So now that I have wasted 2 hours of my life that I will never get back, let me put you on to it so you can be just as productive as me! Spend some time browsing the popular ones on Kyolo’s site via this link here.

Kyolo DOES NOT require an email address or a log-in which WE LOVE! They do brand their images under the actual picture so it is not that intrusive. If you know Photoshop at all you can get rid of it real quick.

Oh wait then you wouldn’t be using this program in the first place!

I know you have some sick things going through your head right now. We would love to see the images you guys make up email them to me at karl AT MakeUseOf dot com or post a link to yours in the comments! The best ones will be published. Come get your geek on!

(By) Karl L. Gechlik is a superhero of the IT industry who wears many hats and changes in telephone booths. Karl mostly uses his powers for good and the occasional hysterical prank. Get your geek on & follow his geeky antics at askTheAdmin.com today.

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Shiira Mini

Shiira Mini is a slimmed down version of Shiira for the Dashboard which can come in useful if you’re wanting to do a little bit of searching when working on something without having to open an actual browser up.

Shiira Mini Settings

Within settings for the widget you can choose the URL of the homepage you want for Shiira Mini, what bookmarks bar to use (Shiira, Safari) and the color of the widget.

The Interface

Toolbar

On the Toolbar from right to left you have the back button, forward button, reload, stop, address bar, add bookmark, shelf, bookmarks, history, search, new tab/pagedock. Then below the toolbar is where the website will be displayed.

PageDock

Within Shiira you can choose whether to use the PageDock or a tab bar, by default when you first load Shiira up the PageDock the selected option to change this go to Preferences -> PageDock & Tab.

Below the PageDock is the Status Bar. On the Status Bar the first icon is for cookie information on the current website you’re viewing, next to that if the website has an RSS feed then this icon will appear and when you click it the feed will be displayed in the feed reader built within Shiira, when you click the arrow on the far right of the Status Bar it will toggle hiding and showing the PageDock, the four box icon is an Exposé like feature that will layout all the websites you have out so that its easy to browse a lot of websites and see what page you’re on.

Shelf

The shelf in Shiira lets you view and manage all of your Shiira and Safari bookmarks as well as files that you have downloaded. Within the shelf you can also seen your Firefox bookmarks and your history. You can also modify the search engines that can be used in the search bar on the Toolbar. By default there is a few already configured search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Excite, Dictionary.com and more.

Other Features

Full Screen

You can view websites in fullscreen so that the website covers your whole screen. Opera also has this feature.

Appearance

You can change the icons and theme of Shiira, there are only a few themes but at least its somewhat customizable. You can download Shiira themes from here

Page Info

Under page info you can view information on links, DOM, cookies, HTML, CSS, Javascript, the images on the page and other things such as flash files.

Language Support

Shiira Supports the following languages: English, French, German, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Danish, Finnish, Korean, Portuguese, Norwegian, Swedish and Chinese.

Share your thoughts

Tell us what you think about Shiira and how you think it compares to other browsers such as Firefox and Opera.

MakeUseOf.com Rating

(By) Wez is a student studying computers, also does programming and video tutorials and writes about technology, software and websites, check out his blog @ www.TheTutorialBlog.com

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Most importantly, from within Task Manager you have the option of selectively killing processes. But how do you determine which processes are safe to kill based on the limited information Task Manager provides?

If you’re a skilled computer user it’s probable you’re aware of every process running in the background, the application or service that is responsible for launching it, and the function it performs. Better yet, you probably have the know-how to selectively kill processes to optimize memory use and trim your machine for maximum performance.

But what if you’re a novice or casual computer user? Where can you get the information on running processes so that you can make an accurate assessment on whether to kill a process or not?

Fortunately, there are a number of free tools available that will help any computer user, novice or not, to determine which process/processes can be safely shut down.

One such free tool is ProcessQuickLink 2, a small application (413 KB), from Uniblue Systems, the company which provides the free indispensable process listing database Process Library, to the computing community.

After downloading and installing ProcessQuickLink 2 the latest process information will be available to you directly through Windows Task Manager. Simply click on the Icon next to the process you are querying, which will now be visible in Task Manager’s process tab, and the ProcessLibrary.com website will be accessed where the essential information on the selected process can be viewed. The information provided is extensive enough to allow you to make an educated decision on the process.

If you’ve always wondered just what all those processes running in the background on your computer are up to, this cool little application will give you all the information you need.

Quick facts:

Instant one click access to process descriptions and advice through the Task Manager
Quickly and easily search 9000+ entries in processlibrary.com database
New process descriptions are added on a weekly basis

System Requirements:

Windows 2000 / 2003 / XP / Vista
Internet connection and an Internet browser.

Download at:

Uniblue Systems

Do you have a favourite Windows Task Manager program?

(By) Bill Mullins is a Blogger who writes on Internet Security, System Tools, Free Software, and provides downloads links. Check out his Blog at Tech Thoughts

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The answer is actually quite simple. You plan ahead and take the internet with you. Or at least parts of it. It may not be an efficient way to cater your online cravings, but you may finally catch up on some long due reading and best of all, it’s free.

I have two alternatives for you, and I will start with the smaller solution.

ScrapBook is a Firefox addon that integrates with the Firefox Navigation toolbar. After installing the extension you will also notice buttons in your toolbar and status bar. They look like the favicon icon seen in the screenshot below: a blue book with a white back.

When you come across a page you would like to save, you have multiple options. Go to the ScrapBook menu in the Navigation toolbar and select Capture Page or hit the shortcut [CTRL + SHIFT + L] or right-click into the page and select Capture Page or drag and drop the website’s favicon into the ScrapBook sidebar. You only have to remember one of these, relax.

To capture only parts of a site, select these parts, then right-click and choose Capture Selection from the menu. Similarly you can capture a link or rather what’s behind it. Just right-click on it and choose Capture Link from the menu. Moreover, you can capture frames, files, all tabs, images, and instead of capturing anything, you can just bookmark a site with ScrapBook. Easy.

Per default, captured pages or selections are saved in the ScrapBook extension folder located in your Firefox profile directory. This can be changed via the options menu of the extension. In the Organize tab you can even enable a function called Multi-ScrapBook and you can then store data in multiple locations and switch between them using the ScrapBook toolbar button.

Coolness doesn’t stop there. Besides saving a whole site you can edit the page before you capture it. This is actually the greatest part of it! You can remove any part of the page using the DOM eraser, you can add comments, highlight text or add stickies and inline annotations. It’s all done through a small menu bar at the bottom of your screen. The bar comes up when you click the ScrapBook icon that sits in the status bar and select Edit Before Capture.

To best access your captured pages, click the ScrapBook icon in your toolbar which will open the ScrapBook sidebar. You can also go through the Navigation Toolbar menu or click [ALT + K]. The sidebar looks much like your Bookmarks sidebar and you can organize it just as easily. Add folders, drag and drop items or search your collection. Click the word Tools in the top right corner of the sidebar to gain access to even more functions, like import/export, sorting, the combine wizard and more.

This extension may seem simple at first, but it’s ingenious and when you dive in to discover all its features and little details, you may well be overwhelmed at first. This is a great tool to organize online research material, perfect for writers or anyone saving bits and pieces of information. The only thing it’s missing is the ability to automatically capture more than just the active page or a list of predefined URLs.

And that’s why I dare you to stay tuned for part 2 of this mini-series. In the next part I will introduce you to a tool that can do just that: save whole websites, including sub-sites, links and everything. Excited yet?

(By) This post was written by one of our regular authors, Tina from Recommended.

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(1) BigString - Access MSN, Yahoo Messenger, AIM and Gtalk online, from a single webpage. Unlike other web messaging services, BigString conversations are self-destructing and automatically vanish from the screen after a short period of time. They can’t be copied from the screen or even screen-grabbed, they are not stored anywhere online either. Read more (incl. video) : BigString - Virtual Instant Messenger and eMail Shredder.

(2) Impact Calculator - Ever wondered what happens when meteorite hits the earth? Impact Calculator gives you interesting details such as estimated damage, impact energy, visual representation of the resulting crater and so on. Read more …

(3) Fileai - Allows you to securely send large files from one PC to another. Nothing to download or install. Read more …

(4) PDTool - Find out whether or not some work published in the USA is protected by a copyright law and requires permission for use. Read more: PDTool - Is it Protected by Copyright?

(5) Pill Identifier - Search extensive database and get information about pretty much any pill based on its appearance, color, imprint, number or name. Read more: Pill Identifier - Identify Pills by Name, Appearance or Color.

(6) Subyo - Add subtitles to Youtube videos and share them with friends. Read more …

(7) TelePixie - Schedule wake up calls, reminders, weather forecasts, severe weather alerts, stock alerts to your regular phone line. Read more: TelePixie - Wake Up, Alert and Reminder Calls.

(8) TextureKing - Need quality textures for your designs and artworks? Get them on TextureKing.com. Free both for personal and commercial use. Read more: TextureKing - Free High Quality Texture Photos.

(9) Thsrs - Online synonym finder that takes any word and find its shorter synonyms. Read more …

(10) Tune Us In - Upload any mp3 song, cut out the part you like and convert it to a ringtone. You can then either forward it to your mobile phone (US only) or download it to your PC. Read more: TUI Converter - Convert MP3 to a Ringtone and Send it to Mobile.

NOTE: These are just half of the applications that were added to our directory in the last 3-4 days. To keep up-to-date on all directory additions subscribe to MakeUseOf Directory here. Want latest reviews in your email ? Subscribe via email.

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Friendfeed is a cool service no doubt and if you use certain Greasemonkey scripts (which I am about to mention), Friendfeed can turn into a really awesome tool. So if you haven’t been bitten by the Friendfeed frenzy yet, sign up for a free account and install these user scripts and start rocking with it!

1. Google Reader in Friendfeed

There are two ways to use Google Reader in Friendfeed. One is a bookmarklet which is suggested by Louis Gray and if you have signed in to your Friendfeed and clicked on the bookmarklet, it will immediately open the Friend’s shared items tab of your Google Reader.

Another way is to install this Greasemonkey script. Once installed, you will get a tab on the right which when clicked takes you to your Google Reader homepage (see the 2 screenshots below). There are many other similar scripts for different sites. However I particularly like this one.

If you’ve added Google Reader to your list of services, then while browsing through your feeds you could share the ones which you like and then start a discussion on them with your friends as they feeds appear in your Friendfeed.

2. Read Later

Read Later is a cool script for Friendfeed which allows you to store a particular Friendfeed item for reading later. Once you install this script you’ll see a small link named ‘Later‘ under each item.

Once you click on it, it is saved in your account and can be easily accessed through a separate Read Later Tab.

3. Better FriendFeed “subscribed to me”

The Better FriendFeed “subscribed to me” Greasemonkey script adds a ’subscribe’ button under each of the friends who are subscribed to you but you aren’t subscribed to them. Hence it makes the process of subscribing back to those who subscribe to your Friendfeed easier.

4. Twitter For Friendfeed

This is my favorite. The twitter for friendfeed script allows you to access Twitter right inside Friendfeed and therefore allows you to use both the tools simultaneously inside one browser tab. When you install it, you get a separate tab for Twitter inside Friendfeed (as you can see below ).

Once you click on the tab, you can access your Twitter account right inside your Friendfeed account!

5. Friendfeed Filters: Friends & Groups

The Friendfeed filter Greasemonkey script could turn out to be a very important Friendfeed addon in the long run. It lets you filter the noise and access the Friendfeed items which you care for. After installing it, you’ll find a drop-down menu on the right in your Friendfeed account.

Now from this drop down menu you can create different groups of friends and then access their Friendfeed items through a separate tab. It then allows you to further customize your Friendfeed. For example as you can see in the screenshot below, I’ve created a group and named it ‘ Tech Bloggers ‘ and accessing the group feeds through a separate tab.

6. Friendfeed Tweak Refresh Rate

Yes, probably the simplest of the Friendfeed scripts but certainly a useful one. The Friendfeed tweak refresh rate script lets you specify a time interval (in minutes) after which you’d like your Friendfeed to be auto-refreshed.

If you like Friendfeed then I’m sure you’ll like these scripts too. If you know about some other cool Friendfeed scripts then let us know in the comments.

(By) Abhijeet Mukherjee is addicted to the internet and loves blogging and freelance writing. He blogs about tech tweaks, blogging tips, productivity hacks at Jeet Blog

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Starting as a research project in 1994, Opera has been responsible for some world changing innovations (think tabbed browsing) and yet never seemed to achieve the kind of success it deserved.

But this isn’t a history lesson, it’s an article on a few of the killer features of Opera that keep me using it each day. I use Firefox and Flock pretty frequently as well, but Opera, as of version 9.5 has become my favourite.

This isn’t just a list of Opera features, these are what genuinely make life easier for me, and what makes me want to use Opera for my daily web browsing. So for example I haven’t included Mouse Gestures with this list. Why? Because even though it is much more productive, I haven’t yet got in the habit of using it.

1. The Interface

I’ve liked the Opera interface ever since they removed the pathetic banner ads and instead focused on creating a free browser to rival Firefox. If only they made this decision earlier, things may have been a little different.

Whatever the case, Opera 9.5 introduced what I think is a fantastic new interface and theme which is both attractive, useful and unique. My only complaint would be that the tab-bar colour is maybe slightly on the dark side, occasionally making it hard to locate tabs.

You can of course download more skins, and customize various toolbars and buttons yourself, but personally I haven’t bothered changing many default settings as it works fine for me and I think that this shows in the great design.

A new theme may seem cosmetic and hardly something to increase productivity, so I’ll just give you a quick example of how small things make such a big difference:

The left screenshot is a menu from Opera, the the right, from Firefox 3. I realise they don’t have the same functions, but the addition of the icons to the most used items in the Opera menu both breaks it up and makes it easier for the eye to find where an item is.

A ‘recycle bin’ has been added to the end of the tab bar and provides a list of recently closed tabs. Again, simple and useful. I find myself needing to use it all the time, and it’s a lot quicker then having look through the browsing history.>

2. Speed Dial

What can I say about Speed Dial?

It’s one of those things like tabbed browsing, so simple that you wonder why no one did it before, and yet so useful you would hate to be without it.

Also, chicks love it.

No seriously, Opera is a browser that seems to appeal more to women, and I’ve had discussions with a few people who back that up. In fact I would be really interested if any of you want to let me know in the comments wether or not you think this is true.

My theory is that the average female uses the internet for a mere handful of tasks… perhaps email, MSN, MySpace, FaceBook and a couple more sites. They couldn’t care less about what browser they use and are unlikely to ever feel the need for extensions like Firefox.

Speed Dial is just so simple, point, click, add: instant access… add that to the easy to use interface and page loading speed and you have a winner.

3. Bit-Torrent and Download Manager

Opera has a simple Bit-torrent manager as well as an enhanced Download manager, significantly better then you’ll find in either Internet Explorer 7 (With the IE Pro add-on) or Firefox 3.

The complaints have been the Bit-torrent manager is far too slow, and I agree it’s not a great client. However your satisfaction will depend on what kind of user you are. I use Bit-torrent but only occasionally and I’m more interested in reducing the number of applications running then having the best possible Bit-torrent software. I’m happy with having Opera torrent files and slowly downloading them. I’m in no rush.

4. Saved Sessions

Just close Opera safe in the knowledge you can come back later and resume where you left off. And yes, I know Firefox 3 has this now as well, but that doesn’t diminish its usefulness in Opera and I like it.

5. Mail Client

The Opera Mail Client is under-rated in my opinion as it really is quite useful, particularly with 9.5’s general update and improved Gmail integration.

As you know Gmail provides free Pop3 and SMTP access, which makes using Opera Mail all the more useful as you can use it either as an offline client like you’re used to, or as a way to access mail through SMTP and not have to reload the Gmail web interface whenever you use your email.

You can organise multiple accounts. However one thing I noticed is that emails can only be created in plain-text, no formatting, which I find I bit annoying.

To get the most out of this feature I suggest using it in conjunction with Opera Link, another feature which will synchronise your Opera profile across multiple locations including desktop versions and mobile devices.

6. Search, History and Indexing

I must admit to being surprised by the fuss some Firefox fans kicked up about the new “Awesome Bar” in Firefox 3.

Sure, I haven’t yet adjusted myself to taking advantage to all the possibilities offered by it, but when I first saw the new design and larger fonts it just made finding pages in my browsing history so much easier.

In contrast the Opera URL history now seems a little cramped, but it’s still pretty effective and if it had more spacing between results would be very similar to Firefox.

All pages you’ve visited are now indexed and you can search based on any word or subject you remember being vaguely associated with the page you visited.

Before you ask why I’ve left out some great Opera features just remember this is just what I personally find most useful, feel free to tell us what it is you like most about it.

And finally, before someone corrects me, I know Opera wasn’t the first browser to invent or implement tabbed browsing. Netcaptor introduced it way back in 1997, Opera was the browser which first brought it to public attention in 2001, and then sadly to mainstream usage through Mozilla Phoenix (early Firefox) in 2002.

So, that’s what I love about the Opera browser. What do YOU love about it? Let’s see if our tastes match.

(By) Laurence John was born naked, screaming and utterly helpless at some point in the last century. He currently blogs about heroic failures and the development of Windows 7.

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Arkiva is a mix of social networking and storage to make your life that much easier. The focus of the site is most certainly achieved by the incredible array of options and successful accomplishments that are achieved by simply using the site.

Signing up is easy, all you need to do is enter the required information and you are in. Once you are in, the options become incredibly large. You can either begin uploading files, use your personal email address (e.g. username@arkiva.com), search for things to add to your “Arkiva Library,” update your health record, or check out your home page. To upload a file all you need to do is click “upload files” on the left side of your screen (you will need to have Java installed on your computer), select the type of media you would like to upload, select the folder you would like to put your file(s) in, select the file(s), and click “upload files.” Your files should be available in the corresponding section, e.g. “My Photos,” “My Videos,” “My Music,” “My Documents,” “Home Directory,” “My Favs,” “Medical History,” or on your home page.

Once you have uploaded all of your favorite files, customization becomes readily available. For one single text document, you may download it, share by email, move the document, delete it, view the document and edit it, or index the document and add tags. The option to edit the document really goes further then necessary. Many times, even purely online storage backup utilities do not allow users to edit files that are uploaded. This is simply an awesome extra.

Unfortunately though, the search feature is not that great. You seem to be required to enter the exact name of the file. (i.e). the name of my file was “uploadeddocument1.txt” and when I entered “doc” or “1″ the result was nothing. Otherwise such features worked correctly.

One extremely neat feature, that can be widely used by all of you with those old records, tapes, VHS tapes, picture slides, etc. is the option to send Arkiva your old or external media and have them convert it to DVD and archive to share it on Arkiva. You can even have them put all of your media on a 250 GB external hard drive for $149.95. It is just another sweet option given to you by the folks at Arkiva.

Part of the social networking image is an obvious encouragement to invite your friends to Arkiva. You are encouraged to do so and receive $.10 for each person you invite that joins.

When you first start out, pictures, videos, audio and other media are automatically placed on your home page for convenience. You are also given 1GB to start off for free. If you would like to increase your storage space, 6GB=$49.95 a year, 11GB=$89.95 a year, 22GB=$169.95 a year, and 50GB=$369.95 a year.

(By) Will is a computer nerd and geek that is raising money for developing a better internet and runs his blog at Advanced Tech Solutions.

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Media JukeBox has to be the best free music jukebox available which boasts some cool features which no other free music organizer can boast of (at least among those which I’ve tried ).

User Interface

The user interface was the first thing which immediately attracted me towards this tool and tempted me to further play with it. Unlike other music organizers where you need to spend some time initially to understand the user interface, Media Jukebox’s interface is nice, clean, simple and stylish at the same time. As you can see in the screenshot below, the interface is divided into 4 panes on the right where the top 3 panes are categorised into genre, Album Artist and Album and the big bottom pane lists the corresponding songs with the various details in different columns. The left hand side is neatly organized too and lists the playlists, podcasts, plugins and drivers.

You can easily customize the entire interface by clicking on the ‘Pane‘ button just above the 3 panes on the right side. For example, I changed the pane view to thumbnails and now it shows the thumbnails of album art in the main pane.

Smartlists

Smartlists is a feature which sets this tool apart and honestly speaking this was a feature which I craved for. I don’t think other tools like Media Monkey have this feature or perhaps this feature isn’t easy to locate in other tools. You can consider a Smartlist as a customized playlist where you set the rules and accordingly it picks up the songs from your library and plays them. For example you may want to play the ‘top 50 hits of 1990′ or a combination of some albums and genres. You can set the rules and create a smartlist and play it whenever you like. You can create a smartlist by clicking on Edit - > Add Smartlist

Salient Features

After discussing my 2 favorite features of this app, I will now delve into the other features of this tool.

• Extensive Album Art Support - Supports downloading all the missing cover art from Amazon. One of the nice things is that you can select different songs and download the cover art sequentially in bulk.
• Easy Tagging - You can easily tag and alter the present information by right clicking a song and clicking on tag. It then shows a small box on the left hand side where you can easily edit the details.



• Skins and Plugins - There are some nice skins, visualization tools and plugins available which further adds to the user experience.
• Supports easy CD and DVD burning through drag and drop.
• Allows you to print the album art covers.
• Like other organizers, this has a nice search tab too which easily located the required media.
• You can sync your collection with the iPod, PDA’s and some selected phones.

Overall, as I have already mentioned, I am quite impressed by this tool and will use it as my primary music organizer tool going forward. I recommend you try this free app and give your feedback in the comments.

(By) Abhijeet Mukherjee is addicted to the internet and loves blogging and freelance writing. He blogs about tech tweaks, blogging tips and productivity hacks at Jeet Blog

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Ever had your Mac go off to Sleep just when you left the room and forgot to come back in time? Doesn’t it agitate you when you were in the middle of a download and it got cut off because your Mac would automatically Sleep when left untouched? Are you sick of having to go to System Preferences, click on Energy Saver and set the amount of time for your Mac to Sleep, then changing it again when you don’t need it to? Then Caffeine is just the tool for you.

To turn Caffeine on, all you have to do is launch the tool and click on the menu bar icon (which is a cup) and it fills with coffee; then it basically doesn’t allow your Mac to Sleep. So you won’t have to worry about your downloads, live webcam or direct-connection transfers from cutting off. When you’re done, just turn Caffeine off by clicking the coffee cup, it empties and everything will be back to the way it was.

If you only need to temporarily turn off the Sleep function for a certain amount of time, Caffeine can do that for you too. All you need to do is set the time for Caffeine to be active for and enable it. A