(1) Folowen - If you are looking for an easy way to follow someone on all their online social activities, then Folowen can help you. It is a social profile search engine that aggregates the social media profiles of a person from 20 different social sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc and presents the results on one single page. Read more: Folowen: Quick Social Profile Search

(2) Graphing Calculator – This online calculator lets you quickly and easily create complex graphs for those weird sine, cos, tan equations. You can also drag points on the graph, locate specific coordinates and zoom in if you need to take a better look. It’s certainly a useful tool for school and college students. Read more: Graphing Calculator: Create Complex Graphs Online

(3) MadRingtones – Web service that enables you to make ringtones from YouTube videos and MP3 files. Creating ringtones is quick and easy – simply navigate to the site, enter the URL of the video or MP3 file and click ‘Load’. Once file is uploaded, you will be able to determine the tone’s start/end points and then download it to your computer as MP3, .amr, .ogg or .m4r files. Read more: MadRingtones: Make Ringtones From YouTube Videos & MP3

(4) MyNoteit – Online note organizer developed especially for school and college students. It offers many features which can help to keep track of notes and assignments. Students can upload files, manage tasks with a to-do list, make use of the built-in advanced calendar and create and join various class groups. Read more: MyNoteit: Online Note Organizer For Students

(5) ViewLike.us - Lets you quickly test website in different resolutions. You simply need to enter website URL into provided field and click on the “Submit” button. Once the page loads, you can click different resolution tabs to view how the site looks. Read more: ViewLike.us: Test Website In Different Resolutions

Submit Your Web App

These are just half of the websites that we discovered in the last couple of days. If you want us to send you daily round-ups of all cool websites we come across, leave your email here. Or follow us via RSS feed.

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• makeuseof extra #27 (33)
• Finally Stick To Your Resolutions With StickK (20)
• Cool Websites and Tools [May 9'th] (8)
• Cool Websites and Tools [May 8'th] (8)
• Cool Websites and Tools [May 7'th] (12)

Instead of attempting to circumvent the school’s computer system to access YouTube, you could always make use of that cool little Windows Mobile device you were able to convince your parents to buy you for your last birthday. No matter where you are – sitting on the bleachers at the football game, riding the bus, or sitting way in the back of the class during an exceptionally dull lecture – just enable your wireless Internet connection and start watching hilarious YouTube videos on your phone!

How to Get on YouTube at School with Your Mobile Device

If you have a mobile device that’s installed with Windows Mobile, and you’re lucky enough to have a decent mobile Internet plan, there are a number of methods you can use to post YouTube videos, such as this MUO review of Cellspin – an app you can use to post to eBay, Facebook and YouTube.  However, YouTube itself now offers the ability to both play videos and broadcast your own videos from your mobile phone.  This feature now allows anyone to instantly stream realtime videos directly to YouTube.

No more waiting until you get home so you can load it onto your computer and upload it to the website.  With this feature, you can instantly post witness accounts of a natural disaster or government atrocities no matter where you are or where the nearest computer is. If there’s a cellular provider with a mobile Internet plan, this YouTube feature turns you into a walking online witness through which the whole world can see the sort of things that you see every day. Start telling your story through video images streamed directly up to YouTube from your phone.

Whether you choose to “play” or “create” on YouTube from your mobile phone is up to you, but both features offer very cool opportunities. Now you can watch videos while you’re sitting and waiting for your name to be called at the restaurant. Capture a video of a crime in progress (don’t get too close) and feature it at your YouTube account before even the local media has any clue what’s going on.

How to Play YouTube Videos On Your Mobile Phone

Playing YouTube videos on your mobile phone is easy. All you have to do is open up your mobile web browser and visit “http://www.youtube.com.”  If you visit from a mobile device, you are automatically redirected to the mobile version of the site. This mobile version of YouTube will work whether you have Windows Mobile of just an Internet-enabled cellphone.

You can search through videos or browse the front page of the newest ones. Watching videos from the mobile version of the website includes two technical requirements that you need to be aware of. Your mobile device needs to support RTSP streaming, and your cellular carrier needs to allow streaming video on your device. Now, if it doesn’t work on your mobile device, don’t despair. As you can see, there’s an option to download the YouTube application to your mobile device. If you do have a Windows Mobile device, then you’ll want to consider clicking on that “download application” link, as the mobile application version of YouTube is much more functional (and better looking).

Within the YouTube mobile application, most of the videos play clearly and with very little skipping – especially if you’re connected onto a Wi-Fi network.

If you’re only on the cellular data line, you may need to give the videos some time to download to your device before you click the play button.

Uploading Your Mobile Videos Directly to YouTube

Now, uploading the videos you recorded with your device is almost as easy as downloading videos to watch. All you need to do is sign up for your own YouTube account (you can connect it with your Google account). Once you do, YouTube will provide you with your own mobile email address ending in “m.youtube.com” where you can send your videos to get instantly published under your YouTube account.

Setting this up takes just a matter of minutes. Then, turn on the video capture feature of your mobile device, send the video file to your mobile YouTube email account, and you’ve just instantly posted your own mobile email to the Internet without the need for a computer.  Now that’s sweet.  To test it out, I took a 17 second, blurry video of my skinny cat who was lounging in bed. In less than 5 minutes of emailing the video from my phone to my mobile YouTube email account, the fuzzy video of the silly little critter was up live on YouTube!

All I’d have to do is increase the resolution of my video capture and I could become the next online Oliver Stone!  Just imagine the “compromising” situations that you could capture your friends in at school – and then publish it on YouTube instantly for the world to see!  Now, no corner of the world is safe from the snooping video-camera eyes of the mobile phone crowd. Be afraid… be very, very afraid.

Have you ever used any other tools to instantly post video from your mobile device to the Internet? Share your own tips in the comments section below.

Not using a Windows Mobile device? Grant shows you how to stream live video from almost any cellphone or you could check Qik out.

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Watch YouTube Videos on Your Large Screen TV (2)
• Total Media Domination – Your TV, Video and Audio on any Device (10)
• 4 YouTube Tools you Probably Don’t Know About (40)
• 18 Free Ways To Download Any Video off the Internet (133)
• YouTube.com – Online Video Sharing Site (17)

StartUp Manager can be used to achieve this easily. You can install StartUp Manager by using your distribution’s package manager. Or check here. Once installed, it can be found under System > Administration > StartUp Manager.

StartUp Manager can be used to easily customize a number of options that would otherwise require you to get your hands dirty by editing configuration files. As a start, you can change boot options such as the selection timeout and default operating system. If you have multiple operating systems, a useful option here is to make the Last Used operating system as the default choice, which would automatically boot the one you used the last time. Such a setting can be quite handy when you have a clear favorite in terms of operating systems and others are just installed for completeness.

You can also change the display resolution and the color depth if you are experiencing any problems with the display of the main menu. Uncheck “Show bootloader menu” if you don’t want to see the menu, and boot the default operating system each time. “Show bootsplash” can be used to add an image as background to the bootloader menu. We did a complete tutorial on it some time back. “Show text during boot” provides you with textual feedback of what is currently happening in the boot process.

The appearance tab allows you to customize the look of the bootloader menu as well as the Usplash theme. You can add colors to the bootloader menu, pick and choose the ones you like. A Usplash theme governs the progress bar display during the boot process. You can find some Usplash themes here, click on “Manage Usplash themes” and add the one you downloaded, then select the one you like and next time you boot, it would be there to greet you.

That is not all by any stretch of imagination. StartUp Manager allows you to do pretty advanced stuff. You can password-protect the bootloader or only recovery mode entries (a good choice) or the boot options by simply placing a check against the option and specifying the password.

If you are bothered by how cluttered the bootloader gets after a kernel upgrade, you can limit the number of entries from here in. Uncheck “Create boot option for recovery mode” to remove the recovery mode altogether if you are paranoid about someone getting into your system through recovery mode root prompt.

StartUp Manager is a no fuss tool which greatly simplifies tweaking and customizing of bootloader options and helps you manage Grub and Usplash settings easily without having to go in and tinker with the configuration files yourself. What do you think of it? Let us know in the comments.

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

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• How To Password Protect GRUB Entries (Linux) (8)
• 10 Cool Linux Apps You Maybe Didn’t Know About (25)
• Ubuntu System Panel Gives Quick Access To Your Applications (15)
• Tweak Ubuntu the Easy Way (14)
• The Ubuntu Upgrade Guide (7)

That’s why everyday computer users tend to avoid Terminal. People say that tinkering with the Terminal is not for the faint hearted. Because something could – and possibly would – go wrong.

But actually, there are fun things that we can do using the Terminal’s command line. Here are few of the simple ones.

1. Play the Old (Classics) Games

Mac OS X comes with GNU Emacs, part of GNU operating system, which can be accessed via Terminal. There are some old, classic games hidden there. They are far from beautiful if you compare them with all the graphically-intense ones that we have today. But to fill in some spare times, these ‘uglies’ will do just fine.

To access them, type in (or better yet, copy and paste) this command into the Terminal to access the GNU Emacs:

emacs

Click Enter, then continue with the key combination of “Esc + x”. Type in one of these game’s names to start playing:

5×5
blackbox
dunnet
gomoku
hanoi
landmark
mpuz
pong
snake
solitaire
tetris

I know some of them well (the last four on the list) while other names did not exist in my dictionary until just now. I tried to play them all but without any information or how-to’s, it’s a tough effort to carry out.

If you want to quit the game, use the key combination “Ctrl + x” followed by “Ctrl + c”

2. Watch the text-based episode of StarWars IV

I used to think that George Lucas skipped his early Math classes since he started the Star Wars sagas with number IV. Yet, I’m always a big fan of Luke and Leia.

If you feel like being nostalgic (and have plenty of free time to spare), why don’t you connect to the net, open the terminal and type in:

telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl

That’s how far a REAL fan will go. (And if you are lucky enough to have IPv6, you’ll get more scenes and – drum roll, please – color!)

3. Talking Terminal

Still have so much time to spare but no one to spare the time with? You could have the terminal talking to keep you company.

Just type in:

say {Fill in your text here}

Fill in any text in the area provided above and Terminal will speak it out for you.

4. Meet the Doctor

After going as far as letting the talking Terminal accompany you during your lonely hours, you feel worried about your mental health and thinking about going to a mental therapist.

Well, look no further. Emacs also hides a virtual psychologist. To consult it with your problems, follow the above steps on number 1, but instead of typing in the name of the game, you type “doctor” (sans quote).

I guarantee that you would need a real psychotherapist after consulting with this one.

As a final note, I think I should mention that I tried these fun things on my Mac. But since everything described here is merely command lines, these commands should also work fine on Linux machines.

Do you know any other fun but simple things that you can do with the Terminal? Or can you help with some of the unknown games above? Share your knowledge using the comments section below.

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Second Life – What is the Hype? (16)
• Yahoo! Games: WordRacer is my Boggle Game of Choice (1)
• Who are you? What your pig drawing, browser type, fav. drinks, etc. reveal about you! (3)
• Toribash Fighting Game – Design & Try Perfect Fighting Moves (16)
• Top Five Free Online Shooter Games – Must Read For Gamers (73)

BTaccel, a browser-based and remotely hosted BitTorrent client, can help to make things far easier. Feed it a link to a torrent and it does all of the P2P wizardry automatically, downloads the file and prepares it for you to grab off their servers via HTTP.

In order to use it to download torrent files, you’ll need to sign up with an invitation. Lucky for you, I’ve managed to get 150 free invites just for MakeUseOf readers! You may get it at the end of this article but continue reading to find out what BTaccel can do.

First, the user interface is Google-simple. You have an account link at the top, and a box in the center where you enter a URL or keyword. You can search by keyword, browse a website by proxy or paste in a direct link to a .torrent file.

Browsing torrent tracker sites via the proxy is a bit hit-and-miss in this alpha release. Sometimes, it will pick up a clicked torrent link, but not always. Your best bet is to browse the tracker in a separate window, copy the torrent link’s location and paste it into BTaccel.

After you’ve chosen a torrent, the next screen you see will be a summary of the torrent’s contents. Once the download from the swarm is complete, you can be alerted by email, and then you may download torrent files individually, or download a single compressed ZIP of all the files packed together.

To view the torrents currently in your download queue, hit the Home page and you’ll be presented with a list of your torrents and their progress.

What makes BTaccel so great is the fact that your system won’t be bogged-down with uploading and downloading. Once the torrent is finished, you’ll have a direct download from BTaccel’s servers (which must be completed within 72 hours). Another advantage is the fact that you can start a torrent from any computer with a browser and then finish the transfer at home, when it’s convenient.

In comparison to using a traditional BitTorrent client, BTaccel offers users an advantage on ease-of-use. For those interested in the protocol, we have plenty of BT-related material on MUO, especially The Big Book of BitTorrent, which I consider a must-read. How do you like your BitTorrent? Let us know in the comments.

We’ve got your hookup for the first 150 users to sign up with alpha invite code “100GBmakeuseof150”. If you’ve missed out, follow @btaccel on Twitter for a chance to score a code.

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• How To Cheat With Your BitTorrent Ratio (30)
• How to Access your Torrent Client & Download Torrents Remotely (13)
• FeedMyTorrents Keeps TV Shows Downloading Automatically (15)
• Download Torrents Without A Client Via Torrent2Exe [Windows] (8)
• Wyzo Beta – The Web Browser for Downloaders (8)

(1) CostOfLiving – Useful online cost of living comparison tool provided by the CNNMoney magazine, it lets you compare living costs of your current location with any other city in the US. Simply select your current location (city/state) from the list, enter your current salary and press “Get Result”. Read more: CostOfLiving: Salary & Cost Of Living Comparison Tool

(2) Delicious Spy – This application shows the sites people are bookmarking on Delicious in real time. You may save the ones you like on Delicious or share them on Digg and Reddit directly from this site. You can also filter the results by tags and be notified by sound when new bookmarks appears. Read more: Delicious Spy: Real Time Tool For Delicious Users

(3) Google Web Elements – Provides a simple way for you to add number of Google services on to your website or blog. You can easily embed Google Docs Spreadsheets, Google News, Google Search, Google Maps and YouTube videos, along with features like social conversations from Google Friend Connect. Google Web Elements are easy to use and can be customized according to your needs, simply choose the features you want, and copy a few lines of code to your website. Read more: Google Web Elements: Embed Google Products To Your Site

(4) Kukoo - If you are always looking to reply an email as soon as possible so that the sender doesn’t think you are ignoring him, then Kukoo would prove to be a great help to you. It helps you create email reply rules and provides you with an autoresponder email which lets the sender know instantly when he should be expecting a reply from you. Read more: Kukoo: Free Email Autoresponder Service

(5) PermaTime – Web service which makes it easy to schedule meeting times across multiple time zones. You no longer have to share the event’s time details in a confusing universal time format (e.g. UTC+8) as PermaTime automatically converts the event’s time into the local time of each participant. Read more: PermaTime: Easily Schedule Meeting Time Across Time Zones

Submit Your Web App

These are just half of the websites that we discovered in the last couple of days. If you want us to send you daily round-ups of all cool websites we come across, leave your email here. Or follow us via RSS feed.

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• makeuseof extra #27 (33)
• Finally Stick To Your Resolutions With StickK (20)
• Cool Websites and Tools [May 9'th] (8)
• Cool Websites and Tools [May 8'th] (8)
• Cool Websites and Tools [May 7'th] (12)

As you can see, those tips are for the “beginner” online socialist.

Here are some more to help you become a power user of social media and networking sites.

11. Use Your Mobile for Social Updates

If you spend a lot of time with your mobile phone, use applications that interface with multiple networks. Access Flickr via mobile. Use CellSpin to post video, voice, photos, or text to multiple social networks. Chatterous is great to chat with your existing IM buddies, while MobiLuck is a good mobile friend-finder. Check out Hellotxt for updating your status across 40+ networks, and Mobypicture for sharing pictures/audio/video.

12.  Engage and Participate

Are you sharing a lot of content in your blog posts, photos, videos, and bookmarks, but not receiving many comments, ratings or feedback?

Sometimes we get so caught up in our ‘create/discover-post-share’ routine that we forget to listen, view, comment and rate others’ posts. Use your social map visualization to see where your content is landing. That’s where you need to spend time. Engage and participate in the community. The more you give, the more you get.

13. Use an Aggregator

Choose an aggregator service that supports your favorite networks. Use only one service and make sure your content is not being pushed twice. Avoid spamming your friends! Select from some of the popular aggregator services like Friendfeed, Plaxo Pulse, or Lifestream.fm.

An important consideration is data portability. Some lifestreaming services like Profilactic and Swurl have shut down or are struggling, so choose a service that aims to make all your data portable across services like Chi.mp.

14. Unleash the Power of Feeds

RSS Feeds are very powerful. For example, you can get an RSS feed update every time you Digg an article or save a bookmark in Delicious. Flickr provides 3 different feeds for your photostream. All Twitters have a feed. Use feeds in combination with your aggregator services, and in sites like Facebook. Use feeds in widgets in your blog’s sidebar. Use them in your HTML email signatures. The possibilities are limited to your imagination!

If you are the DIY type and want to get creative with RSS Feeds, use Yahoo Pipes.

15. Create a Portable Online Identity

If you have signed up with a lot of sites and services, letting people find you on all of them can be a daunting task. Use specialized services like Retaggr or DandyID to create an online identity that is portable and consolidates all your web locations. Your profile can then be easily shared as widgets in blogs, in email signatures, posted to Facebook and more.

16. Merge Your Social Media

Your social media (photos, status, bookmarks, etc.) lies scattered across different websites. It is not easy to share a single URL that encapsulates all your social media together. There are some services that aim to help you do just that.

Cliqset lets you merge all your scattered data and share it with people, applications, or devices. With Chi.mp, you can get your own personal yourownname.mp domain and website for free, and it automatically feeds many of your social interactions to your site. With Gizapage, your contacts can see your social media presence across several networks in a tabbed interface at yourname.gizapage.com.

17. Auto Sync Your Profile

Want to change your profile picture across several networks at once? Atomkeep helps you keep your profiles in sync across 23 social networks as well as cool stuff like keeping your resumes in sync across job sites.

18. Use Dashboards

Dashboards let you view and update statuses in real-time across multiple networks. Since Twitter is the de-facto real-time service, all dashboard applications are centered around Twitter. TweetDeck and Seesmic Desktop are popular desktop clients that also let you view and update Facebook status feeds.

Peoplebrowsr is a web-based dashboard that provides a column-view of custom groups that combine friends and updates across many services at once. It supports a plethora of other services Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn, Friendfeed, YouTube, etc. and is also available as a desktop application.

19. Manage Your Reputation

Social Networks are powerful. Whether you are an individual or a business, you should track your reputation by what people are saying about you. The viral nature of social networks can cause reputations to swing very fast.

Setup Google Alerts to monitor your brand name, or use MonitorThis to subscribe to a feed of search results from 26 search engines. Keotag lets you search and subscribe to everything in the blogosphere by tags, and it supports several different search engines like Technorati, Digg, Delicious, etc.

Use RSS feeds of Twitter searches to monitor mentions of you or your brand. You can use Facebook Lexicon to monitor what’s being written on Facebook Walls. Use BackType to monitor comments around the web, including all comments of specific people who may be intent on tarnishing your reputation. Use Social Mention for real-time search across social media networks and to set up social media alerts. Trendrr gives you automated tracking and reporting for various types of social media. With the help of BoardTracker and BoardReader, you can search forums and discussion boards to see what people are actually saying about your brand.

20. Live the Real Life!

Social media and networking can get very addictive. Remind yourself to take adequate breaks from your online social life, and spend time offline with your real-life friends and family. In case you forgot, that’s what being social really means!

Did you find these tips useful? Do you have any that we missed? Do share with us in the comments!

small>Image Credit: єvαиdяσ иαรciмєитσ

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• 20 Tips to Define And Manage Your Social Networks – Part 1 (21)
• Psst…Do You Plurk? (15)
• Manage your Online Social Life with SecondBrain (11)
• 5 Social Aggregators To Keep you Updated (9)
• 4 Tools to Update the Status Messages the Easy Way (8)

The problem, though, is that Twitter does essentially nothing to help you find interesting people. There was the whole @replies debacle, where Twitter took away the ability to see who your friends are talking to – that was almost a disaster for discovering new people.

Even after that was fixed, Twitter made it easy to search for interesting tweets but not as much for doing a Twitter search to find interesting people. That’s what TwitterHIT is out there to remedy. TwitterHIT is all about finding new people and new friends on Twitter, by providing some unique search options.

The first thing to do is log in – you use your Twitter account credentials – which always makes me nervous – but in a few hours of using it, TwitterHIT didn’t ever tweet anything or take information I didn’t want it to. It appears, at least for now, trustworthy. It does send one tweet when you follow people (a super-cryptic one at that), but it’s harmless enough, and easy to delete.

Once you’re logged in, you’re brought to the “start” screen (above). On that screen, you get two different boxes – a space for keywords, and one for locations. The keywords are essentially like any other Twitter search, but the location-based search is what makes TwitterHIT great.

Let’s say, you want to find people in your city who like to play squash. Type “played squash” or “playing squash” into the keywords, and then your location in the bottom field. All the people on Twitter who are near you will be returned to you, and they are the ones who have tweeted about their squash-playing activities.

TwitterHIT conducts a Twitter search, finds the results and presents them in a list on the results page, with usernames, pictures, and latest tweets all on that one page. It returns 20 results, and with an upgraded account – 200. The free account always did me fine, though. Browse the list, and toggle the checkbox next to anyone you want to follow. At the end of the list, click the “Follow These People” button, and TwitterHIT automatically follows them for you.

If you want to, you can then repeat the whole process. There are some seriously annoying ads that come up after each “Follow These People” session, but they go away after a few seconds.

Also part of TwitterHIT’s upgraded account (which you get either by paying $147 or completing a trial offer through an affiliate like Blockbuster) are several other tools – following back your followers automatically, automatically retweeting things with certain keywords, and the like. These all sound like ingredients for a spammy Twitter account to me, or may come in handy for someone who uses Twitter for business purposes – the free version’s got the one feature I really want to use.

TwitterHIT is great for making Twitter a more localized version of itself, and helping to bring you into contact with people you might actually develop a relationship with outside of Twitter. There are more and more people on Twitter every day, and TwitterHIT offers one great way to find the people near you who might actually be relevant to you both on and off Twitter.

How do you find interesting people, not just interesting tweets, on Twitter? Don’t forget to share with us in the comments.

Image Credit: the trial

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

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Stay Socially Connected Online With Yoono (13)
• Psst…Do You Plurk? (15)
• Kwippy – Social Networking…Revised. (BETA Invites Included!) (4)
• 4 Ways To Find New Twitter Friends (12)
• 4 Tools to Update the Status Messages the Easy Way (8)

So let’s talk about the essentials. An incredibly small installer, clocking in at 5-7 MB depending on the platform, it gives you anti-virus and anti-malware functions, free updates, scan scheduling, all wrapped into an incredibly simple, elegant user interface, that even a 5 year old could manage to use.

The interface is separated into 4 tabs:

1. Home assesses the current safety level by monitoring the real-time protection and updates. On the right, the Scan Now button lets you sweep the computer with a manual scan – either Quick, which only looks at a small number of critical system files and known malware locations, Full which scans every file and Custom which let’s you chose the location.
   
2. Update displays information about the signature database: date of creation and version number. The button on the right labeled ‘Update’ will start the automatic update process. No further input is required from the user.
3. History presents potentially dangerous applications that were either detected, quarantined or manually allowed by the user.
4. Settings will allow you to change various parameters of the application such as default actions, excluded file types and real time scanner options.

Detection rates are on par with OneCare, the now discontinued for-pay security application also developed by Microsoft.

In a Windows 7 virtual machine, MSE detected 17 out of the 23 malware/viruses, preventing their installation. Rootkits and keyloggers scored the poorest marks with 2/5 and 1/4 recognized.

Performance is comparable to other modern security suites, with 40MB of memory used when idle. An additional 3MB is taken when opening the user interface. The full system scan appears to take longer than other products, finishing a 120GB hard drive in 1 hour 32 minutes for a SATA 1.1 hard drive spinning at 5200RPM.

Overall, I noticed a visible increase in the system’s speed when compared to Kaspersky’s Anti-Virus.

Microsoft Security Essentials is currently in beta. The downloads were limited to 75 000 copies – but it is mirrored on many websites and does not require a license key or registration. It does however check to see if the copy of Windows is legitimate.

There’s nothing wrong with the application itself, the concept behind it screams ‘paradox’. It’s created by the same people that made Windows. Releasing a security product is essentially admitting that the operating system you market as ‘the safest’ – is flawed to start with. Otherwise how can you justify its creation? Like O.J. Simpson giving a signed confession.

Secondly, it’s going to kill revenues for all the other security companies like Symantec and Kaspersky from the home and small business users segment. If the European Commission was worried about Windows Media Player and Internet Explorer, how do you think it will react to this, especially if retailers or even Microsoft bundles it with new computers? I can already imagine the headlines: “Microsoft fined $100 million for making Windows secure”. Coupled with a responsible behavior and Windows Defender, Microsoft Security Essentials is the way to go, especially for people on a tighter budget.

What do you think about Microsoft Security Essentials? Do you think it’s a threat for other security companies? Are you ready to ditch your for-pay Antivirus?

Talking about security, you might want to read 10+ Best Firefox Security and Privacy Addons, 10 Free Online Malware and Virus Scanners or articles related to Microsoft.

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Trustware Bufferzone Has Your Browser’s Back (30)
• RU Botted – Watches your System for bot-related Activities (13)
• Get Geeky and Fix your PC with HijackThis (10)
• Detect Fake Antivirus software & Spyware Removal programs (8)
• Clean Your PC with Microsoft’s OneCare Safety Scanner (Free) (19)

If you are running Windows on your computer, Windows Movie Maker should also be installed by default.   Just check your Start Menu to find it.

So let’s get started trying to become the next Quentin Tarantino…

First of all, you need a USB cable to connect your camcorder to your computer.   Most modern camcorders come readily equipped with USB cables but if you don’t have one, you’ll have to buy one.   You have to be able to transfer your film footage to your desktop.   So first, connect your camcorder to the desktop with the USB cable.

Then run Movie Maker (MM).

To get started on making your video, the first step is to “capture” the video from your camera.   So after making sure that your camcorder USB cable is in, go to “Capture from video device” in the left hand bar.

This will pop up a box asking you what you want to call your new video file and where in your computer you would like to store the video footage. Make your selections and then press “Next”.

This is the box that appears next.  You have to decide if you want playback quality for your computer or if you plan to watch the footage on a DVD on television.  This box also shows you how much space on your computer the movie file will take up as well as the file type (which is stuck on .wmv) and the file speed.

After making your decision and clicking next, the next box will ask you if you want to capture the whole tape or just portions of it.   If you have used up a whole cassette on the same movie then you can just let MM capture the whole lot.  But if you only want to capture part of the tape (perhaps if you have several movies on the same tape and you only want to work on one), choose the second option.

When you have made your decision, the capture box will come up.   I took this screenshot from Google Images as I couldn’t get the video picture to show in my capture box screenshot.   So please don’t think I am a toilet fetishist or something!

Everything here is pretty much self-explanatory.  Keep the “Create clips when wizard finishes” option ticked.  You can mute speakers if you want to (I don’t).  You can also set a time limit on how much video it captures (but I don’t see the point as you can stop it yourself when you have what you need).

Before pressing “start capture”, use the controls under the picture to rewind / fast forward to the point you want to start capturing.   Then press “Start capture”.   You’ll then start to see “video captured” and “size of audio file” start to increase.   Make sure you have enough space on your computer to store it all!   When you have all the footage captured, press “Stop capture” and then the “Finish” button.

The footage will then be broken up into “clips”.   This makes it a lot easier to edit the film and also get a general overview of the whole project.

To get started on editing it, highlight all the clips you want in your movie and then drag it to the bottom into the timeline.   Everything will then be moved down and you’re ready to begin editing.

That’s all for part one. In part two, I will show you how to edit your footage and also add in some special effects such as adding AVI and WMV movie files as well as music and credits.

**UPDATE** It has been brought to my attention that the Portable Movie Maker which was initially featured in this article has a file which is being flagged by AVG as a virus.  It is not a virus in my version of the program (which is how I didn’t find out about it before the publication of this article) but a subsequent check of a new download of the app does indeed reveal the file is being flagged by AVG.

To be on the safe side, all links and mentions of the portable app have been removed from this article.   If you have already downloaded it, I suggest you delete it to be safe and use the full installed PC version of Movie Maker instead.   Or at the very least scan your copy with a virus checker.

Normally we thoroughly virus check everything before publication.  However, since I downloaded this app several months ago and AVG initially passed it as safe, this one got past me.   I apologise.

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

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Merge Multiple Video Files With VirtualDub (12)
• How To Repair Broken AVI Files That Won’t Play (10)
• How to Easily Compress Video Files for Web with Movie Maker (8)
• DimP – Direct Manipulation Video Playback (Windows) (5)
• Create DVDs Out of AVI or Other Media Files (13)

So, we might just have to find other methods of searching for and downloading files like television shows or movies from the interweb. I have been using a website called www.RapidShare.com for a while now to trade files with friends who don’t know what FTP is. Now, I found a neat search engine that will let you search what other people are uploading!

In the past, I’ve shown you a Rapidshare search engine but this new one is even better. It’s called RapidShare123 and is located at http://www.RapidShare123.com. RapidShare123 collects Rapid Share downloads from sites, forums, blogs and portals. Don’t have something to search for? Come on, all you need to search is a little bit of imagination – and if you don’t have any of that, RapidShare123 lists the most recent search terms on their homepage.

In the past, we have showed you how to make use of your Rapidshare account with some free Rapidshare tools that you should definitely check out if you haven’t.

Enough shameless promotion, let’s take a look at how RapidShare123 works.

After browsing over to their website, you will see a big old search box followed by a big blue Find button to find rapid share downloads. That’s all there is to it! I decided to type in something that would not bring up copyrighted materials for this article but hey, you can do whatever you want. I tried and I tried but all of my searches kept returning copyrighted information. I won’t download the actual file but I will walk you through how it works.

I settled down with the search term Simpsons and got a lot of results.  Some times RAR files are broken into multiple files. This is denoted by the “part01″ before the file extension. Using this search, I try to stay away from them but your results may vary. I hit the link 7 items down for The Simpsons Season 19 Episode 10.

That took me to another page that returned this information:

It has the actual Rapid share download link as well as its file size. Click the link to start the download. Below, it lists the most recently downloaded files through their service. The site was just recently released so this info should improve over time. Long story short, RapidShare123 is awesome and can be used to kill some time searching for keywords and then watch what you get. It is almost like looking through someone else’s files.

Do you use a RapidShare search engine? Is yours better? Then, you should definitely share it with us in the comments!

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Use Rapidstack To Find Favorite Rapidshare Download Links (10)
• 13 Alternative Search Engines That Find What Google Can’t (104)
• Welcome To The Future Of Online Search (5)
• Use SkipScreen To Bypass Rapidshare Advertising Waiting Screens (14)
• Top Torrent Search Engines for All Torrent Downloaders (18)

(1) Alice – Free household organizer which aims to take charge of your entire household shopping and provides a better way to manage your household essentials online. It helps you choose from a large number of products, find coupons for them so that you pay less for each item, organize them under different labels and set up reminders. Read more: Alice: Free Online Household Shopping Organizer

(2) PodShifter -   Online tool that can easily make any slow podcasts up to 2 or even 3 times faster. To speed up a podcast or any other audio feed, simply enter its RSS feed, set how much faster you want it to be (from 0.6x to 3x) and hit on the “shift it” button. Read more: PodShifter: Speed Up Podcasts For Faster Play

(3) SampleResumeTemplate – If you don’t have much time and want to quickly create a simple and presentable online resume, check out a sample resume template provided at SampleResumeTemplate.net. It is simple to use, has a nice layout and allows you to quickly customize it with your own data. Read more: Free Sample Resume Template

(4) Tuxpi – Simple and fun app that lets you create your own WANTED poster just like in old Western movies. All you need do is upload a picture from your computer, preview and modify the caption, enter the reward amount, and then download onto your computer. Read more: Tuxpi: Make Your Own Wanted Poster

(5) Ultrasonic-Ringtones – Website that lets you test your hearing and see how far your can hear into the range of ultrasonic sound. Alternatively, you may download ultrasonic ringtones and use them on your cell phone. Apparently, these ringtones are very popular with teenagers because teachers can not hear them when phones ring. Read more: Download Ultrasonic Ringtones & Test Your Hearing

Submit Your Web App

These are just half of the websites that we discovered in the last couple of days. If you want us to send you daily round-ups of all cool websites we come across, leave your email here. Or follow us via RSS feed.

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• makeuseof extra #27 (33)
• Finally Stick To Your Resolutions With StickK (20)
• Cool Websites and Tools [May 9'th] (8)
• Cool Websites and Tools [May 8'th] (8)
• Cool Websites and Tools [May 7'th] (12)

I no longer knew what I had dugg, found delicious or stumbled upon. Keeping track of groups of friends on multiple networks, commenting on their updates, updating my status, responding to email, and pretty soon, I had ‘social networking fatigue’.

If this sounds familiar, don’t lose heart: these tips may help. If you have not yet dived deep into social waters, these tips can help you stay afloat and in control.

1. Visualize Your Social Map

Use pen and paper or mind mapping services like MindMeister to better define your social networks or your social map. There are several ways in which you can group and design your lifestream: Capture–Process–Share, Discover–Consume–Collaborate, Create-Share-Discover-Collect, etc.

Don’t be disheartened because it may be a mess. The process of visualizing it will bring much-needed clarity, and help you identify what you need to change and where.

2. Define Your Target Audience

For each network where you share data, define your target audience. Who are the target audience of your blog, your photo-sharing account, your Facebook/MySpace account? Whom do you want to interact with on email, IM, Twitter? Do not mix family with friends, or friends with business.

Use multiple accounts in Twitter so that your tweets are relevant to your followers. This also helps you set appropriate privacy settings for that network: I might wish to keep my family Twitter account updates protected, and keep the other one public.

3. Use a Password Manager

When we sign up with a lot of different web services, we are tempted to use the same password across several websites. The problem with using different passwords was remembering all of them. With Password Managers to the rescue, you can now have both security and convenience. Never use the same password for multiple sites.

Use a browser-independent desktop application like KeePass, or LastPass, which integrates with all the major browsers.

4. Separate Private & Public Photo-Sharing

Use two or more photo-sharing sites for different types of photos. One example: private photos go to Picasa, friendly photos go to Facebook, public images/photos go to Flickr. I find this a safe and convenient approach because all social networking sites keep changing their privacy settings and options regularly. I do not want to risk my private photos being exposed just because some site changed its default options and I was too busy to notice it.

5. Use One Social Bookmarking Site

Social bookmarking helps keep all your bookmarks together, easily search and tag them, and share them with your friends. Do not spread your bookmarks across different sites. Choose Digg, Delicious, Redditt, or any other service you fancy and stick to it.

For example if you use Delicious, get the Delicious for Google Reader script to save bookmarks directly from Google Reader, and digg.licio.us Greasemonkey script to save Digg stories on Delicious. If you’re spread out across different sites, look for export/import options to consolidate.

If you are starting afresh, check out Twine. Twine uses artificial intelligence to automatically tag and sort your bookmarks.

6. Use a Gravatar

Use an avatar that looks good in both 64×64 and 128×128 sizes and save them for reference. Using a gravatar helps you get a consistent avatar across multiple sites. Gravatars also help create a brand identity for your profile, allowing people to instantly recognize you. Not sure how to get a gravatar? It’s simple!

7. Use Social Surfing

Do you browse a lot of websites, open separate tabs to social sites, and copy-paste to share interesting stuff with your friends? Or keep several tabs open to check updates in Twitter, Facebook, and Friendfeed? If you’re using IE or Firefox, get the Yoono plugin to make life easier. Yoono also supports popular IM networks. Or if you’re a power social user, try using the Flock browser.

8. Integrate IM, Email, and Social Networking

If you use a browser that doesn’t yet support plugins or are a heavy user of IM, check out the latest version of Digsby or Trillian. Both of them support all popular webmail accounts, IM networks, and social networking sites.

9. Use a Consistent Username

For people to easily recognize you, use a common username across all sites. Use specialized sites like Knowem, Namechk, or Usernamecheck to check availability of your preferred username. Maintain consistent brand names across networks using these tools. As individuals, avoid signing up on services you are never going to use.

10. Track Your Comments

Ever leave a comment on some blog or site and never visit it again? You may be disgruntling those who respond to your comment with a question. Get control of your comments across blogs, sites, and social networks, with comment tracking systems like BackType.

In Part 2, we will look at tips for more seasoned social networking aficionados. Were these helpful for a start? Are there any aspects of social networking you need help on? Let us know in the comments!

Image Credit: Brian Solis, єvαиdяσ иαรciмєитσ

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• 20 Tips to Define And Manage Your Social Networks – Part 2 (2)
• Psst…Do You Plurk? (15)
• Manage your Online Social Life with SecondBrain (11)
• 5 Social Aggregators To Keep you Updated (9)
• 4 Tools to Update the Status Messages the Easy Way (8)

A music library is a coveted digital playground for a serious audiophile. While I don’t exactly fit the stereotype, I do like my music to be organized with tags and playlists. Organizing a collection of a few thousand songs is a painstaking feat. Losing that can be sheer anguish.

There are a few common reasons for losing the file link to the iTunes music library.

• Your system crashes.
• Your iTunes has a glitch.
• You update your version of iTunes.
• …or any other sundry reason that’s the bane of a computer’s existence.

Here’s where Apple says – Don’t despair. Help is just a few clicks away.

But what are iTunes Library files?

iTunes library is nothing but the iTunes database that it creates to manage your music. Two iTunes library files are created – iTunes Library.itl and iTunes Music Library.xml.

Both can be found in the iTunes folder in the following default location:

In Microsoft Windows Xp

\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Library.itl
\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music Library.xml

In Microsoft Windows Vista

\Users\username\Music\iTunes\ iTunes Library.itl
\Users\username\Music\iTunes\ iTunes Music Library.xml

The iTunes Library.itl file is a database of the songs in your library and the playlists you’ve created. This file stores information from the song’s tag (the ID3 tag, for example) and also records information like play count and rating. This is the file iTunes reads to build your library.

The iTunes Music Library.xml is a secondary file with some of the same info as the earlier file but not all. This file also tracks the changes in iTunes and the song contents. The other purpose of this file is to make your songs in iTunes available to other Apple applications on your computer like the iPhone.

The iTunes Library.itl file is a binary file and won’t any sense to us. But the iTunes Music Library.xml file is – if opened in a text editor. This is how it works – iTunes falls back on the iTunes Music Library.xml file if the iTunes Library.itl file gets corrupted or is lost. It tries to auto-recreate the library by rebuilding the iTunes Library.itl file using the info stored in its XML counterpart.

If the automatic process fails, we can essentially get into the iTunes folder and rebuild it on our own.

Here’s how we can recreate the music library and get our playlists back

1. Browse to the location of the iTunes folder (given above).

   

2. Cut and paste the iTunes Music Library.xml file to the desktop.
3. Delete the iTunes Library.itl file from the folder.
4. Again, open ITunes. The interface will be blank of any user created playlists.
5. Now, go to File – Library – Import Playlist. Browse to the location of the iTunes Music Library.xml file on the desktop and select it.
6. The library is now rebuilt along with a fresh error-free copy of the .itl (iTunes Library File) file.
7. If the Podcasts playlists is empty then the downloaded Podcasts folder might have to be added manually from File – Add Folder to Library and resubscribed.
8. Sometimes, after an iTunes program update the library is gone from view. In such a case, we can replace the iTunes Library.itl file in the iTunes folder with the one in the Previous iTunes Libraries folder in the same folder. The Previous iTunes Libraries folder contains the file named iTunes Library YYYY-MM-DD where YYYY-MM-DD is the date of iTunes upgrade. Copy this file to the iTunes folder and rename it as iTunes Library.itl. Restart iTunes to see the library and playlists restored.

Any device which connects with iTunes will resync with the fresh rebuilt library in all cases.

Right off the cuff, the first thing to be emphasized is the need to always backup your media and the library. iTunes allows you to easily backup the entire iTunes library and playlists along with the Apple store buys.

We spend a great deal of effort to beg, borrow, buy and steal for our music collection. Precaution and preservation is the mantra. Take a look at all we can contribute from our posts on iTunes and iPod for that end.

As the music plays on, let us know your worst iTunes gripe and how you troubleshot it.

Love iTunes but don’t know how to use it to its full potential? Worry not, check out our PDF Manual – MakeUseOf’s Big Book of iTunes.

Image credit: maury.mccown

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Who Is Connected To My iTunes Library? (Windows) (7)
• Two Free Apps To Sync ANY MP3 Player with iTunes (14)
• The BIG Book of iTunes [Free PDF Download] (18)
• Sync iTunes Library to iPod and your Music Folder (Windows) (7)
• Sync All of Your Media Files in One Place with doubleTwist (8)

But not all of us have intricate knowledge of Python or C++, and few are prepared to really go down the learning route (someday, perhaps). So dreams stay dreams, and we get over to the reality side of business.

Oh really? MakeUseOf showed you could have your non-coding hand in games before, when Damien wrote about Sploder, a game where you could create the next chapter. However, BonusLevel takes this concept of creating your own video games to the next level. Literally.

BonusLevel

BonusLevel hosts several really fun flash games, but that just makes it one of many sites for flash gaming. The reason this site is different, is because it’s about creating and expanding the games, as well as playing them.

The Games – Creating Your Own Video Game Levels

BonusLevel was launched by 3 game developers, with a few of their flash games. Since then, it has changed to a user-supported system for games and game levels. Anyone who wants to develop a game with the BonusLevel API is welcome to do so, but that’s not always an easy objective.

As a result, the total number of available game is very limited, only seven at the moment. But that certainly does not limit the fun that’s to be had. The available games are top quality, and sometimes even genre-redefining, like Push, which comes highly recommended.

Apart from the level-creating system, about which you’ll read more below, registered users can keep themselves busy by competing for the charts and earning various awards.

Creating Levels

This is what makes BonusLevel stand out. This is where the site gets its strength.

To create levels, you must register for a free account on the site. Once that’s done, you can summon an editor from every game page on the site.

Each and every game that’s available on BonusLevel, is accompanied by a simple level editor. This means anyone can produce new content for the games. As a result, these games never end. If someone writes a good game engine with merely five levels, you can come back in a few days and play some more, or continue the game yourself.

To make sure the site isn’t bombed with crap, all newly created levels are played, judged and moderated by a special group of selected members. If your level is deemed worthy and fun, it’s shared with all other users, registered and guests, to enjoy.

These days, a lot of levels are seeing the light of day, thanks to the size of the community and the user support. This self-maintaining system keeps even the oldest games up to date and ensures a whole lot of additional fun.

What do you think of the idea of creating your own video game levels? Have you tried making your own games? What were the tools you used? Let us know in the comments.

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• The 4 Retro Gaming Classics & Their Modern Counterparts (4)
• Orisinal.com – Cute Flash Games For All (10)
• I’m In Like With You – Online Multiplayer Gaming Site (5)
• How to Download Embedded Flash Files using your Browser (39)
• How To Download and Play Kongregate Games Offline (16)

My default mail client is Gmail for online access and Thunderbird for offline. In this demonstration, I am going to use Mozilla Thunderbird, but the same principle can be used for other desktop clients such as Microsoft Outlook or Windows Live Mail.

Step 1: Download Install ThunderBird

To download Mozilla Thunderbird, just visit the Thunderbird Home Page and download the latest version for your operating system.

Step 2: Create your Gmail Account in Thunderbird

Once you have successfully installed Thunderbird, it is time to set up Gmail. When you first launch the ThunderBird after installing it, the below dialog box will appear. If you want to set up more accounts later, you can access it by going Tools –> Account Settings –> Add Account.

Click on the Google Mail or Gmail radio button and click Next. Then enter your name and Google email address. What you type in as Your Name field will appear as the sender when you send emails to other people.

Click Next, and do not click Download Emails now. We’ll download our emails later after we have checked the settings and set up our folders and filters. The setup should be now complete. In order to make sure the settings are correct and to alter the settings if we need, go to Tools –> Account Options. Under your email account, click on Server Settings and make sure you tick the box Leave Messages on Server. This allows you to check all of your emails online as well as offline after you have downloaded them. If you want, you can click the “Until I Delete Them” box.

Step 3: Managing Identities

Since we are in Account Settings, we can set up and manage our identities. Identities are a way we can send mail from other accounts. On the main Account Settings page, you’ll see a button that says Manage Identities. Click on that, and set up your identities for the accounts you are forwarding.

Then click on Add to add a new identity and to fill in the details of your other email accounts. You can change the settings in “Copies and Folders” so your sent mail is stored in another folder if you want.

Step 4: Create folders to sort your mail

Since mail from different email accounts are coming to this one account, we will first set up folders so we can sort mail so we know which email account we will send the email from. To do this, right click on your account and click New folder.

Create folders for all your email accounts that you are forwarding to this Gmail account.

Step 5: Automatically filter your mail from different accounts

Now we have to set up Mail Filters to sort our mail into correct folders. To access message filters, go to Tools –> Message Filters. You have to create a new filter for every email account you are forwarding that you want to go into its own separate folder. Click on the New button and give the filter an appropriate name. Select To from the first drop down box, Contains from the second and type the email address in the third. In the bottom half, select Move Message To and select the folder that you want to move the emails too.

Magnified view

Repeat the steps for every email account. Message Filters are great if you get a lot of mail from one address for example MySpace and Facebook, you can set message filters to your move all mail from those sites to different folders. The below screenshot is how I effectively sort all my MySpace and FaceBook messages into one folder.

Step 6: You are now done

By reading the Part 1, you should now be able to access your emails online in one simple location. By reading this part, you should now be able to access your emails offline. Combined these posts together and you will now be able to successfully managed your mail more efficiently and effectively. However, I do suggest that you check your other email accounts just in case there are some important emails filtered as Spam and that everything is still working correctly.

There are other ways to do this, but this is what I have been doing and it works great with my mail. Especially if you change your email addresses a lot. What do you think? Has this helped you to manage your email more efficiently?

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• How to Set Up Mozilla Thunderbird to Send Mass Emails (7)
• How to Email Smarter With Buit-In Time Zone Converters (5)
• How To Access Hotmail Email Messages from Your Gmail Account (17)
• Gmail Tips: Four Degrees Towards Becoming A Gmail Ninja (4)
• Save Time with Gmail Email Templates using “Canned Responses” (16)

The file is just under 700KB and has been downloaded from the author’s website almost 3 million times. And today, I needed to create some cases for my um, well… ahh,  MY (Those are the words I was looking for!!) movies that I’ve burnt and am going to move down to the basement for storage. I wanted them to be easily recognizable on a bookshelf so that I can see and grab whatever I want.

Enter DVD Print which can be grabbed from here http://www.dancemammal.com/dvdprint.htm. Once you have downloaded the application, you just need to extract it and run it. This is a portable application, so you do not have to install anything.  Once you run the application, you will see a screen similar to this. Also, note that the application asks for registration information that is not discussed on the website or in the documentation. But I have used it for a while now without having any issues. So, if you run into issues or know how to obtain a registration code by all means let us know in the comments!

The left side of the program’s window is what you see above and the right side is a link to a free resource for CD/DVD covers (FreeCovers.co.uk).

Now that you have seen the program – let’s try to make a printable DVD movie cover. Let’s try it with The Simpsons.

Next, you will see the results below the search box. Each result will show what it contains – in this case, I wanted the front DVD Cover so I was looking for the word front. Then, I saw it and clicked on it. The application opens an external website and requires you to download and save the image to your machine to use it.

That’s it! I found it and proceeded to download the cover by clicking Download Cover. The website requires registration but we used BugMeNot to get a username and password.

I saved the image to my desktop. Next, I opened the image in DVD Print by clicking on Open Image.

Then my image appeared in the main window. I hit the drop-down box to choose what I was looking to print. In this case, it is a DVD Box Cover. I hit Preview and it looked great! This was what I saw:

I printed it out and it was perfect! This is a huge help for me and my monsterous DVD collection. Maybe I will start on my music next. Only 750GB of it – that shouldn’t take me too long, right? Maybe this Batch mode from the application will help. I could not find any documentation on it but maybe one of you readers have used it – if you have let us know in the comments!

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• 5 Ways to Catalog Your Movies Online (17)
• Two Very Useful Web Apps For Netflix (5)
• Trade Books, CDs, & Video Games for Free with SwapTree (13)
• Quick Overview: Free Media Players (16)
• MUO Polls : Free Video Players. What’s your Favorite ? (59)

(1) Google City Tours - New online tour planner by the Google Labs team. It helps you identify points of interest and plan multi-day trips to most major cities with the help of Google Maps. You just need to specify the location of your hotel and the length of your trip and City Tours will map out an itinerary for you. It is like a minute-by-minute travel schedule for you to follow. Read more: Google City Tours: Online Tour Planner

(2) GoodSearch - Most of us have a cause we care about – saving the environment, protecting the endangered animals, supporting orphans etc., but can’t find the time to get to it and devote more of ourselves. Now, you can support your favorite charity by doing what you do almost every day – searching the web, the only difference is that you will have to use GoodSearch’s search engine that supports charities. Read more: GoodSearch: Search Engine That Supports Charities

(3) Pictaculous – Online image color extraction tool that lets you extract a palette of colors from any image. It gives you a set of colors extracted from the image along with a hexadecimal code of each color. Download the generated colors as an Adobe Swatch file (.aco) onto your computer or click to send results to your email. Read more: Pictaculous: Image Color Extraction App

(4) SoundTrackInfo – Great site for finding movie soundtrack information. The site lets you search its database by movie title, song title, composer’s name, performer’s name or browse movies alphabetically. Read more: SoundTrackInfo: Movie Soundtrack Information Database

(5) Text Utilities – Multipurpose webpage where you can customize and manipulate your text. It lets you quickly encode, decode, case convert, Javascript and regexp any submitted text. Read more: Text Utilities: Manipulate Your Text Online

Submit Your Web App

These are just half of the websites that we discovered in the last couple of days. If you want us to send you daily round-ups of all cool websites we come across, leave your email here. Or follow us via RSS feed.

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

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• makeuseof extra #27 (33)
• Finally Stick To Your Resolutions With StickK (20)
• Cool Websites and Tools [May 9'th] (8)
• Cool Websites and Tools [May 8'th] (8)
• Cool Websites and Tools [May 7'th] (12)

By having a Facebook page for your blog, you can set up your RSS feed so your new posts appear on your fan page. Facebook members can then become a “fan” of your posts and comment on your posts inside Facebook.

In short, you can:

• create a mini community of loyal blog readers inside Facebook.
• encourage them to click through to your blog and sign up for the proper RSS feed.

So, are you interested in getting your page set up?   If so, here’s how to get it set up quickly.

1.  Sign up on Facebook

First you have to have a free Facebook account.   If not then go here and set one up.

2.  Click zee link

Then click on this link to get your fan page going.   Here is the page that will then appear :

If you are creating a page for a blog / website, you will need to choose “Brand, Product or Organization”.   Then from the drop-down list, select “website”.

Enter the name of your site (or whatever you want your page to be called) in “Name Of Other Business”, tick “I am authorized to create this page” (assuming of course you ARE authorized), enter your name under “Electronic Signature” and then click “Create Page”.

3.  Customize Your Page

Your page will now be set up and you will be taken straight there.

Here are some of the things you can do to customize your page :

Customize your image :

The first thing your page obviously needs is an image.  For blogs, the obvious image to first consider is your logo.

To upload an image, just point your mouse to the image area and a menu will pop up with various options.

You can either upload a photo, take a picture with your webcam or choose from a Facebook album.

Customize your site information :

In the “Info” tab, you can type detailed information about your site such as the URL, the “overview” (so this would be a good place to enter any tagline or motto that your site has.   MakeUseOf’s is “Cool Websites, Software and Internet Tips”).

You can also enter information such as when you started the site  and if you have any “products” you’d like to talk about.

In short, use this section to blab away about your site.

Set up your blog RSS feed to show your new posts in Facebook

This is, I think, one of the most important aspects of a blog fan page.   If you are unable to show your new posts, how can you possibly persuade people to come to your site and sign up for the RSS feed?

• First, click on the “notes” tab at the top of the page.



• Select “Import A Blog” in the Notes Setting section. You can only import from 1 RSS feed at a time. Simply “Stop Importing” if you want to change the RSS feed.



• Enter the RSS URL in the box provided. Check the box next to the statement that you actually own the content. You cannot import RSS feeds from websites that are not your own or that you do not have permission to reproduce.



• Click the “Start Importing” button. Facebook will import the content of the RSS feed for you to preview. If everything looks OK, then go ahead and press the “Continue” button. Your RSS feed will now be automatically imported into your “Notes” section.
• After that, everytime you publish a post on your blog, a summary of the post along with a link will appear on your Facebook page.

4. Publicise Your Page

Now that your Facebook page is all set up, all that remains to be done is to publicise it to your readers so they can “fan” you.  Some methods to get the word out there include :

• Writing a blog post about your new Facebook page (don’t forget to link to it).
• Putting a prominent link at the top of your blog or in the sidebar.  Just grab a Facebook logo from Google Images and then link it to your page.
• Sending out an email to all your Facebook friends and telling them about your new fan page.  If they were interested enough to become Facebook friends with you, I’m sure they will be interested in your blog too.

Do you have a Facebook fan page for your blog?  If so, how successful is it in getting new RSS subscribers for your site?

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• How To Make a Great 404 Error Page & 10 Examples (20)
• Web Metrics 101 – What DO all these Terms Mean? (16)
• Transfer files by FTP with FileZilla (20)
• The Six Ways To Add A Chat Room To Your Website (17)
• Su.pr – An Extraordinary URL Shortener from StumbleUpon (12)

The day finally came where we got to take home our new baby. We loaded the car with B-Dubs and his blanket ready to make our drive back home, then it hit us. Uh oh… WHAT NOW?!

I’m sure I’m not alone in this panicked, first-time puppy parent feeling. So, I’ve put together my own personal choices of the best online resources for dog owners to help you avoid this same feeling I had.

American Kennel Club (AKC)

From picking out the right type of dog breed for your family, to training your new addition, the American Kennel Club website is full of valuable information. Their organization is most well known for their registration process for purebred dogs but the website is devoted to so much more than that.

The section I like best about this site is their extensive info on every breed imaginable. Select a breed you’re curious about and you’re presented with a brief history of why the breed came to be how it is and a short excerpt to decide if this is the breed of dog for you. I see many people who get their dog then say months later that “If I had know this dog would be like this, I would have never gotten it’

Don’t fall into this category. Do your research. Find the perfect dog for you and/or your family.

Dog Owner’s Guide – CanisMajor.com

The online dog owner’s guide is just that, a guide, from start to end, on owning a dog. Here, you’ll find the best collection of articles online that will make sure you’re informed through every stage of your puppy’s life.

My favorite section, that ultimately saved me from panicking once I got my pup home, is titled “He’s here! Now what?“. My thoughts exactly. This section helped me know what to expect when my new guy entered my home from the first minutes of exploration, to first potty time and first training.

I can tell this is a critical resource that I will be coming back to as B-Dubs starts to grow and mature.

PetMD

It is inevitable as a first time puppy parent that the first time the dog starts to throw up, you’re going to flip out. I did. I immediately thought “Oh no! My dog has Parvo!”

I started rushing around trying to find numbers for my vet, calling the breeder and asking my friends if their dogs had ever done this. Looking back, it was just an upset stomach but I didn’t know the difference.

Enter PetMD. Had I known about this site beforehand, I could have simply typed his symptoms into their large database of everything related to your pet’s health. I was presented with a large list of issues that my dog could have, all of which had way worse symptoms than my dog currently had.

I realized very quickly that I was overreacting and now I know where to go if I have any questions related to its health.

Eukanuba Puppy World

I am a very visual learner. There are only a few things that I can pick up from reading article after article about puppy training and becoming a puppy parent. That’s why I love Eukanuba’s web site.

They present you with the standard articles for picking out your puppy, preparing your home for your new addition and other important information but where they shine is in their EukTV Puppy Training Videos.

I was able to sit back and watch a video on what I’m supposed to do with my puppy which my fellow visual learners will appreciate. They also make a handy reference to go back to because there’s no way you will remember this info the first time through.

A few other places to check out videos like this would be YouTube and ExpertVillage. When I searched ExpertVillage for dog training, I was presented with over 8,000 videos.

Purina Complete Puppy Care

After I brought B-Dubs home, I found out very quickly that my free time has been quickly depleted. All of the extra duties of owning a dog, although fun, are time consuming. Going out to each of these sites and searching for articles and then taking the time to read them may just be more time than you find yourself with after having a puppy.

Purina has recognized this and created their Complete Puppy Care Program. Entering this program is as simple as entering in your email and some simple info about your new puppy.

They take the guess work out of finding the right information by sending you an email each month with links to helpful videos and articles that are specific to your puppies age. You will also get access to their entire library of videos to help address most questions you’d have about your puppy.

They also provide a handy iPhone application to take with you on the road in case you aren’t around your computer, like say, out at a dog park. (maybe meeting up with your friends you met on ZooToo)

I don’t know where I’d be without these five resources. I have already ran to them multiple times each to answer all of my first time puppy parenting questions because trust me, there are a ton! Good luck with your new addition! Don’t have a new addition? You can still see plenty of cute animals on the net at any of these six sites Simon mentioned.

Have you found a great resource for dog owners? Let us know about it in the comments.

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• The 6 Cutest Sites with Silly Pet Pics and LOL Pets (4)
• 4 Rotten Websites That Everyone Should Hate (44)
• Top 10 Conspiracy Web Sites (31)
• The Seven Wonders of The World (Wide Web) (41)
• The Best Reference Sites For Medical Students (30)

So, as I grew up I was shocked to learn that my parents were wrong – you really can get free stuff with no catches! I remember, in college, being offered a free T-shirt just for signing an application for a credit card.  A very good college friend of mine who was working as a movie theater manager once handed my girlfriend and I complimentary movie tickets for absolutely free.

Then a few years later, we stayed at a Howard Johnson’s Hotel, had a miserable time, complained and ended up with a free hotel stay.  Oh yes, some things in life really are free.

Get a Free Hotel Stay With Very Little Effort

The way the story goes, we asked the hotel for a crib and then upon arriving at the hotel, discovered that there wasn’t one reserved for us. We were furious, of course, and we were awake all night trying to make sure the baby didn’t roll her way right off the edge of the bed. We slept in shifts, trying to keep her between us. The next morning, with bloodshot eyes and a huge coffee in hand, I cornered the hotel manager and yelled at him for ten straight minutes. The next day I hopped online and fired off one of the most carefully crafted letters condemning Howard Johnson’s and vowing not only never to stay there again, but also to inform everyone I knew how horrible the hotel chain was. To my surprise, in less than two weeks after sending my letter, we received an envelope from Howard Johnson’s corporate headquarters with an apology and a voucher for a free hotel stay.

Every major hotel chain has a customer service section where you can submit comments about your recent stay. I would never advise anyone to become a habitual complainer – in fact, I’ve heard of folks getting banned from staying at a hotel chain because they complained dozens of times in a row. However, be aware of every nuance of your stay, and if anything is significantly wrong with your room or your stay, complain to the hotel staff (ask for and note their names), and if it’s not resolved, submit your politely written complaint, and you’re almost guaranteed to receive a free hotel stay for your efforts.

Earlier, James offered some great methods to find the best hotel deals. Of course, another perfect way to get a free hotel stay is by choosing a favorite chain and sticking with them to earn loyalty “points.” These work just like frequent flier miles, and they add up quickly. Every now and then, just for electing to stay at the same hotel chain, you’ll build up enough points to stay a night at the hotel for free. One of my favorite rewards programs is GoldPointsPlus.

If you use the system often enough, you get an “Elite” status, which means more points per stay, and more free rooms more often. It’s true – just stay loyal to a hotel chain, and eventually you get a free hotel room with no catch. Now that’s sweet.

You Can Get Lots of Free Stuff With No Catches – But Free Groceries?

Think about it – what’s the one area where families usually spend the most money every week? That’s right – groceries. Now, what if you could start eating out for free, or getting groceries without paying a dime? Sound too good to be true? While you probably can’t get all your groceries for free, what you can do is cut down significantly on your grocery bill by getting some of the more expensive items for free. A few of the best sites for this includes the constantly updated free sample page at the Kroger store website.

And of course, you can’t talk cheap without talking about Wal-Mart, which also has it’s own free sample section on the Wal-Mart website.

Yes, I know – for some reason the free samples are often of “women’s products,” but hey – women need free stuff too, right? And don’t forget to use all of those awesome grocery coupon websites I wrote about earlier to save even more on the groceries you do have to buy.

Eat out for free

Oh, and remember what I said earlier about eating out for free? Okay, it’s really true – you can get a free entree or appetizer at most restaurants on your birthday if you sign up for either a newsletter or for a free loyalty “club” membership, such as the deal from Red Lobster where you get a free “gift” (it’s a free appetizer) on your birthday for joining the “Seafood Lovers Club.”

Just search the web for your favorite restaurants and sign up for their “club” memberships (almost always free), and on your birthday you could eat breakfast, lunch and supper for absolutely free!

Becoming a Free-aholic – It Really Is An Addiction

One of the worst things about getting started down the “free stuff” road is that once you realize you can get stuff for free, it’s easy to become obsessed with looking for “free stuff” opportunities. Trust me, they are everywhere. Unfortunately, the web is also overrun with “freebie” scams and adware/malware filled websites that offer free stuff. MakeUseOf offers a long list of great options for bargains and coupons, like Aibek’s review of Freshbargains,  or the MUO reviews of RetailMeNot and WoW-Coupons. But if you’re looking for not only cheap stuff, but free stuff with no catches, then you’ll need a good selection of valid freebie sites. One of the only directories I check out often is TheFreeSite.

While the site itself isn’t the prettiest design in the world, it really does the trick. There are categories from “Fun Freebies,” to “Family Freebies,” to “Seasonal Freebies,” and everything in between. The offers throughout the site are legitimate and real. Now if you like the idea of getting items for free from folks in your local community who simply don’t want their stuff anymore (there are surprisingly many people like that), then two of the hottest sites you’ll want to check out are GumTree, a popular U.K. based free classifieds site with a huge “freebies” section.

And there’s also the ever-popular FreeCycle.org, where millions of folks across the world are just trading stuff for free every single day.

FreeCycle.org has really developed a worldwide cult following, and if you join up you’ll quickly see why. There’s nothing so cool as being part of a community where folks want to give you something for absolutely free just to keep it out of the world’s landfills. After a while, you’ll find yourself giving stuff that you don’t want away for free too!

Do you have any favorite freebie websites? What are your tricks for getting free stuff? Share your opinions in the comment section below.

Image credit: Adrian Purser

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

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Watch Online Products for Price Drops with ShoppingNotes (5)
• The Top 10 Grocery Coupon Websites for Cheapskates (42)
• Shop Like a PRO: 7 Tools to Crack eBay (15)
• Milo- Find Cheapest Local Store for the Item You Want to Buy (2)
• HowTo: Sell Old Cell Phones and iPods (9)

Up until now, every time I have to design something, anything, I automatically reach for my trusty old Color Index book. If not for the convenient vinyl colors in this little book, I probably would have destroyed the little bugger a long time ago from wear and tear.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been around the net. I’ve seen all the little color pickers and color schemers, and they’re useful but theres always something missing. None of the color schemers I’ve seen have everything.

This awesome view is what you will see when you first load up Color Scheme Designer. At first glance, it seems daunting but when you dive into it, you quickly get a feeling for the raw power of this app and how really simple it is to use; a marvel of UI.

First and foremost, you want to decide how many base colors you’re allowed to work with and then take it from there. The top left corner has the color formulas you will start from. Initially, you can choose one color and the app breaks it out into its non-clashing, complementing counterparts, as shown above. At most there can be four colors but the following depicts the initial variations, starting from my favorite shade of blue, where the black dot is on the color circle.

This results in the following color breakout schemes, which in and of themselves are useful, and with the HEX values immediately selectable, copyable and pastable. Color hex values are also accessible via mouseover:

But that’s not even all! The application allows for custom controlling of the resulting color scheme, as well as at-a-glance color value table, Voila:

And now, the defining feature this app provides is the fully interactive light and dark page previews, which I’ve generated from the Triad version of my color scheme based on my original choice of my favorite blue, in a completely eye-candy friendly application of color theory:

That’s still not the end of the features this app provides! Most notably is the ability to simulate various color deficiencies for accessibility, as well as the ability to export HTML/CSS, XML, and text as noted above.

I hope this app helps everyone out there as much as it has helped me. I realize that inspiration is in very short supply these days, and my trusty old color index has provided me countless blasts of inspiration. In light of that, this app is ground-breaking in that arena and will provide you with blasts of inspiration as well.

Are there any better color schemes or pickers that you have used or prefer? Let us know your choices in the comments. If you have any questions about color and color shemes, please add them into the comments as well.

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• The Best 3 Tools to Search for Images Online by Color (25)
• Instant Eyedropper Drops The Pain From Color Matching (12)
• 6 Excellent Mac Apps for Graphic & Web Design (8)
• Simple Image Retouches with Free Lightbox Editor (9)
• Remove Unwanted Photo Elements With Photowipe (6)

It is called Chromomulator. Chromomulator decides what’s hot (and therefore potentially interesting for you as well) by looking at what people are looking for. This is achieved by fetching the top trending topics from Google Trends.

Once it has the top 100 topics, Chromomulator aggregates news items, blog posts, pictures and videos about them from Google News, Digg, Delicious, Technorati, Flickr and Youtube respectively — all into one convenient place.

So hop over to Chromomulator and you see the current top 100 Internet searches neatly laid out in two separate columns on each side of the webpage. Some of the topics are well suited for pictures and images, while other are not, so don’t be surprised if Flickr and YouTube do not return results for quite a few topics.

Chromomulator offers RSS feeds that help you stay atop of the trending topics or you could follow @chromomulator on Twitter.

Idea for the mashup is great, however there are a few chinks that are evident. First off by the looks of it, the trending topics appear to be from Google Trends (USA). While some of the trending topics would be the same all over the world in particular situations (think recent MJ searches), what about the trending topics “in your part of the world”? This is what I mean (trending topics for USA and India):

For best results, you need to refresh often (you can use ReloadEvery addon) because the ranked trending topic changes. If you haven’t refreshed from the time you last loaded the page, the results on Chromomulator will not reflect the true ranked trending topics on Google Trends. This was the one thing I found quite annoying: you click on a link hoping to read about Transformers because that is what the #X topic when you last loaded Chromomulator, instead you will be taken to details of what actually is #X on Google Trends currently.

That said, it a great idea and has a huge potential for expansion, it would be interesting to see how Chromomulator develops further. Meanwhile, you let us know what you think of Chromomulator’s results.

Does it capture what you would call the buzz? How do you stack it against Twitter or popurls as a tool for capturing the top Internet searches? Let us know in the comments.

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• 5 Websites to Check Out Latest Buzz and Viral Videos (5)
• 21 Sites To Find Out What’s Hot Online (77)
• The Most Fun Ways To Track Digg Stories (5)
• Scoopler – Cool Real Time Search Tool for Twitter (10)
• Retaggr Lets People Know Who You Are (7)

(1) DoStuffForMoney – New online service from eBay-owned PayPal that has a simple purpose — it allows anyone to ask someone to get something done for money. For example, it is your turn to clean the room and you do not feel like doing it, you may simply log in to DoStuffForMoney and send an offer (via email or Facebook) to your roommate saying something like “Clean room for me and I will pay you 20$”. He may accept the offer and get instantly paid via PayPal. Read more: DoStuffForMoney: Offer Someone Money to Get Your Job Done

(2) DeckDesigner – Free web-based tool that lets you design a deck online. It has an interactive interface that guides you through the process of customizing the deck size, shape, wood color, stairs, benches etc. Once your design is ready, it will give you a comprehensive report that contains a 3D model of your deck, list of all the materials you will need to build that deck, detailed installation guidelines and tips. Read more: DeckDesigner: Design A Deck Online For Free

(3) Flippa -  Website that acts as an online marketplace for buying and selling entire websites. The site is not new, it is actually redesigned and renamed version of a well known website auction section on a SitePoint.com. You have to be registered before you can buy or sell websites. While buying, searching and browsing website listings are open to everyone, fees apply to selling websites. Read more: Flippa: Marketplace For Buying And Selling Webites

(4) MotorTopia – Online portal where motor vehicle (bike, boat, plane and car) enthusiasts can meet and discuss their passion. It has everything from cool photos of classic cars, to blogs about the auto industry. Users can get updated on latest news, upcoming events, read opinions of others, join specific groups and participate in challenges. Read more: MotorTopia: Social Network For Bike, Boat & Car Enthusiasts

(5) Trazzler – Travel destination recommendation service that suggests you unique trips based on your location, your travel mood (e.g. romantic, shopping, history) and favorite activities (whale watching, museums, fine dining etc.). The site lets you browse trips by regions (Europe, Africa, Caribbean etc.), by specific tags and search by keywords. Read more:  Trazzler: Get Unique Travel Destination Recommendations

Submit Your Web App

These are just half of the websites that we discovered in the last couple of days. If you want us to send you daily round-ups of all cool websites we come across, leave your email here. Or follow us via RSS feed.

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• makeuseof extra #27 (33)
• Finally Stick To Your Resolutions With StickK (20)
• Cool Websites and Tools [May 9'th] (8)
• Cool Websites and Tools [May 8'th] (8)
• Cool Websites and Tools [May 7'th] (12)

Well, I am not getting into the criminal underbelly, but just jabbering about a long existing software that makes it possible to recover deleted files from a memory card used on digital cameras. PC Inspector Smart Recovery (v4.5) is a free, Windows only software that does one job (actually two… as we shall see) and does it well.

Primary job: PC Inspector Smart Recovery is a freeware data recovery program from CONVAR for Flash Card/USB Flash Drive, Smart Media, SONY Memory Stick, IBM Micro Drive, Multimedia Card, Secure Digital Card or any other data carrier for digital cameras.

Secondary job: While it goes about its first job, it also offers a way to check the memory type for any errors.

I call PC Inspector Smart Recovery a ‘doomsday’ software. This one and others of its ilk help us to recover from our errors or those committed by our digital devices. If you think that the chances of losing some precious photo or video among the thousands we shoot with our digital cameras is one in thousands then give this software a miss. Otherwise, let’s give it a rip…

The download size of PC Inspector Smart Recovery is fairly compact at 6.1MB. The software is compatible with Windows XP (not tested for Vista).

These are the formats and digital camera types supported by PC Inspector Smart Recovery:

JPG, AMR, TIF, BMP, GIF, AVI, MOV, WAV, DSS, MP4, Canon (.crw) , Fuji (.raf) , RICOH (.raw), Olympus E-XX (.orf), Olympus C5050 (.orf), Nokia (3gp), Kodak (.dcr), Minolta (.mrw), Nikon D1H/D1X (.nef), Nikon D2H/D2X (.nef), Nikon E5000/E5700 (.nef), Konica Minolta, Sigma – Foveon (.x3f).

Installation is a no-brainer. And so is the use – in five simple steps.

1. Connect your memory card through your computer’s memory card reader or connect the digital camera/mobile phone with the provided data cable.
2. Start PC Inspector Smart Recovery. Select the drive letter (Select Device) used by the memory device from the first dropdown.
3. Select the file type (Select Format Type) that is to be recovered from the second dropdown. The Enhanced Options is for JPG format only. The default Automatic setting recognizes the format on its own. The With Thumbnails option assumes that your picture format includes thumbnails; the Without Thumbnails option assumes that your picture format does not include thumbnails.
4. Select the destination folder (Select where the images are to be recovered). Create a specific folder as opposed tp recovering them to an area like the desktop because the sheer number of images might create a mess.
5. Click on Start and the software indicates the progress through the progress bar.

   

Change the search mode…

The Settings menu lets you change the way the recovery is done. The Fast Mode is the default mode. The Intensive Mode scans more thoroughly and takes longer to complete. The recoverable file size can be limited optionally.

Check Media found under Menu – Function is a way to check the memory device for errors. Once started, the progress is reported by the software under the Media Check section. Any read errors like a ‘Not Available’ alert could indicate problems in the memory device, the card reader or the driver.

So has it helped me avert my doomsdays?

On my 4GB memory card with a sample of 160 pictures, I recovered all but six. Yes, the process was slow – about 160 minutes for an intensive scan. But the success ratio was great so I guess I can live with the slow speeds. Getting the lost pictures back at no cost is a definite deal maker for me.

There are a few others which fall under the broad category of file recovery software. Check these out. They might save your day –

3 Remarkable File Recovery Tools
Recover Lost Computer Files with Undelete Plus
How To securely Retrieve and Delete PC files

So, what do you do when you unintentionally lose your Kodak moments (minus the teeth gnashing of course)? How do you recover deleted picture files from a memory card? Do you have your toolkit of ‘doomsday’ software?

• Recover Lost Computer Files with Undelete Plus (9)
• 3 Remarkable File Recovery Tools (7)
• Restore Deleted Files Easily With Recuva (11)
• [Google Picasa 101] – Master The Special Effects In Picasa (7)
• [Google Picasa 101] – How To Edit Your Photos (5)

Luckily, in this digital age, everybody can turn to their computer for help. There are many applications dedicated to improve your study skills, as well as the overall school experience.

And for those Mac-user students out there, here are five free tools to help you survive, and win.

1. Schoolhouse

The first thing to do to achieve a better academic grades is to organize everything into one easy-to-observe placeholder. Schoolhouse, which dubs itself as “The Homework Manager for The Mac“, is built to do just that. Developed by a student who still lives the life, you can expect this application to be as useful as it should be.

You start the application by creating a new term; give name to it and set the time range of the term.

Then you gradually add your assignments, tasks and notes to it. You could choose to view all the items by list, week or month, iCal style.

Schoolhouse also has the ability to link documents and media to the assignments for quick reference, preview all your grades during the term to help you monitor your performance, and automatically publish the assignments to the web so that anyone can subscribe to them.

If it sounds confusing, don’t worry — to help users getting started, this app come with a short PDF manual.

Schoolhouse is like a GTD tool for students, but that doesn’t mean that it couldn’t be useful for non-student users. I find that this app is very useful to manage my writing projects.

2. Genius

One of the biggest traumas of school that still carved in my memory was studying for tests. I was always a “math kind of guy”, so memorizing too many facts and dates always scared me.

I wish I’ve encountered Genius back then. This small app will help anybody with their study skills, particularly how to memorize things easier.

You start with a new blank window. Then, by clicking the ‘+’ button, you can add a question. Insert the answer next to the question.

After all of the questions and answers have been inserted into the Genius window, you can save the window and start the learning process. Click the green “Study” button, and Genius will pop up a window with a question and the answer while dimming out the other parts of the screen. It will ask you to memorize them.

Genius then will ask the question again and you have to write the answer. It will alternate between new facts and questions. Genius organizes your information and carefully chooses questions using an intelligent “spaced repetition” method that’s based on your past performance.

You can use Genius to study foreign language phrases, vocabulary words, historical events, legal definitions, formal speeches, marketing points, religious texts, or anything else you need to memorize.

3. ProVoc

It’s always nice to learn a new language. But there’s one obstacle that usually stops almost everybody from learning any language: memorizing the vocabularies.

ProVoc is a free vocabulary trainer that makes learning a language easy. Just download the application and the vocabulary pack(s), and you are ready to go. There is a mountain of vocabulary packs available ranging from German to Dutch to Polish to Russian to Arabic.

ProVoc has the ability to export to an iPod, so you can learn while on the road. You can also print flash cards, use the free Dashboard Widget, and listen to the audio pronunciation of the words.

4. Buddi

The word “student” is often being related to “starving”. This might be an indication that most students are not good in managing their finance.

To help with the monetary side, students (and everybody else) can rely on Buddi, a simple and free, open-source money management application. Buddi is Java-based so it can run on any operating system with Java environment installed.

With the financial problem tackled with the help of Buddi, students can focus more on the study.

5. Carbon Copy Cloner

“The dog ate my paper” is a classic excuse for not turning in your assignment. Of course, no teacher will buy it anymore. The modern alternative is “My hard drive crashed and ate everything inside, including my assignment.” But that is also not selling well anymore because we have backup utilities.

Carbon Copy Cloner is one free and powerful alternatives. You can “clone” everything to an external hard drive.

6. Bonus tool: G.ho.st

G.ho.st is one of the online alternatives for backing up your files. You will get 15 Gigabytes of free online storage on the system (and another additional 5GB for every friend who signs up from your invitation).

But G.ho.st is not just about file backup. It is a complete virtual, online operating system. So you will also get an office suite, games, browser and everything that you can expect from an operating system. Why will you need this? Simple — you can access your work and files from any place on earth with just a computer and an internet connection.

One of the new features that I like most is the ability to “side-load” files from web location directly to G.ho.st online storage, and the ability to share them with your friends.

The above link will direct you to the G.ho.st page with me as the referrer. If you don’t feel like donating an additional 5 Gigabytes to me, you can go directly to their site.

7. Everything else

There is still so many more applications that can help students to improve study skills and work better. MakeUseOf Directory profiled over 100 tools, covering everything from online dictionaries, chart makers and flash cards to sites for ordering food from take-aways located near the campus.

Don’t forget to check out articles about online tools for students such as:

- 10 Online Learning Tools
- 10 Web Tools To Save Your Butt In School
- Collaboration Suite For Teachers and Students

We’ve also discussed other free file hosts for free online storage services that can be used by students to keep and share their files.

If you could add more ideas to this short list, be sure to write it down using the comment below.

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Websites For Students: 10 Online Learning Tools (58)
• Windows Live Mesh: Get your Data on any PC from any Device (13)
• Where To Research Material For Your Homework (7)
• Sync Yourself with Syncplicity… With a Gift For MakeUseOf Readers! (5)
• Sugarsync vs Dropbox: The Battle Of The Cloud Storage Titans (35)

Although the following fake viruses may seem malicious to the unsuspecting, they are non-destructive to your computer system. So you don’t have to worry about anything else and just enjoy the fun of making someone else panic!

Mix it up a little, don’t forget to check out other “prank” posts on MakeUseOf like 4 Really Popular Prank Call Websites & How They Work and Two Great ‘n Simple Nerdy Office Pranks to Play On Friends!

Let’s get pranking, shall we?

(1) Fake Virus Batch File

I got this prank from WikiHow. I love it because it looks the most like an actual attack. Copy and paste the following into an open Notepad window, then save the file with any name you choose and an extension of “.bat”

Here’s the code:

cls
:A
color 0a
cls
@echo off
echo Wscript.Sleep
echo Wscript.Sleep 5000>C:sleep5000.vbs
echo Wscript.Sleep 3000>C:sleep3000.vbs
echo Wscript.Sleep 4000>C:sleep4000.vbs
echo Wscript.Sleep 2000>C:sleep2000.vbs
cd %systemroot%System32
dir
cls
start /w wscript.exe C:sleep3000.vbs
echo Deleting Critical System Files…
echo del *.*
start /w wscript.exe C:sleep3000.vbs
echo Deletion Successful!
start /w wscript.exe C:sleep2000.vbs
echo:
echo:
echo:
echo Deleting Root Partition…
start /w wscript.exe C:sleep2000.vbs
echo del %SYSTEMROOT%
start /w wscript.exe C:sleep4000.vbs
echo Deletion Successful!
start /w wscript.exe C:sleep2000.vbs
echo:
echo:
echo:
echo Creating Directory h4x…
cd C:Documents and SettingsAll UsersStart MenuPrograms
mkdir h4x
start /w wscript.exe C:sleep3000.vbs
echo Directory Creation Successful!
echo:
echo:
echo:
echo Execution Attempt 1…
start /w wscript.exe C:sleep3000.vbs
echo cd C:Documents and SettingsAll UsersStart MenuProgramsStartuph4x
echo start hax.exe
start /w wscript.exe C:sleep3000.vbs
echo Virus Executed!
echo:
echo:
echo:
start /w wscript.exe C:sleep2000.vbs
echo Disabling Windows Firewall…
start /w wscript.exe C:sleep2000.vbs
echo Killing all processes…
start /w wscript.exe C:sleep2000.vbs
echo Allowing virus to boot from startup…
start /w wscript.exe C:sleep2000.vbs
echo:
echo:
echo Virus has been executed successfully!
start /w wscript.exe C:sleep2000.vbs
echo:
echo Have fun!
start /w wscript.exe C:sleep2000.vbs
pause
shutdown -s -t 10 -c “Your computer has committed suicide. Have a nice day.”

Here’s how it will look like once it is launched:

Your victim’s PC will display messages as in the above image, and then initiate a shutdown sequence which can be stopped by entering “shutdown –a” in the Run command box. It looks bad, but is otherwise completely harmless.

(2) EICAR Test File

This test file, while harmless, will set off any good virus scanner. It’s a test file to make sure that your anti-virus is vigilant, and is great for sending in an email.

(3) Fake Format

I remember getting my brother once with a similar program. This cool fake virus perfectly simulates the Windows disk-format dialog, and cannot be closed or halted until it’s ran its course. Once it’s done, a message will be displayed informing the user that it was just a joke.

(4) Fake Delete

This is my favorite because, like its formatting counterpart, Fake Delete mimics the Windows file-delete dialogs. It even goes as far as using your actual file list instead of generic filenames! This also has the “it-was-all-a-joke” screen after it’s done running.

When executing these pranks, please be considerate to whether your intended victim is mildly-panicky or really panicky, and whether your mark has some kind of panic disorder or heart problem. It’s all fun and games until someone goes to the hospital. Otherwise, have fun!

Are you familiar with any cool fake viruses? What are your favorite computer pranks? Give us some of your most evil, yet good-natured, ideas in the comments.

Image credit: rmkoske

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

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• The 6 Cutest Sites with Silly Pet Pics and LOL Pets (4)
• Two Great ‘n Simple Nerdy Office Pranks to Play On Friends! (21)
• The Seven Wonders of The World (Wide Web) (41)
• The 7 Websites Every Man Should Be Reading (44)
• Latest Picks from MakeUseOf Geeky Fun (3)

This is one of the reasons we never let go of those classic retro gaming classics like Pong and Space Invaders. The fact that I’ve got an eleven year old sister who knows all about Pacman (way before her time) just confirms my theory.

But even more interesting than solely reflecting on the past is to compare it with the future. I’m not talking about a Zelda versus inFamous comparison here, but about a comparison with the modern remakes of those classics we all hold so dear in our hearts. If you’re curious what people did with Pong (amateur acts of love, not corporate franchise milking) in the last 35 years, or with Breakout in the last 30, read on.

(1) Pong

Starting chronologically, Pong was released in 1975 and was considered one of the first real computer games available to the public. In that time, people would gather around an arcade machine the size of a decent fridge to steer your bar across the screen. This was before artificial intelligence, so it was a social experience, and one that gamers could keep up for hours. Pong was the prelude to all we have today, and it’s interesting to see what it has become.

Pwong 2

Pwong 2 is a flash game, created by JGames. You can play with a friend, or against the computer on several difficulty levels. And believe me, it gets difficult.

This Pong adaptation takes a different turn (pun intended) by putting multiple balls in the game, allowing you to shoot paddles sky high and introducing special upgrades like curved, bigger and sticky paddles. This classic game gives you everything, except a moment to catch your breath.

(2) Breakout

Breakout is similar to a one-sided Pong game, trying to hit and break away all up-lying blocks. This game was the first game in color, even while they were still using black and white screens, as they’d overlayed the screens with colored strips of cellophane.

The game was considered to be one of the most influential arcade games ever, and rightly so. Even these days, it’s a game you’ll find on nearly every cellphone, and sometimes even on iPods.

Uber Breakout II

What would you get when you bring Breakout back to the drawing table. Twice. Uber Breakout II! This game literally takes a whole other turn with the franchise. You control two dependant paddles on the edge of a circle, while trying to hit all of the bubbles inside.

This classic game not only asks you to be agile, but also requires you to have the reflexes of a cyborg. Because of the shape of the bubbles, the ball can fly nearly everywhere, so you better be ready. And then they introduce special bubbles.

(3) Space Invaders

Space Invaders was a forerunner of modern day shooters. That’s right, next time you play Counter Strike or Crysis, you can think back to these blocky guys.

The concept was rather simple. Shoot down all the descending aliens, but don’t let them shoot you. It was one of the first games involving a computated enemy, and although there was no real artificial intelligence, those blocky alien guys were deemed creepy as hell.

Space Mutants – From Space

Space Mutants – From Space keeps most of the original gameplay intact. When looking at the imaginary changelog, most notable are the increased fluency and the updated graphics of the game.

However, this Space Mutants game also comes with an upgrading system to customize your little tank. With the points earned by shooting our alien friends out of the sky, you can reinforce your armor, increase your speed, and so on.

If you enjoyed Space Invaders back in the old days, you should certainly give this one a try. Even ported to current-day technology and with an integrated upgrading system, it’s still more than obvious whose grandson you’re playing with.

(4) Asteroids

In Asteroids, you need to score as many points as possible by destroying the rocks that would otherwise hit and crash your ship. Shooting big rocks, result in slightly smaller rocks, and before you know it you’re flying through an asteroid minefield.

This highly entertaining game was released on arcade machines in the late seventies and was an instant hit. You can play the classic version of the game here.

Asteroids Revenge III

In Asteroids Revenge III, you play with an asteroid who was living the quiet life – the interstellar dream – when spaceships arrived and started shooting down his friends and family. Powered by revenge, this asteroid will try to serve justice, and crash these evil spaceships.

Asteroids Revenge III certainly is an entertaining game, not the least because of the concept. When you proceed in the game, you’ll receive speed upgrades and will be able to control a whole bunch of asteroids.

Good remakes, or do you prefer the originals? Tell us what you think in the comments. Also, to find out how to download flash games and how to play Kongregate games offline.

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Quake Live – Free Online Shooting Game in Your Browser (15)
• Orisinal.com – Cute Flash Games For All (10)
• Latest Picks from MakeUseOf Geeky Fun (3)
• Latest Picks from MakeUseOf Geeky Fun (2)
• I’m In Like With You – Online Multiplayer Gaming Site (5)

What I first did, was to download Mozilla Thunderbird. I set up of all my Hotmail and Gmail accounts and it worked very well. But if I was away from my desktop computer for a while, I found I was going back to my old ways. Thankfully, Gmail had a solution.

To simplify the whole process, the answer was to make one of my Gmail accounts my main email account. Then, forward all my emails, including those in my Hotmail email account, to that Gmail account. This way I would be able to access hotmail email from Gmail. However, this is not a simple as opening Hotmail, go to options and click forward. The problem is, Hotmail only allows you to forward emails to the following domains: hotmail.com, msn.com, live.com, or a Windows Live Custom Domain.

Below, I am going to show you how to download Hotmail emails to Gmail.

What you have to do then is go to Gmail –> Settings–> Accounts and there will be an option that allows you to download mail from other accounts.

Type your email address, and then click next. You will then be prompted to enter your username, password, select your POP server and choose some other options for your mail settings in Gmail.

Use these settings to add a Hotmail email account:

• POP server: pop3.live.com (Port 995)
• User name: Your Windows Live ID, for example yourname@hotmail.com
• Password: The password you usually use to sign in to Hotmail or Windows Live

Once you are done, click on Add Account. If you want to send email from the account you just added, make sure you click ‘Yes. I want to be able to send mail as…”. This allows you select an email address from a drop-down box.

So now, all email received from your other email accounts will be downloaded to your Gmail Account. This allows you to access all your emails in one easy location.

If you only have one Gmail Account and a lot of Hotmail accounts, I’d suggest to forward all your Hotmail account mail to one Hotmail Account as this forward is done almost instantly. The other advantage is if you have a lot of mail, downloading your mail to Gmail will be much quicker as it only has to connect to one account.

So now we have solved the problem of accessing all your mail in one location. But how do we now access these emails offline? If all our emails are being forwarded to one account, how do we split them up? I’ll cover this in my next post. Watch out for it.

Want to learn to be a Gmail ninja and have all the skills necessary to manage your emails? Check out other MakeUseOf posts on Gmail.

What do you use to aggregate your emails to one location? Any alternative ways to access Hotmail emails from Gmail. Do you use a web app that you can trust to access your email accounts or do you prefer a “hack” like this? Let us know in the comments!

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• How To Access Hotmail Email Messages from Your Gmail Account – Part II (4)
• Gmail Tips: Four Degrees Towards Becoming A Gmail Ninja (4)
• What’s new in Gmail: Imports, Images, Previews, Translations and more (9)
• Save Time with Gmail Email Templates using “Canned Responses” (16)
• How to Set Up Mozilla Thunderbird to Send Mass Emails (7)

(1) Babelwith.me – Real-time chat translation app that lets you instantly communicate in multiple languages (up to 45). It automatically translates every message you type in into the language selected by the receiver in real time. Now, you could enjoy real-time conversations with friends without language barriers. Just enter your name, language and start the conversation. Read more: Babelwith.me: Real Time Chat Translaton Tool

(2) CSS Redundancy Checker - This is an online app that can scan your stylesheet and find CSS selectors that aren’t used by any of your HTML files. Works easy, simply enter your stylesheet URL and associated HTML pages, and click on the “Check” button. The application will scan that stylesheet and show you redundant CSS selectors that are not present on listed HTML pages. Read more: CSS Redundancy Checker

(3) LaunchSplash – Web application that lets you quickly create a free “Coming soon” page for your upcoming site so you can update users about the progress and even have them submit their email addresses for future notifications. Read more: LaunchSplash: Create Free Coming Soon Page

(4) Limmz – Search engine start page that provides links to a huge list of search engines and websites. Enter your query in the search box and click on the desired search engine. It then opens in a new tab showing the results. The search engines are neatly categorized under web, image, video, news, music and more. Read more: Limmz: Start Page with 50+ Search Engines

(5) Ring2Skype – Web service that lets you receive calls on Skype from landlines and phone networks for free. Once you sign up, you get an online phone number and a private extension which lets you answer all calls from your Skype, no matter where you are in the world. You just need to be logged into your Skype. Read more: Ring2Skype: Receive Calls On Skype From Landline For Free

Submit Your Web App

These are just half of the websites that we discovered in the last couple of days. If you want us to send you daily round-ups of all cool websites we come across, leave your email here. Or follow us via RSS feed.

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

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• makeuseof extra #27 (33)
• Finally Stick To Your Resolutions With StickK (20)
• Cool Websites and Tools [May 9'th] (8)
• Cool Websites and Tools [May 8'th] (8)
• Cool Websites and Tools [May 7'th] (12)