One Tip A Day » How To

How To Create, Publish and Share Digital Stories

Umar — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 08:57:09 +0000

Imagine a program that helps you write your thesis, helps your son work on his science project, lets your daughter create comical animations, and lets your spouse create family videos and edit audio files.

Your first response would probably be “That’s too much to ask.” Fortunately however, the developers behind Creaza thought differently and made those tasks possible with their creation.

Creaza is free online tool that offers you an integrated, web-based toolbox for creative work. This creative work can be anything from working on a research project to making videos.

The tool is divided into four main categories which work seamlessly with one another.

Mindomo:

Mindomo is cool way to create mind-maps. While working on your project you should brainstorm before getting your hands dirty. Jot down all your ideas in a map-like diagram and then play around with the collected ideas to squeeze the best ones out.

Cartoonist:

The Cartoonist tool can be especially helpful if you’re creating something for children. Through cartoons you can make learning easy and fun. You can carry forward your mind-map ideas and base your cartoons on them.

You get 8 cartoon scenarios to choose from. Choosing any category will open up a panel where you can create your cartoons:

The panel is user-friendly and all tools are self-explanatory. You can create brilliant slides of cartoons which can not only help you while catering to an audience of children, but also help you with giving presentations. Cartoons can be used to deliver a serious message and sometimes the impact, even though delivered by animation, can be greater.

Movie Editor:

Speaking of presentations, you can take them to the next level by incorporating real videos into them. With Creaza you can create those videos with the help of Movie Editor. You get two options to choose from:

Choose an option to open the video creating panel which has a lot of great tools to make great videos:

Audio Editor:

The fourth tool Creaza has is equally impressive. The Audio Editor lets you mash up and edit different sound clips stored on the site. Like in other of its tools, you can insert your own media (audio, in this case) and build on it or edit it.

Using Creaza for free has a few limitations though: you cannot export it on your PC and the maximum storage size you get is 25MB. Apart from lifting these restrictions, going for the paid version gives you more themes to work with. Details can be found here.

Give Creaza a try and see for yourself that it can be the perfect tool to implement your creativity.

How to Add an Online Image Editor to Your Website

Umar — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:13:49 +0000

If you have a website which works with images (for example, lets users upload images or share images on your website to their social media networking accounts) then it would be a great idea to provide your site visitors with the option to edit images online. If a person wants to set his profile picture on your site, he can upload the original photo and then edit it in the online editor (available on your site) then put up the resultant image as the picture. Similarly if you have a funny picture up on your site which users can share on Facebook, enabling them to edit it online makes things more convenient in case they want to crop the image.

You do not need to do anything extremely fancy with you site’s code to add an online image editor on your website; all you need is Picmeleo.

Picmeleo is a free online photo editor that any third-party developers can integrate to their website. To use the service, click on the blue SIGN UP BUTTON on the homepage and create an account by entering yours and your website’s details.

After signing into your account, you can obtain the code for the editor; all you will need to now is embed this code into your site and you will have given your site visitors an online image editor.

You can also preview the editor before actually pasting the code on your blog. The loading process may take a little whole so give it some time. Here’s how it looks

Some of the tools this editor contains are Crop, Scale, Rotate, Auto-fix, and Filters. If you do not want your users to be able to extensively edit the image on your site, you can choose to exclude some tools which Picmeleo offers in its editor. This is a unique feature of this online image editor.

Overall the easy integration of Picmeleo into your website is what makes it so special. Give it a try on your website, and in the comments let me know how your experience with it went.

How To Access/Manage FTP Accounts In FireFox

Umar — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:56:34 +0000

Even the most casual Web developer needs an FTP application. But many of the lightweight FTP clients lack comprehensive features and are unintuitive. This is why instead of tools that merely enhance a browser’s FTP capabilities, developers end up installing complete FTP-specific programs and deal with all FTP issues directly via that application, leaving the browser out of the equation.

But FireFTP is the exception to the abovementioned rule regarding lightweight FTP clients.

FireFTP is a browser add-on for Mozilla Firefox; it behaves as a secure cross-platform FTP client which provides easy and intuitive access to FTP servers. It can handle multiple accounts and remember different logins, passwords, and connection settings for each. It supports authenticated TSL, authenticated SSL, and implicit SSL for secure transfers, drag and drop, and CHMOD changes. There is an even FireFTP extension that works within Portable Firefox.

Along with transferring your files quickly and efficiently, FireFTP also includes more advanced features such as directory comparison, syncing directories while navigating, SFTP, SSL encryption, search/filtering, integrity checks, remote editing, drag & drop, and file hashing.

The add-on offers numerous modifiable options which can be accessed via the add-ons options in Firefox.

Setting up FireFTP is a breeze and it does not interfere with other installed add-ons. The best part is that even while offering such an impressive array of FTP features, it does not slow down the functioning and overall speed of Firefox – no new sluggishness whatsoever!

If you are looking for a great FTP client, your search ends at FireFTP. Give it a try and let me know what you think in the comments.

For Chrome: How To Get IMDb Movie Ratings For Highlighted Text

Umar — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:25:03 +0000

One torrents website I frequent is BtJunkie. Every day new music, movies, or television series is uploaded on the site. A large portion of the newly uploaded series and movies are ones that I have not heard of before. To see if they are worth downloading and watching, I refer to IMDb and check out the user rating to get a quick idea of popular opinion has to say about that particular series/movie.

Of course to do this, I search the name of the series/movie in Google and if I have spelled the name right, its corresponding IMDb link is usually the first or second search result. This procedure requires me to leave the BtJunkie page and open a new browser tab.

Fortunately there was a developer who probably went through the same procedure and thought about developing a way to cut back on the time it take to view the IMDb user rating for a particular movie or series. His solution was the tool which I currently use and am writing about today: Go to IMDb.

Go to IMDb is a browser extension for the supremely responsive Chrome internet browser. After installing the extension, you will find a newly placed icon in your address bar. This icon will resemble the logo of IMDb.

Now to check for a movie/series rating, all you have to do is highlight the name the movie/series on the webpage. After highlighting, the extension’s icon will automatically give its user rating in a number beside it.

Clicking on the icon will take you to the corresponding IMDb entry for that particular movie or series.

In case of invalid names, a question mark is seen next to the icon which indicates that the IMDb rating and page was not found for the highlighted text.

Go to IMDb is a commendable extension and will prove to be useful for any user looking for a convenient way to find out the IMDb rating and page for specific movies or series.

How to Set Custom Hotkeys to iTunes

Umar — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 10:23:00 +0000

My main problems with iTunes include its sheer download size plus the amount of computer resources it hoards up. But what also bothers me is the lack of customizable hotkeys. You might wonder why somebody would want customizable hotkeys in the first place; the answer is that the same set of hotkeys might be used by other program which is being run simultaneously with iTunes. For example your favorite screenshot taking program might have non-customizable keys as well and they might coincide with your iTunes’ hotkeys – a situation that will surely cause problems.

To control iTunes’ functions via the hotkeys you want, a great solution that can be employed is hktunes.

hktunes is an add-in for iTunes which lets us, in a way, set our own hotkeys for iTunes. We can assign hotkeys which will work on iTunes even with it minimized or out of focus (not the window which is currently open). The hotkeys we set can even be the media keys that come with modern keyboards. This is a great feature because iTunes sometimes does not recognize these keys by default which makes them quite redundant. But with hktunes we can have iTunes take advantage of these keys.

The interface of the application is quite simple; the window is minimized to the System Tray from where the application can be opened and hotkeys can be assigned.

Being a small freeware application, many iTunes users will be able to benefit from hktunes. Do not wait around for iTunes to improve its interface; give hktunes a try and get a more convenient iTunes experience.

How To Save Pages And Read Them Later in Chrome

Umar — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:34:35 +0000

The internet offers a lot of interesting reading material to the ones who are willing to read. We often come across stimulating online articles which are greatly satisfying to read. The forms these articles come in are various. Their nature can be anything, from news articles to something of a humorous nature. But we get to miss a lot of these articles due to shortage of time. A person who has to get going in five minutes cannot start and finish a thousand-word article.

One solution would be to keep on bookmarking our to-read articles but that can create a horrendously disorganized bookmarks folder. We could go the extra mile and create a separate folder for our read-later articles but that would require about two more clicks after clicking the bookmarking option.

At least for Google Chrome users, that problem need not exist anymore. Using a great extension titled LocalReadLater, users can always catch up on the stuff they wanted to read but did not have the time for.

After installing this free Chrome extension, you will its blue icon in the address bar.

Now every time that you are on a webpage with interesting reading material which you currently do not have the time to read, press “CTRL+ALT+R” on your keyboard. That particular page will be added to your reading list which can be viewed by clicking on the address bar icon.

LocalReadLater is a great way to never miss out on articles you find interesting. Get this extension for your Chrome today and always be able to pick off your online reading where you leave it.

How To Create Your Own Animated Avatar Online

Umar — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:10:33 +0000

Creating animated avatars is the new fad amongst internet communicators. If you do not know what avatars are (in the internet sense), then here you go: an icon or animation to represent a participant used in internet chat and games.

Still images make fine avatars but the fun of having an animated 3D image moving automatically as your avatar cannot be matched by a still image. The internet now has a number of websites and, in some cases, downloadable tools which let users create wonderful animations which for avatar purposes. Today we are going to explore one such animated avatar creation website which is free to use and gives users the maximum functionality. The website is called Avatara.

Before you get started, we suggest that you log in first. You can login using any one of your OpenID accounts (which include Yahoo, Gmail, Facebook, etc.). Once you have signed in, here is what your newly created Dashboard will look like:

To start making an avatar, click on the CREATE A NEW AVATAR button. The first page shows you some animated faces from which you select the face of your avatar.

You can upload the image of a real face and the site will generate a closely resembling animated face. Select whichever face you like and then proceed to customize it.

Customization options are quite detailed and include minute details as well. We can customize the clothing, body, hair, eyes, skin, and even the facial details.

When done with the customization, you can go on and start sharing your just-built avatar.

Sharing options include sharing via email or a number of popular online social networks.

Avatara provides its users with great avatar creation and sharing features in a user-friendly interface; in our opinion, it is the ultimate go-to website for avatar creation.

How To Create Custom Toolbars For Your Website

Umar — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 12:06:27 +0000

Normally when we are browsing a website and want to go over to some other popular site (such YouTube, Twitter, etc.) the only option we have is to type in the URL in the address bar or choose our Favorite from the Bookmarks Menu. How helpful would it if the website were browsing had links to all such popular sites? Not only would that facilitate users but it would also increase the chance of users spreading word about the site.

This task can be performed by site developers creating a toolbar for their website. This toolbar should have links for popular sites (namely online social networks) along with other fun and useful tools such as games or a translator tool.

If you are website developer or owner who wants such a toolbar incorporated into their website, then you need not be aware of any toolbar-specific programming. You can easily create your website’s toolbar with Wibiya.

Wibiya is a website that lets users create their own toolbars for free. After a quick free registration, we proceed to select our toolbar’s theme from a wide range of color options:

The next step is to choose the applications we want included in our toolbar. The applications we choose here are only few of the ones we can add later. These applications range from Facebook to iTranslation. Pick the ones you like:

Next, depending on the applications we chose, we have to enter our Twitter username, Facebook fan page ID, and two RSS feeds for subscription and latest posts.

Finally we choose our site platform:

Simply click on one of the buttons on the left which matches your site platform. Say you click on Blogger, you will be taken to a Blogger page asking if the Wibiya widget should be added to your blog. This Wibiya widget will in fact be the toolbar you have just created.

If your site platform does not belong to any of the buttons on the left, then click on the last button and code will appear to the right which you can copy and paste into your site’s HTML template:

In these easy steps, you will have created your very own site toolbar and added it to your website. Not only will this give your site visitors a chance to integrate Twitter and Facebook but you will also be able to engage your readers and get more constructive feedback.

Wibiya is a tool no site owner/developer should miss out on.

How To Speed Up Search on Google Images, Bing, YouTube, and more

Umar — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:58:06 +0000

Firefox is not the only browser with great add-ons. Google Chrome’s extensions are gradually building up and forcing users to decide between browsers. Recognizing that a lot of users use Chrome and Firefox interchangeably, some add-on developers are now making their add-ons for both browsers, not just one.
Most of these multi-browser add-ons are wonderful to work with and add great functionality to any browser they are added to. One such add-on is Cooliris that creates an amazing 3D wall of the images and video on a site and presents it to you.
The Cooliris version we will be exploring is the Chrome one which can be downloaded here (unfortunately the link on the official Chrome extensions is currently down, for which purpose we are linking you with the CNET URL).

You will notice that the extension’s size is larger than other extensions. That is because rather than building on an innate function of Chrome, Cooliris has to introduce a completely new visual effect.

Let us see what Cooliris looks like in action.

Suppose you have just searched for the word “hippo” in Google Images; here is what your results will look like:

You will only be able to see a limited number of pictures; to see rest of the results you will need to click on a link and turn the page.
To activate Cooliris we click on its icon in the address bar (encircled in the image above). A 3D wall will be generated in a new tab which looks like this:

This wall can be dragged with the mouse pointer. All results can be viewed simply by dragging the wall:

This view more enjoyable and makes finding an image easier. We can use this images/video 3D wall viewing option with multiple websites of which the names can be found in the image below:

A user can click on the Channels button in the top left panel and a list of categories will appear which contains videos and pictures relevant to that category:

By browsing through the channels one can view great images/videos in a similar 3D wall fashion.
Cooliris for Chrome is currently in its beta stage but should still be given a try. This nifty add-on will remarkably improve your Chrome experience.

For Chrome: How To Take Notes Within Your Browser

Umar — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:19:44 +0000

Surfing the web you might feel the need to note down some piece of information which you want for later viewing. Now when you spot this piece of information in your internet browser, depending on whether it is short or long you do one of the following: open up Notepad and paste the information there, or physically note it down on a piece of paper. In both scenarios you are exiting the scope of your internet browser and spending a few extra seconds which could be saved if your browser has built-in note-taking functionality.

A good piece of news for Google Chrome users is that their browsers can now certainly have this functionality by an amazing little tool called Chromepad.

Chromepad, with its fitting name, serves as a Notepad for the Google Chrome browser i.e. it eliminates our need to exit the scope of Chrome whenever we need to note down something.

Like most other Chrome extensions Chromepad has its icon in the Address Bar after installation:

While browsing the internet, simply click on this icon to drop down a note-taking area where you can store your notes:

This note-taking area can be easily resized by the mouse to adjust to the user’s needs.

One issue reported by users of the extension is that when newer versions are installed the notes in this drop down area disappear. The fact is that those previous notes are actually stored and can be viewed and retrieved in the extension’s options:

In conclusion, Chromepad is a nifty extension for Chrome which adds simple but highly useful functionality to the browser.

How to Manage Time More Effectively in Chrome

Umar — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 17:14:16 +0000

The trick with getting lengthy tasks done is not to do them entirely in one sitting (at least not continuously). One should get started on the task, take a break before boredom takes over, then return from the break and get started again. We can work for a specific time interval, then take a break for a specific time interval, and then repeat.

This type of time management is called the Promodo Technique, which is a way to get the most out of our time. We can turn time into a valuable ally to accomplish what we want to do and chart continuous improvement in the way we do it. The technique was (officially) created in 1992 by Francesco Cirillo. It is now practiced by professional teams and individuals around the world.

As a blogger I have personally found the technique to be quite helpful. Today I would like to share a little tool that eliminates the need of an external timer and lets us employ the Promodo Technique using just our computer. This tool is an extension for the Google Chrome browser and is titled ChromoDoro.

ChromoDoro is a great Chrome extension that lets us manage our time by setting 25 minutes for uninterruptedworking and then 5 minutes for rest. After the 25 minutes are over, we are shown a message that it is now time for a break.

After the 5 minutes of break are over, the cycle repeats itself and can be activated or deactivated by clicking the extension’s icon in the address bar of Chrome.

The number under the tomato icon shows us the time left in our working period.

The 25 and 5 minute intervals are set by default; to change these intervals, we can right click on the icon and access the extension’s options where we can adjust the work and rest timings.

ChromoDoro is a nifty extension that can help countless computer users particularly professional bloggers.

How to Download Video Games Music file in MID Format

Umar — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 17:24:20 +0000

I remember playing Fifa’99 back in the days of Sony PlayStation(1). Back then PS was the only console to have games on optical media and it was an exhilarating experience for all gamers. We now had games with better graphics, better game play, and amazing soundtracks. Fifa was one of the games that somewhat took full advantage of PS’s potential. Apart from great visuals it has wonderful upbeat songs which kept the menus lively. The game’s music was one of the reasons it was enjoyable.

Similarly there have been many games over the years with songs or scores which were a huge reason for the game’s success. Sometimes during the game we hear a song or piece of music which we like and want to store it in our music library. Doing so is easy if it is an artist’s song and available for download on torrents or is purchasable. However if it is music which the game developers have made especially for the game, then tracking it down could be rather difficult.

Fortunately for us, there is a website which helps us out in this regard and hosts many music files from countless games ranging over all gaming consoles. The site is title VGMusic.

VGMusic is a free website that hosts audio music files in the MID format. We can search for a particular game using the available search tools:

Alternatively we can browse games by choosing our console:

After selecting our console we can browse through games which are arranged alphabetically:

The different music files of a game are listed under the same title. In front of them we can see the size of the audio file:

Depending on your internet browser’s setting, clicking on a music file will either open a new tab and start playing audio or begin downloading the MID file. Here is how the MID file player looks like within Firefox:

If the file starts playing in the browser and a user wants to download it rather than play it, he/she simply needs to right-click on the original link and choose SAVE LINK AS:

From then on we can choose our download location and download the MID file.

In those easy steps we are able to listen to and obtain the music of our favorite games. If you are avid gamer, then bookmark VGMusic – it will help you get your favorite game’s theme music.

How To Easily Edit Image Instantly In Chrome By Alt + Right Clicking it

Umar — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 05:19:39 +0000

Often while creating a project we need to use an image of something we are describing. My go-to website for images is Google Images where after a little searching, I find my required image. Sometimes however the image needs a little cropping or editing of some other sort. In that case I first save the image on my hard drive and proceed to edit it with my image editing program, Microsoft Office Picture Manager.

If there were a way to edit the images we see in our browser, then my task would be made greatly easier. I could save the time taken to open up Microsoft Office Picture Manager and edit my picture, then save it. All I would need to do is edit my required image within the browser, then save it to my hard drive.

Fortunately for me and for all computer users whose work requires them to find images online, now we can edit our images within our internet browser. The condition is that we need to be Google Chrome users because the tool used to perform our editing task is a Chrome extension titled InstantImageEditor.

The extension works in a very straightforward manner. Suppose we have run a search for “birds” in Google Images and I want to edit a search result:

With the extension installed, all I have to do is right-click on the image while pressing down the ALT key. My image will be opened in the highly popular online image editor Pixlr:

This editor offers a wide range of options which we can use to modify our image. It performs almost all functions which we need while editing our image, including cropping, rotation, resizing, drawing, and adding various effects.

Thanks to InstantImageEditor I no longer have to go through an extra step to obtain my desired image from the internet. Try out the extension yourself and personally experience how easy it makes getting the right image.

Autocomplete What You Type And Save Time With TypingAid

Umar — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 05:22:16 +0000

If your job requires you to type for extended periods of time then a fast typing speed can do wonders for you. It can increase your productivity as well as leaving with your free time to focus on other non-typing aspects of your job. This is why people who type a lot have usually enabled the auto-complete option in their browsers or word processing software to cut back on the time taken on typing the same block of words again and again. In this respect the auto-complete feature in various programs benefits a lot of us. Moreover a job comprising of a lot of typing poses a serious threat of Repetitive Stress Injury (RSI). By enabling the auto-complete option, we type less and reduce the chances of suffering any RSI.

Today we explore a great little freeware program which lets us auto-complete our texts by predefining our list or block of words. This program is called TypingAid.

TypingAid as the name suggests, assists us while we type. It is a small 200KB program compatible with Windows XP, Vista, and 7. Installing it is not necessary; all that is required is that we extract the five files included in the downloaded archive.

Then we run the executable file titled TypingAid. A small window will appear introducing the program. Once this windows disappears, a green icon will now be present in the system tray.

The TXT file titled WORDLIST includes the list of words which appear as auto-complete options. We can add or remove the word in this file by simply editing it in Notepad.

When we type the first three letters of a word or block of words in the WORDLIST file, our auto-complete options immediately appear.

We press the number corresponding to our option and it gets entered.

In this extremely simple way, TypingAid makes typing easier for most of us whose typing speeds are not as fast as we would like them to be.

How To Watch YouTube videos With Friends in Real-time

Umar — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 08:41:22 +0000

Streaming online video is a pastime for a lot of us. According to our mood, we stream videos of various genres from humorous to educational. At times we like a certain video and want our friends to watch it to. One way to do this is by copying the URL of that video’s page and sharing the URL with our contacts. With the increasing popularity of Facebook and other online social networks, we most video hosting sites like YouTube have a Facebook-share feature built into them.

But how about wanting to know how your friends react to the video as they watch it? Perhaps you can do this with one friend by asking him/her to watch the video and hold a live chat with him/her at the same time. But what if the number of friends is more than one? Suppose you are watching a movie online (via streaming) and you want to watch the movie as a group with the only problem being that you and your friends only have an internet connection joining each other. You might not be able to think of any way that is possible.

However with Synchtube that group-online-movie-watching experience is entirely possible and easy.

Synchtube is a free website which lets user create rooms where we can send invitations to friends and select a video to be seen by all group members together.

At the bottom of the site’s homepage we see an area where we paste the URL of the video’s page. After doing this we click CREATE ROOM.

Our video will start playing in window similar to the image below:

In the top right we can see the URL of this page which we can share with other people we want to watch the video with.

When another user starts watching the video, a new status bar is added at the bottom left of our window where we can see the progress of each video along with the name of each user watching the video:

To make this service a bit more interesting there is a Live chat facility available can be found at the right side of the page. Synchtube offers a great way to watch video with your friends. It can also be used as a strong educational and instructional tool for a group of students.

These kinds of websites are something the internet could use more of.

How To Create Your Flash Drive’s Recycle Bin

Umar — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 10:14:47 +0000

If you have a flash drive, there must have been times where you used it on computers other than yours. On those computers, if you delete a file from your flash drive, it will probably be permanently deleted or be moved to the Recycle Bin. In the first case the file cannot be easily restored. But in the second case you can simply open the Recycle Bin and restore the deleted file. You might face a problem however when you try to restore this deleted file from the Recycle Bin after you are done using the system. For instance if you used the flash drive in an internet café or on a person’s PC who regularly empties his/her Recycle Bin, you might never be able to recover the file.

A developer considered this problem, analyzed it thoroughly and concluded that the best solution was for the flash to have a built-in Recycle Bin. He then created his wonderful program, iBin.

iBin comes in the form of a 700KB ZIP archive. Upon extraction of this ZIP, you will obtain an EXE file which you should copy to your flash drive. Now run the EXE just placed in your flash drive to create your flash drive’s Recycle Bin.

The first three files in the image above are of iBin’s. The last file is a sample file. When we try to delete it, a confirmation appears asking us if we want it deleted by erasure or by moving it to the iBin folder.

By moving it to iBin we can have it available for later restoration. We can adjust the capacity options for iBin along with other options by right-clicking on its system tray icon and opening its menu.

All we have to do is put the EXE file in our flash drive, run it, and we get our flash drive’s very own Recycle Bin.

It is that simple.

Control Your Startup Applications with WhatInStartup

Umar — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 13:19:20 +0000

If your computer starts up really slowly and takes a long time before you can use your installed applications, there is a good chance that unnecessary programs and files are being opened or initialized at the system startup. Finding out what these applications are and enabling/disabling them can be done by entering Run in the Start menu and typing MSCONFIG. Press the Enter/Return key and in the resultant window, your startup programs can be found in the Startup tab.

This is the most basic way to get control of your startup applications. But as you will soon realize after using this Windows native method, the program you disable often reappear re-checked and cause slower startups. Therefore one cannot rely on this procedure of controlling one’s startup application.

To gain full control of which applications run and do not run on the startup, download and install WhatInStartup.

WhatsInStartup is a freeware utility from NirSoft, creators of other such useful freeware utilities.

The size of WhatsInStartup is less than 50KB and the program needs to installation. Simply extract the downloaded archive and you will be all set to use the program by opening the EXE file titled WhatInStartup.

The first difference you will notice between this program and Windows’ startup applications manager, is that in this little freeware you get to view a lot more attributes of the startup program.

Suppose there is a program listed in the startup list but you are not sure if it is a system file or an unnecessary program file. Checking out the attributes listed ahead of the program entry can greatly help you decide whether you want to disable the program from starting up.

Another feature of this great program is that it helps you permanently disable startup entries. This is done via WhatInStartup’s Permanent Disable Mode feature. This feature can be enabled in the Options menu:

If a program that you previously disabled added itself again to the startup list of Windows, WhatInStartup will automatically detect the change and disable it again.

WhatInStartup is a tiny program yet highly useful; since it supports all Windows operating systems from Windows 2000 till Windows 7, countless people can benefit from it. If you are a Windows user, give WhatsInStartup a try yourself and really control what starts up as you turn your system on.

How to Take Quick Notes In FireFox

Umar — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 10:53:27 +0000

While working on the internet using our internet browsers, there often come times when we need to note down the information we see. The physical way to do this is to have a pen and notebook handy to write down what we see. But in case of a lot of material we usually copy the text and paste it in a text program, notepad usually because of its speed.

The time required to open an external text editing program for our notes can be drastically cut down if we have a browser built-in note-taking tool. Such a tool could perhaps operate in a separate tab thus being superbly accessible.

An application like that does exist for Firefox users in the shape of a browser add-on titled QuickNote.

QuickNote is free small add-on that lets us create notes in a new browser tab, a floating window or a sidebar. The hotkey for the notes is CTRL+F7. The program can also be accessed by the Tools menu of Firefox:

Here is how QuickNote looks like in a new tab (the yellow portion is our note-taking area):

Here is how QuickNote looks like in a sidebar:

Another great way to use sticky notes in Firefox is to use them in a floating mode. This way you will be able to drag it anywhere on the screen and take notes whenever you are browsing. Here is how QuickNote looks like in a floating window:

One of the cool features of QuickNote includes the ability to easily store your notes in a TXT file which you can choose in the add-on’s options. Simply go to QuickNote settings > User Files and select file destination.

Each QuickNote tab is assigned a separate TXT file. The maximum number of tabs QuickNote can store the notes in is four and the options can be set in its options:

You can always categorize your search and save notes according to any specific field by creating multiple tabs that displays in the form of tabs. Here is how QuickNote will look like with four tabs:

Furthermore, you can customize details for each tab. The note-taking area can be customized for each tab by going to Customization tab in QuickNote settings:

Last but not the least, you do not need to worry by failing to find the SAVE button because QuickNotes automatically saves your notes:

QuickNote is a Firefox note-taking add-on which will satisfy all its users; it should not be overlooked.

Choose What Page Opens When A New Tab Is Created

Umar — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 13:19:06 +0000

Not too long ago the only browser war existed between the Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer. Even that cannot be really called a war since the choice heavily relied on the operating system: Windows users used Internet Explorer and Mac users used Netscape Navigator.

Today however the browser choices are many and almost all of them are cross-platform. Regardless of what operating system you run you have at least four options of internet browsers to choose from. Finding themselves in this highly competitive situation, internet browsers seek newer ways to excel in every way. During the construction and improvement of a browser, special attention is paid to each and every detail. The focus is on speed and user-friendliness.

But even though teams of people work on a single browser, they are still people, human beings. Mistakes are made and sometimes very basic features are overlooked which could provide great convenience to the browser’s users.

One such overlooked feature is related to browser tabs. When tabs were introduced they provided a great way to minimize the number of our browser windows and have all our pages open in the same browser window. But since then the tabs have not been developed extensively. A common problem is that a user is not able to choose the default page which is opened when a new tab is created. This problem is in all browsers I have tried and so far did not have any remedies.

Today we cover a remedy I found for the mentioned tab-related problem. It is a browser add-on titled NewTabURL.

NewTabURL is a free browser add-on compatible with the Firefox and Flock internet browsers. With this nifty add-on downloaded and enabled, one can choose what page opens when a new tab is created. This can be done by accessing the add-on’s options:

A user can choose to have a blank page, the home page, the current page, or a defined URL open up whenever a new tab is created. You can also choose to have the copied-to-clipboard URL open in the new tab which you create.

NewTabURL is a wonderfully simple solution to a problematic situation. This add-on like a lot of browser add-ons was not created by a browser company but an external developer. This is proof that the browser developers need to build their products more meticulously and pay the maximum attention to the user’s needs.

Easiest Way to Share, Email, Tweet and Bookmark Stuff

Umar — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 20:56:48 +0000

Social networking can keep us jumping from one popular site to the next, sharing information and media as we go along. With the increasing number of websites people use to communicate with each other, keeping track of the sites individually might become difficult. Say you have an account on Delicious, Friendfeed and Twitter; you have found something that you want to share on all three accounts; normally, you would have to log in to each site separately and do the deed. But the Firefox add-on that we shall cover today can make sharing on multiple social networking websites considerably easier.

ShareaHolic is Firefox add-on that includes shortcuts to all major social networking websites; it tries to make it easier for the user to bookmark a page, and then blog about it, email it, or share it with other people.

After it has been added on to Firefox, here is how the add-on looks like:

We need a webpage to use as an example of something we want to share; let us use the homepage of Yahoo. After reaching Yahoo’s homepage, if the user clicks on any one of the green icons in Firefox’s bar, a drop down menus shows the popularity of that page. Here is how the drop menu looked liked in the case of Yahoo:

As you can see, the menu immediately tells the user that the page has been saved 593 times on Delicious, and has been ‘dugg’ twice on Digg. These statistics are a quick way to find out how popular a certain page is.

Now let us say that I want to share Yahoo’s homepage on my Facebook account: all I do is select Facebook from ShareaHolic’s drop down menu, and a small straightforward window appears in which I can publish the link to my profile like so:

Therefore, I do not have to open a separate tab, access my wall and paste Yahoo’s link there; I can quickly access my Facebook page via ShareaHolic and immediately start sharing. ShareaHolic can also be accessed by right clicking anywhere on the webpage:

ShareaHolic’s options can be accessed to check which websites are shown in its menu and which are hidden. Apart from social networking websites, ShareaHolic also has links to various blogging services, email services, link shortening, online shopping stores, and four miscellaneous links.

For sharing web content on popular social networking sites, ShareaHolic includes over 40 links

Furthermore, you can directly post anything you like on your personal Wordpress blog or third party host providers including Blogger(also known as Blogspot) and LiveJournal. Links for these are also included in ShareaHolic

In addition to that if there is something you like and would like to email it to yourself you can do that by checking your Email Service provider. ShareaHoliclinks include the most commonly used email providers including Google Gmail and Hotmail;

After the launch of Twitter there is one noticeable boost in URL shortening websites. Because Twitter does not allow users to write more than 140 characters people shrink their online links using services such as TinyUrl. Shortcuts to these shortening websites are also included in ShareaHolic:

Only two shopping website links are included. But they are still worth checking out. The final tab in ShareaHolic will show you links to other unclassifiable popular websites

ShareaHolic supports over sixty services they are completely customizable i.e. you get to choose the ones you see.

ShareaHolic is the fastest and most convenient way publish/share webpages to your blog or social networking page.

How to Build Your Own Portable Library of Knowledge

Umar — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 08:20:02 +0000

Imagine being able to build your very own database of the content your find online. You are able to search for any keyword from this library and within seconds the relevant results will be shown up. How easy would that make life? No more browsing for information online, saving everything interesting on your PC.

The program that accomplishes that is not an imaginary one. It very much exists and is called Favorist.

Favorist is a freeware application that lets you build your own portable library of knowledge. After downloading the small 1.4MB file, you can install the application and get down to business. Remember to restart any internet browsers that were open during the installation.

The program offers a lot of ways to add your information and build up your own library. In this review I will be covering the easiest method to enable users to get started with the application. Detailed tutorial videos of Favorist can be found on its website (go there by clicking here).

When you run Favorist for the first time you will see its toolbar at the top of your screen:

The first thing I suggest you do is assign the program hotkeys. Click on the second button from the left and access Settings:

Enter the tab titled Loocal: Remember to assign hotkeys that are not in use by any other programs. Click on OK and restart Favorist.

Now suppose you are viewing a webpage, reading a word document, or a PDF document, and you find something interesting which you want to save for future access. What you do is highlight the area containing your text (or image or both) and press the ‘New Loocal’ hotkey you assigned. A small window will drop down from the Favorist toolbar above which will save the information you have highlighted. Before it being saved, Favorist prompts you to enter its details:

Fill out the details and click on Save; your content will be saved to your Library. To search for a word included in the content, click on ‘Loocal’ in the Favorist toolbar and type your word in the subsequent search engine:

Using this procedure you will be able to add all the content you want to your library and search for information within it.

Favorist also installs itself as an add-on into Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Chrome and Safari internet browsers. While surfing you will find Favorist’s button in the toolbar and you can use it instead of the hotkeys.

This program has immense potential. Various popular software reviewing sites have lauded Favorist. However the reason it has not been as popular as it deserves to be is its user interface. From the online tutorial videos it becomes clear that Favorist needs to majorly work on user-friendliness. If the program is made easier to use and familiarize oneself with, it will be greatly successful.

Transfer Data Up to 2GB For Free

Umar — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 05:01:51 +0000

File hosting sites provide a great facility to internet users. By uploading files which are simply too large to email, you can share them with your recipient. Conceptually this form of sharing is excellent. However the practical application is where the trouble begins. Today’s file hosting sites have a number of nuisances associated with them: slow upload and download speeds, file deletion without notifying the uploader, and creating a publicly viewable URL which can be accessed by anybody, compromising the security of the content.

Currently at least one of these problems can be found with any free file hosting site. There is one website though that rises above its competition and come close to the ideal file hosting site – WeTransfer.

WeTransfer is a file hosting site with the following features:

Not only is it free but it requires no registration or signups.
WeTransfer offers great upload and download speeds.
You can add up to 20 email addresses for recipients.
For each file upload, the maximum permissible file size is 2GB.
Your files are stored for two weeks.
The recipient can only access files according to a Download button received in the email. No URL is disclosed and no third party/user can access your files. Your data is kept private. The site does not even scan your files, respecting your privacy. The rule is “You trust us, we trust you.”

Providing all those impressive features is definitely not inexpensive. One does wonder that if WeTransfer is truly free, how the site makes money. The answer lies in the background: the background of the WeTransfer changes timely and is actually promoting one company or the other. In the image above you can see ‘Philips’ typed in the bottom right which means the background image is actually an advertisement for Philips.

In the case that you own a company and want to have a WeTransfer page with a fixed custom background, you pay WeTransfer and they provide the file hosting service with the background you specify. Therefore the money is tied purely with the background. For users who are simply looking to upload their files, all that needs to be done is choose the file to be uploaded, enter the recipient’s and sender’s emails, and add an optional message; the advertising background change in back, not affecting your work.

After the file has been successfully uploaded, confirmation emails are sent to sender and recipient; only through the email can the uploaded file be accessed.

Providing a fast and impressively secure way to host your large files online, WeTransfer is one site that deserves to be bookmarked…..

Keep Tabs On Your Prescriptions and Doctors Appointments with HeyDoc

Umar — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 21:16:20 +0000

In life one cannot think of anything more important than good health. It is every individual’s duty to keep a check on their health. But one can find difficult the task of monitoring all those medicine dosages and intakes, keeping a schedule of the doctor’s appointments, and doing so for all the members of your family.

To simplify keeping a track of all those prescriptions and appointment, the internet has a wonderful tool available called HeyDoc. HeyDoc is a freeware program that, when installed, lets you create custom profiles and then for each profile manage the prescriptions and doctor’s appointments. Sized at only 4MB, the program is downloaded and installed instantly. Here is how the main window looks like for HeyDoc:

Using this program, you can create a profile and edit all types of medical information. You can start off with filling out all the details of the person whom the profile belongs to. Next, move on to fill the insurance information. No matter how many doctors a person has, you can add them in the Doctors field. Appointments can also be noted down in the calendar provided to each profile.

A medical history, diet diary, eye examination schedules, and prescriptions of each profile can also be saved within the program.

Apart from all those great features you can view the data you enter graphically in the form of charts:

Accessing the Print option lets you print out any portion of the profile you have currently opened:

The ‘Change Profile’ button will let you change profiles or create new one. As you can see from all its features, HeyDoc can not only benefit patients but it can also be immensely useful to doctors or clinics who want to keep an uncomplicated record of their patients.

Serving doctors and patients alike, such a freeware is a rarity and should be taken full advantage of.

Know How Many People Are Sharing Your Site Content

Umar — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 14:19:02 +0000

Say you are a website owner. You know that getting traffic to your site is your number one priority. In order to ensure that, you need to know what changes you make positively and negatively affect different forms of traffic your website is receiving. Therefore it becomes important to know not only the amount of traffic your site experiences, but also what percentage of that traffic belongs to what category (e.g. advertisements, people sharing links with friends, etc.).

What we are going to talk about today lets the site owner know how many times his/her site content is being shared by actual users via email. As mentioned earlier, this helps the site owner better analyze the traffic statistics and improve the overall website being run. More to the point however, this tool helps you know how many people are showing enough interest in your site to consider it worthy enough to email to another friend.

Let us end the suspense by revealing what this thing is named: MailCounter. Mailcounter comes in the form of JavaScript or WordPress code snippets. When you add this code to your blog or site, a badge appears which lets users email that particular page quickly, simply by clicking on the badge. Here is how the badge looks like:

Here is how the code snippet in JavaScript looks like (the image has been taken from the homepage of MailCounter; to copy the text, visit their page):

In WordPress:

Once you incorporate either one of these codes into your site, the MailCounter badge will appear. If a user clicks on it, the counter’s value will increase by one and the user’s default client’s email box will appear:

The default message is already filled out. All the user does is specify the ‘To’ section and click on ‘Send’.

The entire process is quite simple and easy, facilitating site owners a great deal.

You will also find at the end of the homepage of MailCounter ten most recent pages shared via the badge. Do check them out; some of them are quite entertaining.

Check out MailCounter

How to Quickly Gather Your System Information with Speccy

Umar — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 05:05:59 +0000

When you computer messes up and you call the tech support guy, what happens? You are completely stumped when he/she asks you about your RAM’s bus speed or your video card’s model number. Right-clicking “My Computer” and accessing its properties only shows you the most basic system information. What if you are checking a system up for sale and you need to know whether it has all the hardware (and the type of hardware) which is advertised? You can’t start taking apart its casing and see what’s under the hood; that would be simply consume too much time.

In all such situations, when you need to know your system specifications fast, Speccy comes in handy greatly. Speccy is the creation of Piriform, the developers behind the very popular products CCleaner, Defraggler, and Recuva. Speccy, like Piriform’s other great ventures, is a great system utility that presents you with a comprehensive knowledge of your system specifics. With a size of only 1.2MB, this freeware can be quickly installed.

When you run the program, it quickly gathers your system’s information and spends not more than 5 seconds doing it. You are presented with a window summarizing all specifications:

To access detailed information about specific components, simply choose the component from the left panel. Say you choose RAM, a screen similar to this appears:

All sorts of information is presented, including whether or not your RAM is running on Dual Channel and what are their individual and combined bus speeds.

You can even see the current temperatures of various PC components and see if your casing has proper air ventilation. For processors with multiple cores, you can see the temperature of each core! Just click on the CPU link in the left panel:

If your hard drive supports SMART features, you can even check their temperature and see if they are within the ‘OK’ temperature range:

Throughout these tables, the values accompanied with green bars (such as temperatures and bus speeds) can be clicked to show a value-time graph; you will then be able to notice the changes with time:

Equipped with Speccy, you can easily find out what a computer contains. In certain situations, this little program can prove to be mighty useful, saving your time as well as your money.

How To Turn Off Your Monitor Via HotKeys

Umar — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 12:21:01 +0000

If your computer stays on the entire day then turning off your monitor when you’re not at your desk can save you a noticeable amount on the electricity bill. But you don’t want to push that button each time you’re leaving or coming back to your system. With the latest monitors, those buttons are getting more sensitive so the less you push them the better. And you certainly can’t keep on accessing your monitor’s preferences in your computer and put it to sleep from there; that would just be consuming too much time.

What you need is Monitor Off Utility (MOU). MOU is a great freeware utility from Dekisoft, creators of Sensible Note Taker and Sensible File Renamer. With MOU, you can turn off your monitor via hotkeys. The download file is merely 350KB large and you can have the program up and running in no time. Here’s how the main window and system tray icon for MOU look like:

As you can see from the image of the main window, MOU offers impressive functionality. You can assign hotkeys to the tasks of shutting off your monitor or turning on the screensaver. You can even setup a delay between pressing your hotkeys and the monitor turning off. You can particularly use this delay when you absolutely have to leave your system but do not want the monitor to turn off (not that an off monitor would disturb the ongoing programs) before a particular file downloads; you can specify how later, in seconds, the monitor will turn off. To turn your monitor back on, just move your mouse or press any key on the keyboard.

If you check the ‘Lock Workstation’ checkbox, your computer will be locked before the monitor is turned off. By ‘locked’ we mean it will require your Windows username password before it lets you back to your workspace after you turn the monitor back on.

Other options include closing the application to the system tray icon, checking for updates automatically, automatically starting up with Windows, and turning off your monitor (or monitors, in case you have more than one installed) at startup.

A neat free application, MOU should be used by all computer users to save unnecessary waste of electricity.

How To Have Your Folders & Files Just a Click Away

Umar — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 15:08:40 +0000

Imagine all your favorite programs, files, and folders just a single click away. If you’re chatting with a friend and you want to open a particular folder, you don’t start browsing to it in Windows Explorer; instead, you click the middle mouse button and there it will be, right in front of you.

Such amazing accessibility is made possible by MouseExtender, the freeware we will be reviewing today. This little program is your ultimate shortcuts panel. At only 110KB, you can instantly obtain the program and run the executable file; not even an installation is required.

Opening the program for the first time, here’s what you will see:

Three shortcut buttons have been predefined: Control Panel, Restart, and Shutdown (from left to right respectively). The Shutdown button can be customized to perform other actions such as Sleep and Hibernate. You can even set the timer as to when these actions take place and whether or not you want to force the system into them:

Once you have the program opened, if you click on anything else, MouseExtender will automatically minimize to the system tray.

According to the default settings, you can summon the minimized program anytime by the middle mouse button. This shortcut can be changed in MouseExtender’s settings. You can assign any mouse + keyboard combination you find convenient:

If you want the panel to be always visible, simply click the icon to the left of Minimize and Close buttons. Doing so will pin it to the desktop. Here’s how the icon looks before and after pinning:

Now let’s move on to the fun part: creating shortcuts on the panel. Right click on the program window and select the type of object you want a shortcut to:

In the case of File, Program, and Folder you are taken to a menu where you browse to the location and select your object. Once your shortcut has been created you can further edit it (including changing its icon) by right-clicking on it and choosing Edit Item:

If the same icon appears for more than one shortcut, just hover your mouse over a particular shortcut and its title will be revealed.

In case of adding a web address, you are presented with a window to enter the URL:

Once you click OK, you will be able to see the shortcut in your panel.

The shortcut will open with your default internet browser.

Right-clicking however is not the only way to add shortcuts to your MouseExtender panel. A user can drag and drop a folder, file, program, or even an internet shortcut into the panel and a shortcut is created.

MouseExtender also offers amazing organization. You can organize the shortcuts by moving them around, placing them before or after certain shortcuts. If your panel is getting a little crowded, create a new tab by selecting the option in the right-click menu. The program asks you to name your tab before it’s created. While the title is auto-hidden, it appears in orange when you point your pointer to it:

When you have your tab created, right-click on any shortcut and send it to that particular tab:

By categorizing your shortcuts in tabs, you reduce the clutter and give yourself a more presentable MouseExtender.

Overall, this shortcuts program is a great way to increase the accessibility of your items. Compatible with Windows XP, Vista, and 7 it will surely be a timesaver for a lot of computer users.

How To Change OEM Details In Windows 7

Tony Williams — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 16:18:45 +0000

Windows 7 is one of the fastest selling operating systems ever, and rather than buying a fresh copy many users have opted to upgrade their PC instead and get a free bundled copy of Windows 7. However, if you do buy a OEM PC from the likes of Dell or Toshiba they tend to add their branding all over the PC. If you want to remove their logos and replace it with your own then it’s easy to do with the OEM Info Tool.

The OEM Info Tool needs to be run as an administrator because it makes registry changes. Once running you can see what OEM information has already been added to your copy of Windows and you can modify it easily:

OEM Info Tool is available for free and works on both Windows 7 and Windows Vista.

How To Send And Receive Files from a Remote Computer

Umar — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 21:10:14 +0000

Sending files as attachments of an email is a common practice. We usually do this for files smaller than 10MB. Emailing larger files is usually not supported by the most popular email services. A way around that problem is to span your large file over a series of smaller archive files and email these smaller files. Obviously this method consumes more time as you end up sending multiple emails. Alternatively you can upload your file onto a file hosting site and give the file URL to your recipient. However file hosting sites have their own drawbacks: file size limits and slow upload speeds.

The best method for file transfer therefore becomes establishing a direct connection with the computer you are sending the file to. Many easily available programs do this. They usually require at least a basic networking knowledge; this prerequisite makes usage slightly difficult for the average user. Furthermore these programs are made operating-system-specific i.e. if a program has been designed for the Mac, it will not be compatible with Windows. Therefore you will not be able to use such programs if your file recipient is running a different operating system.

Thankfully the developers of BelugaFile observed, analyzed, and resolved all these problems by a single great product. BelugaFile is an amazingly user-friendly application that lets users send file to and received files from a remote computer. The application is based on Air which means its crossplatform so you can now easily share your files with a friend running whichever operating system.

In order to take advantage of this convenient program, the sender and recipient both should have BelugaFile installed. The download file is merely 1.18MB large and you can have the program running instantly. You connect with other BelugaFile users by sharing your unique Host IDs with each which the program provides to you.

Once you are connected, you can see the files you have up for sharing and the files your peer has for sharing categorized that way.

All you do now is start adding files by clicking the ‘Add files’ button. The recipient will accept on his/her end and the smooth downloading process will begin.

And here is the best part: there is no size limit on the file you share!

No more pesky conditions to abide by, you can transfer incredibly large files from one computer to the other via a simple internet connection that allows UDP traffic.

(UDP is the only requirement and is met by almost all connections.)

How To Search And Download Torrents Without Opening Your Browser

Umar — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:14:28 +0000

Torrent users usually jump from site to site looking for the best available torrent for the one they’re searching. This is the reason why many of us torrent addicts have numerous sites (such as Torrentz and BtJunkie) bookmarked. These torrent bookmarks can occupy a considerable room in your Favorites list. Thankfully today we have discovered a program that eliminates the need to browse multiple sites for a torrent while also saving you space in your Favorites. The mentioned program is TorrentFetcher.

What the program does is enable you to search for torrents from multiple websites via a desktop program! The downloadable installation file is only 420KB large and the program itself has a minuscule memory footprint. Here is how the main window looks like:

The user interface is quite straightforward and user-friendly; any torrent user shall have no problem. To search for a torrent, all you do is enter the keywords into the search bar, and press Enter / click ‘Search’. Your results will be shown as either white or green. The green ones signify a good torrent health i.e. better seeders-to-peers ratio. Double clicking any torrent will save it in the directory which you specify (the field is under the search bar).

Furthermore before clicking ‘Search’ you can specify how many results you want displayed and the type of the torrent file you want shown:

Suppose you have specified many results to be shown and the search is taking longer, you can free up the space on your taskbar by minimizing the application to the system tray:

When you find your desired torrent and have it saved on your PC, simply open it with your Bittorrent client and start downloading. You find your torrent and get the files without ever needing to open your web browser!

While this desktop torrent downloading program has its advantages over traditional torrent searching, improvements can certainly be made. For instance, more information about the torrent could be acquired, information such as hash info or the site on which the torrent file is.

Hopefully the developers of TorrentFetcher will recognize these ways to make their creation better and improve their program greatly.

How To Add A DisLike Button on FaceBook in Firefox

Umar — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:22:40 +0000

Facebook is wonderful. It lets you interact with your friends along with using various entertaining applications. Another great feature of Facebook is that it lets users share links, pictures, and videos with other friends.

Under each such shared link, there is present an option to ‘like’ it. You can click on it and show people that you like that particular link. It’s a great way to promote a link and show your view towards it. However there does exist an option to remove your ‘like’ from a link, Facebook doesn’t have any ‘dislike’ option.

To remedy that, we have a wonderful Firefox add-on, Facebook Dislike.

The add-on lets you add a ‘dislike’ feature to the links in Facebook so now you can express your views towards a link, even if you dislike it.

The way it works is exactly how ‘like’ works. Just click on the thumbs-down picture to dislike. Here’s an example of a link that shows both likes and dislikes:

Under the post come the likes, then dislikes, and then comments.

Providing a great way to improve your Facebook experience on Firefox, every Facebook-er should be equipped with this nifty add-on.

How to Determine a Website’s Loading time

Umar — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:19:30 +0000

All website owners want lesser load times for their own websites. If a page takes too long to load up, chances are the first time visitor to your site will move on before even having a look at your content.

If you’re a site owner trying to figure out how long it would for your site to load up, WebPageTest is the perfect tool for you.

This site is a free online tool which takes your webpage through a series of various tests to determine its loading time. Here’s how you do it:

First, specify the URL:

Then choose a test location:

Adjust the settings a little bit according to your average site visitor:

All that remains is to provide more minor details and click ‘Submit’:

Clicking ‘Submit’ will commence your tests. While they take place, you see this message:

As a sample, I tested OneTipAday’s homepage and here’s what the results were:

As you can see, the results are impressively comprehensive and give you a complete breakdown of all loading speeds you required.

Providing exactly what is required without charging you a penny, WebPageTest is something all website owners should familiarize themselves with.

How to find Out Online What Disease Your Symptoms Belong To

Umar — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 12:25:00 +0000

Going to a good doctor is the only option one should go for while experiencing or suspecting an illness taking over. However it could also be just flu and a doctor’s visit might waste time and money; therefore, it wouldn’t hurt to get an idea of what you might be down with.

Symptom Checker is one website that can help you do that.

Just like doctors, Symptom Checker reaches its conclusions based on the symptoms you face. The symptoms are categorized into two major categories: Adult and Child.

Say you’re an adult who is facing abdominal pain. Click on the ‘abdominal pain’ link:

Once you do that you will be presented with checkboxes to tick, in order to close in on your ailment. Let’s say that the abdominal pain you’re facing is a burning pain in the upper right abdomen, caused by stress, accompanied by abdominal swelling, and relieved by drinking more water. Click the relevant checkboxes and click on the ‘find causes’ button:

You are then presented with the possible diseases you might have. The most likely one is located on top and as you move downwards, the diseases become less likely. The condition you specified is due to at least one of the listed diseases:

Do keep in mind that while Symptom Checker is a great tool, by no means is it a substitute for a good doctor. But do give it a try the next time you’re down with something. It would only help to know more about the condition you’re in.

How to Split and Merge Files Faster

Umar — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:50:48 +0000

Splitting large files into smaller files can prove to be highly convenient while transferring them. For instance your instant messaging software doesn’t allow the transfer of files greater than 5 MB; you walk around this restriction by splitting any file greater than 5 MB into smaller pieces and then sending them to the receiver. The receiver can then compile them and see what you’ve sent.

While facilitating, users usually find this method of compressions quite difficult. Other problems also occur with the splitting and merging of files namely, the compatibility of your compressions software. A file spanned out into smaller files with a particular software might not be extractable by some other software.

The complete solution to both these problems is Winmend File Splitter.

Winmend File Splitter is a compression freeware which doesn’t span out your selected file into ZIP, RAR, or 7ZIP archives; instead it uses a format familiar to windows i.e. you can extract the files simply using Windows and no other third party software.

Winmend requires no registration; the 1.5 MB setup file can be instantly downloaded and installed. The interface is self-explanatory and makes usage extremely simple:

After you select a file, you can choose the method the file is spanned out: you can either choose the total number of files over which your file will be spanned out, or you can specify the size of each file yourself.

Winmend’s speed to span out files is remarkably high and it gets the job done before you even know it.

A wonderfully useful freeware, Winmend is one application you should try out right away.

Chromed Bird: How to Access Twitter Easily From Chrome

Umar — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:01:48 +0000

There’s nothing impossible when it comes to the web. So what do you get when you cross the fastest internet browser, Chrome, with one of the most popular social networking website, Twitter? You get Chromed Bird! Chromed Bird is a free Google Chrome extension which provides Chrome users with ultra-easy accessibility to their Twitter account:

When you’ve clicked the ‘Add to Chrome’ button you can access your Twitter account by a small button on the address bar:

Just click on it and enter your Twitter info on the first run:

Then click on ‘Go!’ and that’s all there’s to it! From now when you click on the Chromed Bird icon, you’ll be able to follow your Twitter account via a conveniently placed box:

You can even click on the ‘RT Reply’ and Tweet without even leaving the webpage you’re on:

Chromed Bird is only one example of Chrome’s superiority over other internet browsers. With its already speedy interface, and with amazing extensions such as this one, Chrome is on its path to be the perfect internet browsers for us internet users.

More: Chromed Bird

How to keep your favorite programs always visible on Desktop

Umar — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:20:21 +0000

Is there a particular program you want to be always visible? For instance you are working with multiple spreadsheets but every time you are working on Excel, your calculator gets shoved to the back, and you need to click it each time to use it. Once or twice is fine but soon it gets quite frustrating.

An excellent solution to this is Deskpins.

The file to be downloaded is unbelievably small (~100 KB) so setting up the program becomes a very fast process.

Here is how it works: once the program is installed, it neatly sits as an icon on the taskbar.

By clicking on this icon once with the left mouse button, you prepare it to pin a program. For instance I have opened Microsoft Math and I want it to stay on top of all windows, I will click on the Deskpins icon once, the cursor will transform from the regular mouse pointer to a different shape; now I move this pointer over to Microsoft Math, and I have it pinned.

The screenshot above is of the pinned Microsoft Math. Regardless of what happens, whether a new program is opened or some other program pops up an alert, my first and front-most view will be of Microsoft Math.

Key features include

Unlimited number of pins available.
Intelligent handling of various application types.
Powerful wildcard-based automatic pin support.
Global hotkeys.
Negligible system resources usage.

There really isn’t much requirements to run this freeware. It can be run on all the major Windows operating systems including Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, 2003.. Other than that you must have at least 386/10MHz class CPU or higher, 4 GB (even though I ran it on 1 GB and it works just fine with that as well).

Deskpins is a minuscule application that packs a heavy punch and come quite handy if you need some application to always stay in front of your eyes.

How to Create Your own Comic Strip Online

Umar — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:06:06 +0000

Comic strips are a great way to have fun. The greatest challenge in creating comic strips is not the material, but the sketches. Many people can creatively come up with comical situations however, only a few can really draw. Who knows how many potential comic strip geniuses never got to utilize their talents because of this.

But for all you comic strip enthusiasts out there, Stripgenerator comes as a blessing.

Stripgenerator is website that helps you and I create comic strips in the easiest way possible: by helping us out in the drawing department. Before we head out to make anything, we need to quickly register for an account here.

After registering for a free account, you can set the URL of your comic strip, and the title.

Here is how the editing table looks like:

One can choose from a range of pictures which are categorized as humans, beings, objects, shapes, bubbles, and friends. Objects can be dragged onto the drawing plane and moved around. Text boxes can also be added, and in a few simple steps, making your own comic becomes supremely easy.

Stripgenerator presents a wonderful free way to make your own comics; visit the site here and wake up the creative giant within yourself.

How to Send Free Snail Mail Through the Internet

Umar — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:22:28 +0000

While the internet has revolutionized communication means, there are still areas in which snail mail prevails. To communicate with people in these areas, where internet facilities are not available or the recipients are not internet-literate, important documents have to be posted. Of course to post a letter, a sender needs to write/type one down, enclose in an envelope, and visit the post office or drop it in a mailbox. For senders who are used to communicating to and fro via the internet, this mode of delivering messages can be quite inconvenient. So what if you were able to post letters online? And that too for free!

The Mail Monster brings internet users an invaluable service.

On this website, users can send letter online. The letters written are sent from the internet to the recipient’s postal mailbox. Within 24 hours of us filling in the required information on their webpage, Mail Monster creates, prints, and envelopes our letters for us while all we have to do is fill. The sender can even choose from a variety of letter themes available, and then preview the letter before sending it.

Mail Monster places great importance on security and ensures the user that the contents of the letters are never read by people other than the recipient because the printing and enveloping process is done by computers.

At the moment this amazing service is free for sending letter to Australia whilst to other countries, the applicable letter charges are approximately 1 US Dollar.

Considering that sending letters by the post, physically, is never free so how can an online service be completely free? Or almost free.

The answer is simple. Mail Monster is a business that has other business partners; when you send a letter to a specific location, Mail Monster contacts one of the business partners nearby that particular region and slips in an advertisement with your letter. The recipient is handed your prepared letter along with the advertisement. No need to worry though. The advertisement is a onetime occurrence only and the recipient’s address is not bombarded with junk mail.

Mail Monster has done a great job in bridging the gap between internet users and those who do not use computers. Their project is definitely laudable.

How to Upload Mp3 Songs Directly to Youtube

Umar — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 05:09:06 +0000

There are lots of different ways to upload and download videos from Youtube. The ones that manage to keep their servers up stands out from the rest and gets maximum recommendations/visitors. This includes services such as KeepVid, ListentoYoutube and more. Recently I have confronted a new service for YouTubers that will allow them to upload Mp3’s directly to Youtube.

Mp32Youtube integrates the Youtube API so that upload can be done directly to your account. In their own words it is a revolutionary new service aiming to make direct mp3 uploads to Youtube. The service requires you to go through 4 simple steps in order to upload your mp3 songs.

First you will need to login to your Youtube account using this link. You will need to authorize access to your Account by clicking “Allow Access” button.

The next step is to choose a background image for this video. Click “Choose your image” and browse any picture from your computer. Note that the website is only accepting JPG format at the moment.

Select any mp3 file you want to convert as a video and click “Upload your Mp3″ to get the job done.

While your video is being uploaded you can add tags, title and a description.

Click here to check out the outcome . (This video has been uploaded by another user)

How to Magnify Bitmaps in High Quality for Free

Umar — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 07:04:33 +0000

Up-scaling, up-sizing or digitally increasing the size of a picture is perhaps on of the most time consuming ways to make your images look crap. The basic nature of a digital photo is that its best quality is in the way it was originally taken, as soon as you try making changes especially if you’re enlarging an image from its natural size the result you’ll get is a photo thats blurred and/or fuzzy.

In short, editing images in particular digital photos will lead to a loss in quality. However there are many times when the need to resize an image is required. Its for those times that I review Smilla Enlarger.

SmillaImageEnlarger does for free what most professional graphics packages include for a hefty price tag. It enlarges images without losing any quality. Perhaps quality is lost, but its lost in a way that isn’t too recognizable at 1st glance. So thats 1 advantage of Smilla, the other major advantage is that Smilla is quite fast and efficient at what is does, and using it is fairly easy. To resize an image without Smilla can become a painfully lenghty process, involving a lot of zooming back and forth and some basic arithmetic too.

This is where Smilla ImageEnlarger shines, the algorithm within Smilla isnt going to perfectly fill in all the details of your image when its blown up, but it’s intelligent enough to figure where to render curves and such that actually look good at large sizes. Equally awesome is that it eliminates artifacts and the boxy pixel-like look that usually show up in enlarged images.

The interface is another success story, all the options you need are shown on one screen along with the original image and the enlarged result side-by-side. Its easy to see which part of the source image you’ve selected and you can crop and reposition as necessary.

Almost all the needed options can be adjusted by using a slider or by entering the target dimensions including Size, dithering, sharpness and more. The preview area gives a pretty accurate result so you know what to expect when you actually process and save your results. After you’ve tinkered with all the settings you need just hit Calculate and you’ll be in possession of a larger image that doesn’t look half bad.

How to play Flv format files in Windows Media Player

Umar — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 13:47:03 +0000

In this day and age, the most common software found on any Windows PC will most probably be doing double duties by playing host to a myriad of plugins. However this is one area where Microsoft’s Windows Media Player sorely lacks, which is surprising since its one of the most widely used media player software in the world!

Microsoft have provided a few plugins over the years but these are few and far between, and so in order to show some add-on love to WMP, PlayFLV takes center stage.

In contrast to the player that it’s designed for, PlayFLV is a free and open source plugin that allows WMP to playback FLash Video files (FLV). Unless you’ve been living underneath your sofa, you’ll know that FLV is the most popular video format out on the web right now.

Its the technology that drives Google Videos/YouTube and any other media site out there, in order to get such files isn’t a hassle (websites like keepvid.com help) however playing them always required you to get an external player because WMP doesn’t support the format by default. Downloading a sperate player make sense if you intend to use it over a long term, but would be overkill if you just needed to view one FLV file.

PlayFLV shines in that regard, almost All Windows PC come pre installed with windows media player, in order to view that one file all you need to do is download the extremely tiny plugin (~300kb) install it and you’re done! The plugin automatically associates itself with the FLV extension and by default you get all the functions you’re used to in WMP (zooming, seeking, switching between fullscreen etc.)

How to Embed a Music Player on Blogs

Umar — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 05:01:31 +0000

I’ve been looking for some useful widgets I can use on my website to keep my visitors entertained at all time. The choice here becomes quiet picky because for a Tech based website I would like to put a widget that shows how popular this website is or may be something that showed related posts. This help users read more about their favorite topic. Similarly for a Travel blog I would use a weather widget that shows weather reports in real time. I have personally used some of these and have found them quiet helpful.

Recently I have found a way to embed a music player on my blog through Yahoo Media player.

Yahoo Media Player is the ultimate MP3 player for the web! A Tall order? Not so! The gurus at Yahoo have finally given the audio savvy web developer what they’ve always wanted , a single line HTML code that allows you to not only embed an interactive Media player onto your web page but also scan all audio links on your webpage and turns them to a playlist automatically. So not only is this just one line of code for the developer but for the user all tunes on your webpage are available with one click of the button.

With Yahoo Media Player you don’t have to worry about audio controls either. Unlike other media technology today that pops up a separate player , Yahoo’s one click player has all the necessary controls within the same box, it also has some pretty neat algorithms underneath that will try to pick up images from your webpage and adds them as cover art, and to top this all it requires no download, install or maintenance, And its all free! Whew! I wonder what Google is planning?

Create Free Posters with your Photos in 5 Seconds

Umar — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 05:01:03 +0000

Ever wanted to create a free “Wanted” poster which would hardly take you ummmmmmm say 5 seconds? Seems too good to be true right?

I have just stumbled upon a website that lets you create posters with your photos in it in less than 5 seconds. Simply log on on Tuxpi and upload any image from your local hard drive. I’m putting mine in my Gym outfit.

As soon as you hit the “Upload” button it will start processing your query. Within a matter of seconds your new poster will made available for a free download. The website doesn’t really require any sign ups or registrations and lets you create your own poster as quickly as possible.

You can choose from various type of poster types including

Film Strip
Pop Art Collage
Photo Paper
Text Collage
Postage Stamp and a lot more

Just so you know you can always change the caption of the poster and play around with the text a little bit.

Check out Tuxpi and create your own posters.

Extract Text From an Image into an Editable document

Umar — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:03:11 +0000

One of the things I hated back at school were the projects. Not because of the work involved , if anything I was very proactive when a group assignment came along, but with the advent of computers all our projects were supposed to be typed up, in a neat format, and that is what I hated!

I soon learnt about OCR (optical character recognition) which is a way to extract text from an image and convert it into an editable text document. I did try it out but for all its advantages it also had an equal number of disadvantages : expensive software, undesirable results , and in some cases additional hardware.

The benefits of course are: articles and excerpts don’t need to be retyped by hand, OCR-ed text can be reused anywhere. For instant, college course papers to displaying excerpts in a party banner etc.

FreeOCR aims to give you all of that for free! about the only thing you have to invest is a little of your time and scanning your documents (if needed). Once you have your images just go to the website open upload it using the provided space and within a minute you’ll should have a editable version of your text!

There are are some limitations such as not being able to convert more than 10 images per hour and that images should not be more than 2MB but all things considered its a great service!

How to Setup Auto Reply Message in GTalk

Umar — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 22:10:32 +0000

I earlier reviewed TweetMyPC, a free application for Twitter that allows you to shutdown, log off and restart computer directly from Twitter Board.

The same team of developers have recently introduced yet another helpful utility for Gtalk users that allows account owners to use the “Auto Reply” feature on Gtalk while they are checking their emails. It lets you focus on what is more important to you and informing friends at the same time about your activity.

To get started with Gtalk Autoreply, simply login to Gmail with your username and password. This application is responsible for sending an automated messages when any one pings you. You can easily start Gtalk Autoreply from Windows start up menu and type in your own auto reply message.

From here whoever sends you a message will get an auto-reply.

To install Gtalk Auto Reply download Gtalk Autoreply and run setup.exe. Run Gtalk Autoreply and enter your Username, Password and Message and active.

Download Gtalk Auto Reply

How to look for Word Defintions With Examples

Umar — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 09:47:20 +0000

For many people one of the most tiresome things to do is to look up words in the dictionary, not only that but you need to make sense of the usually hard to understand explanations given. Nowadays a large number of people use the net to look up their words because it is much faster, and convinient, but usually they end up still unsure on how to use the word. That is where Wordnik comes in action. It is an online dictionary with a very welcome twist.

Like most up and coming web dictionaries Wordnik has all the basics down which provide definition of word, list a few synonyms (i.e. equivalent words) list a few antonyms (i.e. opposites words) and that as far as most simple dictionaries go but Worknik breaks those boundaries!

Not only does it provide the basic functions mentioned above but it also contains a unique dictionary with examples of the word used in sentences. It then leaps ahead with an original function. It actually will go through Twitter conversation and pick out sentences with the word you were looking up to give you an idea on how its used.

It doesnt stop there it also will show comb through Flickr to find images that actually relate to the word! If that doesn’t embody unique I dont know what does!

The features then just keep adding from there

Audio pronunciations.
Statistical data (how popular or rare is the word you’re looking up)
The origin of the word (i.e. Etymology)
Anagrams
Even points that you get if you used the word in a game of scrabble!

To get start visit Wordnik and enter the world you want to search e.g I’ve searched for “Transportation” here.

Once done it will come up with the definition of the word along with examples (used in sentences)

Unlike conventional dictionaries though Wordnik welcomes ALL kinds of word that means colloquial and/or slang terms are featured just as much as textbook words are. To look up a word there’s no need to sign up – however registering is free and useful if you’d like to add a word.

How to setup time limit for any website you visit

Umar — Mon, 11 May 2009 05:54:36 +0000

I will have to admit that I’m a little addicted to Social Media Networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Digg. There are times when I will just sit on a website and browse around for nothing and at the end of the day I’d realize that I have wasted so much time.

Today, I have stumbled upon a website that might play an important role in stopping me from wasting time on Social Media Websites. Not really sure how much it would work but I guess it’s totally worth giving it a shot.

MinutesPlease is a free web service that allows you to setup time limits for any websites you visit. The process is really simple and should not take more than 10 seconds to setup the whole thing.

To get started simply log-on to MinutesPlease.com and

Enter the Url of the website you want to cut down on use
Set time limit and
click “Please”

Alternatively you can always type the url of the domain manually you want to visit and add the time. For example if you want to visit OneTipADay.com for 10 minutes type

“minutesplease.com/10m/onetipaday.com”

Another way to use MinutePlease service is by using their Bookmark toolbar. Simply go to any website then click from any site for a 10 minute limit. Once the limit is set it will show you count down so that you can extend the time if you wish to continue using that web page.

Check out MinutesPlease

Easiest Way to Calculate PayPal Fees

Umar — Wed, 06 May 2009 05:29:01 +0000

I run about 8 blogs of my own and recently I’ve started writing for my fellow bloggers as well. Since all of them send money via Paypal it sometimes create confusions for me and I wonder how can I calculate the Paypal Fee that is being deducted by Paypal.

In addition to that I do all my shopping online which mostly includes domains, servers, SEO stuff and more. Today I’ve stumbled upon “PayPal Fee Calculator“. A free web-based tool that allows you to calculate your Paypal Fee with in a matter of seconds. For those of you who are not familiar with Paypal should know that it is the most popular way to transfer money on the internet today. I seriously can’t imagine doing my online business without it.

Now that Paypal transfer fee vary depending on where the recipient is located it sometimes become hard to calculate it. This is where Paypal Calculator comes in action because it allows you to easily calculate the total amount you have to send so that the recipient gets the agreed net amount.

Paypal Fee Calculator calculates fee for different currencies and countries. Note that the calculator assumes that you have a premiere or a business account because personal accounts can’t accept payments via PayPal funded by credit and debit cards.

Simply enter the amount you are expected to receive and get the results right there. It’s a real time saver for those who are using Paypal regularly for their business.

You can also use the advanced version of the calculator if your transaction involves multiple currencies.

Check out PayPal Fee Calculator

How to shutdown PC using Twitter

Umar — Wed, 06 May 2009 03:28:15 +0000

I personally believe that Twitter will become the most popular social media network on the internet after Facebook. Developers are experimenting everyday and producing really helpful tools for Twitter. On the top of my head there is Twitter for Phones so that you can keep your friends informed about your scene.

Today, I’ve stumbled upon TweetMyPC. An excellent tool for Twitter that allows you to shutdown, log off and restart your computer directly from Twitter board. It comes with a very clean interface and lets you shutdown or reboot your computer with a single command. All you have to do is

1. Download TweetMyPC
2. Create a new Twitter account (For your PC)
3. Start the application and log on.

As soon as it verifies your account double click the Twitter icon to start TweetMyPc.

Simply go to your Twitter board and type “Shutdown”, “Restart” or “Logoff” to perform these actions.

TweetMyPC checks for new tweets every 1 minute.

Load Youtube Videos Without Ads and Comments

Umar — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 12:10:58 +0000

I have a few friends who likes to go to their village once a month and never really enjoy internet there. It’s probably because they don’t get to surf the way they do back in town. Since they have slow speed internet connections over there they try to find alternatives to complete their undone work easily.

Keeping that in mind I decided to help them and look for useful online services so that they can browse through things quickly. Then I stumbled upon Quietube. An excellent web service which allows you to watch Youtube videos without displaying all the comments and advertisements.

It simply plays the video for you and does nothing else. To make full use of this service you can drag their “Quietube” button to your browser’s bookmarks bar and whenever you’re on any Youtube page, click the button and it will redirect you to a new Quietube page with the video embedded without any crap.

This way the video loads faster than usual and removes all the annoying ads you don’t wanna see.