No really there are people that watch and wait for this kind of stuff that terrorizes others! Remember the movie Twister?

But I digress…

So with Stormpulse, you can stay on top of and up to date with the latest storms forming over the Atlantic ocean. You will be able to find out all sorts of interesting information on the many tropical storms and hurricanes that threaten the US coast.

You’ll see loads of information on them, like the wind speed, category, pressure, movement, with beautiful graphics to keep the laymen entertained. You can watch where the storm will be moving by 6 and 12 hour intervals.

Check out all this information that you can populate on your map:

Check out the full screen mode. This makes the site a highly interactive way for you to get your weather updates. They even update on what the Hurricane Center is saying about these storms.

Now I am far from being an expert on these matters but I think this site puts some amazing resources at any novices fingertips. By letting everyone keep up with what’s going on maybe we can help prevent storms from sneaking up on people.  Probably not but hey we can hope right?!

This has been a Make Use Of Public Service Announcement!

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The other day I decided to merge some of the “avi” files into one big “avi” file so they can be played continuously.   Video file merging can be done easily and quickly with a piece of free open source software called VirtualDub.

VirtualDub is the video equivalent of Audacity.   You can use it to edit your video files any way you want them - you can merge the video files, split them, save the source audio, capture screenshots, fix the colouring in the video footage and much more.

It’s worth taking some time to explore VirtualDub in depth if you’re serious about video footage editing.  I use VirtualDub, for example, to edit my videos after filming on my video camera.  Today I am going to show you how to merge two or more video files together.   Next time I will show you how to split video files into separate files which is also an extremely handy skill to practice.

Please note that the video files in question HAVE to be “avi” files.

When you have opened VirtualDub, go to File–>Open Video File.

Now upload the first “avi” file you want to have in your new video file.

Next, go to File–>Append AVI segment :

Now upload the second “avi” file you want to have in your new video file.

If you have more than 2 files, continue to return to File–>Append AVI segment and attach as many files as you want.   Watch the size of the new file though!   Don’t let it get too big!

When you have attached all the files together into one big new file,the next step is to go to Video–>Direct Stream Copy.   If you don’t choose this option and go for the default “Full Processing Mode”, you’ll be waiting for ever for your new file to be made.  A DSC on the other hand will be made for you in less than 60 seconds (often a lot less) :

Finally, go to File–>Save Segmented AVI to save your work to your computer :

Put in a new name for your new combined file and then VirtualDub will get to work, merging all the files into one big one for you.

Once it’s finished, test it and you’ll see that the merging was so good, you don’t even see any disturbance in the picture where one file ended and another began!    There will be the odd occasion though when the sound may get out of sync a little but some advanced users may be able to quickly fix that problem.   I am not knowledgable enough to be able to fix sound synchronisation problems.

VirtualDub is an amazing piece of free software.   Along with Audacity, you have all you need to edit and put together video and audio on your computer - without any of it costing you a single penny.   I highly recommend you download this app to your computer and take the time to go through it.

What other pieces of video editing software do you like to use?   Anything that gives VirtualDub a run for its money?

(By) (By) Mark O'Neill is a blogger, professional freelance writer and the editor of Make Use Of. Check out his personal blog at BetterThanTherapy.net

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One of my least favorite kinds of iPhone App is the “web clone.”  Typically these are little more than a mobile version of a web page kept within the skin of a downloadable App.  The premise of a web clone is that encapsulating the website in the App will make it more convenient to the user.  In reality, most of them exist because the owner of the web service (whether it be a site, a bank, or a social network) is too lazy to code up a “real” App but wants to benefit from the publicity of the App Store. On the other hand, there are a few exceptions to the rule.  This week’s App appears to be a web clone of Wikipedia, but as it turns out, the developers did a great job and found new ways to navigate the site.

Wikipanion (iTunes Link) is an impressive App for browsing Wikipedia.  To illustrate its many features, let’s pretend we need to look up what a “blog” is.  First, the search function:

It’s a fairly unsurprising search bar, but I was impressed with the suggestions that popped up as I typed.  The auto-populated results are so good that you’ll usually get out of typing your whole query.  After selecting a search topic you’ll get an article pane:

One of the things that’s nice about the article pane is that as long as you stay within the Wikipedia domain, you won’t leave the App (and consequently have to juggle Safari as well).  Instead, internal links stay in the pane you’re viewing.  If you want multiple articles open, you’ll probably need to switch to Safari, but for general reference it’s quite sufficient.

Also, notice that the App supports horizontal viewing.  This is kind of a no-brainer, but many Apps leave it out.

The buttons along the bottom are very handy in Wikipanion.  They appear to be the same ones found in Safari, but their functions are quite different.  The “bookmark” button actually opens up the table of contents.  Longer articles (like this one on blogs) have significantly lengthy subsections and manually scrolling to the one you want can be a chore.  I suggest definitely looking at the table of contents [seen below to the left] whenever you get to a new article.

External links have been grouped together in a similar way.  Clicking the “send to” button (usually used to copy a link to email) will open up the external links [seen above at the right] that are normally found at the bottom of a Wikipedia article.

I’m guessing that the developer used these icons because they are already part of the iPhone SDK.  They’re logical enough, but I fear someone who didn’t have the benefit of a wonderful article like this one (I joke) might not discover them immediately.  Hopefully the next version of Wikipanion will use icons distinct from those of Safari.

Wikipanion really gives the entire experience of using Wikipedia on a mobile platform.  Right now there is no editing function, but I think most users will find this acceptable.  Editing a wiki page with all of the necessary syntax should really be done carefully.  A tiny keyboard where mistakes are easily made might be the wrong environment for a Wikipedia contributor.  Feel free to debate this in the comments.

Despite the fact that this is, in some sense, a “walled garden” because you can’t do more than view anything, this is a solid App and it’ll be sitting on my Home screen for quite a while to come.

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As always, let us know what YOU think.  There must be other Wikipedia Apps out there.  Any you like better?   What do you use to get your reference fix on the iPhone?

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

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I’m sure you have heard a lot about Google Chrome already. If you haven’t tried it yet, keep reading because I have tried it for you, and I will summarize everything you should be aware of.

Alright, did we really need another browser?
Maybe. Google’s approach was to analyze existing technology and then make it better. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

The comic strip that introduces the ideas and technology behind the browser states that developers started from scratch. The point was to create a browser compatible with the internet of today, rather than that of decades ago, when browsers were invented.

Again, Google did not re-invent the wheel, but it may be pushing it forward a great deal.

Cool, so how is it better?
Chrome comes with a lot of promises: stability, speed, security, efficiency, and open source. Frankly, those aren’t new. Neither is most of the technology Google applies. But the combination they chose is very powerful. Let’s have a quick look at the (superficial) technical details:

1. Multiple Processes
Each tab is treated as a single process within Chrome, much like programs within an operating system. Hence you can continue working at full capacity while a busy website in one tab recovers. Should the tab freeze or crash, it’s an isolated event that doesn’t affect any of the other tabs, or the browser as a whole.

2. Task Manager
Chrome has its own Task manager accessible via >Control >Developer or [Shift] + [Esc]. The Task manager reveals which tabs or plugins are running and what they’re doing. If a process is taking up too much memory, you can close it via that Task manager.

3. Webkit
Google applied the rendering engine Webkit (Safari) rather than Gecko (Mozilla).

4. V8 Javascript Virtual Machine
For Chrome, Google developed their own virtual machine.

5. Tab Design
The tabs sit at the top of the browser window, thus all the controls below, including the “URL box” (Omnibox), are individual for each tab.

6. Omnibox
When you start typing into the box, it will suggest links based on what sites you have visited before or what’s popular on Google. You can enter both URLs and search terms, the latter will launch a Google search per default. You can select another search engine under >Customize and control >Options >Basics.

7. New Tab Page
When you open a new tab, it won’t be blank. New tabs show the most visited sites and the pages you search on most.

8. Incognito Surfing
When opening an incognito window, Chrome switches to privacy or read-only mode. No history or cookies will be saved.

9. Sandboxing
Chrome rigorously restricts the rights of processes running in each tab. Each tab acts as a jail within which applications can compute, but they can not write or read files outside the tab.

10. Phishing Protection
With its computing power Google collects lists of harmful websites, so it can warn its users as soon as possible in case they’re about to access such a page.

11. Open Source
All of these “inventions” are free to copy.

Benchmarks show that Chrome is considerably faster than any other popular browser on the market right now, including Firefox 3.0.1 and IE 8.0 Beta 2.

Sounds great. Now spill the beans! What about issues?
They sure exist. After the first majorly excited hype, criticism emerges from all ends.

1. Bugs
As Apple’s Safari browser, Chrome is based on Webkit. While Safari was shipped with the latest release of Webkit in June, Chrome is still using the previous version. And believe it or not, Chrome was released with a security hole that was well known and fixed in Safari months ago. Embarrassing. Did Google feel pressured to release Chrome quickly or why did that happen?

2. Security
Even though everything inside Chrome is sandboxed, scripts can be annoying. However, in Chrome there is no way to turn Java and Javascript off or allow only specific websites to use it.

3. Stability
It’s not as stable as they claim. Already, websites are poking out that prove how easily the whole browser can be crashed, like this one (don’t worry, this link can be visited safely). It’s enough to move the cursor over the demo link and the browser will crash. Scary. How is this possible? The site explains it.

But try to click the link inside Firefox, all you will see is a harmless popup explaining that Firefox doesn’t know how to open this address.

4. Extensions
They don’t exist. Yet. And personally, I find many of my Firefox extensions indispensable. Ok, I don’t expect Chrome to import them, but there needs to be compensation. At least it’s possible to restore a previous session and it doesn’t matter whether Chrome crashed or was shut down normally. There is some customization possible under >Customize and control >Options >Basics.

5. Privacy
And here we have arrived at the one issue Google is not going to fix because it’s not in their interest. The question is, how much do you care? Does it bother you that the user agreement gives them ownership to anything you create or upload through their browser? OK, apparently that part simply slipped through and will be removed.

But there is more. Each browser installation receives a unique identification number, hence single users can easily be identified. Of course Google saves all your browsing habits in order to give good recommendations. Based on that information, Google will certainly tune its ads to perfectly match your interests. Are you still not bothered or are you that ignorant?

Whoa! Ok fine, call me ignorant, but what’s your conclusion to all of this?
It’s the very first release of Chrome, it’s in beta. They will probably find many more bugs, it’s normal. And Google will try to play nice on the privacy issue. Maybe they mean it, maybe not. Nevertheless, Google did a very thorough and probably a pretty good job. The marketing and time point they chose certainly is ingenious.

But honestly, their claim that they have built a browser to make the internet a whole lot better, I don’t buy it. They have built a browser to improve the user experience within the part of the internet they are owning, at least in the long run. However, as long as Chrome remains Open Source, I’m not seriously scared that Google will become evil and limit access to their applications depending on what browser you are using, i.e. turning to the sort of tactics Microsoft is often accused of.

I found an interesting post exploring the idea that Google’s Chrome is aimed at Windows, not IE (or Mozilla). With all that is happening inside the internet at the moment, I dare to mention it again: cloud computing, may well be true.

Taken together I recommend that you try Chrome. It’s cool, it’s different, it’s fast, and you should know what others are talking about. But switching? Not yet. Maybe not ever. What do you think?

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(By) Tina is a regular MUO author. In her offline life she's a PhD student interested in unraveling signaling events that determine cartilage and bone development.

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But what about writers? What options do they have? Mac’s word processors are always identical to the low profile TextEdit or the heavy duty MS Word or Open Office. There’s also previously mentioned Lyx, but neither of these are built specifically for writers.

As a self-proclaimed writer myself, I constantly looking for the ultimate ‘creative writing’ tool. These four are the best free options that I’ve found so far. And with NaNoWriMo closing in, you definitely could need some help in the writing department.

Babbling With Bean

Along comes the Bean (not the British comedy movie) - a simple yet comfortable writing environment. Bean is a little bit more powerful than TextEdit while a lot more uncluttered than those ‘powerhouse’ word processors.

At the beginning, Bean was built to accommodate the creative writing hobby of the app creator. But it is not limited only to that. Just like TextEdit, Bean also could be used for general text editing purposes from quick jot of phone number and to do list to creating web page and writing programming code.

To taste the Bean, just download the latest version of this app. It’s free.

Everything that you need to write a standard document is here, and more. To make your writing life easier, open the Inspector window. Bean also supports a full screen writing environment and alternative background and font colors.

Beside the default RTF (Rich Text Format), you can save the file as RTFD, TXT, DOC, XML, and also Webarchive. There’s another option of exporting the document as HTML, PDF, RTF and DOC.

The Jer is in the Hut

There’s Jabba and there’s pizza, but this time the Hut belongs to Jer. If you’re into writing more than other common word processor users, maybe you should take a look at Jer’s Novel Writer. This ‘free for personal use’ application - with a little ‘donating reminder’ every now and then - will help any creative writer organize their disorganized ideas.

The app will give you a two-pane display - the main writing area and a small area on the left where you could put some tiny notes related to your writing. There’s also a collapsible right sidebar drawer with three tabs to make your writing life even easier: Outline, Database, and Notes.

The how-tos of Jer’s Novel Writer can be a little confusing for first time users, but there’s a quick tutorial to help you which will start the first time this application is opened. Be sure to check it out.

CopyWrite your Copies

The third candidate is CopyWrite. This one is the first creative writing application I stumbled upon and - to me - the easiest to use. This one could be used and downloaded for free but with limitations: five documents per project maximum, and without an exporting capability.

The two-pane mail-style display will give any Mac users a familiar environment to work with. The upper pane will show you the documents of your project (this could be chapters, character data, description of the settings, plots, anything) and below is the content of your selected document.

Just like Jer’s Novel Writer, CopyWrite also has a collapsible right sidebar Notes drawer with two tabs: Document and Project. Any note you write in the ‘Document’ tab will only relate specifically to one document, hence it will only open while that particular document is selected; while any note you write in the ‘Project’ tab can be opened no matter what document is being selected.

Scribbling with Scrivener

Finally, writers with a big writing project - academic writing included - could freely try Scrivener for 30 days. Tiny-project writers (doing one page reports, really short stories, that kind of things), please step back slow and easy. I’m not saying that this app could not be used to write shorties, but looking at the features Scrivener has, it’s like killing an ant with a bazooka.

There’s too much to describe about Scrivener’s features in the writing space I have here, but for a quick introduction, you might as well watch the introduction video. One feature that I like the most is the Corkboard where you could put every bit of your writing and (re)arrange them as needed.

I’ve barely scratched the surface here. To find out the details about each app, please try them out yourself. If you want to have a longer list of writing tools available to find out which one suits you best - because every writer has their own unique working style - “Literature and Latte” has already made a list available here.  Or search on Make Use Of in our Mac section, our writing section, or use our search engine.

Now, the only thing left to do is start writing those best sellers. Good luck!

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(By) Jeffry Thurana is a blogaholic who has just started his own self-improvement journal "Supersubconscious" and manages an Indonesian tech blog “InterNeTips“. He actually thinks there are 30 hours everyday.

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We travel afar to the mythical world of Chantra, the world where the Archlord rules and mystical battles are being fought on a daily basis. Humans, Orcs and Moon Elves rule the land. This is a cruel world, where everyday matters are decided by the steel of swords and the blood masking the grass. Fierce elemental beings walk the earth and mysterious quests are waiting to be solved.

There’s one question that lies on everybody’s lips; who will be the next Archlord? Who will prove worthy? The gallery of heroes can never be long enough. Chantra is in need of those ‘ordinary heroes’. People like you.

About Archlord

Archlord is an MMORPG by NHN Games Corporation and Codemasters. The game was also featured in the movie BenX, about an autistic boy escaping into the virtual world. You might know the guys at Codemasters from other good games like Overlord, The Lord of the Rings Online and Sensible Soccer. There is one major difference, though. Since the 18th of August, Archlord (together with all of its expansions) was released as a free download.

The Chantra Shop

Archlord gets its money from the game’s ‘Chantra Shop’; a place to buy exclusive in-game items with ‘Chantra Credits’, funded by your (dad’s) credit card. In short, you can play Archlord without paying a penny (or cent), but you might miss out on some exclusive pieces of armour.

Gameplay

There are basically two ways to play Archlord; solving quests and getting into the Archlord System. The quest solving is pretty much self explanatory. There are tons and tons of quests, widely differing in their length and difficulty. This is a more solo-aimed play, though you can team up with other players to beat that impossible village boss.

The Archlord System

The Archlord System is a bit more complicated. As you may know from the intro, Chantra is ruled by an almighty Archlord. This is one player per server (there are three in total), with exclusive powers. The Archlord has the ability to choose between night and day, rain and sunshine on the entire server. He has a personal guard and can summon powerful monsters to protect him or fight by his side.

To become the Archlord, you first need to become the head of a guild and train your ass off. When you and your guild are strong enough, you can participate in a castle raid. In this raid, you have a defending and an attacking guild. The goal of the defending guild is to defeat the attackers, or at least try to hold them off as long as possible. The attacking guild, on the other hand, needs to attack and claim the castle. A detailed guide of how this goes into work can be found here.

When you’ve obtained the castle, you need to perform a siege on the current Archlord’s fortress; The Rensphere Castle. You join this ‘run’ against the guilds of the two other castles. The goal is to fight off the monsters and each other and be the first to challenge the Archlord’s right hand; Dikan, The Dark Lord of Chaos. When defeated, you will be crowned the new Archlord.

Roundup

The game looks great, sounds great (the original soundtrack was composed by the London Symphonic Orchestra) and the playing environment is simply huge. I have played the game for a few weeks, and I haven’t even been in half of the possible places. If you were to walk from one side to another, you’d literally lose a day, so you’ll be happy to see the (pricey) teleport gates they’ve put in the game.

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Download

Archlord is freely available. The 1.3 GB download (featuring all expansion packs) can be found here. Enjoy!

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(By) Simon is a student from Belgium who wastes his time relaxing, gaming and surfing the net. He would tell you to check out his blog, only he doesn't have one (yet)!

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(1) BackType - Helps users find, follow and share blog comments from across the web. There are two things you can do here: search through blog comments from all over the web and track comments left by individual people. It can also collect all your comments on different blogs and websites at one place, automatically. Read more: BackType - Search and Follow Blog Comments.

(2) dukaDIAL - Make free landline calls within North America (USA and Canada). Although you will need a PC to initiate the call, you will be talking using your regular landline phone. Quick and easy. Read more: dukaDIAL - Make Free Landline Calls within US and Canada.

(3) FileSavr - Free file hosting website that lets you upload, host and share large files online for free. FileSavr gives you a whopping 10 GB file size limit allowing you to upload and share pretty much any file out there. Read more: FileSavr - Easy Large File Hosting & Sharing.

(4) iimmgg - Yet another website that lets you host and share your images online. You can host as many images as you like, without any restrictions on the file type, size or bandwidth usage. Read more: iimmgg - Host and Share your Images Online.

(5) LCD - Got a stuck pixel or LCD burn on your monitor? Check out LCD pixel fixer, this online app can help you find and fix stuck pixels and LCD burns on your monitor. Read more: LCD - Fix Stuck Pixels and LCD Burns.

(6) MixTurtle - Fast music search engine with a clean interface. Search for tracks, artists or music albums of your choice. It also has the auto-discover feature and as you start typing, it starts suggesting your probable results in a drop down list. Read more: Mix Turtle - Fast And Easy To Use Music Search Engine.

(7) QuarkBase - Comprehensive website check tool which claims to find everything about a website. See domain owner, date when the site was created, Alexa and Technorati ranks, social media reach of the site like in Digg, Delicious and others, similar sites, etc. Read more: QuarkBase - Get Almost Every Information About A Website.

(8) Shrinkfile - Online file zipper utility for those who don’t have WinZip or WinRaR installed and need to compress a big file and send it across to someone. Read more: ShrinkFile - Free Online File Zipper.

(9) SimplyChecklists - Useful website that aggregates and offers lots of detailed checklists for everyday life - everything from checklists for moving and newborn babies to college and wedding. Read more: SimplyChecklists - Free Checklists for Everyday Life.

(10) Zapproved - Free web based decision making tool which aims to make taking decisions and arriving at a consensus within a group of people easier and faster. Read more: Zapproved - Online Decision Making Tool.

These are just half of the applications that were added to our directory in the last 3-4 days. To keep up-to-date on all directory additions subscribe to MakeUseOf Directory here. To subscribe via email click here.

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There are several good website traffic analytics tools out there, and the most popular today is probably Google Analytics. The other day I came across another alternative called BLVD Status. BLVD Status is currently in public beta, but it does provide a good service even at this stage. It comes with the basic analytic tools you would expect and adds Digg tracking to that mix. This analytics tool also brings with it live traffic stats which is very cool.

Let’s take a deeper look at what BLVD Status has to offer.

Installation

The installation of BLVD Status is fairly easy.  You must first add the domain or domains that you want to track to your BLVD Status account.  Once this is done, you are provided with a snippet of HTML code that you need to add to the pages you want to track.  That’s it.  It only took me about 10 minutes to completely set up my BLVD Status account.

Avenues

Avenues is just BLVD’s fancy way of saying statistics.  They may have a reason behind it, because the first thing you will notice about the Avenues screen is its unique set up.  The page has six different windows on it that display a summary of all the major statistical categories.  The statistical areas tracked are referrers, foot traffic, search keywords, conversions, outgoing links and site URLs.

One nice little feature is that you can rearrange these windows to your liking.  Each window has at least a couple tabs that will give you more summary information.  For example, the foot traffic window allows you to look at yearly, monthly, weekly or daily traffic stats.

This summary information is great, but you are going to need to find out more information than that in order to effectively track your websites. In order to do so, you can click where it says “In Depth” at the bottom right of each window. This will take you to a new window that contains much more information about each category. Once in this new area, you will be able to tab through each of your categories to view the more in depth statistics for each category.

Conversions

Goal setting can be a great way to keep you motivated, and BLVD Status allows you to set up some campaigns and conversions that will track your progress towards the goals you set. Right now, there are only two types of goals to set. You can use a simple URL trigger or a parameterized URL trigger.  The simple URL trigger will track when a visitor gets referred from a specific URL, the visitor visits the URL or the visitor leaves a page to visit the URL.

The parameterized URL trigger will track the same type of stats, but it just uses a slightly different method to obtain the same information.

Digg Tracking

Digg tracking is definitely a unique feature to BLVD Status. This feature allows you to see where the people that Dugg your website or post came from.  BLVD Status makes this easy, as they provide you with the code necessary to add a Digg button to your websites or posts.  Using this button in conjunction with the BLVD Status tracking script will allow you to learn more about the people Digging your posts.

Shortcomings

The one thing that was missing stuck out like a sore thumb.  Where are the graphs?  I am a very visual person, and the graphs that Google Analytics makes are extremely helpful to me.  Also, a few more conversion options, and a more simple way to set up those conversions would definitely be a plus.

Conclusion

Overall, BLVD Status may not replace your preferred analytics tool right now, but remember that it is still in beta. I am definitely going to keep an eye on this tool as it gets more features, it shows some promise.

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(By) Kyle Judkins is a 24 year old marketer and part-time tech blogger.  He is the author of LostInTechnology where he talks about some basic technology tips and tricks that everyone can use.

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AskTheAdmin here again with another free tool that I can’t live without. As TheAdmiN I have literally over 10,000 servers in production. Most of them are on the same corporate open license program and have the same serial number and need no activation. BUT there are more than a few machines that are not owned by my company and were installed, configured and shipped to us as-is.

When one of these machines crash or are about to fail there is little I can do other than call the respective company’s support staff. I hate relying on other people!

Now perhaps I need to build a quick replacement for one of these machines - say a label printing machine on loan from UPS or in your case maybe your home file server. Now if you don’t have the serial (aka product key) number for reinstalling - it is going to be a real… pardon my French… BITCH!

If the machine is still up and running and you have access to it you can install a tiny program that will give you the serial numbers for installed Microsoft Products including Vista, XP, 2000 and any office suite right up to our current 2007 offering.

It is free, totally safe and something that lives on my memory stick (it’s a portable app). Let’s take a look at how it works.

You can download it securely from SourceForge here. and the main site for it is over here.

No need to install it - just run the ‘exe’ from inside the zip file and it will return a screen that looks similar to this:

Your products will be displayed and there are the corresponding serial keys! Sweet! You will notice off the tools menu an option that looks like this:

It will let you change the registered user name for Windows or Office. Very handy.

When researching the newest version of this tool for my article (I was using a 2 year old version) I found this little chunk of information which made me smile:

It also has a community-updated configuration file that retrieves product keys for many other applications.

So it not only works for M$ applications but through a little forum magic you can make it work with almost anything that stores its password information in the registry! Double Sweet.

And then as if that wasn’t enough I continued reading and saw this:

Another feature is the ability to retrieve product keys from unbootable Windows installations.

Unbootable Windows Installations? This is a straight up life saver! Who knew I could like my little Magical JellyBean App any more! Just do yourself a favor and NOT tell people what it is called! Unless you are prepared for STRANGE and Dirty Looks!

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(By) Karl L. Gechlik is a superhero of the IT industry who wears many hats and changes in telephone booths. Karl mostly uses his powers for good and the occasional hysterical prank. Get your geek on & follow his geeky antics at the NEW AskTheAdmin.com today. Stop by and see what we are all about and for your chance to win a HP ULTRA SLIM DESKTOP for free!

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Cuckoo

This little birdie chimes once every hour to remind you that, um the next hour is beginning? If you are into that sort of thing, purchase the license ($6) and it’ll chime the number of the hour instead of just once an hour. Wow. Impressive.

It’s way cheaper than buying an actual cuckoo clock anyway.

Offshoots

Got green fingers or love plants? Offshoots animates your desktop with growing branches and leaves. They grow from all directions and supposedly follows your mouse cursor. Not to mention, they’re very pretty to look at, and serene too. They can grow on a solid colour desktop or above your current wallpaper. You can also use it as a screensaver!

Everything is customizable, from the number of branches to the size of the leaves to the curliness of the branches.

iCursor

Getting bored of the regular, black Mac mouse cursor? Why do Windows users get to have all the fun with customizable cursors? Now you can have some cursor-fun too! iCursor adds particle animations to your cursor trails. Have stars shoot out from the end of your cursor or set it on fire. There are almost 20 different animations to choose from and you can customize each one to your liking.

Hah. Who needs them pretty cursors?

HeartMonitor

This application places a heart right on your desktop. It beats faster or slower according to your computer’s CPU usage. Turn on the sound and it gets kind of realistic. It even made me slightly worried when my CPU usage increased while I was running some CPU-intensive programs.

Forget iStat Menus or MenuMeters. This is all you need.

EvilMac

Turn your Mac evil. Not literally, of course. Not even close, actually. All this app does to turn my Mac evil is invert the colours. You could do the same thing by invoking Cmd-Opt-Ctrl-8. But watch your friends’ faces when you start this application. It’s even funnier when they accidentally start it themselves. They might even panic a bit!

Hide Folders

Have you ever wanted to hide certain files from view? Well, there’s the long method. And then there’s Hide Folders. Launch the app and simply drag anything you’d like to hide into it. And boom! The files are gone! It also allows you to add a password which needs to be entered before the files can be revealed.

This application might actually turn out to be useful. Wait a minute. How’d that happen?

BinClocken

Binary clocks have never made much sense to me. Why make something as simple as time so difficult to read? But once I learnt the basics to deciphering time on binary clocks, it turned out to be quite fun. They’re still quite enigmatic if your friends have no idea what they’re staring at.

BinClocken’s LED and background are customizable and there’re quite a few to choose from. Also, you can set its window level to normal, float or stay put on the desktop. It’s not too big until being obtrusive, neither is it too small to be read.

Snowflakes and XMasLights

Have you been feeling Christmassy? Winter is still a while away. You can have it start a little earlier on your desktop, though. Snowflakes superimpose falling snowflakes above your windows.

XMasLights adds a little holiday cheer on the side (or rather, at the top) with some blinking lights right below your menu bar! Turn this one on, especially XMasLights and you’ll be surprised how much you’ll be in the mood to party.

Sometimes life is too short to always be productive or efficient. Relive the child in you, have some fun and feel younger!

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(By) Jackson Chung is a full-time medical student attempting to perform a juggling act with relationship, studies and his future.

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A lot of people complain about Google but you have to give them credit, their search functions are some of the best around right now. So, since there’s so much that you can do with Google Search, I decided to share a few shortcuts with you that I’m sure will come in handy.

Package Tracking

When tracking packages, most people head straight to the shipping site such as FedEx, UPS, or USPS to see details. But did you know that now you can enter tracking numbers right into the Google search box?

First you’ll need the tracking number of your order, which you can get from the actual site/company that you ordered from. Second you’ll need to know how it’s being shipped (via FedEx, UPS, or USPS). That’s it.

If your package is being shipped by FedEx, you would enter “fedex 121212121212” into the Google search box. If your package is being shipped by UPS, you would enter “ups 121212121212” into the Google search box. If your package is being shipped by USPS, you would enter “usps 121212121212” into the Google search box. Of course, in all three cases you would use your actual tracking number in place of “121212121212″.

Below I’ve entered the tracking number of a USPS order I want to track. If the tracking number is valid, you’ll see an image of a package show up with a link to view the tracking information for your order. Clicking on it will then take you to the site (in this case USPS) in order to see the full details.

Flight Tracking

You can look up information on any flight by simply typing the airline name or code followed by a space and flight number into the Google search box.

Below I’ve entered the name of an airline and the flight number that I’d like information on. If the flight information you enter is valid, you’ll see an image of an airplane along with brief stats of the flight. You’re also given a link that you can click on to see more detailed information from the actual site the stats were taken from.

Calculations & Conversions

Do you often find yourself reaching for a calculator to figure out simple calculations? I don’t know about you but I do not keep a calculator handy and I often go through at least 3 steps to open up the Windows calculator. Well there’s no need to do either when you have Google handy.

To use Google’s built-in calculator functions, you simply enter the calculations that you’d like solved right in the search box. You can even do more advanced math functions such as geometry and trigonometry. If you don’t remember what all the advanced math functions are don’t worry about it, there’s a very handy Google Quick Reference Cheat Sheet that you can use. This Cheat Sheet shows you all of the things that you can type into the Google Search Box in order to calculate basic or advanced math functions.

The Cheat Sheets also has a list of Units of Measures and Conversions that can be used to converts units and currency. In order to calculate conversions you would type in things like: three quarters of a cup in teaspoons; 130 lbs in kg; 65 mph in kph; 1500 in hex; 64 in binary; etc.

Weather

Finding out the weather in Google is pretty easy. You simply type the word “weather” followed by the city and state, zip code, or city and country. So, below I searched for the weather in Fort Riley, Kansas and Google gave me the current weather along with a forecast for the next 4 days.

Time

If you have family or friends in other parts of the world, you can easily find out what time it is in their area. You simply type the word “time” followed by the name of the city or country and Google will show you the time, day, and time zone for that location. Personally, this really comes in handy for me since I have a husband that will be deployed soon and all of my family and friends are in 2 different time zones from myself.

Dictionary

This is definitely something that comes in handy for me a lot as well. You can see the definition for any word or phrase by simply typing “definition” followed by a space and then the actual word(s) that you wanted defined. If you want to see a list of definitions from various resources across the Web, type “define:” followed by a space and the word(s). As you can see below, you’re given multiple definitions along with the website from where they were taken from.

Movies

Google allows you to quickly find show times for movies playing in your area. You can do this by simply typing in the word “movies” or the film title followed by your zip code in the Google search box. You will then get a list of up to two theaters; if there are more than two theaters listed, you can click the “More theaters” link to see the rest. This is definitely a lot quicker and more convenient than calling the theater and listening to a 5 minute lineup - especially if the movie you want to see is at the end of the lineup.

UPC Codes

This is definitely one of the more unique Google Search shortcuts that I’ve seen. You can find information about any item by simply typing in the UPC Code of the item into the Google search box. If you don’t know, the UPC Code for an item appears at the bottom of the item’s bar code.

Below I’ve entered the UPC Code of a random item I found in my house. If the UPC Code you enter is valid, you’ll see an image of a bar code along with a link to view more information about the item.

Phone Book & Residential Listings

If you need to look up a US residence phone number or address you can do that as well. Simply enter the person’s name along with a city, state, or zip code in the Google search box. If that person is listed in the phone book, you’ll see an image of a telephone along with their name, phone number and address. Google lists up to three matching results for you to see; to see more, simply click on the “Phone book results for” link. Google also gives you the option to see a residential map for that person.

So, as you can see, Google really makes a lot of useful functions easier and more convenient. Do you know of any other cool Google Search shortcuts? If so, feel free to share by posting them in the comments.

Charnita is a social media addict & Internet junkie. She blogs about internet & blog tools, website & blog promotion, web 2.0 & social media at her Social Web Tools blog.

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The problem with that is when you are through with the page you have to close or minimze the browser and go back to your presentation. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a way to open a browser right in the slide and you didn’t have to leave your presentation?

As it turns out there is! LiveWeb will do just that and it comes in varieties that will work with every version of PowerPoint from PowerPoint 97 up to and including PowerPoint 2007. Oh and by the way, it’s also free! (It does require however that PowerPoint be on the presenting machine. The free PowerPoint viewer will not work).

You need to download and unzip a small file which contains a ‘ppa’ file (PowerPoint addin). Follow the easy to do directions and the addin is installed. One gotcha, though. Make sure that you disable macro security first or it won’t install. To do that, open PowerPoint, go to “Tools”, then “Options” and click on “Macro Security”. Then select “medium” or “Low”. Then finish the installation and you are good to go.

The way you use it is simple. Just start building your PowerPoint as you normally would do. When you get to where you want a web page, go to “Insert” and select “Web Page” from the drop down menu. An easy to follow wizard will take you through the process or you can do it manually. You can also decide whether you want the slide to be dynamic or static. In other words, each time you run the presentataion the addin can go and get the current web site or it can use the same static page.

When you are finished a new slide appears that you can modify or not. You may want to add a slide title, navigation buttons or other things that you might normally do. When you run the presentation and get to the slide you set up, a browser opens up right in the slide that displays the web site.

Here is how our favorite blog appears in a PowerPoint slide:

This has really helped my PowerPoint presentations move along quicker and I sure couldn’t complain about the price!

I am always on the lookout for cool PowerPoint freebies, so let me know what you have discovered…

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(By) (By) Jerry Kidd is a California Real Estate Broker, blogger, educator and author of http://RealtyTechBytes.com

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So here is a piece of the Internet that actually helps you solve math problems. Nope its not a calculator and you don’t even need to know the formulae. All you need to solve a problem is the “Problem Statemen