With the dawn of digital cameras and the ever increasing capacity of storage, the world of photography enters the era of abundance. Anybody can shoot as many pictures as they want to, as long as they still have room in their hard drives and/or memory cards.

With today’s limit set at terabytes, you can literary store millions of photos. Our problem now is not choosing what to shoot, but how to organize the photos afterward.

For most amateur photographers, the term “organizing photos” goes as far as collecting them into albums based on events, or maybe by the people in the images. While grouping photos chronologically by events is often done easily and automatically every time you move the photos from the camera to computer, sorting photos based on the people in each picture is not as easy as it sounds. Especially if you have to do it manually.

Recognizing the faces

The mundane task of how to organize photos can now be done easily and almost automatically using iPhoto. This photo management application that comes with iLife suite offers its users the ability to assign names to faces and organize the pictures based on the person in the photos.

This feature is called Faces. And using it, users can click and open every photo that contain a specific person in all of them.
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There’s nothing better than someone actually believing that an article from The Onion is real. Just email a friend a link to one of their satirical stories and if they haven’t heard of the site or are just not paying attention, they may very well fall for it.

People will catch on, however (well, hopefully). You could try searching for similar parody sources in our Top 10 Websites for Fake News & Satire, but it eventually becomes a prank that can only be pulled on easy targets like your grandparents or technologically unsavvy parents.

How about a way to create your own fake news prank headlines? With the ability to add a little personal touch by customizing names and stories, you can make your article more believable or outrageous with fake news story generators. Here’s the three best ones.

WasArrested

WasArrested is one of the best websites to create your own fake news prank story. It’s very simple and quick to do. Start off by typing in the victim’s name, city, and gender.

Then comes the fun part of choosing which story you want. You can select anything from “Has Sex With Sheep” to “Drinks From The Toilet.” If you don’t see a story you like, you can write one up yourself and even upload an image to go along with the article.
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If you have a desk job like I do, and are as fond of food as I am, you really must be having tough time dealing with all the (unwanted) calories. I know I do.

Working as a code churner by day and a writer by night hardly leaves me with any time to exercise those (lazy) muscles, so the only other thing that I can do is limit the number of calories I take in.

That, as you all know, is easier said than done. For example, how are you going to stop yourself from eating that Big Mac (with extra cheese!) for lunch or the Chicken Tikka Masala with Cheese Naan for dinner unless you know how many calories it has before ordering it. Nothing better to lose your appetite than a guilt trip!

That is exactly what Lose It! will help you with.

Lose It! is an iPhone calorie intake calculator that acts as your personal guilt trip service by telling you exactly how many calories each of your meals has and how much you need to exercise to reach your weight loss goals.
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Check out some of the latest MakeUseOf discoveries. All listed websites are FREE (or come with a decent free account option). No trials or buy-to-use craplets. For more cool websites and web app reviews subscribe to MakeUseOf Directory.

(1) ScheduleGenerator – Online class schedule maker tool that lets you quickly generate class schedules online. The application is simple and straightforward, just enter your data such as class names, locations and times, and click on ‘Generate’ button. ScheduleGenerator will then open up a new tab containing a ready to print schedule. Read more: ScheduleGenerator – Class Schedule Maker

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Within my last post I mentioned that deleted eMails can be recovered in Thunderbird, even if the Trash can was emptied. The only prerequisite is, that the incoming folder was not compacted.

Here is the post that will shed light on how to recover deleted emails in Thunderbird. So if you have recently deleted an important eMail and accidentally emptied the Trash, you may still be able to recover it. Just don’t compact your folders, yet!

Before you start, close Thunderbird and best perform a backup. At least make a manual backup of the files you are going to work with!

Open your Thunderbird profile folder. Generally this folder can be found under C:\Documents and Settings\YOUR USER NAME\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles.

By default, the Application Data folder is hidden. To make it visible go to C:\Documents and Settings\YOUR USER NAME\ and click Tools > Folder Options and open the View tab. Scroll down to Hidden files and folders and check Show hidden files and folders. Click OK to save and you should be able to see the Application Data folder.
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Wow, my MP3 collection dating back to 1998 is in a pretty sorry condition. Tags are wrong or missing, song names are missing from the music track, bit rates are wacky.

All of my files come from different locations or methods of ripping, so they are all different. One day, I will have some time on my hands (one day I hope!). With that time, I would fix up and normalize my MP3 collection – why, what would you do with that free time?

So I downloaded an application from Sourceforge called MP3 Diags – a one-stop shop to analyzing and fixing up your MP3 music tracks. Check out the application here. It is a 6.4MB installer which sets up pretty quickly.

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Over the past months, we’ve written quite a few PDF manuals for you, on all kinds of diverging subjects, including BitTorrent, iTunes, iPhone, Twitter, Mac, Linux, Photoshop and several other topics.

Initially available only for subscribers, there are now multiple manuals released every month, for everyone to enjoy. After releasing 15 manuals and nearly half a million downloads we thought it was about time to look back and review what has been published so far.

Enjoy! No sign up need, downloads are free, no strings attached.

Do us a favor by sharing those manuals friends!

1 – Internet Guide for the Movie Addict

Written by Saikat Basu, this entirely free PDF production will show you anything you’ve ever dreamed about knowing related to movies on the web. Whether you want a quick heads-up, are looking for download and streaming possibilities, or even want to fix broken AVI’s — you’ll find it in there!



Original Post | Instant Download | Read Online.

2 – Internet Guidebook for An Audiophile

In fourty pages, Will Mueller from tells you all you need to know about free internet listening to music, streaming audio to your computer, and free download music sites to get all your favorite songs and albums in a whim. Learn how to share music with others and track a band’s performance and album releases!



Original Post | Instant Download | Read Online

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It’s the one comic strip that can make me laugh every time I read it. It’s filled with biting sarcasm about the downfall of the corporate world and a sardonic perspective about life in the world of office cubicles. Of course, I’m talking about the bespectacled cartoon character all geeks around the world love – Dilbert.

I am not ashamed to admit I’m an avid Dilbert cartoon fan. Whenever I get off the phone, frustrated with HR’s lack of cooperation regarding the company sponsored insurance plan, or every time I walk out of an especially meaningless and pointless meeting, I pop open a few Dilbert comics on my browser or mobile phone, and I feel much better.

I’m not sure what it is about Dilbert that makes those of us who suffer through cubicle life feel better. Maybe it’s because it helps us to realize that even though we grudgingly agree to the new idiotic buzz-words passed down from management, and even though we allow ourselves to take part in moronic meeting discussions – we can know that we are not alone. Someone out there understands – and that someone is Dilbert. In honor of the man who brings me out of my cubicle depression each day, I would like to offer 6 of the best sites for Dilbert cartoon comic fans.

First Stop – Dilbert.com

Anyone who follows the Dilbert cartoon comic strip likely already knows that the premier spot on the Internet for Dilbert fans is obviously Dilbert.com. MakeUseOf has highlighted this site for its use of Twitter, and the site feature where you can attempt to mash your own Dilbert cartoon strip. The site offers the popular section that offers the Dilbert strip, the user mashup section and even an animated Dilbert clip. My favorite part of the site is actually Scott Adam’s blog.

His updates are sometimes witty, as you would expect, but he also dives into his own personal career decisions as well as political commentary. It’s a fun read and I encourage any die-hard Dilbert fan out there to follow along with the creator’s blog.

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A few months ago, our dog chewed through the cables for our satellite TV. That’s her in the picture. She also chewed $300 worth of computer cables, but that’s not the point. A few weeks ago, we got sick of not having television, so we bought a D-Link DivX Connected device that allows us to play media content from our laptops on our big TV in high definition wirelessly. It’s pretty cool.

The problem is that our wireless connection would keep dropping for no apparent reason. I would reset the router, reset the wireless adapter on the laptop and reset the DivX device. That would work for awhile and then it would happen again. So I fired up the Xirrus Wireless Wi-Fi Inspector that I wrote about awhile back, and went through troubleshooting my weak wireless connection through that. Turns out I forgot that a lot of my neighbours have the same crappy modem/router combination my ISP assigned me and they all like to talk on the same channel at the same time. Now, I would change the channel on my router manually to one that wasn’t being used.

But the weak wireless connection problem still continues. Sometime I forget that I am a college-trained computer technician. Once I recalled that little tidbit, I started digging into how I could manipulate my wireless adapter to work better, hopefully.

Keep in mind that my wireless adapter is a an Intel device. Yours may differ, however the principles should be the same.
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Nearly all digital cameras these days come with an LCD screen allowing users to instantly review photos as they are taken. This one feature has drastically changed and improved how we take photos. However, an equally useful feature on digital cameras is what is called Live View technology, a feature that allows you to not only view the subject of your shots, but to also get a simulated preview of the exposure before you click the shutter button. The following tips for taking digital photography cover this new feature.

This feature has been a part of most point-and-shoot cameras for quite some time, but many camera users don’t use the feature to its fullest extent. Also, in the last few years, Live View has been built into 35mm DSLR cameras. Latest models of both the Canon and Nikon 35mm cameras feature Live View.

How it Works

With traditional digital cameras, you look through the optical viewfinder at the top of the camera, and compose and take your shot. Then you look on the back of the LCD screen to see how the photo came out. But with Live View, you don’t use the small optical viewfinder. You use the actual LCD screen to frame your photo while at the same time getting a simulated preview of your exposure settings before you take the shot. Many users, however, basically use Live View as the viewfinder and but not for previewing exposure settings. That’s because many users don’t shoot beyond the automatic mode of their camera. The following tips for taking digital photography will guide you through the process of using Live View to it’s fullest capacity.
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