However, I noticed that not too many of my friends nor my family really care to wade through hundreds of pictures, usually the same scene, just a different angle, because it’s boring. That’s where photo slideshows come in handy. You can make yourself look pretty suave by creating fancy slideshows with customized music, titles, and more using some very easy-to-use and free tools.

Here’s a list and a short feature run-down on some of my favorite photo slideshow apps:

(1) Microsoft Photo Story 3

Even though lots of Microsoft software is buggy, they do occasionally come out with some really good software. Microsoft Photo Story is a free way to create video "stories" from your digital pictures by having the ability to add effects, record your own voice/add music tracks, and add titles. You can basically create a small movie that conveys a story in pictures, words and sounds. The program is very intuitive and doesn’t crash, at least on my PC!

Photo Story has lots of built in transitions that you can apply to your pictures, such as panning, zooming, flipping, wiping, etc. It also has the usual set of special effects such as black and white, sepia, or watercolor. The best part of the software, however, is the fact that it makes it super easy to share your super slideshow with anyone. Photo Story automatically compresses your photos and creates a single file that you can then take anywhere. You can have it emailed, saved onto your Smartphone or PocketPC, and lots more.

(2) Google Picasa

Picasa is another free program, from Google this time, that you can use to create slideshows of your digital pictures. With Picasa, however, you cannot export a slideshow out to a single file and share that with others. You can only create and play slideshows of your pictures in Picasa itself. You can use it, however, to create photo screensavers and photo movies on your PC. Photo movies are basically slideshows that you can save out to a video file and email or burn to CD/DVD.

Picasa does not have nearly as many options for configuring your photo video or slideshow as Photo Story does, but it has another cool feature called Templates. Using these templates, you can create beautiful HTML and Flash photo galleries without having to know anything about either! Check out some cool templates here and read this guide on how to install and use Picasa templates.

(3) SmileBox Slideshows

Don’t feel like installing software onto your computer for making slideshows? Check out Smilebox slideshows, a free way to create slideshows online directly in your web browser. You can choose from hundreds of themes for your slideshow, and you can import music, videos, photos, and add text to your slideshow (more like Photo Story in that respect).

Once you’ve created a slideshow, Smilebox makes it a piece of cake to share with others either via email, via your blog, or via regular printed paper. The other nice feature about Smilebox is that you can use it to create Facebook and MySpace slideshows, which can be automatically uploaded without you having to do anything.

(4) PictureTrail

PictureTrail.com probably has the largest collection of cool looking designs and styles for creating a slideshow. I was impressed with the number of different slideshow variations they have on their site. The only problem that I have with PictureTrail is their annoying sign up process. You have to enter in useless information like your birthdate (why do they need it) and you have to click through several ads (you can just click Skip at the bottom) before you get into the main part of the site.

However, once you’re in, the site is fine and does not bombard you with ads or anything like that. They have a good number of options you can configure for your slideshows, including skins, borders, effects like glitter, backgrounds, and captions. Overall, it’s a pretty nice service if you want to create a jazzed up slideshow. Definitely geared more towards the younger crowd.

(5) Slide

I actually like Slide better than PictureTrail because it’s cleaner, has more options, and doesn’t even require you to create an account. Slide allows you to choose files from your computer, lets you search online for pictures, or let’s you import from a whole host of sites like Friendster, Bebo, MySpace, Photobucket, Facebook, Flickr, and more. You can also select multiple files at once to upload from your computer.

On the right hand side, you can change the style, modify the theme, add music and video, change the background, add special effects, change the size of the slideshow window, and even control privacy settings on who can and cannot see your slideshow. You have, of course, several options for sharing your slideshow easily.

Hope this helps put more people’s pictures to use! If you have taken great pictures, why are you the only one to have seen them! Download a slideshow app, create something special, and make someone happy! Enjoy!

(By) This is a guest post by Aseem Kishore, an occasional MakeUseOf contributor and the person behind Online-Tech-Tips.com – a blog that provides useful computer tips in an easy to understand format.

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Here’s my list of some of the popular and most anticipated Web 2.0 sites that are still in private beta, but already have a pretty large following!

	Hulu is probably the one site I’ve heard the most about lately and that looks to have the most promise. Imagine being able to watch any of the most popular TV shows online for free including Heroes, Bones, 24, and the late night shows also! Plus all of the shows are in pretty good quality. It’s video on demand plus video sharing. It will also include shows from Bravo, Sci Fi, Sundance, etc
	Jooce is another very cool looking service that will help bring the desktop to the web, also called a web operating system. Basically, it’ll look just like your local desktop, but all of the processing, software installation, etc will take place on the server, thus freeing your local computer resources. As of right now, they have an IM client, file uploader, file sharing features and a few media players. Eventually, though, it will have photo editing apps, and office suite, and more! Jooce came out of private beat only couple of days ago.
	Adobe Cocomo is are components being developed by Adobe that will allow for real-time collaboration across web apps. If you haven’t played around with Adobe Buzzword, definitely check it out because Cocomo will add cool features to that such as real-time chat while you write documents and a shares real-time whiteboard.
	Lifestrea.ms is a powerful new lifestreaming service from Germany that aggregates all of your inbound and outbound activity online and manages it in one place. Other services like this are Tumblr and FriendFeed. It’s like an RSS reader and a social network rolled into one product. As more information is gathered from your online activity, a fuller profile is created.
	Xobni takes the effort out of organizing, searching, and navigating your email. It extends your IM (MSN, AIM, etc.) program and email client (Microsoft Outlook, etc.) by adding additional sidebar menu. View sender profile for each email (contact details, phone nr., social networking profiles, sent attachments, etc.), threaded conversations, extremely quick search, and more. [Video Demo]

Are you looking out for some other site to come out of private betta that you think will be even better? Go ahead and post a comment to let us know!

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	MZ Vista Force is a full-fledged tweaking machine! It’s broken down into Performance Tweaks, Windows Tweaks, Internet Optimizer, StartUp Manager, Services Manger, and Backup Restore. Use it to easily clean up junk files off your hard disk or speed up Internet browsing in Vista. You can also modify lots of esoteric settings like the speed at which the Start Menu displays and clearing out the page file at shutdown. Lots of options and a definite download!
	A Vista Tweaker from Stardock that packs a bunch of features into a small package. Disable unnecessary startup programs, update drivers that are out of date, get a benchmark of your computer performance, and lots more. The full version has some extra stuff for $20.
	Vista Logo Boot Generator is a free Windows Vista program that you can use to change the default boot screen in Windows to your own custom image. You can use an image of two sizes, either 800×600 or 1024×768, so you’ll have to scale any images you might want to use to that size first and they must be in .bmp format. So if you have a nice picture of your spouse or something else you wouldn’t mind seeing at startup, use this to customize the boot screen!
	Vista Boot Pro is a cool freeware app that you can use to easily mange the boot configuration and settings in Windows Vista without having to manually edit the BCDEdit file. You can also use Vista Boot Pro to back up the existing boot configuration before making changes in case something goes wrong. Also useful for multi-boot systems where you want to set the default OS, etc.
	What’s the most annoying thing about Windows Vista? Could your answer be UAC or User Account Control? Mine too! I hate it! It’s a pain! But it’s also bad to turn it completely off. So what to do? Use TweakUAC, a nifty little tool you can use to Turn off UAC, Turn on UAC, or put it into Quiet mode. Quiet mode means Administrators are not bothered with prompts when doing admin tasks, but it’s still remains on for programs, etc. Finally!
	Any other annoying Vista feature? How about those giant arrows on your desktop shortcuts? Do they really need to be THAT big? I mean come on! We know they are shortcuts. If you hate those little shortcut icons, you can get rid of them by using Vista Shortcut Overlay Remover! A free app that either lets your remove the shortcuts or make them smaller like they used to be in Windows XP. Ahhh that’s better!

Any other Windows Vista utilities that you just can’t live without? There are a couple of more that I like to use, but I’ll leave that for another post! Hope you enjoyed these!

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	A very cool site that’s a mashup of deals from other sites like Slickdeals, Fatwallet, Gottadeal and lots more. Mostly tech-related stuff, but there are other things also.
	A site created by a University of California student that lists out a bunch of great deals on everything from tech to shoes daily. This site is very simple and is addicting.
	The nice thing about this site (and others) is that you can subscribe to the RSS feed to quickly find deals. Also, pictures of the items are included in the feed. This site also gives you info on rebates and coupons in addition to just deals.
	DealDump is an aggregate of multiple deal sites, covering everything from Woot.com to DealOverFlow. There are a lot of sites on here I had never even heard of before, so you might find something good here.
	Find the hottest deals on gadgets, computers, electronics, cameras, and lots more. The cool thing about this site is that you can subscribe to an RSS feed for the specific item you’re looking for.
	Takes the same concept of Digg.com and does it for deals. Users vote for the best deals and the ones with the most votes get on to the front page. Also once you join you can enter to win free stuff, etc.
	As you can probably tell from the name of the site, Techdeals.net is all about tech stuff likes games, MP3 players, digital cameras, computers and more. It’s updated daily and has a good number of items.
	An online service that helps shoppers find coupons and hot deals for tons of online stores. It has a very clean interface and is one of the best sites for just finding coupons! Definitely check it out.
	Not your normal deal-finding site! This site is basically a social shopping deals site, complete with a game show host and a good number of great products. You’ll have to check it out yourself to find out.
	DealItem is another deal site for mostly tech stuff. It works best when you’re searching for something by model # or by make and features. If you know what you’re looking for, check out DealItem.
	A social bargain hunting site that changes frequently during the day, so you’re looking at new stuff all the time. Again, its based on a peer voting system that brings the best deals to the front page.
	SlickDeals is one of the better known deal sites and includes everything from tech gadgets to men’s shirts. They also have over 800 coupons that you can use at your favorite stores. Very clean interface and easy to use web site.
	Finally, GottaDeal.com is very popular site for finding deals and coupons online. Has a bunch of categories and brings in deals from many of the major retailers such as Apple, AT&T, and CompUSA.

So that’s about 13 deal sites that I could think of that have gained some popularity over the last couple of years. If you know of more that you think are good or better, go ahead and post it in the comments! Enjoy!

(By) Aseem Kishore is an IT Systems Analyst and Tech blogger. Visit his blog @ Online-Tech-Tips.com.

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The best part about these new office alternatives is that they are completely FREE and they work with Microsoft Office, so if you or your company are locked into Office currently, you can integrate open-source software into your systems slowly and carefully. If you’re a consumer, you can now create documents, spreadsheets, and presentations on the fly, access them from anywhere, and open them in MS Office for compatibility purposes.

Here’s a list of six of the most popular alternative office productivity suites out there today:

Online Office Software

1. Google Docs – This is probably the most heard of Office competitor that most people already know about. Google Docs is completely online and includes a web-based Word Processor, Spreadsheet application, and a Presentation app. More on Google Docs features (incl. introduction video).

2. Zoho – Zoho is probably the best online office productivity suite with not only word processor, spreadsheet and presentation apps, but also includes online project management, CRM solutions, web conferencing, online database with reports, online planner, group chat, wiki, and lots more. It also includes a plug-in for MS Office so you can work both online or offline. Learn more about Zoho.

3.Thinkfree – Thinkfree claims to have the best integration with Microsoft Office. Also, the interface for each app is very similar to MS Office including the toolbars, icons, and functions. Thinkfree also has advanced collaboration features such that users can share, edit, and contribute their ideas remotely. More on Thinkfree (incl. video demos and screenshot).

Downloadable Office Software

5.StarOffice – StarOffice is from Sun Microsystems and has recently been released under the Google Pack as a free download. StarOffice runs on Windows, Linux, and Solaris systems. You’ll have to download OpenOffice if you want it for the Mac.

4. IBM Lotus Symphony – IBM Lotus Symphony is a direct competitor to the Microsoft Office suite because it is also a desktop application aimed at individuals and businesses. The suite consists of Symphony Documents, Symphony Presentations, and Symphony Spreadsheets. I wrote about it before, so if interested check out my IBM Symphony review.

6. OpenOffice – OpenOffice is a multi-platform (Win, Mac, Linux) and multi-lingual office suite which is compatible with all major office suites (i.e. Microsoft Office). It includes Writer (word processing), Impress (presentation), Math, Draw, Calc (spreadsheet), and Base applications. IBM Lotus Symphony and StarOffice are both based on the code from OpenOffice.

And if that’s not enough choices, Adobe is planning on releasing it’s own online word editor called Buzzword. Plus, Yahoo may be joining the crowd soon also with it’s recent purchase of Zimbra. So if you’re still stuck on Office, be sure to check out all the new alternatives as they will probably be the future of office productivity suites.

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There are basically two ways to download videos off the Internet and that’s how I’ll split up this post: either via a web app or via a desktop application. Personally, I like the web applications better simply because you don’t have to clutter up and slow down your computer with all kinds of software!

UPDATE: MakeUseOf put together an excellent list of the best websites for watching movies, TV shows, documentaries and standups online. Download it here. Enjoy!

Free Web services for downloading videos from video-sharing sites

	ClipNabber allows you to download videos from YouTube, Metacafe, etc by simply copying and pasting the URL. You’ll then get a link whereby you can download the file to your computer, iPod, iPhone, or any other media player. You’ll need to have an FLV player for the YouTube videos. Quick and very easy to use!
	Zamzar is a free online file conversion web application that can not only convert videos off the Internet to AVI, MPEG, 3GP, MP4, MOV, etc, but also converts between audio, image, and document formats. Paste the URL into Step 1 and then convert the file to your favorite format.
	VideoDownloader is a FireFox extension, but also allows you to paste in any URL from many sites such as Blip.TV, iFilm, and even social networking sites like MySpace. You can also download a free FLV player from their site to play the videos.
	Vixy.net is another site that not only downloads online videos, but will also convert them AVI, MOV, MP4, 3GP, or MP3 (if you want to extract the audio from the file). Using this site, you don’t have to worry about downloading a FLV player as you can convert it to Windows format. (Same as Zamzar)
	KeepVid also supports just about any video sharing site out there and the only difference about this site is that it also has a Top Videos section, so you can quickly download the most watched videos around the web.
	Media Converter is similar to ZamZar and vixy.net, but requires you to create an account and log in. Also, it seems like it only supports downloading and converting videos from YouTube. You can also download their video download program, but it only supports 5 sites.
	Hey! Watch is an online video encoding web service that encodes video into different formats including HD very quickly. The graphical interface is very nice and there are lots of features and options, such as the ability to transfer any video from the web directly to an FTP server or to online storage.
	YoutubeX, as the name suggests, allows you to download videos from YouTube. Obviously, it only supports YouTube, but it has a couple of other features, such as the ability to play your video on the site and find popular videos quickly.
	VideoRonk searches across multiple video-sharing sites such as Google Video, YouTube, MetaCafe and DailyMotion to find the most popular videos on each of them. You can either watch them on VideoRonk or download them to your computer in FLV format.
	VidDownloader supports about 10 sites including the major ones and can download the videos in DivX AVI format. It’s very easy to use and can also extract only the audio from a video by choosing “Just Audio” on the download page. You don’t have to worry about having an FLV player since it converts the files to Windows format.
	According to their web site, they support more than 98 video sites including MySpace, CollegeHumor, iFilm, etc. You’ll have to rename the files you download from YouTube with the .FLV extension at the end.
	This site is a foreign site, but is easy to use and supports most of the major sites. You can also download a free FLV player off their site to play videos from YouTube.
	DownThisVideo has a nice tag cloud at the top that you can click on to find videos quickly. From what I could tell, this site is mostly used by Japanese because the popular videos are mostly Anime, etc. However, you can still use it to download any YouTube video.

Video Downloaders for your DeSktop

If you prefer to have a desktop application that can download videos for you, check out the following list:

1. Orbit Downloader – This is by far the best desktop application I have seen for downloading any type of social media off the Internet. It can download videos and music from MySpace, YouTube, Pandora, Rapidshare, and lots more. It has a great interface and carries a very small foot print.

2. VDownloader – A small little application that can download videos from many sites and converts them to AVI or MPG format.

3. VideoDownloader – A useful FireFox add-on that supports more than 60 video sharing sites. It can also download other objects on a web page, such as movies, MP3s, flash files, and Quicktime movies directly.

4. Ares Tube – Another popular video download application that is very small and very easy to use. You can download videos in batches by entering URLs into a queue and Ares Tube can convert them into different formats such as iPod, MP4, MPG, etc.

4. YouTubeGrabber – Not a very fancy program, it simply takes your URL and downloads the file. No conversion is done and you’ll need to install an FLV player to watch the videos.

5. KeepV – Downloads videos from YouTube, MySpace, and Google and converts them to either MOV, 3GP, AVI, iPod, or PSP format.

Hopefully, using one of the tools above, you can download the video you want! I’m sure the arsenal of web services and desktop apps will grow, so this list will be updated as needed.

(By) Aseem Kishore is an IT Systems Analyst and tech blogger. Check out his blog at Online-Tech-Tips.

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