Many movies that we download for viewing on the computer don’t have hardcoded subtitles. Sometimes they are included in the subtitles download as a SRT or a SUB file. If not, there are lots of online sources where you can download subtitles in your preferred lingo. Then, there are several methods to include them with your movie. Including the subtitle file in the same folder and letting the media player recognize it is probably the simplest.

But there is a little piece of free software that takes away the pain of manual scrounges on the web and makes watching movies with subtitles as easy as a click.

Sublight is a must have freeware for movie junkies. The simple tool is a desktop search tool to download movie subtitles and a bit more. Let’s ditch the manual locate and download method for once and try out the Sublight way.

Post installation, the Sublight settings wizard takes you through five screens. Three screens are important –

Choice of default media player

Let Sublight know your preferred media player for playback. Right now, the wizard provides only two choices but you can set your own by giving the custom paths in Settings.

Choice of subtitle search plugins

Let Sublight know which search engines it should use. Check all for better results.

Choice of file types for Explorer integration

Let Sublight know which file types should bring up a subtitle search feature in the right-click context menu. Check all for complete cover.

The Sublight interface itself

1. Using the main interface of Sublight is as simple as choosing the video file which needs subtitles. Sublight automatically detects the title of the movie and on your green light (the green checkmark) Sublight fills up the details like the exact name and year, format information like codec info, resolution, running length etc.
2. Then it takes you to the next step. Click on Search Subtitles and within a few seconds the results are displayed with all accompanying details like language and media type. If you think that the auto-search isn’t accurate, you can perform a manual search and even combine the two searches.
3. Linked subtitles marked in orange are subtitles which are connected with the selected video by other Sublight users. They should ideally be synchronized with the video file you selected. (If you download a correctly synchronized subtitle file, contribute to its rating by clicking on Valid Link).
4. Right click on any of the search results and you will see a lot of options that take you beyond the subtitle into what else the movie is about. For instance, the IMDB page on the movie or the subtitle preview which can help you find out the quality of the translation.
5. You can click on Properties too and get the complete dope on the subtitle file.
6. After selecting the subtitle you can play the video with a click on the Play with subtitle on the toolbar or on the right click menu. The second option is to download the subtitle file to your computer. The default destination is the same folder where your video is present.
7. A set of filtration options let you narrow down your choice by language, rating, number of discs and publisher.

Sublight – Is it worth a download?

Hey, it’s free! Sublight gives a lot of control over the way you handle your subtitles. The Settings let you control some of them like changing the default formatting. A registered user also can collect points for contributing pro-actively. A registered user is rewarded with higher priority service, especially downloads.

Some drawbacks like subtitle synchronization need to be handled on a case by case basis. More search engines would certainly help (especially with foreign films), but these hiccups aside, Sublight is a software worth checking out if you are a movie junkie.

Sublight is a good choice for not only the English-speaking movie lover but also for the guy who speaks and watches in another language. In the end, the freeware makes subtitle search and download a quicker, more controlled process.

Sublight v1.7.0 is compatible with Win98/98SE/XP/7 and requires Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0.

How do you go about watching a movie in a different language?

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Launcher applications increase productivity and help us to streamline our Windows interface. After all, if you launch your most frequently used programs from a behind the scenes launcher instead of shortcuts, our desktop becomes a more uncluttered place.

There are a host of launcher apps out there. Launchy is one of the more popular ones you might have heard about. Then we have covered a bunch at Top 7 Unknown Free Launcher Applications For Windows. Is there room for one more?

You bet, because when it comes to software, it’s more the merrier.

This one’s called Key Launch. Key Launch is a little freeware that lets us ditch the shortcuts, the start menu and the run box. The working of Key Launch is simplicity itself. Type in a few characters that stand for your program and Key Launch opens it.

How to Launch Applications From the Command Line

• Key Launch installs as a System Tray icon. Key Launcher automatically indexes all the programs under the Start Menu (including folders like Recent Documents). To activate it, you need to hit Ctrl+Space. At first, you will see a blank interface like the one below. Type in a few words and Key Launch lists all programs that correspond to it. You can click on any to open it.



• Well, that’s not very customized. To add files, folders and programs that you want to quickly access, you have to set up a few things by hand initially using Aliases. Aliases are nothing but a short identifier that stands for any file, folder, program or web page you want to open using Key Launch. All the mechanism is in the Key Launch Preferences box.



Like ‘muo’ is defined as an alias for MakeUseOf.com or ‘ww’ for WordWeb, setting up aliases is easy with a click on the + button and choosing characters that can stand for a favorite webpage or a program. While defining the alias, do test it out once by clicking on the Test button.

• With aliases defined, bringing up the relevant application now requires you to hit Ctrl+Space and Enter as the aliased shortcut is usually the first one that’s on the list. The other minor but great thing is that the Key Launch also ‘learns’ which programs you operate frequently. So after a few launches, it automatically pushes that specific program on top of the list. For example, I could push ‘n’ for opening Notepad after opening it 3-4 times.
• There are some special prefixes like mailto: followed by the email address that will open your default mail client with the address in the ‘To’ field. Or callto: followed by the contact name that will open up the VoIP application like Skype (but I found that this part didn’t work so smoothly with me).
• Though Launch Keys indexes certain folders, you can set it up to include some of your own choices through the Folders to Index button in Preferences.



• As a launcher, Launch Keys takes over from the default ‘launcher’ that Windows gives us – the Run box. Use Launch Keys to run a command by pressing Ctrl+Enter.



• Launch Keys can also act as your de facto calculator. Type in your math in the field box and hit enter.

That covers the basic capabilities of this little application. To further it, one can use DNM scripts but that’s a bit beyond the average user. But what’s not is that you can take the whole installed folder and transfer it to your pen drive and use it as a portable app. That’s a help.

Key Launch and application launchers of its ilk help us be more productive. After a few uses, using the aliases becomes almost a subconscious habit. After a while aliases become more real than the shortcut icons themselves.

Which is your launcher app of choice?

Key Launch (v2.0) is a 1.3MB download and is supported on Windows XP/Vista.

Image Credit: Lukasz Strachanowski

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Commonly all book lovers sites revolve around a community. An online ‘town square’ meet-up to see what others are reading and why they reading it. If you club together a few likeminded book lovers, you are bound to come across a lot of books.

BookRix is just such a book lovers website, a community platform where you can read, rate and rant away on books. BookRix is also a place where new authors can present their own works. In that respect BookRix acts like an online publishing house for free via the medium of the browser.

BookRix calls itself a portal on books. Let’s find our way in with a simple registration and unwrap what the site has in store for a book lover and a hopeful author.

Something seems to be always happening at BookRix. Immediately after my log-in, I am greeted with the message as depicted below.

Wow, a contest! Nice, but I guess as I am trying to still find my feet. Let me just walk around a bit and read some of the books that are available around here. The collection is about 16,000+ strong and includes novels, poetry, children’s books, essays etc. all free to read.

The Personal Homepage is usually the starting point for all activities on BookRix. We have Boxes with different content like BookRix News, Your Favorite Categories, Book Recommendations, New Books etc, which are all snapshots of everything we do in BookRix.

The Books overview page is a place to search for all that’s there in BookRix’s collection. A search or an advanced search will throw up the book we want. BookRix also has a small collection of audio books and foreign language titles.

The Community is the place to hang out and discover other readers and authors. We can interact directly with other readers (i.e. both users and authors) or join Groups like the one called ‘Give vampires a chance’…which reads and discusses books on vampires! Or, if we don’t want anything that far out, we can always start our own group.

Then again, we can pass the time playing a round of literary quiz that’s on offer. BookRix also has a fledgling discussion Forum that affords another place to connect to the writers and readers network.

My BookRix is the operations room. Set up your profile and build a network by inviting friends. There’s also a little pin board that we can use as a post-it peg. The pin board notice goes out to all our friends on the network.

The My Books section is an important place for an aspiring author on BookRix. Though this is a place to manage our book lists (those that are authored by us), this section also has the tools that allow us to upload our raw content and make a book out of it.

The BookRix Upload tool has a few processes that make it easy to transfer the basic PDF, DOC, ODT or any other file type and add some defining information like Title, Sub Title, Author, Page Format for the preset BookRix template etc. A press on Save sends the book through the processing machine. We get a preview of our work in the slick BookRix Reader and the book gets saved in our account. A similar process allows us to upload audio podcasts and illustrated books too.

Promote your book through the BookRix interface. BookRix hosts the authored book, but we the authors need to tom-tom it using good old fashioned email promotion or through web links. The advantage of a community can be realized for a shot of viral promotion.

The word has gone out. People are queuing for your signature and you are the toast of the literati. Not quite. Book authoring and publishing it (successfully) is a backbreaking and fortune crushing business. Just ask some of the famous authors whose books have been rejected thousands of times. So is the BookRix book lovers website worth it?

Yes definitely because it lets you test the waters for free. The book reading community comments and gives your work an onceover. Productive appraisal is a vital ingredient towards the process of becoming a better writer. There are lots of book communities and online reading web apps out there, but BookRix is a no risk way of giving your penmanship a wider audience.

If you are a book lover, ink a few comments on BookRix.  Or take a look at three other alternatives profiled by Bakari.

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In their own words, Clicker positions itself as – one part directory, one part search engine, one part wiki, one part entertainment guide, and one part DVR.

In short, Clicker tries to be the sum of lots of parts. I guess it tries to take the best search experience and match it with an online viewing experience à la Hulu. The ultimate goal is to be the last stop (or at least a necessary one) for online TV entertainment where you can view TV shows online.

So let’s explore the parts and arrive at the sum.

Clicker As A Search Engine

Unlike a generic video search engine or even Google Search, Clicker does not trawl the entire web for your video. What it does is look into its massive itemized database and return very relevant results. Clicker has cataloged 6,000 shows with a total of over 450,000 episodes. It follows 1,200 networks. Not only TV episodes, Clicker has indexed 50,000 music videos from 20,000 artists along with thousands of movies.

The search engine is very friendly as it displays close suggestions when we type in the name of a show. The results page returns all available videos as well as media reports from other news and entertainment channels. Filters to sort the results make narrowing down on the one to watch quite easy. For the sake of organization, you can create a playlist of your shows which update automatically as more shows become available online.

Related videos i.e. shows which are similar to the one you are searching for, also offer interesting finds.

Clicker As A Directory

A better top down approach to explore a genre would be use the directory organization of the site. You can start from Shows by Title, browse them By Source or By Show. You can also go to them using the huge scrollable Shows by Category list. Shows by Media lets you filter result by TV Shows, Web Originals, Movies and Music. Within each, the Trending section features what’s hot and current on the site.

Clicker As A Wiki

Each show or episode has the gist with it. You have a brief description, pictures, cast members info, ratings, external links, related shows etc. You can also add your own two bits in the form of memorable quotes, other tidbits and even edit the main description to something more fitting.

Clicker As A Video Player

A click on Watch Now and you are taken to the hosting site where you can view TV shows online. Remember, Clicker does not host the content itself but merely acts as an indexer to all the content that’s online. So, viewer restriction policies might apply for some shows. For instance, some (like shows in Hulu) may not be viewable by people outside certain geographical areas like the U.S. Or for instance, to view Netflix movies, you must have a Netflix account. Depending on the terms of use (like, Free), some shows can be viewed on the site’s embedded player.

Clicker As An Entertainment Guide

The huge database itself is an entertainment station. Clicker keeps everything indexed with what’s running offline and online. New shows get added and if you have a playlist, it gets updated automatically. Clicker has source partners from YouTube to Amazon, from internet streaming movies to VOD for-purchase movies. On the homepage itself you can directly go to what’s new, what’s hot and shows that are recommended.

The Sum Of All Parts

Arranging all that mine of information itself is a huge challenge and Clicker does it seamlessly. The search doesn’t overwhelm the user with thousands of mish-mashed results like a general search engine but delivers trimmed down, on the button results. The content is indexed well as felt from the fast auto-suggestions and the search results. The site seems to be updated frequently as I didn’t get a dropped link. That’s an incredible achievement when you have a site which has content drawn from so many different sources.

One or two additions down the line would surely help. For instance, you can sort the videos by popularity but there doesn’t seem to be a rating system like we see in IMDB. Links to critic comments would also help.

The site has just come out of beta and so it’s still going to be a work in progress and the blog says that very thing.

But first impressions surely will make you keep clicking.

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Creaza is a web based tool designed for learners and educators. But spend a few moments with it and you realize that Creaza has scope beyond that. All of it underlined with fun.

What if I gave you four tools that inspire creative, fun ideas – a mindmapper, a cartoon creator, a movie editor and an audio application and asked you to let loose your creativity. I am sure you could come up with a lot of creative and fun ideas. That’s the canvas Creaza gives you to play around with.

Creaza is a suite of four apps for making planning, creating and publishing digital content, or for the fun of it, let’s say digital stories. The four creative apps are :

Mindomo – Organize Your Thoughts

The first step for any creative process is the organization of thoughts or ideas. That’s why you need to start with a mind mapping tool. Mindomo is a Flash based mind mapper. Like any other mind mapping application, you start with a central idea and branch it out to associated ideas, linking them to each other with relationship connectors.

Mindomo is a simple but rich mind mapper which lets you add images, hyperlinks and symbols to beautifully render your thought process on screen. Like a versatile mind mapping utility, it lets you select from a variety of map style and layouts.

Cartoonist – Artwork for Your Thoughts

The hard work of putting your ideas into shape starts with the cartooning tool. Cartoonist is a simple tool with a very short learning curve. The first step lets you select your cartoon theme from the eight provided. For instance you can go for a Manga look or take the one which resembles the classic cartoons of the past. Each theme comes with its own characters, backgrounds and props.

Combine all the artwork in the cartoon editor. You can tell a whole story using sequential cartoon slides. Change the mood of the characters with a single click, change day into night, give the characters dialogues using speech bubbles or do a bit of freehand drawing – just some of the things your creativity can play around with.

The inbuilt player lets you playback the frame where each frame gets displayed for four seconds. You can print out the work or show it on the web.

AudioEditor – Sound Bytes for Your Thoughts

Podcasts have made listening to audio clips cool. The AudioEditor lets you do just that. Make your own audio clips, edit uploaded clips on the timeline or record sound and re-use it, the editor lets you do all that. The audio application also comes with a library of default clips and sound effects.

MovieEditor – Motion Clips for Your Thoughts

If a cartoon is not realistic enough for your story, move to the MovieEditor. The MovieEditor has the same feel and look as other online movie editors (except that it starts with two themes). The Library hold many default video clips as well your own uploaded bits, the Timeline where you drag film, sound, or music clips, as well as your still shots and arrange them into your final movie, and finally the Media Window is the inbuilt player to see how things are shaping up.

Sound effects and special effects have their place on the timeline. The provided media clips might not stretch your story, but the editor gives you the option of uploading your own.

Creaza gives us lots of flexibility to make our own multimedia shows. There are some limitations like the free membership on Creaza entitles us to only 25 MB of storage space for personal media files. But even that’s sufficient for publishing a few stories. The only minus is that the finished product can be shared through a URL – there’s no provision to export it as a finished Flash file.

The full version though opens up many more import and export options for the multimedia content and provides more themes.

Creaza is mostly geared as a teaching aid. The free tools make it easy to translate ideas through easier to understand multimedia presentations.

For instance, take a few cartoons or a video clip and put together a small show on global warming. The cartoon strips can be used to explain anything from eclipses to ethics.

The web application also seems to have collected some recognition for itself as a teaching aid. But its possibilities are limited only by the word we started our post with – creativity.

What uses can you put this tool to? Let us know in the comments.

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SlateBox is a web application that may seem knotty at first. But grope around a bit and you soon realize its child’s play. Is that why it’s called SlateBox?

Here I am getting ahead of myself – What’s SlateBox after all?

Very simply, SlateBox is a collaborative visualization tool. Visualization tools are apps which help us plot or draw an idea into an image or diagram. The diagrams are meant to represent relationships between the ideas on display. Mindmaps are what can be called visualization aids. We have covered a few awesome Mindmapping applications, both online and offline. SlateBox is a similar but also a bit different at the same time.

SlateBox is a mindmapping application and a bit more

Although it can used as such, SlateBox helps you with the visual ideas and also enables you to collaborate and share those ideas with others in real time. The visual ideas are built on ‘Slates’ which are like a blank canvas. We mentioned mindmaps, but SlateBox can be a collaborative visualization that for a whole lot of things like – designs, organizational charts, flow charts, process diagrams, work planning etc.

Let’s see how SlateBox works

1. SlateBox requires a simple sign-in and you are ready to roll out your first slate.
2. The basic building blocks of SlateBox are Nodes which are like droppable symbols standing for a step or stage of your schematic. The interface of SlateBox is three paned with the center pane being the main work area. The left panel is the Template Panel from where we drag and drop Nodes onto the Drop Panel (the central pane). The right placed panel is for setting the properties of the panels and the nodes.
3. A fresh slate starts from a click on New Slate. Enter a name, description and select a template. The choices seem thin now. You can also use a website as a template by specifying a URL. Templates are boilerplates with some default nodes. You can also start with an empty template and build it up from scratch.
4. Pick a node from the Template Panel and drop it into the Drop Pane. A mouseover on each node shows a small bar on top with some icons. These are for resizing the node, entering text, creating the relationship arrows, creating a duplicate node and deleting the node.
   
5. Click the little pencil icon to define some text for this node. You can use the right panel for setting the visual properties for individual nodes. And yes, you can embed video or an image in the node.
   
6. To add some subordinate ideas, use the Template Panel to add subordinate nodes.
   
7. Now, click the star shaped icon on each Node to bring out the relationship lines. Drag them across the nodes to connect one to the other. The properties of the relationship lines can be changed from the right panel. I had a bit of problem with the connectors — one of them just wouldn’t connect. Probably, a beta glitch.
   
8. That’s it! Your first simple mindmap is finished. You don’t have to actively save your work because the Slate is always auto-saved.

Working together on one Slate

The collaboration engine is still not fully explained and frankly, I couldn’t try it out for lack of ‘collaborators’ in real time. But according to the site, collaboration will – broadcast changes in real time to all users logged under one shared account. The status panel will also reflect the user who initiated the changes. Changes can also be locked by a user so the Slate can be presented to all users simultaneously.

SlateBox also provides a developer API which can be embedded in websites and used as small web applications. But that’s beyond the scope of an average user.

What a normal user would find in SlateBox is an easy to use and easier to setup collaborative visualization tool. An uncomplicated tool like SlateBox is a fit for small teams and tutor-pupil scenarios. Though in beta, SlateBox shows some promise as a fast collaborative visual mapper.

What are your first impressions on SlateBox (Beta)?

Image Credit: LukePDQ

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A war cry that wouldn’t need much urging, because gamers have a clannish streak in them. You will find them in dedicated groups in every online game community worth its name. You come across a name like League of Shadows or Terran Warrior, and you know that there’s a hardcore gamer hiding behind it.

Gamers are a large community and they tend to find their own, especially with the rise of multiplayer games. The seriousness with which people pursue this hobbyhorse has given birth to the term Electronic Sports or eSports. You have amateurs and professional pitting themselves against each other.

An amateur, I wouldn’t bracket myself with the term “addicted”, though once upon a time I came pretty close. Occasionally, I do try to clear the dust and answer The Call of Duty. But gamers who are still in the thick of things now have a new hangout.

Playfire is one of the coolest free online game communities exclusively for the gamer. The online social networking application is still in beta, but by the sleek looks of it, can soon jump out.

Playfire – What’s it all about?

As all free online game communities on the web go, Playfire is also about networking with the likeminded. Only in this case, the banter is about games. The homepage says that the site is home to 245,000+ gamers. It also boasts of being a talking point for 40,000 game titles on every conceivable gaming platform. If you are feeling left out then it’s time to signup.

The First Level – A Signup and a Profile

Signup is simple and the profile setup is also easy but with a twist. In three steps, you let the site know your gaming platforms, what games you have played and then a bit about you – your level of gaming interest. But that’s just for starters. To complete your profile, you have to furnish a few more details like your profile pic, describe your gaming rig, choose your gaming genres etc.

After doing the basics, go into your profile page and deck it up. You can select Themes, showcase your game collection on a visual bookshelf, do a bit of microblogging, add videos and also connect through Meebo with your online friends.

Climbing To the Next Levels

The site is designed like a video game. To rise up, you have to complete certain activities. The completion stages help you garner points and the points in turn, help you rise up. The formula is, the more you participate socially, the higher you rise up with your points.

Your Activity Feed page is the dashboard of all your activities (or lack of it). The highest points are reserved for bringing others into the Playfire fold by sending out invites. Submitting games, rating them and volunteering answers to game related queries also make you a popular member of your clan.

The best way to get a bunch of points and shoot up the charts is to get a Playfire award or two. Answer 100 quiz questions correctly and you become a ‘Smartypants’. Answer 1000 and you are a ‘Gaming Genius’.

The Gaming Communities

Playing is never fun alone, is it? So you have Playfire Groups, gamers who share a common passion, like a particular genre of games. Like The Final Fantasy group with nearly 1,175 members. There’s also Girl Gamerz Rawk! (it’s written that 40% of all gamers are female – I believe it!). Each group has a page of its own. Request membership by clicking on a blue button and then you can take part in the forum discussions.

Clans are the other more narrowed down social circle. Clans on Playfire are group of players who play together regularly on multi-player games. You can search for a clan and join it or start one of your own. Clans again have their discussion boards and a request membership link.

The community is a continuous gaming talkfest with Events thrown in. Events are gaming sessions between members…create one and announce it to your friends. You have Game Planners to co-ordinate all your online meet-ups.

Discussions are all about shooting from your mouth but if you really want to walk that talk as a serious gamer, then take the Quiz and see how you fare against your pals.

There’s a lot to do on Playfire. For a diehard gamer it can be a port of call after playing a few rounds. In the few days spent there, Playfire felt like a complete gaming community. Some pages I think are still being worked out as told by a few broken links. That’s like a single frame’s glitch in an otherwise slam bang effort.

Join up, and let us know your shout’s worth on Playfire.

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Education has never been as accessible as in our present times. Disregarding the high tuition fees of some, I would say it has also never been as much a bang for each buck as now. And there are places you can educate yourself without spending a penny. For example – The World Wide Web.

The web is not only about movies, music, tweets and the unmentionable word. It is also perhaps the greatest learning miracle after the innovation of printing. Information cannot replace education but it can certainly drive it. That’s what some of the online educational websites are doing. Or looking at the variety of knowledge they make us open up to, let’s call them educational portals.

An Online Center of Learning…

• CosmoLearning is an educational website built around the thought that if education has to be free and accessible – the web is the way to do it.
• CosmoLearning is a free online school with video lectures, courses, documentaries, books, quizzes, lecture notes and more in a variety of media formats.
• CosmoLearning has been designed according to traditional curriculum standards, but with an added intent to bring them all together on the web.
• CosmoLearning is an educational website both for the teacher and the pupil alike. Anyone, who has a passion for learning anywhere and anytime.
• CosmoLearning is a creation of two teenaged siblings. Look them up on the About page or say hello to them on Facebook.

The First Day at School…

It’s neither as nerve wracking nor as expectantly exciting as the one we once faced in the real world. The reason is that online education is not new fangled as a concept these days. The novelty quotient would lie in the treatment given to an age old process.

Enrollment is not through the headmaster’s office and the cashier, but through a simple registration form and it’s free.

The Subjects in the Syllabus…

All learning at CosmoLearning is through the courses on various subjects and there is a huge list of them…29 in all. The Academic Subjects are arranged alphabetically on a left panel. From basic sciences to new age ones like entrepreneurship are given a class (old ‘age’ ones like Religion and Mythology too find their space).

Let’s not forget the extra-curricular subjects…often neglected, but many go on to careers in them. Look at the subject choices below.

The Teaching Aids…

This is the age of convergence and education is all the better because of it. Supporting the courses are Video Lectures, Image Files and Documentaries. Each gets a large chunk of server space.

There are 6184 video lectures as of now arranged around Video Type (Animation, Guest Lecture, Interview etc), Topics, Contributors, Alphabetically, Most Viewed, Top Rated et.al. Just let me say, that you won’t get lost searching for a specific video.

The Documentary list is on the same rich vein – 389 in all. I took a look at some truly good ones – Stephen Hawking’s speech in honor of NASA’s 50th Anniversary really perked my interest.

After these two, mentioning the bank of 733 images seems almost like an anti-climax. But it’s a small but focused collection.

Similarly tiny but open to growth is the small library of books. For now, it’s poetry centric.

All the content on CosmoLearning is arranged for easy navigation on subject specific panels. You can go to your favorite subjects or jump into the Top 10 Lists or the latest that has come in (via the News feed or the Recently Added lists).

Where does all this content come from?

No, it’s not ‘manufactured’ by the brother sister team behind the site. All of it comes from contributions from some of the most well known names and independent contributors. You can check them out on any of the pages for Courses, Videos, Images or Documentaries. You have Harvard University rubbing shoulders with Golf Tips Magazine. All content is free and the site exhorts contributors to pitch in whole-heartedly.

School ‘Report Card’…

A young site but a blossoming one. Some subjects could do with more content as time goes by. Inspite of an impressive lineup of contributors and contributions, CosmoLearning also suffers from a basic weak spot. I believe that for a learner it’s very important to have a roadmap for his learning…that’s defined by curricula. The path from the first lesson to the last, to gain some mastery in a specific study is what’s missing.

But CosmoLearning is an impressive attempt to gather together a horn of plenty of educational resources. The site is well structured and a breeze to go through. It is definitely not a last stop for your educational needs but it does deserve a stop on your learning curve.

How do you use educational websites? As a launching pad or as support material? Let us know…

Image Credit: Avolore

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It’s safe to assume that you have more than one browser installed on your system. I have five. Though we may not use more than two, all of us suffer from a bit of browser fancy. As soon as developers announce a launch of a browser that promises to speed up the web for us, we click on the download link. That’s not a problem, but keeping the same set of bookmarks across the browsers is.

Xmarks is a nifty solution to migrate bookmarks across the world. But for now, it supports Firefox and IE (with Safari in Mac OS). The one for Google Chrome is in the works. The browser that’s missing is Opera. That leaves us with a job half done. Bookmark syncing using Delicious and its bookmarklet tool is one roundabout. But it’s public by default and you have to log-in to change it to private. So, it’s still not as easy a click.

Transmute attempts to fill the gap by letting us migrate bookmarks across all the browsers.

Why Is it Such a Headache to Migrate Bookmarks?

Not very much so, but every browser has its own way of storing its bookmarks. Most bookmarks are stored as HTML files. Opera uses an .adr format. Firefox 3.5+ too differs in that respect as it stores its bookmarks in a Places.sqlite file which is a database file. The bookmarks.html files that used to hold all the links in the earlier versions had been discontinued from Firefox 3 onwards.

Does this create problems in migration of your bookmarks to other browsers still using the HTML formats? No, because Firefox, just like all the others has an import export utility under the Bookmarks Library that allows you to convert the database format to the HTML one for it to be picked up by the other browsers.

The imported bookmarks also get added to the existing bookmarks usually in a separate folder with the name of the browser that was the source. For instance, imported Firefox bookmarks get located in a folder that’s marked Netscape. Imported bookmarks in Chrome get added under Other Bookmarks. You can then manually shift the bookmarks around into any other root folder.

Next, you have to manually weed out the duplicates by going through each and every link. This is where the headache can start.

Transmute Offers Better (& Quicker) Control Over Bookmarks

Why such a name? Is it because it does the job of bookmark transfer ‘silently’ and without fuss? Perhaps, because the Transmute interface is hassle free.

1. You have two dropdowns – Source and Target. You can use the path field to select the location of the bookmarks file for the individual browsers in case you ever changed the default location.
2. Use the dropdowns to select the respective source and target browsers. There are 12 supported browsers and I am guessing that should cover most of what the world uses. The 13th placed XBEL format (XML Bookmark Exchange Language) covers a few other browsers like Galeon, Arora and Midori which use this one to store their bookmarks.



3. Transmute gives you two more options to migrate bookmarks – Overwrite Collections and Backup Collections.
   • Duplication can be handled if you select the overwrite option as it will plant a fresh copy of the bookmark links (but will also remove the older but unique bookmarks in the target).
   • Backup collections are a safety net in case something goes wrong with the conversion process and you want your old bookmark collection back. By default Transmute timestamps and backs up your bookmark collections before changes are made, providing extra safety.

   

   • To restore the old order, just browse to the bookmark folder location and rename the time stamped backup file to the default file name.
4. Close the source and target browsers and press Start. An alert box pops up and with your agreement the transfer begins. A preview window is the last stop before the conversion starts.

And finishes! That’s it; you can migrate bookmarks across multiple browsers without the hassle of import and export.

Transmute also comes in a PRO flavor giving some extra bookmark selection controls and co-ordination with services like Google Bookmarks and Delicious. But for the simple task of keeping all my browsers with the same bookmarks, the free version more than stands up. If you hate installing things, then there’s a portable option too.

Having the same bookmarks across all your browsers is such a basic need and keeping them all updated with each other is where Transmute steps in with a speedy click.

Transmute v1.63 is Windows only and requires Microsoft .NET Framework. It may also run on Linux and Mac OS X with Mono Framework 2.0 or higher installed.

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Well, that’s what Gizmoz is. A Web 2.0 3d character maker that lets us create, customize and animate lifelike 3D talking characters and share it on sites like YouTube and Facebook. Yes, your very own talking, blabbering avatar.

The animated online clones are a new ‘breed’ of character-based visual icons. Digital characters that will take over from humdrum photos and dumb avatars. What Gizmoz does is provide a free web service that makes it dead easy to create dead ringers for our online selves. These are embeddable Flash objects with the look of a 3D caricature. It’s a huge lot of fun when you make these characters lip-synch with your own lines on social networking sites or just send it across like a 3D postcard.

There are three ways you can use the Gizmoz 3d character maker to make your own virtual showcase. But first, go through the simple registration and log-in.

Publish 3D Clips

Large repertory of templates to put your face on and publish them or embed them as Flash objects. The templates give you a gallery of choices to make slideshows, 3D greeting cards, animated mini-clips, vacation postcards, commentary clips for any video where you are the speaking critic, 3D avatars, and a new beta product where you get to swap faces with a celebrity.

Print Customized Products

You might not be asked to star in the next Indiana Jones film but you can put your face under his hat with a face swap. That’s the general idea in this section (which is basically the beta face swap option from the earlier section) leading up to the stage where you get to print it on mugs and tees. But the printing isn’t free though it may sound cool. If you don’t want to part with your pennies, share the finished file on your social networks or simply download it to your computer.

Create Cool Profile Pics

We are back to free with this part of the Gizmoz service. Create your own character using provided faces or your own snapped with a webcam or uploaded. You can customize your character by changing the hair, giving it some makeup, accessorizing it or just morphing it into something bizarre. The finished character is yours to download, print or share on social networks like Facebook.

Enter the Gizmoz Studio

The process behind all three options takes you into the Gizmoz Studio interface where you mashup your face on the templates provided, add bells ‘n whistles like graphics, media clips and voice bits to make the animations talk. Gizmoz gives you many tools to do the job. What’s needed is only the face.

Making the character talk is also easy using your own recorded voice or taking the help of the site’s text to speech engine. The steps to follow for each process are clearly outlined.

The Gizmoz site is designed around one concept – that it should be easy to make your own animated 3D avatars and share it across the web. Making animated reincarnations of your own self is fun, what’s better is finding out the ways to entertain your friends through it.

I will leave you here now and go make one Clint styled avatar for myself. Always wanted to spout the lines – “Go ahead, make my day!”

Will Gizmoz make yours? Discover it and let us know.

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So it was with me when I had to convert a delimited text data file to Excel and format it within the columns and rows. That’s a rough challenge for a guy who has a chronic fear of anything that resembles figures. The raw file that I had in my hand consisted of higgledy-piggledy blocks of text and numbers. My simple task was to make sense out of this jumble by importing it into Excel and sorting the data into columns and rows.

Thankfully, many web tutorials came to the rescue of my dead brain cells.

Delimited files are a simple way to store data and import or export it between various applications. Delimited in essence means, data that’s separated by specific delimiter characters. Common delimiters are tab, comma and semicolon.

Think of delimited files as the most basic file format that’s almost uniformly accepted by most spreadsheet and database programs. For those of us who don’t go down that road, a common example is the CSV (Comma Separated Value) files or Tab-separated files we come across in the Import Export wizards of email programs like Outlook and Gmail.

A delimited file is of no actual use unless it is converted into some form suitable for analysis and study. Microsoft makes it easy to convert a delimited file to a spreadsheet in three easy steps.

Let’s start with a text file with some data separated by commas.

To bring the data into Excel –

1. Open Excel and copy-paste the text contents into a spreadsheet. The contents take up one column and several rows.



2. Click on the column header to select the entire column. Click on the Data tab in the ribbon and then Text to Columns in the Data Tools group.



3. Clicking on the above command opens the Convert Text to Columns Wizard.
4. Alternatively – You can directly import a text file into Excel. Excel handles file types – Text, Comma Separated Values and Printer Text File. Make sure to dropdown to All Files or Text Files in the File Open dialog while selecting the file to import. If Excel recognizes it to be a delimited file, it opens the Text Import Wizard which is similar to the Convert Text to Columns Wizard.



In the Wizard, choose Delimited and click on Next.

5. In the second step, choose the Delimiter for you particular file (comma, in our case). For some other character, check Other and enter the character in the little field. The Data Preview window gives you an idea how the contents get separated into columnar data. Click on Next.



6. In the final window, you get to set the data type for each column by selecting it in the preview. The default data format is General. Date and numeric values can also be handled here.



7. Click on Finish to exit the wizard and get your neatly arranged spreadsheet.

It’s just three easy steps courtesy of a wizard. This simple utility gives us the ability to import delimited text files into Excel and apply its number crunching tools on it.

Liked this? We have other Excel tutorials to make an analyst out of you.

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The Google News service collects breaking news as published by the news services from around the world. Just as all news is not bad news; all news is also not suitable news. News reading is an individualized experience. What’s news to me may be just white space fillers for you.

Acknowledging the need for individuals to tailor their reading to their kind of news, Google has made it easy to create Custom Sections for news on specific subjects. The recent change on the part of Google News has made it easy to personalize your Google News page by pigeonholing specific news to specific sections. Quite simply, it’s a filtering mechanism that uses keywords to search out and display the kind of news you want on your front page. Does it sound like a form of customized news feed?

Here’s how Custom Sections for Google News works…

1. Log-in to your Google News page. Create on Add a Section on the top right corner.
2. The Customs Section Directory lists a lot of default custom sections for you to browse through and add. Some have been created by Google and some by users. The search box allows you to search for sections on topics you might be interested in. Each section also shows the number of users and user ratings. If you see a section you like, you can click on it and see the current news gathered under it. The Add this section button adds the news feed to your Google News front page.

Create a custom news section in five easy steps

For example, I found a section called Open Source Software and added it with a click. But then, I searched for Web 2.0 and didn’t find any. Worry not; I get to create my own section by clicking the large blue button that says, Create a custom section.

1. To create my own personalized news section, I have to fill in a few fields as shown in the screenshot below.



2. As soon as I start feeding in the keywords, the page updates to reflect news relating to the keywords I put in the box. A dropdown also gives me a few friendly suggestions. Google tells us to be relevant and creative with the keywords. Keep tweaking the keywords till you feel that the results on the right hand side are matching your needs.
3. In the dropdown for the Editions, you can go for searches from within Google’s local language editions or opt for a more enveloping – All editions. The Source Location field is optional and allows you to further restrict the search to a geographical unit like a country or a state. For now, only U.S states are supported.
4. A checkmark against Publish this section to the directory makes your effort viewable in the public directory for everyone to view, use and rate.
5. Finished? Just click on Create.

All added sections get listed on your Google News front page. The custom section can also be edited or deleted by you anytime you wish from this page.

Custom sections help to direct the power of Google news search and let you create another layer of news items specific to your needs. All you have to do is pick the right keywords.

Do you think this adds to your individual selective news experience?

Image Credit: aloshbennett

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Who reads magazines these days? Plenty of people, I would say. My mother is one of them because the digital world is still like a mystic’s ball to her. Me? For me the differentiation doesn’t really exist because what I read is mostly spewed out by the search engines, RSS feeds and bookmarked portals and blogs. Content rules, and the web we all would agree, is full of it.

But I do pick up the occasional magazine at the airport or while on a long drive. Some memories die hard and knowledge picked up from old favorites like Reader’s Digest (upfront) and Cosmopolitan (on the sly) still holds good.

Magazine articles are written by top-notchers, usually with weeks of research and editorial pen drills. Rich in content and relevancy, there’s a lot that goes into making those articles grab our eyeballs. It is only the cost factor and decreasing advertising revenues that’s pushing magazine publishing off the racks. But the digital juggernaut still hasn’t achieved world dominance.

Maggwire (beta) is an online destination for those who are interested in free online magazines. You may subscribe to a few, but it’s impossible that you can read them all. Maggwire brings to you popular content from 650 magazines around the world. Articles from these many magazines are arranged according to the categories they represent and it is across the board. From world news to bridal stories you will find it all.

Maggwire doesn’t ask you to register; you can start browsing the free online magazine list from the homepage itself. But a simple user account gives you some control features over the articles you read. More about that later, first let’s meander through the site for a look.

Discover articles with Maggwire

Let’s say I like reading about technology-related stuff.

1. I click on the Tech category dropdown to select one of the subcategories like Computers & Internet. The navigation is easy to understand and arranged around what’s really popular with the readers. Maggwire says it uses a kind of social intelligence gathered through reader ratings to arrange the most popular articles on the top.You can again get the articles according to time horizon by clicking on Latest, Today, This Week, This Month or This Year. As is wont of all sites, you can also directly check out what’s hot and what’s been most talked about from the corner placed What’s Hot on Maggwire.
2. The articles are ‘discovered’ from some of the most popular publications out there. A sampling for Computers & Internet gives you – PC World, Wired, PC Magazine etc.



3. You can click on the article headline and it opens up at the magazine’s online page on a separate tab or window. With the reading done, you can choose to read what others think about it (via Comments), share it through the bookmarking and sharing services or you can hide the magazine. Hiding the magazine lets you tailor your reading according to the magazines you prefer. Commenting, rating and hiding articles requires a log-in.

Between the covers

This is one of the simpler reviews I have written because the site itself is simple. The real deal is with the articles you get to go to and read from Maggwire’s rated links. Admittedly, this feedback is the result of a few days of browsing. The articles are all free content that’s been aggregated by Maggwire. I doubt if premium content is being covered without a penny being charged. Maggwire does have a premium service in the offing which will take care of that.

Some categories are still not covered with well known publications but we can agree that all good things take time. Maggwire is a beta service. We can access free content even without Maggwire but the site does the good job of shoveling the good stuff onto a common screen.

Check out Maggwire and tell us whether your newsstand guy is going to be shy of a few dollars or if there’s still more to be done for your dough.

Image Credit: Mannobhai

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Bookmarks gather by the dozen each day and they gather dust just as quickly. Today, a browser like Firefox offers tagging as a means to clean up bookmarks. Subject specific folders have always existed to bunch similar bookmarks together.

But bad habits reign supreme and usually bookmarks end up in a haphazard array. A lot of sites have their fifteen minutes of fame and then disappear. But the bookmark is left behind like a gravestone marker. A lot many sites update their favicons or change over to a new URL. But the bookmark remains stuck as a misdirected pointer on the web highway.

The broom to clean up bookmarks and bring them up to date by eliminating the dead ones is called AM-Deadlink. The four browser bookmarks it helps sweep are of Internet Explorer, Opera, Mozilla and Firefox (FF ver. 3+ with an alternate method).

AM-Deadlink detects the dead links and duplicates, and marks them for removal. It can also clean up duplicates in comma-separated and tab-limited text files and saved URL files. Also, AM-Deadlink downloads the current favicons for all your Favorites and Bookmarks for the four browsers.

AM-Deadlink is a 1.3MB free download. Its operation is fairly straightforward. Let’s see it in action.

Sweeping away the dead bookmarks

1. On install, AM-Deadlink provides an option to install itself as a normal Windows program or as a portable program on your thumb drive. The second option is for those who want to carry the freeware around on their flash drives and use it to clean up multiple computers. In other words, it’s a portable app!
2. The interface is simple with a dropdown to select the browser of choice. Selection of the browser triggers the program to list out the bookmarks for the specific browser.
3. Proceed to check the bookmarks with a single click. The time required for complete checking will of course depend on the number of bookmarks you have piled up. The software went through the 360 odd IE bookmarks in approximately 8 minutes and alerted the completion with a sound.The Status column shows the state, whether the link is lost, it’s healthy or there is some other error with the page. You can sort the errors to the top the list and individually re-check them by opening them in an internal preview or in a browser.

   

4. After validating the links, you can choose to delete the faulty links. Sorting the errors on top also enables to delete them all together.
5. Favicons can also be similarly checked, updated or deleted.
6. AM-Deadlink searches for duplicate bookmarks which is a common affair for most of us.
7. It’s always good to have a backup copy in case you delete the wrong bookmarks. AM-Deadlink makes safe your browser bookmarks from your itchy-delete-happy fingers by providing a backup option in a zip file.

Alternate Method for Firefox 3+

AM-Deadlink does a good job with IE and Opera but falters slightly when it comes to the latest version of Firefox. You have to go around a bit because the latest version of Firefox uses a database rather than a single URL file to store all the bookmarks.

The alternate method involves using the Export HTML feature in Firefox’s Bookmark Organizer and processing this HTML file through AM-Deadlink. The cleaned up HTML file can then be imported into a fresh bookmarks folder (importing it into the older bookmarks will create duplicates).

The bit of manual labor with the latest edition of Firefox is the only slight flaw in an otherwise impressive free program. Also, apart from the Help file, AM-Deadlink does not really make it clear how to go about the Firefox cleanup job.

But the end, AM-Deadlink does a dandy job of cleaning up the waste that lies in our bookmarks folder. Now, it’s only left to us to pay those links an occasional visit.

AM-Deadlink (ver.3.3) is supported on Win9x/Me/NT4/2000/2003/XP/Vista.

Image Credit: P/\UL

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We have covered a lot of MS Word 2007 tips and tricks and how-to’s over the months and we have seen how the Office application can be used to create interesting documents. With decreasing attention spans and more hurried reading, designing documents for easy readability has become very important. People don’t read — they glance through. If it’s not your grandmother bequeathing you all her worldly possessions, I guess you too would prefer a rapid scan through a document instead of going at it by line.

Bullets are an essential tool for creating concise documents. You can capture the essential gist of a document in a bulleted list (or a numbered list for that matter).

When I was starting out with MS Word, I knew of only those that I got from the toolbar, with a click on Bullets and Numbering. As MS Word graduated to MS Word 2007, one colorful option came in. A few more days spent spraying bullets all over a document and I learned that there’s an entire gallery of bullets that can be used for improving the décor of one’s document. Not only that, I can use symbols and my own custom pictures too to create my own bullets.

So let’s take a look at the different ways in which we can create bullets. Of course, these are common across all MS Office applications.

Define your own bullet with symbols

MS Word makes it real easy to customize our own bullets if we don’t like the default ones.

• On the Home tab of the Ribbon, go to the Paragraph group where the Bullets command is located. Click the little drop down arrow to access the default bullets in the Bullets Library. Click on Define New Bullets.

  

• Next, click on Symbol and select any character you like to get a new bullet. You can select Wingdings, Wingdings 2 and Webdings from the Fonts dropdown to access a rich variety of typefaces as bullets. You can see a small preview too. Click on OK to set your new choice of bullet.

  

• Just like a font, you can change the color and size of a bullet.

  

Define your own bullets with pictures

• Alternatively, you can click on Picture in the Define New Bullet box to select any from the large gallery. You can also put a check on Include Content from Office Online.

  

• Click on Import to browse to an external file and include it in the collection.
• A lot of the picture bullets can be found under – (In Windows XP) C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Media\Office12\Bullets.
• In the above location, you will see that the GIF files have average dimensions of 15 pixels. You can make your own customized picture bullets using the same dimensions in any graphic application.

  

Shortcut bullets with AutoCorrect

• The AutoCorrect feature of Word allows you to create fast bullets with some special characters. To see whether AutoCorrect is set for automatically creating bulleted lists, go to: Office – Word Options – Proofing – Click on AutoCorrect Options.

  

• In the AutoFormat as You Type tab, check Automatic Bulleted Lists.

  

• AutoCorrect recognizes any of these characters…
  *
  o
  — (em dash)
  –
  ––
  >
  –>
  =>
  …and changes them to bullets on the run when you press Enter. Type in any of these characters, press Spacebar, or a tab to enter the text for that line. Hit Enter to go to the next line as the bulleted list gets created with each press of an Enter.
• Creating bulleted lists with AutoCorrect works with all kinds of bullets like symbols and pictures.

Steal bullets from open documents

• If you get a document with a bullet you like, you can easily copy it into your collection. Bullets in an open document get added to the bullets collection under the group – Document Bullets. Select the bullet in that group, right click and Add to Library. Now, it’s yours’ to own and use.

  

• You can remove them by selecting them in the Library group and right clicking on Remove.

Composing bulleted lists is often harped upon these days. Don’t you think that attractive bulleted lists will help with more eye-catching points?

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

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Copyright and DRM issues notwithstanding, downloading music off the net is one of the most popular web trend. As Google says, two of the top 10 queries in the U.S. are music-related. That’s probably the same around the world. So where do you go in search of your music?

Do you carry out a generic search using one of the search engines? Do you use a specific MP3 search engine? Maybe you picked out one from our Free MP3 Downloads: 7 Websites That Make It Really Easy post. Or you just like to stream it over the waves using the online music players. Thank God, there are options galore for the music lover.

Songr is a desktop search software that will not only search out the right song for you but also downloads it for you.

But why a desktop alternative to download songs, I ask?

Music can be downloaded via P2P software too and you can also use MP3 search engines on the web. P2P software to download a single off the cuff track is bit of overkill and MP3 search engines are great but they might have a bad server day. Also, Songr offers some features that bump up its appeal in my ears. Songr has three noteworthy features which make downloading a single click affair.

1. Meta-search with 10 online MP3 search engines

Give Songr a song title in its search box placed on the top right and the software taps into 10 MP3 search engines to get the song. It gathers the results, removes duplicates and displays it all on its frugal interface.

Take your fine-tooth comb and go through the results which can be bracketed according to Duration, Bitrate, Size and Relevance (just click the column heads to arrange). The low bitrate results are grayed out and usually, you will find the songs with a higher relevance on top of the heap. If you choose to buy the tracks, you can check them out at Amazon and Rhapsody using the shortcut from the menu.

The search engines used by Songr are displayed in the screenshot below taken from the Songr features page.

2. YouTube audio extraction

Songr plucks out audio tracks as MP3 from YouTube videos using some sort of a FFmpeg converter. Songr uses JusthearIt.com’s engine to tap into YouTube’s resources. You can see it in the results as a little video icon. You get two options with a right click – Play it as a video directly on YouTube or download it as an MP3 audio track, an AVI video or a MPEG video to your computer.

You also get to choose between the HQ version and the slower but better HD version (if available).

3. Search by lyrics

Songr uses Bing as a search service to get you the songs when you type in a few words from the songs. According to the software’s FAQ – Songr searches the words you typed in Bing plus adding “lyrics” to the query, reads the titles of the results, filters those using heuristic techniques and tries to restore the original case.

Well as long as I get the results! I got some hits and misses with this one. I guess it boils down to Bing’s penetration and the lyrics with the song’s search engine indexed existence.

If I could add a number four, it would be its simple ad-free interface. That’s what I liked – no glitz, no glamour but just focused on the job. There isn’t anything by way of settings. It uses the system’s default music player to play the track. Such basic software should be light on resources, which it is – consuming about 3.5MB of memory at its peak YouTube conversion job.

We had covered a desktop app for searching MP3 ditties before too. You might like to try out Clickster and look at it against Songr’s performance.

Does this simple software deserve an encore?

Songr (v1.2) is a measly 452KB download and it plays along with Windows XP, Vista and 7. It only asks for the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5.

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

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Thanks to my flash drive accessory, I can literally carry a computer in my pocket. Among a lot of other portable software, a dictionary is a key weapon for my job as a writer.

The great thing about a dictionary is that you can have too many of them and still require more. Just like the hardcover versions, each digital dictionary has its own nuance.

Lingoes is a free dictionary application and a multi-language translator which caters to over 60 languages. But with my penchant for the portable versions, we will take a look at Portable Lingoes. Both are essentially two faces of the same software. With the portable version you don’t have to install anything and can run it straight off its folder on your pen drive.

Lingoes starts its life as a 5.3MB download. And here’s how it looks when you first crank it up with a word.

Wait! Wasn’t this just a dictionary and a free language translator? Principally yes, but there are quite a few, other useful nuggets tucked away inside the program. Let’s take it feature by feature from here on.

The Dictionary – Both Online and Offline

Get the meaning of the word from a number of pre-installed resources like Google Dictionary, Essential English Dictionary, WordNet Online, Spelling Suggestion and Google Web Definition. You have access to a lot of renowned and popular dictionary packs which can be installed for free.

The top of the line dictionary downloads includes dictionaries and thesauruses from Longman, Collins, Merriam-Webster and Macmillan. That’s just one shelf of choices from the many that are on offer inclusive of dictionaries in over 60 languages. All dictionaries can be managed from a single interface.

Please note that the sizes of these dictionary packs are considerable from a few to double digit MBs. So make some space for them on your flash drive.

The cursor translator can be configured from the settings. It allows you to lookup the meaning or translation on any webpage or Windows on the click of a mouse over the word.

Wikipedia – One Touch Access to Over 3,500,000 articles

This is one resource that you should always make space for. The English version of the online knowledge bank tops at 257.48 MB of download. Heavy but worth each MB it gulps up.

Free Language Translator – Get Over 44 Lingos

Lingoes uses a cursor translator (select a word or a sentence with the cursor) to cross translate in 23 languages. You can set your native language in the settings and Lingoes decodes foreign words into it. The translation service can be selected from a dropdown and the choices are aplenty.

Configure the hotkeys for productivity and you won’t have to halt in your tracks for the translations. I tried it out with my native tongue and the results were pretty close and understandable.

Speaking Sam

Lingoes uses the default Windows installed Microsoft Sam to voice text. It also offers real time word pronunciation while selecting or looking up the word. If you further want to enhance the voiceovers, Lingoes makes it easy to download and install a Natural Voice Packages from Longman and Webster.

A how-to on how to build your own voice package is also given.

Extra Nuggets – The Appendices

Unlike the human one, you won’t throw this away. The Appendices are a useful subset of tools helping you with things like currency conversion, time zone calculations, International Dialing Codes and weights/measures converter. Many others are downloadable from the website. To expand the mix, there are a few games also on offer.

After downloading it, I am still playing around with it. As a dictionary it is a very good alternative to the ever popular WordWeb. Lingoes offers a lot of expandable options. Connected to the internet, it becomes a powerful interface for clearing away my wordy cobwebs. But even without the net, it offers a lot more that belies its freeware tag. For instance, with the kind of space today’s thumb drives offer, I can download and install the weighty Wikipedia file and use it for offline lookups.

Lingoes (v2.6.2) ’speaks fluently’ with Win 2000/XP/2003/Vista/7 + IE6 or later.

Let us know how do you like the sound of Lingoes. If you like your words and the meanings behind them, I am betting you should like the little green parrot.

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

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Image search engines sift through the web searching by type of image, by license or by tags and keywords. There are of course, standalone photo reservoirs like Flickr, Stock.xchng, Photobucket, Morguefile et.al; but your kind of image may just be tucked away in some other obscure corner of the web. Google Image Search is powerful but it always pays to have a few more options up your browser.

This is where these five image search engines come into the picture.

Cyclo.ps

In Greek mythology, it’s a giant with a single eye. As a stock photography search engine, it keeps both eyes on sites like BigStockPhoto, Flickr, Fotolia, Cutcaster, StockVault, Photos.com, ShutterStock and stockx.xchng. The search interface is typically simple and you can search by selecting specific stock photo sites or all of them in one go. A horizontal menu and also a dropdown let you view results by respective site. Clicking on the thumbnail previews takes you to the source where you can see the details attached with the photo.

Cyclo.ps gives the user a Lightbox account where he can save (by clicking the little plus icon), tag, share, and print (only the thumbnail) his selected photos. Visitors can also add comments to your shared images.

Pixsy

Type in your query and you can get what you are searching for amidst millions of images and videos. This search platform delivers both. The web app looks into the RSS feed of variety of news sites and content providers like Yahoo and extracts the image previews. Clicking on the thumbnail preview takes you directly to the source. The source webpage opens in a two frame layout with a Pixsy brief on top and the source page below. You can filter the search by content type (image or video), category and source (BBC, MSNBC, Rolling Stone, Webshots, Yahoo etc).

The site is very neat and uncluttered.

Spffy (Beta)

Ferret out the image or video you want using Spffy’s multiple searches. Spffy checks out a cross-section of sources like stock photo sites, web sources like Flickr, public domain sites and videos from YouTube. You can tune your stock search with settings for royalty-free, rights-managed and news/archival. Web search on Flickr can also be similarly configured for relevance.

Incogna

The Canada-based search engine company looks at the visual shape rather than the meta-data. This gives rather interesting results which are distinct from the others profiled here. The image search is fast though the number of results is not plentiful. You enter a keyword and then select an image from the results to do a similarity search. A moving slider to control the number of images per page is the only preference tool to set.

PicSearch

Picsearch indexes the web for images and is probably the best of the lot. The About Page of the site says that its unique search algorithm is due for a patent. The search engine has indexed more than 3,000,000,000 images. You can set a few preferences like an interface language.

Advanced search options give you several image factors like color or black and white, animation or image, portrait or landscape and more importantly the ability to search by image size. You can also use normal search operators to fine-tune your search. The site also comes with a family filter to keep out you-know-those kind of images away from the mix.

There are two things I really liked about the site. Firstly, its speed; and secondly, the Image Directory which is a vast collection of subject specific images. Oh yes, there’s a third thing to like too – it comes with a Firefox extension.

In listing these five sites, I have tried to go beyond the omnipresent searches provided by the regulars like Google, Yahoo and Bing. When it comes to search, often a single tool does the job; but there are also times when many need to be pushed into action. Along with these five, you can check out two others we have profiled before –

• PicFindr
• Everystockphoto

Do remember that although these search engines may give you the right image – using the image itself is subject to copyright. So do check the sources before you click on save. If unable to do so, what are search engines for…hunt out a few more.

Which is your image search engine of choice? Does your image search go beyond the biggies? Let us into the picture.

Image Credit: Playingwithbrushes

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

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The makers of this Internet music player have perhaps got the right note when they describe it as iTunes meets YouTube meets Spotify.

TubeRadio.fm is YouTube at its core with the look of iTunes. And functionally it offers the streaming access to millions of songs like Spotify. It’s better as an alternative because Spotify is not available in a lot of countries including my own. The free web app has Last.fm behind it.

We have many online jukeboxes and we can always go to YouTube and ‘listen’ to the tracks…

So Where Exactly Should We Put TubeRadio.fm?

TubeRadio.fm wraps it all up and comes out as a slick dedicated Internet music player for YouTube. But the power of the web app is not merely playing the music but it’s in the way it lets you find and organize the music videos. Search for your favorite artist or band and add the track to your custom playlist. From just this single search, you can get all their available albums and build a complete playlist with a couple of clicks. And another click can take you to Amazon if you desire to purchase the albums. The whole process takes seamless seconds.

Let’s Build Our First Playlist

Let’s dive in (with a free registration) and see if TubeRadio.fm can walk the talk. Let’s build a playlist with some tracks of a favorite band of mine.

1. The first snapshot is of the TubeRadio.fm interface. The iTunes like interface should be intuitive enough for a music lover.



2. Start by searching for your favorite artist or band using the YouTube/TubeRadio.fm search field. The search yields a lots of tracks and you can mouse over them to see thumbnail previews of the videos.



3. You can click on any of the video tracks to listen to the track or watch it in the YouTube player at the bottom half of the screen. Or better you can make yourself a playlist. Making a playlist is simple – give a name in the new playlist box and click Add. Playlists can be renamed, moved up or down, deleted and shared.



4. To build the playlist, you can individually add the singles by clicking on the Add to Playlist button next to the track. But if you want to really build up the playlist go for the Discography tab. The Discography search gets you the entire catalogue of albums released that’s available on YouTube. You just need to click and select the albums you want and then click the little plus which says Add Albums to Playlist. From the little box which pops up, you can build a new playlist or add it to the existing ones.



5. The videos get processed into your playlist and a notification pops up with the status.



You can get into your playlist and fine tune it (Edit, Delete, and Find Replacement) by clicking the little gear icon next to each track. Your own playlists (My Playlists) are searchable from the search box on top.

The Shared Feeling

These days no web app is complete without a community. TubeRadio.fm lets you share public playlists. Enter the name of the band and click on Public Playlists. Click on it to see the tracks and click on the Subscribe button to bring it under your Shared Playlists. Shared playlists also get updated across the board if there are any changes to it. Unsubscribing from one also takes just a click. You can also rate the shared playlist by giving it stars.

What about the Player Itself?

If it’s the visual experience you want, you will be disappointed because the YouTube video player gets the shrinking treatment. It takes up very little space at the bottom of the browser. TubeRadio.fm is more about listening rather than watching. Of course, you can click on that little video and open it up in all its YouTube glory in a separate browser window. What I liked though was the extra information (Lyrics, Bio, Similar bands, Releases) that’s available with a click.

The track management features are simple. You can sort the tracks by clicking on the columns or custom sort them to play in definite order or just keep them shuffled. You can move the videos around between playlists and edit video information by clicking on the gear icon. Don’t like the video; then just replace it with another one from the same gear icon.

The Final Note

TubeRadio.fm is a wonderful attempt to bring all of YouTube’s musical goodies under one interface. It’s smooth and not difficult to navigate. For iTunes users it will be easier still because of the similar looking interface. The video player does not get much prominence but then it was supposed to be about the audio in the video anyways.

The only problem that might raise its head is with the quality of audios themselves. Not all YouTube videos have high bitrates. Bitrates in the region of 128kbps should be good for casual listening. Little things like the high definition tag on the playlist videos and YouTube star ratings for the videos would have made selection and sorting easier. But that’s minor bellyaching when the web app has the other nice things on offer.

Play TubeRadio.fm and let us know if this Internet music player struck the right chords with you.

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

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

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There are a lot of things which can go into creating a professional looking document. But when we are talking about first impressions, then we have to speak about the first thing that catches the eye and that’s the cover page.

The cover page is the very first page of your document. Its purpose right at the beginning is to give the reader the Big Idea about the document. The why and wherefore is communicated through a specific title, the author name, date, a one-liner on the subject and any other bit of important information on the cover page.

If Black Text On A White Page Is A Turn Off…

One of the reasons I am writing this post is that Microsoft Word makes it painless to create a professional cover page. Unlike the previous versions, Word 2007 has Building Blocks which are pre-formatted templates for cover pages, headers, footers etc. Learning how to make a cover page in MS Word is as easy as a few clicks.

So let’s move away from the monochromatic black on white to more colorful beginnings.

1. Open MS Word 2007 in a new document or the document you wish to create the cover page for.
2. Click on the Insert menu on the ribbon. The very first section, Pages contains the dropdown for Cover Page. Click on Cover Page to open the inbuilt gallery of templates.



3. The inbuilt gallery has about 15 pre-formatted cover pages that you can scroll though. Click on the one you like to select and open it. The cover page appears at the beginning of the document by default.



4. If you want it in any other location, right click on the cover page thumbnail in the gallery and select from the options given.



5. Now, you can click on each pre-formatted field (the square brackets) and the whole thing gets highlighted with a blue field label on top. Type in your version for the given field. The author name might appear by default if the Office installation was in your name.



6. For date fields, you can click the dropdown arrow to select a date from a calendar. You can format all fields as you would for normal text.



7. Building blocks have editable regions which can be customized again. For instance, some of the cover page templates use tables which again can be formatted for size and color of borders or fills using Word’s table tools. Also, some templates have pictures which can be swapped for another or formatted. Think a logo would go better with the page? Just right click on the picture and click Change Picture in the context menu.



8. While working on one cover page, you can change it for another cover page by selecting a new template from the dropdown. The field entries are retained in the new template.
9. Click on Save to finalize the cover page as a document.
10. If you would like to save the cover page for later use in another document, select the entire cover page. Click on Insert – Cover Page – Save Selection to Cover Page Gallery. You can use the same menu to remove a selected cover page from the gallery.

Adding a cover page to a document not only helps in stylizing it but it also gives a sketch to the reader about the contents. You can create a generic cover page for your company and save it in the gallery for frequent use. Another use is to create a document in Word with a nicely laid out cover page and save it in PDF. It can add oodles to the way you present your document (and you don’t have to have any designing IQ).

If a book can be known by its cover, so should a document. Most of us don’t commonly employ a cover page with a document. Or do you? Let us know the benefits you find in inserting a well designed cover page.

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

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Social sites like Facebook are built around communities. In the real world, a community is a safe haven, but it’s not so in the digital world because of its faceless nature and facebook impostors. Social hacking is a term that was born from this very phenomenon. Just to give you an example…

You get a link on your profile from a friend (or a username which sounds like a friend). It’s just a casual click on that link which lures you to a web page asking for some personal details. A person who is not aware of terms like phishing or malware falls prey to this cleverly disguised scam attack from Facebook impostors. Malware links can even infiltrate your accounts and leech away profile info like passwords and addresses. Or even more seriously, bank account numbers. That itself can set of a domino effect as the others in your contact book start getting attack mails from your account.

Social networking sites like Facebook have a huge user base. Facebook alone has more than 300 million users. Even if a small percentage of infiltration attempts succeed (and they do), you can do the math.

Protecting your Facebook profile from scammers and spammers requires serious ammo. The first fortifications are of course the security firewalls and countermeasures employed by Facebook itself. But just like any other war, the foot soldier is the most important piece around which the battle can turn. The foot soldier is you and what you do to protect your account. Facebook gives you some privacy controls to help you thwart spammer snoops.

Here’s the checklist on how to configure your profile to protect yourself from scammers –

Stop Facebook Impostors – Configure the Privacy Settings

This is the first port of call. After you log-in, on the top right corner of the blue bar you will see the Settings link. Hover over it to get the dropdown and the Privacy Settings.

The Privacy page is all about allowing or disallowing others from looking at all the information on your Facebook page. Information can be broadcasted from your profile, a Facebook search result with your name, what gets written on Wall Posts, news feeds of your recent activities, and from the applications you authorize to pull information from your page.

The great thing about Facebook is that it allows us to configure each small part of our profile (see screenshot above). This is what we should be aware of.

Be aware of your friends

• Social sites make it very easy to add friends with a click. Soon enough we have an unmanageable bunch. Organizing friends into groups or Friend Lists is one way. Profile views can be set for Everyone, Only Friends, Friends of Friends or customized for specific Friend Lists. You can also exclude certain friends/Friend Lists.
• On the Privacy page, click on Profile. Control who gets to see each bit of information by clicking the dropdown and selecting one. You can also click Customize to further fine tune the selections. Never set it to Everyone – that’s like opening the front door. Also, remember that your friends might have other friends who are absolute strangers to you.



• One absolute area that you should keep private is the Contact Information. You can set it to No one.
• Save all changes.

Be invisible – remove yourself from searches

Given Facebook’s high search listing, anybody (say, scammers) searching for you or some area of related interest would find it easy. When you sign up, the default setting allows everyone to search for you. Later, one way to discourage that is by removing yourself from public search listing and also controlling your visibility from within Facebook.

• From the Privacy page, click on Search to access the settings for search. Under the heading Public Search Listing, deselect the option to create a public search listing of your profile.
• To cloak yourself further, you can control your search visibility from within Facebook by selecting Only Friends for Search Visibility. And then tighten up security by setting what they get to see in your public profile.

Caution with applications

Third party applications have given Facebook a good name and sometimes have left it red faced too. Third party applications with doubtful roots could be spyware by another name. Applications which you authorize need your profile info to work and sometimes that of your friends in the network (that also goes for apps installed by your friends). To cite another example, quizzes and puzzles are fun but they can influence you to reveal some personal information. So, tread on the side of caution.

• From the Privacy page, click on Applications. The Overview describes the situations in which an application accesses your information. From the Settings page you can checkmark the types of information your friends can see about you through applications.
• You can also go to the Applications page (click on Applications on the foot bar) and edit the privacy settings for each individual application. A privacy setting controls the status display on your Facebook profile page.

Screen your messages

A scam behind a Facebook impostor’s message is the oldest trick in the scammer’s book. Beware of messages which ask for personal information or cash/donations. Even if you receive a message from a pal asking for sensitive information or monetary help, verify the request with a phone call. You can also do an authenticity check by asking questions which can be back-checked.

Be wary of direct links

Don’t click on direct links that you get in messages or wall postings especially from unknown sources. They could be a ruse to malware sites or fake login sites. Look at each link carefully before being trigger happy with your mouse. A genuine link can be made out by looking up the domain name with a Google search. Though with a shortened URL, it could be a problem. Many links direct the user to a fake Facebook login page which can compromise your password. Facebook usually never asks you to log-in again to view another page.

Community rip-offs

Joining a community may get you a bunch of contacts in one go. But it can also be a scam trap if the community is a sham. Fake communities could serve as marketing gimmicks, often with the intent of building mass mailing lists. Select your community and look around the member profiles before jumping in.

These are just some of the ways we can guard against scam attacks. The best way of course, is to click logout and pick up the telephone. But that’s like picking up paranoia and ditching the fun of social networking. Simple precautions like choosing a secure password, familiarity with all the security options and safe browsing habits can keep us protected. For more Facebook security tips, check out Mahendra’s post – 10 Solid Tips to Safeguard Your Facebook Privacy.

What other tips do you think can help to keep our guard up? And leave the scammers dry…

Image Credit: Jesse Gardner

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

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Snarl is a universal notification handler for Windows. Under normal running, applications (or Windows) display bits of information in a comment balloon or a bubble in the area of the system tray called the notification area. They simply inform or suggest a course of action for us to follow – through the instructions or by clicking on the notification itself.

Windows offers very little by way of customizing Windows notification messages. You can, at the most, change the color by modifying the Tooltip color or disable/enable them from some individual applications. There is no universal notification manager.

Snarl is a freeware program which attempts to change that by giving some customizing power to the user. By the looks of it, it’s almost similar to Mac’s Growl (another huffy name!). Growl has a Windows counterpart too, which is in the beta stage now.

Is Snarl worth a shout? Let’s check it out.

Snarl R2.21 (V40.15) is a 5.9 MB download and, on installation, can be accessed from the Start Menu and the system tray. The first time Snarl starts up for your system, it tests the rate of blended images which your graphics card can render. A few seconds later, Snarl is ready to go.

Snarl operates in the background silently using a very light memory footprint. The interface can be accessed with a right click on the system tray icon.

Working with a Snarl

1. Snarl supports a variety of applications and manages their notifications from its centralized interface.Straight after an install Snarl supports system notifications like battery level warnings, system events, timer and on the hour clock alerts.



2. Snarl is extensible through many available extensions. Extensions are like small modules, each for a specific application or task.Snarl’s real use lies with the gallery of extensions. Extensions are like modules designed for specific applications. Installation and registration of these little extension files with Snarl’s allows the program to capture the Windows notification messages and display them through Snarl’s centralized system.



3. The extensions are grouped in various categories. They can be managed and disabled from within Snarl.
4. Snarl can display multiple notifications and does not take keyboard focus away when displaying a notification.Snarl brings all Windows notification messages for applications it supports under a common umbrella. Whether it’s a Firefox download progress or a Gmail notifier, a user knows where to look for all the info. The user can also select or deselect the types of notifications from a single program from the Preferences box.

   

   Notifications can also be setup with sound alerts using Snarl. A ‘view only’ mode makes the notification box invisible to the mouse pointer, so the user can click any Windows program right through it.

5. Snarl allows the user to customize the appearance and the display characteristics of individual notifications.Snarl supports a variety of styles (23 in its gallery). The styles can be downloaded for use. Styles have themes which are like color schemes for each style.

   

   Notification appearance can be customized by setting there opacity levels, duration of display and positions.

6. Snarl captures missed notifications.A right click on the system tray icon and you can access the Missed Notifications box in case you missed an important one.

So is it worth the shout?

As a notification manager, yes it has lots of bells and whistles. The real essence though lies with the extensions and the program’s extensibility to the wide range of applications out there. Some of the most used ones like Gmail notification, iTunes, Firefox, Sunbird, Google Reader, PidGin, Skype, Thunderbird and a couple of Twitter clients are covered. But definitely a lot more need to be added. Handling the app takes a bit of trial and error and though the Preview button on the program helps, a Help file would have been better.

Snarl is pleasing to the eye with its gallery of looks enhancing styles. It is very light and does act as an attractive shell replacement program.

Snarl is a free and open source program and is compatible with Windows XP/Vista

What are your thoughts on the program? Have you used Snarl or a similar notification alternative?

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

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

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Symbols existed even before the alphabets. Over the years they have been part of folklore, myths and legends. Some have stayed on as indelible marks. Some, like the swastika, are better forgotten. Symbols have remained potent. If you doubt their visual power, then look no further than logos. People shell out millions for a three-pointed star on a sleek hood or a prancing horse. Puzzled? The first one is the Mercedes logo and the latter is Ferrari’s.

In this post we will take a look at some symbols or images that we can reproduce using just the keyboard. The superset of creating images using letters/symbols on the keyboard goes by the name of ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) art. You need two things to draw ASCII art anywhere online…a keyboard and lots of patience.

How Do We Create Cool Symbols Using The Keys On Our Keyboard?

Text art/ ASCII art can be drawn using any text editor, online or offline. The simplest is Notepad on Windows or TextEdit for Mac. More advanced word processors have features which are more adept at selection and alignment functions like Overtype and Insert.

Can text art be learned and are there any special techniques to create cool figures?

The answer to the first is yes, it’s fairly easy to learn. There are some basics of course that need to be kept in mind. The rest as they say is practice.

Some basic techniques for keyboard symbols are :

1. Use a fixed width (Courier, Monaco, and Fixedsys) font, to draw your symbols because every type of computer has them. Also called as a monospaced font, they are fonts whose letters each occupy the same amount of space and thus they are also easier to align with one another.
2. Experts speak about noticing the difference between serif (with a short line at the end of the character) and sans serif (without the line at the end) fonts for text art. The display may differ from one computer to the next depending on the default type of font. One advice usually is to use the vertical bar (|) instead of the capital I (I) to draw vertical lines with the sans serif font.
3. Draw in the Overtype mode on your word processor. This makes it easier to put in another character without re-aligning the neighboring ones.
4. Use the Space key instead of the Tab key.
5. Draw a rough sketch of the figure on paper and then put in place keyboard symbols and letters that bests approximate the angles and curves of your figure. For instance, o or @ for eyes, “ for hair etc. The most common symbols used in ASCII art are: / \ | – _ ( )
   
6. Start small with simple symbols or figures. Example – a rose or a face.



7. Begin from a simple area of the figure which has a shape that’s easy to type in.
8. Go for close approximation rather than pinpoint accuracy…after all, accuracy is more suited for line art.
9. Correct your mistakes early because leaving them for later will mar the precision and placement of symbols.
10. Free your imagination!

5 Websites for ASCII Art Lovers

The ideas for the ASCII figures mentioned in this post have been collected from the web. Here, I would like to particularly mention a few sites where you can go and see the visual impact created using just keyboard symbols and a text editor. Looking at them will give you an idea of the techniques involved.

Chris.com’s ASCII Art Collection

A treasure trove of ASCII art collected by Christopher Johnson from the corners of the net. Check out the categories on the left frame. The Halloween, Batman and the space ship Enterprise come from this complete collection. If you want to see what’s possible then this is the resource for you.

The site also has quite a few detailed tutorials on how to start off with ASCII art. Read all of them for a complete education on how to draw with letters and keyboard symbols.

ASCII Picture Collections

A roll call of text artists arranged alphabetically. I have taken the image of the house from the works of Yvonne Adams.

The ASCII Art Dictionary

A resource created by Andreas Freise listing all his creations. He has also sorted his gallery according to the sizes of the figures – Big, Small, and Micro.

ASCII World

A lot of ASCII art arranged in categories. You can also send them to recipients through a direct email from the site.

Asciimation

I included this for the love of Star Wars. Checkout the ASCII Star Wars Movie. Just shows you that ASCII art can be really cool.

The thing about this art form is that you don’t need special skills or special tools. An eye for detail may help though. What’s more important is a will…to make mistakes, rub it away and start over again. So, open your text program, bring up your favorite image and start tapping away.

Also check out Simon’s article on 3 apps to view ASCII art. Do you have your favorite ASCII image or your favorite ASCII website? Let us know.

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

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

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Which are your two favorite calendar apps? I hope its Microsoft Outlook on the desktop and Google Calendar on the web; because this is what the post is all about. Both are full blown calendar utilities and adopting any one decidedly makes our life a whole lot easier.

But what if you decide to use both, like I do? One reason is that both have their own features and also I like to store my my plans in two places (offline and online) for all time access. As I said before, maintaining one is a chore…two could be a headache. Thankfully no, because there are some ways we can sync Outlook with Google Calendar.

The Little But Handy Outlook/Google Calendar Sync

A 684KB tool from Google takes away the pain of keeping both calendars updated. Google Calendar Sync works with Outlook 2003/2007 on Windows XP and Windows Vista. The utility not only allows us to sync Microsoft Outlook calendar events with Google Calendar, it also allows us to set the direction of flow (1-way or 2-way). Also we can specify the sync frequency by giving a time interval.

Google recommends deciding on the calendar which will act as the source and the one that will be the sink. The source will be the main calendar and contain most of the information. It’s better to clear the other calendar of all events and start with a clean slate.

Now, let’s install and sync. Close Outlook if it’s running. Installation is clear cut and simple.

1. The Google Calendar Sync window looks like this –



2. The first part covers the log-in details of your calendar account. The second part is about how you plan to sync between Outlook and Google Calendar. You have three options to choose from which are pretty self explanatory.
   • 2 – Way: The data flows both ways. Change any detail in one calendar and it gets updated in the other too.
   • 1 – Way (Google Calendar to Outlook): Information flows from Google Calendar to the default Outlook Calendar. Any changes in the Outlook calendar will not be shown in the Google Calendar automatically.
   • 1-Way (Outlook to Google Calendar): Information goes from Outlook to Google Calendar. Any changes in Google Calendar will not get updated Outlook automatically.



3. All that’s left is to set the update/sync interval. The bare minimum is 10 minutes while the default is 120 minutes.
4. Google Calendar Sync runs from the system tray and you can access the settings with a right click. For instance, a manual sync is right click and Sync.

When the syncing operation is on, you will notice swirling arrows in the system icon. It’s a simple solution and probably the only thing that would make it more complete would be a date range selection feature.

Did You Know You Can Subscribe To Your Google Calendar In Outlook?

Outlook offers an easy way to add internet calendars like Google. Google Calendar obliges by giving us a private URL to use. Using this private URL we can view updated Google Calendars within Outlook. This is just one way as any changes in our Outlook Calendar will not get reflected in Google Calendar.

But here’s how you can view your updated Google Calendar in Outlook –

1. Log-in to your Google Calendar account.
2. On the left-hand side, click on Settings for the calendar you want to use under My calendars.



3. On the Calendars tab, click on the (account name) of your calendar.



4. The Calendar Details tab opens up. Go down to Private Address and click ICAL. Select the Internet Web address that appears, and then press CTRL+C to copy the selected text. This private link is intended for your use only.



5. Open Outlook. Go to Tools – Account Settings. On the Internet Calendars tab, click New.



6. Paste the Internet Web address copied from Google Calendar and click Add.



7. Give a name to the calendar in the Folder Name field. Now, any changes made in Google Calendar will show up in Outlook.

A little utility called Google Calendar Sync does the synchronizing job for us. That’s the easy part…the difficult part is keeping to the calendar (as the multi-million dollar time management industry always tells us).

There are a few other tools which do the job. We have briefly covered OggSync before which also allows you to do a two-way sync between Outlook (and Microsoft Exchange) and Google Calendar(s). You can also try out SyncMyCal Lite which comes with all basic calendar synchronization features.

Do you use both calendars? How do you keep them concurrent? Let us know.

Download: Google Calendar Sync.

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

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But that’s just first impressions. To make that tall claim stick, I need to go deeper into the new Trillian and take it around the block a few times.

A multi-protocol chat client will be judged by the services it supports. Using Trillian Astra you can connect to manage – Google, MySpace IM, Skype, AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, and IRC. With that you get support for POP3 and IMAP email lookup for your email accounts with a single click logon. RSS feed updates add to the keeping track features of the multi-chat client.

But the thick icing on the cake is that that the latest version has sunk its fangs into Facebook and Twitter. Two places where we are doing most of our social schmoozing these days.

With the whole cluster of features, where do I start? Let’s start at the beginning.

Quick and easy Install

Sometimes the way a software installs itself says a lot about the work that has been put into the program. Trillian doesn’t disappoint. The 14.6MB download is all in one go. The installer gives you the option of installing a bundled Ask.com toolbar. Uncheck to say no (if you want) and continue.

The first active step involves the registration of a new Astra account. It’s the first part of a three step process –

To configure the IM and web services, you have to put checks against the services you want to include followed by their log-in details.

That’s more or less it…Trillian Astra launches in all of its thematic glory.

The look does draw a ‘wow’.

I guess for now only Digsby comes close to the sleek skinnable interface of Trillian (are you looking at the Trillian Cordonata skin?). The interface can be designed on two default skins – the ultra modern one I mentioned and the other more sober and lighter Cobalt. Skins can be changed to different colors and without a restart. Support for Windows Vista Glass and Windows 7 effects is provided. Custom windows (like a new contact list) with a new look can also be done.

Trillian comes with a huge emoticon pack and more can be added. Emoticons and other objects are also arranged around compatibility with Yahoo and MSN.

There are two versions…is the free version a poor cousin?

Just when you are starting to enjoy the goodies, you see the notice that the installed Pro features will go away after 29 days. The truth is the Pro version offers some extras but it does not in any way take away from the standalone appeal of the free version.

The differences in brief can be glimpsed in this screenshot taken from the site –

Trillian Astra (Free) still offers a very rich set of features…most of us which I am sure the avid chatter would find more than adequate.

Trillian Astra and features galore (400+ actually!)

I don’t think you are expecting me to discuss all the 400 plus features here. Especially when, the full features page does a neat job if listing them very systematically. You can sort the features by type or alphabetically. More importantly, you can filter the features by – All, Show Premium Features Only, or Show New or Better Only. All premium features on the page and in the software Preferences settings are marked out by a little gear icon.

Also check out the page detailing all the screenshots for the chat client.

What’s really great about Trillian Astra

Straight out, I would say the support for Facebook and Twitter. These two are the cool places to hang out these days and Trillian does a great job at integrating then within all the chat services.

For Facebook – you get notification alerts with any new message, Facebook contacts become a part of your Trillian contact list and you can have real time chat conversations with them. Trillian also lets you update your status and access all Facebook feeds instantly.

For Twitter – follow and respond to tweets from Trillian. Re-tweet and follow Tweeter trends directly from your contact list. The TinyURL shortening service is an automatic service too. Put someone in your ignore list if they are Tweeting too much.

We shouldn’t forget Skype. Trillian doesn’t substitute Skype but becomes an integrated interface for Skype, if you have it installed. It includes your Skype contacts and receives incoming Skype calls through its own notification system. Thus, it acts like a call assistant to Skype.

Basic video support has been brought into Trillian. Though it’s not full screen view in the free version, you get what Trillian calls the Movie View. The window dims when a call begins and text feeds in just like onscreen subtitles.

A lot of widgets also add entertainment value (Flickr, Videogame console, My Sport etc) and functional help (World Time Clock, Business Card, Weather etc).

The full features page is worth a dekko. You are sure to find a host of other features to like.

Does it connect and deliver?

The feature set is in place and as far as first impressions go, Trillian seems light on its feet. It’s fast to start up and doesn’t seem to hog much of memory. Trillian says a lot of memory and bandwidth improvements have gone into the latest version. For now, I believe them because it does feel slick. The only con could be that the bundle of features might be a bit too complex for a section of users. And like all multi-protocol services, how nimble would Trillian be when updates start rolling in.

Trillian Astra (ver.4) is supported on Windows XP, Vista and 7. (The Mac OS X and iPhone versions are in the works.)

So is Trillian Astra the best multi-protocol instant messaging client yet? My own vote is theirs…what about yours?

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

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

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There are numerous tools that aid the serious searcher. Yolink belongs to that tribe. Yolink can be compared to a search accelerator, a growing class of web tools which bring the results closer and faster.

Let’s throw Yolink into the deep end of a web search and see how it comes up. With a thumbs up or for gasps of air?

What does Yolink do?

Yolink can be described as searching within results of a normal web search. For any webpage, put in a search query into the Yolink search box. Press enter or click the adjacent Search Links button.

For instance, here I am searching for Charlize Theron, the actress and Oscar winner in Wikipedia. The tool searches through all the links in that particular page for information matching the search query. The Yolink search accelerator results will be displayed in a right-sided split-pane, adjacent to the original web page.

The Yolink results are like little previews which help you decide which one needs to be followed to get to the right information. The search query is presented in the context of the content. Yolink’s utility goes deep into the levels of the webpage and filters information that’s relevant to the search query thus, saving the researcher’s time as he does not have to needlessly follow each and every link in the hunt for Charlize.

Click on any of the Yolink results which you feel is relevant for further lookup and that same link opens up in its original Web page (on the left pane) and is highlighted in the context.

Yolink’s behavior can be changed from the Yolink button next to the address bar. This button is also a toggle switch to hide and unhide the toolbar.

You can fine tune your search results by modifying the Search Options from the toolbar. Five options for the keywords are available which are self explanatory – Best Match, Match All, Exact Match, Match Any, Allow Breakouts. Allow breakouts is a Firefox-only feature and it’s for forcing the split screen on websites which do not allow dual pane view.

Save & Share your Yolink Search Accelerator Search Results

You can also store and share all your Yolink results in an online account. All it takes is a free registration with any email ID. With the email verification done, you are set to use your account space to save any link for further reference or share it with others.

To save a link, use the Save & Share button on the Yolink toolbar or click on the little Save & Share green icon next to any result.

The detailed user guide for Yolink can be read here.

The result

As an add-on it’s quite large, weighing in at 6.9MB and installs as a search toolbar. Users who like their browsers to be lean ‘n mean machines may not like the add-on weight. The casual searcher may also think of it as overkill. But for the guy who takes his searches passionately, it’s quite a serious tool. I found its main dexterity in trawling through lengthy webpages and news sites. It has also become a handy tool for multi-word search as I can view the context instantly for the multiple search queries without wasting any time.

Do you like to install search accelerators to enhance your search? Which ones have made web search faster and easier for you? Do you think that Yolink could become a worthy member of that tribe? Let us in on your opinion.

Youlink (ver 2.0) is a browser add-on compatible with Firefox (PC and Mac) and IE (ver 6, 7 and 8).

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

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You want to show someone a letter composed in MS Word, but want to keep some of the content private; or it’s an official letter with some part of it having critical data. As important as these two are, the most common use could involve a normal printing job. Many a time we have to print different versions of a document, one copy for one set of eyes and others for other sets.

Rather than creating multiple copies and therefore multiple printing jobs, what if we could just do it from the same document? That too, without the hassle of repeated cut and paste.

We can, with a simple feature in MS Word – it’s just called Hidden and let me show you how to use it to hide text in Microsoft Word 2007. It’s a simple single click process.

1. Open the document which you want to work upon. The screenshot below shows the before state, i.e. before we activate the Hidden feature.



2. Select the text you want to hide from prying eyes. Right click and choose the Font option from the context menu.



3. Under Effects, put a checkmark against Hidden. Click OK.

The text has done a Houdini act.

But with the important part invisible to the eye, how do we get it back? Houdini usually made dramatic reappearances, MS Word’s Hidden feature doesn’t quite match up but it’s dead easy.

1. Select the entire document with a Select All (Ctrl-A or Toolbar – Editing – Select – Select All). Right click and go back to the Font option again from the context menu.
2. The Hidden setting is solid and active. Click on it once to display the checkmark. Click again to remove the checkmark and unhide all the content. Click OK to exit and reveal the content.



3. Note: There is another way to reveal hidden content. Click on the Office Button – Word Options – Display. Click on the Hidden text formatting marker under Always show these formatting marks on the screen. Any hidden text in the document is revealed underlined with the marker.

Thus, with a simple toggle of a setting you can selectively hide blocks of text, print the documents and then unhide the text again. That’s great, but what if you need to send the document over to someone with hidden content? Then we need to fall back on the Protect Document feature of MS Word for more ironclad security.

Protect Document is a security feature that prevents modification of a text document unless allowed by the author. To start protection, click on the Review tab and go to the Protect group and follow these steps.

1. Click on Protect Document – Restrict Formatting and Editing.



2. Drill down and click on Limit formatting to a selection of styles – Settings under Formatting Restrictions.



3. In the Formatting Restrictions box, select None to disallow formatting for styles.



4. Click OK and then put a check against Allow only this type of editing in the document and keep it set on No Changes (Read Only) in the dropdown.



5. To make the protection active click on Start Enforcement and provide a password to secure the document. Now, you can forward this document to others with the text hidden and protected from changes.

Hidden text as a formatting control is usually more useful for quick print jobs rather than as a secretive cloaking device.

Though, the latter too can be used creatively. Think of school quizzes with the answers hidden. I personally use it to hide and unhide sections while writing. Sometimes, it helps me understand the flow and length (word count) without having to delete any section.

Do you use this feature to hide text? How…or has it stayed hidden and unused?

Image Credit: CarbonNYC

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

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How many times have we sent an email to the wrong guy? At least – once. How many times have we forgotten to include someone in the mail? Many times over! The end result may or may not be as bad as with handguns or as embarrassing as a tequila high, but email mistakes are unprofessional (and can be potentially a huge blow).

The good thing about Gmail is that the boffins in Google Labs have their empathy hat on. They know that foot-in-the-mouth disease is becoming quite common in the online world too, thanks to rapid tools like email and Twitter. That’s why Gmail has quite a few Google Labs email features inbuilt to prevent such errors.

We have brought up some of the features previously mentioned in a couple of Google Labs feature posts. Maybe, this one will help to put all of them on a common thread. Let’s start with two of the latest ones on the experimental block.

To access the Google Labs email features, click on the little green beaker icon at the top right.

1. Don’t Forget Bob

   

   Who’s Bob? It could be your friend or your boss. But actually in Gmail it’s the new name for the old ‘Add More Recipients’. It’s Google’s way of suggesting adding guys you might have missed while filling your address fields. Click on Enable and it might help you avoid a bit of heartburn from ignored friends while emailing important announcements.

2. Got the wrong Bob?

   

   Ignoring Bob is bad. What’s even worse is including the wrong Bob. Imagine sending a gossipy email to the wrong person…it will surely ignite the office grapevine. Unlike gossip, emails don’t give you a place to hide. The new feature in Gmail Labs prompts you if it thinks you’re about to e-mail the wrong person. This feature works for group mailing. Gmail looks at the groups you mail more often and alerts you if a new name gets added. If you think you didn’t make a mistake, just ignore it and move on.

3. Mail Googles

   

   Google’s cure for temporary blood rush to the head or for the dopey eyed. Enabling this feature forces you to do some basic math before sending out the mail. Gmail makes sure that you are in the right state of mind during the odd hours when email mistakes are more common.

   After enabling it, you can manually adjust days, times and difficulty level under Settings – Generals.

4. Forgotten Attachment Detector

   

   This reminder feature is for more professional email results rather than fatal goof-ups. No one will actually mind if you forget an attachment except the HR guy perhaps. The clever feature senses that you are sending a mail with attachment (say, you wrote: “I am attaching this doc file”) and alerts you if you forget to do so.

5. Authentication icon for verified senders

   

   Falling for a scam is the ultimate email goof-up. Did you hear about the one where the FBI head honcho nearly fell for an email phishing scam? He was banned by his wife from further online transactions. The Gmail authentication icon protects you from such a fate by adding a layer of security. It scans the email headers and places a key icon next to verified emails that are super-trustworthy. The trust is limited to eBay and PayPal for now but as the official Gmail blog says, more senders will be added soon.

6. Keep your email conversations updated

   

   This is supposed to work like this – if you are in the middle of reading a mail and someone sends in a response to it before you do, Gmail alerts you that a new message has arrived. Click Update conversation to see what you’ve missed. With this feature, you won’t fall out of the loop and can stay – updated. This is not strictly a Google Labs email feature but now a default feature for all incoming mails.

7. Undo Send

   

   You have committed all the cardinal sins mentioned so far. No worries, Google has a workaround for it too. With Undo Send, you can quickly stop the email from being dispatched. The only problem is that you have to realize your mistake fast and click on the undo button faster. Undo Send gives you just 5 or 10 seconds to see the error of your ways. Ignore it and the e-mail goes through. Click Undo and you are returned to the Compose window.

Most of these are experimental Google Lab email features. They may or may not stand the test of time and use. But while they are there, they can help us keep our follies at bay.

Which feature do you like the best? Which one do you hate? Tell us your reasons in the comments below.

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

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

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Robo.to is a micro-video platform which lets users’ record 4 second video clips expressing their moods, emotions, feelings, condition et.al. Think of it as an emoticon in video mode. But here’s the surprising catch; the free video emoticons don’t have sound. The short video clips go with text status updates. These video clips can be used in social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.

Is it offbeat?

We have avatars…we have animated avatars and then we have these ‘live’ extensions of our own selves. A free video emoticon does a better job than the one-dimensional artificial avatars or even profile photos. And unlike them, videos aren’t static.

Let’s enter and switch on the mood.

1. Creating an account is simple and hassle free. An email confirmation completes the registration process.
2. Entering your account takes you to the Get Started page where you simply have to record your first free video emoticon. Allow the inline Flash player access to your webcam and with a press of the record button you are recording your first heart to heart thoughts.



3. The next step is about putting a few words about your state of being. Feeling happy…say so, in the little text box. Feeling crappy…why not say that too, after all your visual expression is probably giving you away. A little indicator lets you know what’s a good length for the message. In this case, a picture doesn’t say a thousand words. It’s the words that go with the picture.



4. To add the social media where you would like your video to update your friends, head southwards for the selection of the modules. As soon as you select one or more, the respective login box opens up, asking for your credentials. With the social links established, you can publish your video updates.



5. Just like any other social network, you can add your friends and follow their updates. Added friends go into your crowd which is like your network of friends. You can check into all status videos from the Statusphere section on top.



6. For those with their own blogs or websites, Robo.to provides a link and also embeddable code. This allows any reader to follow your status updates as soon as you make them.

   

Is that all?

If you don’t look carefully, you just might miss the link to the TV Mode on the upper right corner. It’s a gallery of those entire 4 second user created clips for public consumption.

The micro-videos are arranged around Topics, searchable by keywords or usernames. Viewers can rate the videos, reply to them and add them to their crowd. I clicked through quite a few and it’s fun watching some of the expressions condensed into 4 second dumb charades.

Will it catch on?

With a beta, it is early days. But one day who would have thought that a web app which forces you to write your thoughts in 140 words would ever become a rage. Twitter did and most of us are on it. Brief and skimpy seems to be in. For an app that calls itself a massively small product, that could be the USP. Mashable says the site has seen 350,000 site visitors and 1.5 million Robo.to views in all. That sounds like a calling card to potential success.

Try it and let us know. Maybe, in a 4 second clip?

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

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

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The easiest way of course is through add-ons as Firefox calls them or extensions as Google Chrome calls them. Chrome has a lot going for it despite the vacuum of extensions.

But Google had promised support for Google Chrome extensions and it is beginning to keep it. The official support for extensions has been announced and though it’s still not fully on in the standard version, one gets it with the developer version of Google Chrome.

A few posts back we saw how to download and install Google Chrome extensions in the developer version. Do go through that post again and come back here. In this post we will check out some of the coolest extensions to download and use with Google Chrome.

The population may be small but the seeds of popularity are being sown with these baby steps.

1. Google Chrome Backup

   If the first thing you savor is peace of mind then the Google Chrome Backup is a must install. This is a small tool to create, backup, restore and manage Google Chrome profiles that holds all your bookmarks, history, saved passwords etc. This is not an extension in the strictest sense as it does not run within the browser but as a separate install. Nevertheless, it’s an important tool to have.

   

   The 1.1MB download works with Google Chrome version 0.2.149.27 onwards and requires .NET framework.

2. AdSweep

   A simple ad blocker extension that modifies the CSS rules on a webpage to hide the advertisements. The small javascript code recognizes ads (especially banner ads) based on specific patterns and blocks them. The extension may not work on all webpages because some ads may escape the recognition patterns used by AdSweep.

   

   The 32KB AdSweep userscript works with Google Chrome developer version 4+.

 

Latest Article: Twitter: Best Practices and Tips [PDF Guide]

3. Session Saver

   Something I really like because it harks back to the Save sessions and Manage sessions feature of Opera. It’s useful if you have to switch off and need to come back to the same tabs at some point later. This extension can save  multiple sessions each with its own name. You can also save all saved sessions as bookmarks.

   

   The 107KB Session Saver extension is compatible with Google Chrome developer version 4+.

4. TPGoogleReader

   This is a Google Reader extension for Chrome. The extension makes reading and managing feeds a one click job. It installs as two little icons on the toolstrip and shows the number of unread feeds. In the normal mode, clicking on the items counter opens the first unread item and marks it as read. In the auto-mode, one click on the checkbox opens the unread items in background tabs and marks them as read.

   

   The 9.7KB TPGoogleReader extension is compatible with Google Chrome developer version 4+.

5. Web of Trust

   WOT is a free browser add-on that protects the user from online scams and risky websites. A pop-up opens from the bottom of the screen and indicates not only the trustworthiness of a website but also how things stand with a site’s vendor reliability, child safety and privacy. You can also contribute your own ratings and select the ratings you want to get alerts on.

   

   The WOT extension is a 523KB download compatible with Google Chrome developer version 4+.

6. Smoothscroll

   This extension simply adds the smooth scrolling behavior to Google Chrome. Smooth scrolling auto-scrolls the browser at a constant speed. Click the middle mouse button/scroll wheel and drag the mouse down to set the scroll speed.

   The Smoothscroll extension is a 3KB download compatible with Google Chrome developer version 4+.

7. Bubble Translate

This Google Chrome extension enables you to do inline translations of a webpage into any language supported by Google Translate with a single click. You can set all language choices from its settings.



The Bubble Translate extension is a 34KB download compatible with Google Chrome developer version 4+.

8. Cleeki

   This extension is basically a feature rich search accelerator for Google Chrome. Highlight any keyword on a webpage and a little adjoining icon gives you access to a lot of internet choices from Wikipedia to YouTube to get more information. The information opens up in a little inline window, so you don’t need to browse away. Search can also be done on multiple sites at the same time.

   

   The Cleeki extension is a 56KB download compatible with Google Chrome developer version 4+.

9. LastPass
   

LastPass is an online form filler and password manager which got some high marks from us in a previous post. For error free performance, switch off Chrome’s inbuilt password manager (Wrench Icon – Options – Personal Stuff) and Form Autofill under the same tab.



The LastPass extension is a 315KB download compatible with Google Chrome developer version 4+.

10. Greasemetal

Familiar with Greasemonkey userscripts for Firefox? Those little pieces of code that help you customize your Firefox browser. Greasemetal is the Chrome incarnation of those handy javascripts which let you modify its behavior. It’s a good extension to have because a lot of userscripts continue o be developed and are made available from sites like Userscripts.org.

Greasemetal comes as a 1.2MB installer download for Google Chrome.

These ten extensions represent just a few of the many that are out there and slowly burgeoning with each iteration of the Chrome browser. Hopefully, it won’t be long before Chrome would give the Firefox add-ons gallery a run for its download. For us users, this is a war where we will get all the spoils.

True, ten is a very small number. Which is your extension you would have liked to have seen on the list?

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