One of the apps I got acquainted with on this journey is Foodie Recipes, a free iPad app that’s both beautiful, diverse and seasonally relevant. Foodie Recipes is based on the website foodie.com, but is not merely a mobile version of the website. Rather, Foodie Recipes offers a recipe magazine of sorts, which aggregates the best seasonal recipes from food bloggers and professionals from all over the world. Each edition of Foodie Recipes has a different theme, with dozens of easy-to-follow recipes for you to prepare.

When I say Foodie Recipes is free, I mean it. Not only is the app free, not only is the current edition free, but all past editions are also free, which easily brings you to over 150 curated recipes for all kinds of dishes suitable for different times of the year.

Spring Flavor

The current edition available on Foodie Recipes is Spring Flavor, which includes 40 recipes for spring-themed appetizers, drinks, soups, salads, small plates, pasta, main dishes, sweets, and preserves. Each recipe comes from a different contributor, which makes for a pretty diverse collection of recipes.

The app is built much like a magazine, with an editor’s note at the beginning, and one recipe and image per page. There are several ways to navigate through the app: flipping through recipes by tapping, jumping through them using the visual toolbar at the bottom of the screen, or using the collapsible table of contents on the left.

The Spring Flavor edition includes recipes ranging from super easy ones (deviled eggs, strawberry and avocado salad, grilled baby artichokes), to intermediate ones (broiled salmon with rhubarb salsa, chocolate-covered strawberry pie), to special occasion ones (lamb curry meat pie with minted peas, chickpea cakes with shaved asparagus and yogurt, key lime pie marshmallows). Each recipe comes with one image of the finished product, an ingredient list, and step-by-step directions, as well as prep time, cooking time, and yield.

The recipes are easy to follow and clear, but if you’re a complete beginner, you’ll find that they don’t exactly teach you how to cook. Most of these recipes are aimed at people who cook from time to time or like cooking, and are looking to expand their usual repertoire.

Unlike the Foodie website, there’s currently no way to bookmark recipes, add them to a recipe book, or mark them in any other way. You can, however, share a favorite recipe on Facebook or Twitter, email it to yourself or someone else, or print it straight from the app (requires AirPrint).

More Editions

Foodie Recipe’s offering doesn’t end with one edition, though. To date, Foodie has released four different editions for its iPad app: Spring Flavor, Romantic Meals, Game Day Guide, and Holiday Deserts. Some of these, such as the Romantic Meals edition, even come with an amusing video helping you set up the mood for a romantic Valentine’s day dinner.

To access these extra editions, tap the “Contents” button on the top left to expand the table of contents. Below the names of the different sections, you’ll find the “Editions” button. Tap an edition to start downloading it for free.

Each edition contains 40 recipes from a range of sources, showing you how to make everything from bourbon and ginger cupcakes or vanilla carrot soup, to stuffed pizza mushrooms, and bourbon and cider turkey meatballs.

A new edition of Foodie Recipes is released every couple on months, so you can always look forward to new and surprising recipes on the same stunning interface. Best of all the app has no intrusive adverts and won’t keep nagging you to buy in-app purchases to unlock content – this is one truly free app to help discover your inner chef.

Foodie Recipes is a great source of recipes, but doesn’t provide any way to collect or manage your recipes. If you’re looking for a recipe manager, Paprika Recipe Manager is worth a look. And as always, don’t forget to check out our Best of iPad Apps page for more recommendations you can make use of.

Download: Foodie Recipes on iTunes (Free)

Do you like Foodie Recipes? Is there another foodie app you’d like to recommend? Tell us all about it in the comments!

The post Enjoy 160+ Free Recipes At Your Fingertips With Foodie Recipes For iPad [iOS] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Out of 841 votes in total, the breakdown was as follows: 4.4% said they will pay for YouTube content, 8.5% will pay, but only if it’s the only option, and a full 87% of the voters will not pay a dime to watch YouTube content.

Full results and this week’s poll after the jump.

Don’t forget to check out last week’s best comment by Arron Walker, who once again won 150 reward points for his insightful comment!

This week’s poll question is: What Is Your Favorite Google Product Announced This Week?

Risking your scorn for yet another Google-based poll, this has truly been a busy week for Google, and one we cannot easily ignore. As usual, Google I/O brought a flurry of new features and products, which are going to affect you somehow, no matter how you look at it. From a new Google Maps preview to a Google Talk replacement, this has definitely been an exciting week for Google and Google users. Did you get a chance to try some of the new features? Which one is your favorite? Which one looks like it would be the most useful in your every day life?

Can’t see your favorite announcement? Be sure to tell us what it is in the comments! We’d also love to hear why you chose the way you did, and what makes your choice the best.

The post What Is Your Favorite Google Product Announced This Week? [MakeUseOf Poll] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

It was only 20 years ago when the very best you could do to find out more about someone was to open a phone book and find an address or a phone number, if these weren’t unlisted. It really wasn’t so long ago when our lives were relatively private, without us having to make sure they’re so.

This has changed completely with the advent of search engines and social networks, and today you can rest assured that anyone who wants to know anything about you has already typed your name in Google. But what did they find when they did that? Did they actually find information about you? Was it information you really wanted them to have? And who are the people who might be searching for your name on Google? All this and more, on the next episode of… well, just read on.

Who Is Googling You & Why?

Potential employers: Looking for a job? Or maybe you’re trying to get into a specific school program? Your name is fair game to the people who are considering you, who might try to find whether or not you are who you say you are. This kind of searcher might look for embarrassing bits you’ve done your best to forget, evidence that you’ve really worked where you said you’ve worked, and will definitely be on the lookout for news items featuring you robbing a bank.

Potential employees: Hiring? You’re still not exempt from the Google treatment. Those who consider working for you could search for your company’s name, and for your own name as well, trying to find out what kind of employer you are. Seems far fetched? Rest assured that if you’ve been exceedingly unfair to a worker in that past, that worker has written about it somewhere, and it’s not going to be that hard to find. A potential employee may also Google you to make sure you really are who you say you are, in case it’s a long-distance kind of job.

Curious friends, family, exes, and snoops: This is the broadest category of people who might be Googling you, and includes current friends, old friends, people you’ve just met, ex-partners, ex-teachers, ex-employers, your close family, your distant family, family you never knew you had, your friends’ or partner’s parents, and pretty much anyone who’s ever had anything to do with you. What are they looking for? This can range from simple curiosity over what they might find on the first page of your Google results to finding out where you work, where you live, how old you are, what religion you practice, and making sure you’re not a scary sleazebag, not a criminal, and not anything else they don’t approve of.

Marketers, political bodies, etc.: You might be wondering how marketers or political bodies know things about you and get in touch with you. It’s not rocket science. A simple Google search can reveal basic information they can make use of to appeal their case to you much better. When someone wants to sell you something, be it a product, a service, or a vote for the right party, having some background information is always a huge help.

Complete strangers: Yes, this can happen too. In this category we find people who happened to see your name online or elsewhere and are curious to find out more, and also people who might have malicious intentions such as robbing your house, or worse.

What They Might Find

The list of what these Googlers might find is endless, and it very much depends on how common your name is, and on your online activity. To make things easier, I’ll try to divide potential results into several categories.

Someone else with the same name: If you don’t have a unique name, this is the most common occurrence on Google results. No matter who you are, if you have a common name, chances are there’s someone more famous than you with the exact same name. In these cases, you may encounter all the results listed below, only these might have nothing to do with you. This is nice when your name double is a successful football player or science professor, and less fortunate if it’s a porn star or or suicide bomber.

Let’s say your name is unique enough, or you’ve done enough to actually appear as yourself on your Google results. What can you expect people to find?

Social network profiles: This is the most obvious one, and can include your profiles on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, YouTube, and any other network you’re active or used to be active on. As long as you made sure not to share publicly what shouldn’t be shared, you should be good on that front. Do keep in mind, though, that a potential employer or a partner’s parent might not like seeing any part of your nightlife, no matter how innocent you think it is.

Fake social network profiles: This is a weird one, and is different from real profiles that come from people who just happen to have the same name. You may never encounter this if your name is common, but looking for a unique name like my own I found a Facebook profile bearing my name, with a “Content Providers” cover photo, and not much in way of any profile content.

Things you’ve written online: If you’ve written blog posts, research papers, newspaper articles for big or small papers, or even a comment on someone else’s work, these can and probably will appear when searching your name on Google. No problems here, as long as you’re proud of these. If the last thing you’ve written is a 7 year-old blog post, you might want to at least read it over again, just to be on the safe side.

Things others have written online: Your name can be a part of things you haven’t written yourself, and these may still pop up on Google when searching for your name. Did a friend mention you in a paper’s acknowledgment? Was your name referred to on an article or blog post? These may definitely come up, so hopefully, you were only mentioned as the good guy.

Your pictures: Ah, the most fun and most random part of Google search — image search! When it comes to image search, everything’s possible, and unless you’re truly famous, you’re going to have some weird things popping up on an image search. What can you expect to find here? Start with your  real pictures uploaded by you, and real pictures of you uploaded by others. Continue with pictures that are part of things you’ve written online (yes, including screenshots!), pictures you’ve pinned on Pinterest or added on a different social network, pictures of your friends, and figures from papers you have something to do with. Now we can venture into pictures that are related to only part of your name, or, if your name if common, pictures of complete strangers.

While this whole eclectic collection will appear on any image search, Google’s algorithm does try to put the most relevant ones first. This is how, when searching for a friend of mine, I found a photo mashup she created with her mother’s face in her own head as the first result, and not one genuine picture of her. Good thing I already know what she looks like.

Accounts on websites you can’t remember opening: Remember the account you opened on <random website>? No? Google does. A Google search might yield profiles you’ve actually opened yourself, and haven’t used since. Hopefully, these are going to be empty, without too much embarrassing content you can’t remember putting there.

Profiles and search results on aggregators: These are all sorts of website that most often than not make their living from appearing on your Google results, convincing you to start using them for real, as opposed to “using them” inadvertently. Looking at my own first two pages of results, I found my “profiles” and “search results” on no less than four of these:  Longreads, Favstar, twtrland, and ZoomInfo.

Weird genealogy websites: For some reason, your name, relatives’ names, and even pictures somehow make their way onto these family-tracking websites no matter who you are. These may appear on the first page of results or deeper than that, but it’s surprising how common they are. I managed to find such a website bearing not only my picture and name, but my sister, parents, and other relatives. Obviously, someone related to the family uploaded these at some point, but no one ever asked for my permission to do it.

What Can You Do?

This is only a small part of what  people might find when Googling your name. If you’re really unlucky, your results may be even more colorful than any mentioned above. The best way to know for sure is to head over to Google.com and perform the search yourself. Remember that searching for yourself on your browser might not yield the same results as it would for others performing the exact same search. To get a better idea of what people might see, try using a private browsing window or DuckDuckGo.

If you don’t like what you see, you can try to improve the results with services such as BrandYourself, which help you get the links that matter to you into those search results.

And remember, don’t ever use your real name on anything you don’t want traced back to you. We’re all entitled to whatever interests we might have, but as soon as you use your real name, it may pop up on Google next time your ex looks up your name.

What happens when you search for your name on Google? Did you ever have someone Google your name and find something embarrassing? Share your experiences in the comments!

The post 5 People Who Might Google You & What They Might Find appeared first on MakeUseOf.

If you’re new to Buffer, you’re going to want to download and install Buffer’s browser extension which is available for Firefox, Chrome, Opera, and Safari, and create a Buffer account. You can then link it with your Twitter accounts to start scheduling retweets (among other things) from your various Twitter users. To schedule a retweet using the Web interface, hit the Buffer button under the tweet you want to share and choose which method of retweet (old or new) you prefer.

Buffer sends out your posts according to a fixed schedule, which is aimed at getting the most eyeballs on your posts as possible, according to time zone. This schedule can be changed manually in Buffer’s dashboard. After scheduling retweets, you can change their set time or delete them from the dashboard as well.

Scheduling a retweet from iOS and Android is a little more complicated, and involves emailing the tweet to Buffer using your secret Buffer email address. This is a unique address you can add to your phone’s contact book for easy access, and use whenever you find a tweet you want to retweet. no matter which app you’re on. Simply email the tweet you want to share to your Buffer address either by using the built-in “email tweet” option available in some apps, or manually.

This will add the retweet to your Buffer schedule automatically, and again, you can head over to your Buffer dashboard to change things around.

Buffer is already available as a built-in option on many services such as Feedly, Instapaper, TweetCaster, Pocket, Reeder, and IFTTT. Hopefully, this retweet option will become easier to use on mobile as Buffer reaches even more apps.

Are you happy to see retweets coming to Buffer?

Source: Buffer Blog

The post Buffer Adds Retweet Scheduling From Web, iOS & Android [Updates] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

To answer this question, I decided to do more than just tell you about YouTube downloaders — I’m going to analyze them for you. By the time you finish reading this post, you’ll know all about the 5 options tested, and get a clear idea of which one you should be using.

ClipConverter [Web]

Interface & usability: ClipConverter is an easy-to-use Web service for downloading and converting YouTube videos by pasting a URL. ClipConverter’s interface is nice to look at, and offers only the options you need to use at any given moment, a fact which makes it pleasantly uncluttered. After pasting your YouTube URL, choose a download quality, name your file, and choose which format you want to have it in. ClipConverter makes it very clear what the final file size is going to be. After conversion is done, ClipConverter will provide a download link for the video or audio.

Features: For most formats, ClipConverter gives you full control over quality of both audio and video, as well as the volume of your output, its aspect ratio, and its length. It’s very easy to download and convert only a section of the video. If you don’t know much about bitrates, you can leave these at default, or let ClipConverter detect the best settings automatically.

Available formats: FLV, MP4, MP3, M4A, AAC, WMA, OGG, 3GP, AVI, MPG, WMV, MOV.

Speed: A high-definition (720p) MP4 video was ready to download after 1 minute 25 seconds. A 215 kbps AVI version of the same video was ready to download after an average of 4 minutes.

Annoyances: My AVI download kept downloading without sound, no matter what I did. This was not a problem with other formats. Clicking the “convert another video” after downloading one opens a pop-up ad in the background.

Extras: Also supports Dailymotion, Vimeo, Metacafe, Sevenload, SoundCloud, Veoh, MySpace, and MyVideo. Also available as an ad-free browser add-on for Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera. Can also convert video files uploaded from your computer.

Ease of use: A+

Overall rating: A

KeepVid [Web]

Interface & usability: KeepVid is a Web service that lets you easily download YouTube videos in a number of formats. There’s not much to KeepVid aside from pasting a URL and clicking on “Download”. KeepVid recognizes the video and presents a thumbnail, the video’s title, and the video’s length. You can’t change file name or adjust quality on KeepVid; all you can do is choose the format you want, right click the relevant link and choose “Save As..”. Note that KeepVid comes in two modes, Beta Off and Beta On. If Beta is off, you may need to enable Java in order to use the service. If you’d rather not, switch Beta to On, but be prepared for some slight bugs.

Features: Not many to speak of. The bookmarklet is an easy way to start a video download/conversion straight from YouTube, but other than that, there are no special features worth mentioning. This might be a plus if you’re looking for something really simple.

Available formats: FLV, MP4, 3GP, WEBM.

Speed: Download links for all formats are available immediately.

Annoyances: Default file name is a random number. Background pop-up ads open up on several occasion, and the ads in general are of the kind meant to confuse you into clicking them.

Extras: Supports a multitude of other services other than YouTube, including Dailymotion, CollegeHumor, eHow, Facebook, Metacafe, TED, TwitVid, and Vimeo, to name only a few. See a full list of formats here. Also available as a bookmarklet.

Ease of use: B-

Overall rating: B

Xenra [Web]

Interface & usability: Xenra sports a simple interface that nonetheless gives you much control over your final video or audio output. Simply paste your video URL in the box, and click Download to reveal more options. You will not get the option to choose your format, quality, and other settings, before you hit the “Start Conversion” button. The process is very easy, and pretty much anyone can follow it. The interface is clean, and surprisingly, doesn’t even include ads.

Features: Xenra is geared at creating audio files from YouTube videos, and as such, provides fine control over ID3 tags such as title, artist and album. You also get full control over volume and bitrate for both audio and video.

Available formats: MP3, AVI, FLV, MOV, MP4, 3GP, MPG, MPEG, WAV, WMA, WMV.

Speed: A high definition (720p) MP4 video was available after a little over 4 minutes. An AVI with the same settings took 3:30 minutes.

Annoyances:

• You can download one video per day without logging in. If you want more, you’ll have to create an account and log in.
• You need to beware of downloading your file using the Xenra Download Manager, which is the default setting. After you uncheck it once, the option disappears for future downloads.

• The first time you use Xenra you’re going to have to wait on a 20-seconds long nag screen, asking you to like Xenra on Facebook.
• While preparing your video, Xenra sometimes gets stuck on “Cleaning up”, and never really gets to the part where you download a video.
• My MP4 video never worked.
• My AVI video wasn’t of very good quality, despite the settings I chose.

Despite these annoyances, Xenra’s interface is one of the best available for such Web apps, and would be a good choice if you want to convert YouTube videos into audio files.

Extras: Xenra is also available as a browser add-on for Firefox, Chrome and Safari.

Ease of use: A

Overall: C+

Any Video Converter [Windows, Mac]

Interface & usability: Moving on from Web apps, Any Video Converter (AVC) is a desktop app for Windows or Mac that can handle all your YouTube downloading and converting needs. To download a YouTube video, copy the URL to your clipboard, and click the Download button in AVC. The program automatically pulls the URL from your clipboard, presenting a thumbnail, title and length for the video. You can then choose between several formats for download, and start downloading immediately. The interface is much richer than your average Web app, but it still easy enough to use without getting into too much trouble.

Features: AVC features a huge list of mobile devices for conversion purposes, so you can get the maximum possible video quality for your specific device. After downloading a video, you can also use the clip tool to create video segments, crop the video to your exact needs, and control colors and add effects. For every conversion, you can fine tune your video and audio quality, or simply use one the dozens of preset output options. AVC comes with a built-in video player to watch your videos, and you can watch videos while downloading and/or converting others.

Available formats: WEBM, MP4, 3GB for download, but can convert it to pretty much any video and audio format on Earth after download. For some reason, initial download for MP4 is only available in low quality, despite the video being available in 720p.

Speed: Can start downloading video immediately, but any format other than WEBM, MP4 and 3GP requires extra conversion.

Annoyances: When installing Any Video Converter, it will try to get you to install TuneUp Utilities. This will install by default, so make sure you uncheck this option if you’re not interested. The program will also nag you about the full version — Any Video Converter Ultimate — quite often.

Extras: As this is a desktop program, conversions of any kind will also work offline. AVC can also convert pretty much any video format you have on your computer.

Ease of use: A-

Overall: A

Freemake [Windows]

Interface & usability: For some reason, YouTube downloaders and video converters have a tendency to be ugly and/or cluttered. Not so with Freemake. This slick piece of software is such a joy to use and look at, looks alone are a great reason to give it a try. To get started, copy a video URL to your clipboard and click the shiny blue “Paste URL” button. This will automatically detect the video, and open the format dialog. Once you choose your format and quality, videos will start downloading to the path of your choosing.

Features: When downloading or converting with Freemake, you can pause the process in the middle and resume it at a later time. You can also restrict the download speed, if you’re trying to save bandwidth. By logging into your social accounts via Freemake, it’s possible to download private videos people shared with you and that are not available publicly online. It’s also possible to enable “one-click download mode”, which saves you from having to set up quality and format every time.

Available formats: WEBM, MP4, FLV, 3GP, AVI, MKV, MP3, WMV. Devices: iPod/iPhone, iPad, Android, PSP.

Speed: After pasting a URL and choosing your settings, videos start downloading immediately. A high definition MP4 video took around 3 minutes to be available on my computer. An AVI took around 7 minutes to be available on my computer. Of course, this depends on your connection speed.

Annoyances: On installation, Freemake tries to push two third-party programs on you. The first one is Instagrille, which is indeed one of my favorite Instagram clients, but not when it comes with unrelated programs, and the second one is TuneUp Utilities yet again. Make sure you uncheck these if you’re not interested.

Extras: Freemake supports almost every video website out there, including Facebook, Flickr, Dailymotion, MyVideo, Vimeo, and LiveLeak. It also supports a large number of adult websites, and has special settings for videos from such sites, if that’s your thing.

East of use: A+

Overall: A+

Bottom Line

To sum things up, I’ll order the reviewed services from best to worst, and give you my final thoughts:

1. Freemake (the best)
2. ClipConvertr
3. Any Video Converter
4. KeepVid
5. Xenra (the worst)

If you download online videos and convert them on a daily or even weekly basis, your choice is crystal clear: you can’t really do any better than Freemake. If you only need to download a video once in a blue moon, and you don’t feel like cluttering your computer with yet another program, go for ClipConverter, or if you need WEBM, for KeepVid.

What is your favorite YouTube downloader out there? Should it have been included on this list? Tell us about it in the comments!

Image credit: MeBaze

The post 5 Free YouTube Downloaders & Converters Compared: Which One Is Right For You? appeared first on MakeUseOf.

If you’re the kind of person who prefers to leave things in the browser, certain Chrome Twitter extensions can help you get all sorts of fun and useful Twitter features without having to resort to out-of-the-browser clients. Whether you’re looking to save time when sharing webpages, save brain cells when reading your stream, or retweet the good old way from Twitter’s native interface, there are ways to do so without leaving your browser. Try the Chrome Twitter extensions below to find out!

PowerInbox

PowerInbox is a browser extension available for Chrome, Firefox, Safari and IE, which takes your regular Twitter emails and makes them much more useful by turning them interactive. In fact, PowerInbox does its trick with many additional services besides Twitter, including Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, Spotify, Pinterest, and others.

Focusing on Twitter, PowerInbox makes it so you can actually make use of those pesky email updates you keep getting from Twitter, such as “you have a new follower” or “Bla and BlaBla have tweets for you”. After installing the add-on and signing into your Twitter account, emails from Twitter will start looking something like this:

As you can see, instead of getting a simple alert you can’t do much with, PowerInbox makes it so you can follow users from within the email, send tweets, and in other emails also view your stream, reply, retweet, and favorite tweets.

PowerInbox has an on/off button on top of every supported email, so if you don’t feel like viewing interactive content, you can simply turn it off and turn it back on when you’re ready for more.

Tareem Extender

Tareem Extender takes your good old Twitter interface, and powers it up with some new and useful features. While I couldn’t get every single feature listed to work, the extension still adds a considerable amount of them. Starting with features that actually work, Tareem Extender adds an old retweet button to every tweet, as well as a DM button and a quick translate button to translate tweets from English into dozens of languages.

You can also set the extension to highlight your mentions in the stream, and to show desktop notifications for your Twitter mentions.

So what didn’t work? Tareem Extender claims to include a built-in link shortener, which I couldn’t get to work, as well as a “speak to tweet” feature which was no where to be found. Considering Twitter’s ever changing API and interface, I’m assuming some features just stopped working over time, but where it counts, Tareem Extender provides the means to use Twitter’s native interface to much better results.

Tweet This Page

Most blogs and websites include a tweet button of some kind, but these are located in a different spot on every page, and might even look different from website to website. In addition, most of these buttons are just extensions of the twitter.com webpage, and as such don’t let you use your personal link shortener. Tweet This Page can change that.

Tweet This Page is a simple Chrome Twitter extension that makes it super easy to tweet a link to any page you’re on. Want to share a link on Twitter? Click the new Twitter button on the right side of Chrome’s address bar to create the tweet. You can set Tweet This Page to use your personal bit.ly account and to automatically use selected text as the tweet body, making it possible to click and tweet in seconds.

Silver Bird

Silver Bird is a fully-fledged Twitter client built into a Chrome extension. Behind a colorful bird icon hides a simple interface that nonetheless includes pretty much anything you could wish for in a Twitter client. And what’s more, it’s all completely customizable.

From the icon’s color at any given moment, to the interface’s font and color, to the compose area’s position, Silver Bird is like a mold you can shape as your own. With its built-in pop-up notifications, built-in link shortener, its ability to add images to tweets and its handy suspend option for when you really need to concentrate, you may never need to venture into twitter.com again.

Read a full review of Silver Bird.

Larry Filter for Twitter

Twitter too noisy? Larry Filter can make it a quieter place with the help of some well-placed filters. This handy extension lets you set keywords and hashtags you’re not interested in, and either hide them completely, or increase opacity on tweets that include them.

While this is not the only way to filter tweets, I love Larry Filter for its simplicity, and for its ability to only half hide the culprit tweets. This way, I can make sure I’m not missing anything important, and still have a quieter Twitter feed. It’s like having my cake and eating it too!

For more ways to filter tweets and make Twitter a generally quieter place, check out these ways to filter annoyances on Twitter, and some additional ways to help you swim and not drown in your Twitter stream.

More?

As always, we’d also love to hear some of your recommendations. Are there any Chrome twitter extension you find invaluable? What makes your Twitter life easier? Share your favorites in the comments.

The post 5 Chrome Extensions To Superpower Twitter appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Out of 250 readers who voted, 1% own 0 devices (that’s 2 whole people!), 15.5% own 1-3 devices, 35.5% own 4-6 devices, 23% own 7-10 devices, and 25% of the readers who voted own more than 10 devices that can connect to the Internet. Take that, 90s!

Full results and this week’s poll after the jump.

Don’t forget to check out last week’s best comment by Vishal Srivastava, who won 150 reward points for his interesting comment!

This week’s poll question is: Would You Pay To Watch YouTube Videos?

One of the biggest things that happened this week was the launch of paid channels on YouTube. While limited in number and availability to start, this is not something that’s going to stay small for long. YouTube is a video platform that’s always been completely free, and although ads are becoming more and more common, asking people to pay for channel subscriptions is quite a leap of faith from Google. Or is it? Would you gladly pay a subscription for a channel you like, or do you prefer watching ads? Should YouTube stay free forever, or is this a good step towards making it a better place?

While the poll only includes three answers, you’re more than welcome to explain your views and full opinions in the comments!

The post Would You Pay To Watch YouTube Videos? [MakeUseOf Poll] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

As you may remember, I own an old, first generation iPad. Being an old device, it’s pretty set in its ways, and did not really take to me trying to shuffle things around. It decided to completely die on me, forcing me to restore it and start from scratch. This was not exactly according to plan that night, and I ended up working very late to make up for it.

It was at that point that I desperately wanted something that could clean up my iPad for me, preferably without me having to actually delete or uninstall any of my precious apps or photos. Unfortunately, such options are usually kind of sketchy, and while I do want to free up some room, I definitely don’t want to lose content or for my device to stop working.

It is in the line of duty that I’ve decided to subject my iPad to one of these programs, namely, iMobie’s PhoneClean 2. PhoneClean is a free program that claims to free space on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch by deleting files that should be useless to you, such as temporary files, cached and offline files, cookies, script files, and media files that failed to sync properly. On paper, this should be quite useful, especially if you own a 8GB or 16GB iDevice. But does it really work?

Setting Up A PhoneClean Scan

Despite this somewhat bombastic headline, there’s really not much to getting PhoneClean to scan your iDevice. Assuming you already have iTunes installed (it must be installed on your computer for PhoneClean to work), all that’s left to do is head over to iMobie and download PhoneClean 2.

PhoneClean is available for Windows XP and later or for Mac OS X 10.6 and later. Despite what you might expect, the program does not try to force you into installing any junk toolbars or third-party programs — installation is quick and straightforward. Once done, it’s time to plug in your iDevice and submit it to a PhoneClean scan. Only slightly worried, this is exactly what I did.

Scanning With PhoneClean: Did My iPad Survive?

As you can see from the screenshot above, my iPad is no longer completely full. After that night mentioned in the intro, I never re-installed all my apps and synced back all my media files. This was almost a year ago, so I didn’t expect my iPad to have a lot of junk on it, although I have to admit that I’m not in the habit of taking very good care of it.

Before you start the scan, you get to choose what you want to scan for. I chose to scan for everything, but if you’re worried about losing log-in information and such, you could exclude cookies and script files.

When I started the experiment, my iPad had 5.86 GB of free space according to PhoneClean, and 5.65 GB of free space according to iTunes. It was time to see how much space was taken by “junk”.

Right off the bat, I noticed that PhoneClean did not feel like a scam. It didn’t try to push anything on me, and the interface is actually quite fetching. Scanning my iPad’s 9 GB of data took around 7 minutes, during which I could still use my iPad to watch videos or play games (you have to keep entertained while the scan goes on, after all). After 7 minutes, PhoneClean informed me that I could save 1.02 GB by deleting all kinds of files it had found.

Note that most, if not all of PhoneClean’s findings on my device came from cache and offline files, but this will change from device to device, naturally. PhoneClean 2 lets you bore down into its findings, and exclude any files you don’t want erased, or more accurately, exclude apps you don’t want it to touch.

I chose to exclude nothing, as I wanted to see exactly what would happen to my apps after cleaning them up with PhoneClean. It’s time to clean up! Did my iPad survive?

The Results

Clean-up was surprisingly quick, and after less than 5 minutes, PhoneClean was done and presented the following screen.

This was the only time PhoneClean asked anything in return, and it was done in a pretty agreeable way. It did not feel spammy or seedy. But what happened to my iPad? Surprisingly, not much. Aside from having 1 GB extra of free space, that is, which is quite significant in a 16GB device.

My Kindle books stayed synced to the same pages, apps such as Pulse, Skype, Pinterest, and Dropbox were still logged in, and even my Safari and Dolphin tabs and browsing history remained untouched. A Solitaire game I was playing while PhoneClean was scanning was saved exactly where I left off before the clean. All this remained even after restarting my iPad. These results may differ from device to device and from app to app, so if some of your apps do get logged out after the clean up, don’t be too surprised.

I’ll remind you again that my iPad runs iOS 5.1 (it’s not supported by iOS 6), and PhoneClean still worked without a hitch. All in all, I couldn’t find anything really negative to say about this program, despite viewing it with a pretty critical eye. The only option I would like to see added is a way to back up your files just in case the program deletes something that does cause damage. You can, however, do this easily using iTunes, so it’s not a big deal.

Don’t own an iDevice? No worries, here are some useful tips on how to free up space on your Android device.

Are you convinced, or will you still be wary when trying out PhoneClean? Perhaps you’re still too scared to subject your iDevice to a clean? Share your thoughts in the comments!

The post PhoneClean 2 Promises To Free Up Space on Your iOS Device, But Does It Work? appeared first on MakeUseOf.

You can get the Kindle Paperwhite in four different versions: Wi-Fi reader with Special Offers ($119), Wi-Fi reader without Special Offers ($139), 3G reader with Special Offers ($179), and 3G reader without Special Offers ($199). Our review unit is the Special Offers Wi-Fi version, which means you can only use it to synchronize your books when there’s Wi-Fi around, but as you don’t have to do this often, it’s seldom a problem.

If you already own a Kindle or a different eReader, you may be wondering if it’s worth your while to upgrade to the new Kindle Paperwhite. This is what we’re here to find out for you. And as always, one lucky reader will get the chance to win a shiny new Kindle Paperwhite worth $119!

Introduction

eReaders such as the Kindle are revolutionizing the book industry. If you own an eReader, you can start reading your book of choice in mere minutes after deciding you want to do so. They don’t wrinkle and tear, and there’s a dictionary definition waiting for you behind every word. As advanced as eReaders are, they failed to solve one burning problem — the need for external light source. When reading in a dark setting, there was virtually no difference between reading a paper book and reading on an eReader, which sent many users to their phones and tablets for their nightly dose of reading.

The new generation of eReaders changed that, and the Kindle Paperwhite is not alone in its category. The NOOK Simple Touch with GlowLight is available for $119 from Barnes & Noble, and comes with built-in light, and no ads. Unfortunately, it’s hard to get your hands on it if you live outside the U.S. The Kobo Glo, on the other hand, is available all over the world, and with a suggested price of $130 is only slightly more expensive than the competition.

As for Amazon itself, the Paperwhite is only one of six Kindle models currently on sale. While our previously reviewed Kindle Touch is sadly no longer available, you can get a simple Kindle reader with no touch capabilities for $69 or $89 (with or without Special Offers), and the classic Kindle Keyboard for $139 or $159. While the Kindle Keyboard is the oldest model of them all, it only comes in a 3G models these days, hence the slightly higher price. In the tablet department, you can go for the Kindle Fire ($159/$174), the Kindle Fire HD ($199-$244), or the Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ ($269-$399). Remember that Kindle Fire tablets are backlit, so reading books on a Kindle Fire is no different than reading a book on any tablet or smartphone.

At the moment, the only Amazon eReader that offers both an E-Ink screen and built-in light is the Kindle Paperwhite.

Hardware

With the Kindle Paperwhite, Amazon is continuing its Kindle simplifying process, so what you get is basically a black square with a screen. Looking at the Paperwhite compared to earlier models, you can see this simplification process easily: from a whole keyboard on the Kindle Keyboard, to a single button on the Kindle Touch, to nothing at all on the Paperwhite.

Looking at the bottom of the devices, you’ll notice the same process: The Kindle Paperwhite’s power button is even smaller than its predecessor’s (the Kindle Touch), and gone is the audio jack for plugging in your headphones. This means that the Paperwhite no longer supports any kind of audio, including the previously available MP3 player and text-to-speech feature.

Speaking of the power button, the Kindle Paperwhite’s is incredibly small, making it almost too hard to turn it on and off. You really have to reach in there to push it, which gets even harder when using any kind of case.

The Kindle Paperwhite is only slightly lighter than the Kindle Touch, and is almost the same height and width. Aside from color, it’s the back of the device that makes the biggest visual difference. The Paperwhite’s back is covered with a rubberized material which feels really nice, but catches fingerprints like crazy. It also doesn’t provide much more traction than the Keyboard’s or Touch’s more plasticky back, so it’s pretty much all show, but it does make the Paperwhite nicer to hold.

The Paperwhite’s screen is significantly less sunken into the plastic than the Touch, and almost resembles the non-touch Keyboard in the respect. While this may seem insignificant, it makes the sides of the screen much more accessible to touch, which in turn makes flipping through pages a much easier task.

All in all, the Paperwhite is an incredibly handsome device, and feels really good in your hand. The black surface is beautiful, although don’t expect it to stay clean for more than two seconds — every spec of dust that lands on the shiny black surface is immediately apparent. In terms of design, it feels that Amazon really outdid itself with the Paperwhite; created a device that’s both beautiful, comfortable to hold, and easy to use.

The Kindle Paperwhite comes with 2GB of storage, which is less than the Kindle Touch’s 4GB, but as usual, it comes with free Amazon cloud storage for all your books.

Display

All these differences shrink in light of the Paperwhite’s killer feature: the built-in light. If you’re imagining anything like a tablet screen, think again. The Kindle Paperwhite is not backlit — rather, it’s lit up by tiny external lights which are built into the sides of the screen. The result is a uniform and soft blue light, which illuminates the screen perfectly, without hurting your eyes.

The light’s intensity is controlled via an on-screen dimmer, which you can fine-tune to fit your lighting conditions. You may think that the Paperwhite’s light is only good for dark surroundings, but it can be used in any condition, creating the perfect contrast between your external lights and your Kindle screen. In fact, the more light you have around you, the brighter your Kindle display should be.

The Paperwhite’s higher resolution (212 PPI vs. 167 PPI on the Touch) is noticeable, and together with the built-in light, creates a crisp and clear reading experience, no matter where you are.

Before actually using the Kindle Paperwhite, I was wary of the idea of using it at night. While a lit screen is better than turning on a reading lamp when reading next to someone else who’s trying to sleep, my experience with phones and tablets taught me that a screen light is more than enough to light up a a dark room and cause a disturbance.

I can’t tell you that the Paperwhite is perfect for night reading, but it’s significantly better than a phone or a tablet. When setting the screen dimmer on low, it creates just enough glow for you to read comfortably, and as long as you don’t put it right in someone’s face, it could go completely unnoticed in a dark room.

The Kindle Paperwhite’s official battery life is 8 weeks with wireless off and constant light use, assuming you read around 30 minutes every day. This is quite similar to the light-less Kindle Touch, so surprisingly, the built-in light does not eat away at your Paperwhite’s battery.

Using the Kindle Paperwhite

Before you even turn the Paperwhite on, you’ll already find yourself perplexed by a strange new requirement. If you’ve used a Special Offers Kindle in the past, you know that the screen starts displaying ads when its off, and stops doing so the second you turn it on. Not so with the Paperwhite. When you push the Paperwhite’s On button, the screen light comes on, but the ads stay. In order to make them disappear and continue to the Kindle’s interface, you also need to swipe the screen, as if you’re unlocking your phone.

The Kindle Paperwhite’s onscreen menu has been overhauled, and now features a descriptive set of icons instead of the Touch’s huge search box and text buttons. A home button has been added to the menu as well, in lieu of a physical one, and an accessible Cloud/Device toggle is available on the top left.

Nothing much has changed in terms of touchscreen controls, and actions such as flipping pages, calling up the menu, and highlighting words are all still done the same old way. In fact, the main difference between the Kindle Paperwhite and the former Kindle Touch, interface-wise, is mainly a cosmetic one. More than anything, I was reminded of the differences between Windows 7 and Windows 8, with the Paperwhite’s interface offering a simpler and cleaner version of the same content.

While the Paperwhite’s touch screen is slightly more responsive, it’s not normally felt in every day use. The difference becomes much more apparent, however, when attempting to type on the Kindle. I don’t know about you, but I’m not big on using the Kindle to write notes, but when I tried it out for the purposes of this review, I was surprised at how easy this is on the Kindle Paperwhite.

Like the rest of the interface, the keyboard has been overhauled as well, and features bigger and brighter keys that are much easier to use. The Paperwhite can handle faster typing than the Touch, which starts lagging behind almost immediately when typing more than several words.

The Paperwhite includes all previous Kindle features such as X-Ray, a built-in dictionary, a Wikipedia function, and more. The Paperwhite’s “experimental” features have been reduced to just a browser, and there are no big changes in that department either. The Paperwhite’s easier typing make it somewhat more usable for browsing the Internet, but I would still not use this feature unless I had no other choice.

Living With The Kindle Paperwhite

In the short time we’ve had the Kindle Paperwhite in the house, I had the chance to both use it myself, and try to sleep next to someone else who’s using it. The Paperwhite’s built-in light can truly make a difference for anyone who likes reading at night and is sharing a room or a bed with someone else.

While it’s the best solution I know of for such a scenario, it’s not a perfect one. Granted, it’s much easier to fall asleep with the Paperwhite’s light than with even the smallest of reading lights, but even this dim light can be noticeable when it’s right next to you. Several times I woke up at night, and immediately noticed the glow coming off the Paperwhite’s screen, so it’s definitely not the same as having a completely dark room, but if you remember to set the screen brightness to very low, it will create the minimal disturbance possible, if at all.

As mentioned above, the Paperwhite’s light is a vast improvement for any lighting situation, including broad daylight. While I couldn’t believe it at first, I now find that even when reading on the porch, it’s easier to look at the Paperwhite’s lit screen than the Kindle Touch’s neutral E-Ink one. There’s something about that natural glow that is easier on the eyes than anything else I’ve ever tried, including paper books, tablets, and plain E-Ink screens.

Should you buy the Kindle Paperwhite?

All in all, the Paperwhite feels like the best Kindle device Amazon has ever made, and whether you already own a Kindle or thinking of buying your first eReader, I highly recommend getting this one.

How do I win the Kindle Paperwhite?

Step 1: Fill in the giveaway form

Please fill in the form with your real name and email address so that we can get in touch if you are chosen as a winner. MakeUseOf giveaways are open to readers worldwide.
 

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Exchange your MakeUseOf points for an entry into the competition. First, create a MakeUseOf account, earn points and exchange your points for an entry! Learn more about our Game system and Rewards program.

By participating in this giveaway, you agree to the giveaway rules.

This giveaway begins now and ends Friday, May 24th. The winner will be selected at random and informed via email.

Spread the word to your friends and have fun!

The post Kindle Paperwhite Review & Giveaway appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Twitter is a timely medium, so when I first set my eyes of efemr - a self-destructing tweet provider – I thought, what’s the point? No one pays attention to my tweets after two hours anyway, so why would I want to delete them? But then I got to thinking, and I realized this idea has a lot of potential. Twitter’s inherent timeliness is exactly what makes efemr a good idea.

With Twitter showing old tweets from who knows how long ago, people on the Web may encounter things you’ve tweeted in the past; things you might not want them to find 2 months after the fact. True, you shouldn’t publish things if you don’t want them seen by others, but it does make sense to tweet a timely update, and not want it to stay around forever. This is exactly what efemr is for.

What Is Efemr?

In truth, efemr is not exactly a Web app, and it’s definitely not a mobile app. To access it, all you have to do is point your browser (whether desktop or mobile) to efemr.com, and log in using your Twitter account. While logged in, special hashtags will cause your tweets to delete themselves automatically after the allotted time.

Efemr’s workflow is convenient, but certainly has its glitches, although its beta status might mean they won’t stay around forever. You have to be logged in to efemr in order for it to work, but this does not mean the website must be open in your browser at all times. Tweets will continue to self destruct even if the efemr tab is closed, but you might want to check that you’re still logged in every once in a while, especially if you restart your browser.

This is another point where efemr can get slightly confusing. If you point your browser at efemr.com again, it will not seem as if you’re still logged in. If, however, you head over to efemr.com/follow, you’ll find that you’re still logged in (assuming you still are, that is).

Using Efemr

Once logged in, you can continue to tweet as you normally would, from whatever client or interface you choose. When you want to create a self-destructing tweet, simply add the time at the end of the tweet in the form of a hashtag, like so:

This will cause the above tweet to delete itself from the world after 1 hour. You can also use a hashtag such as #5m to delete your tweet after 5 minutes. There’s no limit to these hashtags: you can use #23m, #3h, and even #1h #27m, if you want.

It is worth noting that tweets don’t actually disappear at exactly the right times. I’ve had #5m tweets self destruct after 7-8 minutes, #3m tweets disappear after 6 minutes, and #23m tweets self destruct after almost half an hour. But still, the tweets disappeared every time, despite the slight tardiness.

Efemr keeps an organized list of all your deleted tweets for you, so you can still access them after they’ve disappeared from the public domain. The list includes the tweet’s creation time and date, and a retweet button, in case you want to send it back into the world.

The retweet button is automatic — you don’t get to edit your tweet before it’s sent out again — so you’ll be sending out a self-destructing tweet yet again, with the same time frame as the original one.

It’s important to remember, though, that this is Twitter we’re dealing with, and there’s only so much control you can have over a social network. Naturally, if someone retweeted your tweet before it self destructed, there’s not much you can do about it, and the retweet will not be deleted. It’s still a nice way to ensure the original tweet won’t appear on your own profile, but don’t rely on it as a fool-proof method to completely get rid of tweets. In other words, if you really don’t want it online, don’t tweet it in the first place!

What do you think of this self-destructing tweets idea? Is it useful? Let us know in the comments!

Image credit: breaking tweet image via Shutterstock

The post This Tweet Will Self Destruct – How To Send Out Tweets That Don’t Last Forever appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Viber for desktop is similar in function to Viber for mobile, and still activates using your mobile phone number. Once activated, Viber for desktop will automatically sync contacts from your mobile, and will keep your devices synced as you go. Viber for desktop and Viber for mobile were designed to work as extensions, and calls can be easily transferred from one device to another with a click or tap. Messages you receive on Viber are shown on all devices, but should only beep on the device you’re currently using.

As mentioned above, Viber’s mobile apps were not left out either, and both iOS and Android versions received a significant facelift, with Viber for Android now featuring Google’s Holo interface, and both apps getting video messages, new stickers, a better photo experience, and more.

According to Viber, the service now has over 200 million users across its various platforms (Android, iOS, Blackberry, Windows Phone, Nokia, Bada, and now Windows and Mac), and this move to desktop might put them in a position to combat some of the bigger players in the field, such as Skype.

To try out Viber for desktop, or the new mobile versions, head over to viber.com.

Is this a good move from Viber? Will it convince you to give the app a try?

Source: Viber PR

The post Viber Launches Desktop App For Windows & Mac, Redesigns Mobile Apps [Updates] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Optical illusions, be it Escher-style drawings, surprising geometrical shapes, well-taken photographs, or even intricate video illusions, are a great way to pass some idle moments, without resorting to yet another endless Facebook or Twitter browse. It can also be quite an educational one — what better way is there to learn about things such as complimentary colors but seeing them with your own eyes?

Not surprisingly, the Web is full of visual illusions of all kinds, and if you enter the words “optical illusions” in your trusty Google search box, you’ll find many good specimens. But here at MakeUseOf, we strive to doing the hard work for you, scanning the multitudes of Google results, and finding the absolute best places to get some optical illusion fun. So get ready to be amazed!

Optical Spy

Can you believe that all center dots in the cubes above are the same size? Optical Spy is a great place to find dozens of original optical illusions, visual challenges, amazing anamorphic street art, and other visual gems. The website is divided into different categories, and includes a blog where you can read more about special visual effects and why they occur. If you like visual challenges such as hidden words or tasks you have to complete only with your eyes, you’re going to love Optical Spy.

Mighty Optical Illusions

The above video shows a simple immobile structure, but for some reason, balls placed on it defy the law of gravity. This is one of the many illusions you’ll find on Mighty Optical Illusions. The website has been around for quite a while — long enough to have been mentioned in our previous post about optical illusions back in 2010.

Mighty Optical Illusions is a mighty collection of everything that’s visually interesting, including photos taken at just the right moment, works of art, and videos, along with regular illusions. Many of the illusions come with fascinating explanations, and the “Random Illusion” button on top can keep you busy for hours. I did find that videos in posts sometimes don’t match the text above them, but all in all the website offers a fun experience.

Illusion of the Year

Look at the mask above, do you see anything special about it? If not, I’ll solve the mystery for you at the end of this paragraph. Illusion of the Year brings together amazing illusions from all over, picking the best ones every year. The illusions are sometimes created especially for the contest, so it’s a good place to find illusions you won’t find on other websites. The Illusion of the Year website is not the best looking one I’ve ever seen, but sections such as the top rated illusions are a real gem for illusion lovers.

And no, I didn’t forget about the image above! Look carefully in the center part of the mask, is it really one face, or two faces of a man and a woman kissing?

Brain Bashers

Are the lines on the board straight or curvy? Brain Bashers is a website dedicated to much more than optical illusions, but its optical-illusion section boasts a respectable collection of what I would call “classic” illusions, like the one you see above. Despite its unimpressive looks, Brain Bashers offers a fun experience for illusion lovers, as it turns many optical illusions into dynamic challenges. Most illusions featured on Brain Bashers comes with a bar you can move your mouse over. When you hover over the bar, the image changes, and the solution comes to light. Try it!

Pinterest

Can you manage to see 4 complete circles? As a social network dedicated solely to images, Pinterest is the perfect place to find cool illusions. All you have to do is search for them. The search will not yield a consistent feed of optical illusions, but will definitely bring up some cool visual games and puns you’re bound to enjoy. And since Pinterest’s results rely on the way people categorize their pins, and not on Google’s algorithms, there’s lots to be found you may miss on a simple Google search.

Brusspup – Illusions and Science

Looking for some awesome visual illusions on video? Tim already found 10 incredible ones you really don’t want to miss in a previous Stuff to Watch article. After you’re done with those, though, you’re going to want to head over to the brusspup YouTube Channel, and watch everything you can get your hands on. Some of these already appear in Tim’s post, but there’s plenty more to watch. Believe me, you don’t want to miss these.

Your Turn

The real challenge with finding good optical illusions online is that many of them hide under websites that look like they were made in the early 90s. This doesn’t mean there aren’t other good websites I missed, or never managed to find. Know of a wonderful place to see some optical illusions? Do you even like optical illusions? Tell us all about it in the comments!

Image credit: Optical Spy

The post Are These Circles Moving? 6 Places To Find Amazing Optical Illusions Online appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Out of 135 votes in total, 9% think sponsored posts are fine, 14% simply ignore them, 21% hate sponsored posts, and  a full 56% of the voters don’t like them, but understand why they’re necessary. It did come to my attention that some people didn’t vote because they couldn’t find an answer that fit them perfectly, and I’d like to remind you again that it’s impossible to include every possible answer in these polls. If you see an answer that comes pretty close, go ahead and vote for that! You can always clarify your opinion in the comments, and we’d love to hear it.

Full results and this week’s poll after the jump.

Don’t forget to check out last week’s best comment by Zhong J who won 150 reward points! Also, if you’re in the habit of writing interesting comments to our polls, please go ahead and log in! I see many good comments I cannot reward, which is a shame.

This week’s poll question is: How Many Devices That Can Connect To The Internet Do You Own?

Only two weeks ago, I asked you how many apps you have installed on your phone. Today, I’d like to know how many devices you own. But I’m not necessarily referring to smartphones this time, but to any and all devices that can connect to the Internet. This includes smartphones, tablets, computers, eReaders, game consoles, and even specialty devices such as TVs, smartpens, refrigerators, and any other such thing you might own. You may look at this poll and think you don’t own many, but when I started counting myself, I was surprised at the result. It seems that almost everything we buy these days has the ability to connect to the Internet, whether we like it or not. So what’s your magic number?

Don’t forget to detail in the comments which devices you own. Do you have a lamp with an Internet connection? Tell us all about it!

The post How Many Devices That Can Connect To The Internet Do You Own? [MakeUseOf Poll] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

But swiping is not the only input method on your Android device. Voice recognition has become increasingly popular, and more options are becoming available over time. One can hope that with this increased popularity comes increased accuracy as well. Can you really dictate whole sentences to your Android device, without wasting more time than it’s worth correcting mistakes?

To find out, I took two major voice recognition keyboards, and one lesser known one, and put them all to the test. Which one offers the best accuracy? Read on to find out!

How Was The Testing Done?

As mentioned above, I tested three different voice-input keyboards: Jelly Bean’s default (Google voice typing), Swype, and TouchPal. Each of these keyboards offers voice recognition which you can use to dictate emails, text messages, notes, and anything else you can think of. The feature is very easy to use in all these apps — simply tap the voice icon and start talking.

As a test, I used the following paragraph from the book Life of Pi:

“Can you believe it, Richard Parker? People, food, a bed. Life is ours once again. Oh, what bliss! The ship came closer still. It looked like an oil tanker. The shape of its bow was becoming distinct. Salvation wore a robe of black metal with white trim.”

As you can see, there are no big or complicated words in this paragraph and no weird names, so I was in no way trying to trip or fail the apps. As most people don’t tend to use big or complicated words in emails, text messages and notes, this seemed like a good enough test. I tried to speak fairly slowly while dictating the paragraph, but not much slower than my normal speech. I used DiffChecker to find the differences between the original paragraph and the dictated ones.

For the purposes of this review, I did not go into further features available in every app. I was only interested to see how accurate their voice-recognition feature it.

Google Voice Typing

Google voice typing is available as part of Android’s default keyboard in Android 4.0+ (ICS) and up. If it’s not already enabled, you can enable it by accessing your device’s settings, tapping on “Language & input”, and ticking the box next to “Google voice typing”.

Google voice typing is also included in a another Android keyboard called SwiftKey, which you can purchase on Google Play for $1.99. A 30-day free trial is also available.

Usage: Google voice typing types on the screen as you speak, so you can see the result as you go. It’s not immediate, though — there’s actually quite a lag — so you might get confused if you try to read the output while speaking. This lag also means that if you speak too quickly, the engine might miss or skip entire sentences.

Results: Can you believe its, Richard Parker? People, the bed. Wife is ours once again. Oh, what do list! The ship them closer still. It looks like the oil tanker. The shape of its value would be coming to stink. Salvation Warroad of black metal with white trim.

To be fair, I should disclose that I tried this paragraph on both the default keyboard and on SwiftKey, so it turned out that I tried Google voice typing more times than the other two. While they both use the same engine, I somehow managed to get better results while using SwiftKey, but this was probably just sheer luck.

Results, SwiftKey: Can you believe it, Richard Parker? People, food, a bed. Life is hours once again. Oh, what’s list! The ship came closer still. It looks like an oil tanker. The shape of a spell was becoming distinct. Salvation for a robe of black metal with white trim.

Conclusion: Between “Oh, what to do list!” and “the shape of its value would be coming to stink”, I don’t think much of my initial try. The second one looks much, much better, but I felt that I had to go a bit slower than I would like to get that result, and it still wasn’t perfect. And no matter what I did, Google heard “list” when I said “bliss”.

Swype (Dragon Dictation)

Swype is probably one of the most familiar keyboards available for Android, and now also incorporates the Dragon Dictation voice dictionary. Swype is available for Android 2.2+, and you can download it from Google Play for $0.99. A 30-day free trial is also available.

Usage: Unlike Google voice typing, Swype’s output doesn’t appear as you speak. Rather, you get to record your entire speech, in this case, my Life of Pi paragraph, and the app will transform it to text as soon as you hit “Done”. Depending on the length of your dictation, the analyses phase may take longer or shorter times, but is generally very fast. It’s worth noting that if you go too long without stopping, the screen might turn off and you’ll lose all your work, so it pays to stop for analysis every once in a while.

Results: Can you believe it, Richard Parker? People, food, the bed. Life is ours once again. Oh, that place! I should can closer still. It looked like an oil tanker. The shape of its bow was becoming distinct. Salvation for rogue black metal with white trim.

Conclusion: Swype failed on the word bliss as well, but also on the much simpler word “ship”. In addition, it took a pretty simple phrase such as “wore a robe” and turned into something more complicated: “for rogue”. All in all, I was pretty satisfied with this result, but it still failed in places I felt it shouldn’t have.

Just for laughs, I’ll also share what happened when I went too fast with Swype, talking as I would to a regular person standing in front of me:

Some of this is still perfect, but I had to laugh at “it’s an editorial tanker” and “the shape of its dad was becoming distinct”.

TouchPal

For those of you who don’t own an Android 4.0+ device, TouchPal is the only option on this list that is completely free, no strings attached. While the app itself is available for Android 1.6+ devices, the voice-recognition feature, which is what we’re interested in, is only supported by Android 2.2+ devices. A promising option for those of you with older devices, but can it really deliver?

Usage: Using TouchPal for dictation is a completely different experience than the other two apps I tested. While both Google voice typing and Swype let you speak freely until you were done, TouchPal cuts you off after each sentence. When you dictate a period, or when it just thinks a sentence is over, is simply stops recording and lets you choose between several difference suggestions for your sentence. On the one hand, this is a good way to ensure you have less mistakes by choosing the best suggestion for each sentence, but it also makes the dictation process slower and harder, with unexpected stops and a frequent need to repeat a sentence that was cut off in the middle. In order to test the app like all the others, I simply chose the first option the app suggested for each sentence I dictated.

Results: can you believe it, Richard Parker? people, food, the bed. life is hours once again. Oh, what do list! you should come closer still. it looks like an oil tanker. the shape of a Down was the coming to stand. salvation Warroad black metal with white trim.

Conclusion: The first thing that jumps out is that TouchPal did not automatically capitalize the first letter in most sentences. This is surprising, because all my periods appeared as they should, and still TouchPal could not do the basic task of capitalizing for me. As for speech recognition, I wasn’t impressed. It seems that TouchPal took the mistakes made in all other keyboards, combined them, and added some of its own. So again I got the infamous “Oh, what to do list!” but I also got a “Warroad black metal”, and “the shape of a Down was coming to stand”, whatever that may be.

Which Is Best?

I must say, I’m pretty disappointed in all three of these after this test. I haven’t been using this kind of speech recognition much in the past year or so, and I definitely expected something a bit better, especially since Google’s voice typing in Google Now seems to always be pretty accurate. The only thing I can think of is that longer paragraphs are just harder to deal with than a simple query.

If I had to choose one, I would go with Swype. If you don’t go too fast, its recognition abilities are superior to the others, if not perfect. If you own an Android 4.0+ device, you might as well use the default keyboard for free. Just make sure you speak slowly and give it time to catch up with you every once in a while, and you should be fine.

Do you use speech recognition on your phone? Which is your favorite voice recognition keyboard option? Share in the comments!

The post MakeUseOf Tests: What’s The Best Voice Recognition Keyboard For Android? appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Skype for Outlook.com brings video and audio calls to Outlook.com’s interface, making it possible to initiate Skype calls right from your inbox. So next time you’re writing an email and suddenly realize text is just not enough, you should be able to start a voice or video chat with just a click or two.

In case you’re not familiar with it, Outlook.com is Microsoft’s newest version of Web email service, and was launched last year as a replacement for the seasoned Hotmail.

In order to try out the preview of Skype for Outlook.com, you will have to install a browser plugin which is currently available for Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome. You will also have to link your Skype account to your Outlook.com account, thus merging your Microsoft and Skype accounts. If you’ve already done this — as preparation for Window Live Messenger’s demise, for example — you should be all set. Linking your Skype account will add your Skype contacts to your Outlook.com contacts.

Do you like the idea of Skype and email integration? If you’re in the UK, let us know what you think of Skype for Outlook.com!

Source: Skype Blog

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