MakeUseOf

Christian Cawley-Deputy Editor

Christian Cawley

Deputy Editor

Page 84

About Christian Cawley

Deputy Editor for Security, Linux, DIY, Programming, and Tech Explained, Christian has extensive experience in desktop and software support, and has been published in Computer Weekly, Linux Format, Tech Radar, ad ComputerActive.

Christian also produces MakeUseOf's weekly show, the Really Useful Podcast.

His current passions are his cigar box guitar, his retro gaming site (www.gamingretro.co.uk) and his family.

Readers like you help support MUO. When you make a purchase using links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Read More.
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Some Great Pinhole Camera Projects You Can Try At Home

Can you imagine life without cameras, with no way to record memories of faces and places? Modern photography has been with us since 1839, and in that time has become increasingly sophisticated, moving away from special chemicals and paper in favour of digital technology. We no longer need to carry around Polaroid instant cameras, yet we still try to recreate the look and feel of these images using filter tools for desktop and mobile apps.

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How To Build Your Own Smartphone Document Scanner

Have you ever tried to take a photo of a document with your smartphone camera, hoping to convert it using OCR software into a PDF or Word document later on? Perhaps you’ve attempted to take a photo of an existing photograph, only to find your angle was slightly out. No matter how hard we try, it seems you can never take the perfectly-aligned photograph with a smartphone.

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Where To Find Non-Marketplace Apps For Your Windows Phone

The standard method of installing a Windows Phone app is currently threefold - the Marketplace via your phone or browser, or via the Zune desktop client. But what if the type of app you’re looking for doesn’t exist? The answer, then, is to look for homebrew apps, software developed by Windows Phone enthusiasts.

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How To Become A Voice-Over Artist With Your PC

Thanks to the Internet, voice artistry is one of those roles that have taken on a whole new shape, with many thousands of voices now available for use in games, on websites, as voice-overs in corporate videos and much more. You can start your voice-over career on a very low budget, too!

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Making the Most Of Your Windows Phone Camera

Although the Nokia Lumia devices running Windows Phone have an advantage over other handsets (in the shape of the Carl Zeiss optics) the process of taking a photo on this platform is pretty much identical across all phones. What you do with the photos after this, however, is another matter entirely.

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How To Update Your Nokia Lumia And Fix The Screen Blackout Bug

For Nokia Lumia users, there are various issues with the initial release of the Lumia 710 and 800 phones that have waited several months for resolution. Most notorious of these is the continued lack of Wi-Fi tethering, available in other Windows Phones (including the Nokia Lumia 900) and the “screen blackout” which occurs during phone calls.

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Easily Play, Convert, And Edit MTS High Definition Video

There are a multitude of video formats currently in use, both online and in digital cameras and mobile phones. The sheer number of these means that anyone hoping to convert, edit, share online (or all three) any footage recorded in one of the various non-standard video formats has to scrabble around the World Wide Web looking for a suitable converter. MTS is no different.

Pairing a HP TouchPad running Android Ice Cream Sandwich with a Bluetooth keyboard 1
Improve Text Entry On The HP TouchPad - Use a Bluetooth Keyboard!

One of the things that becomes increasingly apparent the more you use an HP TouchPad (or any tablet computer) is that a software keyboard is only good for so much writing. After a while, you need a hardware keyboard to take the strain – many errors can be made with a software keyboard, regardless of how good your multi-touch display might be.

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Listen To Free Music & Get Entertainment News At Bing Music

Streaming media has become big business in the past few years, with YouTube, Hulu and BBC iPlayer all great examples of how the web has changed the way we enjoy music, TV and film. Many of these new companies have rode the back of the founders of the Internet age, companies such as AOL, Microsoft and Apple. But where does this leave Microsoft?

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Why The World Doesn't Need A Facebook Phone [Opinion]

Over the past year or so, rumours have continued to surface concerning the idea of a Facebook phone, a portable handset that will give the user direct mobile access to the popular social network. The idea is simple – from the comfort of your Facebook phone you’ll be able to upload photos, send messages, and even play games.

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The Top 5 Best Third-Party Apps To Customize Your Skype App

Skype is a great way to communicate with friends, family and colleagues across the Internet using its text, voice and webcam chat features. But it can all get a little bit dull, using it in the same way, day after day. But Skype is thankfully equipped with all of the necessary hooks for third party apps to customize and improve the experience.

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What To Do If You Think Your Computer Has Been Hacked Into

Have you ever had your computer hacked, or wondered if some off mouse movement was down to an online intruder? The threat remains a potent one, but with adequate security software installed on your computer you should find that your data remains intact and private.

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The Top 10 Sci-fi Romance eBooks On Amazon [MUO Book Club]

Following the success of books such as The Time Traveller’s Wife (later adapted into a movie) the sci-fi romance genre has been booming, with many authors releasing works concerning time travel, aliens, space operas and futuristic habitats – all featuring romances.

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Why Microsoft Sucks - Again (Opinion)

In 2011 I wrote an op-ed piece (for a different website…!) about how I felt that Microsoft had moved away from being the many-tentacled corporate beast with no interest in providing a solid, working operating system and every interest in raping dollars out of customers. I argued that after the failure of Windows Vista, Microsoft had emerged as a company in touch with its user base, listening and almost caring.

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How To Create Valid MP3 Files With Audacity

One of the more popular open source audio applications, Audacity, has recently upgraded to version 2.0 and is now no longer in Beta. Audacity has some great tools and effects that can be used to deliver great results. However, despite the facility to save your audio in a number of different formats, Audacity doesn’t natively allow you to export data as MP3.

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Why I Still Love The MiniDisc [Opinion]

I’m aware that this might sound like the ranting of a man approaching middle age, jaded by years of iPods and MP3 players and OS updates and finding the right app to record with, but the MiniDisc really was a great format. It didn’t have all of that baggage – it was literally a “press play and enjoy” device.

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The 10 Best Twitter Feeds To Follow

There are an awful lot of guides out there listing the so-called best feeds to follow on Twitter. Narrowing down a list of the ten best feeds can be tricky. There are so many users, so many fascinating topics – presenting only ten is barely scratching the surface of Twitter utopia. So my approach has been this - I like MakeUseOf, you like MakeUseOf – so there is a very good chance that you’ll like some or all of these Twitter feeds.

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The User's Guide To HP TouchPad

Featuring the webOS operating system, the TouchPad offers a user interface that is polished, attractive and–most importantly–easy to use.

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Why I Haven’t Repaired My Xbox 360 and Probably Won’t

In the corner of my room, collecting dust, sits the component pieces of my Xbox 360. Purchased as a Christmas present for me and my better half in mid-2007, it has been in a state of disrepair since Christmas 2011 when it decided that – for one reason or another – it didn’t want to play anymore. As most of you reading this will know, most Xbox 360s from that era came with certain… "issues".

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