15 New Articles on MakeUseOf |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [April 26th 2013]
- Get The Most Out Of Using Twitter Privately
- Handsome Stats – Get The Google Analytics Stats That Matter Most
- Heal Your Funny Bone: YouTube Comedy Week Starts On May 19th [Updates]
- Middle Manager Of Justice Is Time Management Gaming Is At Its Finest [iOS]
- 10 Productivity Apps For Your Mac-Based Home Office
- Be a Deity With Doodle God On Windows Phone
- Google Removes Instant Previews From Search Results, Adds New Dropdown Menu For Each Page [Updates]
- Use Prey & Never Lose Your Laptop Or Phone Again [Cross-Platform]
- Step Off The Treadmill – 8 Reasons Not To Upgrade Your OS
- Four Free Caller Identification Apps That Will Annoy Your Telemarketers [Android]
- 9 Awesome Alfred Workflows I’m Loving [Mac OSX]
- Protect Your Online Persona If You Die With Google Inactive Account Manager
- Awesome Computer Speakers You Can Buy For Under $100
- Twitter’s Official Mac Client Gets Its First Update Since 2011 [Updates]
| Cool Websites and Tools [April 26th 2013] Posted: 26 Apr 2013 09:31 PM PDT
These are just half of the websites that we discovered in the last couple of days. If you want us to send you daily round-ups of all cool websites we come across, leave your email here. Or follow us via RSS feed. The post Cool Websites and Tools [April 26th 2013] appeared first on MakeUseOf. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Get The Most Out Of Using Twitter Privately Posted: 26 Apr 2013 08:31 PM PDT
In this article we’ll explore how to protect your account so that only those you approve can see what you tweet. In addition, we’ll cover how this change will affect your use of Twitter and if you should do it. How To Make Your Twitter Account PrivateThe procedure of protecting your Tweets is very simple. Once you’re logged in, click the “gear” icon and choose Settings, the second item from the bottom of the dropdown menu.
By default, you should be on the Account page, but if for some reason you aren’t, that is where you’ll need to be.
Scroll down until you see the section called Tweet privacy and check the checkbox.
An additional step you might want to consider taking is changing whether you can be found upon searching by your email. It’s not necessarily a Twitter security concern, but it’s a good setting to be aware of, if that’s something that matters to you. If you want to change this, you can do so by unchecking the box under Email, near the top of the Account page.
You’ve just protected your tweets, so now only your followers will be able to view them. You will need to scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the button to save your settings. You’ll then be prompted to enter your password. Once you do, the changes will be saved. Now when users who don’t follow you come across your profile, they’ll have to send a request to follow you.
These requests will appear on the Home page, right under the box with your name and the Compose new Tweet field.
Upon clicking it, you’ll then be able to review all the requests and easily accept or decline them.
How Protected Tweets Will Change How You Use Twitter
Changing your tweets from being public to protected will certainly alter how you use Twitter. First and foremost, I feel it’s a natural deterrent, so you may notice a decrease in the amount of people who follow you. When I come upon a user with protected tweets, I’m much less apt to follow them versus if they had their tweets open to the public. By having a protected account, you send the message that you don’t want just anyone seeing what you say. However, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Other things you should understand is that if you mention someone in a tweet who isn’t following you, they won’t be notified. By protecting your tweets, your followers won’t be able to retweet your tweets. Hashtags will also not be very useful since only your followers will be able to see the tweets. Lastly, embedding your tweets in blog posts or sharing them through a permanent link, won’t be possible if they’re protected. You might have noticed in the picture in this section that the bio, Twitter handle, name and pictures are all sill visible – this is important to take into account. Despite your tweets not being seen, you still represent yourself online, so be aware of that. Also, even though your tweets can only be seen by followers and are unable to be retweeted, don’t forget about screenshots, copy and paste, and third-party services, like Buffer, that allow users to share Tweets regardless of your settings. The point is, as I’ve said in my articles before, watch what you say and don’t just think that because you’re “protected” that people won’t find out what you say.
Should I Make My Twitter Account Private?When you ask yourself this question, you must think about what you want to get out of Twitter. If you’re looking to use it as a way to make connections, then protecting your tweets would actually be a disadvantage to you. But if you want to just connect with people you know, then protecting your tweets wouldn’t be a bad idea. In addition, a somewhat obvious benefit to protecting your tweets is the ability to prevent fake users and spammers from following you. It’s amazing how many fake users really are on Twitter, despite its efforts to reduce the number. Protecting your tweets enables you keep the numbers of followers you have accurate and manage your connections – your real connections. Other reasons you might want to protect your tweets is if you are primarily trying to use Twitter as a news source to gather information, and aren’t interested in connecting with other users you don’t personally know. That isn’t to say that you wouldn’t ever have followers who you don’t know – you’ll still get requests, they just might be fewer. By protecting your Tweets, they also won’t be indexed in Twitter search or Google search. ConclusionHaving a private Twitter account is not something that I do personally because it prevents me from using Twitter in the way I prefer. However, we’re all different – we all have different needs, uses, ideas and strategies. If you enjoy a tad bit more privacy and want a tight-knit network of followers, protecting your Tweets will help you achieve that. Do you protect your Tweets? If so, why? If not, are you more apt to do so now after reading this or will you continue to tweet publicly? Feel free to share your thoughts below, along with any other tips, tricks and uses you have for protected Tweets. The post Get The Most Out Of Using Twitter Privately appeared first on MakeUseOf. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Handsome Stats – Get The Google Analytics Stats That Matter Most Posted: 26 Apr 2013 08:01 PM PDT
You can monitor stats from several sites using TrakkBoard and you can create infographics from your Analytics data using Visually. One of the apps that makes it easy to view your data in a slick and easy-to-use interface is the aptly named Handsome Stats. Getting started with Handsome Stats, you have to sign up for a free account, after which you can connect it to your Google Analytics account. If you have several sites connected to your Google Analytics account, you can choose which site’s stats you want to view. While you’re limited to viewing one site at a time, you can change the site anytime through the settings.
Now we come to the most important part – what kind of data do you get to view through Handsome Stats? Your data is divided into two separate tabs – the first is Past vs. Now, while the second is Last 28 days. When it comes to Past vs. Now, the first thing you’ll see, at a glance, is the number of visits you’ve received over the past year, displayed as a bar graph.
Next, Handsome Stats will show how your traffic is changing over time. It does this by showing you stats from the most recent month, and compares them with stats from one year ago. These stats include pages viewed per visit, average time spent on the site, mobile traffic, returning visitors, and your mobile and desktop bounce rate. Being able to see these details compared to where you were last year is a great way to judge your growth and see if there’s more that you need to be doing to improve your site’s traffic.
Handsome Stats also provides you with a series of ‘Top 5s’ of your site. These include your top 5 posts, browsers, traffic sources, mobile operating systems, countries and search terms. Again, Handsome Stats also shows you this data, comparing how these details have changed over the past year.
Your last 28 days of traffic is displayed in line graphs, and features the exact same kind of data that you get in the first tab – number of visits, pages viewed per visit, average time spent on site, mobile traffic, returning visitors and mobile and desktop bounce rate. Handsome Stats’ use of line graphs in this section makes perfect sense because it allows you to view how your traffic is changing over the span of just one month, whereas when comparing data from one point in time to another, the bar graphs work best.
If you click on any given date in the line graph, you can view more information about the traffic for that day – namely the top traffic sources and the top pages.
You can also view your top 5 pages, browsers, traffic sources, mobile operating systems, countries and search terms for just the past 28 days.
You’re probably thinking that there’s a lot of data that Google Analytics provides and Handsome Stats isn’t displaying any of it and you’re right. Not only is there a lot of Google Analytics data missing, there are also quite a few features that have yet to be implemented. Custom reports, date controls and more are all features that are in the works. While these additional features will certainly make Handsome Stats even more useful, narrowing down and focusing on specific statistics can be extremely useful when running a website. First, it provides you instantly with attractive looking graphs and charts that you can share with others. If you need to give a presentation about your website’s traffic, using screenshots or even using the website itself during your presentation will definitely add an impressive and slick dimension. Even if you’re not sharing the data with others and it simply serves a personal purpose, Handsome Stats is great for the more technologically challenged, or even for those of you who want to use it alongside Google Analytics. At a glance, you can see how your website traffic is doing, where your traffic is coming from, and what your most popular content is. This kind of information is invaluable when it comes to determining what content works best, and what kind of content you want to focus on on your blog. If you want to see Handsome Stats in action before trying it out for yourself, you can check out their demo. And if you’re still determined to get the hang of Google’s analytics service, be sure to check out our guide to Google Analytics. What do you think of Handsome Stats? A useful tool or unnecessary? Let us know in the comments. The post Handsome Stats – Get The Google Analytics Stats That Matter Most appeared first on MakeUseOf. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Heal Your Funny Bone: YouTube Comedy Week Starts On May 19th [Updates] Posted: 26 Apr 2013 07:30 PM PDT
Comedy fans will get a full dose from names like Seth Rogen, Vince Vaughn, Norm Macdonald, The Gregory Brothers, The Onion, CollegeHumor, Epic Meal Time, Funny or Die, to name just a few. Expect to see big names from all over, along with YouTube's “in-house” faces such as Epic Meal Time and Ryan Higa.
The special event is the first of its kind on YouTube. Though most of the artists above have YouTube channels to their name, Comedy Week will be a global live stream beginning with a special pre-show at 4 pm PT/7 pm ET on May 19. This will be followed by a week of dedicated programming, including live performances, new episodes from popular YouTube comedy channels, curated top ten lists from comedy stars, and more. YouTube Comedy Week seems to be another push for original programming content on Google’s part. Humor is easiest to sell, so expect this to be a launching pad for many more such future programs Will you tune in to YouTube’s Comedy Week? Source: YouTube The post Heal Your Funny Bone: YouTube Comedy Week Starts On May 19th [Updates] appeared first on MakeUseOf. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Middle Manager Of Justice Is Time Management Gaming Is At Its Finest [iOS] Posted: 26 Apr 2013 06:30 PM PDT
This game is made by Double Fine, the team behind Xbox classic Psychonauts. Tim Schafer is the genius behind the brand, and his reputation in the gaming industry speaks volumes. When I noticed that this team had made a time management game for iOS, I knew it would be worth a second look. As expected, the game is packed with personality, which makes the simple gameplay feel like something much greater. GameplayIn Middle Manager of Justice, you play as a character tasked with managing a branch of super heroes. You will be performing all sorts of assignments with the ultimate goal of making your super hero branch the best in the world.
Gameplay involves recruiting new heroes, training them, keeping them happy, upgrading your facilities and sending those heroes out to fight crime. Each of these tasks is accessed through the various menus in the game, and navigating is a smooth and painless process. The tutorial at the beginning of the game introduces you to the main concepts so you will know what you are doing without issue.
The fights can be handled in one of two ways. First, you can click Watch and actually manage the fight yourself. You can also click Delegate to send you heroes to fight automatically. The game will let you know your chances of success, and I found that by managing the fights manually, I could win fights even with low chances. When your branch grows, and you have a lot more heroes, performing each fight manually is incredibly inefficient.
The biggest thing that separates this game from the competition is that you can play it all the time. Instead of setting up things that take hours to complete, every task in Middle Manager of Justice is quick, so you can play the game as much or as little as you want. To put it simply, this game is just fun. It takes the best parts of the genre and strips away some of the annoying aspects to create a game that is simple and effective. Double Fine’s production adds a sense of character that you will not find in other games of this type. Audio & VisualThe cartoon art works perfectly for this type of game, and anyone accustomed to Double Fine’s work should feel right at home with Middle Manager of Justice. It’s usually the addictive gameplay most gamers look for, but Double Fine has clearly chosen not to neglect the visuals either and the developers clearly took the time to make sure the game looks great.
The sound is also quite good. The music is not at all distracting, and even adds to the overall experience. The same goes for the sound effects. In-game dialogue is not voiced, which is understandable as some of it is repeated, and a lot of it is just general talk between the heroes and the bad guys. Even without voiced characters, the written dialog is done well, and is actually quite funny in multiple instances. Game LifeLike most of these games, there is plenty of fun to be had if you get sucked in. You can essentially play this game forever, and it’s free, so you certainly cannot complain. There are in-app purchases, but you can play the game as much as you want without ever spending a dime. Spending real money on these items speeds things along and they are nice to have, but they are by no means a necessity, which is exactly what I hope to see from this type of game. ConclusionGenerally, I avoid time management games like the plague. The only reason I was willing to give this one a chance is because Double Fine made it. I am glad I did, because I spent quite a few hours playing with it, and I had a fantastic time. Now that I am done writing this review, I am going to play it more, which means it has obviously sucked me in a great deal. That probably explains why it’s on our Best Of iPhone Games page, along with our other favorites. Have you played Middle Manager of Justice? Are you a big fan of Double Fine and Tim Schafer? Let us hear your thoughts in the comments, below. The post Middle Manager Of Justice Is Time Management Gaming Is At Its Finest [iOS] appeared first on MakeUseOf. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 10 Productivity Apps For Your Mac-Based Home Office Posted: 26 Apr 2013 05:31 PM PDT
Though there is no robot application (yet!) that can do all the work for me, the following are 10 of the most useful free or low-cost productivity apps that I use on a daily or regular basis. These applications not only save me time but in many cases help me work more efficiently. FantasticalIt’s difficult to work in any home-based office and not need a useful calendar. Though OS X comes installed with a default Calendar application, the third-party option, Fantastical ($19.99) is hands down the best calendar you should run on your Mac. With Fantastical, you can input and check calendar events and schedules right from your Mac’s menu bar. You can create a new event simply by opening Fantastical’s drop-down window and entering the data for the event. Instead of clicking numbers and times, you simply write the event as if you were writing it on a scratch sheet of paper. For example, to schedule a lunch meeting for next Wednesday, simply type: “Lunch with Bakari next wed, 11:30am, at Fresh Choice.” As you type, you watch Fantastical fill in all the data for you.
You can preset the type of reminders you want for calendar events. Fantastical syncs with Apple’s Calendar application, but there’s also an iPhone version ($8.99) of Fantastical that works the same way. By having Fantastical in your menu bar, you don’t have to open the Calendar app just to add or review a few events. Super Memory CleanerIf you find that your Mac slows down throughout the day or when you have several applications open, you should download Super Memory Cleaner (free). It does a great job of cleaning up hundreds of megabytes, or even gigabytes, of memory with one simple click. You can select to have it auto-clean, or clean at startup.
Desktop WallpapersIf you meet clients in your home office, and/or you like your office to have professional décor, your desktop wallpaper should be just as classy as your iMac or Macbook computer. My wallpaper of choice is a collection produced by Vlad Studio.
These free wallpapers are designed by digital artist, Vlad Gerasimov, and you can download them for nearly any size desktop monitor. I recommend selecting and downloading a few dozens of your favorites and simply have your Mac change the pictures everyday, or each time you wake up your Mac. I find that these unique wallpapers add a little inspiration to my daily workflow. CaffeineThere are occasions when you need to keep your Mac desktop or laptop awake when you’re doing a presentation, or playing a video while multitasking in another part of your office. This is where Caffeine (free) comes in. When you enable it, it keeps your Mac from going to sleep until you cut if off. Jackson reviewed this application when it was first released back in 2008.
WunderlistThere are no shortage of to-do applications for the Mac, but if you’re still looking for one, you should give Wunderlist (free) a try. Dave reviewed the iOS mobile version of Wunderlist, but the desktop version contains a similar user interface.
Wunderlist is a clean, well designed cross-platform program where you can mange and sync all of your to-do lists. You can also share and collaborate lists with your colleagues. If you don’t need a task manager with lots of bells and whistles, Wunderlist can be very useful in your workflow. FunctionFlipFunctionFlip (free/donation) is a Preferences utility that allows you to customize those Fn keys at the top of your keyboard that you might rarely use. For instance, while I constantly use the assigned volume keys, I hardly ever use the brightness, iTunes, Exposé and Launchpad Fn keys on my iMac. So with FunctionFlip, I can turn off those functions and assign them another purpose using applications like Keyboard Maestro or QuickSilver.
TrelloAnother useful task and project manager is an online and mobile application called Trello. It’s sort of like a whiteboard for sorting ideas, lists of tasks, and project workflows. You can share your “whiteboards” with others, and view them in any web browser or the iOS version (free) of of the application and service. Erez reviewed Trello in more detail here.
Launchpad ManagerIf you have amassed a lot of applications on your Mac, you have probably experienced how difficult it is to use Launchpad to access all of your applications. The Launchpad feature in Lion and Mountain Lion is not very useful if you don’t have your applications organized alphabetically or in folders. This is where Launchpad Manager ($7.99) comes in.
Launchpad Manager includes over a dozen features, including the ability to alphabetize applications, delete icons from Launchpad without uninstalling the applications themselves, and move selected applications to another Launchpad page. You can easily move applications into groups, rename icons and groups, and quickly cut and paste applications from one folder to another. You can use custom layouts of your Launchpad for different purposes. You can download a free version of Launchpad Manager, but many of its advanced features are only available in the paid pro version. DropzoneDropzone ($9.99) is a nifty little application that enables you to perform various tasks from the menu bar or from the left or right side of your desktop screen. For example, say you download a new application that is delivered to you in a DMG file. You can drag that DMG file to Dropzone and drop it on the Install Application action, and it will proceed to automatically open and install that application, and then delete the DMG file for you.
You can create another action that sends files to a pre-selected folder. There’s actions for quickly printing a file or converting a long URL to a bit.ly short URL. You can download a 15-day trial of the application, which I recommend. Spend some time with it, and check out the user contributed actions for Dropzone. If you find more than five actions that will enable you to be more productive, then it may be worth paying for the application, which you should download from the Mac App Store. Time OutOne of the ways to be more productive in your Mac-based home office is to actually take breaks from your Mac. Time Out (free) will remind you to take “normal”, say 10 minute breaks, and “micro” breaks, like 10 seconds every 30 minutes, based on the time intervals you set.
When I don’t use this application, I end up working at my computer for hours before I take a break. Not taking a break causes a strain on my eyes, and by the afternoon I’m less productive. You can postpone or skip breaks, but doing so too often will defeat the purpose. That’s it for my Mac-based home office applications. Let us know which applications you find most useful in your workflow. The post 10 Productivity Apps For Your Mac-Based Home Office appeared first on MakeUseOf. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Be a Deity With Doodle God On Windows Phone Posted: 26 Apr 2013 03:31 PM PDT
Of course, if you're playing on Android, iPhone or even (however unlikely it might seem) on a Samsung BADA device, you won't have the ability to unlock achievements and improve your Xbox Live Gamerscore. This element of the game is limited to Windows Phone. Sticking the word “god” into the title of a game adds a certain element of power, quality and all-round awesomeness, things that aren’t always well-deserved. So is Doodle God deserving of its nomenclature? Or should it really be called Doodle Down-and-out? But What IS a Doodle God?Doodle God is a sort of puzzle game, where the pieces remain hidden until you create them. While certainly an unusual title, there is certainly a lot to talk about, not least the playability, the sound and the Xbox Live achievements. In addition, mini games and quests are included to offer a different dimension. Control of Doodle God is via fingers/thumbs. There are no guns, no weapons to arm and no radars. Everything about the game is intuitive, from gameplay to how you approach the task of creating new elements from the original four (earth, water, fire and air) and reaching the end. With a potential 135 elements across 15 total groups, there is a lot to discover in Doodle God. Yes, You Can Play GodWhile the aim of the game may seem lofty, the gameplay itself is so simple that you can pull out your phone and run off a few elements as you wait for a bus or kill time as you wait for your favourite TV show to start.
Creating new elements is easy – if you can find ones that don't already exist! Just tap the element group to open the list, then open a second group and tap pairs of tiles, one from each side, to create something new. There is logic in this – for instance, fire+tree=coal. It really is that simple, although completing Doodle God can take a while. Fortunately there are plenty of amusing quotes to help pass the time as elements are created (or recreated, if you're forgetful). There 18 achievements to be unlocked in Doodle God, offering 5 to 40 points for your Xbox Live Gamerscore. As mentioned above, complementing the main game, are two mini games included with Doodle God. The first, MatchTrix, is a Tetris-esque game (and there are many of those around) using Doodle God squares. Meanwhile, Bejoined is the second mini game, and challenges you to more challenges, this time with a Bejeweled-style approach. Meanwhile the Doodle God quests challenge you to kill a dragon, help Santa find gifts and find virtues to outnumber the corresponding sins. A fourth quest is exclusive to Windows Phone, in which you must attempt to reinvent various "wonderful things" from the 20th century. Of course, as this is Doodle God, you don't just get to play these two games. You have to create the Games element first… He Saw (& Heard) that It Was GoodDoodle God's gameplay is enhanced not by amazing graphics but by evocative music. After all, this is a tile-based game, essentially a game of “Snap!” where the paired cards result in something new.
As such, the graphics are attractive, cartoony/doodle-y but essentially nothing more than functional. Meanwhile the game's soundtrack can be described as “biblical”, sounding not unlike the sort of music you might hear while watching Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments. If you're stuck, meanwhile (something that can happen quite often, especially around the time you learn how to create dragons) the game usefully offers words of verbal encouragement such as "come on, use your imagination" and "use your noodle". The JudgementOne of the great benefits of mobile gaming has been the pushing of gaming boundaries. Can you imagine playing a game as comparatively basic yet fascinatingly addictive as Doodle God on a PC 15 years ago?
Gaming has changed in the intervening years thanks largely to mobile gaming and titles such as this are perfect for handheld devices. Doodle God's strength is in its ingenuity and sense of humour, not to mention the gameplay. Doodle God can be found in our Best of Windows Phone Apps list, and rightly so. It is available from the Windows Phone Store for $2.99 (£2.29) and if you own a Windows Phone and like gaming, it is an excellent choice. Certainly not a down-and-out, Doodle God is towering in its mobile gaming divinity! Do you agree? Give it a tryout and let us know in the comments below. The post Be a Deity With Doodle God On Windows Phone appeared first on MakeUseOf. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Google Removes Instant Previews From Search Results, Adds New Dropdown Menu For Each Page [Updates] Posted: 26 Apr 2013 03:00 PM PDT
It might be difficult to spot the green arrow at first, as it resides right next to the green URL of a each website, but you’ll see it once you know what you’re looking for. Clicking on the Similar option in the new dropdown menu activates the ‘related’ operator, returning websites that are similar to this one. The Share option, which isn’t always available, opens a Google+ sharing dialog for the URL.
Instant Preview was a useful feature for quickly scanning through the search results and picking a page that best matched your query, such as a website with clear layouts and minimal advertising, for example. Instant Previews helped because we do gravitate to pages that visually look professional. It's difficult to say if doing away with Instant Previews is a temporary move or a permanent one, but TechCrunch cites a Google spokesperson as saying: “We're constantly making changes to the layout and features of the search results page.” As TechCrunch points out, the wording of this response suggests it is a permanent update and not an experimental one. Google’s reason for the move aside, it does make for a cleaner page, grouping three seemingly unrelated options under one roof. In one fell swoop, Google made the page less cluttered on one hand, and managed to bring Google+ sharing one step closer on the other. Will you miss Instant Previews if they never come back? What do you think of the new menu? Source: Techcrunch The post Google Removes Instant Previews From Search Results, Adds New Dropdown Menu For Each Page [Updates] appeared first on MakeUseOf. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Use Prey & Never Lose Your Laptop Or Phone Again [Cross-Platform] Posted: 26 Apr 2013 02:31 PM PDT
About a year ago I wrote a review for Bitdefender Anti-Theft, a program designed to keep your devices safe and sound by offering you a method of tracking them in case they ever got lost or stolen, but it costs money and uses a subscription-based model. Thanks to a suggestion by one of the readers, I’ve discovered a free and cross-platform alternative called Prey. With Prey, you'll never have to worry about absentmindedness or theft ever again, at least when it comes to your mobile devices. Keep reading to find out why this program is so useful. Prey is great for three main reasons – it's easy to set up, it's easy to use, and you won't ever have to pay a cent to use it. There's no trial period or crippled feature set here – the free version is enough to keep your devices adequately protected. Of course, there's a premium version but its features are mostly for power users and those who want convenience. We'll talk more about that later. The installer for Prey is about as easy as they come. I had it up and running on my Windows box in less than a minute and it was ready to go on my Android phone just as quickly. I don't have any other devices to test it on, but I can only assume that those alternatives are just as simple and fast.
In order to use Prey, you'll need to create a free account on their website. Why, you ask? Because the individual installations on each device (PC, Mac, Android, etc.) only provide the capabilities for tracking those particular devices. The actual control panel, or dashboard, is entirely web-based for your convenience. In other words, no matter which device you lose, you'll always be able to track them down as long as you have Internet access. The dashboard itself is rather simple yet elegant. It lists all of the devices that are hooked up to your account and have Prey-tracking enabled. The listed information is just enough to give you an informative overview without being overly cluttered or convoluted. If you want more details, you can click on each device's name. Prey is available on the following platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, and Android. For the desktop OSes, all you need to do is download the installer files (or packages) from the website and run them like any other installer. For the mobile apps, you can find them in the Apple Store or Google Play.
Let's get down to the nitty-gritty of what exactly Prey can do. The screenshot above shows you the Prey profile for my Windows desktop computer. Fat chance that someone will manage to steal my home computer, right? But let's imagine for a moment that this is a laptop installation (which is far more practical example). Prey allows each device to be set as either OK or Missing. When it's OK, the device will assume everything is all right and won't send much data back and forth. However, when you set it to Missing, that's when all the magic happens. When a device is set to Missing, it will begin sending Reports to the central Prey servers. How often does the device send a report? You can set it in the dashboard. You can also set the activation and deactivation phrases. If you have Prey set up on a phone, send these phrases by SMS to your device in order to wake up or shut down Prey.
Each Prey report can contain as much or as little data as you choose and these options can be toggled in the dashboard. For example -
Prey can also perform a few actions on the lost/stolen device -
Free accounts are limited to 3 total devices and 10 stored reports. Prey offers a number of paid subscription plans that unlock a host of premium features depending on the plan – add more devices, increase the amount of stored reports, and unlock On-Demand Mode which lets you request reports and perform actions whenever you want. All in all, I'm impressed by the power and flexibility offered by Prey even in its free version. If you’ve been looking for a security tracker for your lost devices but couldn’t afford to shell out money for a Bitdefender Anti-Theft subscription, then I highly recommend that you give Prey a try. As far as I know, it's the best free alternative out there. Then again, if Prey does too much and you want a simpler device-only app, you could check out these Android or iPhone apps. Let us know if you have had a positive or negative experience with Prey. The post Use Prey & Never Lose Your Laptop Or Phone Again [Cross-Platform] appeared first on MakeUseOf. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Step Off The Treadmill – 8 Reasons Not To Upgrade Your OS Posted: 26 Apr 2013 02:01 PM PDT
In reality, there are lots of good reasons to be skeptical of operating system upgrades. Ask anyone who installed Microsoft’s Windows ME over their Windows 98 systems and was unable to use Windows ME’s shiny new features because their computer started blue-screening all the time (this happened to me!), This is an example of why upgrading for the sake of upgrading isn’t a good idea. This doesn’t apply to security updates such as the ones available via Windows Update, of course. You should always install security updates as soon as possible. Missing FeaturesNew versions of operating systems and other software may remove features you depend on in your current operating system. One of the most recent and significant examples was Apple’s iOS 6. iOS 6 removed Google Maps, which many users depended on, and introduced Apple’s “most powerful mapping service ever,” which offered much less coverage throughout most of the world and no public transit directions. iOS users who upgraded immediately and found Apple Maps wasn’t good enough were left scrambling for a decent mapping app, with James temporarily switching to an Android phone just so he could use Google Maps.
iOS users who hung back and stuck with iOS 5 because it suited their needs could continue using Google Maps. Google eventually released a Google Maps app for iOS 6. At this point, iOS users could upgrade to the latest version without ever losing access to Google Maps. When upgrading, be sure you’re not giving up a feature you depend on – there’s no point in getting a shiny new OS that doesn’t do what you need it to do. You may want to wait until the new operating system suits you, as people held onto iOS 5 until Google Maps was ready. If you love Windows Media Center and upgrade to the standard edition of Windows 8, you’ll have to upgrade to the Pro version and then buy the Windows Media Center software separately, which will cost you over $100 in total to keep using the feature you depend on. If you use Windows XP Mode on Windows 7 Pro, you’ll have to migrate to another virtual machine solution on Windows 8. New operating systems don’t just add features, they also take them away. PriceUpgrading to the latest version of Windows can be rather pricy. Buying an upgrade edition of Windows 8 will currently cost you $120. Windows 8 may be faster to boot and a bit snappier than the previous versions of Windows, but if you’re upgrading just for that speed improvement, you’d be a lot better off using that $120 for a hardware upgrade – a solid-state drive or some more RAM will offer more speed improvements.
This doesn’t apply to all operating systems, as some upgrades are available for free, but the cost of upgrading should be taken into account. You’ll probably get the new operating system when you buy a new computer anyway, so why shell out additional money for an expensive software upgrade now? This also applies to other software, like Microsoft Office. We’ve advised you not to buy Office 2013 if you already have Office 2010. It isn’t a big enough upgrade, and you can do most things on Office 2010. In truth, many home users would be fine with the ten-year-old Office 2003, cloud-based Google Docs, or free LibreOffice. The upgrade probably isn’t worth the price. InstabilitySome new operating systems are half-baked. Witness Microsoft’s Windows ME, notorious for its blue-screens, bugs, and crashes. Also consider Windows Vista, which was unstable in its initial release. Vista may have been unstable because hardware manufacturers hadn’t yet polished their hardware drivers to a stable enough state, but that’s all the more reason to hang back and wait until the new OS stabilizes. Businesses often wait for the first service pack to fix problems before upgrading to a new version of Windows, and you may want to do so, too. Windows 8 doesn’t appear as unstable as past releases of Windows, but you should bear in mind that new operating systems can be less stable than old ones and act accordingly when the next buggy operating system is inevitably released.
PerformancePerformance is becoming less of a concern, as new Windows versions are lighter and better-performing than previous ones. However, devices that could run the previous versions of software may not have the hardware to run the most recent versions at a reasonable enough speed. For example, many Windows XP systems could never have been upgraded to the heavier Windows Vista without dramatic performance decreases. Users of old iPhones often claim new versions of Apple’s iOS makes the older iPhone hardware progressively slower, even as they add new features. Software IncompatibilitiesSome software won’t work on new operating systems. In iPhone land, a jailbreak was unavailable for iOS 6 for quite a while. If you depended on jailbreak software, you should have waited until a jailbreak for iOS 6 was ready before upgrading from iOS 5. This cycle will likely repeat itself with iOS 7. On Windows, some businesses may have business-critical software that doesn’t work on new versions of Windows. Businesses with large computer deployments generally test their software to make sure it runs properly on new versions of Windows before upgrading, and you should exercise similar caution with your important software. Hardware IncompatibilitiesNew operating systems may be incompatible with hardware you still use. For example, Windows 8 includes a revamped printing system that requires printer-driver upgrades. Your existing printer may not work properly on Windows 8. Is it really worth upgrading if you have to throw out a perfectly good printer and buy a new one? You’ll likely have to upgrade eventually as you buy new hardware, but it may be time to buy a new printer by then, anyway. Your Current OS is SupportedIn the case of Windows, Microsoft supports old versions of Windows for quite a long time. Windows XP is still currently “supported” — it will receive security updates from Microsoft until April 8, 2014. Windows 7 will be supported with security updates until 2020. When it comes to Windows, there’s no need to rush along to the latest version when Microsoft supports each version of Windows with security fixes for a decade.
Training CostsBusinesses will run into training costs if they attempt to upgrade to a new operating system. Windows 7, which wasn’t hugely different from Windows XP, still required businesses to train their employees in the way it worked. Windows 8 has a radically different interface and will require businesses to train their employees about its new “Modern” interface and lack of a Start menu. You’re probably not in charge of a business network, but you’ll have to train yourself (and possibly your family members) in the way a new operating system works if you upgrade to it. If you’re a tech geek, this may sound like fun, but if you’re just trying to get work done on your computer, this may just waste your time.
You May Still Want to UpgradeWe’re not advising you never to upgrade your operating system. Instead, we’re trying to get you to slow down and examine operating system upgrades rationally. Is there a significant benefit to upgrading? What are the downsides? What will it cost you, in addition to the time needed to perform the upgrade and set up your system again? Can you use all your software after you’re done, or will you need to hunt down replacements? What about your hardware? Is the new operating system worth the upgrade, or is it missing critical features, unstable, or slow? Exercise some thought and you won’t end up with an unstable computer, a smartphone that can’t use Google Maps, or a desktop computer with a “touch-first” interface designed for tablets that you don’t want. Thanks to our readers for their interesting discussion over at MakeUseOf Answers, which inspired this article. Feel free to chime in in the comments with your own opinions! Image Credit: David Pursehouse on Flickr The post Step Off The Treadmill – 8 Reasons Not To Upgrade Your OS appeared first on MakeUseOf. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Four Free Caller Identification Apps That Will Annoy Your Telemarketers [Android] Posted: 26 Apr 2013 12:00 PM PDT
Simple: There exist apps that can identify your callers in real-time, meaning the software will check the caller ID of the incoming number against a database of known telemarketers and scammers. Most of the Android apps presented in this article will display the identity of the caller as the call comes in. For your convenience, I’ve reviewed each app, using a fairly standard set of criteria. CriteriaI determine which app provides the best experience based on three criteria:
For additional discussion on the technical aspects of caller ID apps, check out our discussion on the Answers forum. ThreadThread, currently in beta, comes poorly regarded in the Play Store with a score of 2.9/5—the most common complaint being that the app’s bugs and sluggish performance. However, on my Nexus 4, Thread ran smoothly and without issue. It includes a caller ID features function as an overlay on your screen, displaying your contact history with the incoming call. Pros:
Cons:
Final grade: A
TrueCallerTrueCaller comes in second place in the Android app store, just behind Current Caller ID. It offers many of the same features as the other apps in this list, with few vices. Pros:
Cons:
Final grade: A-
Current Caller IDCurrently the ranking caller ID app in the Android Play Store, Current Caller ID offers a wide variety of features, ranging from filtering to social integration. Developed by the WhitePages, it naturally offers access to the forenamed publication’s databases. Many users might appreciate its simplicity, although it comes off as the most vanilla of all the apps presented here. Pros:
Cons:
Final grade: B+
Mr. NumberFormerly the best of all the caller ID apps, a recent change in the Google terms of service killed off a major feature of Mr. Number—its crowd-sourced database of numbers, which identified around 70% of all callers (this number was very impressive). Its remaining features still make it a decent app, however. Pros:
Cons:
Final grade: B+
ConclusionThread really is the best out of all the caller ID apps. It offers everything within the other apps and more. However, it’s important to note that before Google’s alteration of its terms of service, Mr. Number provided the best caller ID experience. Unfortunately, without its 70% accuracy in number identification, it falls behind Thread. For Americans seeking to block irritating callers on landlines, check out the National Do Not Call Registry. And for additional caller ID apps, visit our Answers forum. Does anyone else use caller ID apps? Are there any other contenders? Let us know in the comments. Image Credits: Phone via MorgueFile.com The post Four Free Caller Identification Apps That Will Annoy Your Telemarketers [Android] appeared first on MakeUseOf. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 9 Awesome Alfred Workflows I’m Loving [Mac OSX] Posted: 26 Apr 2013 11:01 AM PDT
To use workflows, you must have the PowerPack purchased for $25; the basic Alfred functionality is and always will be free, but these advanced features cost money. Given the amount of time and keystrokes it saves me in the long run, I have absolutely no qualms about recommending you upgrade too – some things deserve to be paid for, and this is one of them. In this article, I won’t be addressing the technicalities of coding your own workflows, though I will mention how I adjusted these favourites of mine. Should I Watch This Movie?Included with the PowerPack, Should I Watch This Movie workflow can be found under the examples folder when you click the +. It’s actually one of my favourites too though – finding a movie I want to know more about, navigating to RottenTomatoes to check out the ratings, and YouTube for a trailer – and this simplifies that whole process. However, I did make one modification – instead of using the default search action on YouTube, I used a custom URL of http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query={query}+trailer in order to only get trailers and not just random clips from a movie. If you’d rather just trust Rotten Tomatoes for your information, check out….
TomatoTomatoThis lets you search and displays results inline, along with ripe red tomatoes and squished green ones depending on the user score. Also uses the “movie” keyword, but you can of course run both these movie workflows at the same time. Results will take a few seconds to appear depending on your Internet speed – like all web based workflows listed here.
WeatherOk, you could just type “weather” in Google, but this will save you from opening a new browser tab. Be sure to set your location first using the keyword “weather {location}” and “weatherunit {celsius}”. Then type “forecast” for a 4-day breakdown. Simple, effective, and always raining in England no matter which site I use to check.
KillWhen you have 12GB of RAM, you don’t tend to care that much about the number of open browser tabs or applications. Which is especially useful if you’re both a technology writer and a recovering Windows users who still can’t quite get the concept of closing a window not being the same thing as closing an application. Very occasionally though, something will run away and cripple my machine. In those cases, finding and opening up the Task Monitor is quite laborious. This workflow makes it easy. Just type “kill” and the name of the offender. You can also just use this as a text based way to close down an application of course, though this really isn’t recommended since it’s the equivalent of force quitting. Still, a nifty function to have around.
PlayA couple of times a day, I have an insatiable desire to hear a particular song; this makes that easy. Note, iTunes will need to be running for this to work. Type play, a few characters of the song or more, and presto.
Lyric SearchI wasn’t entirely truthful in that last paragraph. I actually have to sing karaoke, not just hear the song. This workflow adds the keyword lrc (which I’ve changed to sing), and allows you to either download, copy to clipboard, or display onscreen via keystroke modifiers, once lyrics are found for the currently playing song. Now if someone could combine this with the iTunes plugin above, James would be a very happy boy, able to belt out Meat Loaf hits pretty much non-stop.
PirateBayEveryone’s favourite way to download Linux! This helpful workflow lets you search directly for Linux distros that are hosted on PirateBay (“pb”), or top torrents in each category (“ptop”), as well as copying the magnet link to the clipboard on completion. You can probably use it for downloading other things too, but I wouldn’t know anything about that. Another bonus to using this is that it doesn’t matter if the PirateBay is blocked in your country, since it uses a third party API through Appify. Superb.
Password GeneratorGenerating strong passwords is something I do a lot, and usually involves searching for a web generator, tweaking the defaults and then copying out the result. With this handy workflow, all I need to do is type “pwgen” and the number of characters I want. It’s then output as a notification and saved to the clipboard. Small, but handy. A strange juxtaposition perhaps, with a tool designed for super-productivity, and a site designed to waste your life away. But nonetheless, for a quick Reddit fix, this is a useful workflow. Unfortunately, it’s not that effective for pictures, since it doesn’t display inline and you’ll still need to click through to the Imgur URL – hopefully someone will streamline this to be even more useful in future.
Need more? Very well – here’s the Alfred Workflow List (beta), and the Share Your Workflow forum. To be honest, I’ve been blown away by the power of Alfred v2. It was already an essential app, now it’s just amazing. Workflows have brought the power of Automator to anyone, and then some (but if you’d rather use Automator, we have a great guide to get you started). Being able to edit the functionality of workflows to suit your own needs is also really nice – they aren’t just plugins where you get what you’re given! How about you? What are your favourite workflows? Don’t forget to include a link. The post 9 Awesome Alfred Workflows I’m Loving [Mac OSX] appeared first on MakeUseOf. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Protect Your Online Persona If You Die With Google Inactive Account Manager Posted: 26 Apr 2013 10:01 AM PDT
These days, a very big part of that life involves a whole list of online activities and data. More and more people are making use of things like a Picasa web album to store family photos, Google + to post daily life news and events, YouTube to publish both public and private videos, and so much more. In a lifetime of over 20 years, that information can consist of a tremendous volume of private, personal, and sometimes even very important information and history. If you think about it, through text, images, and videos, you’ve documented your own life through your online activities. In past years, a person’s life might have been documented in written form. A few of those became quite famous for representing an important era in history – journals like that of Laura Ingalls Wilder, Anne Frank, and so many others. What will happen to your documented life when you die? Will it disappear into the digital sea after your accounts become delinquent and get deleted? Is that really what all of your online efforts were about – to disappear into a meaningless heap of deleted bits? I say no, and Google’s solution that Joshua recently reported on called the Google Inactive Account Manager, can give you the peace of mind that your online information will not go to waste when you’re gone. Protecting Your Documented Online LifeIf you’re anything like me, then you probably have your online life centered in large part around Google products. Whether it’s YouTube, Google Search, Blogger, Google + or anything else offered by Google – the fact remains that Google is now handling the bulk of most of our online lives. This perfectly positions Google as the central place to go if you want to protect your online data. Google has answered the need for a sort of online “will” with the “Google Inactive Account Manager” service. You can find this service in your Google account settings page, toward the bottom, under the “Account Management” section.
You’ll see some text explaining that you can control what happens to your account once you “stop using Google”. This is a gentle way of saying, “This is how you can control what we do with your stuff when you die.” If you click on “Learn more and go to setup“, you’ll find yourself on a screen that walks you through each step of setting up your Google “online will”. Google provides several services that you can enact once your account goes inactive – including defining what “inactive” means, and what Google is supposed to do with all of your “stuff”. The first step is to add phone numbers to your account for receiving an alert once your account goes inactive and the actions you define are about to go into action.
There are two ways you can use this. You can use your own phone number just in case you aren’t dead – maybe you’re off hiking the appalachian trail or something – and you’ll get a warning alert that your online “will” is about to go into action.
Or, you could set this number up to be that of a very close friend or family member that you want alerted to the fact that your Google Inactive Account Manager plan is going into effect. This might also be the same person or people that you want to entrust the management of your online data after you’re gone. The next step in the inactive account manager plan is to tell Google how long to wait before making the decision that you’re no longer around, and to put your plan into action. The time frame defaults to 3 months.
However, you can extend this out to 6 months, 9 months or a year. If you are planning a very long trip somewhere that will take over 3 months, you might want to make sure to increase this time period so that your inactive account plan doesn’t go into action when you didn’t intend it to. The most important part of that plan of course, is the next step. This is where you’ll connect up to 10 contacts who you want notified that your Google account has gone inactive. The heart of the Inactive Account Manager feature is the sharing data part – you can save your online life for future generations by having your account data shared out to all of those trusted friends and family.
Click “Add trusted contact“, and either type in the person’s email address or name. If you type the name, Google will look up the name from your list of existing Google Contacts.
To activate the data sharing feature, just check off the box next to “Share my data with this contact“, and then follow the wizard that will take you through selecting which Google products that you want to share data with that contact. What’s kind of cool here is that you can select contacts and products specifically, so for example if you have a friend that you know is brilliant at blogging, you can share your Blogger data with that person. If you know someone that would love to have the photos that you’ve stored on Picasa, you can share your Picasa data with that person. This is how you can spread your life story and your legacy, but making sure your documented online life lives on even after you’re gone. And of course, the next step is my favorite feature – the “auto response” email.
This is sort of a surreal “out of office” type message that Google will send to anyone that emails you after your account has gone inactive. You can basically take the time now to write up a deeply thoughtful and meaningful message to everyone for after you’re gone. Once those people email you when you’re gone, they’ll receive your customized “last words” – and it’ll be just like you’re speaking to them from the grave. It’s going to be the last message that they ever receive from you, so make it count! Finally, you have the option once all of the previous steps have been completed, to entirely delete your account. This means everything. No more Google + account, no more Blogger blog, and no more YouTube videos. It all disappears when you do.
There are pros and cons to doing a total delete. Some people feel that it’s a privacy issue – no one needs to have some account laying around somewhere ready to be hacked and hijacked (I’ve seen this happen to a deceased person’s account before). On the other hand, deleting everything basically wipes your life away from the online world – everything you were and everything you represented online would be gone, at least insofar as it was hosted on a Google product. Basically, the decision to do this is a personal one. So there you have it, Google’s Inactive Account Manager. It’s basically Google’s version of an online last will and testament. I actually plan to lay this all out for my own account, just in case. You never know what tomorrow brings – why not be prepared? Do you plan to use the Google Inactive Account Manager? Which features do you think are valuable and which aren’t? Share your own thoughts in the comment section below. Image credits: Envelope and Last Will via Shutterstock The post Protect Your Online Persona If You Die With Google Inactive Account Manager appeared first on MakeUseOf. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Awesome Computer Speakers You Can Buy For Under $100 Posted: 26 Apr 2013 09:21 AM PDT
Fortunately, speaker prices have dropped like a rock over the last decade. Just $100 will buy you a sound-system easily capable of handling a living room or home office. Here are five great picks among affordable speakers. Creative GigaWorks T20 Series II
Creative's GigaWorks line is designed to package good sound quality into an attractive design at an afford price. And it works. Compared to most inexpensive systems, the GigaWorks speakers look worth their weight in gold. They feature attractive drivers, which can be covered or exposed, and one speaker is adorned with several adjustment knobs that look and feel solid for a system priced under $100. Sound quality is excellent, as well. Both professional reviews and customers have raved about the GigaWorks T20; as a result, it's one of the top 20 best-rated PC sound systems on Amazon. The only downfall is an absent subwoofer, and the system isn’t wired to have one added later. That means buyers who want deep, thumping bass should look elsewhere. Cyber Acoustics Subwoofer Satellite System CA-3602A
Oh, did someone say deep, thumping bass? Well, here you go – the Cyber Acoustics CA-3602A. Currently an Amazon.com PC speaker best-seller and top-rated product, this budget system seems to strike a perfect balance between quality and price. It offers two speakers and a 5-inch subwoofer for less than $40. That's a deal that can't be beat so, if you want bass on the cheap, you might as well stop reading and buy the CA-3602A. There are, however, a few problems. The look off the system isn't remarkable, mid-range sound reproduction is muddled at times, and build quality what you'd expect from a $40 system. Negatives aside, this is the obvious pick for those who want volume on a budget. Edifer USA e10 Exclaim 2.0 Speaker System
Edifer's thin and affordable e10 Exclaim provides an alternative to thin-speaker systems from brands like Bose and Harmon Kardon. Both professional and customer reviews seem to agree that, despite the e10's thin profile, sound quality is incredibly robust. Even bass is present thanks to the 3-inch woofers cleverly hidden in the bottom of each speaker. Though capable of excellent sound quality, users who want volume may be unhappy with what these speakers offer. They are also, like most thin speakers, very directional – which means volume and clarity drops substantially as the listener moves away from center. You'll have to spend most of your budget to grab the Edifer e10s, which retail for $99 and rarely go on sale. They're a bargain compared to similar competitors, many of which are priced at $150 and above – but larger systems offer a dedicated subwoofer for less. Genius SW-G2.1 Speaker System
The Genius SW-G2 is an attempt to bring gaming speakers to the budget market. Gaming speakers are known for their ability to deliver a lot of volume and bass, and the SW-G2 continues that trend. The speakers ship with a 5-inch subwoofer and dedicated control box with bass adjustment. The sub's rated power output of 38 watts blows away even the Cyber Acoustics CA-3602, though these specifications should be taken with a grain of salt. These speakers look as loud as they sound, however. The drivers are painted red and the speakers have strange hour-glass shape that likely won't match anything on your desktop. And though they're priced at $60 (twenty more than the CA-3602) the Genius speakers aren't built better. You're paying for volume, not quality. Logitech Z523 Speaker System with Subwoofer
Logitech is the king of low-end speakers in sales if not in quality. They offer numerous products below $100, but I decided to pick just one; the excellent Z523. This sound system has everything you'll need in PC sound system Logitech has paired two attractive glossy-black speakers with a 6.5-inch subwoofer capable of delivering up to 40 watts of power – more than even the Genius SW-G2.1. Yet the Logitech is undeniably built to a higher standard of quality and provides built-in adjustment knobs rather than a seperate control unit. Logitech's reputation and quality will cost you. Though no expense, the $75 MSRP is nearly twice that of the Cyber Acoustics CA-3602A. And don't think that you'll receive superior sound because you paid more; customer reviews of the Z523 are positive but mixed, with a vocal minority saying the system is less pleasant than the price suggests. ConclusionAll of these systems are a good choice. The Genius and Cyber Acoustics fit the role of big, cheap and loud while the Creative and Edifer sets take a more subtle approach. The Logitech? It fits somewhere in the middle. I use a Sony 2.1 system that I like but is no longer produced. If I had to choose a replacement I'd probably go for the Logitech Z523, as I've had good luck with their speakers in the past. What would you choose? Let us know in the comments! The post Awesome Computer Speakers You Can Buy For Under $100 appeared first on MakeUseOf. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Twitter’s Official Mac Client Gets Its First Update Since 2011 [Updates] Posted: 26 Apr 2013 08:30 AM PDT
Also included in the update are a set of new icons and support for 14 new languages. The new version is already live in the Mac App Store and finally looks the part on Apple’s latest line of MacBook Pros with Retina displays. The update comes only a month after Twitter brought its TweetDeck app for Mac and Windows into line with the popular Web version. Here is what the app looks like now, compared to the previous, 2-years-old version:
The update might seem barely noticeable, but makes a world of difference on a Retina display, finally replacing blurry text with crisp Retina font rendering. Unfortunately, Twitter has still not implemented support for Mountain Lion’s Notification Center, a feature which itself includes a Tweet button once paired with a Twitter account. The New Tweet box, where you can compose new tweets, can be opened multiple times and also includes a dedicated button for attaching images, rather than the drag and drop approach it previously used.
The update is very much welcome and is hopefully indicative of Twitter’s intentions to better maintain its official clients, particularly since introducing API limits for third-party applications which have hindered app development on all operating systems. Download: Twitter for Mac @ Mac App Store Do you use Twitter for Mac or does the website suffice? Source: Twitter Blog The post Twitter’s Official Mac Client Gets Its First Update Since 2011 [Updates] appeared first on MakeUseOf. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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