15 New Articles on MakeUseOf |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [May 23rd 2013]
- How To Install Multiple Bootable Operating Systems on One USB Stick
- iPhone Screen Broken? Here Are Your Repair Options
- The Top 5 Firefox Plugins To Supercharge Gmail
- 4+ Ways To Secretly Hide Messages In Pictures
- 2 Great Sites For League Of Legends Statistics & Analysis
- Less is More! 7+ Devices & Tools Your Smartphone Can Replace
- Mobile Working with Windows Phone – Microsoft Office Mobile 2013
- Google Discontinues Google Checkout, Offers Google Wallet Instead [Updates]
- Why Do Macs Leave Garbage Files Like “ds_store” On My Flash Drive, And How Do I Stop It?
- 7 Ways To Avoid Letting The Internet Destroy Your Life
- 7 Tools To Improve The Way You Use Evernote
- Keeping Up With The Bluth Family: Discover Arrested Development On The Web
- iCan: 5 Features iPhone Users Take For Granted That Android Can’t Match
- Twitter Introduces Login Verification Via SMS For A More Secure Sign-In Process [Updates]
| Cool Websites and Tools [May 23rd 2013] Posted: 23 May 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 [May 23rd 2013] appeared first on MakeUseOf. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| How To Install Multiple Bootable Operating Systems on One USB Stick Posted: 23 May 2013 08:00 PM PDT
In theory, it could be done, but I’m not sure why a person would want to do that. First, you would be breaking some licensing agreements with Microsoft, unless you had some sort of site-licensing deal with them. Second, it would be a painfully slow installation process. Third, USB flash drives aren’t that expensive – why wouldn’t you have a few drives with the different Microsoft OSs on them? So, although I’m not going to answer Dado’s entire question, I will answer the part about having multiple OSs on one USB stick. Where this becomes practical is if the different operating systems are Live CDs, that is, small operating systems designed specifically to provide maintenance to a computer from outside of the computer’s own operating system. This can be handy if the computer’s own operating system is corrupted through misuse, poor maintenance, or worse, malware. There are a few nice programs that will help you create your multiboot USB stick. Today, we’ll take a brief look at three of them: XBoot, MultiBootUSB, and YUMI. Prior to using each of the different multiboot creation programs, I formatted my Kingston DataTraveler 101 16GB USB 2.0 flash drive, to ensure there would be no issues from the flash drive itself. MultiBootUSBMultiBootUSB is available on SourceForge and appears to be a pretty popular program for just this kind of task. The MultiBootUSB software is also a portable application, meaning you simply put the MultiBootUSB-6.4.1.exe file onto your USB drive and run it all from the USB drive. No need to mess around installing it on your computer. This gives you a great deal of flexibility, should you want to change things up but you aren’t at your home or office computer. While using it on my USB drive in a Windows 7 computer, I did get error messages every time I went to use it. It would tell me that MultiBootUSB was not installed on the F: drive. I checked my USB stick and it was labelled as the F: drive and, of course, the program IS on the USB stick.
It is limited to allowing installations of Linux-based Live distributions, however, most of the best Live CDs are Linux-based anyway. I decided to push on and just try adding the Kaspersky Rescue CD 10 ISO. The total size of the Kaspersky Rescue CD is 299 MB, so there is plenty of room for it on my 16GB drive.
The total time to install it was about 25 minutes. It may feel like forever, but it is a process that you only have to do once. The second ISO I added was the Ultimate Boot CD 5.11 ISO. At 359 MB, it took about 30 minutes to install. But if you have StumbleUpon or Facebook, the time flies by. Now, I have two different bootable operating systems on one USB flash drive.
At this point, you’re supposed to be able to click on the QEMU tab and test the installations without having to reboot the system. QEMU is a machine emulator and virtualizer, meaning it’s an operating system that will run in the Windows environment, but completely independent of Windows. I couldn’t seem to get this feature working with MultiBootUSB, even though I could use QEMU to boot the ISOs of the Live CDs I was using.
In the end, this wasn’t too important since I was able to boot my computer from the USB stick into both Kaspersky and Ultimate Boot CD. So, overall, the mission was accomplished. XBootOne thing that I immediately noticed is that XBoot has a lot more documentation than MultiBootUSB, which is to say that it has some documentation. Both programs don’t really need a lot of instruction to use, but it’s nice to have in case something happens. Installation of XBoot is really easy; double-click the executable file and it opens in seconds. From there it’s quite simple to add your ISOs – just drag and drop them into the main box.
From there, just click on the Create USB button. The program will prompt you to select the USB drive that you wish to install the ISOs on, and to select the kind of bootloader that you want to use. If your USB stick is formatted to FAT32, XBoot recommends Syslinux. If the USB stick is formatted to NTFS, Grub4DOS is recommended. You could also select Do not install any Bootloader, but since we want the USB stick to be bootable, I don’t see why we’d choose that. Click OK and we’re on the way!
The speed with which XBoot added the ISO files was also blindingly fast – mere seconds per ISO – versus the hour it took me to load the same ISOs into MultiBootUSB. I couldn’t get a screenshot of it loading the ISO fast enough.
Yep, that’s all I could screen capture. Xboot also has the same QEMU features, where you can boot a Live CD ISO or boot the USB that you just made. Once again, I couldn’t boot the USB in QEMU, but I could boot the Live ISOs. I’m thinking my computer is the issue here, so I’m not going to include this feature in my final analysis.
However, the USB stick did work, and I was able to boot my computer into both Kaspersky and the Ultimate Boot CD. So once again, mission accomplished, and much faster! YUMI – Your Universal Multiboot InstallerThere seemed to be a lot of recommendations for YUMI around the web, so I added it to the crop to be tested. When I went to the hosting website, PenDriveLinux.com, YUMI and I got off to a bad start. Anytime I go to download software and the download page is full of advertisements, I feel like this is a shifty proposition. Throwing caution aside, I downloaded and installed YUMI. I didn’t feel much better as I did this. Check out the License Agreement.
All of a sudden I felt dirty. I continued though. Once you get to the part where you are adding distributions to your USB stick, YUMI lays out exactly which ones are known to work, as well as where to download the distributions from. I thought this was pretty professional. You wouldn’t be wasting time trying to make something work that simply would never work! There are dozens of Linux distributions and other Linux-based Live CDs listed. At least one of them is likely to meet your needs.
I started with loading the Kaspersky Live CD. It took a bit less time than MultiBootUSB to load, about 20 minutes, but still a far more significant amount of time than XBoot.
Fortunately, Ultimate Boot CD 5.11 was on the list. So I added that as well. For whatever reason, adding the UBCD ISO only took a minute or two.
YUMI doesn’t have the additional QEMU tools like MultiBootUSB or XBoot, but then again, those tools don’t seem terribly necessary. Using the YUMI-created bootable USB drive, I was able to boot into both images without any issues. So, yes, YUMI does work. The Take AwayAny of the three tools will help you create a USB stick that you can boot one of several operating systems with. All things being equal, and most things were, I would recommend XBoot over MultiBootUSB and YUMI, just for the sheer speed with which I was able to create a multi-OS bootable thumb drive. This program will be staying on my computer, the other two need to go. Have you had any experience with these multiboot USB creation tools? Have you used another one? Any idea why the QEMU feature won’t work on my Windows 7 Pro system? Let’s talk about this in the comments. Sharing the knowledge is how we all grow and we are all on the same team here. Image Credit: USB Flash Drive with Data via Shutterstock. The post How To Install Multiple Bootable Operating Systems on One USB Stick appeared first on MakeUseOf. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| iPhone Screen Broken? Here Are Your Repair Options Posted: 23 May 2013 07:30 PM PDT
It’s a simple accident, and one that many others make on a daily basis. It also has the potential to be quite an expensive accident, particularly if you’re the owner of an iPhone 5. If you’ve just broken your screen, or happen to do so in the future then it pays to know what options you have open to you. Here they all are, laid bare. Option 1: AppleCareHooray! You bought AppleCare! That’s the best possible outcome, because the premium after-sales support package that will set you back around $100 comes with 2 extra years of warranty plus coverage for accidental damage. Many users are reporting that this cannot be purchased and activated without the phone being inspected first, which makes sense from Apple’s point of view. It’s not all butterflies and daisies though, as you’ll have to pay for the privilege. Apple charges a $49 premium for accidental damage including a screen replacement. They also restrict this service to twice per the device’s lifespan, so if you break your screen twice you’d better hope you don’t go breaking anything else.
Whether Apple actually repairs your screen or not is another question that you won’t be able to answer until you step into their glass box of tricks. An article on CNET suggests that Apple can and will replace the iPhone 5′s screen in-store, whereas many have experienced the opposite – Apple swapping their phones out for refurbished (yet still perfectly functional) models. I called up a local Apple store and was told that no screen replacements were made on the iPhone 5 and that units were instead swapped. This sort of activity is very common at the start of the product cycle, particularly for the iPhone 5 which used a brand new screen and chassis. We’re almost into the next cycle and Apple are still swapping phones here in Australia, though. Cost: $99 for AppleCare, $49 for each replacement Option 2: Get Apple To “Repair” ItSo you didn’t buy AppleCare, and so you’ve not got any accidental damage cover. If you’ve recently purchased the device and still have a while left on your warranty period, Apple are probably the best people for the job. They’re also probably the most expensive people for the job, too. I made a call to a local Apple store here in Melbourne and enquired what it would cost to replace an iPhone 5 screen that was not covered by AppleCare. I was told this would cost “anywhere up to” AU$280 (that’s US$276) to replace just the screen. This is assuming the rest of the phone is perfectly functional, but also taking on board that no screen will actually be replaced on your model – instead Apple will provide you with a refurbished model.
This is in-line with many quotes I have seen online for users unlucky enough to have broken their iPhone 5s, with anywhere from $220 to $300 quotes as the going rate for an Apple replacement stateside. According to Apple Australia, iPhone 4 owners will pay less at up to AU$180 (US$177) for a replacement and the iPhone 4S will run you around AU$230 (US$227). This might be cheaper but if you have an iPhone 4 or 4S your device might not even be under warranty any more. In this instance you might want to consider the next, cheaper option. Cost: Up to $300 for an iPhone 5, $230 for an iPhone 4S and $180 for an iPhone 4 (estimate). Option 3: Pay Someone Else To Do ItIf you own an older iPhone 4, 4S or you’ve otherwise voided the warranty on your iPhone 5 (at the time of writing it’s not been out for longer than the warranty lasts) then your other quick and easy fix involves a third-party repair service. One thing to take note of are third-party replacement parts. When my girlfriend broke her 4S screen in November of last year the repair technician I used offered me official parts or third-party parts. While the third-party replacements were virtually half the price I was told there was a noticeable difference in response. If you’ve spent a couple of hundred dollars on what is essentially a luxury item, you don’t want to go putting inferior parts on it – so I’d always recommend you opt for official Apple replacements.
Unfortunately due to iPhone 5 parts still being scarce and expensive, these services are unlikely to be able to offer you much of a saving over an official Apple swap. In fact I’ve seen some quote more than $300, which is more than what Apple themselves seem to want. For the iPhone 4 or 4S it’s a different matter altogether, however. I paid around AU$130 for my girlfriend’s replacement iPhone 4S screen which was ready within the hour and indistinguishable from a new iPhone. The price you will pay depends entirely on the business you approach, but I’d recommend shopping around for the best deal. It’s also advisable to choose a local place so you can pick the phone up yourself so you’re not without your device while the postman loses it. Cost: Probably not worth it for the iPhone 5 due to cost of parts, around $100-$150 for the iPhone 4/4S depending on quality of parts. Option 4: Do It YourselfArguably the trickiest option here and one that’s only right for those happy to open up their beloved device and void any remaining warranty. Depending on your model, this can either be remarkably easy or a bit of a drag. The iPhone 5 made it a lot easier to replace the display assembly but replacement parts are still very expensive at over $200 at least for the front construction. Remember – you cannot replace only the glass but you must replace the whole construction: glass, digitiser and LCD included. Some scam-artists on eBay will try to sell you just one of these items, but it is ultimately useless as the parts should be fused together.
If you were to buy this replacement iPhone 5 screen at around $220, you could save around $80 on the Apple cost by repairing an iPhone 5 yourself assuming your time is free. You can find detailed instructions here on iFixit, and these steps look very easy compared to doing the same on a 4S. If you’re a dab hand with a Torx and aren’t scared of a challenge, you should be able to find a replacement Apple screen for your 4S at around $100, make sure you’re purchasing a genuine “Display Assembly” which refers to the whole kit rather than a piece of glass or just the LCD. iPhone 4 instructions are here and iPhone 4S instructions here, each taking around an hour and rated “Difficult” by the respective authors. Cost: At least $200 for the iPhone 5 screen, $100-$150 for iPhone 4/4S genuine parts, plus time and know-how. Option 5: Get Your Insurance To Cover ItDepending on your insurance – be it home contents, a mobile carrier bolt-on or even travel insurance, it’s probably worth checking if your policy covers accidental damage of small personal devices. From personal experience, insurance companies will make it as difficult as humanly possible to help you out here so you’ll largely be on your own. You’ll also need to pay a premium as well, but it might be worth replacing your phone with an insurance pay-out if it works out cheaper than what Apple are asking.
Call me jaded, but this is undoubtedly going to be the longest course of action as the insurance sector isn’t exactly celebrated for its punctual nature, nor it’s overly straightforward forms or processes. Before choosing this option consider past experience with your insurer, your premium and how long you can go without your phone. Cost: Whatever your insurer’s premium happens to be and potentially weeks of waiting. That’s it – which did you choose? How did you break your beloved? Have you got the balls do DIY iPhone screen repair? Let us know in the comments, below. Images: Broken iPhone (Willem Karssenberg), Apple Store (iPhil Photos), Meerkat (Ullisan). The post iPhone Screen Broken? Here Are Your Repair Options appeared first on MakeUseOf. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The Top 5 Firefox Plugins To Supercharge Gmail Posted: 23 May 2013 07:01 PM PDT
If you use a third-party client like Thunderbird or Postbox, you may want to reconsider. There are benefits to using nothing more than a browser to access your emails and these plugins will almost make it worth it. But if you want to stick with your client programs, that's cool too. Integrated Gmail
Integrated Gmail is a simple addon that splits the Gmail interface into collapsible sections, allowing you to close and expand different parts to maximize your screen estate. In addition, it integrates a number of Gmail programs into the Gmail inbox - Calendar, Tasks, Notebooks, Groups, Maps, and more. With it, you can turn your inbox into a central hub for all of your Google-related activity. This plugin is very convenient – installing it won't even require you to restart your Firefox – and it's the perfect combination of flexibility and efficiency. Gmelius
For those of you that want a more comprehensive reworking to your Gmail's inner gears, Gmelius may be the plugin that you need. Staying true to its tagline – no ads and better interface for Gmail – Gmelius delivers by stripping away those pesky ads and giving you the flexibility to change and remove portions of the Gmail interface within minutes. Some of the features that you can enable or disable:
Not even five minutes after installation, my Gmail looks so much cleaner and more sleek than it ever has. And to top it all off, you won't need to restart your browser after installing. It's always nice when an addon does that. For a more comprehensive overview, check out Justin's Gmelius overview. RapportiveHave you ever received an email from someone whose name you recognized but you weren't exactly sure how you recognized them? Rapportive was built to alleviate problems like that. When viewing an email, Rapportive considers the email's context, pulls up a bunch of information about relevant contacts, and displays it right in the sidebar for easy viewing.
Rapportive displays information like profile photos, location, vocation, latest tweets, and other social networking details. You can also jot down notes about people and Rapportive will keep track of them for you. By connecting your Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and other social networking profile, you can expand the realm from which Rapportive pulls its data. If you deal with a lot of personal or business emails on a regular basis and it has become hard for you to connect faces with names, then Rapportive may be the plugin to change your emailing life. Aaron has reviewed Rapportive, so check it out if you're interested (yes, he reviewed the Chrome version, but the versions are very similar). TaskforceTaskforce is a cool addon that converts your emails into tasks. If an email is urgent, you can set it as an urgent task that you need to deal with right away, but if it isn't so urgent, you can add it to your Calendar and deal with it when the time comes. These tasks will sync with Google Calendar if you allow them.
The Taskforce addon is linked to your Taskforce account, so you'll need to create one of those if you want to use it. For $5 USD per month, you can upgrade to Taskforce Pro, which unlocks: multiple task lists, synchronization with Google Tasks, drag-and-drop ordering for priorities, recurring tasks, and keyboard shortcuts. When signing up for the first time, you'll have a free 30-day trial of Taskforce Pro. Taskforce is also available as a mobile site, so the tasks that you convert from your emails can be viewed on-the-go. Right InboxWhen you're drowning in emails all day long, it can become a frustrating experience having to keep track of everything that needs to be sent out. Plus, you may forget to make important responses and jeopardize a relationship – personal or business – that you've been working to build. Right Inbox is an automation addon that will take a huge load off of your shoulders. For every email you send, you can specify a future date and time and Right Inbox will schedule it for you. This is positively wonderful when you have time to write a reply now but won't be around to send it at the optimal time. Right Inbox can also track when your sent emails are read and when links in your emails are clicked. You can also set reminders on emails for a specific time, or even if someone doesn't reply after a time period. The free version of Right Inbox is limited to 10 scheduled, 10 read-tracked, and 10 click-tracked emails per month as well as 10 email reminders per month. For $5 USD per month, you can upgrade to an unlimited plan, or pay for an entire year and get 20% off. ConclusionGmail is a great service but with these Firefox addons – some of which appear on our Best Firefox Addons page – you'll be able to turn it into an excellent service. I'm aware these five addons don't address every lack in Gmail but it's a good start to supercharging your inbox. If you have any other Firefox Gmail addons that deserve a mention, please share with us in the comments! The post The Top 5 Firefox Plugins To Supercharge Gmail appeared first on MakeUseOf. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 4+ Ways To Secretly Hide Messages In Pictures Posted: 23 May 2013 06:30 PM PDT
Ironclad secrecy is when, not only others cannot access it, they don’t even know it’s there. Secret messages have been used since the dawn of man to convey information without interception. Some of the ancient methods I’ve read about include tattooing a message on someone’s head and letting the hair grow back, and encasing messages in balls of wax, which the messenger had to swallow. Later on we had invisible inks, and if you were born anywhere between the 70s and 90s, I’m sure you had your fun with lemon juice, invisible markers, and so on. The science (or art) of hiding messages in pictures is called steganography, and in the digital age, can be used to hide secret messages in innocent-looking images. Looking at the picture, you have no idea there’s a secret message hiding inside, but with the correct tools or passwords, the secret message can be revealed. As with everything, the digital age made creating these secret messages easier than ever. Want to give it a go? Here are some tools for you to try. Before We Get StartedIf you’ve been reading tech blogs in the last couple of weeks, you’ve probably encountered this ingenious ad by a Spanish organization called the Aid to Children and Adolescents at Risk Foundation (ANAR Foundation). The ad is aimed at both children and adults, but contains a different message for each. From adult height, only a warning is visible; from a child’s height, a phone number appears which the child can call in case of abuse. While this might not be steganography per se, it’s a great way to convey a secret message only to its target audience, and is a great example of the use of this technique in today’s world. The DIY WayIf you’re the kind of person that likes to do things himself, this method is as DIY as it gets. You may have to try it several times to find the best picture to hide your message in, but keep in mind that a simple MS Paint (or equivalent) drawing would work best. I tried it with a real photo I took, and it did not work as well. This method is based on a process I found over on WikiHow, which basically combines two files — an image and a text message — so that on the outside the image looks like an ordinary one, but if you know where to look, you can find the hidden message. If you’re not a Windows user, I apologize in advance, but since I am one, I am only able to show this method on Windows. To start, find or create a BMP file in any way you wish. For me, the easiest way was to draw something simple and save it as BMP, but you can also try it with a real image. If you go for an image, try to find a relatively small one.
Next, create your message in Notepad or a similar program, and save your message in TXT format. Now it’s time to have some fun. Open Command Prompt, and type in the following: copy “<image file path>” + “<text file path>” “<new image path>”. You can get a better idea of what this will look like in the screenshot below.
Name your new image whatever you want, but remember that this is your actual secret message image, so don’t name it “secret message” if you really want it to be a secret. The new image will also be a BMP file, so anyone who sees it will double click it to open and see only the image. If, however, someone in the know opens it using Notepad, they’ll find the secret message hiding all the way at the bottom of the file.
Yes, this might not be the most sophisticated way to do this, but it’s easy and it works. MozaiqMozaiq is a service aimed at creating those huge mosaics made out of tiny pictures. In addition to that, it also offers a simple and easy-to-use steganography service, which you can use to quickly encrypt any message into an innocent-looking image.
The great thing about Mozaiq is that you don’t even have to spring for an image. If you’re too lazy, or have nothing suitable lying around, Mozaiq will provide a random image for you to hide your message in. All you have to do is input your message and an optional decryption password, and you’re all set.
Save this image to your computer (don’t edit it! You can change the file name, though), and send it to whomever you wish. In order to decrypt the message, it’s necessary to use Mozaiq’s decryption page. Upload the image and input the password (if there is one), and voila! Here’s your secret message.
Read a full review of Mozaiq (but keep in mind the interface has changed a bit since this was written). MobileFishMobileFish is an old-looking website dedicated to design, development, gaming, and stuff in general, but it also features a steganography service. The service is as old-looking as the rest of the site, so you may have to wrestle the interface just a bit, but it does let you hide secret messages in images, and even secret files within files.
To create a secret message in an image, upload the image, and then choose whether your secret message will be presented as a secret file or just a message. After uploading the message file or inputting the message, choose a password, and scroll all the way to the bottom. Here you’ll have to enter an easy captcha, and then click on “Encrypt”. At this point it may look like nothing has happened, but if you scroll down further, you’ll find a download link with your new image.
To decrypt a message, either upload it or enter a URL (which means you can share links to a secret message as well as send the actual file), enter the password, and click on “Decrypt”. Again, it may seem like nothing is happening, but scrolling down will reveal the message either in the Secret message box, or, if you chose to hide the message in a file, it will be available for download using the same Download file link seen above. MobileFish’s interface is its downfall, but if you and your recipient can put that aside, it’s a great way to create and decipher secret messages. Secretbook [Chrome]Secretbook is a fairly new Chrome extension that lets you encode messages into Facebook photos, and then share them with friends as if they were regular photos. Friends in the know and who have the password will be able to decipher the secret message hidden inside the image. After installing the extension, you’re going to have to refresh Facebook, and press ctrl+alt+a to create a new encrypted message. If this shortcut is taken by something else, as it was for me, there’s not much you can do about it. I ended up shutting down the program that was stealing the shortcut, as there’s currently no way to change it.
Upon hitting the shortcut, the window above will open, where you’ll have to choose an image, and enter the message and a password. Each image can contain a different number of characters, and Secretbook will let you know how long your message can be. You can then download the file and upload it to Facebook. To decipher the message, press ctrl+alt+a while looking at the picture, and input the password. If the password is correct, the message will be displayed!
(Yes, I know there’s a different message in each screenshot, they’re from different trials!) More?There are other tools you can use to create hidden messages in images. S-Tools for Windows and iSteg for Mac are two such examples we’ve covered in the past, and if you’re looking for desktop apps to create your secret messages, these are great ones to try. Did you manage to create some hidden messages? Which is your favorite method? Do you know of an excellent way I didn’t mention? Tell us everything in the comments. Image Credit: encrypted message image via Shutterstock The post 4+ Ways To Secretly Hide Messages In Pictures appeared first on MakeUseOf. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2 Great Sites For League Of Legends Statistics & Analysis Posted: 23 May 2013 05:31 PM PDT
League of Legends didn’t become the world’s largest PC game by being shallow and bland. It’s the kind of game that requires perfect mechanics and a deep understanding of the game’s playable champions and items. The highest tier of players aren’t shy about breaking out the complex math and spreadsheets to know which League of Legends builds will put them at a competitive edge over an opponent. With that in mind, several League of Legends statistics sites have popped up with the sole intention of helping us better understand the numbers. LolKing
LolKing is known within the ranked community as that one website everyone goes to when they want to critique and analyze the past performances of their teammates during champion selection. It’s an awfully annoying and toxic process that constantly happens, but you should know that LolKing exists for a lot more than this purpose. First worth looking at is the Charts section of LolKing.
This is a really awesome way to gauge what is working and what isn’t in the current state of League of Legends. As you can see above, you’re able to select a chart type, region, map, frame of time, and queue type to display a chart for. You’re able to see the highest and lowest win rates of champions, the most popular champions, the most banned champions, the most used skins, and more.
Another great set of charts will offer you lane-by-lane matchup analysis and bottom lane synergy levels. This means that you can completely disregard all of those websites that offer community-submitted “counterpicks” and simply go by real, hard statistics recorded by LolKing. You can literally see exact win rates for matchups at every single lane and base your picks on that. It’s a great way to see which champions are individually stronger than another. Another great piece of this website is the Champions section.
Here, you’re given a single-page view of the most important statistics per each champion: their popularity, win rate, and ban rate. Champions can then be sorted by each column, as you can see I’ve done above. Statistics currently show Janna, Twisted Fate, and Rumble being the top three winning champions in the game. With just that information alone, you’re given a reasonable advantage. If used correctly, the information that LolKing aggregates can be taken and used to effectively assist you in climbing your way out of League’s most treacherous elo levels. Elophant
Elophant never forgets, and it has a whole heap of statistics for you to browse through and enjoy. In my opinion, it’s the best website out there when you really want to crunch some League of Legends numbers.
Like LolKing, Elophant has its very own Charts page. However, the difference is pretty significant. Elophant offers a peek into a lot more interesting and different data. Charts are broken up by role and tier, giving you a glimpse at which roles deal the most damage, which roles earn the most gold, which role maintains the best KDA, which tier of players buy the most wards, which tier of players have the highest ping, and more.
Similarly to LolKing once again, Elophant offers a page that offers details specific to each champion. This data is more detailed than what is provided by LolKing, and you can see information such as which champions deal the most damage overall, which are the most played, and which skins are the most popular.
Elophant also offers one of the only ways for you to see how many Influence Points you (or anyone else) have accrued over a League of Legends lifespan. This doesn’t offer much of a competitive edge, but it’s really neat.
Elophant shows much of the same of what LolKing brings to us, but has a few additional goodies and statistics on the side that really make it an interesting and entertaining resource. While both of these League of Legends statistics sites can improve your game by providing you with statistics and information that you need to better understand the game, keep in mind that the best way to improve is to constantly play and challenge yourself. Know each and every champion and what they are capable of. As mentioned in the opening of this article, I’ve put out a lot of content regarding League of Legends and it always interests me to try and help others become better players. You could also check out my post offering third-party applications that can improve your LoL game. What do you think of LolKing and Elophant? Which of these two websites seems more helpful to you? Let me know in the comments, and feel free to talk with me about anything else League-related! The post 2 Great Sites For League Of Legends Statistics & Analysis appeared first on MakeUseOf. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Less is More! 7+ Devices & Tools Your Smartphone Can Replace Posted: 23 May 2013 03:01 PM PDT
The things you can do with a smartphone are limited only by the imagination. Admittedly, fantasies typically aren’t realistic, but there are a lot of devices you can really replace with your Android smartphone. Alarm ClockEver since mobile phones have been around, old-school alarm clocks struggle to remain relevant. They became iPod docks, Internet radios, and wake up lights. Meanwhile, many creative apps turn Android devices into the most awesome alarm clocks a sleepy brain could dream of.
CameraSmartphone cameras have truly evolved over the past few years. While not yet at a level to compete with SLRs or high-end pocket cameras, they are more than suitable for high quality snapshots with destination Facebook or Instagram. Add to that the convenience of taking photos on the same device on which you edit & upload them, as well as a range of powerful photo editing apps. In short, the whole idea of having a capable camera in your smartphone is pure bliss.
Before you expect to win a flower pot, learn how to take great photos with your smartphone. And if you really want to get the best out of your photos, try Aviary for Android. WebcamMost phones have two cameras. One in the back for taking photos and one in the front to be used as a webcam. You can turn either of the two cameras into webcams for your PC.
Radio & Music PlayerThe difference between an iPhone and an iPod has never been immediately obvious. And why would you carry an MP3 player, if your Android phone can play music just as well? Smartphones are actually better because they can stream music from the Internet, for example radio stations via TuneIn or music via Spotify. And for those times when you cannot stream music, you can use one of the many Android music players or other music apps to enjoy your downloaded / saved tracks.
The only downside of a smartphone that doubles up as radio and music player is that your battery will drain even faster. Other than carrying a spare battery (sorry some HTC & Motorola users), you can try other strategies to save battery power, fix issues with battery sucking apps, or use emergency chargers. FlashlightThis is one of my favorites. You will never carry a flashlight with you or find it when you really need it. But chances are that your phone is only an arm’s length away. If the display by itself isn’t bright enough, you can use an app to activate your phone camera’s flash light and turn your phone into a flashlight. Tiny Flashlight is my favorite flashlight app for Android.
GPS & MapsSince your smartphone contains a GPS, you don’t need an external one. Apart from identifying your location and navigating from A to B, you can do some interesting things with the GPS feature, for example track your speed. Many new outdoor games rely on GPS data and you can use those same games to make your date a little more interesting. Obviously, GPS can be used to track a phone’s location, or you may prefer to say you want to use your phone as a tracking device, which does have legit uses. Several GPS apps are available for your Android smartphone.
Remote ControlIt’s not like you still have many devices to control when you have a smartphone, but well, it can’t quite replace everything yet. TotalMedia Theatre has a remote app for Android. Android users with access to a Mac will get a kick out of Mac Remote for Android. You can also remote control YouTube from your Android.
Finally, some devices like the Samsung Galaxy S4, the Xperia ZL, or the HTC One come with a built-in IR blaster, which can emulate an infrared remote control, thus allowing you to control your TV or DVD player. And Many More…The above are just some of the devices you can replace with your smartphone. Being so versatile, you can also build a document scanner with your smartphone, create a motion detection device, turn it into a DIY projector, install surveillance apps, detect magnetic fields, replace your home phone, or read books. As mentioned earlier, your imagination is the limit. Take Home MessageYour smartphone is the new Swiss Army Knife.
What other devices did you replace with your smartphone? The post Less is More! 7+ Devices & Tools Your Smartphone Can Replace appeared first on MakeUseOf. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Mobile Working with Windows Phone – Microsoft Office Mobile 2013 Posted: 23 May 2013 02:31 PM PDT
Over the months since Nokia came on board and started releasing its series of stylish Lumia phone, Windows Phone has slowly become more widely used, especially in traditional Nokia markets in the UK and mainland Europe. The result of this is that there is a huge number of Windows Phone users wandering around unaware that not only can the social network, browse the web, email, play games and enjoy music, videos and apps, they can also be productive with Microsoft Office Mobile. It ships as part of the OS, with every phone. Below, we'll take a look at each of the Microsoft Office Mobile 2013 apps and some of the best tips for using them successfully. What You Will Find In Microsoft Office Mobile 2013Microsoft Office Mobile 2013 comes with four tools:
When attachments in Word, Excel and PowerPoint formats are sent to you, they can be opened with the appropriate app. Should you wish to share your office files, you will need to open the main Microsoft Office Mobile hub, long-tap the file and select share…, which will then offer you a choice of email accounts to send from. Documents can be opened, created and saved in largely the same way from app to app.Head to Office > Places to find existing files, while new Word documents and Excel spreadsheet can be opened via New. Another general tip is to use the Office apps in portrait view wherever possible. Although it is more comfortable to type in landscape mode, you’ll see less of the document and this can make using some of the formatting options tricky.
Files that you edit on your phone will be stored locally and synced to your Microsoft SkyDrive account unless you have an Office 365 account or work for a company using SharePoint. Options for SkyDrive and Office 365 are attached to the Microsoft account you have setup on your phone; to use SharePoint, open Office > Places > New and add the URL or file path for your organization's SharePoint site, document library or folder. SharePoint will try to use any Microsoft Exchange email account that is stored on your phone, but if you don't have one you will need to use an alternative. Check with your local IT team for help with the location of your SharePoint site. Word Processing On Your SmartphonePerhaps the most widely used Microsoft Office desktop app, on Windows Phone many of your reasons for using Word might be convinced by OneNote instead. Nevertheless, this mini word processor will enable you to open, edit and create new Word documents.
Editing: to change or add to the existing text in a document, tap anywhere in the body and tap Edit in the menu. Outline view: it's simple to scroll through a Word document on your phone by swiping, but if you are viewing or editing a longer document, tap Outline then the appropriate option to jump ahead or back. You can also use the Find tool to jump to a word or phrase. Add comments: when editing, tap a word to highlight it (or make a selection) and then tap Comments to add your thoughts. You'll also need to include a username so that your comments can be attributed. Text formatting: while editing your document, tap and select the text you wish to format, then tap the Format button to display Bold, Italic, Underline and Strikethrough, as well as resizing text. The same formatting tools are available in Excel and OneNote.
Spelling: in edit mode, tap the words highlighted with a red line to display the alternative spelling. While selected, you can also delete the word and overtype with the correct spelling if this isn’t displayed. Editing Excel SpreadsheetsWith Excel you can edit spreadsheets, make charts and even create a new workbook from the convenience of your phone. Entering data: in your new Excel spreadsheet you can enter data by selecting a cell and tapping the formula bar at the top of the screen to activate the keyboard.
AutoSum: to quickly add-up the totals in the row or column, select the next cell and tap AutoSum. Along with Sum, you will see other options such as Average and Count. Functions can be added by tapping a cell and tapping Function. Sort: data can be sorted easily by tapping the Sort button and choosing the column and sort type you wish to use. Editing data and adding comments: follow the same process as in Word to edit spreadsheets and add comments.
Charts: select the data in a table and select the Chart button to choose from a list of types (column, line, pie, etc.) The resulting chart will be displayed in a second sheet, and you can switch between the table and the chart by tapping Sheets. Viewing PowerPoint PresentationsEssentially a small-screen PowerPoint player with limited editing options, this app is really designed for those wishing to review their presentation before showing it. New presentations cannot be created.
Pin: as with any document, you create a shortcut to a presentation you will be using a lot by opening Office > Recent and long-tapping to display the context menu, where you will find Pin to Start among the options. Navigate: there are two ways to flick through presentations, either by swiping left and right or by tapping Slides and selecting the slide you wish to view or edit. Note that in Slides view you may see previews of slide elements that are not visible when you open the full slide.
Edit text: editing in PowerPoint is largely the same as in Word, except that titles, text and images are in boxes that must be selected before editing can take place. Add notes: tap the slide and then again in the notes area to annotate or edit an existing note. Tap Done when finished. Make Notes With OneNoteLaunched from its own tile in the app list, OneNote enables you to keep track of everything you need to remember, and can handle text, images and voice notes. Creating and Saving OneNote: after opening, tap New to start a new OneNote document, adding a title, your notes and tapping Back twice when you're done to save. Existing notes can be opened from the main OneNote screen. Voice notes: while editing a note, audio can be added by tapping the microphone-shaped Audio button. Tap stop when you have finished making the recording. Listen to the note by tapping Play. You can also dictate to OneNote – hold Start, say "Note" and then your instruction, for instance “Note: don't forget to pay the bills.”
Lists: lists are very useful and in OneNote these (like other OneNote files) can be synced and shared between a phone and your desktop computer. To create a to-do list, tap the note, then the To do button. Begin typing, pressing Enter when you have added each item in the list. Bulleted lists can be added with the List button, while you can add a Numbered list by opening the full menu. Tap Enter twice at the end of a list to end the formatting. Pictures: photos from your Photos library can be added to OneNote documents. Tapping the Picture button in OneNote will present you with a view of the Photos hub, where you have a choice of snapping a new image via Camera or selecting an existing snap. Note that you can also add a group of photos to OneNote – from the Start screen, open Photos > Camera Roll and tap Select, choose the images you want and then use Share > OneNote to export them into the app. There Is No Outlook MobileWindows Phone features a good email tool which is often referred to as Outlook – but it isn’t. It really bears no resemblance to the desktop app, and the key elements of email, calendar and contacts are all separate, distinct tools in Windows Phone.
There isn’t even a native task manager. This doesn’t mean that you cannot be productive, but it does feel strange referring to Microsoft Office without mentioning an email tool. Thanks to this omission, of course, there are no productivity tips. See Everything You Need To Know About Emails & Windows Phone 8 for more details on using email in Windows Phone. Compatibility: These Are Not Desktop AppsIt's worth pointing out that as these are mobile apps, some features added using the desktop versions may not work. For instance, the mobile version of Excel doesn’t handle Pivot Tablets. In the event that you need to edit a document, spreadsheet or presentation that features data that your phone cannot display (perhaps embedded video), the document will either fail to open or you will be blocked from saving any changes. Be aware, also, that documents saved in the old format (.DOC, .XLS, .PPT) will not open in Microsoft Office Mobile. Instead, files sent to you should be saved as .DOCX, .XLSX and .PPTX. However, despite this, these are extremely useful apps, as functional as they need to be. I completed a portion of my recent review of the Acer Iconia W7 on my Windows Phone in Word Mobile. Take Microsoft Office In The Palm Of Your HandThese tools might not be the full versions, they might not offer the full set of tools and features but they are good, they're certainly useful and in OneNote Mobile you have one of the best note-taking apps available. Better still is the cloud support through SkyDrive, Office 365 or SharePoint, enabling you to effortlessly share documents between devices and work on and develop them wherever you might be. This integration is excellent, and the nature of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote in their portable forms means that when using a Windows Phone you will never have to wait until you get back to the office to use Office. The post Mobile Working with Windows Phone – Microsoft Office Mobile 2013 appeared first on MakeUseOf. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Google Discontinues Google Checkout, Offers Google Wallet Instead [Updates] Posted: 23 May 2013 02:00 PM PDT
To offset the closure of Checkout, Google will continue to support Google Play developers by automatically transitioning them to the Google Wallet Merchant Center. Meanwhile, merchants selling physical goods who do not have a payment processing option, can opt for one of the solutions offered by Google through its partnerships with Braintree, Shopify and Freshbooks, and enjoy discounted migration rates. Merchants selling digital goods can transition to Google Wallet. Shoppers can use Google Wallet to make purchases on merchant apps and sites, as well as on Google Play and the Chrome Web Store. A few more details can be found on this announcement page which breaks down the options for you.
Google is trying to build up Google Wallets as a viable player in the digital commerce space. Google Wallet was improved with features like an Instant Buy API for faster purchases, and a new Wallet Objects API for better customer engagement with discounts and coupons. We can expect more changes as this year draws to a close. Does this change affect you? How do you feel about losing Google Checkout? Source: Google Commerce Blog The post Google Discontinues Google Checkout, Offers Google Wallet Instead [Updates] appeared first on MakeUseOf. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Why Do Macs Leave Garbage Files Like “ds_store” On My Flash Drive, And How Do I Stop It? Posted: 23 May 2013 01:01 PM PDT
“What?” you ask. “On my flash drive,” she says. “There are all of these…stupid files.” Are you sick of explaining why your Mac – despite being superior in every way to her PC – feels the need to leave behind a bunch of files on her USB key? Or network drive, for that matter? Stop it from happening. Indexing, trash bins, folder positions – OS X keeps track of all these things, on every drive connected to your Mac, by creating files. These files are fine on a Mac – OS X uses them regularly, and hides them from the user. Plug a drive mainly used with Windows into a Mac, however, and in Windows you’ll see a variety of useless files cluttering things up. Do you want to stop the madness? You can. The ProblemFeel unclear what the problem is? Insert any flash drive readable by Windows – FAT, in all likelihood – into your Mac. Eject it, then insert it into a Windows computer. You’ll be greeted by this nonsense:
What’s all that crap? Well, the Spotlight and Trash folders should be obvious – they’re related to indexing and deleted files, respectively. The folder “.fsevents” records file system events. It’s a record of everything that happens on the drive. And the infamous “DS_store” file – not pictured above – records things like the placement of icons in Finder. This is all useful to Macs, but in Windows it’s just annoying. Why does OS X write such files to drives formatted FAT, knowing Windows users will see it as nonsense? Good question. Your Mac creates these files basically the second you plug in a drive, so there are two things you can do – delete the files before you eject the drive or stop the Mac from creating the files. I’m going to outline some apps, starting with two that take the first approach before moving on to two that take the second. Automatically Delete the Files Before You EjectIf you think you can remember to use them, two different application can delete all of these files when you eject. Simply add the app icon to your dock and you’re ready to use it. The first such app is Eject For Windows, which despite its name is actually a Mac program. Drag any drive you want to eject here and all of the crap files will be deleted:
Another app, called HiddenCleaner, works the same way:
I tested both of these apps using Mountain Lion and Windows 7 – the Mac left no ugly files that the PC could see. Because both apps work the same way, you can pretty much choose based entirely on which icon you like best. I’ve got to say, Hidden Cleaner wins for me on that front (it’s up to you, though). Stop The Files From Being CreatedWant to stop these nonsense files from even appearing on non-Mac drives? Install BlueHarvest. This app installs as a preference pane, allowing you to configure when such files are created:
There’s a 30-day trial, but if you want to keep this app around you’re going to need to pony up $15. If crap files on Windows drives is something you really, really care about, check out BlueHarvest. Mostly concerned about .DS_Store files on network drives? TinkerTool, a free configuration tool, can handle that. The first screen of this app allows you to stop your Mac from leaving crap files on network drives:
Check that box and your Mac will stop creating such files. This program does a lot more, so read more about Tinkertool. It’s not as complete as BlueHarvest – no support for USB drives – but combined with a tool like Hidden Cleaner you’ll be completely set. Cross-PlatformGetting a file from a PC to a Mac used to be a big deal – file incompatibilities were a fact of life. These days the two platforms play more-or-less nicely with each other – yet annoyances like this persist. I think OS X should be smart enough to tell when a drive is meant to be shared with Windows computers and adjust accordingly, but I want to know what you think. Is this not nearly as big a deal as I’m making it out to be? Or do you also think something at the system level should be done to fix this? Let us know in the comments below, along with links to any other tools for solving the problem. The post Why Do Macs Leave Garbage Files Like “ds_store” On My Flash Drive, And How Do I Stop It? appeared first on MakeUseOf. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 7 Ways To Avoid Letting The Internet Destroy Your Life Posted: 23 May 2013 12:00 PM PDT
You know that your reward for your ambitious effort will be a very happy client. Unfortunately, you also know that your time attending online video conferences and chatting with colleagues, and the countless hours you spent writing that code, has taken its toll. Your spouse is furious with you for never going to bed at the same time. Your kids are disappointed in you because you missed their sporting events. It dawns on you that your success has come with a steep price. You are officially a workaholic. This is true for anyone that devotes a large portion of their time to the Internet. It may be bloggers trying to grow their website, technology workers working remotely, or just folks that get overly addicted to online games. The Internet can steal away many hours out of your day in the blink of an eye, and when you wake up you could discover that much of what you once loved is no longer there. Placing Safeguards in Place Insures a Balanced LifeIf you’re like me and find that left to your own devices, you would spend 23 out of every 24 hours on the Internet, then you may need to make use of a few safeguards to protect yourself from yourself. In the corporate world, self-sacrifice for the good of the company is celebrated, but it also leads to poor health and destroyed relationships. To introduce more balance in your life, the following tools and tricks can really help. 1. Use a TimerOne of the best solutions that I’ve found for staying aware of the amount of time I’m spending on the computer is actually one of the simplest solutions. I open up a new tab in Chrome and head over to Timer-Tab. This page offers two timer tools – a stopwatch timer and an alarm clock. 2. Add your family to your to-do listAs pathetic as it sounds, sometimes a person that is so intensely focused on accomplishing tasks just needs to incorporate additional tasks from areas of life other than work. It’s surprising how many people never really consider doing this – but if you work so hard to accomplish the work tasks on your everyday to-do list, then why don’t you assign yourself other tasks like “Give wife flowers”, or “Play basketball with the kids” on that same list, and attack those tasks with the same fervor? 3. Make browser start on a motivational videoBeyond family connections, another part of maintaining balance in your life is maintaining your mental health. This means taking time every day to just stop and breathe – to contemplate on the bigger picture and think about the things that really matter. It’s far too easy to keep focusing on those daily tasks and lose sight of the bigger picture and your larger dreams. One way I like to make myself take a mental pause every day is by making my browser start page a motivational video playlist on YouTube. In Chrome, you can just go into Settings, and under “On Startup”, click on the “Set Pages” next to “Open a specific page or set of pages.”
Type in the YouTube playlist for your favorite motivational videos. Now, each morning when you launch your computer to check email, the first thing you’ll see when you open the browser is a motivational video that will hopefully get you to slow down and think about the bigger picture before you get down to business. 4. Place kids pictures on desktopAnother great way that I’ve found to remind myself of what’s important in life is to place a picture of my little girls right on the desktop of my PC. Lots of people put up pictures of kids or their spouse on the walls of their office or cubicle, but if you’re like me and focused nearly 90% of the day on that computer screen, then the computer screen is where you should place this reminder of why you’re working so hard. I guarantee that seeing those faces smiling at you all day will serve as a constant reminder to what really matters. You’ll be far more inspired to get your work done faster so that you can shut down your computer, get home, and spend time with those precious kids or that amazing spouse. 5. Open up the calendarNot sure whether or not you have a problem with being a workaholic? One clue is to take a look at your calendar. How much blank space is there in the daily calendar? Have you focused so much on accomplishing work tasks that you’ve filled up all of the hours in the day and left nothing at all for the family or for your health?
Here’s the thing. Life can only go on like that for so long. You will burn out, not because the work is too hard, but because the failure of the relationships with your family and your friends will add even more stress to your life. You’ll have to work that much longer to get the same amount of work done, and that snowball effect ends in a complete breakdown. So, I challenge you to take a different path by looking at your calendar and deciding on which chunks of time you can open up for something other than work. For example, in my case I devoted Wednesday night as family night with the wife and kids, and Friday night is pizza and movie night. Then there’s Saturday afternoon for going on a hiking or shopping trip with the family.
Not only does this dedicated family time help you to recharge your batteries, but it also gives you something different to look forward to – something outside of work. And that can really serve as a powerful motivator to avoid getting distracted, and to get all of your work done on time so that you can really enjoy the time off. If you really want to get all crazy about balancing your life – why not open up a few slots in there to schedule in a workout or two? The long-term impact to your productivity when you are working may surprise you. 6. Import Facebook BirthdaysAnother problem with being a workaholic and working so hard to remember all of those piling-up work tasks, is that the other things that don’t seem to matter so much – like birthdays – often get completely forgotten. One of the best things you can do to put the kibosh on that is to import all of the birthdays from your Facebook Calendar into your Google Calendar (or whatever calendar you use). 7. Force Shutdown with timerAs a last resort, if you find that you simply can not pull yourself away from work to take a break or spend time with your family, you can always go with the nuclear option. Make your computer automatically turn off at a set time every night. Give it a timer if you want so that you have time to save your work, but killing your computer will hopefully give you the kick in the pants to get off that chair and stop working for a while. Setting it up is easy enough – just go into scheduled tasks and create a basic task. In Windows 7, there’s an easy wizard for this. Just type in the time you want the computer to turn off, and have it recur every day.
The shutdown command is considered a “program”, so click on “Start a program”.
On the next step, you can use “shutdown” as the program name, and use the arguments -s -f -t 60 as arguments for a forced sleep mode that waits 60 seconds before starting.
If your goal of shutting down the computer is to take a break, then you may want to re-start the computer after your break period is up. You can automatically restart the computer by creating another task (in advanced mode), and select “Run whether user is logged on or not”.
Make the scheduled restart time about an hour or so after you set the shutdown task (or however long you want your break to be). Repeat the task daily as well.
The restart program is “cmd.exe /c “exit”, which forces the computer to restart simply to launch a command window and then immediately close it. Apparently the computer needs an excuse to wake up.
Under the “Conditions” tab, select “Wake the computer to run this task” – this is the key that brings the computer out of sleep mode.
It would be unfortunate if you need to take the last approach and force your computer to shut down, but you know what, you do what you have to do to fight your natural urge to keep right on working. That’s the demon that workaholics must face – the desire to work on long after most people give up. It’s both a gift and a curse. But following the tips in this article, you can keep it more of a gift than a curse for your life. What tips can you offer other online workaholics to introduce a better work-life balance? How do you force yourself to get off the Internet and enjoy life a little more? Share your own advice and tips in the comments section below. Image Credit: Businessman Workaholic Via Shutterstock The post 7 Ways To Avoid Letting The Internet Destroy Your Life appeared first on MakeUseOf. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 7 Tools To Improve The Way You Use Evernote Posted: 23 May 2013 11:00 AM PDT
If you’re not already convinced, read why you should be using Evernote as your go-to place for remembering everything. In fact, there are a number of apps, plugins, and even pieces of hardware which can take advantage of Evernote, making the service even more beneficial for you. Here are seven tools that hopefully will make you tap into the potential of this widely popular note-taking application. EyeFi SD Card
EverClip
EverClip can also send everything that's in your system clipboard to Evernote, so that you won't lose anything that may have been important to you at some time or another. If EverClip saves more than you really want to keep, you can always delete notes — it's just a good way of making sure that you won't miss out on anything. With EverClip, you'll have more time to complete your research. There are both free and paid versions of EverClip available for Android, but iOS users can only use the paid version. Skitch
StudyBlue
You can also use StudyBlue with your browser or on your mobile device, making it easy to study wherever you are. If you ever need to revisit your notes, you can go to your original notes on Evernote or to your StudyBlue backpack. IFTTT
For instance, with IFTTT, you can set up a trigger in one service (say whenever you checkin via Foursquare) and have it archive those checkins within an Evernote note. There’s way more that you can do by mixing and matching, so it’s best to check out IFTTT yourself so that you can connect services that you use. Car Locator
This is beneficial because, if you already use Evernote heavily, you’ll enjoy having those tidbits stored on Evernote as well. Car Locator is available on Android only, and costs $3.99 plus another $1.99 for the Evernote plugin. Voice2Note
Voice notes can be very useful for people for a number of different reasons, but there isn't a whole lot you can do with them — they're voice recordings which you can listen to or delete, but nothing else. Instead, it'd be fantastic if those voice notes could be transcribed into text. That way, you can read out the contents of the recording rather than have to listen to them, and you can also skip ahead to a certain part that you want to look at. It also makes it much easier to copy, manipulate, and search with Evernote’s amazing search features. With Voice2Note both the actual recording and the transcription are on the same note. Best of all, Voice2Note can even give you your own number which you can call with any phone to leave an Evernote voice note. It's very simple and it gives you multiple ways to use the service, which is simply great. You can get the service for free, but it limits you to just 5 transcriptions per month. Otherwise, the full service costs $29.99 per year or $2.99 per month, and even allows you to transcribe audio notes recorded by other apps. ConclusionThese seven ways to make more out of Evernote are only the tip of the iceberg — there are still plenty of other great things you can do with the service. There are even a number of apps out there which have Evernote plugins if you'd rather use them instead. For more ways to extend Evernote, check out these ten creative Evernote ideas, as well as the flotilla of apps on Evernote Trunk. Then we have the free MakeUseOf Guide on Evernote, in case you are still trying to come to grips with the service. Do you use Evernote? What do you do to make the most of out of the service? Let us know in the comments! The post 7 Tools To Improve The Way You Use Evernote appeared first on MakeUseOf. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Keeping Up With The Bluth Family: Discover Arrested Development On The Web Posted: 23 May 2013 10:00 AM PDT
Thankfully, Arrested Development is back, with Netflix having given the show a lifeline by commissioning new episodes. Here’s hoping that this time Arrested Development is watched by the size of audience it deserves. To give the show the best chance of succeeding it’s a good idea to educate those who previously missed out on the goodness. And also to remind those who watched the show during its original run of the brilliance of the show. What follows is a list of eight essential Web resources for both existing and potential Arrested Development fans to enjoy. There are also several YouTube videos embedded throughout, just to provide a visual reminder of the level of awesome Arrested Development has exhibited over the years. Arrested Development Wiki
As with most wikis, the Arrested Development wiki is a rather epic resource for fans of the show. It features information on all of the characters and episodes, and features transcripts, the most quotables quotes, and top 10 lists galore. Helpfully there is even a first time viewer’s guide to the show that is designed to give newcomers a simple entry point into the show. Arrested Development On Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a great place to go for information related to Arrested Development. There is a detailed outline of how the show came to be made in the first place, synopses for each season, a look at the ratings vs. the critical reception, and even the story of how the rap group Arrested Development sued over the name. As always with Wikipedia, follow the links and check the references for a wealth of additional information. Arrested Development On IMDb
IMDb is the first place I head to after watching a movie or television show. It’s the simplest way of putting a name to random cast members, learning throwaway tidbits of trivia, and getting an idea of what other people think of the show. The message boards are particularly amusing, and those attached to the Arrested Development entry are no exception. The video embedded below runs through 200 of the best quotes uttered on the show. There are many more that desrve attention but these are arguably the cream of the crop.
Arrested Development On TV.com
If IMDb is the best resource for learning about the cast and what else they have been up to, then TV.com is the best resource for keeping track of a television show one episode at a time. You get a short synopsis of each one, an average viewer rating, and even the date the episode originally aired on. TV.com augments the experience with cast and crew facts, trivia and quotes, and fan reviews. Arrested Development On Twitter
This is the official Twitter feed for the show in its guise as a Netflix Original. They retweet the cast and crew occasionally, but the bulk of the tweets are references to the promotional push for the show. It’s unclear how active this account will be in the future, but at the time of writing it’s definitely worth following. Arrested Development On Reddit
If Reddit wasn’t already an essential part of the Web, the subreddit dedicated to all things Arrested Development make it so. At the time of writing more than 80,000 fans are subscribing to the subreddit, for which they receive news about the future of the show, videos showing classic scenes from the show, and the best memes made from stills. The video embedded below features a rundown of 10 of the best running gags that feature throughout the whole original run of the show. Is Tobias gay? And what kind of chicken makes those noises?
Arrested Development On Tumblr
There are several Tumblr sites dedicated to Arrested Development, but none that particularly stand out from the crowd. It doesn’t matter. Thanks to the power of tags, we can see all of the content related to Arrested development on one page. If you click on the content that interests you, you’ll end up on the Tumblr of another Arrested Development fan. Which can’t be bad. Recurring Developments
Several of the sites on this list make reference to the running gags that made/make the show more fun for the dedicated fans that have watched every episode. This site, cleverly titled Recurring Developments, tracks all of those running gags, detailing each one and revealing which episodes they appear in. This should help make Arrested Development less clique to those on the outside looking in. Conclusions
The video embedded above features what is one of the funniest running gags in Arrested Development… the chicken impressions that start with Gob and end up being emulated across the whole Bluth clan. Hopefully you’re now more aware of what Arrested Development is all about: its beginnings, its endings, its cast and crew, the recurring jokes, and the meme-worthy content that emerged from the show. I heartily recommend everybody with a sense of humor to watch the old and new episodes of the show. Those without a sense of humor, well, they can stick to Game Of Thrones. What do you think of Arrested Development? Were you a fan from the start, someone who discovered the show after it went off the air, or a total n00b only now looking to climb aboard the Bluth bandwagon? Are there any other Web resources related to the show you’d like to offer up for appraisal? Let us know your thoughts on Arrested Development in the comments section below. The post Keeping Up With The Bluth Family: Discover Arrested Development On The Web appeared first on MakeUseOf. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| iCan: 5 Features iPhone Users Take For Granted That Android Can’t Match Posted: 23 May 2013 09:30 AM PDT
The iPhone is often targeted for its lack of features and functionality. When the bullet points are laid out side-by-side Android appears to have a hoard of extras that Apple's device can't match. This versatility is, to some, a clear indication of Android's superiority. I don't buy this arguement, however, because it assumes all features are equally important and executed with equal grace. That's not how things work in the real world. A rocket that promises to fly you to Mars may seem awesome, but isn't of much use if it lacks a heater and doesn't have enough oxygen for the return trip. Not all functionality is equally important, and while Android offers many slight tweaks, the iPhone excels where excellence matters. Automatic OS Updates
Do you use an Android phone? Cool. Hey, why not update it to the latest version of the OS? If you're reading this there's a good chance you simply can't. While rumors of Android 5.0 circulate, over 38% of Android devices are still running version 2.3 (released in December of 2010) and a further 27.5% run version 4.0 (released in October of 2011). Only a tad more than a quarter use the latest edition of Android. Apple's iPhone, as you might expect, is a different story. 89.2% of users run version 6.X, which was released less than a year ago. Of all the features that one would expect from a smartphone – or any consumer electronics device – this is the most basic. Microsoft figured it out years ago. Heck, even my Roku frequently receives updates. Yet most Android users (i.e. those who don't buy a Nexus device) are simply out of luck. Now you might say – but I can root my device! That’s true, but most people don’t, and for good reason. Rooting is often a difficult process that may void a phone’s warranty. And even if you do root, finding a reliable ROM can be difficult depending on your device. CyanogenMod, the most famous ROM, supports over 70 devices. But there are literally thousands of Android phones on the market. Even some common smartphones, like my old ThunderBolt, never receive support. Rock-Solid Malware Protection
There was a time when I thought that iOS users were probably fooling themselves about security. Coincidentally, this was around the time I bought an Android phone. I loaded it up with one of the better anti-virus apps for Android and thought myself in far better shape than any iPhone user. Yet as I researched the issue more (primarily while writing articles for MakeUseOf) I began to realize that the iPhone's security isn't phony. The locked-down operating system actually is effective against malware. That's not to say malware is impossible, but I've yet to see a report of an iPhone that wasn't jailbroken being infected in the wild (by "in the wild" I mean outside the hands of a security researcher). Even if the iPhone's security is breached, as has happened with lockscreen exploits in the past, users are just an OS update away from the solution. Android users, on the other hand, are often forced to live with a device that has known exploits because they don't have access to an OS update that provides a fix. Access To iCloud (And Other Apple Software)
When I brought home my iPhone I was a little skeptical. I knew that I'd want to use iTunes to sync my media, and the last time I'd used iTunes (way back in 2009) I hated it. Wresting lacklustre software just to sync hardware isn't my idea of a good time. To my surprise, I found that Apple's supporting services and software were among the phone's best features. With iCloud users can sync data like notes, contacts, music and applications across multiple devices with virtually no effort. This mean what I have on my iPhone is also on my iPad, and vice versa. Better still, iCloud acts as a backup service, which is handy when a new iPhone is purchased or replaced via warranty repair. Even iTunes is a boon because it provides a more seamless sync experience than any Android app. Though an iPhone must be plugged in for charging, obviously, there's otherwise no need to connect it to your Mac or PC at all after initial setup as all data can be sent to it via Wi-Fi. And there’s iMessage, FaceTime, Find My iPhone, and more. Some of these features have third-party Android equivalents, but Apple bundles all these services into one nicely integrated and intuitive ecosystem. Apps Comes First To iPhone (And Work Better)App support has always been one of iPhone’s greatest strengths, hence the famous line “There’s an app for that“. While Android has certainly made progress over the years, most developers still focus on iPhone, which means apps usually come out for the iPhone first and successive updates also tend to come to the iPhone first.
Also, because developers have fewer devices to design for on the iOS platform, apps tend to be more reliable. It is common to see warnings about apps and games not functioning on certain devices on Google Play, but this is a rarity that often depends on iOS version alone when it comes to the iPhone. The above text screenshot, for example, is taken straight from the Google Play store and it’s not from some fly-by-night game; it’s from FieldRunners HD, one of most popular apps on both Android and iOS. Hearing Aid Support, VoiceOver, AssistiveTouch And Other Accessibility Features
Yet again, both the iPhone and Android provide numerous accessibility features. Those common to both (assuming you have the latest version of Android) include large text, speech-to-text/text-to-speech, and magnification. But the iPhone offers so much more. Hearing aid support, AssistiveTouch support for added gestures or a stylus, inverted colors, the VoiceOver interface for visually impaired users; there's an incredible wealth of accessibility baked straight into the device. And because all of this a part of the operating system, it all works well and universally. These features combine to make the iPhone approachable to people who simply can't use an Android device. ConclusionLet's recap. The iPhone has on-time OS updates, air-tight security, an excellent (and free) cloud data service, expansive language support and numerous accessibility options. These are important, meaningful features that Android can't match. And yet the iPhone is said to lack functionality because – why? Because users can't change the lock screen or use animated wallpaper? I've been there, I've done that, and here's the bottom line; features like tweaking wallpaper and icons are fluff. They're nice to have, they're fun, and they make you feel smarter. But objectively, what's more important; an updated OS, or having a portrait of Boba Fett as your Contacts icon? Am I right or what? Add your thoughts in the comments below! The post iCan: 5 Features iPhone Users Take For Granted That Android Can’t Match appeared first on MakeUseOf. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Twitter Introduces Login Verification Via SMS For A More Secure Sign-In Process [Updates] Posted: 23 May 2013 08:30 AM PDT
The new authentication method utilizes your cell phone, making sure you’re really you by sending you a code via text message, which you will have to enter every time you log into Twitter. To activate the secure sign-in, head over to your Twitter Settings page and scroll down to find the new “Require a verification code when I sign in” option. In order to check the option, you’re going to need to add a cell phone number to your Twitter account.
Once your phone number is added and verified, enable the code verification, and you’re done. Unlike other websites that offer a similar feature, Twitter’s two-factor authentication is limited to text messaging, and doesn’t make use of designated apps such as Google Authenticator. In addition, it seems that Twitter is not yet set up to support this feature worldwide. When I tried enabling it for my account using my local cell phone, I got an error message telling me my carrier was not yet supported, and that I should hold tight and wait until it is. If your carrier is supported, however, this I a feature worth enabling to protect your account from unwanted logins. Just keep in mind that every time you log in to Twitter, you’re going to need your cell phone handy to type in the code. Will you enable Twitter’s new login verification? Source: Twitter Blog The post Twitter Introduces Login Verification Via SMS For A More Secure Sign-In Process [Updates] appeared first on MakeUseOf. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Arrested Development is one of the funniest television shows that has ever been made. It’s also insanely well-written, intelligent, full of oblique pop culture references, and eminently worthy of repeated viewing. Unfortunately, while it was lauded by the critics and fans, the viewing figures never rose like they should have done. What could have been the next Seinfeld was cancelled after just three seasons.
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