4 New Articles on MakeUseOf

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• Cool Websites and Tools [May 4th 2013]
• 2 Ways To Backup & Synchronize Your Windows Clipboard
• Why Won’t Windows Play My DVD Or Blu-ray Disc?
• How To View & Edit The Source Code Of An Open-Source App

Cool Websites and Tools [May 4th 2013] Posted: 04 May 2013 09:31 PM PDT Check out some of the latest MakeUseOf discoveries. Most of the listed websites are FREE or come with a decent free account option. If you want to have similar cool website round-ups delivered to your daily email, subscribe here. Add Your Website Here!   DDownloads – Designed for Windows, DDownloads is a database of reliable download locations offering real, malware-free products from one tidy interface. This is not pirated software but legal freeware, and better still the author has categorised these great tools for easy perusal. DDownloads features some of the most well-known freeware. Read more: DDownloads: A One-Stop Resource Providing Safe Downloads For Quality Freeware   Dominder – For a webmaster, monitoring domains is a necessary part of the job. The most important thing a webmaster needs to keep an eye on is whether or not his websites are active. While checking this status for a simple website is simple enough, doing so for multiple websites can be a bit complicated. Here to help is the web service Dominder. Read more: Dominder: Check & Monitor Multiple Domains From The Same Dashboard     Routehappy – Generally, when you go to one of the hundreds of websites designed to help you find a flight, the main search parameter is price. Getting a good price is certainly important, but it's not the only factor to consider. You will also want to consider how comfortable it will be. Routehappy is the perfect website to find flights based on comfort instead of price. Read more: Routehappy: Find Flights Based On The Comfort Of The Experience     PollCode – Do you need to quickly gauge public opinion? PollCode.com allows you to quickly create and embed a poll on your website, or to share a custom poll with a simple link. Even better, creating a poll is simple and fast, meaning you can enter questions and share all in a matter of minutes. Read more: PollCode: Quickly Create & Embed Or Share A Single Question Poll     RansomGram Picture Message – Sending pictures is a fun way to communicate with your friends. Instead of simply sending a text, you can tell a real story with photos. A new app we have discovered called RansomGram Picture Message, allows you to make some really fun photos that look like the classic ransom messages you always see in the movies. Read more: RansomGram Picture Message: Send Your Friends Fun Ransom Note Pics [iOS]   Add Your Website Here! 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 4th 2013] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

2 Ways To Backup & Synchronize Your Windows Clipboard Posted: 04 May 2013 07:30 PM PDT Anything and everything is being plugged into the cloud as of late. It’s no surprise at all that file storage solutions such as Dropbox and SugarSync have seen such huge success. Our mobile devices do a lot of cloud management behind the scenes, too. Our contacts sync to the cloud, our photos sync to the cloud, and much more. The cloud is a big deal on the mobile platform, but I don’t want you to forget about the PC. Since first writing for MUO, I’ve been the one to almost exclusively cover applications for the Windows platform, and I’m pleased to see Windows 8 make a push toward getting up into the cloud. However, there is a lot left that can be done and I’m here to cover two applications that push a very key element of both the PC and mobile platforms up to cloud level – the clipboard. ArchiveClipboard (Backup) ArchiveClipboard is definitely my favorite solution to keeping a backup of your clipboard. The application works perfectly with your desktop, laptop, and netbooks running Windows, Mac, or Linux. Every modern version of these operating systems is fully supported by ArchiveClipboard, and the only dependency is Java. ArchiveClipboard boasts a no-nonsense interface that is very attractive, lightweight, and easy to use. On the main UI, you will see two panes – your system clipboard and the archive clipboard. Your system clipboard includes the text, image, or file currently copied. Your archive clipboard shows all previous clipboard entries. This is the application in its entirety. It’s just that simple. The Settings menu will allow you to toggle monitoring for text, images, and files. You can also set ArchiveClipboard to run in your system tray and notify you when events occur (such as your system clipboard being updated). ArchiveClipboard has localization support for Chinese, English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese. ArchiveClipboard has yet to support the functionality of allowing users to synchronize clipboard data between their devices, but the project’s development is coming along extremely quickly and it is in the works. A mobile version for the iOS and Android platforms is also on the way, so look out for that. ArchiveClipboard is everything you want for keeping a record of your clipboard and nothing more. CloudClip (Synchronization) CloudClip comes across as a bit of a dumbed-down version of ArchiveClipboard. Am I saying it’s a bad piece of software? Not at all. It just caters to very specific needs on a more limited number of platforms. The plus? It synchronizes with the cloud and allows you to share your clipboard between computers, and it is completely portable (meaning that the application in itself can be synchronized within a Dropbox folder). First, worth noting is that you need to register an account on their website, which is only to know who to associate your cloud account data with. They won’t spam you with emails and actually don’t even require for you to confirm your email address after registration. CloudClip does not have support to synchronize images and other files, which is explained on their site so that “speeds remain fast.” It’d be a great feature, but the clipboard is primarily used for storing text anyway. Upon registering, you’re immediately able to download the application on either your Windows or Mac computer. Like ArchiveClipboard, CloudClip has yet to support mobile devices but they are pushing towards it in the future. After downloading the application, click into the Account tab, enter your username and password, and log in. Back in the Clips tab, you can feel free to give it a test run. Copy any block of text and within a second or two it should appear in the top row of this application. All clips are time stamped and numbered in order, from newest to oldest. You can copy a previous entry or timestamp just by double-clicking on that area in the row. It will not be re-added to the tab so that you get no duplicate entries. You can also delete a row by right-clicking on it and selecting the option. Like ArchiveClipboard, CloudClip’s synchronization is very simple and straightforward. Don’t let your clipboard data slip away from you. I can’t put a number to the amount of times I’ve had something copied that I’ve wanted to retrieve for use again at a later time. Which of these two applications is your favorite? Let us know in the comments! The post 2 Ways To Backup & Synchronize Your Windows Clipboard appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Why Won’t Windows Play My DVD Or Blu-ray Disc? Posted: 04 May 2013 01:30 PM PDT You insert a DVD into your Windows 8 computer – you want to watch a movie. Nothing happens. You try opening Windows Media Player. It can’t play the disk. What’s going on with Windows 8 and DVDs? And for that matter, Blu-ray discs? You’re not the first person to ask this, and you won’t be the last. The answer, basically, is that Windows 8 cannot play DVDs or Blu-Ray disks out of the box. Why? Because the software technology for playing these disks isn’t free — Microsoft previously paid $2 for every copy of Windows sold, just for the right to use the patented technology needed to play DVDs . Considering the ever-increasing number of devices without optical drives, Microsoft decided it wasn’t worth paying for features many people can’t even use. So what is a movie-loving Windows 8 user to do? There are basically two options: finding third party software that can play your disks, or paying Microsoft for the privilege. Let’s go over both possibilities. Option A: Install A Different Media Player Windows 8 can’t play DVDs out of the box, but that doesn’t mean third party programs can’t. We’ve written a lot about VLC, and this program can easily play any DVD (and unencrypted Blu-Ray disks – there’s experimental support for encrypted Blu-Rays in the works, but that’s an issue for another article entirely). VLC can be a little hard to use, but not for playing DVDs: just click “File” followed by “Open Disc”. In most cases the menu will show up, allowing you to play your DVD however you like. Want more of a lean-back experience? I highly recommend XBMC – so much so that I even wrote an unofficial XBMC manual. The program is designed to make browsing media on your computer easy, but also supports DVDs out of the box. It takes some setting up, but you’ll end up liking it – and the DVD playback is basically automatic. Both of these options are fantastic for DVDs, but somewhat lacking for Blu-Ray. The format, created by Sony, is a tough nut for free software to crack – it’s heavily encrypted, so you may need something commercial for the job. You’ll need to pay for software, such as WinDVD Pro. Before you buy anything, though, know that most computers that come with a Blu-Ray drive include some sort of Blu-Ray software. Check your computer for software if it’s new, or check your collection of disks if you upgraded to Windows 8. You’ll probably find something that can play Blu-Ray discs. Option B: Give Microsoft Your Money Couldn’t get the above solutions to work? Well, you can also pay Microsoft. It’s not as though Redmond simply stopped offering DVD and Blu-Ray support – they just started charging for it, along with their Media Center software. Microsoft briefly offered this software free of charge, but that period is over. How much does it cost now? That depends on which version of Windows 8 you currently have: Windows 8 Pro users need to pay considerably less. Here’s what you can expect to pay: $99.99 if you’re just using Windows 8 (ie, not Windows 8 Pro) – you’ll need to upgrade to the Pro Pack, which comes with Media Center and a bunch of other, unrelated features. Microsoft itself advises people to purchase third-party DVD software instead of doing this. $9.99 if you’re already using Windows 8 Pro – you’ll only need to download the Media Center Pack. Upgrading is simple: just open the Control Panel, then click “Add Features to Windows 8″. You’ll be shown the upgrade available, depending on which version of Windows 8 you’re using. Enterprise users: you cannot download the Media Center Pack. Stick with the free and/or commercial options outlined above. Conclusion Is it annoying that Microsoft stopped supporting DVDs by default? Yes. Is it understandable? Considering they were paying for patents customers may or may not even be using, probably. As a long-time Ubuntu user I grew accustomed to these shortcomings, but it’s a new problem for Windows users – and an especially frustrating one for people who paid for an upgrade only to lose features. What software are you using to play DVDs and Blu-Ray discs on your computer? Fill us all in using the comments below, or just complain bitterly about the change. Whatever you prefer. The post Why Won’t Windows Play My DVD Or Blu-ray Disc? appeared first on MakeUseOf.

How To View & Edit The Source Code Of An Open-Source App Posted: 04 May 2013 11:30 AM PDT If you’re looking at developing software, going the open source route is one of the best ways to do it. Not only can people view your open source code and submit their own fixes, but you are also encouraged to look at other people’s code to use as a framework or inspiration. While going open source might be a good choice, you’ll also need to invest in the right community. GitHub is one of the best places to do this, not only because of the sheer amount of users who visit the site, but also because of the features that GitHub offers. If you find an open source app on GitHub, I’ll show you a few things you can do with it, including viewing, editing, and forking the code. Create an Account Before you get started with using GitHub, it’s best to create an account with them. Creating an account is free and will allow you to take advantage of numerous features such as forking. GitHub also has different membership levels besides the free one, but a free account should be more than enough for personal use. Checking Out a Project Once you have an account you can dive straight into an open source application found on GitHub. Here you can see the application’s project page, including folders and files pertaining to the application, a network graph, a list of pull requests, open issues, a wiki, and other graphs. Obviously, if you want to see the code within the files, you should click on them and you’ll be presented with the full source code. As far as interpreting the code goes, you’ll need to have some background in the programming language that the application is written in, whether it be Java, C++, Python, or something else. For those wondering, the screenshot shows Caleb Evan’s jcanvas project. Forking a Project Editing the code requires some additional steps. If you wish to copy the code without officially forking it on GitHub, you’ll need to download the project’s files and then edit them locally on your computer. However, if you’re truly looking at using the currently available source and creating your own project with it and going in your own direction, you’ll want to fork it. Forking can be accomplished with an account, and by clicking on “Fork” on the project’s page as shown in the screenshot. The next few instructions are for Linux users who should install the Git package for their respective distribution. If you wish to retrieve the repository’s files to your computer, you’ll need to run the command git clone https://github.com/username/project_name.git, replacing username with your GitHub username and project_name with the name of the application project that you just forked. Run this command within a folder that should contain all of your GitHub projects, as each git clone command will create a new folder within the one you’re currently residing. This is another way of downloading a project’s file as it doesn’t require login credentials. Now you can change the files as you please using any text editor or IDE. For Linux users, I’d recommend Eclipse or Geany as they’re great programming editors — Eclipse being more full-featured and Geany being leaner. Windows users can also use the native GitHub client. Uploading Changes to Your Project Once you’re done making changes, you can upload the updated files back to GitHub using the command git push origin master while inside the application’s folder. This pushes the changes back into the “origin” pointer (your forked project) and the master branch (default location of source code). Keeping Track of Upstream If you’d like to keep track of the upstream project (the one that you forked to create your own), then you’ll need to add what’s called an additional remote. This is basically just another keyword you can use while you’re inside your application’s folder. To create the new remote, run the command git remote add upstream https://github.com/username/project_name.git, where username should be replaced by the username of the original project, and project_name should be replaced by its project name. Merging Upstream Changes If you notice that the upstream project has been updated and you’d like to incorporate the changes, you can run git pull upstream after creating the additional remote, and GitHub will download and merge changes from upstream into your project’s files. If everything works perfectly after running that command, you can immediately run git push origin master to push the updates to your own project. Pull Requests If you’d like to contribute back to the upstream project, it’s best to push any changes to your own fork of the project (or your own branch of the upstream project, but that’s only after the original author makes special arrangements). Once you’ve pushed those changes to your repository, you can go to GitHub and submit a pull request. This notifies the original author of the upstream project that you’d like him/her to review the changes that you’ve made and have them pull your changes into the upstream project. It’s a common courtesy to at least offer some of your own modifications back to the upstream project for them to pull as a thank you for forking their project. Whether they accept your request is up to them. Conclusion GitHub is fantastic tool that a large amount of open source developers already use. While GitHub uses the Git utility which anyone can configure on their own servers, GitHub really incorporates the community aspect of development, something that is a requirement in the open source world. This introduction should help you get started with the basics. If you would like to learn more about actual programming, you can check out this article on top sites to brush up on C++. Have you used GitHub? What feature do you like the most that people should know about? Let us know in the comments! The post How To View & Edit The Source Code Of An Open-Source App appeared first on MakeUseOf.

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