18 June 2013

Photoshop Is Overkill: Edit Your Images With These Free Chrome Apps And Extensions



Feature Image PNG

Although Photoshop is a great program, it has its drawbacks. Photoshop is not only very expensive, it also has too many controls for what you probably need. There are a lot of editors you could use – some on the desktop and others on the web. Today we're going to look at some of the best and free online editors that also happen to be Chrome apps and extensions.

Continue reading the article


Read full post: Photoshop Is Overkill: Edit Your Images With These Free Chrome Apps And Extensions



Photoshop Is Overkill: Edit Your Images With These Free Chrome Apps And Extensions



Feature Image PNG

Although Photoshop is a great program, it has its drawbacks. Photoshop is not only very expensive, it also has too many controls for what you probably need. There are a lot of editors you could use – some on the desktop and others on the web. Today we're going to look at some of the best and free online editors that also happen to be Chrome apps and extensions.

Continue reading the article


Read full post: Photoshop Is Overkill: Edit Your Images With These Free Chrome Apps And Extensions



Check Your PC’s Security Status With OPSWAT Security Score



CLICK HERE TO SEE FULL POST



Installing a third-party antivirus software is one of the first things we all do after purchasing or re-installing Windows on our PCs. Majority of Windows users are aware of the importance of using a good security software and have installed one of the popular security software available for Windows operating system. Even though many of [...]

Google Now Wallpapers



Google Now's images are beautiful, colorful, cheerful, minimalist and futuristic at the same time. Now you can see the full-size scenes in this Flickr set. They were uploaded by Brent Couchman, who created them.



"Brent Couchman is an independent graphic designer based in sunny San Francisco, California. Originally hailing from the Lone Star State where he developed branding, packaging & illustration for Fossil, Brent moved to the Bay Area to work with Hatch design," mentions his site.












{ via Marques Brownlee and Ade Oshineye. }


Google Tests a New Mobile Gmail Interface



Google tests a new interface for the mobile Gmail web app. The toolbar that includes buttons for archiving messages, marking as unread or adding labels now floats above the message and it no longer has a fixed position.



Here's the new interface that's currently tested (stock Android browser):









And here's the regular interface (mobile Chrome):









As you can see, the Gmail mobile site goes back to the roots. Back in 2009, Google added a similar bar to the mobile site: "We made extensive use of other browser functions too: for example, the floaty bar that lets you archive, delete or apply more actions is animated via CSS transformations and controlled in part with touch events (when you scroll the screen, it follows you)."






Cool Websites and Tools [June 17th 2013]



cwt logo static

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 websites round-ups delivered to your email daily email subscribe here....

Continue reading the article


Read full post: Cool Websites and Tools [June 17th 2013]



New IFTTT Channel JetSetMe Triggers Every Time You Set Down In A New Country [Updates]



jetset-300

You can now automatically tweet your current location every time you land in a new country. It may not be ideal for 007, but it's perfectly possible for other British residents, thanks to a new IFTTT channel: JetSetMe by mobile carrier O2.

Continue reading the article


Read full post: New IFTTT Channel JetSetMe Triggers Every Time You Set Down In A New Country [Updates]



The Journey Of A Coder: How To Enhance Your Coding Skills By Contributing To An Open Source Project



learn_c++_intro

If you’re looking to market yourself as a competent programmer, there’s no better time to show off your skills in the best way possible — by contributing to open source projects. There are many reasons why you should contribute to open source projects , but the most important reason of them all is that you can “learn by doing”. And once you learn, you can not only claim that you have coding skills, but you can prove it by showing your work.

Continue reading the article


Read full post: The Journey Of A Coder: How To Enhance Your Coding Skills By Contributing To An Open Source Project



7 Facebook Status Ideas That Show How To Engage Better With Your Social Network



facebook-logo-300

Facebook can suck. Really. That's a blunt statement, but regardless of the medium, it's the content that makes up in publication. In Facebook's case, it's a great medium, but sometimes it has some horrible content. Only the users are to blame. Fortunately, I'm here to help you enhance your content output so you can develop some truly engaging status ideas to help you connect better with those on your social network.

Continue reading the article


Read full post: 7 Facebook Status Ideas That Show How To Engage Better With Your Social Network



The Odd One Out



If there's a popular Google product that's different from any other Google products and services, it must be Android. Most Google services got the basics right and then started to add features. Before you could use image search, video search, voice search and flight search, Google started with a clean interface and relevant results that loaded quickly. I still remember that Gmail didn't have a delete button or support for drafts when it launched, but it had support for conversations, search, 1GB of free storage and a great spam filter. Back in 2008, Chrome didn't support extensions, it was Windows-only, you couldn't even preview pages before printing them, but it was fast, it had a clutter-free interface and sandboxed tabs.



Android is the odd one out because it didn't focus on the users, it focused on apps and developers. It started with great APIs for developers before building a great interface, it started with voice search before running fast, it started with live wallpapers and widgets before optimizing battery life. It's like releasing a slow and cluttered Chrome with tons of great APIs for developers or launching Google Search with a lot of advanced search operators and natural language understanding, but the results aren't relevant and you need to wait a few seconds until they're displayed.



Customization is important, APIs and third-party apps are important, but getting the basics right is the most important. The first iPhone was great, even if it didn't support third-party apps, 3G, MMS and many other things. It had an impressive user interface and a few well-built apps. Everything else was added later: third-party apps, multitasking, notification center, folders.



Android focused on APIs and third-party apps. HTC had to come up with Sense to sell some Android phones because Google's interface was just a placeholder. Other phone manufacturers created their own interfaces and system apps. A lot of innovative ideas, but not much common ground. The only things that connected all the different devices were the Android APIs. Ice Cream Sandwich changed all that: the Holo theme was mandatory, Android added support for hardware acceleration and apps started to look consistent. Then Jelly Bean and Project Butter addressed lag.



Paul Buchheit, the man behind Gmail, has a great post titled "If your product is Great, it doesn't need to be Good." He explains how to build new products: "What's the right approach to new products? Pick three key attributes or features, get those things very, very right, and then forget about everything else. Those three attributes define the fundamental essence and value of the product -- the rest is noise." That's how Gmail started. "It was fast, stored all of your email (back when 4MB quotas were the norm), and had an innovative interface based on conversations and search. The secondary and tertiary features were minimal or absent. There was no 'rich text' composer. The original address book was implemented in two days and did almost nothing."



Android focused on the wrong things initially, but still won because it was the only significant alternative to iOS, so carriers, phone manufacturers and users embraced it. Now it's hard to go back to the basics and fix them, make apps less powerful, remove APIs and focus on what matters on a mobile device: smooth experience and battery life.



Note: I use both Android and iOS. Android has improved a lot lately (even though Android 4.2 looks like a step backward) and I hope that constructive criticism will make it even better.


FaveBucket: Save And Share Your Favorite Links From Across The Web



favebucket logo

FaveBucket which allows you to not only collect and organize your links in one place, it also gives you options on how to share it with your friends online. FaveBucket has a somewhat Pinterest-inspired layout, with a grid of boxes featuring all of your latest links. It's a slick and easy-to-use service that is just getting started.

Continue reading the article


Read full post: FaveBucket: Save And Share Your Favorite Links From Across The Web



Stay Connected Smartly: Use LinkedIn Contacts For Better Relationship Management



linkedin-wp-300.png

Being at the right place at the right time is often squarely tied to luck. While it's true that you can't be everywhere, it is also true that nurturing your professional relationships could help you hear the knock when opportunity comes calling. The little things done right there can help to foster career growth. We tend to sometimes use social media too casually. Tuned just right, it is a minimal effort tool for managing our relationships en masse.

Continue reading the article


Read full post: Stay Connected Smartly: Use LinkedIn Contacts For Better Relationship Management



5 Sites To Learn How To Write A Book And Get It Published



Writing and Publishing A Book Intro

There are millions of people all around the world who want to be professional writers, yet only a tiny fraction of them ever make enough money to write full-time. It’s a market that is saturated in terms of supply, so you need to be excellent or revolutionary to even be noticed. Fortunately, there are many resources out there that will get your feet wet. Here are five of my favorites.

Continue reading the article


Read full post: 5 Sites To Learn How To Write A Book And Get It Published



Find A Topic Worth Studying With The Open University On YouTube [Stuff to Watch]




The Open University is a world renowned British institution of higher education offering people all over the world the chance to earn a first-class degree without ever stepping foot in a lecture theater. Thanks to the Internet, the Open University is now able to offer more courses to more people than ever before, and their YouTube channel helps market their wares.

Continue reading the article


Read full post: Find A Topic Worth Studying With The Open University On YouTube [Stuff to Watch]



Mozilla Opens ScienceLab To Help Shape Science’s Future [Updates]



Mozilla

Mozilla has just opened ScienceLab, believing that the project will help foster scientific ideas and will be an open platform for making scientific research more collaborative. The ScienceLab is an initiative that aims to use the open web to build a community around ideas, tools, and implementation of best practices for using next-generation web solutions to solve real problems in science.

Continue reading the article


Read full post: Mozilla Opens ScienceLab To Help Shape Science’s Future [Updates]



How To Create A Custom Timeline Cover Photo In Minutes With Timeline Cover Photo Maker



timeline-cover-3005.png

As you can imagine, things change in the Timeline arena. Facebook has changed since, changing the way profiles look along the way, and Timeline photos are now bigger and more prominent than they used to be. In addition, some new tools have popped up that can help you reach that coveted goal: an awesome and original Timeline.

Continue reading the article


Read full post: How To Create A Custom Timeline Cover Photo In Minutes With Timeline Cover Photo Maker



Tell Them How Busy You Are with the Gmail Counter



This easy tutorial will help you create a real-time Gmail counter that will display the count of unread email messages in your Gmail Inbox. Will help people know how busy you are.



Tweet this Share on Facebook




Digital Inspiration @labnol This story, Tell Them How Busy You Are with the Gmail Counter, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 17/06/2013 under GMail, Internet.