How To Create Macrium Reflect Bootable Rescue CD/USB

CLICK HERE TO SEE FULL POST



In one of our previous posts, we showed you how to easily install Macrium Reflect Free edition in your Windows. After installing Reflect, it’s always a good idea to create the rescue media so that you can backup and restore from a bootable media. You can use the rescue media to restore your drive images [...]

Personalize Google Search Results With Information From Gmail, Google Calendar or Google Plus [Updates]

In an effort to give us instant answers, Google Search is rolling out a feature that allows it to tap into your Gmail, Google Calendar, or Google Plus account. This feature is best illustrated with an example. Let’s say you are trying to find out when a package will arrive. Earlier, you would need to dig up the tracking number from your inbox and then process the query. The Google Search update will now help you save time because it does the digging for you when you query it with a — “When will my package arrive?” Google Search connects...

Read the full article: Personalize Google Search Results With Information From Gmail, Google Calendar or Google Plus [Updates]

Automate Your Hard Drive Organization With UltraDefrag

Defragging is one of those things – like doing the dishes or picking up the clothes off the floor – that you know you should get around to doing, but for some reason it’s so very difficult to find the time to do. There’s no doubt that it’s important. Tina explained why defragging is still important in her review of three useful defrag tools. Yet, still it’s one of those things that’s so easy to keep procrastinating about. Why is that? The truth is that defragging just isn’t part of the regular scheduled “cleaning” for most users, even many of...

Read the full article: Automate Your Hard Drive Organization With UltraDefrag

YouTube's New Playlist Player

YouTube has a new interface for embedded playlists. Most people only embed videos, but you can also embed playlists.



The updated player has 2 buttons that show the playlist videos overlaid on top of the currently playing video. You can only scroll using the player's scrollbar, there's no support for keyboard shortcuts or mouse wheels. Click one of the videos from the list and the player still displays the list: you need to click one of the 2 playlist buttons to hide the list.



The playlist player has a "play all" button (don't click, it's just a screenshot).

Here's a YouTube playlist that shows how to use the new Google Maps:

{ Thanks, Michel. }

7 Tips To Get A Great Deal Selling Your Unused Domain Name

Domain Name buying and selling is one of those things that many people don’t even realize is an activity that goes on, yet there are a surprising number of entrepreneurs out there that are making a tidy profit from domains within that online marketplace. All you have to do is browse the list of top 100 domain name sales on DN Journal to realize just how much money is at stake here. Domain names can sell for anything from a few hundred dollars, to tens of thousands of dollars in some cases. There are even sales in the hundreds of...

Read the full article: 7 Tips To Get A Great Deal Selling Your Unused Domain Name

Varies With Device

This post varies with device. It can't be displayed because there are so many devices and each one is different.



This paragraph varies with device. It's just a placeholder for a paragraph that should have revealed a lot of useful information. Unfortunately there are so many devices and they have different characteristics, so it's hard to write a paragraph that encompasses their complexity.



This screenshot varies with device. It should show some important information about the Google+ app for Android, but it doesn't because there are multiple Google+ APKs and each one is different.

On a more serious note, there are many Google Play apps that show the uninformative "varies with device". The size of the app varies with device, the current version varies with device and so is the required Android version. That's because Google Play allows developers to upload multiple APKs for the same app:

Multiple APK support is a feature on Google Play that allows you to publish different APKs for your application that are each targeted to different device configurations. Each APK is a complete and independent version of your application, but they share the same application listing on Google Play and must share the same package name and be signed with the same release key. Android applications usually run on most compatible devices with a single APK, by supplying alternative resources for different configurations (for example, different layouts for different screen sizes) and the Android system selects the appropriate resources for the device at runtime. In a few cases, however, a single APK is unable to support all device configurations, because alternative resources make the APK file too big (greater than 50MB) or other technical challenges prevent a single APK from working on all devices.

Even though Google doesn't encourage developers to use this feature, most Google apps use it: Google+, Google Chrome, Gmail, Google Maps, Google Search, Google Play Books, Google Play Movies & TV, Google Translate.



Since Google knows which devices are associated with your Google account, it could show a drop-down that lets you select one of your devices and show the appropriate information. For example, you have a Nexus 7 running Android 4.3 and a Galaxy S3 running Android 4.1. Select one of the devices and replace "varies with device" with something more useful.

Google+ Maps Current Locations

Here's a cool Google+ feature: mouse over the "currently in" location at the top of a Google+ profile that uses location sharing and something magic will happen: the cover photo will be replaced by a static map that shows that location.



Here's an example of Google+ profile where you can try this feature.

The latest version of the Google+ app for Android added a few new features, including better location sharing. "Starting today you can share your pinpoint or city-level location with others (if you want), and you can do so on a circle-by-circle basis. For example: you can share your pinpoint location with family, and your city-level location with co-workers. You can also use circles to filter who appears on your Locations map."



{ spotted by Jérôme Flipo }

How To Broadcast Live With A Green Screen

I’ve already showed you the basics of green screen videography with pre-recorded footage in iMovie or Premiere, so you could superimpose yourself onto any video or background. Wouldn’t it be cool if we could use this green screen effect for a live broadcast – like on Google Hangouts, or Skype? “Yes indeed it would be, James” – is the answer you’re looking for there, and you’re in luck because I’ve been having a go at doing that very same thing. Read on to join the cool kids club as we play with live green screen broadcasting on Mac or Windows....

Read the full article: How To Broadcast Live With A Green Screen

View Google Drive Photos in Google+

Google Drive is supposed to be the service that stores all your files and lets you access them from any device. It's supposed to be, but it's not. There are other Google services that are better suited for storing some of your files: Google+ Photos for storing photos, YouTube for sharing videos, Google Play Music for uploading music.



If you happen to store photos and videos in Google Drive, you can now add them to Google+ Photos. Just visit this page and click "Show Drive photos in Google+".

Click the "albums" section and you'll see some albums with a Google Drive icon: they're from Google Drive. For some reason, Google+ displayed only a few of my Google Drive photos and videos, not all of them.

"If you store photos in your Google Drive, you can also choose to view each folder as an album in Google+. Only you will be able to see them in your library until you choose to share them. If you have Auto Awesome or Auto Enhance turned on, then those features will be applied to your photo album but your original drive files will remain intact. After you enable the feature, folders containing JPG, GIF, WebP, RAW or video files will be viewable from your Google+ photo library and each Drive folder will become a different album marked with the Google Drive icon. Only you will be able to see them in your library until you choose to share them." explains Google.



To enable or disable this feature, you can go to the Google+ settings page, find the Photos section and check or uncheck "Show Drive photos in your photo library". To remove a Drive album from Google, open the album in Google, click the drop-down next to "Share" and then click "remove album" (the album will only be removed from Google+, not from Google Drive).

There are many limitations: "This feature is not available for Google Apps accounts. Screenshots, icons, thumbnails, and other images may not be viewable using this feature. You cannot tag, +1, edit, or comment on Drive photos. To enable these features, share the photo first. Sharing a photo will create and post a copy of the photo - your original Drive photo will remain intact and your circles will not gain access to your Drive."



I don't think that the new feature is a good idea. Why not store all your photos in Google Drive and use Google+ Photos as an application that can manage photos and display them in interesting ways? This way, you would no longer have to deal with the old Picasa Web limitations (1000 photos/album, limited sharing, no sub-albums) and you could access all your photos in both Google Drive and Google+ Photos.

10 Fictional Characters That Are Insanely Popular On Facebook

Lots of people like to “Like” things. I am of course referring to the Facebook Like, which has become a simple shortcut to stamping your approval on something. Whether it’s an interesting update, a pithy comment, a brand, a website, a movie, an album, or a game, Facebook users the world over are addicted to clicking “Like” all over the social network to publicly state their personal tastes. MakeUseOf has a very popular Facebook Page, and the most popular Facebook Pages are owned by celebrities. Having already detailed the most popular comedians on Facebook and the most popular musicians on...

Read the full article: 10 Fictional Characters That Are Insanely Popular On Facebook

Fix: “Resize Hard Disk Operation For This Format Is Not Implemented Yet” Error While Resizing VirtualBox Disk

CLICK HERE TO SEE FULL POST



Long time VirtualBox users will know that VirtualBox doesn’t support resizing virtual hard drive via its settings. In one of our earlier posts, we discussed how to increase VirtualBox’s disk size in Windows using Command Prompt. The method is useful if your virtual hard drive is running out of space. While trying to resize VirtualBox’s [...]

Share Your Video Series On Blip And Make Money While You’re At It

When you hear the term “video sharing website,” what comes to mind? There’s the most obvious choice that 99% of us will think: YouTube. And then there are the half dozen other video sharing websites that sit under the looming shadow that YouTube casts: Dailymotion, Vimeo, Metacafe, etc. But there’s one video site that doesn’t receive the recognition it deserves and it’s called Blip. In his roundup, Dave included Blip as one of five video site alternatives to YouTube. Why would you want an alternative to YouTube? For one, YouTube is a property of Google and you’ll need to find...

Read the full article: Share Your Video Series On Blip And Make Money While You’re At It

Plan A Trip With LikeWhere: A Magical System For Discovering A New City

What’s the hardest part about traveling to a new city? Finding the best things to do, of course. Each city offers its own unique experiences, and finding the ones you’d enjoy the most, especially under a limited schedule, can get challenging. Yes, there are many places to find inspiration for marvelous trips, and if you’re planning a road trip or a backpacking adventure, you don’t have to go far either. When it’s a city you want to visit, however, and especially if you only have about a week or two to spend there, you’re left with sifting through hundreds of...

Read the full article: Plan A Trip With LikeWhere: A Magical System For Discovering A New City

How To Install Macrium Reflect

CLICK HERE TO SEE FULL POST



As all PC users know, installing software in Windows is a cakewalk. A user who has ever installed a single application in any version of Windows will easily install almost all programs designed to run on Windows. However, you’ll need to pay close attention while installing free software as some of them try to install [...]

Which Linux File Browser Is More Productive: Nautilus or Dolphin?

Any regular Linux user will know that the two most common desktop environments are Gnome and KDE. Additionally, each desktop environment likes to pack its own software along with it, everything from core items such as system setting control panels to photo management software. Therefore, users of competing desktop environments will notice that they’re using different file managers — an important part of desktop productivity. Surprisingly, there are a lot of things that can go right or wrong with a file manager, so these applications do a lot more than simply show where your files are. I compared Nautilus, Gnome’s...

Read the full article: Which Linux File Browser Is More Productive: Nautilus or Dolphin?

The Old Gmail Compose Interface, No Longer Available

If you're still using Gmail's old compose interface, you should switch to the new interface. In a few days, the old compose UI will no longer be available, so it's a good idea to learn more about the new UI and try to adapt.

The new compose box has been launched in October 2012, so it's not that new anymore. Google added some new features since then: inserting emoticons and event invitations, adding labels to outgoing messages and a full-screen mode you can set as default. The full-screen mode is closer to the old interface and it's consistent with the mobile interface.

"A few weeks ago we added a full-screen option to the new compose. Now that that option is available, we're saying farewell to the old compose and switching everyone to the new compose over the next few days. The new compose opens drafts as a minimizable window so you can write multiple drafts at once, keep an eye on incoming email, adds support for inline images and much more. If you prefer a full-screen compose experience, you can click on the expand button in the top right of the new compose window to switch to full-screen and then set it as the default by selecting Default to full-screen in the more options menu in the bottom right," explains Google.



I'm sure that a lot of people will complain and say that the old interface is better. I've used the new compose box ever since it was released and I think it's great. You can use other Gmail features while composing a message, you can write multiple messages and there aren't many links and buttons that get in the way. I've briefly switched to the old compose experience and I was surprised to see how cluttered it was: "add cc", "add bcc", "insert invitation", "check spelling", a lot of rich-text editing buttons. It looked like a document editor, not like a communication software. This quote sums up everything that's importat about the new compose layout: "You can now write messages in a cleaner, simpler experience that puts the focus on your message itself, not all the features around it."

Mobile Gmail Enhances YouTube Links

Gmail's mobile site has a cool feature that adds video titles to all the YouTube links from a message. They're still links, but you know more about the videos before clicking them.



Here's an example from Gmail's mobile web app in Chrome for Android:

This also works in Gmail's iOS app and Gmail's mobile web app in other Android/iOS browsers. The message from this screenshot only included a link to a YouTube video, with no special anchor text.

What Can You Learn From An Email Header (Metadata)?

Did you ever get an email and really wondered where it came from? Who sent it? How could they have known who you are? Surprisingly a lot of that information can be from from the email header, or by using info from the email header to do some detective work. The header is a part of the email message that most people never even see. It contains a lot of data that seems like gobbledygook to the average computer user, so as email use became a daily tool in everyone’s life, email clients started to hide this information out of...

Read the full article: What Can You Learn From An Email Header (Metadata)?

Print Vs. Digital: What Is The Future For News? [You Told Us]

Print media was once king, but sales of newspapers and other physical publications have receded sharply in the face of the wealth of options offered by the Internet. It has all been one way traffic to this point, with people invariably switching away from print media to adopt digital media as their new ruler. However, Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, recently surprised a great many people by personally purchasing The Washington Post, an august newspaper most famous for breaking the Watergate scandal. Could this be a sign that there is life left in print yet? Or is this...

Read the full article: Print Vs. Digital: What Is The Future For News? [You Told Us]

Power Up Phone Conferencing With UberConference

Traditional conference calling is a faceless and often unproductive way of holding meetings. In the age of the Internet and mobile devices, conference calls and online meetings provide an array of features and functions for sharing and viewing documents, developing and keeping minutes, and even recording meetings for archive purposes. My recently released free MakeUseOf download, Online Meeting Guide: Software and Strategy introduces over a dozen different online meeting services and tools, like Google Hangouts, Meetings.io, and LiveMinutes. Another service that rivals the market leaders is UberConference, a phone and web conferencing service that also allows participants to access online...

Read the full article: Power Up Phone Conferencing With UberConference