How To Easily Enable Silverlight, And Watch Netflix, on Linux

Netflix depends on Silverlight; Silverlight doesn’t play well with Linux. But Linux users have an easy-to-use workaround. Lots of progress has been made when it comes to watching Netflix on Linux, but now it’s even easier than ever thanks to something called Pipelight. Here’s what you need to do to get Pipelight working on your Linux machine. About Pipelight Pipelight is a project that aims to get Netflix (and other Silverlight applications) to work on your Linux machine, inside your favorite browser. It’s a lot easier to use than Netflix Desktop, a previous tool for the job that required you...

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13 Browser-Based Tools For Writers

Portability and accessibility are important for writers. You never know when inspiration will hit, and when it does you don’t want to be caught off guard. Professional software suites can be nice but often times are overkill, localized, and more hassle than they’re worth. Browser-based writing tools are available no matter where you go. Whether you need help with organization, a way to kill distractions, or a clean slate on which to write your words, these tools will prove useful to all of you who write on a regular basis. Don’t miss out! Organizational Tools Organization is the key to...

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VMware Virtualization Brings Windows Apps And Desktops To Chromebooks

Desktop as a Service (DaaS) is a virtual desktop environment that enables you to access your preferred desktop applications on cloud-connected devices like Google’s Chromebook. Google comes together with VMware in move to bring you the best of both worlds – the low cost of ownership with a Chromebook, and the use of Windows desktop software. VMware is a virtualization company and one of their flagship products is VMware Horizon DaaS. The product description says, “VMware Horizon™ DaaS® Platform for Service Providers delivers Windows desktops and applications as a cloud service to any user, anywhere, on any device“. Google is...

Read the full article: VMware Virtualization Brings Windows Apps And Desktops To Chromebooks

VMware Virtualization Brings Windows Apps And Desktops To Chromebooks

Desktop as a Service (DaaS) is a virtual desktop environment that enables you to access your preferred desktop applications on cloud-connected devices like Google’s Chromebook. Google comes together with VMware in move to bring you the best of both worlds – the low cost of ownership with a Chromebook, and the use of Windows desktop software. VMware is a virtualization company and one of their flagship products is VMware Horizon DaaS. The product description says, “VMware Horizon™ DaaS® Platform for Service Providers delivers Windows desktops and applications as a cloud service to any user, anywhere, on any device“. Google is...

Read the full article: VMware Virtualization Brings Windows Apps And Desktops To Chromebooks

Kickstarter Was Hacked: Change Your Password

Kickstarter revealed this Saturday that they had suffered a data breach on Wednesday that compromised significant amounts of user data. They are stressing that credit card information was not stolen, except for two individuals, but they are still recommending that users change their passwords just to be safe. The leaked information includes usernames, email addresses, mailing addresses, phone numbers, and encrypted passwords. Since the passwords were encrypted, it would take a particularly malicious hacker to figure out your password, but the easier your password is, the more likely that the hackers would be able to crack it. That’s why there...

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#Cheap: 12 Ways To Use Social Media To Find Great Shopping Deals

Save money without leaving your favorite social networks. Is that possible? We’ve shown you how to keep tabs on Amazon’s daily deals, but neglected to mention social networks. Which is too bad, because social networks have a number of advantages for this. You’re already looking at them regularly, they allow third parties to curate content and are easy to use. Know where to look and you can save some money. There are pages on Twitter, Reddit, and Facebook regularly linking to deals you might be missing out on – here a few worth checking out. 4 Subreddits For Finding Deals...

Read the full article: #Cheap: 12 Ways To Use Social Media To Find Great Shopping Deals

Siri Truth, Flappy Ban, Titanfall Beta, Kickstarter Hack [Tech News Digest]

Today in Tech News Digest, Apple is cleared of misrepresenting the capabilities of Siri, Google and Apple stop the Flappy Bird clones, the Titanfall beta is opened to all, Kickstarter gets hacked, Barack Obama isn’t tweeting, Ken Burns documentaries arrive on the iPad, and Sesame Street Fighter is revealed. Court Rules Siri Works As Advertised iPhone = Eye Phone = Illuminati Phone. And even ”Siri” spelled backwards is ”Iris” which means Eye. They’re Watching You. — Stewie Griffin (@tbhstew) February 15, 2014 Apple has had a lawsuit claiming it misrepresented the capabilities of Siri dismissed with prejudice. According to Apple...

Read the full article: Siri Truth, Flappy Ban, Titanfall Beta, Kickstarter Hack [Tech News Digest]

Signed Up for SSH-only Web Hosting? Don’t Worry – Easily Install Any Web Software

So, you’ve chosen your domain name. You have a killer idea for a project. You’re fired up, and ready to unleash your latest and greatest creation upon the internet. After scouring the internet looking for the best web hosting, you’ve landed yourself a sweet deal on a VPS. There’s one problem though. You don’t know the first thing about operating Linux through its powerful command line. Well, worry no more. I’m about to drop the know-how of how to install two incredible web applications. One is blogging-platform extraordinaire WordPress, which powers a huge swathe of the internet, including this very...

Read the full article: Signed Up for SSH-only Web Hosting? Don’t Worry – Easily Install Any Web Software

Signed Up for SSH-only Web Hosting? Don’t Worry – Easily Install Any Web Software

So, you’ve chosen your domain name. You have a killer idea for a project. You’re fired up, and ready to unleash your latest and greatest creation upon the internet. After scouring the internet looking for the best web hosting, you’ve landed yourself a sweet deal on a VPS. There’s one problem though. You don’t know the first thing about operating Linux through its powerful command line. Well, worry no more. I’m about to drop the know-how of how to install two incredible web applications. One is blogging-platform extraordinaire WordPress, which powers a huge swathe of the internet, including this very...

Read the full article: Signed Up for SSH-only Web Hosting? Don’t Worry – Easily Install Any Web Software

Which Is The Desktop Best Browser? 2014 Edition [MakeUseOf Poll]

What do you think of Chromebooks? That’s the question we asked you last week, and we got a fair amount of answers. While your votes are not entirely straightforward, it seems there’s a clear trend when it comes to Chromebooks. There were 5 possible answers in this poll, and the votes divided almost equally among them. This is not something you see every day! Out of 622 votes in total, 5% tried Chromebooks and didn’t like them, 21% plan on getting a Chromebook as their next laptop, another 21% are not giving it a chance, 24% already own a Chromebook,...

Read the full article: Which Is The Desktop Best Browser? 2014 Edition [MakeUseOf Poll]

Which Is The Desktop Best Browser? 2014 Edition [MakeUseOf Poll]

What do you think of Chromebooks? That’s the question we asked you last week, and we got a fair amount of answers. While your votes are not entirely straightforward, it seems there’s a clear trend when it comes to Chromebooks. There were 5 possible answers in this poll, and the votes divided almost equally among them. This is not something you see every day! Out of 622 votes in total, 5% tried Chromebooks and didn’t like them, 21% plan on getting a Chromebook as their next laptop, another 21% are not giving it a chance, 24% already own a Chromebook,...

Read the full article: Which Is The Desktop Best Browser? 2014 Edition [MakeUseOf Poll]

An Easy Way to Deal with Friend Requests on Foursquare

What do you do when total strangers send you friend requests on Foursquare? You probably have been ignoring such requests and they keep accumulating over time.

There were more than 1000 friend requests in my Foursquare account and it was time to clean up the list. Foursquare doesn’t offer a “Select All” option so you cannot accept, or reject, the pending friend requests in bulk. And it would take just too much effort to click that Accept or Ignore button manually as you’ll have to do that for each pending request.

Accept or Ignore Foursquare Friend Requests in Bulk

Fortunately, there is an easy workaround. You can run a simple command in the JavaScript console of your Chrome Developer Tools console and it will accept or cancel all the requests (video).

1. Go to the Foursquare.com website and choose Friends -> See All Friend Requests


2. Open the JavaScript console using the shortcut key Cmd+Alt+J (on Mac) or Ctrl+Shift+J (on Windows). Alternatively, you can go to Chrome menu and choose Tools -> JavaScript console.


3. While inside the console, type $(‘.orangeButton’).click() to accept all requests or $(‘.greyButtton’).click() to ignore all the requests.

I am @labnol on Foursquare.

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This story, An Easy Way to Deal with Friend Requests on Foursquare, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 15/02/2014 under Foursquare, Internet

7 Really Free Things You Can Do On Amazon Without Spending A Single Dime

No, this is not an article about that gizmo or the book that has gone free. This is also not about grabbing goodies for cheap off Amazon.com’s digital racks. This is about diving into Amazon’s depths and coming up with useful free resources you can make use of. Amazon.com was named after Earth’s mightiest river. It also launched with the tagline — Earth’s biggest book store. Thirty years later, it is a gigantic “warehouse” that stocks anything you can think of. Like a personal tank, maybe. Amazon doesn’t seem to be straining under the load of being the world’s largest...

Read the full article: 7 Really Free Things You Can Do On Amazon Without Spending A Single Dime

Google Updater Needs Permissions to Control your Computer – Why?

If you are using any Google software on your Mac OS (Mavericks), you may seen this dialog box saying that “Google Software Update would like to control this computer using accessibility features.”

You can click the Deny button and the Google software installed on your Mac will continue to work without issues but why is the software updater asking for permission to control the computer?

I have been scanning the online forums and discovered a few threads that seem to explain the problem and what this Google’s Software Updater program is trying to achieve.

The short answer is that Google wants to auto-update any Google software installed on your Mac OS – stuff like Picasa, Google Earth, Google Drive, App Engine or Google Chrome. They want to install updates in the background without the user’s intervention and hence need this permission.

An engineer from the Google Chromium team says that it’s completely safe to Deny this dialog.

The Google Support website has instructions on how to uninstall the Google Software Updater program on your Mac using the terminal app but there’s a caveat. You have to uninstall the corresponding Google applications as well else the Google Software Update will be reinstalled after a few hours.

Manually run Google Software Update

Another option would be that you disable the Google Software Update program from automatically checking the Internet for updates and manually update any Google software on your Mac.

$ defaults write com.google.Keystone.Agent checkInterval 0

Run the command above at the terminal to disable auto-check and open the CheckForUpdatesNow.command to run the checks manually.

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This story, Google Updater Needs Permissions to Control your Computer – Why?, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 14/02/2014 under Apple Mac, Google, Internet

Google+ Easter Egg for Valentine's Day

Google+ has a special Easter Egg for Valentine's Day. Mr. Jingles, the Google+ mascot, transformed into a heart. You can find the animation in the Google+ notification box: in Google+ for desktop, Google+ mobile apps and most Google services.

Here's the animation that's displayed when you click the icon. This is the "retina" double-sized version:

"I <3 you, people of Google+! You've made me feel like your Valentine many times over," says Mr. Jingles.



You can also check the costumes for New Year's party, Christmas, Thanksgiving Day, Halloween, 15 years of Google and 2 years of Google+.

openSUSE 13.1: A Solid Linux Release With Long Term Support

Ubuntu and Fedora aren’t the only major Linux distributions out there: there’s also openSUSE. This RPM-based distribution celebrated the release of version 13.1 on November 19th, and there’s a reason why this release is so important. OpenSUSE 13.1 is considered an “Evergreen” release, meaning that it’s going to be supported for 3 years – akin to Ubuntu’s LTS releases. Let’s take a look at what makes openSUSE 13.1 so great. Unique Features OpenSUSE has a lot of items in common with other distributions – KDE as the default desktop environment, Firefox as the default browser, and a good selection of...

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10 Tips To Work Smart When You Get Hit With A Slow Internet Connection

You think it’s the kind of thing that happens to other people, but sometimes, calamity befalls us. Sometimes, the gods are cruel and they take away your life force. Yes, one day, we will all have to deal with a slow internet connection. Drama aside, it’s not an uncommon scenario. You might be at a coffee shop with too many people logged onto the Wi-Fi and the limited bandwidth isn’t enough to keep everyone running. Or, like me, you might just live in India. But hey, with a little ingenuity, you can still get your work done and sneak in...

Read the full article: 10 Tips To Work Smart When You Get Hit With A Slow Internet Connection

Geeky Valentine, Android Licensing, Facebook Gender, Pandora Voting [Tech News Digest]

Today in Tech News Digest, geeky goodness for Valentine’s Day, Android licensing terms for OEMs, Windows 8 sales update, Facebook’s increased gender options, Pandora’s voting algorithm, and how to get yourself banned from the Internet. A Valentine’s Day Roundup Whether you have a special someone or not, remember Valentines Day is about celebrating LOVE itself. #ValentinesDay — Julian Camarena (@juliancamarena) February 14, 2014 Today is Valentine’s Day, at least for those who celebrate the most romantic date in the calendar. It’s a day set aside to show your love for your significant other, or to simply revel in that incredible...

Read the full article: Geeky Valentine, Android Licensing, Facebook Gender, Pandora Voting [Tech News Digest]

Geeky Valentine, Android Licensing, Facebook Gender, Pandora Voting [Tech News Digest]

Today in Tech News Digest, geeky goodness for Valentine’s Day, Android licensing terms for OEMs, Windows 8 sales update, Facebook’s increased gender options, Pandora’s voting algorithm, and how to get yourself banned from the Internet. A Valentine’s Day Roundup Whether you have a special someone or not, remember Valentines Day is about celebrating LOVE itself. #ValentinesDay — Julian Camarena (@juliancamarena) February 14, 2014 Today is Valentine’s Day, at least for those who celebrate the most romantic date in the calendar. It’s a day set aside to show your love for your significant other, or to simply revel in that incredible...

Read the full article: Geeky Valentine, Android Licensing, Facebook Gender, Pandora Voting [Tech News Digest]

Send Gmail Attachments to your Google Drive

The Send to Google Drive program automatically saves attachments from your Gmail messages to a folder in your Google Drive. It can save file attachments from all your Gmail messages or you specify a Gmail label, say GoogleDrive, and attachments of all messages marked with that label will get downloaded to a folder in your Google Drive.

You neither have to install any browser extensions (the program uses Google Scripts) nor do you have to grant access to your Gmail or Google Drive accounts to a third-party. And since Google Drive synchronizes with your mobile device and desktop, the saved email attachments will instantly become available on all your other devices.

How to Send Gmail Attachments to Google Drive

Here’s a step by step guide on how you can setup the Send to Google Drive program for your Gmail account:

1. Click here to create a copy of the Google sheet in your Google Drive.


2. Open the sheet and you should see a new Gmail Attachments menu at the top. Choose Authorize and grant the necessary permissions. This is an open-source Google Script) that runs in your own Google account and no one else will have access to any of your data.


3. Click the same menu again and select Run. Close the Google sheet and the script will start downloading Gmail attachments to your Google Drive in the background.

The Google sheet will monitor any particular label in your Gmail mailbox in the background (every five minutes) and as soon as it finds a message that has attachments, it will automatically save all the attachments to the Gmail Files folder on your Google Drive. If you wish to download Gmail attachments in a different folder, change the value of cell D5 in the sheet.

Once the attachments have been saved, a new label is applied to the Gmail message indicating that the message has been processed. The default label is AttSaved but you can specify a different label in cell D6.

And if you would like to stop the script from running in the background, open the Google Sheet and choose Uninstall from the Gmail Attachments menu.

Send to Google Drive – Premium Version

The premium version supports even more features:

1. Nested Gmail Labels – It can monitor Gmail messages that belong to a nested Gmail folder.


2. Monitor Multiple Labels – While the free version only supports one label, the premium version can help you extract attachments from one or more Gmail labels


3. Google Drive Organized – The free version dumps all Gmail attachments to one Google Drive fodler while the premium version organizes them in sub-folders thus keeping your Drive cleaner and more organized.

With the premium version, you also have the option for email and phone support (PDF Manual).

Google Script + Installation Manual $29.99 USD
Google Script + Email Support $49.99 USD
Google Script + Phone Support $99.99 USD

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This story, Send Gmail Attachments to your Google Drive, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 01/02/2014 under GMail, Google Drive, Internet