FeedRoller – One Of The Most Interesting Ways To Read Your RSS Feeds [Windows]

The grave has been dug for Google Reader. It’s almost dead and gone, and I’ll surely miss it. It definitely surprised me to hear that they were putting an end to this beloved service, but it didn’t worry me. Savvy folks like you and I will always know of alternatives. You should see this as an opportunity, not a letdown. Maybe you’ll find something new that you would have liked more than Google Reader all along.

I’m huge on RSS tickers and scrollers. I’ve known of two or three, and my preferred software has always been Feed Notifier. It does a fantastic job of getting news to your eyes right when it happens, and it isn’t very distracting. I recently came across a very interesting alternative software that presents RSS feeds in a completely different way. Maybe some of you will enjoy it.

FeedRoller

FeedRoller meets all of the requirements to get my seal of approval – it’s free, it’s compatible with all modern versions of Windows, and it is portable. Portability in a software like this is a pretty key component to me. Being able to configure all of your favorite RSS feeds and tweak the application to perfection feels so much better when you know that you’ll be able to bring it to you on any desktop or laptop, permanently.

Feed Notifier approaches reading your RSS feeds in the form of notifications that pop up (by default) at the bottom-right corner of your screen. FeedRoller is completely different. It’s a true RSS ticker that gets right in your face.

As you can see in the above screenshot, FeedRoller defaults to docking at the top of your screen. Unlike Feed Notifier, it doesn’t go away when it’s fed you your news. It continuously scrolls. Hovering your mouse over it will cause it to immediately hide.

FeedRoller docks to the system tray, where almost all interaction with the program itself will occur.

First worth noting are the hotkeys. I will admit, I was a little confused and bothered when trying to take a screenshot while the application was running, because the PrintScreen key is actually bound to an action within FeedRoller. Keys like ScrollLock and PrintScreen shouldn’t be used as hotkeys (at least in my opinion), but once you’ve learned them it’s quite easy to adjust to.

The 15-minute DND mode that FeedRoller offers is much appreciated. Once the time passes, feeds automatically begin scrolling again. It’s good that it works this way, because if you’re new to the application you’d likely forget to reactivate FeedRoller. It’ll surprise you the first couple of times you see it pop up.

Managing your feeds is incredibly easy. Here, you see all of the default feeds that ship with FeedRoller. It’s very thoughtful that you can tick or untick certain feeds, rather than having to completely delete and read them. Being able to temporarily disable feeds is a far better approach.

Adding a feed takes a matter of seconds. Leaving the Name parameter to its default will automatically name the feed. You’re able to then configure a maximum number of items to display per feed, a maximum age per item (in hours), and a time (in minutes) to keep feeds cached. One feature that I wish FeedRoller supported, that Feed Notifier does, is the ability to change the interval at which each individual feed is checked and refreshed.

FeedRoller’s options are incredibly extensive, but let’s go over some of the more important parts.

Changing around the interface is important. In the Interface section, you can set a padding and margin to your ticker. You’re also able to add extra summary rows, which can add a little beef to how much you’re able to read at just a glance. Most importantly is the ability to snap the ticker to the bottom of the screen rather than the top. We all have different screen arrangements.

The Colors section offers more visual enhancements. I find it pretty important to differentiate between each part of the feed’s data, and this will allow you to do that.

I mentioned how unfortunate a few of the default hotkeys are. Luckily, you can change all of them in the Hotkeys section. You’re also able to change the length of your DND period and the action that occurs when the tray icon is double-clicked.

Feed Roller is an awesome and unique way to digest your RSS and Atom feeds. It’s tough to miss news when it’s always there for you to read up on and I appreciate the features it offers. What do you think of Feed Roller? Let me know in the comments.

The post FeedRoller – One Of The Most Interesting Ways To Read Your RSS Feeds [Windows] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Gmail’s New Compose Is Now Default, Soon All Users Will Be Required To Use It [Updates]

Google announced on Thursday that Gmail’s new compose window feature will become the default option for users, and that it will do away with the old compose option soon thereafter. With the recent termination of Reader, Google has already been in the doghouse for some technology users, and if you’re not a fan of the new compose, this is yet another feature you’re going to have to give up on.

If you haven’t noticed any changes to your Gmail account yet, this is due to the update tolling out over the “next few days”, but you will soon find that you’ve been switched to the new compose, whether you chose to or not. The new compose window will eventually be the only option for users to write email, but for the time being, you can switch back to the old compose experience.

Launched in October 2012, the new compose window allows users to create emails using an in-window pop-up while still viewing their inbox. This means users can write messages while reading the context of other emails, and can work on and minimize multiple drafts to the bottom of the browser’s window.

After looking at user feedback, Google added new features to this upgraded version. These features include the ability to send files with Google Drive, a new pop-out replies option, starring and labeling while composing a message, and support for the Canned Responses lab. The new compose feature also has a special function for replying to emails. As expected, it appears just below your email threads, but it scales down the content inside so you can easily see your recipients and email controls.

Google has already requested for user feedback on Google+, and replies include a fair mix of negative and positive responses. Likewise, we asked you about the new Gmail compose experience in December, and back then, many of you were still unsure about it.

Now that new compose is a default setting for Gmail, how do you feel about it? Do you think it is better or worse than the old version?

Source: Gmail Blog

The post Gmail’s New Compose Is Now Default, Soon All Users Will Be Required To Use It [Updates] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Not Just For Paranoids: 4 Reasons To Encrypt Your Digital Life

Encryption isn’t only for paranoid conspiracy theorists, nor is it just for tech geeks. Encryption is something every computer user can benefit from. Tech websites write about how you can encrypt your digital life, but we’ve all done a poor job of explaining why you should actually care.

We’ve covered a variety of ways to encrypt everything on your computer, encrypt files you store in the cloud, have encrypted online conversations, and do lots of other things with encryption. Now we’ll get back to basics and explain the many threats encryption can help protect you from.

Protect Your Data From Thieves

Encrypting your storage protects the data on it from thieves. If someone steals your laptop, smartphone, or tablet, encryption can prevent them from accessing the sensitive data on your hard drive. The media is full of reports from business employees who lose laptops containing sensitive customer information, including credit card numbers – if only they had used encryption, they wouldn’t have embarrassed their employers and given their customers’ information over to identity thieves.

This is a dramatic example, but it’s true even for the average person. If you store financial data, business plans, or other sensitive documents, such as scans of tax returns with your social security number and other sensitive data on them, you should ensure your computer’s hard drive – or at least the sensitive files – are stored in an encrypted form. Encryption can also help protect any other type of private data that you don’t want someone else seeing.

Store Files Securely in the Cloud

Cloud storage gives us a great way to keep our files in sync across all our devices, storing a backup copy on the cloud storage corporation’s servers so we won’t lose it. It’s also a great way to share files with other people.

However, storing sensitive data – like financial documents and other personal information – in a cloud storage account could be a mistake. Dropbox once allowed anyone to log into any account without a password for four hours, and this would have allowed anyone to access your Dropbox account and view your files. Your files could also be accessed if someone gained access to your account through other means, such as using a leaked password that you re-used on several website

Encrypting sensitive files prevents them from ever being accessed without the encryption key, even in a worst case scenario when your cloud storage provider’s security fails or someone else gains access to your account. Encrypthion also allows you to securely share sensitive data with other people – just agree on an encryption key ahead of time (you could even do this in person) and then use that key to share sensitive files over email or a cloud-storage service without others being able to access it.

There are even cloud storage services that automatically encrypt your data before uploading it, decrypting it locally when you access it. Not even the cloud storage provider’s employees could access your

Prevent Others From Viewing Your Private Browsing and Conversations

Your bank and online-shopping websites like Amazon all use encrypted connections (the HTTPS URL with a lock in your browser indicates a secure, “encrypted” connection). When you access an HTTP website, your browsing activity is viewable in plaintext form. For example, if you’re sitting in a café using public Wi-Fi and performing Google searches while not logged in, anyone on the Wi-Fi network could monitor your Google searches and any other website activity taking place over HTTP. Even if you used HTTPS to access websites, people could still see the HTTPS website you access.

To avoid having your browsing activity tracked on public Wi-Fi, you could use a VPN or Tor to “tunnel” your browsing activity through an encrypted connection.

Encryption can also be used to protect emails and instant messages against prying eyes. Email is sent over the wire in plain text form, so particularly sensitive data should be sent in encrypted emails – or not over email at all. If you’re sending an important file via email, you can encrypt the file before emailing it.

Battle Over-Reaching Government Surveillance

The government is watching you. This may seem a bit paranoid, but it’s the reality of the world we live in. Our digital lives are being increasingly picked over by our governments, often without warrants or other typical legal protections. We’re not lawyers, but here are a few anecdotes that can give you an idea of the scope of what’s going on:

• In the USA, your emails are considered “abandoned” after you open them or after 180 days if they remain unopened. This allows the US government to view your personal emails without a warrant. If you encrypted your emails, the government would require a warrant to compel you to disclose the encryption key. (Wherever you are in the world, your emails may be stored in the USA and be subject to such access, too.) (Source)


• California’s Supreme Court has ruled that police can search through your smartphone without a warrant after arresting you. If you encrypted your smartphone’s storage, the police would require a warrant to compel you to tell them the encryption key. (Source)


• According to the EFF, the US government and major telecom carriers have “engaged in a massive program of illegal dragnet surveillance of domestic communications and communications records of millions of ordinary Americans since at least 2001.” Your emails, phone calls, and other communications are available to the government without a warrant thanks to this warrantless wiretapping. (Source)


• The version of Skype distributed in China has a backdoor allowing the Chinese government to snoop on their citizens’ conversations. Microsoft has refused to answer whether the version of Skype distributed elsewhere contains similar backdoors. (Source 1, Source 2)

This is just the USA – the situation is even worse in countries like China or Iran, where repressive governments will monitor all the unencrypted communications they can get their hands on.

It’s not paranoid to realize that governments are building massive databases of our communications and personal data. Encryption can be a way to help prevent your data from being accessed without a warrant or automatically logged in a database.

Do you use encryption for your hard drive, cloud storage, smartphone, emails, or any other type of communications? Leave a comment and tell us why.

Image Credit: Lock Icon via Shutterstock, Car theft via Shutterstock, Tor diagram via Electronic Frontier Foundation, CCTV cameras via Shutterstock

The post Not Just For Paranoids: 4 Reasons To Encrypt Your Digital Life appeared first on MakeUseOf.

How To Add A Photo Slideshow To YouTube

Creating a photo slideshow is about the wow-factor. It is also about convenience. The viewer can enjoy the smooth transition of one photo to another like the actual thread of events. Slideshows are part and parcel of photo displays – you can create one at the touch of button on any self-respecting image tool like IrfanView or Picasa. Bakari showed you how to put together a travel slideshow in iPhoto. But do you know something that’s even more convenient – turning a photo slideshow into a video.

A couple of years back, I showed you how to how to convert a PowerPoint 2010 presentation into a video with one click. Since then videos have become only easier to compile, combine, and compose. YouTube crossed over to 1 billion users just a few days ago and despite the presence of very good alternatives like Vimeo, it is the de-facto home for online videos. So, it makes sense to upload your first photo slideshow on YouTube.

Only the question remains – how do you add and share a photo slideshow on YouTube?

The Easy Way – Take YouTube’s Help

YouTube has made it really easy to upload media and create a video from within YouTube itself. Log into YouTube with your Google credentials and then follow the uncomplicated steps below to create your first photo slideshow on YouTube.

1. On your YouTube page, hit the Upload button that’s next to the search bar on top. If you are lost, here’s the Upload page to jump straight to from here.

2. Click on the Create button for Photo slideshow.

3. Select the photos for your YouTube slideshow. Google automatically gives you the first option to bring in your saved photos from Google+ or Picasa Web albums. (As of March this year, the Picasa URL redirects to Google+ as Google+ is in all probability centralizing photo sharing).

4. But no; if you want to upload photos instead from your desktop you can. Click on Upload Photos and drag ‘n drop your selected photos from your computer.

Once all photos are uploaded and in the timeline, you can drag the around and re-arrange their sequence.

5. After all photos are re-arranged in the right sequence for your photo-story, hit the next button to go to the business end of the YouTube slideshow creator. The screen you see will be something like this:

The slideshow creator is self-explanatory. You can set the slide duration, slide effect, and transitions. YouTube also gives you a choice of 150,000 tracks for a background score if you want to add some musical pizzazz to your video. If not, go with the No Audio option. YouTube does not allow you to upload your own audio files.

6. You can also go into the Advanced Editor and really fine-tune your video by controlling transitions, applying Instagram-styled effects, add text…and a whole lot of other controls which you should experiment with for a great looking photo slideshow. The screenshot below gives you an idea of the Advanced Editor and a small cross-section of the image effects you can apply.

Do regard this note from YouTube – Advertisements may be displayed on videos that use content available through the YouTube Video Editor. In this case, it is the music track which I have added.

7. You can also change the Privacy from Info & Settings. You have the choice of taking it Public, keeping it Unlisted, or going Private and sharing it with only a few people. The Info & Settings page also allows you to add a title and a description.

YouTube takes some time to process the video before it is displayed in your profile. You can go back and again edit the slideshow if you wish.

Here’s the YouTube Help page which will give you the nitty-gritty on the various features of the video editor.

Create A Video Slideshow On Windows Movie Maker

Windows dropped the Live from the title and just called it Movie Maker (Version 12). If you don’t have it on your Windows 7 and 8 systems, you can download or update it from Microsoft. It might be basic for serious video editing work, but if you want to put together a photo slideshow in the form of a video, it gives you enough bells and whistles for the job. With a bunch of pictures, in ten minutes or less, you can have your own ‘home movie’.

1. The interface has a preview pane on the left and the content pane on the right. You can click on Add videos and photos to bring in your photos into the content pane. You can drag the photos around to arrange them. The Content pane also works like a timeline. You can also add a title slide that will be like an introduction – Click Title on the Home tab. Also, clicking the playhead on the Preview pane gives you an idea of how your video plays out. Windows Movie Maker also gives you complete control if you want to embellish the slides with custom text. All system fonts, colors, and font sizes are available.

2. Click on Edit under Video Tools and change the duration of the displays.

4. Add animations and/or effects from the Animations and Visual Effects tabs respectively. You can apply them collectively or individually to each picture in your slideshow.

For instance, you can make the slides more interesting by making them pan up or pan down. The number of effects you have to play around with is more than what you get on YouTube’s own video editor (more than 60 transitions).

You can also take advantage of the Movie Maker AutoMovie themes, which automatically build in fun visual effects and transitions.

5. Windows Movie Maker also lets you upload your music or source it from royalty free music sites featured on the Add Music menu.

6. When it’s time to publish your photo slideshow, you can save it to your desktop or choose among SkyDrive, Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo, and Flickr. You can publish directly to YouTube by picking a resolution. Log-in with your Windows Live ID and then publish the photo slideshow by logging in with your Google ID.

Windows Movie Maker gives you more ways to ‘creatively’ enhance your photos than YouTube’s own video editor. I like the options it gives me – I can save it to my desktop, publish it just to carry around on my smartphone, or push it upwards to YouTube.

These two are the simplest ways to create a photo slideshow and upload to YouTube. I think you must have got the ease with which you can create a few memory bytes on YouTube and share it with friends and family. I use YouTube to send across video greeting cards made out of old photos. It certainly beats the sameness of e-card sites and gives a personal spin to your thoughts.

What uses can you put photo slideshows to? Do you have any other tool for the job…a web application perhaps? But are they really better than these two easily available and free resources? Tell us in the comments.

The post How To Add A Photo Slideshow To YouTube appeared first on MakeUseOf.

How To Add A Photo Slideshow To YouTube

Creating a photo slideshow is about the wow-factor. It is also about convenience. The viewer can enjoy the smooth transition of one photo to another like the actual thread of events. Slideshows are part and parcel of photo displays – you can create one at the touch of button on any self-respecting image tool like IrfanView or Picasa. Bakari showed you how to put together a travel slideshow in iPhoto. But do you know something that’s even more convenient – turning a photo slideshow into a video.

A couple of years back, I showed you how to how to convert a PowerPoint 2010 presentation into a video with one click. Since then videos have become only easier to compile, combine, and compose. YouTube crossed over to 1 billion users just a few days ago and despite the presence of very good alternatives like Vimeo, it is the de-facto home for online videos. So, it makes sense to upload your first photo slideshow on YouTube.

Only the question remains – how do you add and share a photo slideshow on YouTube?

The Easy Way – Take YouTube’s Help

YouTube has made it really easy to upload media and create a video from within YouTube itself. Log into YouTube with your Google credentials and then follow the uncomplicated steps below to create your first photo slideshow on YouTube.

1. On your YouTube page, hit the Upload button that’s next to the search bar on top. If you are lost, here’s the Upload page to jump straight to from here.

2. Click on the Create button for Photo slideshow.

3. Select the photos for your YouTube slideshow. Google automatically gives you the first option to bring in your saved photos from Google+ or Picasa Web albums. (As of March this year, the Picasa URL redirects to Google+ as Google+ is in all probability centralizing photo sharing).

4. But no; if you want to upload photos instead from your desktop you can. Click on Upload Photos and drag ‘n drop your selected photos from your computer.

Once all photos are uploaded and in the timeline, you can drag the around and re-arrange their sequence.

5. After all photos are re-arranged in the right sequence for your photo-story, hit the next button to go to the business end of the YouTube slideshow creator. The screen you see will be something like this:

The slideshow creator is self-explanatory. You can set the slide duration, slide effect, and transitions. YouTube also gives you a choice of 150,000 tracks for a background score if you want to add some musical pizzazz to your video. If not, go with the No Audio option. YouTube does not allow you to upload your own audio files.

6. You can also go into the Advanced Editor and really fine-tune your video by controlling transitions, applying Instagram-styled effects, add text…and a whole lot of other controls which you should experiment with for a great looking photo slideshow. The screenshot below gives you an idea of the Advanced Editor and a small cross-section of the image effects you can apply.

Do regard this note from YouTube – Advertisements may be displayed on videos that use content available through the YouTube Video Editor. In this case, it is the music track which I have added.

7. You can also change the Privacy from Info & Settings. You have the choice of taking it Public, keeping it Unlisted, or going Private and sharing it with only a few people. The Info & Settings page also allows you to add a title and a description.

YouTube takes some time to process the video before it is displayed in your profile. You can go back and again edit the slideshow if you wish.

Here’s the YouTube Help page which will give you the nitty-gritty on the various features of the video editor.

Create A Video Slideshow On Windows Movie Maker

Windows dropped the Live from the title and just called it Movie Maker (Version 12). If you don’t have it on your Windows 7 and 8 systems, you can download or update it from Microsoft. It might be basic for serious video editing work, but if you want to put together a photo slideshow in the form of a video, it gives you enough bells and whistles for the job. With a bunch of pictures, in ten minutes or less, you can have your own ‘home movie’.

1. The interface has a preview pane on the left and the content pane on the right. You can click on Add videos and photos to bring in your photos into the content pane. You can drag the photos around to arrange them. The Content pane also works like a timeline. You can also add a title slide that will be like an introduction – Click Title on the Home tab. Also, clicking the playhead on the Preview pane gives you an idea of how your video plays out. Windows Movie Maker also gives you complete control if you want to embellish the slides with custom text. All system fonts, colors, and font sizes are available.

2. Click on Edit under Video Tools and change the duration of the displays.

4. Add animations and/or effects from the Animations and Visual Effects tabs respectively. You can apply them collectively or individually to each picture in your slideshow.

For instance, you can make the slides more interesting by making them pan up or pan down. The number of effects you have to play around with is more than what you get on YouTube’s own video editor (more than 60 transitions).

You can also take advantage of the Movie Maker AutoMovie themes, which automatically build in fun visual effects and transitions.

5. Windows Movie Maker also lets you upload your music or source it from royalty free music sites featured on the Add Music menu.

6. When it’s time to publish your photo slideshow, you can save it to your desktop or choose among SkyDrive, Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo, and Flickr. You can publish directly to YouTube by picking a resolution. Log-in with your Windows Live ID and then publish the photo slideshow by logging in with your Google ID.

Windows Movie Maker gives you more ways to ‘creatively’ enhance your photos than YouTube’s own video editor. I like the options it gives me – I can save it to my desktop, publish it just to carry around on my smartphone, or push it upwards to YouTube.

These two are the simplest ways to create a photo slideshow and upload to YouTube. I think you must have got the ease with which you can create a few memory bytes on YouTube and share it with friends and family. I use YouTube to send across video greeting cards made out of old photos. It certainly beats the sameness of e-card sites and gives a personal spin to your thoughts.

What uses can you put photo slideshows to? Do you have any other tool for the job…a web application perhaps? But are they really better than these two easily available and free resources? Tell us in the comments.

The post How To Add A Photo Slideshow To YouTube appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Attach Images in the New Gmail Compose Interface

Gmail's new compose interface has many useful features, but there are also some annoyances.



The old interface had two ways to upload images using drag and drop: as attachments or as inline images. The new interface only lets you place images inside the message when you drag and drop them. There are many reasons why you might find this feature annoying: it's more difficult to compose a message after adding a bunch of images, the images could be distracting, Gmail no longer adds cool options like "download all attachments", "view" or "download" when you open the message, some mail clients block inline images.



Fortunately, you can use the "attach files" paperclip button to add image attachments. The "insert photos" button will embed the images. If you still want to drag and drop a photo, you can drag the photo you want to attach and some other random file (for example, a PDF file or another image) and remove the random file. It's a workaround that forces Gmail to treat images like regular files. When you drag and drop multiple images, they're added as attachments.

For now, you can "temporarily switch to the old compose" interface by clicking the arrow button at the bottom of the compose box and selecting the corresponding option, but the new interface is here to stay, while the old one will be retired in the near future. The new UI for composing messages is now the default for all Gmail users.