Setting Up A Blog Part 2: Tumblr, Blogger, And Other Services

Yesterday’s article examined the pros and cons of setting up your own blog using a web host, domain name and software like WordPress. While this method takes some time, money and effort on your part it also provides a high level of control over your personal online outlet.

The alternative is to use a “sign-up” service like Blogger, Tumblr and WordPress.com which provides a quicker way to start writing rather than creating SQL databases and fiddling with plugins. While this method is more appealing for newcomers, there are some drawbacks and potential concerns and we’ll be looking out for them here.

Hopefully you can then decide which service is right for you.

Choosing A Service

The hardest thing you’ll have to do if you opt to not host your own blog is decide on the service you want to use. A few years ago this was easy – LiveJournal and Blogger dominated, providing a generation of teenagers with a place to moan about the wrongs in the world but these days there are more services to choose from than ever before, each with a niche.

WordPress.com might be the first port of call, largely because it’s very similar to hosting your own WordPress install with a little less control over the end results. You get 3GB of free space, social integration and analytics as well as the ability to change themes and such. Premium features include themes, custom domains and the removal of adverts, each of which is billed yearly.

Tumblr is home to a mixed bag of content creators, with an emphasis on visual and rich media. That’s not to say words don’t belong on Tumblr, and there are some great themes with an emphasis on typography. Blogger, a Google product, is used by the company to release news about new and existing products which received a facelift a few years ago and continues to focus on being a primarily written-word platform. Last of all, there’s a crossover platform in the form of social media.

Tumblr, Blogger and the big two “publishing” social platforms that are Facebook and Google+ are all infinitely more “social” than your self-hosted website. Tumblr has the ability to follow users, like Twitter. Blogger can use your Google account to keep track of updates and Facebook and Google+ are built on top of swelling user bases and a demand for shared content. Facebook has the subscribe button for individuals, or the Like button for pages and G+ is all about circling people you like. These are now viable options for publishing your thoughts, though the price is customization and an opportunity to appear unique. Put simply, everyone’s Google+ and Facebook posts look the same.

Once you’ve come to a decision the hard part is over – next you’ve got to name, theme and get on with it. Theming such services is often restrictive, though Blogger, WordPress.com and Tumblr all have options for custom themes, with the latter two offering a range of premium themes as well. In addition to this, each service can be used with a custom domain, though WordPress.com will charge you for this.

These “sign-up” services will never ask you to maintain the workings of your blog – it will all be taken care of for you. This is in contrast to a self-hosted WordPress blog which requires constant maintenance to patch security holes in both the core engine and plugins.

Made Your Mind Up?

As a blogger looking to use one of these services you should be prepared for restrictions, particularly those designed to make the providers money. Small premium upgrades can add up to more than the price of a hosting plan and domain, so be wary of this. You’re also bound in writing when it comes to submitting yourself to the service’s terms of service and privacy agreements which can (and do) change at any time. Don’t agree with something? Time to move your musings elsewhere – and what a hassle that can be.

While it’s true that the maintenance of your blog using a service like this is not necessarily down to you, that’s not to say you’re safe. No website is safe from attack, and the implications of a service-wide attack can be just as damaging as an isolated attack on your personal webspace. Tumblr recently exemplified this when their support system, Zendesk, was compromised…though the support system is also used by Twitter and Pinterest.

The company admitted that: “subject lines of your emails to Tumblr Support may have included the address of your blog which could potentially allow your blog to be unwillingly associated with your email address” and “other information included in the subject lines of emails you’ve sent to Tumblr Support may be exposed“. For some people this could be a devastating event, particularly if the whole point of the blog is to remain anonymous.

One Last Thing

Despite the restrictions, the chance that your blog will look virtually identical to someone else’s and those small premium upgrades that add up to a lot of money, there is one far greater potential drawback to choosing to host your blog using such a service: the potential for closure. Who is to say that Google, who have recently closed iGoogle and Google Reader, won’t just pull the plug on Blogger? For the moment that looks unlikely, because Google still uses Blogger but the point still stands for any of these services.

Posterous was a real alternative to Tumblr that had been running since 2008, providing tight typographic layouts and manageable mini-sites to professional, Twitter-types. Unfortunately for the many who still use the service it has been announced that on April 30 of this year the service will be switched off, a direct result of the service being acquired by Twitter. Thankfully the service has made it easy to export data, and there is even talk of a premium alternative. The fact remains that this could happen to the service you choose, and you should be aware before making a decision.

Pros to choosing an existing blog service:

• Fast and easy set up, the quickest way to get blogging.


• No maintenance on software.


• Themes, custom domains and other limited customizations.


• Social, community-driven services aided with sharing.

Cons to choosing an existing blog service:

• Restrictions on what you can do to your blog, some premium features.


• Must adhere to terms and conditions as well as privacy policies.


• Potential closure of the service.


• Security breaches can affect a whole network of users.

Whatever you choose remember that the real reason people will visit your blog is for the content. Without this, you don’t even have a blog and take it from me, spending ages trying to work out which option is right for you only slows down the process of actually publishing some content. Make your choice, and stick to it – happy blogging!

What do you think – is it better to pick a self-hosted blog or sign up for a service? Have your say in the comments below and don’t forget to read part 1 of this article.

The post Setting Up A Blog Part 2: Tumblr, Blogger, And Other Services appeared first on MakeUseOf.

iOS 6.1.3 still vulnerable to lock screen bypass flaw [video]

Just two days ago, Apple released a software update iOS 6.1.3 to fix a lock screen vulnerability that allowed unauthorized users to bypass the four-digit PIN code, but the new iOS 6.1.3 has also a security hole.

This security flwa was found by “videosdebarraquito” and showing in a video that how to bypass the lock screen on an iPhone 4 using a paperclip.

Here is the video that demonstrate how to bypass the passcode.

You can be protect from this security flaw by disable the “Voice Dial” option, (Settings > tap General > Passcode Lock > disable Voice Dial)

The post iOS 6.1.3 still vulnerable to lock screen bypass flaw [video] appeared first on Hack Illusion.

Related posts:

1. Security Flaw in Samsung Galaxy Note II : Bypass Lock Screen


2. Lookout released patch for Samsung Android Lock Screen Vulnerability


3. 5 Tips To Secure Your iPhone or iPad Device

Write, And Let The World Revise Your Work With Prose.io For GitHub

Traditionally, writing is a solitary affair. It’s just you and the screen, or a piece of paper. Man versus text in a battle of wills, wits, and emotion, until suddenly – you’re done. Now it’s time to show the world, to put your text out there and watch what happens. But in these digital times, that’s not the only way to go about writing.

What if it was all out in the open, all along? What if the world could see your revisions and follow along, making suggestions? On the face of it, this may seem like a horrible idea – but for some kinds of texts (and for certain writers), such open collaboration may be a boon. Prose is a simple online publishing platform that interfaces with GitHub to let you edit text online and keep revisions using Git.

Getting Started

To work with Prose, you must first have a GitHub account. Assuming you’re logged into Git, simply click the Prose’s Authorize button:

Git will then ask if you’re sure you want to authorize Prose. Prose requires quite a few permissions, but they all make sense:

Next, you’ll find yourself back in Prose, looking at a list of all of your Git repositories:

If you’re like me, none of your existing repositories are a good fit for a bunch of text. Of course, this may not be true for you: For example, if you are using the Jekyll publishing framework, you may already have a repository just waiting for text. In fact, much of Prose seems to be built with Jekyll users in mind: Prose even lets you publish to Jekyll. That said, you don’t need Jekyll to make use of Prose, and I’ve looked at it without connecting it to anything else.

So, to begin, let’s make a new home for our text.

Creating a New GitHub Repository

To create a new GitHub repository, you’d have to go back to GitHub itself – this isn’t something you can do on Prose. Prose suggests naming your new repository “documents,” so that’s what I did.

Immediately after creating the repository, it showed up within Prose:

Editing a Document

Clicking into my fresh Documents repository, I am greeted by GitHub’s default README.md. MD, in this case, stands for Markdown – the same simple format used by Dillinger.io, TextDown, WriteMonkey, and countless other editors. If you’ve been composing text for online use for any length of time, chances are you’ve come across Markdown more than once.

Clicking on the document, a simple editing interface came up:

It is blissfully free of any ads, and has a muted color scheme that’s easy on the eyes. It also has syntax highlighting for Markdown, and instead of an instant-preview pane (like the one used in Dillinger.io), previewing your text rendered into HTML requires a quick toolbar click:

You can get to the preview screen using Ctrl+Shift+right arrow. Ctrl+Shift+left arrow takes you to a Markdown cheat sheet, in case you’d like to refresh your memory.

The editor is tasteful, but doesn’t offer a live word-count feature, something I would expect from any tool aimed at writers. It also disables Chrome’s built-in spellchecker, making your text that much more prone to typos.

Publishing (Or Saving)

Unless you’re using Jekyll, publishing and saving is pretty much the same thing: As soon as you save, your text is committed to a GitHub repository. Unless you’re a paying GitHub user and opted for a private repository, this means everyone can now see your text. The first commit looked like this:

And after a few more quick scribblings, GitHub’s commit history for the repository looked like this:

Very transparent, but also secure: Revisions make it nearly impossible to lose your work. You can save, then remove a large chunk of your document, but you’d always be able to get it back. It’s like an unlimited Undo feature that keeps working even if you switch off your computer or move to a different one.

This is far from everything Prose can do: For example, you could use Prose to edit another person’s document and submit a pull request for them to accept your revisions – just like coders do. There are many other things you could do with Prose, but its core principle remains the same: Git for writing.

Final Thoughts

To me, Prose feels more like an invitation than a tool. An invitation to think, compose, draft, out in the open. To overcome “publication fear” by constantly publishing as you write, so that there is no single “moment of truth” – your thoughts have been out there in the world all along, typos, inconsistencies, and all. There are other ways to do this, from wikis to standard Git clients, but Prose doesn’t pretend to be an exclusive idea – it just packages things neatly so that the concept stands out. Whether or not it’s the right way for you to write is a personal choice – a choice I’d be curious to hear about, if you’d tell me in the comments.

The post Write, And Let The World Revise Your Work With Prose.io For GitHub appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Ilomilo: Cute, Challenging Xbox Live Puzzler For Windows Phone

As games go, I’m usually a top-down strategy fan with a bit of first person shooting thrown in. Perhaps add a sprinkling or MMORPG and resource management and I’m happy.

What I really can’t abide when it comes to gaming is puzzle games. Similarly, I’ve no time for cutesy, ditsy, cynically-designed characters with hack-written backstories that are supposed to make me “care”.

I’ve largely avoided puzzle games over the last twenty years, which makes be wonder why on earth I’m reviewing Ilomilo, a Windows Phone title that features cutesy, ditsy characters with backstories that could have come from a cereal packet and plenty of puzzles.

Either I’ve gone mad under the strain of playing so many Windows Phone games of late, or else Ilomilo really is rather good – certainly good enough to erase the nightmarish hell of endless 8-bit and 16-bit puzzlers with pipes and bombs.

What’s It All About?

This unusual little game is very simple. You basically have to control and reunite two friends, Ilo and Milo, across a succession of puzzle landscapes that sit upon a surrealistic backdrop. The puzzles are constructed from cubes that Ilo and Milo can walk on, and some of these can be interacted with in various ways – some might be keys, others might transport your character to the other side of the map.

Ilomilo is a single player game, which means that only you can control where the characters go. This is the puzzle element, and some levels can take several attempts to get right if you don’t make the right choices at the right time.

First released back in the days of Windows Phone 7, Ilomilo is an Xbox Live title, so if you unlock achievements you can improve your Gamerscore!

The Pleasure of Playability

One of my long-standing issues with puzzle games is that I find them largely unplayable. I’m barely a few levels in before things start to get stupid – a new element is introduced without the designers actually bothering to provide any context or attempting to construct more devilish challenges with the existing tools, for instance.

Ilomilo, on the other hand, features a very easy to handle user interface and helpful hints at the start of each level. Simple arrow buttons on the display can be used to guide Ilo and Milo around, a switch character button is placed where you might expect to find the jump/fire button in another type of game, and any additional functions offered by the puzzle’s landscape will appear as new buttons when your active character is beside the appropriate tool.

Thanks to the graphics and sound (more on that below), Ilomilo is an eminently playable and pleasurable experience, marred only by that staple Windows Phone issue – the inability to disable the Back, Start and Search buttons on the handset. I’ve never spent more than 5 minutes on any game on this platform without finding myself back at the Start screen and having to tap Back in order to resume gameplay…

Graphics and Sound

What really makes Ilomilo work – beyond its playability – is the way in which the graphics and sound have been designed. Yes, I usually hate cutesy characters but here in Ilomilo they somehow work, fitting in well with the 3D world in which they inhabit and the accompanying soundtrack that helps to enhance the surreal landscapes.

You’ll probably be stunned by the way the puzzle floats above a bizarre background, how the screen flips around when you switch between Ilo and Milo and perhaps even by the gyro-powered movement of the backdrop that enhances the three dimensional illusion. When I first played Ilomilo I was amazed that a Windows Phone could do this, but this platform really is great for gaming as well as other tasks (our Windows Phone guide explains further).

Get Ilomilo’d!

Another great game for Windows Phone, Ilomilo features Xbox Live integration and offers a series of increasingly difficult puzzles against a stunning backdrop of surrealist 3D nonsense. I doubt that I’ve overcome my disdain for cutesy, ill-conceived characters, but at least Ilomilo has restored my faith in the writers who create these types of story.

The only downside, perhaps, is the price. You get a good flavor from playing Ilomilo in demo mode, however, but $4.99/£3.99 seems a little steep when compared to newer titles. Nevertheless, it is one of the best games for Windows Phone and has been since 2010, which is why we’ve included it in our Best Windows Phone Apps list.

The post Ilomilo: Cute, Challenging Xbox Live Puzzler For Windows Phone appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Take Reddit Out Of The Browser With These 7 Desktop Reddit Clients [Windows]

Do you love Reddit’s content, but wish it was organized differently? Try out a Reddit client for Windows. These third-party programs arrange the content you already love in a way you just might find yourself preferring – subreddits in columns, notifications in your system tray or a quick summary what’s going on just a popup window away. Advanced features even deliver text-only versions of articles and automatically pull down images, vastly increasing the efficiency of your time-wasting.

Those who use Twitter know about Twitter clients: third party programs that bring the features of the popular social networking site to the desktop. Such clients typically offer features not part of the web experience, such as support for multiple accounts or embedded content from links. Some like them for the desktop notifications alone. There used to be hundreds of Twitter clients, but they’ve seen a decline recently.

There aren’t many Reddit clients right now – the idea hasn’t taken off in a big way. But there are a few, and if you’re at all interested in streamlining your Reddit experience I highly recommend you check them out.

Are you confused about Reddit in general? Read our Reddit manual, then come back. We’ll start with the most full-featured Reddit client and outline some simpler ones.

Reditr

Simply put, this is currently the best Reddit client for Windows out there. All of your subreddits are organized into tiles, full-text versions of articles are embedded above comments thanks to Readability, and all images can be quickly previewed by simply hovering your mouse.

And, of course, you can comment, post and vote from within the program. It really unifies the Reddit experience. It’s a project that’s underway, and you might run into a few bugs, but if you consider yourself a power-user of Reddit there’s no reason not to check out Reditr today.

Reditr isn’t just for Windows – there’s a Mac and a Linux version. Read my full review of Reditr if you want more information, but please note, there have been many improvements since it was written.

Windows 8 Apps For Reddit

If you’re a Windows 8 user, good news – the Metro interface seems to have inspired more than a few people to create Reddit clients. For example, there’s RedditToGo, which offers and intuitive experience for Windows 8.

Browse your favorites – you can even see a full version of a linked-to website alongside the Reddit-powered comments.

But that’s not the only Reddit app offered in the Microsoft Store: it’s simply the top-rated one. If you don’t like Reddit To Go there’s always Snoo for Reddit and Charming Reddit, two Windows 8 clients for Reddit we’ve yet to review here. Their layout and function is similar to RedditToGo in my experience, but if you prefer one app over another please, let us know below.

Pokki Apps For Reddit

Of course some people don’t have Windows 8 – and others who have it and wish they didn’t. It’s why Pokki, a Windows app that adds smartphone-style ‘apps’ to the Windows taskbar went out of its way to provide a start menu for Windows 8 users.

But a replacement start menu isn’t the only thing Pokki brings – there are also a couple of Reddit apps that bring the best of the web to your taskbar. Reddi, for example, is a quick way to see what’s popular on Reddit. You sadly cannot sign into your account, but if all you want is the occasional distraction, Reddi provides a quick popup for the task

If you’re more concerned about not missing any messages from other Reddit users, however, you should check out Oranged, which adds the Reddit inbox to your Windows taskbar. With this Pokki app you’ll be notified every time someone responds or PMs you on Reddit.

Notifications

Of course, if all you want is notifications, you should check out RedditNotify. This handy tray icon lets you know when someone contacts you on Reddit, right from the Windows tray.

If you’d rather avoid installing a separate program for this, consider Reddit Desktop Notifications for Chrome, a browser extension that serves a similar function.

Browser Plugins Of Note

We’ve drifted from desktop clients at this point, but no list of Reddit power tools is complete without bringing up the Reddit Enhancement Suite. This browser – for most major browsers – adds a variety of functions to Reddit you won’t believe weren’t there to begin with. Check out Josh’s piece on using Reddit like a boss for more information – you’ll be glad you did.

Other Operating Systems

That’s most of the Windows-based tools I can think of, but if you’re like most people, you use more than one platform at this point. If you’ve got an Android phone or tablet, for example, you’ll be happy to know about Reddit Is Fun, a great Android Reddit Client. There are actually several Android apps for Reddit, if you dig long enough.

If you’re an Apple fan, know that Alien Blue is a superb iPad app for Reddit (at least, according to James. I don’t always trust him).

Know Of Any Others?

I have to say, I was surprised how hard it was to find a wide variety of Reddit clients for Windows. Do you know of any others? If so, please share them in the comments below, along with your thoughts about the above choices.

The post Take Reddit Out Of The Browser With These 7 Desktop Reddit Clients [Windows] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Save Online Videos And Audio To Check Out Later With 4k Video Downloader

How many times have you discovered a cool video on YouTube and realized that you didn’t have enough time to watch it, and wanted to bring it with you to watch on your tablet while riding the train? How about that awesome video podcast that you’d love to listen to while waiting at the doctor’s office?

Well, you don’t have to be in a place where there’s Internet, and you don’t have to be tied to a computer to enjoy video that you discover on the Internet. Here at MakeUseOf, we’ve covered a lot of different ways to download videos from YouTube. Simon described how to get the videos using YouTube Downloader. More recently, Matt described how to get the videos onto your Mac for local viewing.

There’s something just a little different with 4k Video Downloader. Maybe it’s the fact that it’s a lot more streamlined than most other apps like this. Maybe it’s the ability to download only audio so that you can listen to music or podcasts using your MP3 player or iPod, rather than downloading entire videos.

Either way you look at it, 4K Video Downloader can make your whole experience with getting media off the Internet a lot simpler and more convenient.

Enjoy Video Whenever and Wherever You Want

Maybe one of your friends shared a really amazing Ted Talk on Facebook. You’re in the middle of doing something, but you want to make sure to watch the video later when you’re riding home on the bus. Maybe you’re on a business trip and before you get on the plane, you want to make sure you have your favorite YouTube talk show to listen to.

4K Video Downloader can save you in situations like this. It is a free software, but you have to be careful not to install the default Oople toolbar (unless you want it of course), by clicking Custom Installation and unselecting all of the checkboxes.

Once the download finishes and 4K Video Downloader launches, you might be a bit misled by how simple the application looks. It’s essentially a box that you can place on your screen, ready to accept videos from nearly any site on the Internet that you want to download locally to watch later.

All you have to do is highlight the URL in your browser, or copy the URL that your friend shared in Facebook. It’s really that simple. Don’t worry about the embed code or any special unique video id. It doesn’t matter what website it is, just highlight the URL and copy it.



Right click anywhere inside the 4K Video Downloader box and choose “Paste URL”.

The software automatically detects the video on the linked web page, and lets you save the video in a variety of formats. The format you choose really depends on what you want to use to watch it later. On your laptop, you can choose a higher resolution video that takes up more space, or if you’re planning to watch it later on your tablet, you may want to choose a lower resolution and quality to save some space, and speed up the download as well.

The download process will launch inside of the center pane. You can go off and do other things on your computer while the download is taking place, or find other videos to download. This download will take place in the background.

I have to say that when I discovered this app, I found a ton of different ways to use it. I’ve saved inspirational videos on my tablet to pull out and watch during those times when the day gets really hard, I’m tired, and I just feel like giving up.

It’s really cool to have the videos handy at a moment’s notice, without any Internet connection required. In fact, I liked this particular video so much that I used the 4K Video Downloaders audio-extraction feature to save the audio of this video into an MP3 file on my phone.

There are times when I just pop on earphones, close my eyes and listen to this entire stream. It just makes me feel empowered, invincible, and capable of anything. It’s nice to have a quick fix with videos like these – and video sites across the Internet are full of inspirational videos like these for you to download and enjoy. Whether it’s the video itself or the audio that you want to save for later, 4K Video Downloader has you covered.

It lets you define the path where all of your downloaded content will get saved. You can copy from this location to your other devices, like your tablet or your mobile phone.

The software also includes a “Smart Mode”, if you tend to always select the same resolution and file format. You just set the format and quality in the Smart Mode box, and that will be the default whenever you paste a link into the application.



This saves a ton of time, because there’s no clicking around involved. You paste a link and it instantly goes to your download location in the format that you want. This lets you fly through video sites, saving your favorite content to watch or listen to later.

Do you have your own approach to save video or audio content to watch later on your mobile devices? What software do you use? Try out 4K Video Downloader and let us know what you think in the comments section below!

Image Credits: Film to Computer Via Shutterstock

The post Save Online Videos And Audio To Check Out Later With 4k Video Downloader appeared first on MakeUseOf.