Error 404 (Not Found)!!1

Jack Fellows, a reader of this blog, asked a question about Google's 404 error page: "Google changed their 404 error pages a couple of years ago now, and yet the title still says (and has from day 1) 'Error 404 (Not Found)!!1'. The exclamations marks don't look very professional anyway, but the '1' at the end looks really pants... or is it just me?!"

I don't think it's a mistake. It's probably a joke that references the "!1 phenomenon" meme. "In many cases, a string of exclamation marks followed by '1' can be read as a careless typo, though it has been increasingly used with intention to express a sense of urgency or excitement. While the configuration of QWERTY keyboard layout varies across different language zones, an exclamation point is almost always invoked by holding down the shift key and pressing the digit / symbol key (1/!). As a result, the erroneous input of '1' after a string of exclamation points became a common typo in online chat, especially when typing in haste."



On a related note, it's strange to see that Google's 404 error pages don't include useful information: a search box and a list of relevant pages. For example, when you type in the address bar www.google.com/chat, Google should suggest www.google.com/talk or this page about Gmail Chat.

How to Disable Google News for Tablets

If you don't like the tablet interface for Google News, there's a non-obvious way to switch to the desktop interface. Tap the "gear" button from the top-right of the page, select "Settings", uncheck "Use the new Google News (uncheck to revert to the old version)" and then tap "Save changes".

The tablet interface was launched in December 2012 and the goal was to add support for gestures. "You can find new articles, news sources, and even topics of interest with intuitive gestures. Swipe horizontally between sections – from Business to Entertainment, for example – or tap 'Explore in depth' to see multiple articles and other info related to a particular story." Google News for tablets is only available for English editions.

Microsoft Brings Skype Into Outlook.com’s Email Interface [Updates]

Microsoft’s Skype integration continues with the latest addition of Skype to the company’s Outlook.com email service. This new Skype integration is just a preview for now, and will only be available in the UK at this time. In the next few weeks, users in the US and Germany will be able to enjoy the preview as well, with the rest of the world joining them “in the coming months”.

Skype for Outlook.com brings video and audio calls to Outlook.com’s interface, making it possible to initiate Skype calls right from your inbox. So next time you’re writing an email and suddenly realize text is just not enough, you should be able to start a voice or video chat with just a click or two.

In case you’re not familiar with it, Outlook.com is Microsoft’s newest version of Web email service, and was launched last year as a replacement for the seasoned Hotmail.

In order to try out the preview of Skype for Outlook.com, you will have to install a browser plugin which is currently available for Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome. You will also have to link your Skype account to your Outlook.com account, thus merging your Microsoft and Skype accounts. If you’ve already done this — as preparation for Window Live Messenger’s demise, for example — you should be all set. Linking your Skype account will add your Skype contacts to your Outlook.com contacts.

Do you like the idea of Skype and email integration? If you’re in the UK, let us know what you think of Skype for Outlook.com!

Source: Skype Blog

The post Microsoft Brings Skype Into Outlook.com’s Email Interface [Updates] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

An Impressive Web-based App for Photos Editing

Picozu is an impressive web-based image editing app that offers dozes of filters and image effects, support Photoshop layers and is completely free.

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This story, An Impressive Web-based App for Photos Editing, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 30/04/2013 under Image Editing, Websites, Internet.

What Can I Buy With Bitcoin? [MakeUseOf Explains]

If you’ve never heard of Bitcoin before, then don’t worry because you’re in the majority. Let’s just say that it’s a virtual currency (meaning you’ll never be able to hold an actual Bitcoin in your hands) and leave it at that. For some people, that might sound silly. For others, Bitcoin is slowly but surely becoming the currency of the future.

Over the month of March, the value of a single Bitcoin nearly quadrupled when it shot up from ~$40 USD to ~$140 USD. Combine that with the fact that there are nearly 11 million Bitcoins in circulation and you can see that Bitcoin isn’t something to scoff at. The concept of it is foreign, yes, and many distrust the integrity of the Bitcoin, but it’s turning into something that may very well be commonplace in a decade or so.

But as with all currencies, the main purpose of a currency is to allow the holder to purchase something using that currency. Who cares what the worth of a Bitcoin is if you can’t buy anything with it? So what can you buy with Bitcoins?

Before we delve into the uses of the Bitcoin, we need to understand what it is and why it exists. Learning this will give us insight into the kinds of people who have adopted the currency, the kinds of people who haven’t adopted the currency, and what sorts of goods and services fit the Bitcoin philosophy.

Simply put, Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency. This decentralization – which means that there is no central person, group, or organization that produces or regulates the Bitcoin – is one of Bitcoin’s main draws. For example, the American Dollar is controlled by the US. Bitcoin has no such owner, thus offering a level of anonymity that other currencies don’t provide. (Note: Bitcoin’s anonymity can be cracked, but that’s a topic for another time.)

The other draw of Bitcoin is its digital nature. The first world has been moving towards online shopping in sweeping movements over the last decade or so, and digital transactions are all the rage due to their convenience factor. At the click of a button or the swipe of a card, you can quickly and painlessly purchase goods at your leisure, even while wearing your pajamas.

Combine the decentralized, anonymous nature of Bitcoin with the convenience of digital currency and you can see why people would love it, at least in theory. If you want to learn more about Bitcoin before you continue, check out our very own MakeUseOf Bitcoin manual.

Now in order to hop into the Bitcoin economy and start buying things, you first need to get your hands on some Bitcoins. At this point, you have two options: you can either mine Bitcoins yourself, or you can just buy Bitcoins off of someone who has them in exchange for real world currency.

The term “mining” tends to be somewhat confusing for new Bitcoin users and there’s no guarantee that you’ll earn any Bitcoins for a while, so you should leave off mining until you’re better acquainted with the Bitcoin system. Until then, you’re better off just buying them off of trustworthy Bitcoin sources.

Once you have Bitcoins in your possession, how do you actually spend them? You need a Bitcoin wallet. This wallet is what tracks your Bitcoin status and it allows you to make Bitcoin transactions with other people or companies. Wallets can come in the form of software (computer programs), mobile (phone apps), or web (online sites). Be careful where you store your Bitcoins!

So by now, you’ve bought some Bitcoins to use and you have a properly functioning wallet. Where can you spend them and what sorts of items can you buy with them?

SpendBitCoins has a list of places that directly accept Bitcoins. The list is absolutely massive and the kinds of things you can buy are numerous. Their featured products include a Bitcoin-to-real-currency exchange, dedicated server hosting, and an online mining game.

The diversity of available purchases using Bitcoins is astounding. Don’t believe me?

• WordPress began accepting Bitcoin payments last year.


• BitMit is an online auction site not unlike Ebay.


• StompRomp is an American guitar store that accepts Bitcoins.


• BitJack21 is an Internet blackjack casino that uses Bitcoin as its main currency.


• Coindl is similar to iTunes: buy music, books, games, and software.


• Ogrr lets you buy and sell items from video games, like World of Warcraft.


• Bitcoin Store sells all kinds of electronics for Bitcoins.


• Coinabul converts your Bitcoins into gold and silver.


• Bitherbs sells herbal goods and natural products for Bitcoins.


• BannerAdExchange lets you buy advertisement space for Bitcoins.

I’m not going to go through and list everywhere you can spend Bitcoins, but it should be apparent that Bitcoin popularity is on the rise and you’ll eventually be able to buy whatever you want with it. All you have to do is look in the right places and search well. Check out Bitcoin’s own trade page to find categorized vendors.

And if you’re making person-to-person transactions, then you can literally buy anything as long as you can find the right people who are selling the right goods or services. Remember how Bitcoin is decentralized and therefore anonymous to a degree? Well, there is a subset of Bitcoin users who use the currency for illicit purposes. Let’s leave it at that. MakeUseOf does not condone illegal behavior of any kind.

What can you buy with Bitcoins? As it turns out, you can buy a lot. We aren’t at the point where you can waltz down to your nearest grocery store and buy a few apples yet, but we’re getting there. I’ll be honest: I never expected Bitcoin to gain this much traction, but I’m glad it has. Hopefully they can keep the momentum going and revolutionize world currency.

The post What Can I Buy With Bitcoin? [MakeUseOf Explains] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Share any Email Message in Gmail with the Outside World

With Scope, you can view the formatted HTML source of any message inside Gmail, it cleans them up removing the unnecessary style tags and you can publish the message as a public web page.

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This story, Share any Email Message in Gmail with the Outside World, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 30/04/2013 under Bookmarklets, GMail, Web Des, Internet.

Introducing Video Slides

With Video Slides, you can quickly create a beautiful slideshow from one or more videos pulled from Youtube and Vimeo. Just past the raw video URLs in any format and the tool will bundle them into a presentation.

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This story, Introducing Video Slides, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 30/04/2013 under Embed, YouTube, Internet.

Using Paint.NET? Make It Even Better With These Great Plugins

Have you ever needed to do computer artwork that involved more than simple crops and resizes? For a long time, your only real options were Paintshop Pro and Adobe Photoshop, although the rise of GIMP has provided users with a powerful free alternative. But in some cases, those tools are too powerful. What if you want something in the middle?

That’s where Paint.NET comes in. Don’t make the same mistake that I made in thinking that Paint.NET is the new version of Paint that comes with Windows 7. It’s not. Created by a guy named Rick Brewster, Paint.NET has become the best solution on Windows for when Paint is too barebones but Photoshop is too much.

It’s entirely free to use and the best part of Paint.NET is its community of plugin developers. Through the Paint.net plugin interface, you can extend the functionality of Paint.NET to be just as powerful as GIMP or Photoshop without all of the bloat and extra features that you’d never use. If you want a more in-depth overview, check out Aaron’s Paint.NET review.

How To Install Paint.NET Plugins

There are hundreds, maybe even thousands, of plugins that you can install for Paint.NET. The process isn’t as simple as the plugin interface on something like Firefox or Chrome (where all you really need to do is click on a link), but it’s still relatively easy.

Paint.NET plugins fit into two general categories: FileTypes and Effects. The installation process is the same for both of them because they all come in the form of DLL downloads. Sometimes after you download a plugin, it’ll be a ZIP or RAR file. Just unpack them and there should be a DLL inside. That’s what you want.

Once you have your plugin DLL, locate your Paint.NET installation directory. For me it was C:\Program Files\Paint.NET\ and yours should be the same if you didn’t set a custom destination when you installed it. Make sure your Paint.NET program is CLOSED before you proceed to the next step.

Inside that directory, you’ll see two subdirectories: Effects and FileTypes. Depending on the type of plugin you downloaded, you’ll want to drag-and-drop the DLL into the appropriate place. Relaunch Paint.NET and it should have the added functionality now. If not, you probably placed it in the wrong directory so move it from the one directory to the other.

Photoshop PSD (FileType)

This plugin allows you to both open PSD files and save your projects in the PSD format. I don’t expect the conversions to work 100% perfectly, but it’s almost there. For most PSD projects, anyway, you’ll be able to open and save them without a hitch, which makes it convenient when you want to fiddle around with it without having to open Photoshop.

Color Balance+ (Effect)

This plugin is similar to Photoshop’s own color balancing effect. There are three types of balancing that you can do – Highlights, Shadows, and Midtones. If you aren’t sure what color balancing is, then you can perform a quick Google search and learn within minutes because it’s a common technique in graphics work.

Color Balance+ comes as part of dpy’s plugin pack.

Text+ (Effect)

Though Paint.NET has a default function for placing text in your image, Text+ is a plugin that takes it to the next level. If you need precise levels of line spacing, draw positioning, and font pitch, then Text+ will work wonders for you.

Text+ comes as part of dpy’s plugin pack.

Circle / Rotate / Spiral / Wave Text (Effect)

These four plugins are separate and independent but they all manipulate text, so I’m bunching them together. The Circle plugin lets you write a line of text that gets drawn in a perfect circle. The Rotate plugin lets you skew a block of text so that it becomes angled. The Spiral plugin is like the Circle plugin, except it spirals in towards the center. And the Wave plugin makes the text all wavy.

These text effects are all part of dpy’s plugin pack.

Film (Effect)

This plugin takes an image and alters it in such a way that it looks like it was taken with a true film camera. It adds a touch of motion blur, some color correction, some balancing, and a few tweaks to hue and saturation, resulting in an image that appears genuine.

Film comes as part of pyrochild’s plugin pack.

Smudge Tool (Effect)

If you need to smudge your illustrations a bit, this smudging plugin will do that for you. It may not look like anything special in the image above, but it’s really useful for softening edges in illustrations or blurring out parts of pictures that you don’t want discernible.

Smudge Tool comes as part of pyrochild’s plugin pack.

Conclusion

There are so many other plugins that deserve a mention but I can’t possibly list all of them here. Moral of the story? Paint.NET is extremely powerful thanks to the massive library of plugins that you can install and use. Combine that with the large, active community surrounding this great program and you’ll see why Paint.NET is so great.

Check out the Paint.NET plugin database if you want to browse through some more.

So what do you think? Do you use Paint.NET? After learning about all of these plugins, I think Paint.NET is going to become my main image editor from here on out. Share your thoughts with us in the comments!

The post Using Paint.NET? Make It Even Better With These Great Plugins appeared first on MakeUseOf.

5 Android Music Recognition Apps Compared: Which Got The Most Songs Right?

Things are not the way they used to be in the music-recognition department. Several years ago, identifying an anonymous song you heard on the radio required some serious work. The easiest way was to catch some of the lyrics and Google them, hoping you’ll find the right song. If you had no lyrics, you were pretty much doomed with that song in your head, until someone could recognize it from your own singing (musical talent permitting).

Today, there are better ways to do this which you can use the very minute you hear the song. These solutions are available for all platforms, from Tunatic and Audiggle for desktop, and Shazam and SoundHound for iOS, to a Google-powered widget/feature available for newer versions of Android. Many apps claim to identify songs quickly and accurately, but which actually do it?

I put five music-recognition apps for Android to the test, pitting them all against seven songs of varying difficulty, and one humming test, in which I tried humming a well-known song to each app to see if it could recognize it. Which app came put on top? Which app should you use next time you must know what song is playing? Read on to find out.

The Apps

The apps I chose for this test are the most popular and highly-rated ones I could find on Google Play. They are:

1. Shazam

2. SoundHound

3. TrackID

4. mobion music global

5. musiXmatch Lyrics Player

Some of these music recognition app are more than just music-recognition apps, but for the purposes of this review, I ignored all other features and focused only on each app’s ability to recognize songs. If you’re looking for other features in your app, take a look at the apps’ pages on Google Play to see what other features they offer.

It’s worth noting, however, that mobion music is the only one in the bunch that requires an account in order to identify songs. Not only that, you must provide a full name, gender and date of birth when creating an account. If this is a problem for you, feel free to skip it entirely.

Walk Off The Earth – Somebody That I Used To Know

A little while back, this song was playing in my head while I slept. You couldn’t get away from it no matter where you were. The excitement may have died down a little, but this is still a fine specimen for a song I expect every app to easily recognize. It’s also a cover version, but in this case, the cover is arguably more famous than the original. So how did the apps fare?

Shazam: Recognized the song immediately, and displayed full song information along with album cover, Amazon download link and YouTube video link.

SoundHound: Recognized the song immediately, displayed full information including album name and cover, release date, lyrics lookup, and automatic YouTube search.

TrackID: Recognized the song, displayed correct name of song and artist, but a wrong album cover from “The Voice”. Included a download link for an actual local online music store (and in a country where there’s no iTunes, Amazon, or Google Music, that’s impressive), although the song wasn’t available there.

mobion music: Recognized the song quickly with right names, but presented the “The Voice” album cover. The cluttered interface included links to relevant YouTube videos, including the actual one I was listening to, and the original song my Gotye. Also included was an Amazon download link.

musiXmatch Lyrics Player: Recognized the song easily, and presented the right names, but with the “The Voice” album cover again. It also presented the song’s lyrics in a sing-along fashion.

Lucky by Radiohead – Six Feet Under Soundtrack

This song is yet another very famous one, but in a setting that’s a little harder to recognize. I used the video above, which is a scene from the TV show Six Feet Under, and let the apps listen to the part where the song is played. There are background noises of fire crackling, people talking, etc., which makes the song harder to hear.

Shazam: At first, the app had trouble with this one. After turning up the volume on my computer, it managed to recognize it, but not every time. When it did, it displayed the OK Computer album cover, as expected.

SoundHound: Recognized the song easily and quickly, with correct information and album cover.

TrackID: Recognized the song quickly, and displayed all the correct information about it.

mobion music: Took several seconds, but identified the song correctly. Its YouTube video links were not as spot on this time, though, leading to Lucky by Britney Spears and another song called Lucky by Jason Mraz & Colbie Caillat.

musiXmatch Lyrics Player: Identified the song, and displayed the correct information and sing-along lyrics.

Pomplamoose – Single Ladies (Beyonce Cover)

We’re getting into tougher territory now. While Single Ladies by Beyonce is a very famous song, the Pomplamoose cover is not at all as famous. To compare, the official Beyonce video for Single Ladies has over 200 million views, while the Pomplamoose version has around 9 million. Still respectable, but just not as well-known. Was it a match for any of the apps?

Shazam: Recognized the exact version of the song immediately, and included a cover to Pomplamoose’s album.

SoundHound: Took a little longer to identify the song, but managed to do so beautifully. It displayed the right names, but stated a wrong release date in 2013 (the video was uploaded in 2009). It also displayed an album cover I couldn’t recognize.

TrackID: Failed to identify this song, despite multiple tries.

mobion music: Failed to identify this song, despite multiple tries.

musiXmatch Lyrics Player: Failed to identify this song, despite multiple tries.

Roslin and Adama by Bear McCreary – Battlestar Galactica Soundtrack

Taking things up a notch, I pitched this instrumental piece from Battlestar Galactica to the apps, curious what they’ll make of it. To be honest, I didn’t expect any of the apps to identify this track successfully, so it was sort of my “sure to fail” test for this post.

Shazam: The app could not identify the piece, but it wouldn’t admit failure. It suggested three completely different tracks every time I tried it, including one Beethoven symphony.

SoundHound: Did slightly better, and recognized Bear McCreary as the artist and Battlestar Galactica as the source of the sountrack, but it still failed to recognize the actual piece, returning a different track called “Elegy” which is not very similar to the one I was listening to. Still, nice effort.

TrackID: After failing to recognize the Pomplamoose song, TrackID completely surprised me by identifying this track quickly and correctly. This included the right track name, artist, and even album and album cover.

mobion music: Again, a surprise. The app identified the track quickly, complete with album and album cover, and the right YouTube links to go with it.

musiXmatch Lyrics Player: By this point, I was no longer surprised when musiXmatch too managed to quickly identify the track and presented the correct names and album cover.

Don Omar – Hasta Que Salga El Sol

I must admit that I’ve never heard of this song prior to writing this post, but I was looking for a famous Spanish song to try the apps with, and this seemed to be it. In fact, it must be so famous, that all five apps recognized it immediately and all displayed right information about it, including album cover.

This showed me that the apps were indeed capable of identifying non-English songs, but this test was obviously too easy.

Sharon Haziz and Ivri Leader – Panasim (Flashlights)

I decided to make the test much harder. This is a song in Hebrew that was pretty successful when it came out, which was in 2001, a full 12 years ago. An app that can recognize this song correctly would probably do pretty well with non-English songs in general.

Shazam: Recognized the song immediately, displayed the correct song and artist names in English, and on my second try, even came up with an album cover. The links to YouTube were surprisingly relevant too.

SoundHound: Failed to recognize the song on multiple tries.

Track ID: The app managed to get me a song name in Hebrew, which was pretty impressive, but that’s all it managed to get. The artist field showed simply says “collection”, and none of the links it provided helped me along either. Were I using TrackID without knowing the song, just knowing the name might not have been enough.

The exact same thing happened with both mobion music and musiXmatch Lyrics Player. Both presented the correct song name in Hebrew, but no further information.

Humming test: Cryin’ by Aerosmith

Why Cryin’? I don’t know, it’s the first thing that came into my head. It’s famous enough and distinctive enough to be recognized by humming, though, and I can definitely keep a tune, if I may say so myself.

It’s worth noting that none of the apps except SoundHound even claim to work this way, so it’s not surprising that SoundHound was the only one that actually worked. I hummed the tune to all apps as best as I could, giving each of them multiple tries. The only one the returned any result was SoundHound, which gave me six options to choose from. One of them was indeed the right song.

Google Voice Recognition

You may be wondering why I haven’t tested Google’s own music-recognition abilities. Available as a widget for Android 4.0+ devices, and as a built-in Google Search feature in Android 4.2 devices, Google’s music recognition abilities are probably pretty good. Unfortunately, Google doesn’t think this feature is important enough to be available worldwide, so I wasn’t able to test it.

And The Winner Is…

When looking at overall performance, all five music recognition app performed pretty similarly. Some identified songs other failed to, but none of the apps identified every song on the list. When it comes to interface and usability, my favorite ones were Shazam, TrackID, and musiXmatch Lyrics Player. SoundHound, however, can help you even when the song is not playing, which is a big plus. So to sum it all up:

Overall best pick: Shazam

If you need humming recognition: SoundHound

For more obscure pieces, instrumentals and soundtracks: TrackID

For easiest access to lyrics: musiXmatch Lyrics Player

What’s your favorite app for identifying songs? Is there a really good one that should have been included but wasn’t? Tell us in the comments!

The post 5 Android Music Recognition Apps Compared: Which Got The Most Songs Right? appeared first on MakeUseOf.

PayPal, Payment Method in Google Play?

There are multiple payment options in Google Play, from credit and debit cards to carrier billing and gift cards, but PayPal isn't one of them. Google Wallet competes with PayPal and this could be one of the reasons why you can't use PayPal in Google Play.



Despite this, some Google Wallet JavaScript files that are used in Google Play include many references to PayPal. For example, PayPal is placed next to Maestro, Automated Clearing House (ACH), proxy cards and carriers like Sprint, Softbank and Vodafone. Google's code also mentions PayPal UUIDs, which are used by the PayPal Merchant API, and there's a function named "onRedirectToPayPalPopup". There's also an error message: "PAYPAL_INSTRUMENT_ERROR" next to messages like "GIFT_CARD_ALREADY_REDEEMED" and "INVALID_CREDIT_CARD".