Amahi On Ubuntu: Must-Have Extras For Your Linux Home Server

A few weeks ago I went through the process of setting up a home server using an old computer, a copy of Ubuntu and Amahi, a free home server that comes with its own repository of extras. Loosely referred to as an “app store” by some, once you’ve set up Amahi, it’s easy to add additional services to your server in just a couple of clicks.

If you’ve just installed your home server or are looking for Ubuntu-specific additions then this article is for you. Not all extras work on the new Ubuntu version of Amahi, and you’ll want to be careful not to install additional packages in Ubuntu itself which can damage your Amahi install and jeopardise your server.

We’ll be taking a look at the must-have free and paid extras that’ll take your home server to the next level.

Installing & Buying Apps

In your personal Amahi settings (accessible by typing hda/ into your browser and logging in with your Ubuntu credentials) there is a list of free add-ons under the Apps menu. Many of these are quality freebies, though don’t be surprised to find them a bit out of date. A better source of more up-to-date add ons is the Amahi App Store, which you can log in to using your Amahi credentials.

Anything you buy or download here will be downloaded to and installed on your home server, negating the need for you to really do anything beyond click a few buttons.

Note: As mentioned above, not all add-ons work with the Ubuntu-friendly Amahi install, which is why James’ older article about Amahi’s extensions might not be very useful unless you’re running Fedora. Be sure to check the compatibility of your server before buying new extras!

DLNA for Amahi ($4.99)

If you only spend $5 on your home server, spend it here. DLNA for Amahi is a port of the highly popular MiniDLNA project, optimised for all versions of the home server. If you want to stream music, video and images to DLNA/UPnP devices across your house then this is the software that will enable you to do it.

The one thing this streamer lacks is transcoding ability, which means your server will not convert your content to the best possible format before streaming it.

This means your clients (TVs, games consoles, media centres) will need to be able to natively decode incoming audio and video. This can be a problem if you’re streaming videos wrapped in an .MKV container, though due to the prevalence of H.264 and MPEG4 compression there’s a good chance a lot of your videos will work on newer devices.

A lack of transcoding might be seen as a plus by some, especially if your server uses very old hardware or is lacking in the GPU department. It also doesn’t change the fact that you could transcode the content yourself if you’re desperate to watch something, there are lots of free solutions for this.

Transmission ($3.99)

The whole point of a home server (for most) is to provide easy access to network drives. The ability to add more storage as and when you need it is just one of the benefits of having your own server, and with all that space it makes sense to put it to use for your download and sharing needs with an app like Transmission.

Transmission is one of the best standalone BitTorrent clients you can install on your non-Windows machine, it’s simple, elegant, comes with a great web UI and according to the developers this Amahi-optimised version “just works” from the get-go. Once set up the web interface works great from tablets and smartphones too, so you can sit on the sofa administering downloads with your iPhone without reaching for a laptop.

CrashPlan ($3.99)

The Amahi CrashPlan app serves two main purposes – to back up your PCs locally, for free and to upload data to the CrashPlan servers using the CrashPlan+ service which must be paid for. CrashPlan offer a range of plans and though they’re not the only online backup provider, they’re a very reasonable one. If you’re not planning on purchasing a plan you might still be interested, given what the CrashPlan client can do.

Backup PCs locally and remotely for free – simply enter a friend’s code and keep a copy of each other’s important documents in two locations at once. Optionally you can set up backups from all your main PCs to your home server. In the event of data loss you’ll be glad you had all that data backed up locally, rather than having to download gigabytes of data over the course of hours.

SABnzbd Plus ($3.99) & Sick Beard ($3.99)

SABnzbd Plus is a Usenet client which enables you to download files using one of the world’s oldest filesharing methods. Sick Beard is a plugin which you may want to install if you’re hot on Usenet. Together, they make an excellent team and ensure you’ve got things to watch even if you haven’t specifically downloaded anything.

Tell Sick Beard about your favourite TV shows and it will automatically search for old and new episodes for you to watch. When it finds one it will send the .NZB to SABnzbd Plus and your download will begin. This is basically a modern PVR, and if you like the concept you might want to check out Couch Potato (also $3.99) which is designed to do the same thing except with movies, though it’s not 100% there on Ubuntu just yet.

Amahi Sync (Free)

Built to sync, share and back up files, Amahi Sync monitors shares of your choosing for incoming files and then makes them available online whenever you need them. Access your shared files anywhere you want, with only the only limitations being the speed of your internet connection and available space. Files are available either via logging in and using the web interface or publicly using your username.amahi.me/Public/ folder which makes sharing files you’ve got at home with friends and family easier than ever.

Android users might want to check out the Amahi Sync for Android app designed especially for use with this add-on in mind.

ownCloud (Free)

An app that works in much the same way to Amahi Sync above, ownCloud provides universal access to files wherever you are. The free add-on provides more than just access to files and has built in functionality for music streaming, sharing with others, WebDAV access and basic editing features direct from your browser. Sync contacts, calendars and bookmarks across all your devices using ownCloud on your personal server.

Jinzora (Free)

Finally if you’d like to be able to access your media from anywhere with an Internet connection, Jinzora is one PHP-powered solution that’s designed to let you do that. Unlike DLNA above, Jinzora is designed for online media retrieval and supports transcoding to do so. This means you can watch most media files on your smartphone, laptop or other compatible online device.

Coming Soon: Amahi Time Machine ($4.99)

Unfortunately the Mac-friendly backup add-on that turns your server into a ready and waiting remote Time Machine isn’t ready for Ubuntu users just yet, but keep an eye on it if it’s something you’re interested in.

What are you favourite Amahi add-ons? Did we miss any? Add your recommendations in the comments.

The post Amahi On Ubuntu: Must-Have Extras For Your Linux Home Server appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Love World Cinema? Check Out The Korean Film Archive [Stuff to Watch]

The Korean Film Archive, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to the preservation of Korean film has been busy sharing select entries from its archive over the past year. Don’t worry if you don’t speak Korean, English subtitles have been provided courtesy of Google.

The Korean film archives are vast and there are now nearly 70 titles available for immediate streaming, with older 30s and 40s films as well as newer 90s releases. The uploads are not necessarily highly celebrated populist pictures like Oldboy or The Host, but they’re culturally relevant enough to tick the boxes if you’re into Asian and world cinema.

They’re also completely free to enjoy on your PC or YouTube-enabled TV or media centre.

The Road To Race Track

A 1991 drama that’s currently topping the Korean Film Archive’s “Top 10” list and has seen over 70,000 views, The Road To Race Track tells the story of a relationship breakdown, the harsh reality of old age and deceit. A dialogue-heavy tale of a two lovers and conflicting priorities, this is one for those of you who enjoy a good story-driven tale that’s not reliant on special effects to move its audience.

Woman Of Fire

A woman who volunteers to work at a farm in the hope of marrying well becomes entangled in a love triangle which turns sour. Another drama, though this time with lashings of murder and betrayal for good measure. Woman of Fire is a 1971 film brimming with insights into Korean life and society, recommended for fans of a good tragedy.

Carnivorous Animal

When Kim Dong-sik feels threatened by his wife’s thriving business he starts to feel incompetent and resorts to an affair as a means of escape. Before long he finds himself supporting two women, with two lives. When the two women make an unspoken pact to share their man, Dong-sik starts to wish he was tied to neither woman in this 1984 romantic flick.

Aimless Bullet

Aimless Bullet is not a happy film, and instead documents a very unstable time in a man’s life which seems to go from bad to worse. After a rough upbringing with an unhinged mother, sister who is a prostitute and malnourished pregnant wife, Cheol-ho simply doesn’t earn enough money to live comfortably. The story continues along a suitably bleak path, so be prepared for some heartache before settling down to this one.

The General’s Son

A 1990 action adventure about Kim Doo-han, a beggar who lost his mother at an early age and has made his living singing on the street. Of course, he’s also in possession of some formidable fighting skills and soon learns he is the son of an esteemed General who helped fight off occupying Japanese forces. The story then turns its attention to the Yakuza gangs looking to expand their influence in Doo-han’s area – it’s then up to him to protect and win over the support of the locals.

Gagman

A comedian convinces a barber to sell his shop and follow him into a life of making movies and showbiz. Along their way the two encounter a beauitful woman on the run from gangsters, and decide to start making their mark on the world of cinema. When a soldier who has deserted the army hands over his gun, bank robbery and criminal records await – but is everything quite as it seems?

Watch More

You can keep an eye on the KFA (not to be confused with this KFA) at the official website or by following “KoreanFilm” on YouTube. As ever, if we spot more quality world cinema on the big bad interwebs then you’ll find it in a future Stuff to Watch. Feel free to submit your own videos or links in the comments.

Do you like world cinema? Any favourite movies? Let us know in the comments below.

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In Your Face (Book): How To Integrate Facebook With Browser

Our social lives naturally revolve around networks, both offline and online. Many fundamental human needs can – at least partially – be met on online social networks. Facebook in particular has experienced massive success by tapping into the human needs to participate, understand, create, identify, and relax. We use this social network to communicate and connect, update friends on what is going on in our lives, express how we feel, and share things we like. Facebook has become so important that many of us cannot imagine living without it.

Since Facebook is so important to us, we desire seamless integration of its features into our everyday life. To most of us this is a matter of convenience. Beware that the tools described below can easily distract you from other activities and foster an addiction to Facebook. Hence, if you are susceptible to checking Facebook too many times a day, I forbear you to set up Facebook browser toolbars, sidebars, or extensions. Those of you simply looking for simpler ways to quickly check into Facebook, however, shall read on.

Google Chrome

A Facebook extension for Chrome puts the social network at your fingertips in the browser toolbar. The extension eliminates the need to keep a tab with Facebook open because it offers direct access to all key features, for example news, messages, photos, and notifications. You can also update your status and share links directly via Facebook for Chrome.

Since Facebook for Chrome also integrates into Chrome’s right-click menu, you can easily share anything with a URL by right-clicking the item and selecting Share on Facebook from the menu.

MakeUseOf has also published a full review of Facebook for Chrome, which looks at the setup and all features in detail. The extension is lacking some of Facebook’s functionality, for example the chat and a full events calendar. However, the developers are continuously working on improvements.

Note that to fully function, the app requires full access to your Facebook account, including personal information, posting on your behalf, and accessing your Facebook inbox. You can refuse to grant some of these permissions, but they will reduce its usefulness.

If you think this extension is too much, you might prefer the Facebook Like Button extension for Chrome, which we have briefly introduced here.

Mozilla Firefox

Many Facebook add-ons are available for Firefox, but the browser actually supports Facebook integration, natively. The feature is hidden in about:config. It can easily be enabled by following the instructions below.

Open a new tab in Firefox, type about:config into the URL bar, and hit Enter. Acknowledge the warning and promise to be careful.

Now search for the preference name social.enabled by typing this name into the search box. The default value of this preference is false. To set the value to true, double-click the item. The moment you enable this feature, a Facebook Messenger sidebar will pop up on the right-hand side.

After you log in, the sidebar will show the latest updates and notifications, as well as a list of your online friends. Moreover, Facebook buttons in the top right of the browser indicate new notifications, messages, or friend requests. To be sure you don’t miss these, a notification pops up in the bottom right of your screen. Fortunately, all unnecessary distractions can be disabled through about:config.

As you may have noticed, there are several more social.* settings available in about:config. For example you can change the value of the social.sidebar.open setting to false, which closes the sidebar, but keeps the toolbar buttons. Likewise, you can disable notifications popping up in the bottom right of your screen by setting the value of the social.toast-notifications.enabled setting to false.

If you are interested in more or different ways to integrate Facebook into Firefox, try these 5.5 Great Firefox Extensions To Make Facebook Awesome.

Opera

Although there were speculations in early 2012 about Facebook acquiring Opera to turn it into a Facebook browser, Opera offers little native Facebook integration at present. However, Opera and Facebook have teamed up to develop the Facebook extension for Opera’s Speed Dial.

Opera’s Speed Dial is similar to Chrome’s new tab. Each empty new tab contains a list of favorite sites (dials) that the user wishes to access quickly. Speed Dial for Facebook adds more interactive extensions, but users report that it doesn’t always work.

An independent Facebook extension for Opera works similar like the Facebook extension for Chrome. A toolbar button expands to a popup window when clicked and allows you to check Facebook.

Microsoft Internet Explorer

For Internet Explorer 9, no Facebook extension or toolbar could be found that mimics the above browser integrations. It seems like users of Internet Explorer 9 are stuck with visiting Facebook.com for their daily dose of social connectedness. If you use an earlier version of Internet Explorer, however, you may have luck with Facebook Web Slice or the Facebook Toolbar. Please note that I cannot give a recommendation, since none of them did anything for me. Who uses Internet Explorer anyway?

Conclusion

Integrating Facebook into your browser is highly convenient, possibly distracting, and it potentially contributes to social network addiction. When Facebook is always in your face, you will definitely not miss out on anything your friends do, you will be reminded of events and birthdays, and you will share more (of) yourself. On the downside, however, you may miss out on real life.

Be mindful and try to keep a balance between interacting with people online, observing what they do with their lives, and living your own. Facebook can help you maintain friendships and get inspired, but it cannot replace reality.

For more about Facebook, refer to our (very) unofficial Facebook privacy guide.

How do you use Facebook and how do you manage not to spend too much time on the site?

The post In Your Face (Book): How To Integrate Facebook With Browser appeared first on MakeUseOf.

A New Year, A New You: How To Clean Up Your Facebook

Like social networking sites as a whole, Facebook can be a force for good, even though it seems to have been doing everything in its power to turn its userbase off, as of late. The problem is Facebook can also be a force for evil, but it’s more about how we, the people, use Facebook, than it is about how Facebook uses us. Essentially, if you stay on top of your account, maintaining your profile and not letting the data it leaks get out of hand, you can control Facebook rather than letting Facebook control you.

This isn’t actually that hard to do. As well as keeping up to date on the various changes made to site policy and regularly checking your privacy settings to ensure they are still doing what you want them to do, you should be cleaning up your Facebook on a regular basis. And what better time to do so than the new year.

Whether you call it a fresh start or a spring clean, the result is the same: a sparkling fresh Facebook organized enough for anyone to cope with. What follows are the main areas to focus on in order to clean up Facebook, and the methods to employ to achieve that goal.

Profile

First up is your profile, the landing page for acquaintances old or new who clicks on your name. You may not have visited your profile in a long time, and that’s the first thing to rectify. Click on your name and see how the world sees you on Facebook. Then set to work making sure everything is up to date and as you wish it to be.

First, make sure your profile and cover photos are exactly as you’d want them to be. Is your profile photo recent and showing you in the best light possible? If a stranger was to see one photo of you, would you want it to be that particular one? Is your cover photo recent or at least relevant? Does it sum you and your personality up in a pleasing manner?

Next up is the masses of information Facebook would like you to provide it with. Click on your profile and then click Update Info underneath your cover photo. You’ll be presented with a list of information and questions, and it’s simply a case of ensuring everything is up to date. You can of course leave it all blank, and this is one instance in which less could actually be more.

Last but not least are your favorites, which can be found under Likes. These are the music, movies, books etc. that you’ve stated you like. Have they changed recently? Would you rather not provide that information any more? Either way, just click on any to be taken to the Facebook page of that favorite, where you can simply click Unlike to have it removed from your wall of Likes.

Photos

Facebook has become something of a killer app for photos, with millions of people sharing billions of photos with family and friends. The problem is it’s easy to forget the amount of photos you have uploaded, and, more importantly, the nature of them all. As life moves on the photos we want to see and share changes, so it’s a good idea to regularly make sure all of the photos you have on Facebook are relevant.

Click on Photos and you can view them in a number of different ways. Go through and prune any you’d rather were no longer on Facebook, even if you have to download them first to ensure they’re not lost forever. Look for those which show you in a bad light, or which feature someone you no longer wish to be associated with. Always consider how you’d feel about a stranger viewing your collection of photos for the first time.

Pages

Facebook doesn’t make it very easy to see all of the pages you have subscribed to or liked, but there is a way. Click on your profile, then click Likes, then click Show Other Pages. You’ll then get a long list of pages that you can use to decide which you still want to interact with. If there are any that you are no longer interested in just click through to them individually, click the Settings button and finally click Unlike.

After clearing the boards in this way you may want to find new pages to like, and strangely enough Facebook makes this process much easier. Simply click on Like Pages in the left-hand sidebar, and you’ll be presented with a list of recommendations. Click on any that interest you and you may find a gem that is kept in great shape.

Groups

It’s very easy to be gently persuaded into joining groups on Facebook. If a friend sets one up then you may feel obliged to do so, as an obvious example. But every now and then you need to have a purge in order to save your sanity. Now is the time to do just that, and it’s surprisingly easy to manage the groups you’re a member of.

All of the groups you’re in will be displayed in the left-hand sidebar. If you no longer want to be a member of any of them then click on the Settings button and finally click Leave Group. A word of warning, however. Once you leave a group it will continue on without you, unless you were the sole administrator. So only leave if you’re happy to miss any future postings to that group.

Apps

Apps are commonplace on Facebook, and that means you’ve likely added a great deal of them over the years. You’ve also likely forgotten about some of them, and if you no longer wish to use them it would be a good idea to remove them completely or at least limit their access to your account. Luckily apps have their own dedicated section on Facebook. Just click the Settings button, Account Settings, and then Apps.

You’ll then get presented with a list of the apps you use. First, scan the list and see if there are any you’d like to delete altogether. If so then simply click the small ‘x’ to remove them from your Facebook. Alternatively you can click Edit and change what the app does and what actions it notifies you of.

Friends

Friends are the very essence of Facebook. If you have none then you may as well delete your account altogether, have too many and any chance of meaningful relationships and conversations occurring is gone. How many Facebook friends is too many? That’s for you to decide, but Dunbar’s number stands at 150, which is how many people an individual can theoretically maintain personal relationships with.

Friendships manifest in many different ways, and it’s for you to decide what level of friendship you want to retain with people on Facebook. The strictest would be sticking with family members, the loosest would be adding anyone who asks, even strangers. Whatever method you subscribe to, having an occasional purge is heartily recommended.

An alternative to actually deleting friends is organizing them into lists. You can then choose which groups of friends will receive each of your updates, and it makes the whole act of keeping up with everybody from blood relations through to random acquaintances a whole lot easier.

Conclusions

As noted at the start of this article, social networking only works for an individual if they’re willing to put the time and effort into maintaining their presence on each of the different sites. This is especially true if a site is free to use, as you’re then the commodity and everything you do on that network is data waiting to be used or sold.

Cleaning up your Facebook regularly is the only way to ensure you’re staying in control and able to keep a tight grip on this one aspect of your online life. The good news is it’s never too late to give your Facebook a nice dusting down, working through its many elements one by one. Follow these steps now, but also bookmark the article in order to repeat the process every few months.

Image Credit: Lena

The post A New Year, A New You: How To Clean Up Your Facebook appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Keep your Google Contacts Up to Date!

You have several incomplete entries in your Google Contacts. Some entries are missing phone numbers, others don’t have any mailing address associated with them while in the case of close friends and family members, you don’t even have a record of their birthdays. →

How do you get this missing information from contacts and complete your address book?

You can always send them an email or make a phone call and fill-in the missing details manually or there’s a new and better alternative – you can ask your contacts to directly update their own records in your Google Contacts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMxvZgK4BMg

Ask Friends to Update your Google Contacts

It works something like this. Your selected contacts are sent a unique URL that points to a web form. They can fill-in the missing data, press the Submit button and all that information is directly added to your Google Contacts. Simple.

To get started, go to your Google Contacts and create a new group (let’s call it Personal). Now put one or more contacts into this new group – all these group members will get an automatic email from you requesting them to update their own records in Google Contacts.

Next open this Google Script and follow these steps:

1. Choose File -> Make a Copy to create a copy of the script into your own Google Drive.


2. Update the values of NAME and GROUP variables with the actual values.


3. Go to File -> Manage Versions and Save a new version.


4. Go to Publish -> Deploy as Web App, choose “Anyone, even Anonymous” under “Who can access the app” and click the Deploy button.


5. Go to Run -> Initialize to authorize the script. Choose Run -> Initialize to run the script.

That’s it. All your contacts who are part of that particular Google Contacts group will now receive an email from you (screenshot A). When any of these contacts update their details through the form (screenshot B), you will be notified of the change via email.

Screenshot A: Your friend gets an email requesting them to update their contact information.

Screenshot B: They can fill the form and their details are added directly into your Google Contacts.

The project is created using Google Scripts and the entire source code is available online. If you ever wish to disable the Google Contacts form, open the same Google Script in your Google Drive and unpublish the web app (under Publish -> Deploy as web app).

Also, this version of the project request essential contact details like Mailing Address, Mobile Number, Skype ID, etc. but you can easily extend the script /web form to include additional fields like Anniversary date, Company name and so on.

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This story, Keep your Google Contacts Up to Date!, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 26/12/2012 under Google Contacts, Internet.

Process Explorer – The Most Powerful Task Manager Replacement [Windows]

Let’s be honest, the Windows Task Manager isn’t that great for understanding and managing the processes running on your computer. Even on Windows 8, where it’s much-improved, the task manager can’t come close to the power of Process Explorer. It’s part of the Sysinternals set of tools that Microsoft purchased – and for good reason. They’re among the most powerful system utilities for Windows.

In addition to its power, Process Explorer is also flexible. It’s available from Microsoft as a single .exe file. That makes it a portable app you can throw on a USB drive and run on any computer.

Understanding The Processes Running On Your Computer

Perhaps the greatest thing about Process Explorer – from a power-user perspective – is the way it helps visualize the processes running on your computer and their relation to each other.

The task manager included with Windows is a bit of a mess, displaying all running processes in a flat list. It works if you’re hunting for a specific process by name, but it doesn’t give you an overview that really helps you understand what’s going on.

It’s particularly messy if you use multi-process applications like Google Chrome – what if Google Chrome was misbehaving and you needed to kill all its processes? The Windows Task Manager doesn’t make it easy.

Process Explorer helps make much more sense of this. The most obvious improvement is the hierarchical tree of processes – we can see the main chrome.exe process that launched all other Chrome processes and understand what Google Chrome is doing. If we wanted to force-quit Google Chrome entirely, we could right-click the top chrome.exe process and select Kill Process Tree. If we wanted to hide all these chrome.exe processes so they didn’t clutter the list, we could click the minus icon to collapse that part of the tree.

Other improvements also help make this list easier to understand. Each process has an associated icon, a description, and a company name. These descriptions and names may be blank – it’s up to each program to provide this information.

Color-coding helps, too. Processes colored blue are your own processes, while processes colored pink are system services. Your desktop processes will appear under explorer.exe near the bottom of the list, while services will appear under services.exe near the top. This helps sort the process list so you aren’t sifting through system services while viewing the processes running on your desktop.

To view which colors correspond to which types of processes and customize the colors, click the Options menu and select Configure Colors.

More Features

Process Explorer is packed with features, including all the ones you’d expect from the Windows Task Manager. You can right-click a process to kill it, change its priority level, or set its CPU affinity and force it to run on only a specific CPU. We won’t focus on all these features – we’ll focus on cool things you can do with Process Explorer that you can’t do with the Windows Task Manager.

• Search Online: This feature is present in Windows 8’s new task manager, but it showed up in Process Explorer first. You can right-click any running process in the list and select Search Online to quickly search for it online. This can help you understand exactly what the process is and where it came from.


• Detailed Process Properties: To view information about a process, right-click it and select Properties. If a process is automatically starting with your computer, Process Explorer will tell you where it’s configured to do so. If a process is hiding in the background, you can click Bring to Front to view its window (assuming it has a visible window).

• Detailed Resource Usage Information: Process Explorer exposes many more ways of visualizing resource usage. In addition to system-wide resource usage graphs, you’ll find per-process CPU, memory, and disk usage graphs in a process’s properties window. You can also see a graph of GPU (graphics card) usage – either per-process or system-wide. To view system-wide resource usage data, click the View menu and select System Information.

• Unlock Locked Files: Have you ever seen a message saying a specific file or folder is in-use by a process and can’t be deleted or moved? This is often to prevent files that are legitimately in-use from being modified, but sometimes programs continue locking a file even when they don’t need it. To see which program is using a file, you can click Find and select Find a Handle or DLL. Search for the name of the file or folder and Process Explorer will tell you which process is “locking” the file. To remove the lock so you can delete or move the file, right-click the handle itself and select Close Handle.

• Find a Window’s Process: Not sure what process a specific window belongs to? Click and drag the target-shaped icon on the Process Explorer toolbar over another window on your desktop. Process Explorer will show you which process the window belongs to.


• Replace the Windows Task Manager: Love Process Explorer and wish the Windows Task Manager was this awesome? Just click the Options menu and select Replace Task Manager. Whenever you open the task manager – either by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Escape, right-clicking the task bar and selecting Start Task Manager, or pressing Ctrl+Alt+Delete and clicking Start Task Manager – Process Explorer will appear instead.

Process Explorer is listed on both our Best Windows Software and Best Portable Apps pages because it’s an amazing tool. If you’re looking for another third-party task manager replacement, you may also want to check out Process Hacker or System Explorer.

What do you think of Process Explorer? Do you prefer another task manager replacement? Leave a comment and share your favorite tool!

The post Process Explorer – The Most Powerful Task Manager Replacement [Windows] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Facebook Begins To Roll Out Drag N’ Drop Photo Uploads For Posts [Updates]

Photos are becoming an integral part of Facebook. So is the way we use them. Facebook is apparently keen on making the photo experience smoother and the roll-out of a drag and drop feature could be a start. Facebook is introducing the drag and drop functionality to the publisher box from where we post our status updates and shares. Normally it takes about six clicks to upload a single photo and publish it on Facebook.

The new feature cuts it short to a single drag and drop, and also allows you to upload multiple photos in one go. Usually, publishing multiple photos require one to create a photo album and then share it across with the network. Now you can expect to publish a post with multiple clicks with one drag and drop. This new ‘expected-soon’ update receives a thumbs-up for user friendliness. The feature is being gradually rolled out and is not apparent yet in all profiles.

There is no official word on Facebook’s blog, but Inside Facebook also reports that this feature is also available for Timeline cover photos and also as an option in the Message box.

Give us a shout if you see it on your Facebook profile.

Source: Inside Facebook

The post Facebook Begins To Roll Out Drag N’ Drop Photo Uploads For Posts [Updates] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Google Chrome – A Fantastic Replacement For Mobile Safari [iOS]

Do you use Chrome on your computer to browse the web? A lot of people do, as it is one of the most popular web browsers out there. It runs fast, and it offers a user-interface that many people feel comfortable with. The Chrome Webstore is filled with some fantastic extensions that help make the browser even better. I myself am an avid Chrome user on my PC and Mac, but I take my love of Google Chrome to another level, because I have also completely replaced mobile Safari with Google Chrome for iOS as my browser of choice.

Chrome on iOS offers a fantastic browsing experience that fits in the palm of your hand. Most of the features you expect to see from the desktop version of the browser make an appearance in the iPhone and iPad app. It has an interface that I find easier to use than mobile Safari, and with a couple of simple jailbreak tweaks, you can not only make the it default browser in your heart, but the default browser in your phone too.

Even if you aren’t jailbroken, Chrome is still worth downloading for browsing the web, because it’s just that awesome. In terms of quality, it is right up there with Mercury and Maxthon in terms of quality.

Features

As you can probably guess, Chrome for iOS allows you to browse the web on your mobile phone. Of course, it does a lot more than that, as it offers a lot of features that are quite useful for anyone. It is especially useful for people who use Chrome as their web browser on their laptop or desktop. It uses your Google account to sync your bookmarks, so you can pull them up on your phone at any time.

My favorite feature of Chrome on iOS is that is syncs your open tabs across devices. So if you have a website open on your desktop, but need to leave the house suddenly, you can simply go to “Other Devices” on the new tab screen and you will see all the websites open. Simply tap one, and it will open it in your Chrome browser on your iOS device. This is a great way to get back doing what you were doing before you were interrupted.

The “New Tab” page on Chrome is awesome. Just like the browser on a desktop, you can see your most visited sites, bookmarks and your other devices. This helps you get started browsing quickly and easily.

Chrome also features the ability to open a new tab in incognito mode. I don’t think I need to go into the reasons why this is useful, other than to say that anything you don’t want stored in your history will be private if you are browsing incognito. I will leave it up to you to figure out what you want to do with that.

Some mobile sites don’t give you the option to switch from a mobile theme to a desktop theme, but Chrome has you covered. Tap the menu button next to the address bar, and right towards the bottom you will see “Request Desktop Site.” This will force the browser to get a full version of the website.

Right below the option to request a desktop site is Settings. In here, you choose the search engine (which is set to Google by default). You can also adjust the options for voice search, you can clear your browsing history, change whether the browser saves passwords, and all kinds of other fine-tuning. You can control your privacy options from the settings screen as well.

For people who are accustomed to Chrome on a desktop, you will appreciate that the address bar and the search are one in the same. It’s a small thing, but when you are used to browsing a certain way, it’s a nice little touch that improves the user experience.

Conclusion

If you can’t deal with mobile Safari, and you want a better experience on your iOS device, Chrome is the browser to use. It comes with lots of features, a slick interface, and all the features you expect to see from Chrome. Besides extensions and apps, the mobile version offers pretty much everything the desktop one has. Try it out, and you will be happy you did.

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