Isn’t It Time You Made Use of Your Caps Lock?

The CAPS LOCK key is probably the most useless key on your keyboard. Netiquette forbids you to use it because it’s considered screaming, which is simply rude. And what else would you use it for other than expressing your raw emotions? Unintentional activation of the CAPS LOCK is also a common reason why people fail to type the right password. That’s because it sits on the home row, a prime location that is easily hit by accident.

On the other hand, it is possible to replace the CAPS LOCK key with a character or function you use a lot. What are keys and shortcuts that are missing on your keyboard? Or maybe there are keys you wish were in a more convenient location. It’s time to remap your keyboard and put all those neglected keys to good use, starting with how to use the CAPS LOCK key.

Before you go ahead and fix an entire keyboard key by key, note that there are other alternatives for optimizing the keyboard layout, especially if you are dealing with a foreign keyboard. This article is written for Windows users. If you are on a Mac, check out these articles on how to remap your Mac keyboard for more geek power and learn everything about Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts.

Map Backspace To CAPS LOCK Key Without Rebooting

Most tools that let you remap the keyboard edit the registry. Hence, for the changes to come into effect, you need to reboot the computer. That’s OK if you want to make permanent changes, but not always practical.

Keymapper is a portable app for coders. It applies a global keyboard hook whenever the CAPS LOCK key is pressed and throws in a Backspace in its place. So instead of SHOUTING, you will be deleting what you just wrote.

Map A Useful Key To The CAPS LOCK Key

Install a tool like SharpKeys to remap your CAPS LOCK key. Note that SharpKeys requires Microsoft .NET Framework 4 to run.

Open SharpKeys (hint: it’s in the RandyRants.com folder in All Programs) and click Add in the bottom left. Select Special: Caps Lock as a From key and pick a desired key. Whatever you select, CAPS LOCK will adopt the behavior of that key. Click OK to confirm your selection.

Once back in the main window you can either add another remap combo or complete the procedure by pressing the Write to Registry key in the bottom right.

This is when you will have to log out or reboot your computer for the changes to come into effect. To undo changes made with SharpKeys, launch the program, delete the respective entries in the list, click the Write to Registry button and restart your computer.

When you log back in, hitting the key that once used to trigger the CAPS LOCK will now produce a character or function of your choice.

Turn Your CAPS LOCK Key Into a Hotkey

Is there a program you open all the time or a website you visit frequently, MakeUseOf for example? When writing, I constantly open IrfanView for pasting screenshots. So we will turn the CAPS LOCK key into a hotkey for opening this app. You could also make it a hotkey for Google.com and thus turn it into a search key à la Chrome OS.

First you need to map another key to the CAPS LOCK key because you cannot assign CAPS LOCK itself as a hotkey. Use the method described above to remap the key and pick a key that doesn’t do anything as To key, for example Function: F10.

Once the CAPS LOCK has been taken care of, you can create a shortcut which will open the desired file, folder, program, or website. The shortcut can live anywhere on your computer and you can also use existing shortcuts. Let’s create a shortcut on your Desktop. Right-click the Desktop, go to New and click Shortcut.

In the Create Shortcut window, browse to the desired item, click Next, name the shortcut, and click Finish. To point the shortcut to a website, simply type in the complete URL, e.g. http://www.makeuseof.com/

To link the shortcut with your new hotkey, right-click it and select Properties. Under the Shortcut tab, click into the Shortcut key field and press your CAPS LOCK key. This will paste in the key that was mapped to your CAPS LOCK key, in this example F10.

Click OK to save and try it. Pure awesomeness!

This procedure was adopted from How-To Geek, who have also explained how to manually remap keys in the registry.

You can also use a program called AutoHotkey to assign Hotkeys. Lifehacker has created a nifty website-based tool to easily create your own custom AutoHotkey script for remapping keys on your keyboard.

Conclusion

Following the instructions above you can finally put your CAPS LOCK key to good use. Moreover, you can apply the method to any other key on your keyboard and increase your productivity manifold. Now all you need is a good way to repaint your keys.

Are you finally becoming a fan of your keyboard? It’s good to know that you could operate Windows with your keyboard alone should your mouse break or go missing.

Which keys did you retire and how are you using them now?

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New Drop-Down Menu for Google Search Results

Google now shows a green arrow icon next to search results URLs. Click the arrow and you'll get a drop-down menu with up to three options: cached, similar and share.



Until now, Google only displayed the "share" link next to the results, while "cached" and "similar" were buried in the Instant Preview box. Instant Preview is no longer available.

Bing has a similar feature and Google probably decided to test it and see if it works well. Before accusing Google of copying a Bing feature, it's a good idea to check Bing's interface and see that it looks a lot like Google Search.

Google tested a different interface for the drop-down menu.

DNS Jumper – Hop From One DNS Service To Another, Quickly [Windows]

Switch from one DNS server to another quickly. DNS Jumper is a portable Windows app with a long list of built-in DNS services, and you can even add your own. Do so and you can jump from service to service in just a couple of clicks.

Domain Name Servers, or DNS, translate web addresses that humans understand (eg, http://www.makeuseof.com) into the IP addresses that computers understand. By default you use the DNS offered by your ISP, but some people switch to a different server for speed or security reasons. Some DNS services even allow you to bypass region blocking, allowing Americans to watch BBC iPlayer or Brits to watch Hulu.

Whether you want to occasionally use Tunlr to enjoy sites like Hulu or Netflix anywhere in the world, optimize your DNS for faster Internet or change your DNS servers to improve Internet security, you’ve probably noticed one thing – changing your DNS servers in Windows is a bit of a pain. The option to do so is buried deep in the Control Panel, so every time you want to change your server, you need to find that weird place in Windows 8 where you can actually configure a device and then dig into its settings and change the IPv4 options. And when you do change your settings, you almost always need to restart before they’re actually active.

DNS Jumper solves this problem. Just launch the program, pick your preferred server and you’ll be up and running in a few clicks. It can even flush your DNS cache. The app is portable, needing only its executable and a config file to run.

Quickly Switching DNS Servers

The main interface of DNS Jumper revolves around a list of DNS services. Bring up the drop down menu can you can pick one:

The default list includes 40 different servers, which I won’t outline here. If you want speed, try Google’s DNS or OpenDNS. If you want to block porn and other not-kid-friendly-sites, use Family Safe DNS. You’ve also got the option of manually entering and using a DNS address.

Pick the DNS server you want to use, then click “Apply”. Your new settings will be set immediately, and in most cases so will its effects.

Of course, not every DNS server on the planet is offered, which is why DNS Jumper allows you to create custom lists. You’ll need to do this to use Tunlr, which lets you watch media blocked in your country. Just click the gear next to the drop-down menu of DNS servers.

Add the two IP addresses of the DNS server you’d like to add and you should be set. You can add your server to the default list, or you can create your own list. I recommend doing this if you have a few DNS servers you regularly rotate between.

Wondering which DNS service is the fastest? It’s a point of controversy, and it largely depends on the day. DNS Jumper can run a quick scan to check which server is fastest right now, meaning you’ll know who to turn to if you want to speed things up a little.

The app also allows you to quickly look up information on any DNS server, including its location and where the servers are physically located. Just click the magnifying glass:

You’ll be pointed to a Google search or a map in your default browser.

Concerned you’ve messed up everything? You can easily apply the default DNS settings by clicking the star button:

Note that you can also back up your settings before changing anything, meaning if there were custom IP addresses before, you can revert back to them.

Download DNS Jumper

Ready to give this a shot? Go ahead and download DNS Jumper.

If you’re using Windows 8, you’ll probably get a popup warning you against using the software. Click “Read More” and you’ll have the option to run the program anyway – as always, use at your own risk (but I’ve not had any problems personally).

Conclusion

If you use a service like Tunlr, DNS Jumper is a must-have. That service is run by volunteers, who ask their users not to leave it on all of the time. DNS Jumper makes doing so practical by making it easy to turn Tunlr on and off – no digging through configuration required.

So that’s one use case, but I’m curious: what will you use DNS Jumper for? Let us know in the comments below, because I always look forward to the conversation. Oh, and be sure to check out our other DNS tips and tricks if you’re interested.

The post DNS Jumper – Hop From One DNS Service To Another, Quickly [Windows] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

How To Delete Kaspersky Temporary Files

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More than once I have mentioned here that Kaspersky Internet Security is the security software that I trust the most when it comes to PC security. Kaspersky Internet Security includes all features present in Kaspersky Antivirus plus two-way firewall, anti-spam and more. Recently, one of my PC’s hard drive was running out of free space. [...]

WindowsAndroid: Run Android On Windows

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Android is probably the most powerful and highly customizable mobile operating system out there. Android, since it’s launch by Google back in 2007, has been powering millions low to mid to high end smart phones, including the famous Samsung Galaxy series. Users who would like to run Android on Windows have limited options. Users need [...]

Google Removes Related Searches Option

Back in 2009, Google added a sidebar with advanced search options like wonder wheel, timeline, sites with images, recent results and related searches (intially called "search suggestions"). Many of these features are no longer available, but there are some new features that have been added since then: verbatim, dictionary, visited pages.

Google has recently removed the related searches feature because few people used it. "We weren't seeing enough usage of this filter to maintain it in the toolbar, but we do display related searches at the bottom of the page when they seem relevant enough."



Here's a screenshot from 2009 (licensed as Creative Commons by Search Engine Land):

"Related searches" allowed you to quickly check the results for similar queries. "If you're ever unsure about the precise terms you should use for your search, start out with a broader term then use the related searches tool to discover alternative search terms," explained Google. It was also used by SEOs to generated lists of related keywords.



The Google blog post from 2009 included the following video which shows a lot of features that are no longer available (review search, sentiment analysis snippets, longer snippets, wonder wheel, timeline, dictionary auto-linking, SearchWiki):

YouTube's Homepage Carousel UI

When you're signed in, YouTube's homepage now has a carousel interface similar to the new design for channels. The "what to watch" section groups recent videos from your subscriptions, recommended videos and now also shows popular videos from some of your subscriptions. For music artists, YouTube links to a playlists that includes their top tracks.



The new interface is more compact, it shows more videos, you can easily ignore recommendations and prolific channels can't "spam" your homepage. Unfortunately, you can no longer remove videos from the homepage, quickly unsubscribe from channels or see the videos you've previously watched. These features are only available in the "my subscriptions" page, which still has the old interface.

How To Take Amazing Photos Of Your Pets

If you haven’t yet experienced the joy of owning a pet then you’re missing out on one of life’s simple pleasures. While owning a pet isn’t a wholly positive experience – especially when they pass away after far too short a time on this Earth – the positives far outweigh the negatives. Especially if you choose the right animal to suit your personality.

Pets provide a great subject for photographers, both professional and amateur alike. They’re unpredictable, busy, and inquisitive. Just like children, in fact. Having already shown you how to take amazing photos of kids, it’s now time to turn our attention to our furry and/or feathered friends.

You may have already noticed I’ve used cats throughout this article. This is simply because I love cats and think they’re the most naturally photogenic animals out there. But these tips are good for all pets, no matter what their species. Hell, even smelly dogs are welcome to the party.

Up Close & Personal

Keep your camera (or smartphone) close to hand at all times. Pets are notoriously unpredictable, and you never know when they’ll do something or act in a way that deserves recording for posterity.

Be aware that you’re much more likely to get great results from photographing your own pet rather than someone else’s pet. They know you, they trust you, they may even like you, if we can ascribe such sentiments to animals.

Spend time with your pet. Know how to read their feelings. There will be times when your pet is happy to be photographed, and others when they’re more keen on being left alone. Take heed of these moods.

Natural Is Nice

I’m not a fan of posed photographs. You can tell when someone is trying just that little too hard to look good when the shutter button is pressed. If it looks bad when humans do it, it will also look bad when animals do it.

Taking photos of your pets in their natural environment is a far better idea than dressing them up or making them stand in a certain place. Follow them see where they hunt, or sleep, or do whatever it is animals do when we’re not looking.

This rule also applies to personalities. Try to capture the essence of your pet. If it’s a grumpy cat (no, not that one) then capture that. If it’s an energetic dog, then capture that. This is, after all, how you’ll remember them when they’re gone.

On Their Level

The relationships we share with our pets is often an unequal one. We’re in charge, we’re their masters, we take care of their essential needs. We also look down on them for the most part. Literally.

Most domestic pets are much smaller than us, so we tower over them. Try switching this perspective up when it comes to taking photographs of your pets; get down to their level and make your pet feel like it’s the star of the show for a change.

Not only will this gift you interesting angles, your pet is likely to respond by either becoming docile and infinitely photographable, or playful and infinitely photographable. You win either way.

Light=Good, Flash=Bad

Getting the lighting right is important when taking photographs of pets. The more natural the better, so shoot during the day with curtains and blinds thrown fully open. If shooting at night then use artifical lighting to create moods ( as demonstrated in the photo above.

Then there is flash, which should be used very sparingly, if at all. Using flash will do two things: scare or temporarily blind your pet; make its eyes glow like it’s some sort of demonic presence. Neither of which is particularly useful.

Treats & Tricks

If you need your pet to behave (rather than act naturally) there are various ways of making it happen. Using rewards for good behavior is an obvious example, with their chosen treat often having the power to get even the most rambunctious of animals to suddenly fall under your spell.

You can also use a second person off camera to draw your pet’s attention in order to obtain a particular shot. Or you can throw a favorite toy in order to capture your pet in full flight. Or wake them from their slumber suddenly in order to ensure an alert animal.

Patience Is A Virtue

Even if you follow all of the advice above you’ll still have to be very patient if you want to take photos of your pets that sail past being just ordinary to being exceptional. Like a perfect storm, various elements have to come together to make it happen.

Shoot liberally, because somewhere in amongst a pile of nonsense photographs is likely to be one that captures your pet exactly how you wanted. But remember not to delete digital photos you initially assume have no merit, as you may regret it years later.

Conclusions

One last thing you should remember when photographing pets, or any other live subjects for that matter, is to enjoy yourself. While getting good results is important, it surely means nothing if you’re not having fun while seeking out that perfect photo ripe for sharing on social networks.

Have you got any of your own tips for photographing pets? What has your experience been at capturing them on film to this point? As always we’d love to hear from you, so feel free to leave a comment in the space provided below. All are read, many receive replies.

Image Credits: Schumi, Barb Crawford, Mel, Darren Kirby, Jonathan Goforth, Robert Couse-Baker, Jenny Downing

The post How To Take Amazing Photos Of Your Pets appeared first on MakeUseOf.

How to Write a Chrome App for your Website in 5 Minutes

This video tutorial explains how you can write Chrome Apps and Extensions for your website without any knowledge of programming and publish them to the Chrome Web Store.

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This story, How to Write a Chrome App for your Website in 5 Minutes, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 23/04/2013 under Google Chrome, Software.

Learn How To Take Notes While Watching An Online Video With VideoNot.es

Some ideas are so simple that you are left wondering why anyone didn’t think of it before; especially Google which has YouTube under its large umbrella. The idea I am talking about here relates to take notes while watching video. Anyone who has done an online educational course with video lectures, or let’s say, has taken the help of a video tutorial will vouch for the value of note taking while watching a video.

Strangely, there doesn’t seem to be a seamless solution in sight. Note taking apps are dime a dozen, but try to make one work while watching a video and you will burn out your Alt-Tab shortcut keys. One workable solution is using a desktop sticky application alongside a video and have it on top of the video window. Or use the vastly underrated Microsoft OneNote. But it is not a smart solution. That tag belongs to VideoNot.es .

A Note Taking App with a Difference

VideoNotes is geared to be a free educational tool for online learners who do a lot of their learning on sites like YouTube, Coursera, Udacity, Khan Academy, and EdX. I am sure, more will be added soon. The French educational startup UniShared created the platform with an idea driven by collaborative knowledge sharing. Let’s put VideoNotes to the test and learn what makes it a pretty good addition to your study kit.

VideoNotes piggybacks on Google Drive like an integrated Google Drive app. Every note that you create is saved with its associated video URL to your Google Drive account. You can log into VideoNotes with your Google account. As you can see in the screenshot below, the interface is divided into left and right areas for the video and the notes respectively. If you want a bit of handholding through the minimal features, click on the name logo on the top to start the brief interactive tour.

Copy-pasting the video URL loads the video and you are ready to begin your lesson. VideoNotes gives you more help for finding out the URL for any Coursera video. The screenshot below shows that the video is loaded and ready to be played.

As the video starts playing, you can shift your attention to the notes editor on the right and start capturing important points for your learning and recall. You can start by naming your note so that you can refer back to it later when a bunch of them have piled up in Google Drive.

VideoNotes is simply not about putting down lines of notes while the video plays on the side. Each note that you capture on the notes editor is automatically synchronized with video. So, you can click on a specific note and the video will jump to that precise point on the timeline. This is the “smart solution” to note taking I was talking about earlier.

The Note Taking Shortcuts

VideoNotes gives you a few shortcuts that give you hands on control over your note taking:

• You can play-and-pause the video playback with the CTRL+Spacebar key. Alternatively, use the video player controls.


• You can toggle the sync (on or off) with CTRL+ALT+s. Alternatively; you can use the On-Off switch.

All notes are automatically saved to Google Drive and you can access them from the File Menu. You can also access them directly from Google Drive.

Collaboration with Google Drive

If you have a group studying around a common video, Google Drive’s collaborative feature can be exploited to the hilt. The notes do not have to be linear. Everyone can chip in to add discussion points on a video tutorial. Teachers can create their own video tutorials or use an existing one and explain it with points in the notes editor. Collaboration with students opens up lessons to deeper understanding and recall.

A Few Quirks

It’s a good beginning as a note taking platform for learning videos. But VideoNotes isn’t perfect it. The notes editor is barebones right now. Text formatting features would go a long way in making the notes richer. Real-time chats could help to make learning more discussion oriented. There are workarounds that make YouTube a more social experience. Hyperlinking a note to an external resource is a feature I would love to see get implemented. Also, right now there is no way to share your notes with others from within VideoNotes. You have to log into your integrated Google Drive account and share from there which is a bit irksome.

But a new application can be forgiven its wrinkles especially when it does the simple thing well (and is free). Here the simplest thing is the benefits of taking notes and saving them with the relevant points on a video. If you use video tutorials for learning, then VideoNotes is a must try. But tell me…how do you take notes while watching video? And how does your method compare with VideoNotes?

The post Learn How To Take Notes While Watching An Online Video With VideoNot.es appeared first on MakeUseOf.

How Accurate Is Browser Market Share Data?

It's really hard to get accurate browser stats. Some companies report the number of active users, others report the total number of users and there are many web analytics companies that report conflicting market share data.



Net Market Share is a service that collects data from "HitsLink Analytics and SharePost clients." Net Market Share explains that "the network includes over 40,000 websites, and spans the globe. We 'count' unique visitors to our network sites, and only count one unique visit to each network site per day. This is part of our quality control process to prevent fraud, and ensure the most accurate portrayal of Internet usage market share."



I tried to compare this information with the data obtained from browser vendors. Probably the most transparent company is Opera, at least when it comes to the mobile browsers. Every month, Opera reports the number of users for Opera Mini and Opera Mobile.



Here's the data from May 2012 to February 2013:

Month	Opera Mini users (million)	HitsLink market share (mobile browsers)
05/2012	179	12.43%
06/2012	183	10.45%
07/2012	187.7	9.32%
08/2012	191	8.59%
09/2012	187.6	9.55%
10/2012	194	8.24%
11/2012	195	7.02%
12/2012	208	10.71%
01/2013	215	9.84%
02/2013	207	12.72%

And here are two charts that illustrate the data:

Obviously, there are many factors that influence market share: maybe the number of mobile users grows, maybe there are other browsers that become popular. Still, the two charts show completely different trends. For example:



- from May to June 2012, the number of Opera Mini users increased with 4 million, but the market share dropped from 12.43% to 10.45%

- from June to July 2012, the number of Opera Mini users increased with 4.7 million, but the market share dropped from 10.45% to 9.32%

- from December 2012 to January 2013, the number of Opera Mini users increased with 7 million, but the market share dropped from 10.71% to 9.84%.

- from January to February 2013, the number of Opera Mini users decreased with 8 million, but the market share grew from 9.84% to 12.72%.



StatCounter reports different data: Opera's mobile market share continously dropped from May 2012 (21.9%) to February 2013 (15.4%). StatCounter's report shows that the Android browser is more popular than the Mobile Safari, while Net Market Share's data shows that Safari Mobile is 3 times more popular than the Android browser. It's important to mention that StatCounter measures pageviews, not unique visitors.



Opera's reports include a chart of the number of Opera Mini pageviews, which increased from 113.8 billion in May 2012 to 147.1 billion in February 2013:

If Opera's data and StatCounter's data are both accurate, then the total number of mobile pageviews almost doubled from May 2012 to February 2013.



What about the data from a popular site like Wikipedia? "Wikimedia traffic analysis reports are based on server logs of about 4 billion page requests per month, based on the user agent information that accompanied the requests. These server logs cover requests to all the Wikimedia Foundation projects, including Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikinews, Wikiversity and others." Wikimedia data for October 2012 shows that only 6.4% of the mobile requests were from Opera Mini users.



According to Clicky, Opera Mini's market share is only 3-4%. "Marketshare is calculated from nearly 500 million daily page views across the 500,000+ web sites that use Clicky Web Analytics."



As you can see, these stats are completely different. StatCounter is the only service which reports that Android's browser is more popular than Mobile Safari and UC Browser's market share is 8-10%. Opera Mini's market share is anywhere from 3% to 15%, depending on the service you use.



It's interesting that Opera's presentations include data from StatCounter. A recent presentation mentions that Opera's mobile browsers have "50 million Android users" and Opera has "10% browser market share" (probably Android market share).