One of the hardest things about writing is coming up with a topic. For me, once I know the topic I am going to write about, the words just begin to flow. Sometimes, I spend more time trying to decide what I am going to write about than I actually spend writing the piece itself. This is even worse for writers of stories and personal experiences because the breadth of topics available to them is so large.

Giving you ideas to write about is the main reason StoryTree exists. They have many topics available to help you come up with cool stuff to write about. They make it easy to get your brain flowing in a creative direction with all kinds of topics. What you, as the writer, choose to do with those topics is completely up to you, but they move you in the right direction. They also let you share your creations with people close to you, if you should so choose.

Set Up

As with any iPhone app, you need to go the iTunes store and download it. You can click this handy link, or simply go directly on your device and search for “storytree” to download the free application to your device.

StoryTree greets you with a beautiful starting screen that gives a quick explanation of what it is. Then it will ask you to create a free account. You will need to provide your name, an email address (no verification required) and the name of your story tree. Once finished click submit, and you will be taken to the StoryTree main page.

This page features a sample post from story tree with a video attached. You can watch that video if you think you want to learn more about the app, or click the “+” to start your own story.

Writing a Story

When you open up the page to start a new story you will be given a few options. The first is the “Don’t know what to say” option. Clicking on this will provide you with a bunch of questions that will get you thinking. The next option is to take a video or photo and write about it. Pictures are worth a thousand words, and they can be a great place to find some inspiration.

They also give you the option of recording a voice note and choosing some media that already exists on your device. All of the options provide some great ways to get the creative juices flowing.

If you select the “Don’t know what to say” option, you can also choose to come up with your own question. If you know what you want to write about, you should choose this option.

Once you find an option you like, click it and the app will take you to a screen that allows you to add a photo and write the story itself. You can take a new photo or choose an existing one. The next screen will be where you can select which tree you would like to share it to (if you have more than one) and whether or not you want it to be private or shared on Twitter and Facebook.

The steps for writing something based on a picture, video or voice note are the same, but you need to provide a title for the story.

Invites

You can invite other users into your story tree so they can easily see your stories. They need to have a StoryTree account for this to work. If they do not, you can use the link on the top left corner of the screen and invite them directly from your address book.

If they choose to join, they will be able to share your stories and view them whenever they choose.

Conclusion

This is a great app for sharing photos and thoughts, and a great way to get the creative juices flowing. It has a great set of features for anyone who likes to share. If you are stuck with a bad case of writers block, you should check out StoryTree and see if it breaks you out of the slump!

Did StoryTree inspire you to write? Did you write something you want to share? Let us know in the comments!

Image Credit: ShutterStock

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/HostsFiles05.png?54167" border="0" alt="block malicious websites" />Any website you visit potentially tracks your browsing habits, loads annoying ads, or distributes malicious software. Most of the time, common sense and standard class="vt-p" title="MakeUseOf Tag: Malware" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/malware/">malware protection software, such as antivirus programs or browser addons can help you steer clear of the worst sites. If you would like to add an additional layer of security, however, and block known offenders, you should look into the possibilities the Windows Hosts file has to offer.

In this article I will show you how you can block unsafe websites by adding blocking lists to the Windows Hosts file. The Hosts file allows you to re-direct domain names to an IP address of your choice. Subsequently, you can use this knowledge to block any domains, such as those distributing advertisements, banners, cookies, and more.

What Is The Windows Hosts File?

The Windows Hosts file is a plain text file Windows refers to for mapping hostnames to IP addresses. The file is loaded into the cache at startup and every time Windows queries a DNS server, it first checks the Hosts file for redirection information. Simply put, the Hosts file can be used to re-direct a domain name to a different IP address and hence to a completely different website or simply back to the local computer.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Hosts_MUO_Net.png?54167" alt="" width="500" height="369" />

What Are The Benefits Of Blocking Sites Using The Hosts File?

First of all you can block malicious websites using excluding lists that contain known offenders.

Secondly, if those lists contain ad servers or trackers, you will experience faster website loading times, as all ad and tracking related apps are blocked from loading. Moreover, this protects your privacy and enhances security since your browsing habits are shielded from many known trackers.

Finally, you can play a prank on people by re-directing any website you like, for example Bing to Google.

How Can I Edit The Windows Hosts File?

Mark wrote an article explaining how to block websites via the Hosts file, which covers almost everything you need to know: class="vt-p" title="Create your own Internet Filter with the Windows Hosts file" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/create-your-own-internet-filter-with-the-windows-hosts-file/">Create your own Internet Filter with the Windows Hosts file.

I will briefly describe how to edit the file in Windows 7.

• Open Notepad as Administrator. For this go to > Start > All Programs > Accessories, right-click > Notepad and select > Run as administrator. When asked whether you > (…) want to allow the following program to make changes to the computer, select > Yes.
• From within Notepad go to > File > Open and browse to the Hosts file, which is located under > C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc. The folder will be empty as it’s only showing *.txt files. In the bottom right of the folder click the drop-down menu and select > All Files.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/HostsFiles01.png?54167" border="0" alt="edit windows hosts file" />

Where Can I Find Blocking Lists?

A great resource for a customized Hosts files to block ads, banners, and other parasites, can be found on class="vt-p" title="WinHelp2002" href="http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm">WinHelp2002. The Hosts file on offer has been updated regularly, most recently in June 2011. You can download the file in class="vt-p" title="Plain Text Hosts File" href="http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.txt">plain text or as a class="vt-p" title="Zipped Hosts File" href="http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.zip">ZIP file. The Zip file contains a batch file (mvps.bat) to automatically rename and replace your current Hosts file. However, you can also manually add the list via copy and paste from the text file to your Hosts file, following the instructions above.

You can also find Hosts files on class="vt-p" title="hpHosts" href="http://amada.abuse.ch/blocklist.php">hpHosts. You can either follow the installation instructions on the website, or manually copy and paste the list from their Hosts text file into your existing Hosts file.

There are other resources that share blocklists. However, you need to make sure you get a list that has the format ‘IP address domain name’ (without quotes), for example ’127.0.0.1 google.com’ (without quotes), which would redirect the domain name google.com to the IP address 127.0.0.1 (localhost). Of course you can manually add the IP address in case you get a list that is lacking it.

What Tools Can I Use to Manage My Hosts Files?

I recommend class="vt-p" title="HostsMan" href="http://www.abelhadigital.com/hostsman">HostsMan. Apart from providing a simple interface to add entries to your Hosts files, it also allows you to import blocking lists from hpHosts via the > Update Hosts button.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/HostsFiles03.png?54167" border="0" alt="hostsman" />

You can either merge this data with your current Hosts file or overwrite it. I recommend merging, since this allows you to simply delete the added information later and not lose anything you have in there already.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/HostsFiles04.png?54167" border="0" alt="merge blocking lists with hosts file" />

You can also edit the Hosts file using a convenient user interface.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/HostsFiles02.png?54167" border="0" alt="manage hosts file" />

Unfortunately, HostsMan does not currently allow you to import your own text files and merge them with your Hosts files. This is something you need to do manually.

If you liked this article, also check out the following posts on MakeUseOf:

• class="vt-p" title="3 Best Resources To Find Sites That Are Known To Have Spyware & Viruses" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-resources-find-sites-spyware-viruses/">3 Best Resources To Find Sites That Are Known To Have Spyware & Viruses
• class="vt-p" title="Block Websites Without Any Network Experience using Any Weblock" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/filter-block-websites-network-experience-weblock/">Block Websites Without Any Network Experience using Any Weblock
• class="vt-p" title="3 Free Real-Time Malware Protection & Removal Tools" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-free-realtime-malware-protection-removal-tools/">3 Free Real-Time Malware Protection & Removal Tools

Did you know about the Hosts file before and what are you going to use it for now?

Image credits: class="vt-p" title="Pixel Skull" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=45202618">John David Bigl III />
/> Follow href="http://twitter.com/MakeUseOf" target="_blank" >MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras.

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href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/block-unsafe-websites-blocking-lists-windows-hosts-file/">How To Block Websites On Your PC Without Using Software [Windows] is a post from: href="http://www.makeuseof.com">MakeUseOf

More articles about: href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/content-filter/" title="content filter" rel="tag">content filter, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/firewall/" title="firewall" rel="tag">firewall, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/safer-browsing/" title="safer browsing" rel="tag">safer browsing, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/security/" title="security" rel="tag">security, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/security-tips/" title="security tips" rel="tag">security tips />

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style="border: 0px none;margin-left:20px;float:right;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/block-facebook.jpg" alt="block facebook apps"/>There may be actually more than one reason for you to want to block Facebook widgets you see on almost any webpage you land on:

First, you are concerned about your privacy and don’t want Facebook class="vt-p" href="http://www.facebook.com/instantpersonalization/">to personalize your browsing or to give away your information to third-party sites. In this case, besides using the tools listed below, don’t forget to edit your privacy settings (to be on the safe side): navigate Account -> Privacy Settings -> Edit Your Settings (below Applications and Websites) -> Edit settings (Next to Instant personalization).

id="more-60389"> /> Secondly, you are not on Facebook and/or you are just fed up with seeing the Facebook buttons and widgets around the web and you want to de-clutter your experience. Like ad banners, social media widgets have become a major annoyance to many surfers: for example, they may slow down the performance and result in a slower browsing and longer waiting.

As a website owner, I do understand why we would want to get better connected to our readers through various social media channels, but I do accept the point of those who don’t want to see the widgets all over the web.

So here are a few ways you can block the Facebook widgets in case you want to:

FireFox

class="vt-p" href="http://webgraph.com/resources/facebookblocker/">Facebook Blocker is an experimental FireFox href="http://makeuseof.com/tags/firefox-addons">addon that stops Facebook social plugins (including those within iFrames) from running on sites other than Facebook itself. This includes ‘Like’ buttons, ‘Recommended’ lists, widgets, etc.

Note: sites that use Facebook Connect for sign in purposes will continue to work as previously

While it did seem to work as described for me (as you can see from the screenshot below, it even blocked the “Causes” widget), it strangely kept one of Facebook buttons below the post (others were gone). I wasn’t able to tell why.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/block-facebook-03.jpg" alt="block facebook apps" width="550" height="461" />

Google Chrome

1. Facebook Disconnect

class="vt-p" href="https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/ejpepffjfmamnambagiibghpglaidiec">Facebook Disconnect is a Google Chrome href="http://makeuseof.com/tags/chrome-extensions">extension that “turns off the flow of your data” to third parties by blocking all traffic from third-party sites to Facebook servers. The extension won’t prevent you from using Facebook from its own interface though.

Facebook Disconnect works by injecting JavaScript into every page you land on to disable the component Facebook links. Note that the extension only removes integrated components (those widgets and buttons that send your data back to Facebook) – simple HTML links will naturally be kept.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/block-facebook-01.jpg" alt="how to block facebook buttons widgets" width="550" height="411" />

2. WidgetBlock

If Facebook is not the only annoyance you come across on the web, consider class="vt-p" href="https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/hgiihiookhijpbhaflohognbhmamdnol#">WidgetBlock for Google Chrome that removes all major social widgets from pages your browse to including Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz, Disqus, etc.

This considerably enhances your browsing experience as it speeds up the web and you are likely to notice web pages load much faster.

WidgetBlock disables the Widgets by preventing them being requested from the server in the same way the popular class="vt-p" href="http://adblockplus.org/en/">AdBlock works (By the way, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/banish-social-network-buttons-adblock/">AdBlock can be used to block any social media widgets as well. You just need to play around with it a bit).

WidgetBlock has very handy options that allow to enable or disable blocking of any supported widget.

(Note: there are more supported widgets than those you see on the screenshot – the list is too large to make it to one image):

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/block-facebook-02.jpg" alt="block facebook widgets" width="499" height="644" />

Disclaimer: I have played around with the tools above but I am not currently using any because I still “like” things on Facebook (shame on me) – what about you? />
/>NEW: href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/makeuseof/id366921965?mt=8" target="_blank">Download MakeUseOf iPhone App. FREE!

/>

 

href="http://api.tweetmeme.com/share?url=http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/block-facebook-widgets-buttons-web/"> src="http://api.tweetmeme.com/imagebutton.gif?url=http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/block-facebook-widgets-buttons-web/"> href="http://digg.com/tools/diggthis/login?url=http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/block-facebook-widgets-buttons-web/"> src="http://www.makeuseof.com/images/rss-buttons/diggme.png"> href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/block-facebook-widgets-buttons-web/"> src="http://www.makeuseof.com/images/rss-buttons/fb.jpg"> href="http://www.google.com/reader/link?url=http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/block-facebook-widgets-buttons-web/&title=How To Block All Facebook Widgets & Buttons Throughout The Web&srcTitle=MakeUseOf.com"> src="http://www.makeuseof.com/images/rss-buttons/gbuzz-feed.png"> href="http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?url=http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/block-facebook-widgets-buttons-web/"> src="http://www.makeuseof.com/images/rss-buttons/stumble.png">

 

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style="border: 0px none;margin-left:20px;float:right;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/block-facebook.jpg" alt="block facebook apps"/>There may be actually more than one reason for you to want to block Facebook widgets you see on almost any webpage you land on:

First, you are concerned about your privacy and don’t want Facebook class="vt-p" href="http://www.facebook.com/instantpersonalization/">to personalize your browsing or to give away your information to third-party sites. In this case, besides using the tools listed below, don’t forget to edit your privacy settings (to be on the safe side): navigate Account -> Privacy Settings -> Edit Your Settings (below Applications and Websites) -> Edit settings (Next to Instant personalization).

id="more-60389"> /> Secondly, you are not on Facebook and/or you are just fed up with seeing the Facebook buttons and widgets around the web and you want to de-clutter your experience. Like ad banners, social media widgets have become a major annoyance to many surfers: for example, they may slow down the performance and result in a slower browsing and longer waiting.

As a website owner, I do understand why we would want to get better connected to our readers through various social media channels, but I do accept the point of those who don’t want to see the widgets all over the web.

So here are a few ways you can block the Facebook widgets in case you want to:

FireFox

class="vt-p" href="http://webgraph.com/resources/facebookblocker/">Facebook Blocker is an experimental FireFox href="http://makeuseof.com/tags/firefox-addons">addon that stops Facebook social plugins (including those within iFrames) from running on sites other than Facebook itself. This includes ‘Like’ buttons, ‘Recommended’ lists, widgets, etc.

Note: sites that use Facebook Connect for sign in purposes will continue to work as previously

While it did seem to work as described for me (as you can see from the screenshot below, it even blocked the “Causes” widget), it strangely kept one of Facebook buttons below the post (others were gone). I wasn’t able to tell why.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/block-facebook-03.jpg" alt="block facebook apps" width="550" height="461" />

Google Chrome

1. Facebook Disconnect

class="vt-p" href="https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/ejpepffjfmamnambagiibghpglaidiec">Facebook Disconnect is a Google Chrome href="http://makeuseof.com/tags/chrome-extensions">extension that “turns off the flow of your data” to third parties by blocking all traffic from third-party sites to Facebook servers. The extension won’t prevent you from using Facebook from its own interface though.

Facebook Disconnect works by injecting JavaScript into every page you land on to disable the component Facebook links. Note that the extension only removes integrated components (those widgets and buttons that send your data back to Facebook) – simple HTML links will naturally be kept.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/block-facebook-01.jpg" alt="how to block facebook" width="550" height="411" />

2. WidgetBlock

If Facebook is not the only annoyance you come across on the web, consider class="vt-p" href="https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/hgiihiookhijpbhaflohognbhmamdnol#">WidgetBlock for Google Chrome that removes all major social widgets from pages your browse to including Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz, Disqus, etc.

This considerably enhances your browsing experience as it speeds up the web and you are likely to notice web pages load much faster.

WidgetBlock disables the Widgets by preventing them being requested from the server in the same way the popular class="vt-p" href="http://adblockplus.org/en/">AdBlock works (By the way, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/banish-social-network-buttons-adblock/">AdBlock can be used to block any social media widgets as well. You just need to play around with it a bit).

WidgetBlock has very handy options that allow to enable or disable blocking of any supported widget.

(Note: there are more supported widgets than those you see on the screenshot – the list is too large to make it to one image):

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/block-facebook-02.jpg" alt="block facebook apps" width="499" height="644" />

Disclaimer: I have played around with the tools above but I am not currently using any because I still “like” things on Facebook (shame on me) – what about you? />
/>NEW: href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/makeuseof/id366921965?mt=8" target="_blank">Download MakeUseOf iPhone App. FREE!

/>

 

href="http://api.tweetmeme.com/share?url=http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/block-facebook-widgets-buttons-web/"> src="http://api.tweetmeme.com/imagebutton.gif?url=http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/block-facebook-widgets-buttons-web/"> href="http://digg.com/tools/diggthis/login?url=http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/block-facebook-widgets-buttons-web/"> src="http://www.makeuseof.com/images/rss-buttons/diggme.png"> href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/block-facebook-widgets-buttons-web/"> src="http://www.makeuseof.com/images/rss-buttons/fb.jpg"> href="http://www.google.com/reader/link?url=http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/block-facebook-widgets-buttons-web/&title=How To Block All Facebook Widgets & Buttons Throughout The Web&srcTitle=MakeUseOf.com"> src="http://www.makeuseof.com/images/rss-buttons/gbuzz-feed.png"> href="http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?url=http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/block-facebook-widgets-buttons-web/"> src="http://www.makeuseof.com/images/rss-buttons/stumble.png">

 

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www.beyourownit.com-Learn how to block websites with using third party software like netnanny and others, also learn to identify spyware in your hosts file

As with any web browser, users of Opera may want to block annoying advertisements from appearing. For some users this functionality is so important that they will only use a web browser that has a good ad blocker available (usually this means Firefox,or perhaps Chrome).

Opera does not have as wide of a user base as other web browsers, so a casual observer might notice a lack of an add-on to block advertisements and be dismayed. How could a modern web browser become even mildly popular and not have an ad blocker present?

The answer is that Opera does have a way to block advertisements, but it is actually built into the browser and is called a content blocker. This tool works like any ad blocker, but unlike an ad blocker add-on it does not come pre-configured.

So, let’s take a look at how to make it work.

Blocking Selected Ads

To block ads you first need to access the content blocker tool. You can do this by right-clicking on any blank area of a webpage and then clicking Block Content from the drop-down menu that appears.  The page that you are viewing will fade out, and Opera will ask you to select the content that you do not want to view.  Just click on the offending advertisement and then click the Done button at the top of the web browser. Presto! The ad is gone and will be whenever you visit the website.

If for some reason you want to make the ad re-appear you can reverse the process. The blocked content will appear in the faded view of the website with a big red BLOCKED CONTENT banner. Select the blocked content and then click Done to make it reappear.

Blocking All (Or Almost All) Ads

The above process works well for blocking selected advertisements, but obviously it would be annoying to do it for every single website you ever visit. It works best if you only find a few particular ads annoying.

But what do you do if you find all ads annoying? Opera has you covered there, as well.  Right-click on an any portion of a webpage (any page) and then click Block Content. Once the page has faded out, click the Details button at the top of the web browser.

This will open up a window that lets you enter in the advertisements that you would like to block. Note that although this filter does say “Blocked on current page” at the top, the modifications that you make here do apply to all webpages.  You can also reach this window by clicking on the Opera icon in the upper left and then navigating to Settings > Preferences > Advanced > Blocked Content.

You will need to add the information about ads that you want to have blocked manually. Below are some of the most common ad servers.

*/ad.*
*/ad/*
*/ad2*
*/ads.*
*/ads/*
*/adv.*
*/adv/*
*/annonse*
*/banner*
*/click*
*/context-ads*

This makes a big difference in how a website looks.

Before:

After:

Adding these ad servers to blocked content will block many of the ads that you’ll encounter, but this won’t block every ad. For a more complete list, check out Fanboy’s Adblock List for Opera. This list includes literally thousands of entries. It is a bit overkill, but if you really want to block everything, it is the most complete list you’ll find.

How Do You Like Opera Now?

Blocking ads in Opera is easy. In fact, I think that Opera’s method to block advertisements is superior to the methods used by other browsers, as they mainly rely on add-ons to do the dirty work for them. Opera may be a niche browser, but it has some very cool features, and the way it handles blocking content is one of them.

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