class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/haxball.png" alt="play soccer online" /> href="http://www.haxball.com/">HaxBall is both one of the most simple games I’ve ever played, in regards to gameplay and visuals, and one of the most addictive. I’m not even a big soccer (football, for our Europeans) fan, either. If you have even the slightest interest in sports, team-based gaming, or games that manage to be both casual and competitive in nature then you should give HaxBall a chance.

Registration is not required and you can begin playing soccer online at HaxBall in about 15 seconds after landing on their website. After selecting a username to play as, you’re presented with a list of rooms. Join a room and you’re ready to play.

HaxBall’s Start

HaxBall is an indie game developed by Mario Carbajal, known as Basro in-game and on href="http://www.reddit.com/r/haxball">Reddit. He and his brother, Pilaf, created HaxBall as a bit of a personal project and just for fun. It has since fleshed out to a thriving community of players that can reach up to 5,000 online at once during peak hours.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/haxball_big.png" alt="play soccer online" width="580" height="168" />

HaxBall utilizes Flash’s P2P (peer-to-peer) technology. There are no dedicated servers. It makes for a very unique experience that calls on all players to help contribute as pillars to the game.

The Gameplay

HaxBall’s gameplay consists of two functions – the arrow keys to move your player and the X key to kick the ball. If you’d rather switch hands, you can use the WASD keys as directional keys and the spacebar as your kick button. It’s a matter of preference, but both are very primitive and simple. You need no other keys or mouse gestures to play this game.

The objective is to score goals in the opposing team’s net. The maximum number of players, time limit, score limit, and stadium type (the field, basically) are all variables that you can modify by creating your own room. These variables create unique and exciting gameplay scenarios if you’re bored of standardized 3-on-3 games. Up to 22 players can join a room, which includes spectators.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/haxballroom.png" alt="play soccer online free" width="401" height="300" />

On the following screen, you’re able to choose your stadium. Here is what the more popular Classic stadium looks like:

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/haxball_classic.png" alt="play soccer online free" width="580" height="287" />

Here is what the less-popular Hockey stadium looks like:

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/haxball_hockey.png" alt="play soccer online" width="580" height="273" />

Stadiums come in various sizes, big and small, with a choice of corner styles, rounded or standard.

Here is the official HaxBall promotional trailer:

Competition & Leagues

For a game so simple, you’d expect competitive play to behave the same. Not entirely. HaxBall has a thriving elitist community who show a huge skill gap between your first-week beginner. Here’s a little montage of higher-skilled players you might like to see:

href="http://www.sphaxball.com/">SPHB was founded and stands today as HaxBall’s premiere league. With both a minor and major division, SPHB gives every player the opportunity to compete. Currently in season five, the league is as organized as it is fun, with teams like the Boston Crabs, Huntington Beach Hipsters, and Robot Bears.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/haxball_teams.png" alt="" width="580" height="97" />

Personal friends of mine have participated in the league and can’t really say enough about how well everything is handled. Games are streamed to the masses, results are posted on their forums, and they really handle this entire thing as if they’re getting paid for it. Check out some of the top plays from one of their most recent weeks:

width="560" height="315" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"> name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /> name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /> name="src" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/k2nILniGMrw?version=3&hl=en_US" /> name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /> width="560" height="315" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/k2nILniGMrw?version=3&hl=en_US" allowFullScreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" />

The HaxBall Community

HaxBall has players from every continent in the world. It doesn’t matter what nook or cranny you’re living in, there should be a server hosted within 1,000km of your location so that you can maintain a solid ping to play competitively.

href="http://www.haxballtube.com/">HaxballTube

HBT is a YouTube clone filled with awesome HaxBall videos.

href="http://haxballaus.theforum.name/">HaxBall Australia/NZ

Your hub for all things HaxBall for Australia and New Zealand.

href="http://haxball.de/">HaxBall.de

HaxBall’s German community, filled with awesome tips and tricks for new and old players.

href="http://hbaleague.xaa.pl/">HaxBall Amateur League

The HaxBall Amateur League is the premiere league for players in Poland.

href="http://www.haxballtr.com/">HaxBall Türkiye

Turkish HaxBall players can organize their leagues and discussions here.

There are many more community sites that you can check out href="http://www.haxball.com/community.html">here.

Give HaxBall a try. It doesn’t matter if you’re a casual player or a player looking for a new and interesting, competitive game that can be played from any location. HaxBall has a lot to offer for a game that is so simple. My username in-game is Crayder and maybe you’ll see me around!

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Text-Edit.jpg" alt="text summarizer" />A few days back I looked at how we are increasingly href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/managing-digital-information-overload-technology-cure-opinion/">buckling under information overload. Digital technology via the computer and other media is the cause and the cure. One small piece of the cure can be found in the use of text summarizers.

Text summarizers analyze a document and then sum it up around key points and concepts. We were taught how to summarize long pieces of text in school. Text summarization apps are just the online automatic tools that use algorithms to present a quick outline of a document.

The benefit for us is that it helps us fit in the important facts in the shortest available time. It’s also a great study aid because a student is better equipped to tackle a long lesson armed with a sketchy summary. So, here are four free online text summarizers which try to give you the abstract with some degree of success.

href="http://topicmarks.com/">Topicmarks

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/TextSummary01.jpg" alt="text summarizer" width="580" height="379" />

Topicmarks is a beta application. But it is effective in the way it summarizes long pieces of text and gets the main facts to you concisely. You need to register and sign-in. After verifying your email ID, Topicmarks gives you few ways to upload your document for summarization. Topicmarks supports – PDF, HTML, OpenOffice, MS Word, and text files. You can bring in content into Topicmarks by uploading a file, linking via a URL, from Evernote, and syncing your Google Reader feeds.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/TextSummary02.jpg" alt="text summary generator" width="580" height="298" />

Topicmarks creates a detailed index of the content, displays related concepts, and also presents a summary. In short, you long piece of text is summarized for you to glance through. Topicmarks only works for documents in English. (Read href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/topicmarks-summary-of-text/">Directory mention)

href="http://www.greatsummary.com/">GreatSummary

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/TextSummary03.jpg" alt="text summary generator" width="580" height="288" />

GreatSummary aims to end information overload by identifying the key concepts in a document and extracting the gist of a document, webpage, or any text selection of your choice. You can either paste in a document or provide GreatSummary the URL. Select the number of sentences you want to have in the summary and press the “Summarize” button.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/TextSummary04.jpg" alt="text summary generator" width="580" height="355" />

GreatSummary ‘identifies the words that capture the key threads of the text’ and then ranks the sentences according to the key words. You can then “re-summarize” by changing the number of sentences. GreatSummary is still in beta, but its point based summary is worth a tryout.

href="http://www.wikisummarizer.com/">WikiSummarizer

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/TextSummary05.jpg" alt="text summary" width="580" height="387" />

WikiSummarizer only works for Wikipedia articles. It can be niftily used as a Wikipedia search engine and a summarizer in one shot. Feed WikiSummarizer a keyword and it searches out the relevant Wikipedia article and presents the abstract in points. The web app identifies the most important keywords and ranks them by relevancy. For each keyword the most important sentences in the original text are presented to the reader. The WebSumamrizer tab can be used to shorten and study any webpage with a URL.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/TextSummary06.jpg" alt="text summary" width="580" height="453" />

Also, the summary can be viewed in two views – mind map view and a tree view which makes it visualizing the information all the more easier.  You can export the summary or the visual summary to Word, and/or choice of mindmapping software.

href="http://gistweb.com/">GistWeb

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/TextSummary07.jpg" alt="text summarizer" width="580" height="311" />

GistWeb takes the bookmarklet approach. Gist works for Internet Explorer and Firefox. As the name itself suggests, if you want the gist of a webpage, just click the bookmark. As an added plus, GistWeb also works with html files you have saved on your local hard drive. You have to open the HTML file and click your GistWeb bookmark to get a summary of the content. Though it doesn’t have an option to tweak the scope of the summarization, it does display the percentage shortening achieved. A reduction of 50 – 55% in the few articles I tried out is significant to increase my productivity.

These four tools are very simple in the way the process English language texts. If you want a productivity hack without losing out on the information that bombards us every day, try out any of the four text summarizers. Let us know which one you plan to keep. Also, tell us if you think that text summarizers miss the point and you would rather use your eye to skim through a long article.

Image Credit: href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=24577957" rel="nofollow">Shutterstock

View full post on MakeUseOf

class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/image14.png" alt="free screenshot program" width="300" height="300" />Taking href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/screenshot/">screenshots is something everyone needs to do once in a while. There are numerous screen capture tools out there – some very powerful and costly, and some lighter and cheaper.

But let’s face it, most of us don’t need to use screenshots professionally. We just need a lightweight and simple tool that won’t slow down the computer and will simply do what it’s supposed to – take screenshots. Here are 3 free, simple and lightweight free screenshot programs that do just that.

href="http://vessenger.com/snaplr">Snaplr [Windows & Mac]

Snaplr is a tiny Adobe Air application that is both slick and extremely simple. There are no hotkeys, no configurations to be done and no options to choose from. Snaplr is basically one single screen:

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-04-14h29_25.png" alt="free screenshot program" width="417" height="377" border="0" />

After you click the “Take Screenshot” button, you can choose any window you want and then select the region you want to capture. If you want the whole screen, you’ll just have to choose it by hand.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-04-14h30_18.png" alt="free screenshot software" width="488" height="387" border="0" />

When you let go of the mouse button, Snaplr will pop up again – this time with your captured screenshot inside.

You can now use Snaplr’s limited yet useful annotation tools to add text, draw arrows or shapes, or just freehand with a brush. You can choose from 5 different colors for your annotations.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-04-14h33_02.png" alt="free screenshot software" width="441" height="487" border="0" />

When you’re done, you can copy your screenshot to the clipboard and just paste it into an e-mail or a document, or you can choose to save it as a PNG file.

This is all you can do with Snaplr, but it really works.

href="http://getgreenshot.org/">Greenshot [Windows]

If you want something just a bit more powerful (though a bit less slick, I must say), and you’re a Windows user, you should try Greenshot.

Greenshot offers a lot more options than Snaplr, but the entire package is still minimalistic and light, and you can get down to business pretty easily. After you install Greenshot it will take over your PrintScreen button and will create several hotkeys which you can use to capture your whole screen, a whole window, or a region of your choice.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-04-15h12_12.png" alt="free screenshot software" width="504" height="431" border="0" />

By default, a new screenshot will open in Greenshot’s image editor. Here you can do all the usual things, but with Greenshot you can also highlight and obfuscate text for example, which are pretty handy options. These tools are also pretty configurable: You can choose from blur or pixelize when you obfuscate, and the highlight tool can also magnify or greyscale the entire image but not the highlighted section. You can also crop your image if the original screenshot is not perfect.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-04-15h31_58.png" alt="free screenshot utility" width="467" height="464" border="0" />

As opposed to Snaplr, here you can choose any color you want for your annotations, and you can also make them transparent. It will even show you the recently used colors.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-04-15h18_45.png" alt="free screenshot utility" width="330" height="426" border="0" />

Though not overwhelming, Greenshot does have some settings (which you can ignore if you don’t want to deal with it – it works just fine on defaults). You can’t change the hotkeys, but you can play with effects and capture options.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-04-15h19_46.png" alt="free screenshot utility" width="463" height="432" border="0" />

You can also control some output options. Instead of the image editor, you can automatically copy the screenshot to the clipboard once you take it. Alternatively, you can send it to the printer or just save it. You also have some control over the output format and quality.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-04-15h20_02.png" alt="" width="466" height="435" border="0" />

Overall, Greenshot is a good compromise between a very simple tool and a highly powerful complicated tool. The only bone I have to pick with it is the slightly unresponsive editor interface. For some reason there is no undo option, and deleting annotations proved to be quite a task at times. But for simple usage, Greenshot is a peach.

href="http://tinygrab.com/">TinyGrab [Windows & Mac]

TinyGrab is a whole different take on the screenshot world. The name of the game here is sharing. Every screenshot you take is immediately uploaded to the cloud.

Before you can use TinyGrab, you’d need to create an account. This is slightly annoying, but is sweetened by the beautiful graphics. As you can see, I deliberately typed my password wrong here (the colors don’t match). Brilliant!

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-04-15h45_31.png" alt="" width="519" height="284" border="0" />

After you download TinyGrab, start by configuring your hotkeys (full screen, active window, or region) and the actions that will take place on and after upload. The preferences are very nicely done and are a joy to play with.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-04-15h43_22.png" alt="" width="548" height="527" border="0" />

Then go ahead and take your screenshot.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-04-15h57_05.png" alt="" width="471" height="408" border="0" />

The screenshot’s new URL will be automatically copied to your clipboard. You can now paste it anywhere you’d like and share it.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-04-16h02_12.png" alt="" width="381" height="378" border="0" />

TinyGrab also has an online control panel. You can use it to browse all your screenshots, arrange them in folders and get their respective URLs.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-04-16h05_59.png" alt="free screenshot program" width="485" height="519" border="0" />

All in all, TinyGrab is a beautiful tool that’s great to use visually and really does what it should, but performance-wise it’s somewhat lacking. The installation wasn’t very smooth, and for such a small and simple tool it had a little too much impact on my not-so-strong computer.

Bottom Line

I tried several free screenshot programs before choosing these three. I think all three of these apps are a great pick if you’re looking for a simple screenshot tool.

If social sharing is important to you, go for TinyGrab. It’s pretty much perfect for that. Otherwise, I highly recommend Snaplr for it’s appealing simplicity, and Greenshot is a good middle solution for those who can’t make up their minds.

If you’re looking for more screen capture tools, check out:

• href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-fast-easy-online-screen-capture-tools/">3 Fast and Easy Online Screen Capture Tools
• href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/screenshot-apply-artistic-effects-ms-word-2010/">How To Take A Screenshot & Apply Artistic Effects With The New MS Word 2010
• href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-alternative-screen-capture-tools-for-your-mac/">5 Alternative Screen Capture Tools For Your Mac
• href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/create-compelling-screenshots-snapdraw-free-320-windows/">Create Compelling Screenshots With SnapDraw Free 3.20
• href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/shutter-%E2%80%93-the-best-screen-capture-software-in-linux/">Shutter – The Best Screen Capture Software For Linux
• href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/snapshoter-screen-capture-tool-clipboard-manager-rolled-windows/">SnapShoter: A Screen Capture Tool & Clipboard Manager Rolled Into One

Any other light and simple screenshot apps out there? Do you know of a better solution? Share in the comments!

Image Credit: href="http://thumb15.shutterstock.com/photos/thumb_small/469099/469099,1275401052,1.jpg" rel="nofollow">Shutterstock

View full post on MakeUseOf

class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/image14.png" alt="free screenshot program" width="300" height="300" />Taking href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/screenshot/">screenshots is something everyone needs to do once in a while. There are numerous screen capture tools out there – some very powerful and costly, and some lighter and cheaper.

But let’s face it, most of us don’t need to use screenshots professionally. We just need a lightweight and simple tool that won’t slow down the computer and will simply do what it’s supposed to – take screenshots. Here are 3 free, simple and lightweight free screenshot programs that do just that.

href="http://vessenger.com/snaplr">Snaplr [Windows & Mac]

Snaplr is a tiny Adobe Air application that is both slick and extremely simple. There are no hotkeys, no configurations to be done and no options to choose from. Snaplr is basically one single screen:

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-04-14h29_25.png" alt="free screenshot program" width="417" height="377" border="0" />

After you click the “Take Screenshot” button, you can choose any window you want and then select the region you want to capture. If you want the whole screen, you’ll just have to choose it by hand.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-04-14h30_18.png" alt="free screenshot software" width="488" height="387" border="0" />

When you let go of the mouse button, Snaplr will pop up again – this time with your captured screenshot inside.

You can now use Snaplr’s limited yet useful annotation tools to add text, draw arrows or shapes, or just freehand with a brush. You can choose from 5 different colors for your annotations.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-04-14h33_02.png" alt="free screenshot software" width="441" height="487" border="0" />

When you’re done, you can copy your screenshot to the clipboard and just paste it into an e-mail or a document, or you can choose to save it as a PNG file.

This is all you can do with Snaplr, but it really works.

href="http://getgreenshot.org/">Greenshot [Windows]

If you want something just a bit more powerful (though a bit less slick, I must say), and you’re a Windows user, you should try Greenshot.

Greenshot offers a lot more options than Snaplr, but the entire package is still minimalistic and light, and you can get down to business pretty easily. After you install Greenshot it will take over your PrintScreen button and will create several hotkeys which you can use to capture your whole screen, a whole window, or a region of your choice.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-04-15h12_12.png" alt="free screenshot software" width="504" height="431" border="0" />

By default, a new screenshot will open in Greenshot’s image editor. Here you can do all the usual things, but with Greenshot you can also highlight and obfuscate text for example, which are pretty handy options. These tools are also pretty configurable: You can choose from blur or pixelize when you obfuscate, and the highlight tool can also magnify or greyscale the entire image but not the highlighted section. You can also crop your image if the original screenshot is not perfect.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-04-15h31_58.png" alt="free screenshot utility" width="467" height="464" border="0" />

As opposed to Snaplr, here you can choose any color you want for your annotations, and you can also make them transparent. It will even show you the recently used colors.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-04-15h18_45.png" alt="free screenshot utility" width="330" height="426" border="0" />

Though not overwhelming, Greenshot does have some settings (which you can ignore if you don’t want to deal with it – it works just fine on defaults). You can’t change the hotkeys, but you can play with effects and capture options.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-04-15h19_46.png" alt="free screenshot utility" width="463" height="432" border="0" />

You can also control some output options. Instead of the image editor, you can automatically copy the screenshot to the clipboard once you take it. Alternatively, you can send it to the printer or just save it. You also have some control over the output format and quality.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-04-15h20_02.png" alt="" width="466" height="435" border="0" />

Overall, Greenshot is a good compromise between a very simple tool and a highly powerful complicated tool. The only bone I have to pick with it is the slightly unresponsive editor interface. For some reason there is no undo option, and deleting annotations proved to be quite a task at times. But for simple usage, Greenshot is a peach.

href="http://tinygrab.com/">TinyGrab [Windows & Mac]

TinyGrab is a whole different take on the screenshot world. The name of the game here is sharing. Every screenshot you take is immediately uploaded to the cloud.

Before you can use TinyGrab, you’d need to create an account. This is slightly annoying, but is sweetened by the beautiful graphics. As you can see, I deliberately typed my password wrong here (the colors don’t match). Brilliant!

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-04-15h45_31.png" alt="" width="519" height="284" border="0" />

After you download TinyGrab, start by configuring your hotkeys (full screen, active window, or region) and the actions that will take place on and after upload. The preferences are very nicely done and are a joy to play with.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-04-15h43_22.png" alt="" width="548" height="527" border="0" />

Then go ahead and take your screenshot.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-04-15h57_05.png" alt="" width="471" height="408" border="0" />

The screenshot’s new URL will be automatically copied to your clipboard. You can now paste it anywhere you’d like and share it.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-04-16h02_12.png" alt="" width="381" height="378" border="0" />

TinyGrab also has an online control panel. You can use it to browse all your screenshots, arrange them in folders and get their respective URLs.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-04-16h05_59.png" alt="free screenshot program" width="485" height="519" border="0" />

All in all, TinyGrab is a beautiful tool that’s great to use visually and really does what it should, but performance-wise it’s somewhat lacking. The installation wasn’t very smooth, and for such a small and simple tool it had a little too much impact on my not-so-strong computer.

Bottom Line

I tried several free screenshot programs before choosing these three. I think all three of these apps are a great pick if you’re looking for a simple screenshot tool.

If social sharing is important to you, go for TinyGrab. It’s pretty much perfect for that. Otherwise, I highly recommend Snaplr for it’s appealing simplicity, and Greenshot is a good middle solution for those who can’t make up their minds.

If you’re looking for more screen capture tools, check out:

• href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-fast-easy-online-screen-capture-tools/">3 Fast and Easy Online Screen Capture Tools
• href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/screenshot-apply-artistic-effects-ms-word-2010/">How To Take A Screenshot & Apply Artistic Effects With The New MS Word 2010
• href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-alternative-screen-capture-tools-for-your-mac/">5 Alternative Screen Capture Tools For Your Mac
• href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/create-compelling-screenshots-snapdraw-free-320-windows/">Create Compelling Screenshots With SnapDraw Free 3.20
• href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/shutter-%E2%80%93-the-best-screen-capture-software-in-linux/">Shutter – The Best Screen Capture Software For Linux
• href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/snapshoter-screen-capture-tool-clipboard-manager-rolled-windows/">SnapShoter: A Screen Capture Tool & Clipboard Manager Rolled Into One

Any other light and simple screenshot apps out there? Do you know of a better solution? Share in the comments!

Image Credit: href="http://thumb15.shutterstock.com/photos/thumb_small/469099/469099,1275401052,1.jpg" rel="nofollow">Shutterstock

View full post on MakeUseOf

class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/4882451370_b50f1d4fed.jpg" alt="manage personal finances" />Fall semester is about to start for a lot of college students, which is a great time to decide where we can make some changes to our habits from the past academic year. One of my goals is to actually start tracking my expenses. I’ve tried class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/mint-budget-spending-online">Mint and even trusted it with my bank information, but I never actually logged on the website much to get an overview of my transactions. At this point, I feel like it’s better to keep it simple when it comes to managing my own finances, and to develop a simple system to make me like the process of money management.

In my search for a simple and free program to keep my finances on track, I found this tiny program, class="vt-p" href="http://www.metalogicsw.com/financeexplorer/index.html">Metalogic Finance Explorer, that seems easy enough for me to learn and even recommend to others.

Getting Started

class="vt-p" href="http://www.metalogicsw.com/financeexplorer/index.html">Finance Explorer is an easy-to-use portable application that can help you manage your financial information. It’s not only portable, but also very small in file size, taking up about 1MB of space. You can download the program from class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/five-more-useful-portable-apps-for-your-usb-stick/">PortableApps class="vt-p" href="http://portableapps.com/apps/office/finance_explorer_portable">here. The installation is pretty straightforward so just follow the instructions.

The first thing you notice when you launch the program is that it sports a user interface reminiscent of Windows Explorer, which means it’s minimalistic and familiar-looking.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/2011-08-09_113919.png" alt="manage personal finances" width="580" height="336" />

You can get started by setting up your accounts and adding your bank account information. Finance Explorer doesn’t actually connect to your online bank account. You just need to add your bank account information, and start entering your starting balance.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/SelectAccount.png" alt="manage finances" width="320" height="239" />

If your bank allows you to download your transaction history in Quicken or Microsoft Money file formats, then it’s your lucky day. Finance Explorer is compatible with those two programs so you can easily import your transactions files (which will also add your bank account information), avoid entering erroneous data when typing it all manually and save a lot of time.

Setting Up A Budget

To make the most out of your finances, you’ll want to start recording your expenses and general transactions, classifying them into groups or categories so you can total your transactions and get an overview of your finances.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Budget.png" alt="manage finances" width="544" height="466" />

The class="vt-p" href="http://www.metalogicsw.com/financeexplorer/tutorial/">tutorial from the developer’s site provides thorough examples of how you can use the program to keep a budget for each category and see how you’ll end up balancing your income and expenses.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/TransactionEntry1.png" alt="manage finances" width="580" height="290" />

Tracking Your Investments & Stocks

You can easily make use of this program to track investments such as retirement accounts, tuition savings, and stocks. Create an account under Investment, e.g. Retirement account, and add details like description and amount. Press Enter and you’ll see your newly created account under Investment.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/2011-08-09_124427.png" alt="financial management application" width="565" height="288" />

Now click on the account you just created and enter a symbol in the appropriate column, as well as other details in the quantity and purchase price. Press Enter once you’re done.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/2011-08-09_124206.png" alt="financial management application" width="580" height="244" />

To get updates on your quotes, go to Tools > Update Quotes. The information will then be retrieved and reflected on your grid.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/2011-08-09_125043.png" alt="manage personal finances" width="570" height="238" />

I haven’t used Quicken or Microsoft Money so I don’t know if those programs use PINs to allow access, but I feel like it’d be nice if Finance Explorer enabled users to password-protect their information on launch. Other than that, Finance Explorer is a handy program to keep track of all your finances on your computer. If you’re concerned about online services having access to your financial information, give this program a go.

What do you use to keep track of your finances? Let us know of your preferred programs or services in the comments!

Image credits: class="vt-p" href="http://www.metalogicsw.com/">Metalogic, class="vt-p" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rmgimages/4882451370/">RambergMediaImages

View full post on MakeUseOf

class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/image86.png?54167" alt="" />I have been professionally blogging about software for over two years now, and The Man With No Life is hands-down the best name for an app I’ve covered so far. It has absolutely nothing to do with what the application does, and couldn’t be farther than traditional SEO wisdom. In a nutshell, it’s a free YouTube downloader for Windows.

When you open the app, you’re greeted with a huge, intrusive banner and Facebook friends area:

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/image87.png?54167" border="0" alt="image" width="580" height="501" />

Fortunately, that can quickly be fixed simply by resizing the window (thanks for not disabling the option to resize the window, Man With No Life). After resizing the window, the interface looks much saner:

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/image88.png?54167" border="0" alt="image" width="580" height="346" />

That’s more like it. There isn’t even a scroll bar. Next, let’s switch over to the Search window. This is no more than an embedded browser with Google as its default search (yes, Google rather than YouTube, for some reason). You can also paste in the full URL for any video you wish to download:

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/image89.png?54167" border="0" alt="image" width="580" height="376" />

As soon as you see the title (“Did you hear a click?” in this case) in the top-left text box, you can click Download. You are then taken to the Transfers tab, where you can watch the video download:

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/image90.png?54167" border="0" alt="image" width="580" height="109" />

… or fail miserably, if the title happens to have a question mark or other strange characters. In that case, just drop the special characters and hope for the best. It worked for the video above, as you can see. Once the download is complete, you can switch over to the My Library tab so see your video. Sadly, the context menu is not very informative, and the file path is not listed.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/image91.png?54167" border="0" alt="image" width="419" height="224" />

To see where your files actually get saved, you’ll need to switch over to the Settings tab.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/image92.png?54167" border="0" alt="image" width="580" height="393" />

Here you can see the default path for the files, as well as the quality setting. This is a bit of a simplification, as YouTube offers MP4-compressed files in multiple resolutions, so saying MP4 is “Highest quality” is not completely accurate.

Alternatives

Is the Man With No Life the best way to download YouTube videos? Definitely not. To be honest, the main thing it’s got going for it is the name. The interface is simple, which is good, but novice users may have trouble figuring out where their download went. There are several other services you can use if you want to download videos off YouTube. My personal favorite is class="vt-p" href="http://jdownloader.org/">JDownloader, which is a Java-based solution so it’s quite heavy (but can do lots more other than download YouTube videos).

If JDownloader is a bit too heavy for you, you might be interested in an online alternative such as class="vt-p" href="http://keep-tube.com/">Keep Tube. It couldn’t be simpler to use: All you need to do is edit the URL for the video in your browser put the word keep right before youtube. So to download a video with a URL like class="vt-p" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRBcP6MmE8g">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRBcP6MmE8g you would just need to change it to class="vt-p" href="http://www.keepyoutube.com/watch?v=cRBcP6MmE8g">http://www.keepyoutube.com/watch?v=cRBcP6MmE8g . Keep Tube also uses Java, but as a browser plug-in, and is very lean and fast. It doesn’t have a crazy name like The Man With No Life, but it’s very usable.

What’s your preferred way to download videos off YouTube? Let us know in the comments.

href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/man-life-simple-free-download-youtube-videos/">The Man With No Life – A Simple & Free Way To Download YouTube Videos is a post from: href="http://www.makeuseof.com">MakeUseOf

More articles about: href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/downloader/" title="downloader" rel="tag">downloader, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/online-videos/" title="online videos" rel="tag">online videos, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/streaming-video/" title="streaming video" rel="tag">streaming video, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/youtube/" title="Youtube" rel="tag">Youtube />

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View full post on MakeUseOf

class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/sunlikely-icon.png?54167" alt="weather report" />Check the weather in your area, including the forecast, in a few clicks, then get back to what you’re doing. That’s the idea behind Sunlikely, a weather website so simple and so complete you’ll wonder why you ever used anything else.

The site’s own about page sums up everything: “Sunlikely is a weather application designed to give you instant access to the weather around you, without the clutter of other sites”. It’s that lack of clutter that makes Sunlikely stand out, at least to me.

We’ve profiled a variety of class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/weather/">weather services here at MakeUseOf. A year ago I myself called Wunderground class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/weather-underground-weather-site-web/">the best weather site on the web. Since discovering Sunlikely six months ago however, I haven’t used anything else.

Quick Access to Forecasts

To get started, visit class="vt-p" href="http://www.sunlikely.com/">Sunlikely. The main thing you’ll notice is simplicity. When you start, for example, you’ll only see this:

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/sunlikely-location.png?54167" alt="weather report" width="580" height="174" />

You can type in your city or ZIP code manually to get the forecast you’re looking for. Alternatively, you can click the auto-locate button. Either way you’ll quickly see your local weather conditions:

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/sunlikely-main.png?54167" alt="weather report application" width="580" height="238" />

Like I said: it’s simple. That’s the point. Your location will be remembered from now on, so you’ll only need to enter it once.

Below the current weather summary you’ll see the forecast for upcoming days. Click a given day and a drop-down will show you how the weather will evolve during that day:

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/sunlikely-forecast.png?54167" alt="weather report application" width="580" height="249" />

Some might be looking for more information than this, but I like the rough overview. It’s simple in a way that the Internet seldom is.

There’s one more feature – access to radar. This can be very useful if you want an idea of how conditions are evolving, or if you intend to travel.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/sunlikely-radar.jpg?54167" alt="weather report" width="580" height="300" />

As you can see, the radar is a Google Map that pops up within the tab you have open. It loads quickly; you can also close it quickly to get back to the forecast.

Wondering where the information is coming from? It’s directly from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or class="vt-p" href="http://www.noaa.gov">NOAA.

The Web Needs More Simplicity

I’d tell you more features of this site but there really aren’t any. With Sunlikely you get the weather, and that’s it. Services like Wunderground are great, but they do tend to overwhelm their visitors with the sheer amount of information they offer. Most of the time a simple overview is all you need, and Sunlikely delivers.

That, I think, is why I’ve been faithfully using Sunlikely for months now. It tells me what I need to know in order to decide how I’ll get to work (bike or bus?) and nothing else.

Conclusion

It’s not a perfect service. It currently only works in the USA, which is of course a letdown for the vast majority of Internet users. But I think there’s something here that will resonate with people. Hopefully we see more focused sites like this pop up all over the world as people strive to simplify their online lives.

Do you have any other examples of sites like this? Share them in the comments below. Also feel free to share your thoughts on Sunlikely, because we love hearing from you. />
/> Hey Facebookers, make sure to join href="http://www.facebook.com/makeuseof" target="_blank">MakeUseOf on Facebook and get access to some exclusve stuff. Over 105,000 fans already!

/>

href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/sunlikely-fast-simple-indepth-weather-report/">Sunlikely: Fast, Simple & In-Depth Weather Report [Currently US Only] is a post from: href="http://www.makeuseof.com">MakeUseOf

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View full post on MakeUseOf

class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/sunlikely-icon.png?54167" alt="weather report" />Check the weather in your area, including the forecast, in a few clicks, then get back to what you’re doing. That’s the idea behind Sunlikely, a weather website so simple and so complete you’ll wonder why you ever used anything else.

The site’s own about page sums up everything: “Sunlikely is a weather application designed to give you instant access to the weather around you, without the clutter of other sites”. It’s that lack of clutter that makes Sunlikely stand out, at least to me.

We’ve profiled a variety of class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/weather/">weather services here at MakeUseOf. A year ago I myself called Wunderground class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/weather-underground-weather-site-web/">the best weather site on the web. Since discovering Sunlikely six months ago however, I haven’t used anything else.

Quick Access to Forecasts

To get started, visit class="vt-p" href="http://www.sunlikely.com/">Sunlikely. The main thing you’ll notice is simplicity. When you start, for example, you’ll only see this:

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/sunlikely-location.png?54167" alt="weather report" width="580" height="174" />

You can type in your city or ZIP code manually to get the forecast you’re looking for. Alternatively, you can click the auto-locate button. Either way you’ll quickly see your local weather conditions:

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/sunlikely-main.png?54167" alt="weather report application" width="580" height="238" />

Like I said: it’s simple. That’s the point. Your location will be remembered from now on, so you’ll only need to enter it once.

Below the current weather summary you’ll see the forecast for upcoming days. Click a given day and a drop-down will show you how the weather will evolve during that day:

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/sunlikely-forecast.png?54167" alt="weather report application" width="580" height="249" />

Some might be looking for more information than this, but I like the rough overview. It’s simple in a way that the Internet seldom is.

There’s one more feature – access to radar. This can be very useful if you want an idea of how conditions are evolving, or if you intend to travel.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/sunlikely-radar.jpg?54167" alt="weather report" width="580" height="300" />

As you can see, the radar is a Google Map that pops up within the tab you have open. It loads quickly; you can also close it quickly to get back to the forecast.

Wondering where the information is coming from? It’s directly from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or class="vt-p" href="http://www.noaa.gov">NOAA.

The Web Needs More Simplicity

I’d tell you more features of this site but there really aren’t any. With Sunlikely you get the weather, and that’s it. Services like Wunderground are great, but they do tend to overwhelm their visitors with the sheer amount of information they offer. Most of the time a simple overview is all you need, and Sunlikely delivers.

That, I think, is why I’ve been faithfully using Sunlikely for months now. It tells me what I need to know in order to decide how I’ll get to work (bike or bus?) and nothing else.

Conclusion

It’s not a perfect service. It currently only works in the USA, which is of course a letdown for the vast majority of Internet users. But I think there’s something here that will resonate with people. Hopefully we see more focused sites like this pop up all over the world as people strive to simplify their online lives.

Do you have any other examples of sites like this? Share them in the comments below. Also feel free to share your thoughts on Sunlikely, because we love hearing from you. />
/> Hey Facebookers, make sure to join href="http://www.facebook.com/makeuseof" target="_blank">MakeUseOf on Facebook and get access to some exclusve stuff. Over 105,000 fans already!

/>

href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/sunlikely-fast-simple-indepth-weather-report/">Sunlikely: Fast, Simple & In-Depth Weather Report [Currently US Only] is a post from: href="http://www.makeuseof.com">MakeUseOf

More articles about: href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/radar/" title="radar" rel="tag">radar, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/tracking-tools/" title="tracking tools" rel="tag">tracking tools, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/weather/" title="weather" rel="tag">weather />

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View full post on MakeUseOf

class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/sunlikely-icon.png?54167" alt="weather report" />Check the weather in your area, including the forecast, in a few clicks, then get back to what you’re doing. That’s the idea behind Sunlikely, a weather website so simple and so complete you’ll wonder why you ever used anything else.

The site’s own about page sums up everything: “Sunlikely is a weather application designed to give you instant access to the weather around you, without the clutter of other sites”. It’s that lack of clutter that makes Sunlikely stand out, at least to me.

We’ve profiled a variety of class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/weather/">weather services here at MakeUseOf. A year ago I myself called Wunderground class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/weather-underground-weather-site-web/">the best weather site on the web. Since discovering Sunlikely six months ago however, I haven’t used anything else.

Quick Access to Forecasts

To get started, visit class="vt-p" href="http://www.sunlikely.com/">Sunlikely. The main thing you’ll notice is simplicity. When you start, for example, you’ll only see this:

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/sunlikely-location.png?54167" alt="weather report" width="580" height="174" />

You can type in your city or ZIP code manually to get the forecast you’re looking for. Alternatively, you can click the auto-locate button. Either way you’ll quickly see your local weather conditions:

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/sunlikely-main.png?54167" alt="weather report application" width="580" height="238" />

Like I said: it’s simple. That’s the point. Your location will be remembered from now on, so you’ll only need to enter it once.

Below the current weather summary you’ll see the forecast for upcoming days. Click a given day and a drop-down will show you how the weather will evolve during that day:

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/sunlikely-forecast.png?54167" alt="weather report application" width="580" height="249" />

Some might be looking for more information than this, but I like the rough overview. It’s simple in a way that the Internet seldom is.

There’s one more feature – access to radar. This can be very useful if you want an idea of how conditions are evolving, or if you intend to travel.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/sunlikely-radar.jpg?54167" alt="weather report" width="580" height="300" />

As you can see, the radar is a Google Map that pops up within the tab you have open. It loads quickly; you can also close it quickly to get back to the forecast.

Wondering where the information is coming from? It’s directly from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or class="vt-p" href="http://www.noaa.gov">NOAA.

The Web Needs More Simplicity

I’d tell you more features of this site but there really aren’t any. With Sunlikely you get the weather, and that’s it. Services like Wunderground are great, but they do tend to overwhelm their visitors with the sheer amount of information they offer. Most of the time a simple overview is all you need, and Sunlikely delivers.

That, I think, is why I’ve been faithfully using Sunlikely for months now. It tells me what I need to know in order to decide how I’ll get to work (bike or bus?) and nothing else.

Conclusion

It’s not a perfect service. It currently only works in the USA, which is of course a letdown for the vast majority of Internet users. But I think there’s something here that will resonate with people. Hopefully we see more focused sites like this pop up all over the world as people strive to simplify their online lives.

Do you have any other examples of sites like this? Share them in the comments below. Also feel free to share your thoughts on Sunlikely, because we love hearing from you.

href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/sunlikely-fast-simple-indepth-weather-report/">Sunlikely: Fast, Simple & In-Depth Weather Report [Currently US Only] is a post from: href="http://www.makeuseof.com">MakeUseOf

More articles about: href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/radar/" title="radar" rel="tag">radar, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/tracking-tools/" title="tracking tools" rel="tag">tracking tools, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/weather/" title="weather" rel="tag">weather />

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/audacious-icon.png?54167" alt="linux music player" />Use a simple music player for Linux. Drag your music files into the program, hit play, listen and enjoy. If you feel like modern music players do way more than what you’re looking for, Audacious could be what you need.

It is, in many ways, similar to Winamp circa 1998; it even supports Winamp themes from that era. Die-hard Linux users will also note the similarity to XMMS, one of the original Linux music players. Whether you’re feeling nostalgic or not however, Audacious is a solid music player that every Linux user should check out at least once for its reliability and its ease of use.

Software like class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/itunes/">iTunes or Banshee (the default music player for class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/ubuntu-1104-unity-big-leap-linux/">Ubuntu 11.04), with their libraries, videos and endless other features, are great for some. Others find this sort of software gets in the way when it comes to enjoying music, particularly if you already organized your music in folders. For them, Audacious is perfect. We mentioned it briefly during our review of class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-great-alternative-linux-music-players/">great alternative Linux music players, but Audacious is worth another look and a brief instructional.

Basic Music Player

Fire up Audacious and you’ll be greeted with a simple GTK interface:

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/audacious-gtk.png?54167" alt="linux music player" width="579" height="255" />

This doesn’t take much to get started; just add music and go. You can click-and-drag stuff over from your file browser or use the “+” button to add music. Playback is easy from here.

You can, using the “Playlist” menu item, add multiple playlists. These will be stored in separate tabs, making it easy to switch from one list to another. It’s worth exploring the settings, however. The plugins panel particularly includes a lot of options:

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/audacious-plugins.png?54167" alt="music player for linux" width="578" height="270" />

Whether you want class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/lastfm/">Last.fm scrobbling or crossfading, you can find what you’re looking for here. These plugins are typically installed when you set up Audacious but not enabled, so explore. You can find more plugins on the class="vt-p" href="http://audacious-media-player.org/plugins">Audacious website.

Another section of the settings worth checking out, of course, is the support for Winamp themes. in the main menu bar. Click “View” followed by “Interface“. You’ll see the option for using Winamp themes. Click it and Audacious will start to look different:

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/audacious-classic.png?54167" alt="music player for linux" width="365" height="202" />

A few changes happened, of course. The menubar is gone, and so are the tabbed playlists. Don’t panic; everything is a right-click away. Want to change how this looks even more? Head to the settings again; you’ll find an interface tab where you can pick skins. You’ll even find the old default XMMS skin.

Using Winamp Skins

You’re not limited to the included skins, however. You can also install old Winamp themes. There’s no GUI for doing this; you need to extract the skin files and put them in the right folder.

To start, download your favorite Winamp theme from yesterday. I found the class="vt-p" href=""http://www.winamp.com/skin</a">Winamp skin site a mixed bag; many of the themes there are “modern” and as such can’t work here. There are a variety of classic skins class="vt-p" href="http://customize.org/winamp2">at Customize.org. Wherever you get your theme, the file you’ll end up with will be an archive with the file extension “.wsz”. Unarchive it, and drag the folder you get to this folder:

~/.local/share/audacious/Skins

The “~”, if you didn’t know, refers to your home folder. Not sure how to get to that folder? Open your file browser, then click “ctl” and “h” to show hidden files. Everything should be easy after that. Once you install themes they should show up in Audacious, but you may need to restart the program.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/audacious-skins.png?54167" alt="linux music player" width="540" height="187" />

Here are just a few skins I like:

• class="vt-p" href="http://www.winamp.com/skin/super-mario-bros-skin-remix/147447">Super Mario Bros Remix
• class="vt-p" href="http://www.winamp.com/skin/winamp3-default-skin/140397">Winamp 3 Default skin
• class="vt-p" href="http://www.winamp.com/skin/hand-written-v5/147153">Handwritten
• class="vt-p" href="http://www.winamp.com/skin/fire-elemental/142952">Fire Elemental

Have fun recommending your own in the comments below; it’s a retro thing to do but kind of fun.

Download Audacious Now

Ready to install Audacious? Check your package manager for a download; it’s there somewhere. Be sure to install the plugins package too. Ubuntu and Debian users can class="vt-p" href="apt:audacious,audacious-plugins">simply click here to install Audacious and its plugins right now.

What do you think of this somewhat old-school Linux music player? Leave your thoughts below, or just wax nostalgic about how great software used to be back in the day. Then tell the neighbor kids to get off your lawn.

href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/audacious-simple-retro-awesome-music-player-linux/">Audacious: Simple, Somewhat Retro, Awesome Music Player [Linux] is a post from: href="http://www.makeuseof.com">MakeUseOf

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/0_songsprite.jpg?54167" alt="" />In an article I wrote back in February entitled,  class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/4-websites-check-music-releases/">The 4 Best Websites To Check Out New Music Releases First, I pointed out that  class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/youtube/">YouTube is a great place to find new music. Simply put, there are lots of music videos on the site and no matter what you’re into I guarantee they’ve got it.

But do you know what the problem is with YouTube as a music-listening platform? It wasn’t really built for that, and because it wasn’t, it lacks a few key things that a typical music platform would have, like the ability to save music playlists. Okay, so YouTube does technically have a playlist feature for music, but you still have to wait for the video to load in order to listen to your song, and sometimes that can be a pain. I’ve found a simpler way to do things, and it’s called SongSprite.

What Is SongSprite?

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/5_songsprite.png?54167" alt="" width="476" height="394" />

class="vt-p" href="http://www.songsprite.com/">SongSprite ( class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/songsprite-create-audio-playlists/">directory app) pulls the audio from YouTube videos and lets you make your favorite tracks into a playable playlist that you can share with others. You simply get the URLs of the YouTube videos you’d like to play or share, paste them into SongSprite and then you will be able to listen to them or send a link to your newly created playlist to whoever you like.

SongSprite allows you to connect, collaborate and share playlists in real time with your friends.

The process of creating a playlist is SongSprite is extremely simple.

How Do I Use SongSprite?

The first place you need to go is YouTube and start browsing for music you would like to add to your new playlist.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/1_songsprite.jpg?54167" alt="" width="553" height="510" />

Once you find a song that you like, just go up and copy the URL for it. Shortened links won’t work, so make sure the URL you grab is of normal length. Paste the link into the box on SongSprite and click the Add button to the right. If you’re using class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/chrome/">Google Chrome as your browser, the class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-extremely-chrome-extensions-life-easier/">Split Screen extension would be great for this. Check it out.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/2_songsprite.png?54167" alt="" width="287" height="200" />

You’ll know you entered the information correctly because it will place the name of the song into your list below. You can keep adding songs in this way until you are happy with the playlist you’ve created.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/3_songsprite.png?54167" alt="" width="307" height="100" />

To share your playlist once it is done, just copy the URL below the player and paste it in an email or IM, or click the Share icon to send the link to Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, or StumbleUpon.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/4_songsprite.png?54167" alt="" width="328" height="46" />

Conclusion

While having the ability to take content from YouTube and listen to it via a site like SongSprite is extremely convenient for all of us, I doubt that YouTube would really take kindly to this type of “extension”, seeing as none of YouTube’s ads or copyright permissions seem to come with the music you’re getting with the service. Having said that, I do think SongSprite is a great resource and a site that I could see myself using again and again. I invite you all to check it out and let me know what you think.

href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/songsprite-super-simple-create-share-audio-playlists-youtube/">SongSprite – A SUPER Simple Way to Create & Share Audio Playlists From YouTube is a post from: href="http://www.makeuseof.com">MakeUseOf

More articles about: href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/audio/" title="audio" rel="tag">audio, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/music/" title="music" rel="tag">music, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/music-sharing/" title="music sharing" rel="tag">music sharing, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/music-videos/" title="music videos" rel="tag">music videos, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/playlist/" title="playlist" rel="tag">playlist, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/playlist-creator/" title="playlist creator" rel="tag">playlist creator, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/youtube/" title="Youtube" rel="tag">Youtube />

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/chrome-notes.jpg" alt="send to google docs"/>If you like working from anywhere, then Google Docs is one of the great sink holes you can pour everything into. Google Docs allows us to create and share in the cloud from any location, while keeping our document needs covered. The ‘software as a service’ has really taken off and we are richer for it. You can upload, store, archive, tag, and organize your documents. If you use it efficiently, 1GB of free storage also is adequate for most needs.

The here-there-and-everywhere nature of href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/google-docs/">Google Docs gives me an opportunity to use it as a brain dump for my impromptu notes. Most of us live in the browser; and if it’s Firefox then href="http://inbasic.mozdev.org/root/ext3/home/index.html">QuickFox is a must-install extension for those who ever loved Opera’s own Notes feature and do a lot of note-taking while browsing.

I wrote glowingly about it href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/quickfox-notes-%E2%80%93-write-and-save-notes-in-firefox/">previously and since then I have never taken it off my must-have extensions list. But QuickFox is browser based and in case you want to access it from any other computer, it presents a problem.

Not much because you can synchronize your notes using an online XMarks account and access it from anywhere. QuickFox also seamlessly works with the href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/simplenote-note-taking-utility/">SimpleNote app. There is a third way and it involves the interplay of QuickFox, Google Docs, and a very useful script. Please note that sending notes to Google Docs via QuickFox is not a sync but merely a save as the script does not enable synchronization between the two.

Send Notes to Google Docs With QuickFox

You can send all your notes saved on QuickFox to Google Docs by introducing a small script into the QuickFox add-on folder. The script extends the default feature set of QuickFox and enabling its integration with Google Docs. Download the Google Docs script href="http://downloads.mozdev.org/inbasic/scripts/extGoogleDocs.js">from here (right-click on the script page, and save it as a .js file).

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/021.jpg" alt="send to google docs" width="580" height="303" />

Then proceed to install it in the following directory:

For Windows XP: /> C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\68u8hfy4.default\qfn-scripts /> For Windows Vista and 7: /> C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\q9z0k4c5.default\qfn-scripts

Restart the browser for the change to take effect.

After restarting the browser, open a QuickFox Note. You will notice that a new icon for syncing with Google Docs has appeared alongside the other buttons. See the screenshot below.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/011.jpg" alt="send to google docs firefox" width="580" height="311" />

Compose a note and click on the button. A new window opens up and asks for your Google account username and password. The note gets saved to Google Docs as a text document with the same name as the QuickFox note. A small notification below says that the note has been clipped successfully.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/031.jpg" alt="send to google docs" width="580" height="326" />

Instead of using the bookmarking utility like XMarks, this tip proves really useful for picking up snippets from the web while browsing and saving or archiving them on Google Docs for later read. Of course, we can go into Google Docs and then share, organize, or collaborate on this note. I for example, create a bunch of notes and then organize them into collections. Later, I have Google Doc’s facility to download the saved notes as a PDF file.

Give us your opinion on this quick tip that allows you to save your browser notes to Google Docs.

href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/send-notes-google-docs-firefox-quickfox-addon-simple-script/">Send Your Notes To Google Docs From Firefox Using The QuickFox Add-on & A Simple Script is a post from: href="http://www.makeuseof.com">MakeUseOf

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/0_geemail.jpg" alt="" />Gmail is now the only email service I use. It’s fast, extremely simple, has a lot of great features, and it has everything I’m looking for from an email client. class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/google-labs/">Google Labs alone makes Gmail worth giving a try if you haven’t used it before, and there are plenty of third party add-ons you can utilize as well. Just recently, in fact, I showed you TaskForce, which gives you an class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/taskforce-easiest-convert-gmail-emails-tasks/">easy way to convert Gmail emails into tasks.

One of the things I’ve always liked about Gmail was that it was the first true cloud app I got used to accessing. Being completely browser based, it helped me transition from desktop apps to web-based ones, possibly because there simply weren’t any desktop email clients that could live up to what Gmail offered, at least for me, anyway.

That no long holds true now that I’ve found GeeMail. GeeMail is a standalone Gmail client for Windows, Mac, and Linux, and it’s a great answer for your offline needs.

What Is GeeMail?

class="vt-p" href="http://www.sourcebits.com/geemail/">GeeMail runs on Adobe AIR (cross-platform), and it looks and feels a lot like the Gmail that you’re used to. Since GeeMail supports the old UI of Gmail itself, things just work the way they do in Gmail, even the keyboard shortcuts.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/1_geemail.jpg" alt="" width="526" height="431" />

With GeeMail, you can view all of your mail and even reply to messages while offline. When you do, your replies will be sent the next time the application detects that you are connected to the Internet.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/2_geemail.jpg" alt="" width="580" height="319" />

Gmail tried to give users an offline solution using class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/use-online-apps-offline-with-google-gears">Gears, but GeeMail is a lot faster. It can grab hundreds of your most recent messages within minutes. It can do this because it only pulls in the bare essentials. Gmail’s labeling structure, for instance, won’t be pulled in by GeeMail unless you are online.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/3_geemail.png" alt="" width="540" height="382" />

There is no configuration with GeeMail. The program has everything in place which is required to access your Gmail, meaning you don’t need to configure POP and IMAP settings like traditional email clients.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/4_geemail.png" alt="" width="513" height="228" />

GeeMail also has a search feature, which I believe is newly added. You can search emails regularly, or click on Advanced Search to do things like search only messages from or to a specific person.

How Do I Use GeeMail?

To get started with GeeMail, just head over to their class="vt-p" href="http://www.sourcebits.com/geemail/">website and click the Free Download button. The client will install with Adobe Air and the first time you run it you will see a login screen that looks strikingly similar to Gmail’s online login page. Type in your credentials to log in and get your mail.

GeeMail will take a minute to connect to your Gmail account and load, but once it does you will have all of your email and labels in the app to begin viewing.

Conclusion

As with any email client, GeeMail takes a bit of getting used to, but once you have it where you feel comfortable, it’s quite useful for you. I will be sticking with the online version of Gmail, but this presents a nice offline solution for me if I ever need to read something important when my Internet connection goes down.

What do you think about desktop email clients? Do you have a favorite app?  Let us know what you think about this one and whether you see yourself using it, instead of the web-based Gmail. />
/> href="http://www.supertintin.com/">SuperTinTin – Skype Video Call Recorder /> Record and save your audio and video conversations on Skype or MSN. Easy to use.

/>

 

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/int.jpg" border="0" alt="desktop wallpaper switcher" />Harold Wilson once said that “He who rejects change is the architect of decay”.  I’m pretty sure he wasn’t referring to desktop wallpapers, but the quote fits. Boring desktops probably don’t href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/8-sites-funny-computer-wallpapers/">stimulate our brains that much, and so imagination and creativity could be on the verge of decaying, just a tad bit. The simple solution of scouring for new wallpapers is usually fun, but it can also be time-consuming and tedious.

We have actually featured a few applications that do the wallpaper-hunting and rotating for you according to your preferred time intervals. href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/wally-an-incredible-cross-platform-wallpaper-rotation-app/">Wally is one such program that’s also open-source and cross-platform; href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/take-flickr-straight-to-your-desktop-with-interactive-wallpaper-updates/">John’s Background Switcher is a similar application for Windows. Both can download images from online sources, such as Flickr, Picasa, etc. These two are full of functionalities but If you want less complicated tools, you can check out href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/the-best-resources-to-pimp-your-wallpaper/">ScrollWall and href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/7-simple-steps-awesome-minimalistic-productive-desktop/">Wallpaper Juggler.

href="http://pulse.codeplex.com/">Pulse is another background rotator that happens to be open-source, and is very simple to use. Available for Windows, this program simply sits in the system tray once you run the executable.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/21.png" border="0" alt="desktop wallpaper switcher" width="190" height="50" />

When you right-click on the tray icon, you get three options: To get the next wallpaper, to change Settings or Options, and to exit.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/42.png" border="0" alt="desktop wallpaper switch" width="305" height="131" />

The Options window presents you with some simple fields.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/12.png" border="0" alt="desktop wallpaper switch" width="523" height="606" />

There’s a keyword field for you to type your preferred genre of wallpaper. The current source of wallpapers is href="http://www.rewalls.com">Rewalls, a Russian website with lots of wallpapers, and since Pulse actually uses Google Translate to translate the keyword you typed, you might have to be careful about being too specific. The default keyword of “Spring” provided absolutely stunning wallpapers, but when I typed ‘sushi’, Pulse took several tries to find the right wallpapers.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/53.jpg" border="0" alt="desktop wallpaper switch" width="583" height="366" />

While Windows 7 can also rotate wallpapers, it only considers wallpapers you already have on your hard drive, unless you do href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-set-a-bing-wallpaper-desktop-slideshow-in-windows-7/">some tweaking. With Pulse, at least, every wallpaper is a surprise, and you can choose how often you’ll see these new surprises. The times offered on the Options ranges from 1 minute to 1 hour and 30 minutes, with 5-minute intervals. The software is actually in beta, so there might be more time options in the future.

Below the frequency options, you can set Pulse to skip or not pictures with lower resolutions so you only get high quality wallpapers. Beneath that, you can select whether to delete cached images and how many days’ worth of wallpapers your cache folder should save.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/81.jpg" border="0" alt="desktop wallpaper switcher free" width="538" height="626" />

Finally for the Options dialog, you can choose your language settings. Changes are applied immediately, but since this is beta software, if you encounter hiccups, you just need to restart the application. The amount of memory used by Pulse when I had set it on changing wallpapers every 5 minute change is about average.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/7.png" border="0" alt="desktop wallpaper switcher" width="500" height="621" />

Pulse may be a beta application but its simplicity and ease of use make it a good choice for users that don’t want to bother too much with settings things up, but just want new HD-quality wallpapers inundating their desktops.

If you’re interested in checking out more interesting wallpaper applications, I would recommend my favorite, innovative product  href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/personalize-desktop-wallpaper-social-wallcast/">Wallcast. Don’t forget to check out hand-picked collections of href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-sexy-wallpapers-significant-approve/">sexy wallpapers that your significant other will approve of, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/15-cool-facebook-wallpaper-themes-windowsmaclinux/">cool social networking backgrounds, and href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/15-awesome-dualmonitor-wallpapers/">dual-monitor wallpapers. If you’re an iPad owner, you should probably check out href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/4-free-wallpaper-apps-ipad/">these wallpaper apps to turn your device into a magnificent picture frame. href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-cool-innovative-linux-wallpapers-for-ubuntu-users/">If you’re on Linux, there’s quite a few wallpaper changer apps you can read about href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-wallpaper-changer-apps-for-linux/">here.

Do you prefer to seek wallpapers the manual way or find Pulse or similar applications useful? Let us know in the comments!

Image credit: rel="nofollow" href="http://www.sxc.hu/photo/44129">pixelbox

Read comments: href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/pulse-simple-opensource-wallpaper-switcher-windows/#disqus_thread">Loved it? Hated it? Join discussion here …

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View full post on MakeUseOf

class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/int.jpg" border="0" alt="desktop wallpaper switcher" />Harold Wilson once said that “He who rejects change is the architect of decay”.  I’m pretty sure he wasn’t referring to desktop wallpapers, but the quote fits. Boring desktops probably don’t href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/8-sites-funny-computer-wallpapers/">stimulate our brains that much, and so imagination and creativity could be on the verge of decaying, just a tad bit. The simple solution of scouring for new wallpapers is usually fun, but it can also be time-consuming and tedious.

We have actually featured a few applications that do the wallpaper-hunting and rotating for you according to your preferred time intervals. href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/wally-an-incredible-cross-platform-wallpaper-rotation-app/">Wally is one such program that’s also open-source and cross-platform; href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/take-flickr-straight-to-your-desktop-with-interactive-wallpaper-updates/">John’s Background Switcher is a similar application for Windows. Both can download images from online sources, such as Flickr, Picasa, etc. These two are full of functionalities but If you want less complicated tools, you can check out href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/the-best-resources-to-pimp-your-wallpaper/">ScrollWall and href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/7-simple-steps-awesome-minimalistic-productive-desktop/">Wallpaper Juggler.

href="http://pulse.codeplex.com/">Pulse is another background rotator that happens to be open-source, and is very simple to use. Available for Windows, this program simply sits in the system tray once you run the executable.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/21.png" border="0" alt="desktop wallpaper switcher" width="190" height="50" />

When you right-click on the tray icon, you get three options: To get the next wallpaper, to change Settings or Options, and to exit.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/42.png" border="0" alt="desktop wallpaper switch" width="305" height="131" />

The Options window presents you with some simple fields.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/12.png" border="0" alt="desktop wallpaper switch" width="523" height="606" />

There’s a keyword field for you to type your preferred genre of wallpaper. The current source of wallpapers is href="http://www.rewalls.com">Rewalls, a Russian website with lots of wallpapers, and since Pulse actually uses Google Translate to translate the keyword you typed, you might have to be careful about being too specific. The default keyword of “Spring” provided absolutely stunning wallpapers, but when I typed ‘sushi’, Pulse took several tries to find the right wallpapers.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/53.jpg" border="0" alt="desktop wallpaper switch" width="583" height="366" />

While Windows 7 can also rotate wallpapers, it only considers wallpapers you already have on your hard drive, unless you do href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-set-a-bing-wallpaper-desktop-slideshow-in-windows-7/">some tweaking. With Pulse, at least, every wallpaper is a surprise, and you can choose how often you’ll see these new surprises. The times offered on the Options ranges from 1 minute to 1 hour and 30 minutes, with 5-minute intervals. The software is actually in beta, so there might be more time options in the future.

Below the frequency options, you can set Pulse to skip or not pictures with lower resolutions so you only get high quality wallpapers. Beneath that, you can select whether to delete cached images and how many days’ worth of wallpapers your cache folder should save.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/81.jpg" border="0" alt="desktop wallpaper switcher free" width="538" height="626" />

Finally for the Options dialog, you can choose your language settings. Changes are applied immediately, but since this is beta software, if you encounter hiccups, you just need to restart the application. The amount of memory used by Pulse when I had set it on changing wallpapers every 5 minute change is about average.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/7.png" border="0" alt="desktop wallpaper switcher" width="500" height="621" />

Pulse may be a beta application but its simplicity and ease of use make it a good choice for users that don’t want to bother too much with settings things up, but just want new HD-quality wallpapers inundating their desktops.

If you’re interested in checking out more interesting wallpaper applications, I would recommend my favorite, innovative product  href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/personalize-desktop-wallpaper-social-wallcast/">Wallcast. Don’t forget to check out hand-picked collections of href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-sexy-wallpapers-significant-approve/">sexy wallpapers that your significant other will approve of, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/15-cool-facebook-wallpaper-themes-windowsmaclinux/">cool social networking backgrounds, and href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/15-awesome-dualmonitor-wallpapers/">dual-monitor wallpapers. If you’re an iPad owner, you should probably check out href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/4-free-wallpaper-apps-ipad/">these wallpaper apps to turn your device into a magnificent picture frame. href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-cool-innovative-linux-wallpapers-for-ubuntu-users/">If you’re on Linux, there’s quite a few wallpaper changer apps you can read about href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-wallpaper-changer-apps-for-linux/">here.

Do you prefer to seek wallpapers the manual way or find Pulse or similar applications useful? Let us know in the comments!

Image credit: rel="nofollow" href="http://www.sxc.hu/photo/44129">pixelbox />
/> href="http://www.supertintin.com/">SuperTinTin – Skype Video Call Recorder /> Record and save your audio and video conversations on Skype or MSN. Easy to use.

/>

 

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View full post on MakeUseOf

class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/cron-scripting.png" alt="wordpress site backup" />Last time we talked about WordPress backups, I showed you how incredibly easy it was to backup your entire title="How To Backup Your Website Through SSH Command Line" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/backup-website-ssh-command-line/">database and files though SSH with only a few commands. This time, I’m going to show how to automate those commands, giving you fresh backups of your entire site every week, with very little effort. This will also serve as a great introduction to both shell scripting and CRON if you’ve never touched them before – the key to learning such vast topics is to start straight off by using them to do something useful for you.

Recap: Backup everything

We covered this last time, but a quick recap on the two commands needed to backup your database and and files, assuming you’ve already logged in and moved yourself to the website directory (read the first tutorial if you don’t understand). Make sure you do them in this order, so that your file backup includes the database file you output in the first command:

mysqldump --add-drop-table -u username -p databasename > databasebackup.sql
tar -cf backupfile.tar .

Replace the italicised items with either your database and username details, or the filenames you wish to output to.

Automation Step One: Scripting

For now, we’re going to make a new script that simply runs the commands you learnt for backup, with a few alterations to include the password too (since this will be automated, you won’t be able to type in the password everytime). When we’re finished, you should be left with just one command to run that will perform two commands for you!

It’s also about time you learnt how to edit text files through the command line as well, as you can’t rely on FTP and GUI’s all the time. You can use a simple text-based editor called vi to do this.

To start the app and create your first script, type:

vi mybackupscript.sh

If the file doesnt exist already, it will be created and you’ll be shown a rather daunting screen similar to this:

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/vi1.png" alt="wordpress site backup" width="500" height="279" />

vi has two modes – edit and command mode. To get into edit mode, press i. Then you can begin typing. You’ll know it worked, because the bottom left will turn to –INSERT–

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/vi2.png" alt="wordpress site backup" width="500" height="17" />

Start by typing out the following:

#!/bin/sh
mysqldump --add-drop-table -uusername -ppassword tablename > dbbackup.sql
tar -cf backup.tar .

Notice that this time, we are including the password in the command. Also notice that when we use the -p switch to specify the password, we then put the password immediately after it with no space between them. If you’d prefer, you can write the command like this instead, but functionally there is no difference:

#!/bin/sh
mysqldump --add-drop-table --user=username --password=password tablename > dbbackup.sql
tar -cf backup.tar .

Now we need to save it. Press ESC once to get out of edit mode and into command mode of the text editor. Type:

:write

and press enter, then

:quit

and enter again.

So by now you will have figured out that any commands you give must be preceded by a colon. That’s all with vi for now.

Back on the command line, go ahead and make your new script executable by typing in the following:

chmod 744 mybackupscript.sh

And finally, test it out with:

./mybackupscript.sh

Obviously, depending on the size of your site and speed of your server, it may take a while. At the end of it, you can list the files and should find a backup.tar. On my virtual private server it took about 5 seconds to create the 100MB WordPress site backup.

Automation Step Two: CRON

CRON is a task scheduler for Linux. We won’t be covering it in-depth here, but I’ll give you what you need to run your backup script every week. We’ve also covered title="How To Set Up A Cron Job To Automate Your Domains & Databases" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/cron-job/">how to run CRON jobs from your GUI based website control panel. To add a task to the CRON scheduler, you simply add a line to the “crontab”. Edit this by typing:

crontab -e

This will open up the CRON file in your text editor, most likely vi again. If you’ve never added anything before, it’s also likely to be blank. No worries. Add these lines:

00 4 * * 0 /httpdocs/mybackupscript.sh

The format this command follows is a little difficult, but goes like this:

minute hour day-of-the-month month day-of-the-week

A * in the pattern ignores that item. So in the example above, we are going to run our backup script at 00 minutes 4 hours, every 0 (Sunday) of the week.

Here are some other examples to help you understand:

01 * * * * echo "This command is run at one min past every hour"
17 8 * * * echo "This command is run daily at 8:17 am"
17 20 * * * echo "This command is run daily at 8:17 pm"
00 4 * * 0 echo "This command is run at 4 am every Sunday"
* 4 * * Sun echo "So is this"
42 4 1 * * echo "This command is run 4:42 am every 1st of the month"
01 * 19 07 * echo "This command is run hourly on the 19th of July"

Once you’ve entered that, save the file by pressing ESC, then typing :write followed by :quit. A shortcut version of this is to just type :wq , which will both write the file and quit. It’s handy, but if you’re anything like me you forget these little shortcuts.

That’s it! You’ll now have an up to date copy of your database and entire site in the root, called backup.tar (or whatever you chose to name it). You might want to learn a little more scripting to add the date on the end of the filename and avoid overwriting the same one each time, but that’s up to you to discover. I hope you can see how powerful the command line actually is now! />
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