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! />
/>NEW: href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.makeuseof&feature=search_result" target="_blank">Download MakeUseOf App for Android. FREE! />
/>

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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! />
/>NEW: href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.makeuseof&feature=search_result" target="_blank">Download MakeUseOf App for Android. FREE! />
/>

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View full post on MakeUseOf

class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/shutterstock_39106381.jpg" alt="itunes ping" />As we’ve noted on many occasions, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/itunes/">iTunes is a program many of us use out of necessity rather than desire. Despite its many uses, iTunes has a plethora of niggling annoyances which most users would be happy to remove. Here at MakeUseOf, we’re happy to share what we know in order to make that possible for you.

We’re always looking for hacks and fixes to everyday iTunes problems and listening to iTunes users to see what they’re still troubled with. Since Ping is one of the newer features in iTunes, Apple is only just realising that many people have legitimate reasons to want to turn it off. So it’s understandable that few people have worked out the best ways to disable the feature yet. Thankfully, it’s quite easy to disable Ping in two very effective ways.

Ping is essentially a social network within iTunes. It allows you to share details of your iTunes purchases, favourite music and any reviews of albums that you care to make. Itunes Ping also allows you to receive social recommendations for music based on what your friends like and what you’ve purchased. For many people, this is just a bit of fun. But, for others this is something they don’t want available for themselves or their children. Not everyone wants to automatically share their purchases with the world, which is what occurs in Ping when you buy through the iTunes store.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/iTunes-Ping-v2.png" alt="itunes ping" />

Recently we have discussed how to make the iTunes window size control buttons href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/rid-vertical-window-controls-itunes-mac">horizontal rather than vertical, talked through the process of href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/easiest-move-itunes-library-external-drive/">moving an iTunes library to an external drive, shown how to href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/boost-itunes-player-applescript-hacks-mac/">use Applescript to instantly play your favourite playlist from a keyboard shortcut, featured how to href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/automatically-import-downloaded-music-itunes-mac/">automatically add downloaded music to iTunes, explained href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/itunes-genius-mixes-personal-music-dj/">how to use Genius playlists, found great ways to href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/effectively-remove-duplicate-tracks-itunes-windows/">remove duplicates from iTunes, documented the href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-top-itunes-troubleshooting-tips-tricks/">best ways to troubleshoot iTunes issues, written a href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/the-big-book-of-itunes/">PDF manual on iTunes and we’ve href="http://www.makeuseof.com/answers/tag/itunes/">answered many more questions about iTunes from readers. Today it’s Ping’s turn to be fixed.

Please note that we’re showing screenshots from a Mac iTunes install, but these tricks will work equally well for Windows users.

1. Disable Ping Via Parental Controls

Disabling Ping via parental controls is something that will only be in effect on this specific installation and user account, therefore it is only a temporary fix. This can also only be done using the newer releases of iTunes – even version 10.0.1 was unable to disable Ping this way. Upgrade if you like, or simply use option two instead.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Preferences.png" alt="how to opt out of ping on itunes" />

Go to iTunes > Preferences and click on Parental Controls. In the list of options for services to disable, check the Ping checkbox and save. If you’re disabling Ping in order to protect your children from using it, obviously you should ensure the Parental settings are locked also.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Ping-Disable-Parental.png" alt="how to opt out of ping on itunes" />

As you can see, Ping is no longer available in the left hand sidebar.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Ping-is-Disabled.jpg" alt="how to opt out of ping on itunes" />

2. Disable Ping Via iTunes Account

This is a more permanent solution to disabling Ping. By choosing to disable this way, you effectively remove yourself from the Ping network and delete all user activity you may have previously made. The permanent deletion of activity occurs after you have disabled Ping for seven days, so you have a little leeway to change your mind if you like. Reviews will remain associated with your name unless you deliberately delete them in the Manage Reviews section of your account. Don’t worry about it too much, though. If you decide later to enable Ping, iTunes will immediately populate your account with details of your purchase history if you want it to.

Use the left-hand sidebar to navigate to the iTunes store. On the far right of the store, you’ll see access to your account controls in both the quick links and a drop-down menu below your name. Click on “Account“.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/iTunes-Account.png" alt="ping on itunes" />

You’ll then need to verify your account details and click on “Account Info“.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/sign-in.png" alt="ping on itunes" />

There’s a section dedicated to Ping, where you can edit your Ping profile and turn Ping off – click “Turn Off“.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Ping-Controls.png" alt="ping on itunes" />

You’ll also need to verify that request.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Are-You-Sure.png" alt="" />

Further down the page, there’s an option to manage “Recommendations and Ping Posting“. You’ll also want to turn this off to avoid future annoyances from Ping when making purchases from iTunes.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Recommendations-and-Ping-Posting.png" alt="itunes ping" />

You’re done! No more Ping!

Will you be disabling iTunes Ping? Which method will you use and why? Let us know in the comments!

Image Credit: rel="nofollow" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-39106381/stock-photo-shopping-on-line-music-great-file-for-your-web-banner-or-flyer.html">ShutterStock />
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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/0-evernote-intro.jpg" alt="do more with evernote" />When you test as much software as I do on a fairly regular basis, you tend to notice which apps you rely on and which ones fall off your radar after a while. href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/evernote/">Evernote, which is a handy note-taking and web clipping utility, isn’t necessarily one of those apps that I’ve been using regularly, but it is one that I keep coming back to again and again, and I’m always looking for ways to incorporate it into my routine.

Did you ever notice how the most popular apps & platforms have lots of additional add-ons and extensions that were created for them? Evernote is no different – check out the href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/evernote-trunk-evernote-addons/">Evernote Trunk and you’ll see. In this article, I’ll show you a few of the simple applications that will help you do even more with Evernote.

1. href="http://readitlaterlist.com/">Read It Later

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Screen-shot-2011-04-21-at-8.40.50-AM.png" alt="do more with evernote" width="320" height="479" />

While it’s easy to copy text from a website to read later in Evernote, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/read-multiplatform-app-save-information-read/">Read It Later makes this process even easier.

Read It Later gives you an easy way to copy text from a website to read later in Evernote. The service’s bookmarklet makes reproducing the contents of a webpage simple with just the click of a button, and the iOS app comes with Evernote integration built-in. What’s good about that is it allows you to take your archive of pages on the go.

I also recommend you check out Instapaper, another great app that functions a lot like Read It Later.

2. href="http://www.catalystwo.com/web/FastFinga.html">FastFinga

width="580" height="430"> name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/GEnRjcuvqgI?fs=1&hl=en_US" /> name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /> name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /> type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="580" height="430" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/GEnRjcuvqgI?fs=1&hl=en_US" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always">

Livescribe smartpens are great because they keep a digital record of the things that you write and draw with them, but if you don’t have one, FastFinga could function as a suitable replacement. This iOS app lets you write your messages by hand on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch.

You can link up your Evernote account and store the messages you’ve written there. The service’s handwriting recognition will transform what you’ve written into searchable text, which is really cool if you ask me.

3. href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/twipple-for-iphone/id400193255?mt=8">Twipple

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Screen-shot-2011-04-21-at-8.44.42-AM.jpg" alt="evernote apps" width="320" height="480" />

Twipple isn’t the most well-known or widely used Twitter client for iOS devices that’s out there, but it integrates with Evernote really well. With Twipple, your tweets can be saved to notebooks and tagged, allowing you to refer back to them later. This is especially useful considering Twitter Search only displays tweets for up to 2 weeks.

4. Twitter: href="https://twitter.com/#!/myen">@myEN

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Screen-shot-2011-04-21-at-8.45.20-AM.png" alt="evernote apps" width="498" height="139" />

Okay, this isn’t an app as such, but I felt I had to include it here because it is very handy. @myEN, which href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/archive-your-twitter-tweets-into-your-evernote-account-with-myen/">Mark covered a while back, is a Twitter account that lets you save tweets straight into Evernote. Using this service is simple. All you have to do is follow @myEN on Twitter and you will be direct messaged a link that will let you link up your Twitter and Evernote accounts. Afterwards, just add @myEN to the end of the tweets you would like to save.

5. href="http://voice2note.dial2do.com/">Voice2Note

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Screen-shot-2011-04-22-at-12.59.29-PM.png" alt="do more with evernote" width="356" height="81" />

Evernote already allows you to record voice notes, but they aren’t searchable and you have no cut and paste functionality. With Voice2Note, however, you can convert audio notes into text to make them easily searchable. Simply connect your Evernote account and the first 30 seconds of your notes will be transcribed.

Conclusion

If you aren’t a fan of Evernote but you like the idea of a web clipping utility, be sure to check out Saikat’s article on the href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/ditching-evernote-check-5-free-web-clipping-alternatives/">5 best Evernote alternatives.

What are some of your favorite Evernote add-ons? />
/>Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Don’t forget to target="_blank" href="http://www.makeuseof.dev/tag/share-share-share-spread-word/">share our articles with others! It’s really important to us. />
/>

href="http://api.tweetmeme.com/share?url=http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-simple-applications-evernote/"> src="http://api.tweetmeme.com/imagebutton.gif?url=http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-simple-applications-evernote/"> href="http://digg.com/tools/diggthis/login?url=http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-simple-applications-evernote/"> src="http://www.makeuseof.com/images/rss-buttons/diggme.png"> href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-simple-applications-evernote/"> src="http://www.makeuseof.com/images/rss-buttons/fb.jpg"> href="http://www.google.com/reader/link?url=http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-simple-applications-evernote/&title=5 Simple Applications That Let You Do More With Evernote&srcTitle=MakeUseOf.com"> src="http://www.makeuseof.com/images/rss-buttons/gbuzz-feed.png"> href="http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?url=http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-simple-applications-evernote/"> src="http://www.makeuseof.com/images/rss-buttons/stumble.png">

More articles about: href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/evernote/" title="evernote" rel="tag">evernote, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/note-taking/" title="note taking" rel="tag">note taking, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/notes/" title="notes" rel="tag">notes, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/productivity/" title="productivity" rel="tag">productivity, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/productivity-tips/" title="productivity tips" rel="tag">productivity tips />

View full post on MakeUseOf

class="align-left" style="border: 0px none; margin-left: 20px; margin-top: 5px; float: right;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Sched-Social-Networks-300.png" alt="event scheduling software" />Do you manage events for your local community clubs? Do you organise fundraising activites? Or are you a professional event manager? Whatever your situation, you’ve probably had to schedule rooms, tents, speakers, forums or other details for your event. You’ve probably also noticed that this can be tedious and prone to errors. This is where href="http://sched.org/">Sched comes in to help.

Whether your events are large-scale or small-scale, this web application is a life-saver for all types of event co-ordinators. Any event which needs to co-ordinate a schedule for rooms, equipment or different types of forums within the event will find the Sched event scheduling software invaluable.

id="more-66181">

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Sched-formats.png" alt="event scheduling software" />

Sched is free for events with fewer than 100 sessions and the free account is capable of handling an unlimited number of attendees. With this flexibility, and a reasonable pricing system for more features, most events can easily use the free service to co-ordinate their schedules.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Sched-find-explore-and-social-charts.png" alt="" />

Sign-up requires that you enter the name and dates of your event. They say that it may take 24 hours to create your account and I suspect this is to combat spam events. However, if you need immediate access it’s possible to email them and explain the situation.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Sched-Reviews.png" alt="event management software" />

Check Out Some Other Events

Before you get stuck into organising your schedule with Sched, it’s a good idea to take a look at href="http://sched.org/browse-events">other people’s events to get a feel for how people are using Sched to their advantage.

For instance, there’s a session tag called “Event Type“. Some people use this to define whether it’s a workshop, a lecture, music etc. Other people have used it to quickly pinpoint the location-based zone of the session. This works well for events that have several themed zones and many smaller venues within each zone.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Print-Format.png" alt="event management software" />

Personalisation

Your attendees can create their own personal schedule from your event schedule, making it easy for them to navigate your timetable and co-ordinate their plans.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Choosing-Sessions.png" alt="event management software" />

Social Integration

Users create a login from the event they wish to attend, then link their login with Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter, making it easy to import photos, identity and friends details. The login is reused for other Sched events to keep things simple for attendees.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Smange-Profile.png" alt="event scheduling" />

Once an attendee has decided which sessions they’ll be attending at your event and others, they can share this information with friends via their favourite social networks, like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. They can also combine their schedule with their friends’ schedules in order to co-ordinate where they might see each other at the event.

Users can even co-ordinate one-on-one meetings with each other scheduled around your event sessions. This could be a very powerful networking tool at conferences.

Rich Media

All Sched event calendars can integrate picture, audio and video into the calendar, which is great if you want to give your attendees a preview of the speaker/performer’s work, photos of the venue or other useful background information.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Rich-Media.jpg" alt="event scheduling" />

Highlighting

You can make specific sessions easier to spot with different colours, bold text, starring or adding a highlighted border.

Tagging

As the event manager, you can tag the sessions with multiple tags to make searching for specific sessions easier for your attendees.

Calendar and Maps Integration

Users can automatically export an iCal feed for use in Outlook or Google Calendar. Google maps are automatically generated to create your event map.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/iCal.png" alt="event scheduling" />

Music Integration

Attendees can link their Grooveshark, Last.fm or HypeMachine accounts to generate a music playlist based on their personal schedule within your event.

Mobile Access & Printing

All Sched’s packages include a mobile formatted version of the schedule. This allows your attendees to socially schedule their sessions within your events. All Sched events have an easy-to-print view also, which makes life easy for the participants.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Smanges-Schedule.png" alt="event scheduling software" />

Listen to Your Buzz

Sched also makes it easy for event managers to track conversations on social media about their events, sessions and acts.

Easy Schedule Editing

Even if you make changes to your schedule at the last minute, Sched’s system will allow you to put those changes into effect straight away. Attendees with mobile access will be able to see the changes immediately.

Similar Products

There is plenty of event scheduling software designed to make room and calendar scheduling easier, but this is the only free, online software I have found. It also has some fantastic social features, so it’s bound to generate a lot of buzz and become more popular with time.

If you’re managing href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/events/">events, you might like to also check out these posts:

• href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/plan-events-share-friends-plancast/">Plan Events & Share Them on Plancast
• href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/livematrix-live-events-online/">Live Matrix: A Schedule for Live Events Online
• href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/purpletrail-online-event-management-easy/">PurpleTrail: Plan and Organise Events Online
• href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/easily-coordinate-volunteers-volunteer-spot/">How To Easily Co-Ordinate Volunteers Using Volunteer Spot

If you’ve just started using href="http://sched.org/">Sched as an event manager or as an attendee, let us know what you think of it in the comments. />
/> Follow href="http://twitter.com/MakeUseOf" target="_blank" >MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras.

/>

 

href="http://api.tweetmeme.com/share?url=http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/sched-event-scheduling-simple-free-social/"> src="http://api.tweetmeme.com/imagebutton.gif?url=http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/sched-event-scheduling-simple-free-social/"> href="http://digg.com/tools/diggthis/login?url=http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/sched-event-scheduling-simple-free-social/"> src="http://www.makeuseof.com/images/rss-buttons/diggme.png"> href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/sched-event-scheduling-simple-free-social/"> src="http://www.makeuseof.com/images/rss-buttons/fb.jpg"> href="http://www.google.com/reader/link?url=http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/sched-event-scheduling-simple-free-social/&title=Sched Makes Event Scheduling Simple, Free & Social&srcTitle=MakeUseOf.com"> src="http://www.makeuseof.com/images/rss-buttons/gbuzz-feed.png"> href="http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?url=http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/sched-event-scheduling-simple-free-social/"> src="http://www.makeuseof.com/images/rss-buttons/stumble.png">

 

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class="align-left" style="border: 0px none; margin-left: 20px; margin-top: 5px; float: right;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Sched-Social-Networks-300.png" alt="event scheduling software" />Do you manage events for your local community clubs? Do you organise fundraising activites? Or are you a professional event manager? Whatever your situation, you’ve probably had to schedule rooms, tents, speakers, forums or other details for your event. You’ve probably also noticed that this can be tedious and prone to errors. This is where href="http://sched.org/">Sched comes in to help.

Whether your events are large-scale or small-scale, this web application is a life-saver for all types of event co-ordinators. Any event which needs to co-ordinate a schedule for rooms, equipment or different types of forums within the event will find the Sched event scheduling software invaluable.

id="more-66181">

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Sched-formats.png" alt="event scheduling software" />

Sched is free for events with fewer than 100 sessions and the free account is capable of handling an unlimited number of attendees. With this flexibility, and a reasonable pricing system for more features, most events can easily use the free service to co-ordinate their schedules.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Sched-find-explore-and-social-charts.png" alt="" />

Sign-up requires that you enter the name and dates of your event. They say that it may take 24 hours to create your account and I suspect this is to combat spam events. However, if you need immediate access it’s possible to email them and explain the situation.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Sched-Reviews.png" alt="event management software" />

Check Out Some Other Events

Before you get stuck into organising your schedule with Sched, it’s a good idea to take a look at href="http://sched.org/browse-events">other people’s events to get a feel for how people are using Sched to their advantage.

For instance, there’s a session tag called “Event Type“. Some people use this to define whether it’s a workshop, a lecture, music etc. Other people have used it to quickly pinpoint the location-based zone of the session. This works well for events that have several themed zones and many smaller venues within each zone.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Print-Format.png" alt="event management software" />

Personalisation

Your attendees can create their own personal schedule from your event schedule, making it easy for them to navigate your timetable and co-ordinate their plans.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Choosing-Sessions.png" alt="event management software" />

Social Integration

Users create a login from the event they wish to attend, then link their login with Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter, making it easy to import photos, identity and friends details. The login is reused for other Sched events to keep things simple for attendees.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Smange-Profile.png" alt="event scheduling" />

Once an attendee has decided which sessions they’ll be attending at your event and others, they can share this information with friends via their favourite social networks, like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. They can also combine their schedule with their friends’ schedules in order to co-ordinate where they might see each other at the event.

Users can even co-ordinate one-on-one meetings with each other scheduled around your event sessions. This could be a very powerful networking tool at conferences.

Rich Media

All Sched event calendars can integrate picture, audio and video into the calendar, which is great if you want to give your attendees a preview of the speaker/performer’s work, photos of the venue or other useful background information.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Rich-Media.jpg" alt="event scheduling" />

Highlighting

You can make specific sessions easier to spot with different colours, bold text, starring or adding a highlighted border.

Tagging

As the event manager, you can tag the sessions with multiple tags to make searching for specific sessions easier for your attendees.

Calendar and Maps Integration

Users can automatically export an iCal feed for use in Outlook or Google Calendar. Google maps are automatically generated to create your event map.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/iCal.png" alt="event scheduling" />

Music Integration

Attendees can link their Grooveshark, Last.fm or HypeMachine accounts to generate a music playlist based on their personal schedule within your event.

Mobile Access & Printing

All Sched’s packages include a mobile formatted version of the schedule. This allows your attendees to socially schedule their sessions within your events. All Sched events have an easy-to-print view also, which makes life easy for the participants.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Smanges-Schedule.png" alt="event scheduling software" />

Listen to Your Buzz

Sched also makes it easy for event managers to track conversations on social media about their events, sessions and acts.

Easy Schedule Editing

Even if you make changes to your schedule at the last minute, Sched’s system will allow you to put those changes into effect straight away. Attendees with mobile access will be able to see the changes immediately.

Similar Products

There is plenty of event scheduling software designed to make room and calendar scheduling easier, but this is the only free, online software I have found. It also has some fantastic social features, so it’s bound to generate a lot of buzz and become more popular with time.

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If you’ve just started using href="http://sched.org/">Sched as an event manager or as an attendee, let us know what you think of it in the comments.

 

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class="align-left" style="border: 0px none; margin-left: 20px; margin-top: 5px; float: right;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/intro10.jpg" alt="bittorrent client review" width="120" height="120" />Whilst on the class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-best-torrent-clients-linux/">hunt for worthy Linux BitTorrent clients I came across a handful of feature-packed apps, all vying for my attention. I immediately took to Deluge and qBittorrent, mainly due to the similarities with the fantastic uTorrent.

After using class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/deluge-awesome-unappreciated-crossplatform-bittorrent-client/">Deluge for a good few months I started to notice the odd crack under the surface. My torrents weren’t quite behaving exactly the way I wanted and it was costing me patience and disk space.

So I broke off my impromptu relationship with Deluge and switched to class="vt-p" href="http://qbittorrent.sourceforge.net">qBittorrent.

id="more-64370">

A Torrent Of Clients

It’s no secret that there’s a seemingly endless stream of class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/pages/free-torrent-guide">BitTorrent clients available on the web. It can be difficult to carve away the crap when you’re presented with so many options, so the qBittorrent team took a different approach. Aware of the success of the popular class="vt-p" href="http://www.utorrent.com/">uTorrent client, the qBittorrent team took it upon themselves to create a similar client with the aim of developing a cross-platform client which retains full functionality regardless of the operating system.

At the moment there are still a couple of features missing, but the groundwork is done and the foundations laid provide a very stable and elegant tool to handle your downloads. The interface is clean and clutter-free, and anyone with who has used uTorrent in the past will immediately notice the similarities.

qBittorrent 2.6.4:

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/qbittorrent.png" alt="bittorrent client review" width="580" height="462" />

uTorrent 2.2:

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/utorrent.jpg" alt="qbittorrent download" width="580" height="379" />

The same default layout is present with labels and filters for sorting torrents on the left, menu buttons along the top and content, statistics and a status indicator along the bottom. On Linux by default the icons are pulled from your class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/gnome/">GNOME theme, which is a nice touch.

Under The Hood

The one main feature that qBittorrent lacks compared to uTorrent is extendibility. The only specific add-ons available are search engine scripts as opposed to the class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/put-utorrent-steroids-installing-extensions-windows/">many apps available for uTorrent.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/search.png" alt="qbittorrent download" width="580" height="462" />

If you’ve no need for a million-and-one extra features in your torrent client then this won’t bother you. There’s a good few features already included (such as alternative speed limits, with scheduler) that many clients (Deluge, for example) bolt on as plugins.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/speedlimits.png" alt="qbittorrent download" width="512" height="349" />

There’s also a web UI thrown in, which is great for controlling the client remotely via a web browser (and handy if you do your downloading on your main machine, and like to check in with your laptop).

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/webui.png" alt="bittorrent client" width="508" height="345" />

The options panel is straightforward enough, with features and options categorised into 7 separate areas.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/options1.png" alt="bittorrent client" width="580" height="449" />

If you enable Display torrent content and some options in the Downloads tab then you’ll be presented with a small window upon adding each torrent. Here you’ll be able to choose a download location (your default location is shown automatically), contents (if you’re downloading multiple files) and whether to start the download straight away.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/addtorrent.png" alt="bittorrent client" width="566" height="295" />

There’s also the option to download each file sequentially, in order. This is a great feature to have available, especially if you regularly download music and videos.

Once you’ve added a download there’s the usual array of information regarding the class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/three-ways-to-find-open-registration-on-private-torrent-sites-2/">tracker, peers and files and even in this view you’d be forgiven for thinking you were using uTorrent.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/qbittorent_dling.png" alt="bittorrent client review" width="580" height="279" />

Download

Windows and Mac users can download versions for their respective operating systems by making a selection from the binary packages on class="vt-p" href="http://qbittorrent.sourceforge.net/download.php">the download page. If you’re running Linux then you can find packages and individual distribution instructions by choosing Linux from the binary packages list.

class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/6-fun-ways-explore-ubuntu-1010-linux/">Ubuntu users can install via the Launchpad PPA by typing the following into a new class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/an-introduction-to-the-linux-command-line/">Terminal window:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:hydr0g3n/ppa /> sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install qbittorrent

Conclusion

If you’ve been searching for that perfect client for Linux then qBittorrent is worth a look. Through a familiar interface, powerful features and stable performance the development team have developed a promising product.

For Windows users, plugins (or lack thereof) are irrefutably the main reason to stick with uTorrent at the moment. Then again, if you fancy a change…

Do you use BitTorrent? Have you tried qBittorrent? Any other clients that you absolutely love? Let us know in the comments below. />
/>Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Don’t forget to target="_blank" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/share-share-share-spread-word/">share our articles with others! It’s really important to us.

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class="align-left" style="border: 0px none; margin-left: 20px; margin-top: 5px; float: right;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/intro10.jpg" alt="bittorrent client review" width="120" height="120" />Whilst on the class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-best-torrent-clients-linux/">hunt for worthy Linux BitTorrent clients I came across a handful of feature-packed apps, all vying for my attention. I immediately took to Deluge and qBittorrent, mainly due to the similarities with the fantastic uTorrent.

After using class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/deluge-awesome-unappreciated-crossplatform-bittorrent-client/">Deluge for a good few months I started to notice the odd crack under the surface. My torrents weren’t quite behaving exactly the way I wanted and it was costing me patience and disk space.

So I broke off my impromptu relationship with Deluge and switched to class="vt-p" href="http://qbittorrent.sourceforge.net">qBittorrent.

id="more-64370">

A Torrent Of Clients

It’s no secret that there’s a seemingly endless stream of class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/pages/free-torrent-guide">BitTorrent clients available on the web. It can be difficult to carve away the crap when you’re presented with so many options, so the qBittorrent team took a different approach. Aware of the success of the popular class="vt-p" href="http://www.utorrent.com/">uTorrent client, the qBittorrent team took it upon themselves to create a similar client with the aim of developing a cross-platform client which retains full functionality regardless of the operating system.

At the moment there are still a couple of features missing, but the groundwork is done and the foundations laid provide a very stable and elegant tool to handle your downloads. The interface is clean and clutter-free, and anyone with who has used uTorrent in the past will immediately notice the similarities.

qBittorrent 2.6.4:

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/qbittorrent.png" alt="bittorrent client review" width="580" height="462" />

uTorrent 2.2:

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/utorrent.jpg" alt="qbittorrent download" width="580" height="379" />

The same default layout is present with labels and filters for sorting torrents on the left, menu buttons along the top and content, statistics and a status indicator along the bottom. On Linux by default the icons are pulled from your class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/gnome/">GNOME theme, which is a nice touch.

Under The Hood

The one main feature that qBittorrent lacks compared to uTorrent is extendibility. The only specific add-ons available are search engine scripts as opposed to the class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/put-utorrent-steroids-installing-extensions-windows/">many apps available for uTorrent.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/search.png" alt="qbittorrent download" width="580" height="462" />

If you’ve no need for a million-and-one extra features in your torrent client then this won’t bother you. There’s a good few features already included (such as alternative speed limits, with scheduler) that many clients (Deluge, for example) bolt on as plugins.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/speedlimits.png" alt="qbittorrent download" width="512" height="349" />

There’s also a web UI thrown in, which is great for controlling the client remotely via a web browser (and handy if you do your downloading on your main machine, and like to check in with your laptop).

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/webui.png" alt="bittorrent client" width="508" height="345" />

The options panel is straightforward enough, with features and options categorised into 7 separate areas.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/options1.png" alt="bittorrent client" width="580" height="449" />

If you enable Display torrent content and some options in the Downloads tab then you’ll be presented with a small window upon adding each torrent. Here you’ll be able to choose a download location (your default location is shown automatically), contents (if you’re downloading multiple files) and whether to start the download straight away.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/addtorrent.png" alt="bittorrent client" width="566" height="295" />

There’s also the option to download each file sequentially, in order. This is a great feature to have available, especially if you regularly download music and videos.

Once you’ve added a download there’s the usual array of information regarding the class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/three-ways-to-find-open-registration-on-private-torrent-sites-2/">tracker, peers and files and even in this view you’d be forgiven for thinking you were using uTorrent.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/qbittorent_dling.png" alt="bittorrent client review" width="580" height="279" />

Download

Windows and Mac users can download versions for their respective operating systems by making a selection from the binary packages on class="vt-p" href="http://qbittorrent.sourceforge.net/download.php">the download page. If you’re running Linux then you can find packages and individual distribution instructions by choosing Linux from the binary packages list.

class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/6-fun-ways-explore-ubuntu-1010-linux/">Ubuntu users can install via the Launchpad PPA by typing the following into a new class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/an-introduction-to-the-linux-command-line/">Terminal window:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:hydr0g3n/ppa /> sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install qbittorrent

Conclusion

If you’ve been searching for that perfect client for Linux then qBittorrent is worth a look. Through a familiar interface, powerful features and stable performance the development team have developed a promising product.

For Windows users, plugins (or lack thereof) are irrefutably the main reason to stick with uTorrent at the moment. Then again, if you fancy a change…

Do you use BitTorrent? Have you tried qBittorrent? Any other clients that you absolutely love? Let us know in the comments below. />
/> Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on href="http://www.makeuseof.com/answers/">MakeUseOf Answers!

/>

 

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class="align-left" style="border: 0px none; margin-left: 20px; margin-top: 5px; float: right;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/0-blipsnips-intro.png" alt="share youtube videos" width="200" height="200" />How many great videos did you watch this year? I’d say a lot, especially since YouTube recently class="vt-p" href="http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2010/12/celebrating-our-partners-success.html">announced that over 700 billion videos were viewed during the last 12 months. We’ve written articles on the class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-10-standup-comedy-videos-youtube/">best stand-up comedy videos and class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-cool-science-experiments-check-youtube/">coolest science experiments, as well as sites like class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/save-loads-time-view-youtube-videos-devour/">Devour, which showcase the best videos for us.

How many of those did you share with your friends? Probably a good amount. But, how many times have you had to tell them to “fast forward” or “skip ahead” to the best part? With class="vt-p" href="http://www.blipsnips.com/">BlipSnips, you won’t ever have to do that again.

id="more-62191">

What Is BlipSnips?

BlipSnips ( class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/blipsnips-share-part-of-a-youtube-video/">directory app) is a tool that offers a simple way to link your friends right to the good stuff in a video. It allows you to explain every “snip” in your own words and share your tags with any social network.

classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="580" height="430" 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/ZUaWA1hjURI?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b" /> name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /> type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="580" height="430" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZUaWA1hjURI?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true">

You can use it to find out who is tagging what and see only the best parts of videos. Or you can simply use it to save your place – like a bookmark – in a long video.

Here’s an example email from the BlipSnips website of what this service helps you avoid:

“Hey, check out this video! Skip to 1:33 or so, that’s when it gets good. Watch the expression on his face. Then skip to about 2:56 — amazing!!”

You’d like to avoid sending those, right? BlipSnips is an attempt to make our online video experience more searchable, engaging, contextual, and personal.

How Do I Get Started?

To begin using BlipSnips, head over to the class="vt-p" href="http://www.blipsnips.com/">homepage and click Start Using BlipSnips. There you can setup a username and password for yourself. Once you’ve done that you can begin watching other people’s BlipSnips or begin creating your own.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/2010-12-28_1345.png" alt="share youtube videos" width="489" height="169" />

To start your own, you have two options. You can either paste in the URL of the video you want and click Submit, or you use the Bookmarklet.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/2010-12-28_1346.png" alt="how to share youtube videos" width="433" height="192" />

The Bookmarklet is great because it allows you to click it whenever you’re watching a video and you realize you want to snip something. Just drag the link to your browser bar to begin using it.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/2010-12-28_1358.png" alt="how to share youtube videos" width="427" height="512" />

Once it pulls in your video, click the play button. When it gets to a part you want to tag, click Tag it!. The video will pause at that point and a box will appear below it for you to type your message.

Don’t worry if you miss clicking the button at the exact time you want, because you can manually edit the time right within the box.

After you’ve tagged everything you wanted to, you can click the Share! button to be taken to a page where you can click on your tags to see the video from that point in time, get a URL to share the video with others, or an embed code to place it on your site.

You can view the BlipSnips example video I tagged class="vt-p" href="http://www.blipsnips.com/6mzqjx">here.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/2010-12-28_1408.png" alt="share youtube videos" width="338" height="231" />

When you’re all done, you can always head back to your profile page by clicking on My BlipSnips at the top of the screen to see all of your clips.

For more information on BlipSnips, check out their class="vt-p" href="http://blog.blipsnips.com/">blog. A recent entry makes mention of a Facebook application in the works.

Conclusion

For what it’s intended for, this is a very useful tool. Considering the sheer number of videos that exist on YouTube to begin with, it doesn’t hurt to save yourself some time when browsing through them. With BlipSnips, you get to skip all the filler video and cut right to the good stuff. And the tags are there to help give you context, which is great because you’re going to lose some if you cut the video too short (like I did).

I’m curious to hear your take on BlipSnips. What do you think of this tool? />
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class="align-left" style="border: 0px none; margin-left: 20px; margin-top: 5px; float: right;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/0-blipsnips-intro.png" alt="share youtube videos" width="200" height="200" />How many great videos did you watch this year? I’d say a lot, especially since YouTube recently class="vt-p" href="http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2010/12/celebrating-our-partners-success.html">announced that over 700 billion videos were viewed during the last 12 months. We’ve written articles on the class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-10-standup-comedy-videos-youtube/">best stand-up comedy videos and class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-cool-science-experiments-check-youtube/">coolest science experiments, as well as sites like class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/save-loads-time-view-youtube-videos-devour/">Devour, which showcase the best videos for us.

How many of those did you share with your friends? Probably a good amount. But, how many times have you had to tell them to “fast forward” or “skip ahead” to the best part? With class="vt-p" href="http://www.blipsnips.com/">BlipSnips, you won’t ever have to do that again.

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What Is BlipSnips?

BlipSnips ( class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/blipsnips-share-part-of-a-youtube-video/">directory app) is a tool that offers a simple way to link your friends right to the good stuff in a video. It allows you to explain every “snip” in your own words and share your tags with any social network.

classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="580" height="430" 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/ZUaWA1hjURI?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b" /> name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /> type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="580" height="430" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZUaWA1hjURI?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true">

You can use it to find out who is tagging what and see only the best parts of videos. Or you can simply use it to save your place – like a bookmark – in a long video.

Here’s an example email from the BlipSnips website of what this service helps you avoid:

“Hey, check out this video! Skip to 1:33 or so, that’s when it gets good. Watch the expression on his face. Then skip to about 2:56 — amazing!!”

You’d like to avoid sending those, right? BlipSnips is an attempt to make our online video experience more searchable, engaging, contextual, and personal.

How Do I Get Started?

To begin using BlipSnips, head over to the class="vt-p" href="http://www.blipsnips.com/">homepage and click Start Using BlipSnips. There you can setup a username and password for yourself. Once you’ve done that you can begin watching other people’s BlipSnips or begin creating your own.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/2010-12-28_1345.png" alt="share youtube videos" width="489" height="169" />

To start your own, you have two options. You can either paste in the URL of the video you want and click Submit, or you use the Bookmarklet.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/2010-12-28_1346.png" alt="how to share youtube videos" width="433" height="192" />

The Bookmarklet is great because it allows you to click it whenever you’re watching a video and you realize you want to snip something. Just drag the link to your browser bar to begin using it.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/2010-12-28_1358.png" alt="how to share youtube videos" width="427" height="512" />

Once it pulls in your video, click the play button. When it gets to a part you want to tag, click Tag it!. The video will pause at that point and a box will appear below it for you to type your message.

Don’t worry if you miss clicking the button at the exact time you want, because you can manually edit the time right within the box.

After you’ve tagged everything you wanted to, you can click the Share! button to be taken to a page where you can click on your tags to see the video from that point in time, get a URL to share the video with others, or an embed code to place it on your site.

You can view the BlipSnips example video I tagged class="vt-p" href="http://www.blipsnips.com/6mzqjx">here.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/2010-12-28_1408.png" alt="share youtube videos" width="338" height="231" />

When you’re all done, you can always head back to your profile page by clicking on My BlipSnips at the top of the screen to see all of your clips.

For more information on BlipSnips, check out their class="vt-p" href="http://blog.blipsnips.com/">blog. A recent entry makes mention of a Facebook application in the works.

Conclusion

For what it’s intended for, this is a very useful tool. Considering the sheer number of videos that exist on YouTube to begin with, it doesn’t hurt to save yourself some time when browsing through them. With BlipSnips, you get to skip all the filler video and cut right to the good stuff. And the tags are there to help give you context, which is great because you’re going to lose some if you cut the video too short (like I did).

I’m curious to hear your take on BlipSnips. What do you think of this tool? />
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style="border: 0px none;margin-left:20px;float:right;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/pinta-icon.png" alt="free image editing software"/> href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/gimp/">GIMP lovers may disagree, but the world’s needed a GTK photo editor with an easy-to-understand interface for a while. Featuring layers, various effects and good old fashioned editing functions, Pinta is the photo editor missing on Linux systems, as well as Windows and OS X. Think Paint.net, but cross-platform.

But even if you don’t use Linux, you just might find Pinta to be your new favorite free image editor. It’s fast, functional and gets the job done. If you’ve used Paint.net, or even Photoshop before, you’ll probably not have any trouble finding anything. But if you haven’t, consider Pinta a fantastic introduction to what photo editing software can do that’s not too cofusing to use.

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Toolkit

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/pinta-basic.jpg" alt="free image editing software" />

Fire up Pinta for the first time and the interface will largely look familar. It’s not that different, at first glace, from Microsoft Paint: toolkit on the left, layers and history on the right, image in the center.

The toolkit should be familar to you, even if the only photo editing tool you’ve ever used is Microsoft Paint. If not, don’t worry: hovering over a given tool will cause a helpful popup to appear:

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/pinta-tooltip.png" />

The menu is also worth browsing; you’ll find many useful things there. Rotating the image, viewing options, and various effects all await you.

You can also adjust the curves and colors, which is very useful should you need to correct a photo in this regard:

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/pinta-curves.png" alt="image editing programs"/>

I could go on, but it’s best to just fire up the program and explore yourself. I highly recommend playing with the various effects to get an idea of what’s possible. Whether you want to make your photo look like an oil painting or just remove red eye from a family portrait, there’s lots to explore there.

Layers

If you’ve ever really gotten into photo editing, you know that layers are essential. Whether you’re trying to add elements to photos or simply stylize, the concept of layers become crucial very quickly. Pinta supports this, putting it above the simplest image editing software.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/pinta-layers.png" alt="image editing programs"/>

Even with this seeming complexity, however, Pinta is a piece of software the average computer user should have no trouble at all using. Even the way layers is done is very easy to understand and use, if you experiment with it.

History

Another indispensable tool for image editing is your history. This allows you to see all the changes you’ve made while editing your image, and to roll them back at will.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/pinta-history.png" alt="free image editing software"/>

This is self-explanatory, but very important if you like to experiment a great deal with your images. Note, however, that the current release of Pinta stores you entire history in the RAM, meaning this program will take up a lot of memory very quickly.

Installing Pinta

Want to get started? Head over the href="http://pinta-project.com/">Pinta’s official web site. You’ll find installation files for Ubuntu, Mac and Windows, which is the best way to get started.

The currrent incarnation of Pinta is only the beginning, so if you’re not quite happy with what you see here be sure to check back again in a couple of months. Dynamic projects like this can be a lot of fun to watch, and really represent the power of open source at its best!

Oh, and if you’re a Linux user not quite dedicated to the idea of installation, I highly recommend you download the program over at href="http://portablelinuxapps.org/">PortableLinuxApps.org. It’s the href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/portable-linux-apps-work-linux-distro/">place to find Linux downloads the work on every distro, and it couldn’t be easier to use.

So, what do you think of Pinta? Please share in the comments below. Also feel free to represent other free image editing programs, because I and our readers always love to learn about new software! />
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class="alignright" style="margin-left: 20px; margin-top: 5px; border: 0px none initial;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/intro6.png" alt="easy time tracker" width="191" height="208" />The end of the year’s coming up and while I know I had a great year, I didn’t really journal every day or track where I spent my time, which could have helped me do a end-of-year self-review on what methods in my workflow worked better than others. Since I mostly work on my computer, time-tracking software can be handy in this case. It’s also useful if, say, you spend a lot of time on the computer and just want simple ways to track things without having to do it yourself manually.

I’ve been using the  class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-tools-to-track-how-you-spend-time-online/">web-based time-tracker, class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/slimtimer/">SlimTimer which is a simple but elegant solution. However, web apps don’t always suit everyone. There are neat desktop applications that offer tighter integration with the OS (and offer free accounts), such as class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/13-web-ways-to-track-your-stuff/">RescueTime and class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/manage-and-monitor-your-application-usage-with-manictime/">ManicTime, which sit in the background, monitor your activity on the computer and provide charts to let you visualize the time you spend on specific tasks.

id="more-61732"> /> However, if you’re more of the privacy-concerned type of user, you might be interested in class="vt-p" href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/timeedition/">TimeEdition, an open-source, cross-platform time tracker that requires no installation. The download for Windows is 5MB in a zipped file so it’s not exceedingly enormous. It can export data to Excel, iCal, Outlook and Google Calendar.

With TimeEdition, you don’t just track time for an activity. You log customers, projects and tasks, so in other words, to track any task, you’ll have to create a new customer first, then a project, then a task, which you can do by heading into the drop-down menu for each field in the main window, or selecting the appropriate entry under View in the menu bar.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/112.png" alt="easy time tracker" width="271" height="317" />

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/1a1.png" alt="real time tracker" width="461" height="194" />

You can still use it even if you aren’t working for a client. You could just list yourself to track your different projects.

While TimeEdition has a more customer-project-task system that might be too specific for the non-freelancer, it’s very easy to use. The program itself has a simple GUI, and sports a single button to start or pause the timing. To see more features that make this application really appealing, read on.

Track How Much Time You’ve Spent On A Project

What makes TimeEdition very useful is the fact that you can view how much time (specifically, minutes) you’ve spent on a single client, a specific project or task while TimeEdition is running and counting for you. That means you can stop timing or recording and resume the timing later without having to break a sweat to manually calculate time spent yourself. You simply have to go up to the View menu and select something other than Daily Records (default) which you’ll want if you’re looking to see how much time you’ve spent for the whole day. The other options include viewing by current session, in whole, or in retrospective (Project countdown).

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/1e.png" alt="real time tracker" width="491" height="322" />

To view project countdown, you have to edit your project and estimate how much time the entire project will take, or just make sure for your future projects, to input your estimated time in the right field when you are creating a new project.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/1d.png" alt="real time tracker" width="411" height="447" />

You can also choose to not track anything after your computer is idle for a specific time, by going to Extras > Options.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/35.png" alt="project time tracker" width="406" height="381" />

Google Calendar Integration

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/23.png" alt="project time tracker" width="393" height="368" />

For those that want to time how long an event lasts, TimeEdition will be a great tool to download as it can create an event in your Google Calendar after an event is done timing. This would be very handy if, say, I wanted to keep track of how many hours of studying I did over a whole semester, I could use TimeEdition to track studying habits, and then create charts with class="vt-p" href="http://www.youcalc.com/apps/1265969469500">Youcalc, like class="vt-p" href="http://lifehacker.com/comment/23968701/">this person did. If you use Google Calendar to journal your day or track hours spent on a project, TimeEdition can help you create events after timing your activities.

Depending on whether you have Windows or Mac, this window will show you options to create events in desktop calendars, such as Outlook and iCal.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/2b.png" alt="project time tracker" width="355" height="299" />

Exporting Or Backing Up

If creating events in Google Calendar is not enough for you, you can also export your record in iCal, CSV, Excel or even XML formats. Just go to the File menu and select Export. You can even choose to export record from a specific time frame.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/43.png" alt="" width="580" height="341" />

You can also back up your records by going to File > Backup Database. The file will be saved as a .edb, which is TimeEdition’s database file type and can be restored by going to File > Restore Database.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/52.png" alt="easy time tracker" width="570" height="175" />

While it’s not an automated solution like RescueTime or ManicTime, TimeEdition is an easy time tracker and integrates with other popular services, all while being open-source and available for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Got any other excellent alternatives to TimeEdition? Feel free to comment! />
/>Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on href="http://www.makeuseof.com/answers/">MakeUseOf Answers! />
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style="border: 0px none;margin-left:20px;float:right;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/intro3.png" alt="zoom effects"/>I was recently inspired by a href="http://tutorialblog.org/photoshop-magnifying-glass-tutorial/">Photoshop tutorial on creating a magnifier effect that would really enhance resized screenshots. If you regularly blog and take screenshots, you know resizing images is bound to be the easiest way to deal with image dimension restrictions, but may not always be kind to the eye.

In my search for a similar tutorial for href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-websites-learn-gimp-photo-editor-online/">GIMP, I didn’t find an exhaustive tutorial that could be simple enough for new learners of GIMP to follow. This is a simple guide on creating a zoomed effect with explanations on some steps (advanced users, please bear with me.) Here is what I did to create the introductory image.

id="more-60985"> /> 1. Drag and drop, paste or otherwise create your screenshot in GIMP, the latter of which can be done by going to File > Create > Screenshot. I will be pasting a screenshot of my entire screen (1280 x 800).

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/13.png" alt="zoom effects"/>

2. Use the Ellipse Select tool, make sure it’s on the first mode “Replace current selection” under Tool Options, then to draw a circle over the part you want to zoom in on.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/2.1.png" alt="digital zoom effect"/>

Press Ctrl + C followed by Ctrl + V to simply copy and paste the selection. You should see a new pseudo-layer called “Floating Selection” in the Layers dialog which you can see by pressing Ctrl + L.Go to Layer > New Layer to create a new layer for the pasted circle image.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/2.2.jpg" alt="digital zoom effect"/>

3. Now in the Layers dialog, select the bottom, original layer, and use the Scale tool to resize it if you need to, as it is probably too enormous to insert in a blog post.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/32.png" alt="digital zoom effect"/>

Once you’re done resizing, click on the eye icon for that layer you just resized to toggle visibility so we can focus on the new layer.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/3.2.png" alt="zoom effect in photography"/>

4. Select the top, new layer and go to Layer > Layer to Image Size to expand the area for this layer.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/4.1.png" alt="zoom effect in photography"/>

Right-click on the same layer and choose Alpha to Selection which will select the circle’s outline.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/4.2.png" alt="zoom effect in photography"/>

5. To create the outline for the zoomed image in white and grey, go to Select > Grow.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/5.1.png" />

Type 1 (pixels), if it’s not there by default already, and click OK. We want the grey outline to be under the zoomed circle, so the former needs to be on a separate layer. Go to Layer > New Layer. You can name it “inner grey outline” like I did, or not but it helps to distinguish the layers later on. For Layer Fill Type, choose Transparency.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/5.2.png" />

6. Choose the Bucket Fill tool, then click on the foreground color to bring up the color palette and choose a grey color (I’m using #aca7a7).

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/6.1.png" />

Fill the circle and go to the Layers dialog to lower this “inner grey outline” layer.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/6.2.png" />

7. Go to Select > Grow and type “2″ this time for the thicker white outline. Create a new layer, naming it “white outline” if you want and selecting Transparency again.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/7.1.png" />

8. Now swap the grey and the background color (which you should make white if it’s not already). Use the Bucket Fill tool to fill the circle with this white foreground color. Lower this “white outline” layer so it’s right under the grey outline layer.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/8.png" />

9. You should still have the selection active so create a new layer (Layer > New Layer with the optional name of “outer grey outline”), again set on a transparent background. Grow the selection by 1 pixel (Select > Grow), swap the background grey color so it’s the foreground color, and bucket-fill the selection with it. Lower this layer so it’s under the white outline layer and above the original background/screenshot layer.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/9.png" />

10. At this point, we’re done with the outlines of the zoomed image, which looks a bit flat. We’ll give it a drop shadow and an inner glow (as recommended in href="http://www.gimpchat.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=162">this GIMPChat thread) to create some depth, and make it look more like it’s being magnified. Now with the selection still active, go to Filters > Light and Shadow > Drop Shadow.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/10.1.png" />

The default values should be fine, but uncheck Allow Resizing before clicking OK.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/10.2.png" />

11. Now that the drop shadow’s done, we will proceed to create the glow. Click on Pasted Layer (the zoomed screenshot layer) in the Layer dialog, right-click and select Alpha to Selection. Then go to Select in the menu bar > To Path (the last option).

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/111.png" />

12. Create a new transparent layer (naming it “lens feather” if you wish) and select it in the Layers dialog if not selected already. Go to Select > Feather and type in 50 (pixels) in the dialog box that shows up.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/12.1.png" />

Go to Select again > Invert to make whatever we do next apply to outside the circle only.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/12.2.png" />

13. Swap the colors so white is the foreground color and bucket-fill the new layer with it.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/13.1.png" />

Go to Select > None to de-select. Then go to Select > From Path, then go to Select > Invert and press the Delete button.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/13.2.png" />

14. Right-click on the Pasted Layer (for the zoomed circle) and choose Alpha to Selection (make sure this layer is selected).Take the Ellipse Select tool, choose the 4th mode “Intersect with the current selection” and draw a circle over the left part of the zoomed image. You should have something like this.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/14.png" />

15. Create a new transparent layer, naming it “shine” if you want. Bucket-fill the selection with white as the foreground color. Tone down the opacity to about 10.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/15.png" />

Go to Select > None.

16. If you want to move the zoomed image around, you can go to Layer > Merge Down the layers above the background bottom layer that constitute the zoomed circle with the outline and effects. Toggle the background (bottom) layer so it’s visible again.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/16.jpg" alt="zoom effects"/>

That’s it! Feel free to experiment with the feather value.

What do you think? Do you have tips or suggestions on achieving the zoom effect with fewer steps? If so, please share them with us! />
/>Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Don’t forget to target="_blank" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/share-share-share-spread-word/">share our articles with others! It’s really important to us.

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class="align-left" style="border: 0px none; margin-left: 20px; margin-top: 5px; float: right;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Shutterstock-Diary.jpg" alt="free online journals" width="250" height="167" />In the digital world, the difference between a journal, a diary, and a blog is fuzzy. A blog is meant to be shared with those around you. An online or offline journal is more personal. You can of course, remove the padlock and share it with the world but I guess most would like to keep it closer to the chest. My two penny opinion says that the difference mainly boils down to the degree of laziness. A blog needs more upkeep; an online personal journal can be used to record random and disjointed thoughts. But let’s look at it this way, the web gives us so many ways to connect with others and also with ourselves.

Writing a journal is like having a conversation with one’s own self. Treat a journal like a ‘digital wall’ to vent your feelings on or just use it as a ‘digital cupboard’ to store memories. In both cases, a journal is a priceless companion. Here are seven free online journals for your thoughts.

id="more-60604">

class="vt-p" href="http://ohlife.com/b">OhLife

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Journal01.jpg" alt="free online journals" width="580" height="393" />

OhLife makes journal keeping dead easy by not asking you to come to their site every day. It simply sends you an email every night at 8pm asking you about your day. From the comfort of your inbox, you can type in your thoughts and send it forth like a regular email. That’s it! The easy-to-use and easy-to-keep philosophy tries to promote the habit of journal writing by dressing it up as an email activity.

You can choose to go to the site and read all your past entries when you feel like it. The posts get listed in chronological order and when it’s time for nostalgia, you can read them out to yourself.

I really like the minimalism of this free online journal and the ease with which I can keep up the journaling habit by not forcing myself to visit one more site at the end of a tiring day.

class="vt-p" href="http://www.memiary.com/">Memiary

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Journal02.jpg" alt="online journal" width="580" height="511" />

Memiary will make you believe that if you have had five interesting experiences the whole day, it has been a day worth recording for keeps. Memiary calls itself the weightless pocket diary. It is really that as all you have to is sign up and put down five thoughts for each day. You can even do it on the go if you have an iPhone. The five points a day really add up and you can keep them organized with tags (just add a #before any word and it turns into a tag).

It takes just about ten seconds to jot down five thoughts and the tag organization should really help when you add up all the memories. (See class="vt-p" href="http://makeuseof.com/dir/memiary-online-diiary-keeping/">Directory mention)

class="vt-p" href="https://secure.motodiaryapp.com/">MotoDiary

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Journal03.jpg" alt="online journal" width="580" height="326" />

MotoDiary is another simple journaling tool without any frills. It uses some HTML5 features for storage so it’s still not compatible with Firefox. It runs on Chrome, Safari, and IE. As you can see from the screenshot above, the interface is only about your words. MotoDiary is a highly secure application. The FAQ says that the encrypted key is stored locally and not sent to the server. The app auto-saves entries to the hard disk and uploads it to the server when online.

MotoDiary displays the potential of HTML5 in a utilitarian interface. (See class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/motodiary-secure-online-journal/">Directory mention)

class="vt-p" href="https://tweetprivate.com/">TweetPrivate

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Journal04.jpg" alt="online journal" width="580" height="462" />

Some people consider Twitter to be the closest thing to an instant free online journal. Why not? Twitter has become the medium for channeling all your rants and raves. TweetPrivate takes your Twitter habit and turns it inside out. Log in with your Twitter account, log your thoughts in 140 characters or less, but instead of tweeting it out, store it here and keep it private. These tweets can include pictures too. Later, you might choose to release these tweets and post them to Twitter’s public stream. By using TweetPrivate as your personal diary, you can archive your tweets and search them by date.

TweetPrivate is a cool application if you have fallen prey to Twitter (or SMS) and evolved into using only 140 characters or less.

class="vt-p" href="https://penzu.com/">Penzu

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Journal05.jpg" alt="free online journals" width="580" height="425" />

Penzu comes with a few decorative features like an interface which resembles a lined notebook. The free account is limited but it serves its purpose adequately if you are not too into customization and tools. The free account gives you basic encryption with a password, photo uploads, plus sharing options with email and link. You can set up a notification to remind you to write every day.

The Penzu Pro account with all its features is appealing, but the free account is a quick fire journal tool that keeps things simple. You might grow to like the notebook style pages (see class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/penzu-journal-online/">Directory mention).

If you are looking for customization and editing options, then you will be disappointed with these apps. For that I will always recommend class="vt-p" href="http://www.livejournal.com/">Live Journal. But I believe when it comes to journaling or keeping an online class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/tag/diary/">diary, it’s best to start simple, keep it about the words and move on. For the making of a habit, these five online journal apps serve as a minimalist starting point. Your thoughts?

Image: class="vt-p" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-59334685/stock-photo-closeup-portrait-of-a-relaxed-young-girl-writing-diary-while-lying-on-the-bed.html">Shutterstock />
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class="align-left" style="border: 0px none; margin-left: 20px; margin-top: 5px; float: right;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/00-Aviary-HTML5-Photo-Editor.jpg" border="0" alt="online photo editor" />I think many people would agree that one of the most controversial turning points in the tech world is Apple’s decision not to support Flash technology in its iDevices and go with HTML5 instead.

Despite the pros and cons that surround the decision, the real question is whether this new technology has what it takes to at least stand on the same ground with Flash. For the time being, the answer might still be “not yet”. However, a new online photo editor from Aviary called class="vt-p" href="http://aviary.com/html5">Feather shows us that we can definitely expect great things from HTML5.

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The Photo Editor

Aviary is the maker of class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/edit-images-online-with-the-aviary-web-suite/">the online photo editor suite. Feather, its latest creation, is the simplified version (with HTML5 twist) of class="vt-p" href="http://www.aviary.com/tools/phoenix">Phoenix, Aviary’s Flash-based online photo editor. But being the simplified version doesn’t mean that Feather is less powerful than Phoenix. Feather collects the most popular tools of Phoenix, and packs them into one light and simple tool. Feather is perfect for everyday users who will never use advanced image editing tools to re-touch their images – and who could use extra system resources while doing so.

Anybody can use the tool without any obligation. Just visit the site and click on the “See it in Action” tab.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/01a-See-It-In-Action.jpg" border="0" alt="online photo editor" width="385" height="80" />

Then you can upload your image to edit.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/01aa-HTML5-Editor-Upload-Image.jpg" border="0" alt="01aa HTML5 Editor - Upload Image.jpg" width="580" height="349" />

Or you could also point Feather to an online image location by providing the image’s URL. Feather will download the image to its server.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/01ab-HTML5-Editor-Image-URL.jpg" border="0" alt="01ab HTML5 Editor - Image URL.jpg" width="360" height="80" />

The image will be opened along with a bunch of image editing tools such as Rotate, Flip, Resize and Crop. There are also quick effect tools that you can use, like: Instant!, Toy Camera, Old Photo and Retro.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/01ac-HTML5-Editor-Edit.jpg" border="0" alt="01ac HTML5 Editor - Edit.jpg" width="520" height="410" />

More options of a specific tool will be available after you select that tool. There’s also Undo and Redo buttons.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/01ax-HTML5-Editor-Crop.jpg" border="0" alt="01ax HTML5 Editor - Crop.jpg" width="475" height="315" />

Feather allows you to add text to your images, but the options are very limited. You can’t change the font type nor add effects. All you can do is change the color and size of the font.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/01ay1-Test-Text.jpg" border="0" alt="01ay1 Test Text.jpg" width="295" height="232" />

To delete a text group, select the text and click on the “X” button on the top right corner of the text box.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/01ay2-Test-Text.jpg" border="0" alt="01ay2 Test Text.jpg" width="330" height="150" />

To get fun effects quickly and effortlessly, use the quick effect tools. Below is the result of “Instant!” tool.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/01az-Quick-Effect.jpg" border="0" alt="01az Quick Effect.jpg" width="580" height="350" />

After you are done, click the save button and wait. You will be given a URL and a download button to download the image.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/01ad-Download-Edited-Image.jpg" border="0" alt="01ad Download Edited Image.jpg" width="580" height="270" />

On The Mobile Side

Out of curiosity, I tried to open Feather using iPhone’s Safari. Even though the site could be opened just fine, I couldn’t upload any image from the phone to the editor. The only option left was to use an image URL.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/01ba-Opening-Editor-In-iPhone.jpg" border="0" alt="01ba Opening Editor In iPhone.jpg" width="480" height="300" />

So I opened my blog, then tapped and held on an image. I chose “Copy” from the pop up buttons to copy the image.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/01bb-Copy-Image-URL-1.jpg" border="0" alt="01bb Copy Image URL-1.jpg" width="480" height="300" />

I went back to the editor, tapped on the URL field and chose “Paste“. The image URL was pasted inside the URL field, I clicked “Go” and the image was opened along with the editor and I could edit the image as if it was done on an ordinary browser.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/01bc-Edit-Image-1.jpg" border="0" alt="online photo editor" width="480" height="300" />

This little experiment showed us that this free, light and powerful image editing tool is also accessible from iDevices (and other smart phones) as long as they can connect to the internet. The best method is to edit images that are already on the web, something like Flickr photos or pre-uploaded personal photos.

Embedding The Tool To Your Site?

The developer mentions that you can also embed the online photo editor to your site. After a few failed attempts to use the embedded tool as a personal online image editor, I contacted the developer asking whether I made mistakes in the process. It turned out that the current version of the embeddable image editor doesn’t support image uploading and will only add an Edit button below specific images on the page where the code is embedded.

The developer also said that an image uploading feature might be added in the future. But until then, we’ll have to stick to the online editor on the Aviary site.

In conclusion, I think Feather is a very useful light, simple and powerful image editor. The tool could be a good alternative to heavier online (and offline) image editors.

Have you tried Feather? What do you think of the tool? Share your opinions using the comments below. />
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class="align-left" style="border: 0px none; margin-left: 20px; margin-top: 5px; float: right;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/00-clementine-logo.jpg" border="0" alt="alternative music player" width="200" height="200" />I started out with class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-make-a-portable-version-of-winamp-for-your-usb-drive">Winamp, but I grew up with iTunes. I watched iTunes walk its simple and uncluttered baby steps and followed its growth until it became the giant it is today. But some people who just need a music player for their computer think that this giant is now too big to fill that position.

There are many class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/music-player/">alternative music players out there, but filling the gap left by iTunes is not a task that can be taken by just another alternative music player. Only a few actually have what it takes and if there’s an audition, I think Clementine would be one of the last apps standing at the final round.

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Oh My Darling

The story goes that this app is the result of Amarok’s fans who tried to bring version 1.4 back to life. But instead of making it class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/service/linux/">Linux only like the original Amarok, they made it multi platform with the help of Nokia’s Qt. The latest version of Clementine is available for Windows, Mac and Linux users.

The first time you open Clementine, you will be presented with a blank window. Click on the empty library list to start adding songs to your library. You can also take another route by going through “Preferences – Music Library“.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/01a-Clementine-Empty-Library.png" border="0" alt="alternative music player" width="580" height="300" />

Add some tunes by clicking on the “Add new folder” button. Clementine allows you to add folders from external sources and update the library when the app starts. This is very useful if you are a notebook user with limited hard disk space because you can store most of your collection in your external storage(s) and play them only when your notebook is connected to it/them.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/02-Clementine-Library-Preferences.png" border="0" alt="free music player" width="580" height="476" />

Browse and choose the folders that you want to add to your Clementine song library. To make your life easier, you could pick your existing iTunes library folder as one of the sources.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/02b-Add-directory.png" border="0" alt="free music player" width="537" height="400" />

The rest is just about playing your songs collection. The playback control at the bottom of the window is another ordinary control, except for the existing “Love” button to tag the songs that you love.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/03a-Clementine-Play-Songs.png" border="0" alt="free music player" width="580" height="233" />

There’s something special about the “Stop” button, though. Clementine give its users the ability to stop after the currently playing song hits its last beat.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/03b-Clementine-Stop-After.png" border="0" alt="music players free" width="350" height="135" />

Turn The Radio On & Other Features

Another feature that most users will love is the ability to connect and play internet radio. The big names are already on the list by default and you can add your own by right clicking on the “Your Radio streams” link and choose “Add another stream””

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/05b-Clementine-Internet-Tab.png" border="0" alt="music players free" width="227" height="283" />

At the top of the list is Last.fm. Add the details of your Last.fm account in the “Preferences- Last.fm”

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/05c-Clementine-Preferences-Last_fm-1.png" border="0" alt="music players free" width="580" height="320" />

Another pre-determined music source is SomaFM and Magnatune. The latter is a paid service but also accessible for free with some restrictions.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/05d-Clementine-Preferences-Magnatude.png" border="0" alt="05d Clementine - Preferences - Magnatude.png" width="580" height="320" />

You will notice that your iTunes library collection’s cover art is not available from within Clementine. But fear not because you can easily add that album art using a tool called “Cover Manager“.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/07a-Clementine-Cover-Manager.jpg" border="0" alt="07a Clementine - Cover Manager.jpg" width="500" height="200" />

All you have to do is just click “Fetch Missing Covers“, located at the top right of the Cover Manager window.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/07b-Clementine-Cover-Manager.jpg" border="0" alt="07b Clementine -Cover Manager.jpg" width="580" height="301" />

Clementine will start the task of finding and applying cover art to your songs. It uses Last.fm as the source. Even though I can’t say this feature works perfectly, it does deliver most cover art.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/07c-Cover-Manager.jpg" border="0" alt="alternative music player" width="580" height="350" />

I’ve just used Clementine for a while and already I like it a lot. Even though it’s not the most beautiful music player out there for computers, it does what it promises to do: play music. Plus it’s relatively small (around 20 MB – Mac version). That’s tiny compared to the size of iTunes.

So have you tried this music player? I’m sure there are Clementine experts out there. Please share your tips, thoughts and opinions using the comments below. />
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