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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then go ahead and take your screenshot.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bottom Line

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

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

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

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

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

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

View full post on MakeUseOf

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then go ahead and take your screenshot.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bottom Line

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

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

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

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

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

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

View full post on MakeUseOf

class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Breaks08b.png" border="0" alt="relax at work" />Working on the computer may not be very physical, nevertheless it’s tough on your body. Sitting all day can hurt your lower back and has a negative impact on your circulation. Extensive typing can stiffen the muscles in your upper back and neck, and finally staring at the screen for hours on end is very tiring and can cause serious problems, such as dry eyes. Moreover, office work has been associated with insomnia and anxiety. If you are damned to spend your working hours behind a desk, you had better find ways to do something good for your body.

The good news is that short breaks of class="vt-p" title="MakeUseOf Tag: Relax" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/relax/">relaxing and stretching can do wonders for your class="vt-p" title="MakeUseOf Tag: Health Tips" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/health-tips/">health and well being. And who doesn’t like to take breaks during work? In this article I will show you tools you can integrate into your workday to remind you that you need to take a break.

class="vt-p" title="Protect Your Vision" href="http://www.protectyourvision.org/">EVO

EVO is a website helper which runs your selection of a default or custom timer that will remind you of a 5 or 10 minute break. The setup is simplistic and not intrusive. During the screen, EVO can black out your screen and count down the time of your break.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Breaks01.png" border="0" alt="take a break" />

EVO also provides instructions for eye gymnastics that you can go through during your break.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Breaks02.png" border="0" alt="eye gymnastics" />

The creators of EVO have also launched a website that has information about the class="vt-p" title="Computer Vision Syndrome" href="http://computer-vision-syndrome.org/">Computer Vision Syndrome.

class="vt-p" title="Big Stretch Reminder" href="http://www.monkeymatt.com/bigstretch/">Big Stretch Reminder (Windows)

Big Stretch Reminder is a reminder app designed to remind you to do regular stretches during your work day. It comes with a variety of options, including custom settings. You can select the time between breaks from a list of predefined options or create a custom setting.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Breaks07.png" border="0" alt="stretch reminder" />

For the reminder mode you can choose between a non-intrusive balloon mode or an intrusive popup mode. The third option, the micro-break mode, is of the intrusive popup type. The message that is shown along with your break reminder can be a random tip or customized.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Breaks06.png" border="0" alt="take a break" />

class="vt-p" title="Breaker" href="http://davidevitelaru.com/software/breaker/">Breaker (Windows)

If you’re a workaholic who has no trouble getting lost in work and forgetting the time, then you should try Breaker. It’s a simple software that lets you set up breaks individually in a loop or pattern.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Breaks03.png" border="0" alt="break reminder software" />

The app runs in the system tray and when you hover over it you can see the countdown to your next break. Once the time has run out, a quiet alarm and a little window in the bottom right of the screen reminds you that it’s time for a break or to get back to work.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Breaks04.png" border="0" alt="countdown" />

Since Breaker allows the creation of custom patterns, it is also a great tool to easily remind yourself of meetings or appointments scattered throughout the day.

You can find more reminder apps class="vt-p" title="MakeUseOf Tag: Reminder" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/tag/reminder/">here. For things to do during your breaks, check out the following articles:

• class="vt-p" title="The 5 Best Ways To Relax Using Online Tools" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-ways-relax-online-tools/">The 5 Best Ways To Relax Using Online Tools
• class="vt-p" title="How To Save Your Neck & Back With Workrave" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/save-your-neck-with-workrave/">How To Save Your Neck & Back With Workrave
• class="vt-p" title="Sounds To Help You Sleep, Relax, Concentrate Or Wake Up!" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/sounds-to-help-you-sleep-relax-concentrate-or-wake-up/">Sounds To Help You Sleep, Relax, Concentrate Or Wake Up!
• class="vt-p" title="Best Workout Websites That Combine Technology and Fitness" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/best-workout-websites-that-combine-technology-and-fitness/">Best Workout Websites That Combine Technology and Fitness
• class="vt-p" title="5 Effective Ways To Workout At Home With Online Videos" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-effective-ways-workout-home-online-videos/">5 Effective Ways To Workout At Home With Online Videos
• class="vt-p" title="SparkPeople – Free Online Health & Weight-loss Community" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/sparkpeople-free-online-health-weight-loss-community/">SparkPeople – Free Online Health & Weight-loss Community
• class="vt-p" title="3 Fitness Sites That Make Use Of Social Features" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-fitness-sites-social-features/">3 Fitness Sites That Make Use Of Social Features

MakeUseOf’s Web Developer James Bruce recently switched from a sitting to a standing desk -  class="vt-p" title="Take A Look At James’ Home Setup [Show & Tell]" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/james-home-setup-show/">Take A Look At James’ Home Setup [Show & Tell]

What is your desk setup? Do you have experience working at a standing desk or could you imagine doing it?

Image credits: class="vt-p" title="Office Worker" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=72369958">AISPIX />
/>Need Assistance? Ask questions to MakeUseOf staff and thousands of other readers on href="http://www.makeuseof.dev/answers/" target="_blank" >MakeUseOf Answers!

/>

href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-tools-remind-break-relax-working-computer/">3 Tools To Remind Yourself To Take A Break & Relax While Working At The Computer is a post from: href="http://www.makeuseof.com">MakeUseOf

More articles about: href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/health/" title="health" rel="tag">health, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/health-tips/" title="health tips" rel="tag">health tips, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/office-worker/" title="office worker" rel="tag">office worker, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/relax/" title="relax" rel="tag">relax, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/stress/" title="stress" rel="tag">stress />

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/firefox.jpg" border="0" alt="" />Since the introduction of class="vt-p" title="MakeUseOf Tag: Chrome" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/chrome/">Chrome and the advancement of class="vt-p" title="MakeUseOf Tag: Internet Explorer" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/internet-explorer/">Internet Explorer to version 9, class="vt-p" title="MakeUseOf Tag: Firefox" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/firefox/">Firefox has been losing ground rapidly. Innovation is lacking and problems are amassing. One major issue is that Firefox 4 swallows up more RAM than any other version before it. Its memory usage has become almost abusive and working with a browser that turns your computer into a snail is no fun.

If you are looking for ways to tame the beast, I may have some clues! In this article I will show you 3 steps to reduce and limit the chunk Firefox bites off your RAM. I will start with the obvious, but in the last step, we will dive deep into the heart of your browser.

Prologue

I have been using Firefox for many years and have carried over my profile from each version and computer to the next. Over the years, I have accumulated hundreds of bookmarks, dozens of extensions (most disabled), and several plugins. So by version 4, Firefox has grown to a respectable size. You could call it a monster.

To show you that the tips I’m sharing do have an effect, I have documented how memory usage improved on my machine as I went from one step to the next. Unfortunately, I found that Firefox leaks memory, thus I recorded the value after a few minutes, even though in all cases it continued to increase. This is not 100% exact, but it still gives you a good idea of how well each step works.

Counting: 29 open tabs, 31 extensions

State of affairs: 700,740K

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/FirefoxMemoryUsage01.png" border="0" alt="firefox 4 memory usage" />

1. Close Or Hibernate Tabs

In case you didn’t know this already, the outrageous amount of memory Firefox uses, correlates with the even more outrageous amount of open tabs you cannot get yourself to close. Unfortunately, the easiest way to save a lot of RAM, is to close a lot of tabs.

If you cannot close all of them for the love of it, how about managing your tabs with the help of one of the following extensions:

• class="vt-p" title="BarTab" href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bartab/">BarTab /> Loads a tab only when it is visited and lets you unload tabs from memory either manually or automatically.
• class="vt-p" title="Memory Fox" href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/memory-fox/">Memory Fox /> Fixes Firefox memory leaks and releases RAM.
• class="vt-p" title="Load Tabs Progressively" href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/load-tabs-progressively/">Load Tabs Progressively /> Limits the number of concurrent loading tabs. Similar to BarTab.
• class="vt-p" title="TabGroups Manager" href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tabgroups-manager/">TabGroups Manager /> Allows you to organize tabs in groups and hibernate groups, removing them from memory.

Personally, I work with TabGroups Manager. The extension helps me to keep the amount of open tabs at bay, and this is how I could remove 13 tabs from memory all at once.

For more about tabs, see this article: class="vt-p" title="The 5 Best Firefox 4 Addons For Tabbed Browsing" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-firefox-4-addons-tabs/">The 5 Best Firefox 4 Addons For Tabbed Browsing.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/FirefoxMemoryUsage03.png" border="0" alt="manage open tabs" />

Counting: 16 open tabs, 31 extensions

Memory usage: 496,860K

2. Remove Add-Ons

Running add-ons, i.e. extensions, themes, or plugins, eat up quite a bit of RAM. So go through your collection and remove those that you never use. Before entirely removing them, you can disable them and see whether that significantly improves the memory leak. Go to > Firefox > Add-ons and switch between > Extensions > Appearance and > Plugins. Be sure to update them via the > Tools for all add-ons button.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/FirefoxMemoryUsage02.png" border="0" alt="manage firefox addons" />

Counting: 16 open tabs, 21 extensions

Memory usage: 443,916K

3. About:Config Hacks

There are several very potent hacks that control how much memory Firefox can or will use. None of them had a huge effect in my demonstration, but your results may vary.

Limit Firefox’ RAM usage

Type > about:config into the URL bar, promise to be careful, and scroll to > browser.cache.disk.capacity. The default value depends on how much RAM you have installed. Double-click it to change the value. Do not limit the RAM usage too aggressively, especially not below the amount of RAM Firefox is using as you apply this hack, so be sure to check first! In my case around 400,000K was a realistic value.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/FirefoxMemoryUsage04.png" border="0" alt="firefox memory leak" />

Allow Windows to Claim Back RAM when Firefox is Minimized

With this hack enabled, Windows will be able to claim back RAM more aggressively. In > about:config right-click anywhere and select > New > Boolean and enter > config.trim_on_minimize as the preference name. Double-click the new entry to set its value to > true. Restart Firefox to enable the changes.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/FirefoxMemoryUsage05.png" border="0" alt="firefox hacks" />

Limit Memory Storage for Open Tabs

The last about:config preference we are going to look at is > browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers. The default value is -1, which will automatically determine the maximum amount of pages stored in memory, based on the total amount of RAM. In other word, the bigger your RAM and the more tabs you have open, the bigger the chunk that Firefox will take. You can set this value to zero to not store any pages in memory or to 1 for 32MB, 2 for 64MB, 3 for 128MB etc.

More information about this preference can be found in the class="vt-p" title="browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers" href="http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers">mozillaZine. I went with 3 for 128MB.

Status: No change in tabs or add-ons, all hacks applied.

Memory usage: ~400,000K (maximized) and ~350,000 (minimized)

Epilogue

All steps brought some improvement, but the end result was still not very satisfying. Besides, the real problem with Firefox 4 is the memory leak, which in my case was mainly caused by open tabs. Firefox’ memory usage would climb on and on with no way to stop it, other than to close all tabs. When I closed all tabs except for one, Firefox used about 230,000K. With a virgin profile, memory usage went down to around 48,000K; finally a realistic value, but sadly with almost every little bit of customization removed.

Status: virgin Firefox profile, 1 tab open

Memory usage: ~48,000K

The conclusion is that Firefox has a problem, but if you love your open tabs and add-ons, you will have to put up with it. If you prefer a lean and fast browser however, simply ditch everything, create a new profile, and be very restrictive with what you add.

Finally, you may also want to try the tips from this article: class="vt-p" title="5 Things To Do When Firefox Runs Slow But Other Browsers Run Fast" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-firefox-runs-slow-browsers-run-fast/">5 Things To Do When Firefox Runs Slow But Other Browsers Run Fast.

So what are you going to do? Hold on to your stuff or browse lightly? />
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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/intro2.jpg" alt="time lapse movies" />Quality, free and above all useful camera apps are often hard to come by on the class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/ios">iOS platform. Both class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/share-life-photos-free-instagram-app-iphone/">Instagram and class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/snapbucket-fun-mobile-photo-styling-sharing-app-photobucket-ios-android-smartphones/">Snapbucket are great for quickly sharing stylised snaps, but they don’t add any genuinely useful features for everyday shots or video.

class="vt-p" href="http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/canopy-camera-tools/id417407454?mt=8">Canopy Camera Tools is an app designed to help you get the most out of your mobile photography, and much like class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/frame-frame-free-photography-app-ios-stopmotion-antishake/">Joby’s Frame X Frame it has been created with a specific attachment in mind – the Kapok Canopy Case, with tripod mount. You don’t need a tripod to benefit from this one, as there are plenty of features you can use in your hand. You could always fashion something to hold your device steady (I find Blu-Tack works well without leaving a mess) if you fancy creating a class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/chronolapse-desktop-client-create-timelapse-screencasts-ease/">time-lapse sequence.

Getting The Basics Right

The iPhone (or any iOS device) camera isn’t the be-all and end-all of mobile photography. Whilst the iPhone is the most popular and oft-used “camera phone” solution; Apple’s in-built app leaves you wanting a bit more control and a few extra features.

Without being overly complicated, Canopy places 6 main buttons on your viewfinder, which can be toggled on and off with a tap. These are persistent in both Camera and Video modes, which are selected at the bottom of the screen, along with quick access to existing photos and app settings.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/1.jpg" alt="time lapse movies" width="580" height="387" />

The left hand side of the screen allows you to choose between front and rear facing cameras, toggle time-lapse mode and the camera timer which is perfect for group shots and also works with video. On the right hand side of the screen there are buttons for controlling flash behaviour, toggling exposure lock and white balance lock.

The lock buttons are especially useful, and add some genuinely useful functionality to your phone. For example, whilst taking a video by default the camera will adjust exposure as light changes. Should you want to maintain exposure throughout the video, exposure lock allows you to do this and your camera won’t re-balance every time you move.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/settingslocked.jpg" alt="iphone camera apps" width="580" height="387" />

This also goes for white balance, and if you’re really serious you could use a piece of white or grey card to take a perfect white balance reading and lock this for the duration of your video or photo session.

Advanced Features, Better Results

Of course Canopy also includes the aforementioned time-lapse mode, which automatically stitches your photos into a video. It works, though as the handy notification I received pointed out – phone calls will interrupt any sequences you’re working on. The best way around this is to activate Airplane Mode from your device’s Settings.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/timelapse.jpg" alt="iphone camera apps" width="580" height="387" />

Time-lapse photography takes up a decent wedge of battery (I’ve yet to use an app which is “light” on power for this task) so make sure you’ve got enough battery to complete the sequence and find your way home afterwards. It works well, and doesn’t fill your camera roll with hundreds of images – great news.

The Settings menu afoot the viewfinder is also full of goodies. Much like Frame X Frame there is a spirit level (for that perfectly straight horizon) which – unlike Frame X Frame – does work in landscape mode. There’s also a grid that can be activated for aiding composition.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/settings.jpg" alt="iphone camera apps" width="580" height="387" />

Saving the best till last, it is also possible to use touch gestures to control the camera and this can be customized in the Settings area. As you can see from the screenshot below, the default configuration is pretty intuitive.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/tap_gestures.jpg" alt="time lapse movies" width="580" height="387" />

Conclusion

Canopy Camera Tools is probably the best free camera app I have used on the iOS platform. Features like time-lapse, exposure and white balance lock along with well-implemented touch gestures make it a joy to use, and provide some excellent results. You really don’t need a tripod, Kapok case or Gorillamobile to enjoy Canopy. Grab it now and start taking better pictures!

Have you found any similar great tools we’ve yet to feature? Do you like Canopy Camera Tools? Do you own a tripod/mount for your device? Let us know how you shoot on the go in the comments below. />
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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/iphonecamera.png" border="0" alt="iphone camera apps" />Right behind the Nikon D90, Apple’s iPhone 4 is the most popular camera in terms of pictures taken and uploaded to the photo sharing site, class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/flickr">Flickr. While this little camera in your pocket has its limitations, there are hundreds of apps that provide it with some truly professional features and enhancements.

There are hundreds of paid apps built for the iPhone camera, but there are also some really useful free options. I selected free apps that are both good demos of their counterpart full versions and/or just useful apps for the serious iPhone photo hobbyist. If you know of other good free options, please let us know about them.

Cropping Apps

The iPhone camera doesn’t have a post-shot crop tool, and if you’re serious about iPhone photography, you should have an app that enables you to crop photos. Many paid advanced photo editor apps include a cropping feature, but I found two iPhone camera apps that are devoted to just cropping and resizing images.

The aptly named app, class="vt-p" href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/crop/id405666696?mt=8">Crop [iTunes Store link], enables you to crop and rotate your images without losing quality to your cropped images. It’s simple to use, and you don’t have to tap several buttons to get what you need.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/muoscreenshot492.jpg" border="0" alt="iphone camera apps" width="580" height="419" />

class="vt-p" href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/photo-rotate-crop/id438891150?mt=8">Rotate and Crop [iTunes Store link] includes the same features Crop, but it also allows you to make some exposure image adjustments, as well as share and export your edited images to Evernote, Dropbox, and a few other applications.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/muoscreenshot493.jpg" border="0" alt="best iphone camera apps" width="580" height="382" />

Photo Album

The iPhone includes a photo library application for storing photos you import from your computer via iTunes, as well as the Camera Roll of images you snap with iPhone itself. But you should have one or more photo album apps that allow you to create folders of images that you import from your existing camera roll, your photo library, or images you download from the Internet on your iPhone.

class="vt-p" href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ipic-manager/id427523435?mt=8">iPic Manager [iTunes Store Link] is a good free option. You can quickly add multiple photos from your existing iPhone library as well take a photo and have them instantly added to your selected folder. You can also password protect your images.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/muoscreenshot494.jpg" border="0" alt="best iphone camera apps" width="580" height="406" />

You might also want to have a photo album app that is completely devoted to safeguarding selected photos on your iPhone. class="vt-p" href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/private-photo-vault/id417571834?mt=8">Private Photo Vault [iTunes Store Link] is another such option. This app also allows you to password protect individual albums, run a slide show, take photos from within the app, and much more.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/muoscreenshot495.jpg" border="0" alt="best iphone camera apps" width="580" height="423" />

Photo Mashups

If you want to do something fun and creative with your iPhone photos, there are a couple of free options. class="vt-p" href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/realcoverlite/id411889666?mt=8">RealCoverLite [iTunes Store Link] allows you to place a photo inside a magazine cover without having to mess around with layering and masking. The Lite version offers only 6 covers (the full version includes 90), but it’s great for seeing what this app can do.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/muoscreenshot496.jpg" border="0" alt="best camera apps iphone" width="580" height="438" />

Your cover images can be emailed and shared with others. You can also include additional text on template covers.

Creating photo collages is another cool way to show off photos. class="vt-p" href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/photomashup/id398870403?mt=8">PhotoMashup [iTunes Store Link] allows you to copy and paste several photos from your iPhone photo library, and save or email them as a collection in one file. The default background for a collage project is gray, but you can double-tap on the background and shoot a new background from within the app, or you can choose an existing photo from your library. From there you can layer photos on top of one another. They can be moved around and rotated.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/muoscreenshot497.jpg" border="0" alt="best camera apps iphone" width="580" height="421" />

Timer Apps

It’s also good to try out one or more time shutter apps on your iPhone. These iPhone camera apps are useful for shooting self-portraits, group and close-up shots. class="vt-p" href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/photo-timer/id304581144?mt=8">Photo Timer is one of the best options, and it’s free for a limited time. It not only enables you to set a timer for the shutter release, but it also includes a photo composition guide, burst mode, and photo sharing to Facebook, Twitter, MobileMe, Tumblr, and email.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/muoscreenshot498.jpg" border="0" alt="best camera apps iphone" width="580" height="426" />

If and when Photo Timer is no longer free, class="vt-p" href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/auto-shutter/id380995955?mt=8">Auto Shutter is another option, which does exactly what it’s named for.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/muoscreenshot499.jpg" border="0" alt="Muoscreenshot499" width="580" height="423" />

Photo Enhancers

The iTunes App store includes hundreds of iPhone camera apps for editing and enhancing your photos. We have published reviews about few good free options, including class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/photoshop-express/">Adobe’s Photo Express and class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/6-sites-enhance-instagram-experience/">Instagram, but here are a few more.

The free version of class="vt-p" href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/100-cameras-in-1-free-version/id428596902?mt=8">100 Cameras in 1 is a popular photo editor that includes 20+ photo effects for hardlighting and overlaying photos with various textures and filters. The paid version includes 100 more effects, but this free version is a good demo of what the app can do. You only have to tap once to apply an effect and see the applied effect.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/muoscreenshot500.jpg" border="0" alt="iphone camera apps" width="580" height="396" />

class="vt-p" href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/iquikdof-depth-field-creator/id423204960?mt=8">iQuikDof – Depth of Field Creator is an advanced photo editor that enables you to create a depth of field effect of a selected image. It contains auto presets feature for the DOF effects, or you can manually select an area in which you want to mask and keep in focus, while the unselected area is blurred. This is also a good demo app for the pro version which includes more presets and customizable blur.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/muoscreenshot501.jpg" border="0" alt="iPhone camera apps" width="580" height="427" />

Let us know what you think of these apps and if you find one or more of them useful.

For more about how to use your iPhone camera to take better photos, check out  class="l vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/pictures-free-camera-iphone-3g-3gs/" target="_top">Take Better Pictures With Free Camera Plus and  class="l vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/learn-exposure-settings-free-iphone-apps/" target="_top">Learn Digital class="l vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/learn-exposure-settings-free-iphone-apps/" target="_top">Camera class="l vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/learn-exposure-settings-free-iphone-apps/" target="_top"> Exposure Settings Using Your class="l vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/learn-exposure-settings-free-iphone-apps/" target="_top">iPhone. />
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More articles about: href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/camera/" title="camera" rel="tag">camera, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/iphone/" title="iphone" rel="tag">iphone, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/iphone-apps/" title="iPhone Apps" rel="tag">iPhone Apps, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/photo-albums/" title="photo albums" rel="tag">photo albums, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/photo-effects/" title="photo effects" rel="tag">photo effects, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/photography/" title="photography" rel="tag">photography, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/photography-tips/" title="photography tips" rel="tag">photography tips, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/photos/" title="photos" rel="tag">photos, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/smartphones/" title="smartphones" rel="tag">smartphones />

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/iphonecamera.png" border="0" alt="" />Right behind the Nikon D90, Apple’s iPhone 4 is the most popular camera in terms of pictures taken and uploaded to the photo sharing site, class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/flickr">Flickr. While this little camera in your pocket has its limitations, there are hundreds of apps that provide it with some truly professional features and enhancements.

There are hundreds of paid apps built for the iPhone camera, but there are also some really useful free options. I selected free apps that are both good demos of their counterpart full versions and/or just useful apps for the serious iPhone photo hobbyist. If you know of other good free options, please let us know about them.

Cropping Apps

The iPhone camera doesn’t have a post-shot crop tool, and if you’re serious about iPhone photography, you should have an app that enables you to crop photos. Many paid advanced photo editor apps include a cropping feature, but I found two apps that are devoted to just cropping and resizing images.

The aptly named app, class="vt-p" href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/crop/id405666696?mt=8">Crop [iTunes Store link], enables you to crop and rotate your images without losing quality to your cropped images. It’s simple to use, and you don’t have to tap several buttons to get what you need.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/muoscreenshot492.jpg" border="0" alt="Muoscreenshot492" width="580" height="419" />

class="vt-p" href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/photo-rotate-crop/id438891150?mt=8">Rotate and Crop [iTunes Store link] includes the same features Crop, but it also allows you to make some exposure image adjustments, as well as share and export your edited images to Evernote, Dropbox, and a few other applications.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/muoscreenshot493.jpg" border="0" alt="Muoscreenshot493" width="580" height="382" />

Photo Album

The iPhone includes a photo library application for storing photos you import from your computer via iTunes, as well as the Camera Roll of images you snap with iPhone itself. But you should have one or more photo album apps that allow you to create folders of images that you import from your existing camera roll, your photo library, or images you download from the Internet on your iPhone.

class="vt-p" href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ipic-manager/id427523435?mt=8">iPic Manager [iTunes Store Link] is a good free option. You can quickly add multiple photos from your existing iPhone library as well take a photo and have them instantly added to your selected folder. You can also password protect your images.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/muoscreenshot494.jpg" border="0" alt="Muoscreenshot494" width="580" height="406" />

You might also want to have a photo album app that is completely devoted to safeguarding selected photos on your iPhone. class="vt-p" href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/private-photo-vault/id417571834?mt=8">Private Photo Vault [iTunes Store Link] is another such option. This app also allows you to password protect individual albums, run a slide show, take photos from within the app, and much more.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/muoscreenshot495.jpg" border="0" alt="Muoscreenshot495" width="580" height="423" />

Photo Mashups

If you want to do something fun and creative with your iPhone photos, there are a couple of free options. class="vt-p" href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/realcoverlite/id411889666?mt=8">RealCoverLite [iTunes Store Link] allows you to place a photo inside a magazine cover without having to mess around with layering and masking. The Lite version offers only 6 covers (the full version includes 90), but it’s great for seeing what this app can do.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/muoscreenshot496.jpg" border="0" alt="Muoscreenshot496" width="580" height="438" />

Your cover images can be emailed and shared with others. You can also include additional text on template covers.

Creating photo collages is another cool way to show off photos. class="vt-p" href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/photomashup/id398870403?mt=8">PhotoMashup [iTunes Store Link] allows you to copy and paste several photos from your iPhone photo library, and save or email them as a collection in one file. The default background for a collage project is gray, but you can double-tap on the background and shoot a new background from within the app, or you can choose an existing photo from your library. From there you can layer photos on top of one another. They can be moved around and rotated.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/muoscreenshot497.jpg" border="0" alt="Muoscreenshot497" width="580" height="421" />

Timer Apps

It’s also good to try out one or more time shutter apps on your iPhone. These apps are useful for shooting self-portraits, group and close-up shots. class="vt-p" href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/photo-timer/id304581144?mt=8">Photo Timer is one of the best options, and it’s free for a limited time. It not only enables you to set a timer for the shutter release, but it also includes a photo composition guide, burst mode, and photo sharing to Facebook, Twitter, MobileMe, Tumblr, and email.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/muoscreenshot498.jpg" border="0" alt="Muoscreenshot498" width="580" height="426" />

If and when Photo Timer is no longer free, class="vt-p" href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/auto-shutter/id380995955?mt=8">Auto Shutter is another option, which does exactly what it’s named for.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/muoscreenshot499.jpg" border="0" alt="Muoscreenshot499" width="580" height="423" />

Photo Enhancers

The iTunes App store includes hundreds of iPhone camera apps for editing and enhancing your photos. We have published reviews about few good free options, including class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/photoshop-express/">Adobe’s Photo Express and class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/6-sites-enhance-instagram-experience/">Instagram, but here are a few more.

The free version of class="vt-p" href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/100-cameras-in-1-free-version/id428596902?mt=8">100 Cameras in 1 is a popular photo editor that includes 20+ photo effects for hardlighting and overlaying photos with various textures and filters. The paid version includes 100 more effects, but this free version is a good demo of what the app can do. You only have to tap once to apply an effect and see the applied effect.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/muoscreenshot500.jpg" border="0" alt="Muoscreenshot500" width="580" height="396" />

class="vt-p" href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/iquikdof-depth-field-creator/id423204960?mt=8">iQuikDof – Depth of Field Creator is an advanced photo editor that enables you to create a depth of field effect of a selected image. It contains auto presets feature for the DOF effects, or you can manually select an area in which you want to mask and keep in focus, while the unselected area is blurred. This is also a good demo app for the pro version which includes more presets and customizable blur.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/muoscreenshot501.jpg" border="0" alt="Muoscreenshot501" width="580" height="427" />

Let us know what you think of these apps and if you find one or more of them useful.

For more about how to use your iPhone camera to take better photos, check out  class="l vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/pictures-free-camera-iphone-3g-3gs/" target="_top">Take Better Pictures With Free Camera Plus and  class="l vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/learn-exposure-settings-free-iphone-apps/" target="_top">Learn Digital class="l vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/learn-exposure-settings-free-iphone-apps/" target="_top">Camera class="l vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/learn-exposure-settings-free-iphone-apps/" target="_top"> Exposure Settings Using Your class="l vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/learn-exposure-settings-free-iphone-apps/" target="_top">iPhone. />
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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/shutterstock-home-network.jpg" alt="" />Taking a break from our regular awesome software reviews and tutorials, I thought it’d be interesting if myself and some of the other staff writers here at MakeUseOf show you our own home setups – whether that be in the form of fantastic custom desks, complicated home media-streaming networks, or just the apps and services we make use of on a regular basis and our favourite software tools. It’s also a good chance to clean my desk up a bit.

Main Computer

My main work machine is a 27” iMac. Bored of sitting all the time and for health reasons, I switched the desk legs for some extendable ones at IKEA and I now have a fantastic simple standing desk that’s actually really solid. If you already have a suitable desktop, you can pick up just the legs for about $100. I do need to do something about the cables though.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/stadning-desk-ikea.jpg" alt="" width="580" height="433" />

I have a second monitor beside it which runs Windows 7 inside a virtual Parallels machine, mostly used for testing purposes and because it’s much easier to take screenshots with a virtual machine.

Network

With a total of about 10 clients, everything in my house is networked together – including the TV. Where possible, I run a wired ethernet connection. No matter how good your wireless router is, a wired connection is always going to be faster, especially important when shuffling around large files and streaming HD movies. The main router is a stock firmware device given to me by my cable company – it’s good enough, and acts as both a 4 port switch and a wireless router. To extend the network upstairs, I then have a separate network switch connected via a simple crossover ethernet cable.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/home-network.jpg" alt="" width="580" height="379" />

The number of devices is perhaps a bit excessive, but most are old laptops that wouldn’t sell anyway, and like most geeks I can’t bear to throw hardware away.

If you’d like to learn more about setting up a home network of your own, be sure to read our href="http://www.makeuseof.com/pages/easy-guide-computer-networks ">Easy Guide to Computer Networks for a great primer on the topic.

Home Server

Sitting in the cupboard is my home media, backup, and file server. Right now it’s running href="http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/default.mspx">Windows Home Server 2011 – I know we’ve covered a lot of free alternatives before (such as href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/set-home-server-amahi/">Amahi and href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/media-server/">all these), but ultimately I prefer the stability of a Windows server and the fact that apart from being a rock solid server, it can also run Windows apps at the same time. With 2 x 1TB drives, it’s able to href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/backup">backup all the Windows machines on the network automatically, as well provides a remote time machine based backup for any Macs (though I don’t use that). Apart from the usual Windows file-sharing, I also run href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/setup-perfect-media-center-plex-mac-windows/">Plex Media Server which I showed you a few weeks ago. That’s then able to serve movies and TV shows around the house with full metadata information and covers automatically downloaded.

Of course, with all that space it also runs href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/utorrent/">uTorrent. Rather than use the built-in href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/utorrent-remote-control-utorrent-downloads">uTorrent remote access, I prefer to have Windows Remote Desktop activated so I can use the entire desktop remotely. You can set this up on any Windows 7 machine easily using new features introduced in the href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-cool-windows-7-cloud/">Windows Live Mesh app. For security, any traffic to the outside world is secured across an anonymous href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/vpn/">VPN – I use href="http://vpntunnel.se">VPN Tunnel (a paid, unlimited access service perfect for torrents).

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/iphone-yawcam.jpg" alt="" width="580" height="387" />

Situated in a small room with a window upstairs, it’s also ideal as a motion-sensing security system using a webcam and a suite of tools I showed you before. When activated, the system can send href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/set-multiplatform-notification-system-growl/">Growl alerts to my mobile and around the network. Learn how to set up your own href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/motion-detection-surveillance-system-iphone-notification/">free home security system here.

Media Center

Though the TV is able to read some files straight off the network, I prefer to use my media centre PC and just output to the TV. This avoids any format issues, and allows me to have wonderful metadata and covers from Plex as I said, streaming from the server – this is done through XBMC and the PleXBMC plugin. Last week, I hacked the Xbox360 Kinect camera into this Windows PC to let me href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/control-windows-pc-kinect/">control XBMC by frantically waving my arms around, but plugging the camera back into the Xbox got tiring quickly so I’m making do with a long-corded USB mouse until I get a chance to test out some remote control apps. Android owners have a free official app from XBMC, and here’s a href="{http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/boxee-plex-xbmc-remote/id403716879?mt=8">free app for iOS that handles Plex, XBMC and Boxee – I just haven’t got around to trying them yet!

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/movie-grid.jpg" alt="" width="580" height="326" />

To be honest, there’s quite a few Media Center apps you could use, and it’s really down to personal preference which you choose in the long run. Some of the writers here prefer href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/boxee-beta-an-app-that-will-change-how-you-think-about-television/">Boxee, which I’ve yet to try myself but apparently has great social features, while others go for a straight up href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/xbmc-10-dharma-mature-featurerich-crossplatform-media-centre/">XBMC install, with all the hacks and tweaks that involves.

Web Services

I must admit I’m quite minimalist when it comes to web services. href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/gmail/">GMail and href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/google-reader/">Reader have permanent tabs in my Chrome browser, and I have the obligatory Facebook account. Other than that, I don’t tweet, and virtually all my web browsing originates through various feeds in Google Reader. Sorry to disappoint, but I’m much more of a hardware and networking kind of guy.

That’s it from me, but I hope you’ll get to see what works for other writers in the coming weeks, so stay tuned and we can both look forward to reading those. As ever, feel free to comment or ask questions and I’ll do my best to reply. For general questions, you might want to ask in the href="http://www.makeuseof.com/answers">Q&A part of the site, where our regular contributors and eagle-eyed editors jump at the chance to share their computing knowledge.

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/0_meteointro.jpg" alt="weather software with alerts for the mac" />I never used to be too concerned with the weather when I would wake up in the morning, usually because I would be getting into my car regardless of whether it was rain or shine. Since I moved to New York City, however, I take public transportation and walk everywhere, so the weather is very much a factor in my daily routine. In fact, checking the weather has become one of the first things I do after waking up in the morning.

There are a lot of apps and websites out there dedicated to forecasting href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/weather/">weather. Some are better than others, and on a Mac, Meteo is one of the best I’ve seen. Meteo, or Meteorologist, is a free weather program for OS X. It allows users total control over their weather viewing, with support for multiple cities, interlaced weather reports, weather alerts, and much more.

How Do I Start Using Meteo?

If you’re ready to start using Meteo, the first thing you should do is navigate over to href="http://heat-meteo.sourceforge.net/">the homepage, located on SourceForge, and click on the 1.5.2 (latest version) link at the top of the page.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/1_meteo.png" alt="weather software with alerts for the mac" width="523" height="546" />

When you first run Meteo, you’ll be on the Cities tab, where you can remove the default city (Cupertino, CA), unless you live there of course, and add the cities you would like to track the weather in. To do that, just click the Add City button, type in your desired city, state, or zipcode, and click Search. Your city will be displayed at the bottom for you to select.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/2_meteo.png" alt="weather software for mac" width="435" height="481" />

You can also select which weather and forecast items you would like to display for your searched city with the tabs at the top. You can select anything from Temperature and Forecast to Visibility and UV Index. Just click Confirm when you’re done.

On the Updating tab, you can select how often you would like active locations to update. By default, this is set to 15 minutes. Also by default, Meteo will be displayed in the Menubar at the top of your Mac’s screen, but you can change this to “Dock” or “Both” if you like as well.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/3_meteo.png" alt="weather software for mac" width="524" height="547" />

If you would like to receive alerts about the weather, you can set that up on the Alerts tab. Weather alerts can be in the form of an email, beep, a song you select, bounce, or message.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/4_meteo.png" alt="weather software with alerts for the mac" width="264" height="124" />

Once you have Meteo set up, you can click on your city in your Menubar and click Weather to be taken to Weather.com for an updated forecast, or simply mouse over Current Conditions to see what it’s currently like outside or Extended Forecast to see that information for over the next 3 days.

Conclusion

If you’re really into weather forecasting and would like to include this type of information on your blog or website, whether for your own reference or if it pertains to your readers, you should also check out this article by John entitled href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-5-sites-to-download-weather-widgets-for-your-blog-or-website/">Top 5 Sites to Download Weather Widgets For Your Blog or Website.

Meteo is a simple program that can give you as much in-depth information about the weather as you want it to. For my purposes, checking the weather every morning, it does the trick. Are you impressed with Meteorologist for Mac? What other apps/websites do you use to keep track of what’s going on outside? />
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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/logo1.png" alt="ios note app"/>Moleskine is probably one of the most popular and most famous brand of notebooks available in the market today, and was the notebook of choice of great artists and writers including Oscar Wilde, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway and Vincent Van Gogh. While some argue that nothing compares to the feel of the leather-bound notebook in your hands, and being able to jot down your thoughts, ideas and sketches by hand, Moleskine have launched a free iOS based note-taking app for both iPhone and iPad users.

Available for download for free from the href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/moleskine/id429657255?mt=8">iTunes App Store, the app allows you to take notes, sketch drawings, add photos and labels, and share your notes on href="http://makeuseof.com/tags/facebook">Facebook and href="http://makeuseof.com/tags/twitter">Twitter and more. The app is customizable to suit your personal taste, changing the paper type, font size and more.

When you first launch the app, a short guide on how to use the app is displayed, and you’ll find that sample notes have already been created, showing you the full potential of the app.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/help.png" alt="ios note app" width="435" height="580" />

The first choice you’ll want to make when you create a new note, after giving the note a name, is the type of paper you’re going to use. There are three choices – plain, squared and ruled.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/paper.png" alt="take notes on ipad" width="340" height="320" />

You can also categorize your notes, creating your own custom categories. Each category is accompanied by a color and icon of your choice. These symbols are visible in the list of notes on your home page, an easy way to differentiate between your various notes.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/list.png" alt="take notes on ipad" width="435" height="580" />

When it comes to taking notes, while you cannot change the font itself, you can choose between four font sizes from extra small to large.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/textsize.png" alt="take notes on ipad" width="580" height="408" /> /> You also have a selection of 15 font colors, including all the basic colors you might want to use.

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When it comes to sketching, you can also choose the thickness of your brush stroke, from extra small to large. And like with the text, you have the same selection of 15 colors.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/brush.png" alt="" width="580" height="348" /> /> In addition to text and sketches, you can add images to your note from your photo albums.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/photos.png" alt="" width="580" height="443" />

And you can also add from a variety icons, or labels, that come with the app.

href="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/labels.png"> class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-73596" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/labels.png" alt="take notes on iphone" width="580" height="415" />

Once you’ve completed your notes or sketches, there are two things you can do with them. You can share them with other users via email, Facebook or Twitter.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/share.png" alt="take notes on iphone" width="340" height="320" />

The sharing capabilities of the app are, however, somewhat limited. When sharing via email, the text of the note is automatically pasted into the body of the email and without images, while sketches can’t be emailed at all.  Sharing via Twitter, the first 140 characters of the note will be be automatically pasted for sharing on the site. If you need an app to save drafts of your tweets, the Moleskine app could potentially serve the purpose. Sharing via Facebook was unsuccessful after several attempts, despite successfully connecting the app to a Facebook account.

Aside from the sharing options, you can also geotag your notes, making the app a very useful journal tool for someone who travels a lot.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/geotag.jpg" alt="take notes on iphone" width="435" height="580" />

There is no limit to the number of free href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/7-apps-ipad-writing-projects/">note-taking and href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-free-doodling-software-apps-ipad-mac/">sketching apps available in the iTunes App Store, so why use the Moleskine app? The interface is sleek and simple, and leaves the focus on what really matters – your writing or drawings. If you’re a die-hard Moleskine fan, the app will definitely appeal to you, and the geotagging feature adds an interesting dimension to the note-taking app.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/note.jpg" alt="ios note app" width="435" height="580" />

If we had a wishlist for the iOS note app, it would be for the sharing features to be improved, as well as including a syncing feature for backing up your notes with an online account, or to your computer.

Which free app do you use to take notes on your iPhone or iPad? Let us know in the comments. />
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Sometimes I wish life has a rewind button that will let us go back to the past and undo all the damage that we’ve done – to restore everything to the ‘previous working state’.  Events in our life might be irreversible, but things are different in the computer world. You can restore your system to any previous state you want, as long as you have the necessary backups.

Windows users have “System Restore” that they can count on. But that feature isn’t the quickest way to do it. Meet SmartClose, a really tiny application that will help you to quickly take and restore snapshots of your system state.

Take This Tiny Tool

Other than long-term safety precautions, taking system snapshots is also advisable prior to software installations, especially for those who install and uninstall lots of software regularly. With a snapshot ready, one can cleanly erase the presence of a newly installed software. This method is better than traditional uninstallers which always litter the system with unwanted leftovers.

Looking at various system maintenance applications with DVD-size files, I never thought that SmartClose would measure less than 700KB. It’s small enough that you could put it in your Dropbox folder and install it on your other computers. The interface is also simple; just one small window with five menus. So everything is accessible from here.

With the program installed, we are ready to begin.

Snap Some System Shots

The first time you use the app, you will be guided by a wizard. Check the “Don’t show this introduction page again” box to skip it the next time you take other shots.

The first step of the wizard is to choose tasks to be performed before taking the snapshot. In general, these tasks are mainly about stopping every unnecessary computer activity before taking the system snapshot.

The wizard will also let you add applications to the “Protected Programs” list. The list contains critical applications that will not be closed due to their importance to the system.

The next step will let you choose the location to save the snapshot.

Before starting the process, you will see a window with a list of all the tasks. Click “Start” to begin.

Restore From A Recorded Shot

To restore your system using one of the snapshots, choose the second menu under “Create a system snapshot …“. You will have a similar wizard guiding you, but the steps go the opposite way from the first one.

The wizard starts by letting you choose which system snapshot you want to restore from. The default choice is the last saved snapshot.

Then it will relaunch all the closed applications. If there are some applications you’ve opened before running the restore wizard, click the “Uncheck Running Programs” button before clicking “Next“.

The wizard continues by asking you which components you want to restore.

Then you’ll see the list of tasks. Click “Start” to begin the restoration process.

To see how SmartClose performed, I took a snapshot of my system, installed several new applications, then restored my system using the latest snapshot. I found no trace of the applications I had just installed. So we can conclude that SmartClose would be a great companion for people who love to try out new applications.

Do you think SmartClose would be useful for you? Do you prefer to use Windows’ System Restore instead? Or do you use another better alternative? Please share your thoughts using the comments below.

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style="border: 0px none;margin-left:20px;float:right;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/0.png" alt="annotate pdf"/>I thought that college students get heavy discounts on commercial software but I just recently found out that href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/retail-software-free-student/">students can get commercial software completely free (including Visual Studio, Expression Encoder, etc), which is a nice perk. However, the perks of being a student don’t end there as there are actually quite a few student-friendly  href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/gradegurus-top-ten-student-tools-2010/">applications, which may even be useful to wider audiences and not just students.

You can use href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/delicious-completely-organize-student-life/">Delicious to organize your student life, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/7-ways-to-make-use-of-evernote/">Evernote to help you reduce your paper clutter and href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-10-downloaded-student-tools-movers-shakers/">more! Evernote, in particular, can definitely be considered a giant when it comes to the many platforms it has apps for and how versatile it is.

Jarnal is also a great note-taking application that can run in Windows, Mac and Linux and deserves a mention, without a doubt, for its extensive features.

id="more-56421">

name="Download" href="http://jarnal.wikispaces.com/">Getting Jarnal

Jarnal is an open-source href="http://makeuseof.com/tags/note-taking">note-taking and sketching application that you can run without installing it (as the program is bundled in href="http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/software/tc1000/jarnal-install.zip">a zipped file), but there are also installable versions for href="http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/software/tc1000/jarnal-setup.exe">Windows and href="http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/software/tc1000/jarnalmac.dmg">Mac on href="http://jarnal.wikispaces.com/">the official wiki and href="http://jarnal.sourceforge.net/">SourceForge page. Debian users will also be able to download href="http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/software/tc1000/jarnal-build918_all.deb">a .deb package, while users from other Linux distros can make use of the ZIP file.

Comparing It To Windows Journal

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/13.png" alt="annotate pdf"/>

Windows Journal, which comes bundled in certain editions of Windows XP, Vista, and 7, is actually a very neat and handy application for taking notes on your tablet PC, whether they are handwritten or typed notes. There were certain drawbacks to Windows Journal though, namely, the lack of additional importable files (you could only insert pictures), and the inability to export to PDF or something other than the .jnt Journal file type and .tiff image format. The .jnt file makes it pretty hard to view on say, a library computer, or even share them with classmates, because you’re pretty much out of luck unless you can run href="http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=fad44098-8b73-4e06-96d4-d1eb70eacb44&displaylang=en">Windows Journal Viewer.

I used Windows Journal for a while, enjoying how I was able to insert and remove space for new notes, which I could select and move around to my liking. What bugged me a tad bit was the fact that I had to batch convert PDF slides for my classes to image files before I could insert them in Journal. I eventually found that href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/6-ways-to-convert-a-pdf-file-to-a-jpg-image/">PDF X-Change Viewer provided annotation features that SumatraPDF didn’t have. Still, with the free edition of the X-Change Viewer, you can’t add PDF slides, which comes in handy when you annotate the heck out of the slides and run out of space.

This is where Jarnal shines. Since it’s for note-taking and sketching, you can add more space, annotate and export the whole thing to PDF. You first unzip the file, run jarnal.cm and head to File > Open Background (New On Background also works but it’s to open another instance of Jarnal) to choose your PDF file (or href="http://jarnal.wikispaces.com/How+to+Use+Word+Documents+as+Backgrounds">Word document) as your background.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/22.png" alt="annotate pdf documents"/>

Editing The PDF File: Annotating & Merging With Other PDF Files

After you’ve imported your PDF file as your background to annotate on, you can use the text tool to insert typed notes, or the pen tool to draw freehand shapes. You can also basically create new PDF slides by inserting pages (and making diagram copies of whatever’s being illustrated by the professor on the board on these new slides which you will export later to PDF) and merging with other PDF files by inserting additional backgrounds.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/32.png" alt="annotate pdf documents"/>

Other cool things you can do include inserting links, arrows (Ctrl + D), rectangles, etc. smoothing out your hand-drawn diagrams (by checking Smooth Strokes under Tools), and customizing what actions the middle or right mouse buttons perform (e.g. act as eraser, show context menu, etc).

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/42.png" alt="annotate pdf documents"/>

When you’re ready to save your annotated document, complete with your hand-drawn diagrams and notes, head to File > Export to PDF. You can also save the current page as an image or save it as a Jarnal file (.jaj).

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/52.png" alt="annotate pdf"/>

Though it doesn’t have lots of keyboard shortcuts, overall, Jarnal makes it easy for students who prefer to digitize notes (and save trees!) without having different programs to juggle while taking notes. In fact, I remember one of my classmates from a few years back who took notes on her laptop would type her notes in Word and painstakingly copy the diagrams from the white board in MS Paint. I imagine keeping these separate document and image files would make it harder to consolidate the study material so Jarnal is definitely a nice program worth trying for students.

Do you know of any other student-friendly applications or do you currently have a unique and genius note-taking method you’d like to share? Enlighten us in the comments! />
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style="border: 0px none;margin-left:20px;float:right;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/chalkboard.jpg" alt="online college courses"/>With rising costs associated with going to university, many progressive colleges have been looking for ways to teach those who can not afford a traditional college course, or otherwise do not have the time to visit a traditional classroom. The internet is a low-cost distribution method and is a perfect vehicle for learning topics with both textual, audio and visual cues to assist the student.

The sites below offer free online college level classes to anyone willing to spend the time on them. Each differ – some have all of the materials online and some may want you to purchase (borrow?) a textbook to follow along with. Each of them offers complete courses with only one thing missing: the credit for the coursework to put towards a matriculated degree.

id="more-54572">

href="http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm">MIT OpenCourseware

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/mit.jpg" alt="online college courses"/>

Massachusetts Institute of Technology was a pioneer in offering online college courses and they still have the most diverse and in-depth collection of classes available anywhere. Their online offering is an archived version of real courses that have been taught at MIT, and you may need to purchase the textbook to follow along with the class. These courses come highly recommended.

href="http://oli.web.cmu.edu/openlearning/">Carnegie Mellon OpenLearning

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/cmu.jpg" alt="online courses"/>

Carnegie Mellon, based in Pittsburgh, PA, has a variety of courses available for anyone online. While the selection is not as great as MIT’s, many core courses are presented in an easy to follow online format. Their courses are similar to what a paying student would receive minus the course credit or access to an instructor.

href="http://www.khanacademy.org/">Khan Acadamy

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/khan.jpg" alt="online courses"/>

Salman Khan began putting videos on YouTube to help with tutoring a cousin. When he started receiving feedback that they were helping a lot more people than just his cousin, he realized he was on to something good.

Today, there are over 1000 videos on KhanAcademy, which is now a 501(c)(3) non-profit. Most videos are about math. However, there are also many other topics that he explores. Even Bill Gates has said that he uses Khan to teach his kids about math. These are not college courses per-se, but the math he introduces in them are at college level and many people praise them for being clearer and easier to comprehend than actual college courses!

href="http://webcast.berkeley.edu/">University of California at Berkeley

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/berkeley.jpg" alt="online courses"/>

UC Berkeley has put online videos and audio of many of its most popular courses up on their Webcast website. They do not include the text materials which can be very helpful for taking online college courses. However, you can still learn a lot by watching the videos of the lecures.

They have lectures for ongoing courses and also historical class archives on their website, as well as videos of recorded events and one-off lectures.

href="http://itunes.stanford.edu/">Stanford University iTunesU

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/stanford.jpg" alt="free online college courses"/>

Stanford has made many of their courses and lectures available via href="http://makeuseof.com/tags/itunes">iTunes in iTunesU. This collection is great if you are on the go or want to listen to courses while commuting. They have an impressive collection of content available, all for free. The downside is that you need to use iTunes to view their content.

href="http://ocw.tufts.edu/">Tufts OpenCourseware

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/tufts.jpg" alt="free online college courses"/>

Tufts uses the OpenCourseware format to offer full content on a number of their programs. Worth mentioning from Tufts are their Medical and Dental school courses as well as selections from other courses.

href="http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/">Open University LearningSpace

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/learningspace.jpg" alt="free online college courses" />

Learningspace offers content from the Open University, based in the UK. This university pledges to be open and accepts many different kinds of students in its real world classrooms. It also opened up its content to anyone online. The online college courses are laid out extremely well and offer many different topics with skill levels going from beginner up to expert.

href="http://ocw.jhsph.edu/">Johns Hopkins OpenCourseware

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/johnshopkins.jpg" alt="online college courses"/>

Johns Hopkins is a respected medical school outside of Baltimore, Maryland. They offer a selection of courses from their school which would be of particular interest to medical students.

Get to work!

The sites above are free as in free beer. However, if you wish to make the most out of them you will still need to make the time commitment to sit down and watch or listen to the course content. You may not receive college credit for learning via these sites but you will definitely turn out a better person!

Image credit: rel="nofollow" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-50974009/stock-photo-student-solving-a-problem-at-a-blackboard.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/2010/09/assaultlogo.jpg" alt="multiplayer war games" width="300" height="151" />What many people don’t know about me is that I used to be a die-hard gamer. I would play team-match Medal of Honor with guys and girls around the globe until three in the morning, then I’d get up the next morning and hit the game even before I had breakfast. Yes, I was not always the pillar of the community that you see here before you.

It goes without saying that, like most of the FPS gamers out there, I started and became immediately addicted to Doom and the whole concept of the First-Person-Shooter game. With a set of earphones and a good video card, you can really feel like you’re battling alien monsters, or waging battle with your buddies in World War II. I love free FPS games, such as the list of the class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-five-free-online-shooter-games/">five online shooters Simon mentioned earlier.

id="more-53864"> /> Since I’ve played almost every FPS game that has hit the market since the 1980’s, I’m kind of picky about quality. So, when I decided to do a review of the most popular open-source first-person shooter game on SourceForge called class="vt-p" href="http://assault.cubers.net/download.html">AssaultCube, I expected to play for five minutes and then move on.

AssaultCube Offers Realism & Smooth Gameplay

AssaultCube is available for Windows, Linux or Mac. The moment I installed and launched AssaultCube, I knew that I was in for a treat. Type in your nickname, set the screen resolution and you’re off and running. You’ll see yourself and your teammates in the map at the upper left of the screen. Obviously, you won’t see your opponents – you have to hunt them down!

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/assault1.jpg" alt="multiplayer war games" width="575" height="431" />

Right off the bat I noticed the graphics were impeccable, and the game creators took all of the best parts of the most popular FPS games and incorporated them into this one. All controls are available that gamers expect – crouch, jump, stealth, quick weapon select, and everything else.

Movement is smooth and fast – and on a standard Windows 7 laptop I experienced absolutely no lag or skipping of the video. I noticed that the AI works well. Based on the difficulty settings, your team and your opponents will either fight hard, or run around in circles like idiots – in Single Player mode it’s up to you!

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/assault2.jpg" alt="free multiplayer war game" width="575" height="431" />

I also noticed that absolutely everything in this game is easily customizable. All video, sound, head-up display settings – everything. Whatever sort of FPS game experience that you’re used to with your other games, you can likely customize this one to suit your tastes.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/assault3.jpg" alt="" width="452" height="423" />

The same goes for all of the keyboard mapping controls. You could completely remap all of the keys if you like, and bind any key to the commands. I found that the default follows the standard control setup for most games, so I pretty much left everything as is.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/assault4.jpg" alt="free multiplayer war game" width="487" height="572" />

During game play, I noticed that the programmers really took every little detail into account. You’ll see muzzle flashes not only out of the guns, but also reflected on the walls. You’ll see your reflection when you stand and look at water, and you’ll see your bullets striking the walls or objects – although objects don’t react quite as realistically as they could (if at all).

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/assault5.jpg" alt="free multiplayer war game" width="507" height="522" />

The real beauty of this game is the environment. There are a whole selection of game maps to choose from that offer an entirely different look and feel – different places to hide, to climb up onto, or to dive down into. Every map will require different tactical maneuvers, so the fun really never stops – and I haven’t even got to multi-player mode yet!

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/assault6.jpg" alt="" width="486" height="519" />

When you choose multi-player mode, you can set up a LAN game on your network, or you can choose from the available game servers around the world. I checked it around midnight my time and found that the top 10 or so servers had plenty of active players.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/assault7.jpg" alt="free multiplayer war game" width="575" height="501" />

I found that multi-player mode also ran smoothly, even during chaotic and active moments in the game. The only time I saw a few skips was when there was about seven players on each team battling it out in a courtyard. But even then, it barely lasted a second.  Playing this game in multi-player mode brought back a whole lot of fun memories from my earlier days of FPS gaming. In fact, I think I blew about forty minutes just playing while I should have been writing this article!

I know my priorities though, so as the enemy shot my buddy who I was supposed to be providing cover-fire for, I took my last screenshot and got back to the article. John445, wherever you are – sorry, buddy!

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/assault81.jpg" alt="multiplayer war games" width="575" height="461" />

Overall, I can see why this game has had almost 30,000 downloads on SourceForge. It is addictive, very fun, and if you have any leaning toward easily getting addicted to multiplayer FPS wargames – I would advise you to avoid it at all cost, or kiss your free time goodbye.

Give AssaultCube a run and let us know what you think. Do you know of any other FPS games out there that are as good or better? Share your thoughts in the comments section below. />
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