As an occasional personal blogger, I have seen a lot of other folks in the blogosphere who just want to write personal publications that are not exactly meant for making money. I really like that, actually. We need more people who just want to share their stories in this world.

However, some of you may be wanting to start your own blog, and I thought I’d drop a few of my personal tips on you concerning this. Please consider them only guidelines, for only you can set your own rules when blogging. Granted, I really hope those rules include having some fun.

Start Small

This is a personal blog, folks. You can’t go into it thinking that it’s going to be a grandiose publication that will draw millions of hits in traffic. This isn’t to say it couldn’t go all Frankenstein on you and become that, but don’t go into it expecting you’ll be swimming in a pool full of paper brought in by ad revenue. At that point, you can safely assume you’re making a personal blog for the wrong reasons. Instead, write because you want to write.

I believe you should make it simple. Write posts that are intimate and… well… personal. I’d suggest making your readers (which will likely be a small amount) feel as if they are having a conversation with you, and during the amount of time that it takes to read your post, it could just be assumed it’s your turn to speak. Hopefully, if the discussion is enticing enough, they will respond.

Pick A Topic

As referenced in one of my past articles, it’s sometimes important to come up with the kind of blog you want to write. Do you want to write about your travels? Do you simply want to churn out daily personal anecdotes that are amusing to read? This is where you should start planning. Although I’m a big proponent of writing whatever you want, I understand that you have to consider why you are writing this thing.

If you are wanting to just spout out your ideas to the world, then by all means write your anecdotes. However, if you want to eventually be recognized for what you do, you may want to take into consideration the kind of topic you are writing about. Granted, your personal stories might be what you want to be recognized for, but just make sure that you have a goal in mind. (As a note, sites like Plinky might aid you with prompts).

Build Your Audience

Your audience is likely going to be small – Facebook friends and family, to be exact. However, you really shouldn’t stop there. Be bold, and start posting your blog on related forums and websites or make a Facebook page and share it. You may say, “Well, people are so mean!”, and you know what? You are absolutely right.

There are people who are going to jump on your blog’s comments and insult your work, your grammar, your personal life, your topic choice… everything really. They may even get around to dropping some malicious slurs against your mother. However, as a certain songwriter once told me, “Dare to suck.”

There are a lot of mean people out in the world, but then again, there are a lot of people out there who are going to like your stuff. Keep improving your work and trudge on through the negativity to find them, and when you do, surround yourself with them. Also, if they have their own blogs, check those out and make some writing buddies.

Stay Consistent

In my world, “consistency” is a relative term. I believe that it’s very important to stay consistent, but the question is how exactly will you be consistent? For instance, will you be consistent with content or will you be consistent with publishing? There are several types of ways you can be consistent with a blog, and not all of them include posting a set amount of times a week.

Let’s consider this – do you have a lot of time to write? No? Well, don’t be consistent with your publishing days. Instead, be consistent with the types of items that you publish.

I would suggest that you not post an incredibly detailed analysis on music of the 1920′s on one day and then a list of your favorite types of gas station meat and cheese snacks on another. Furthermore, you may want to be consistent with the lengths of your articles – your choice on all this, really.

Be Real

The best tip I can give you is that you should be you when writing your blog. Let your voice (not your proficiency in the English language) shine through when writing. Does that mean you can break some grammar rules? You bet it does. Enjoy that.

However, with your voice, you shouldn’t pretend to be someone you’re not. When you blog, you’re basically letting people take a step into your mind. Sure, it’s okay to clean the place up a little bit. However, don’t entirely remodel your brain’s interior just for them. Be who you are when writing.

As I’ve said before – write whatever you want. Hopefully, the tips shown here may spark you to get something started. Also, what is your blog about? Do you have many readers? Let’s see all of your personal blogs!

Image Credit: taliesin

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/0_boss.jpg" alt="how to twitter" />Today I’m going to teach you how to Twitter like a boss. What does it mean to be considered a power user on href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/twitter/">Twitter? Well, anyone who loves the social platform as much as I do could probably tell you that. Those who don’t, or may just be starting out however, probably couldn’t, as Twitter is still much of a mystery to so many. That mystery is exactly the reason why I’m going to take (almost) everything I know about the platform and teach it to you here. I feel like Twitter is still very much an underrated communication medium, and there’s href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AN4_N5N52U&feature=youtu.be">a lot it can be used for.

The top argument against the use of Twitter that I hear from those who haven’t joined the service is that they don’t see the point. “I have Facebook, why would I need a Twitter account too?“, they ask me. Well, as much as I love Facebook, Twitter is the place where I hang out most of the time, as it gives me the freedom to network with those I didn’t necessarily know previously, or went to high school with for that matter. Not to mention the celebrities and social influencers it allows me to get closer to. Join me, as this one’s coming from the heart.

Quit Yapping & Start Listening

The number one thing people worry about when they do inevitably sign up for Twitter is what they’re going to tweet. “How can I be interesting?” “What can I tweet that would make people want to follow me?” I would reply that it’s not about that.

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Twitter is best reserved as a “listening” platform. What I mean by that is that the chances are (really) good that if you’re passionate about something, whether it be sports, news, business, tech, or whatever, it’s probably already being discussed on the platform, so the best thing you can do is join in on that conversation.

The easiest way to find these conversations is – and always has been – href="https://twitter.com/#!/search-home">Twitter search. Simply type in a word, hit “Search” and work your way into conversations.

The Art Of @Replying

What does a conversation look like on Twitter? It’s as simple as @replying.

Web applications like href="http://twtrland.com/">Twtrland ( href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/twtrland-analyze-twitter-user/">directory listing) are very useful for viewing how a particular account’s tweets are broken up. Mine, for instance, says that just under half of my tweets are @replies – pretty conversational.

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What makes up the rest? Random bits of knowledge I tweet, music I’m listening to, things like href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/check-mayor-favorite-venues-foursquare/">Foursquare and href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/discover-favorites-entertainment-getglue/">GetGlue check-ins, and tweets about the Steelers and Penn State football, mostly. If I worked at it, I’d love to see the percentage of @replies be even higher, because that means I’m building valuable relationships.

Follow & List Those That Inspire

Gaining followers is as simple as building working relationships through conversation and following those with similar interests as you. href="http://wefollow.com/">WeFollow is still a great site if you’re looking for people to follow under a specific category.

Twitter also has plenty of great href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-15-tweeting-stars-celebrities-follow/">celebrities you can follow and learn from. They’re less likely to follow you back, sure, but there’s a lot to gain as far as entertainment value is concerned. Some of them even use cool apps you can experiment with, like href="https://twitter.com/#!/shaq">Shaq, who uses href="http://www.tout.com/m/xt5lsx">Tout to post short video messages to his fans.

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As you follow people, I think it’s smart to href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/easily-sort-people-follow-twitter-lists-formulists/">create lists based on certain criteria. I have lists for those that live in New York City, for instance, as well as those in my field. I even have a list for only websites, communities, and applications I follow. Keeping them separated helps keep your stream less clouded, especially if you use a web app like href="http://www.tweetdeck.com/">Tweetdeck or href="https://seesmic.com/">Seesmic Web (my favorite) to view your lists in separate columns.

Adopt Hashtagging Habits & Be (Trending) Topical

Once you nail down all of that, it’s time for a little advanced tweeting. The first article I ever wrote for MakeUseOf back in what feels like 1985 was called href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-effectively-use-twitter-hashtags/">HOW TO: Effectively Use Twitter Hashtags. What’s a hashtag? #ThisIsAHashtag

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If you use Twitter at all you’ve certainly seen hashtags, but why would you ever want to use them? There are plenty of reasons, expressing sarcasm/irony and holding a group conversation among them.

Popular hashtags often make their way into Twitter’s Trending Topics list, along with other relevant keywords associated with top news stories or events people are buzzing about.

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href="https://twitter.com/#!/search/%23ButThatsJustMe">Clicking on one within the list will show you all of the tweets using that phrase, which can be very topical and even pretty fun at times. Start using these daily to gain your tweets some additional views.

Help People Find You

The last sure-fire thing you need to do in order to be a Twitter boss is to make it easier for people to find you. I have my Twitter handle everywhere. It’s on my business cards, in my email signature, and there’s a link to it on every site I have a profile on. It’s how I prefer to communicate with people, and the fact that Twitter is so mobile makes it very much like reaching me via text message/SMS.

Being that available to your network opens up the opportunity to make more connections and have more conversations with those in the space, and if you’ve followed the advice above, people will seek you out just to talk to you.

Conclusion

Everyone has a voice on Twitter. It’s the reason the platform has almost singlehandedly disrupted the news space and caused technology companies to integrate it into nearly every device that comes out nowadays. Becoming a power user takes time. It doesn’t matter how many followers you have, or how quickly you can get them. What matters is your voice, and if you can have an effect on someone with even a single tweet, well, that’s something worth being a part of.

If you’d like to get closer acquainted with any of us, you can href="https://twitter.com/#!/makeuseof/staff">find us on Twitter as well (we have a list!).

** Editor’s Note : After several years of working for us, this is Steve’s last article for MakeUseOf. Everyone at MUO wishes him all the very best for the future.

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/ultimalogo1.jpg" alt="lord of ultima tips" />Recently, it has come to my attention that a certain massively multiplayer real time strategy game (or MMORTS) has taken up a very large part of my downtime. This game is known as href="http://www.lordofultima.com/en/game/index">Lord of Ultima. It takes everything that is fun about text-based browser games and adds visuals and more depth to the game play. Anyone who has interest in strategy games should check it out, as it is a great game that makes a fantastic way to kill a lot of downtime at work. On top of that, it’s free, and href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/waste-time-free-eas-lineup-freetoplay-online-games/">well received here on MakeUseOf.

However, the game is complicated. There is a lot to it, and I cannot tell you how many players I have seen completely whipped off the map because they didn’t think before they acted. It is easy to get over-excited and just want to jump in feet first, but this game is a marathon, not a sprint. You need to take everything slow and steady. Fear not, brave new soldier, armed with these tips, I will make sure you are ready to take on the world of Lord of Ultima.

Join A Good Alliance

This is crucial. As soon as you get to the part of the game where you are going to war, an alliance will help you in so many ways. Do not join just any alliance though – look around and find an organized alliance with leadership and a plan in place.

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Not only will an alliance be able to lend support if you come under duress, but they will also be able to offer tips to help with developing your empire. The higher-level members of the alliance will have previously been in the position of a newer player, and they will be happy to offer you some tricks of the trade to speed up your advancement.

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Being in an alliance will also make the game more fun once you are ready to start fighting because it will give you people to attack and a reason to attack them. The larger alliances are always at war with someone, and it is very satisfying to be able to take part in large battles.

Do Not Build A Castle Too Soon

This is the single most important tip that anyone can possibly give you while playing Lord of Ultima. Building your castle is what allows you to attack other players, but it also allows you to be attacked. I understand you want to get involved in the actual wars and battles, but if you castle before you have proper defenses in order, I can guarantee that you will be destroyed, and you will have to start over from square one. Either way, you can have your resources taken, whether you have a castle or not, so playing good defense is always wise.

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It takes commitment; you are going to have to play for a long time, maybe more than a month. You should not castle any sooner than your third city. You will need to have at least ten thousand soldiers available for defense, and you really should make sure you are in a strong alliance that can lend support. It might seem crazy to play a game for over a month without engaging in combat, but I can promise one thing; if you castle a city too soon, starting over and doing it the right way a second time will take even longer.

Use A City Planner

Before you jump in and start building a city, take the time to use a href="http://www.lou-fcp.co.uk/map.php">city planner. You are only allowed a limited number of buildings, so you need make them count. A href="http://www.lou-fcp.co.uk/map.php">city planner allows you to accomplish this. With the href="http://www.lou-fcp.co.uk/map.php">city planner, you will know exactly how you are going to lay out your city before you even start.

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Efficiency is paramount in this game, and having a good plan for your city will help a lot. In addition, if you are in an alliance you can ask one of the more experienced players to look at your plan and give you some tips and make some improvements. Overall, they are an incredibly valuable resource.

Check Out Some Lord Of Ultima Websites

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href="http://www.lordofultima.com/en/wiki">Lord Of Ultima Wiki

This is a great resource with almost every piece of information on the game imaginable. They offer everything from the history of the game to recruitment time for units. They also have many useful tips and tricks to help get your city off the ground.

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href="http://lordofultimastrategy.com/">Lord Of Ultima Strategy

This is a fantastic Lord of Ultima site. They have a wealth of information for new players, and players who have been around for a while. Read their articles and become much more informed on how to play this massive game.

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href="http://www.lordofultima.com/en/forum/index.php">Lord Of Ultima Forums

The Lord of Ultima forums are a great place to interact with other players and learn what they do to improve. You can also use the forums to help find a solid alliance.

Conclusion

If you are just getting into Lord of Ultima, these tips will help you get your empire off the ground. Let me say this one more time; do not castle too soon. I cannot say that enough. Another last-minute tip is to have fun! This is a game, and the most important part of any game is to have lots of fun and enjoy!

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/camp.jpg" alt="diy video making" />So in the past, I told you how to find some pretty title="Various Little Known Quality Resources For Your Next Multimedia Project" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/quality-resources-multimedia-project/">cool stuff for your media creation, and I also helped you find ways to title="Greenlight Your Indie Flick With These 3 Sites" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/greenlight-indie-flick-3-sites/">get your production started. However, in my classes this semester, I have been learning a few things too. Since I’m a production student, I get a lot of stuff thrown at me video-wise.

Fortunately, I’ve found three websites for you to get tips on all things film and video! Well… maybe I didn’t find them – my instructor did, though. Good thing I paid attention in class, right?

href="http://www.youtube.com/thesubstream">The Substream

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Personally, I think href="http://www.youtube.com/thesubstream">The Substream’s “Film Lab” has some of the best video-making tips out on the Internet. One of the highlights of this show with a lovable cocky attitude is that it is very practical with its instructions. However, the focus seems to be not so much on DIY equipment but on technique and style – something that you probably need to learn if you intend on making videos at all.

However, one of the cool things that The Substream has to offer is its easy-to-understand tutorials on some of the more well-known equipment that exists out there. Furthermore, they also will instruct you on how to do everything on low budgets. Pretty sweet deal, if you ask me.

href="http://www.youtube.com/user/filmriot">Film Riot

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I don’t know why every indie filmmaker isn’t watching href="http://www.youtube.com/user/filmriot">Film Riot. This series is a good little online film school bent on helping you gain DIY video-making knowledge and discovering techniques to make some amazing stuff. From special effects to technical rigs, there’s a little something for everyone with Film Riot.

This video series is just as entertaining as it is informative, so if even if you don’t intend on taking any of these video tips into action, it’s still worth watching. However, if you don’t mind making a few trips to the Home Depot and possibly losing a few fingers, I have a feeling that you’ll absolutely love this href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/youtube"> YouTube channel.

href="http://vimeo.com/user3166044">Majestic Micro Movies

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href="http://vimeo.com/user3166044">Majestic Micro Movies, a sophisticated, film-oriented series found on href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/vimeo-music-store-find-tracks-videos/">Vimeo, is just a little different compared to the ones shown above. The focus of the entire series is on film technique, but it presents each video in an incredibly dramatic way, enticing viewers to watch each of the short films with an attentive mind. However, I must be honest with you – there aren’t many videos with tips on MMM.

Actually, there are only 15 videos in this Vimeo series, and I’d say that about half of those are devoted to instruction. But in all reality, these videos contain some of the best information that I have seen on the Internet. I’m not even quite sure if you can call these “tips”, to be honest. They are just a little classier than that.

Conclusion

So there you are, MakeUseOf filmmakers – three more video series that you can add to your self-learning repertoire. With a plethora of episodes to choose from, you’ll get all the video know-how you need without even having to apply for film school. (However, if you do make it to film school, I want to express my envy congratulations to you.)

What other video series do you use to get video-making tips? Got any DIY tips for us right here on MakeUseOf? Let’s hear your input in the comments.

href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-diy-video-series-protips-videomaking/">Here Are 3 DIY Video Series For Professional Tips On Video-Making is a post from: href="http://www.makeuseof.com">MakeUseOf

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/intro4.jpg" alt="" />I’m not going to judge you. I know you partake in filesharing, and if you’re doing it properly then you’ll already be acquainted with class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/bittorrent">BitTorrent (or class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/answers/usenet/">Usenet, in which case you’re class="vt-p" href="http://prm753.bchea.org/1337.html">so “1337″ you don’t need my help). Don’t feel bad – class="vt-p" href="http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/05/file-sharers-are-content-industrys-largest-customers.ars">studies have suggested that those who download copious amounts of copyrighted data are still contributing to the industry in a big way, some even proposing that this demographic are the industry’s “largest customers”.

Regardless of your reasons, stance, operating system or client – there’s no need to get caught. Of course I can’t guarantee this won’t happen, but you can reduce the risk of a threatening letter with a little bit of common sense, patience and forethought.

Install Additional Security

The first thing you’ll want to do is cover as many bases as possible, and this is where PeerBlock comes in. We’ve mentioned class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/protect-your-privacy-on-p2p-with-peer-guardian-2/">PeerGuardian before, but that software is unfortunately no longer maintained. Instead the authors recommend everyone switches to class="vt-p" href="http://www.peerblock.com/">PeerBlock.

PeerBlock is a method of controlling who (and what) your computer talks to over the Internet. The software checks any incoming requests from known bad IP addresses including those of anti-piracy groups. This software will go some way towards protecting you, but only from known threats (which makes it far from watertight).

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For that final layer of security then a VPN is the order of the day. By connecting to a virtual private network, all of your Internet traffic (and torrent data downloaded) is directed through a private connection, making it difficult for intruders to spy on you. There are a plethora of various VPN services out there, with clients for nearly every operating system you can think of (that’s right, even your iPhone). We’ve got a run-down of class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/7-completely-free-vpn-services-protect-privacy/">7 free efforts right here.

Note: Free VPN services are notoriously touch-and-go. If you’re really concerned about security then a subscription service will provide you with the speed, stability and above all security you desire – at a cost of course.

Don’t Use Public Trackers

You’re far more likely to be caught for speeding in a busy, regularly policed area than you are on a quiet country lane – and copyright enforcement is no different. Public BitTorrent sites such as The Pirate Bay and Demonoid (which is virtually public) might be jam-packed with tasty torrents, but at what cost?

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So where do you get your wares from? Easy – the smallest, most privacy-savvy trackers you can get into. If you’re a member of any “closed” private trackers, invite-only private trackers or torrent hubs that are clearly going out of their way to avoid detection then use them. If the trackers you use offer advanced privacy settings – e.g. hiding upload/download amounts from the public then use them!

Private trackers are not always safer places to be, and don’t assume a tracker is “private” just because you have to register. Some sites ask users to fulfill requests and enforce stringent ratio requirements (that everyone has to adhere to). You can learn more about class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/bittorrent-etiquette-avoid-banned-private-trackers/">maintaining private tracker memberships in our etiquette article.

Encrypt Torrent Data

This one is a fairly basic and obvious setting you’ll find on your BitTorrent client – encrypt your data. Many torrent clients support protocol encryption, which encrypts data in a bid to reduce throttling and blocking of torrent data by ISPs. If you’re looking to keep the powers that be off your back then steering clear of confrontations with your ISP is one way of going about it.

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Don’t Download Unreleased Material

For some of you this will be the most difficult tip to follow – if next week’s big budget blockbuster release is staring you in the face with thousands of seeds – don’t download it. Where else do you think the MPAA, RIAA and other copyright enforcers hang out, picking off vulnerable targets?

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Even if you buy all the things you download once you’ve sampled the goods – leave it well alone. The “I wouldn’t buy it anyway” defence won’t stand up either and you’ll be lumped with the thousands of other downloaders accused of copyright theft and potentially face a nasty fine and a criminal record.

Put it this way – if you thought downloading copyrighted material was already risky, downloading unreleased movies, music, books and games (especially from public torrent trackers) is outright foolish. You have been warned.

Use A Remote Seedbox

A seedbox is a server with a torrent client that is used for downloading and uploading files. Not only are they incredibly useful for serving private trackers and maintaining a spotless ratio, they also add an extra layer of separation between you and the torrent download.

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With Internet connection speeds of 100Mbit or more large files can be downloaded (or uploaded) in record time. You can then connect to your box via your preferred method to collect your payload.

If you’re serious about private sites then a seedbox probably makes a lot of sense. Seedboxes can be rented from various providers online, a quick search will get you where you need to be.

Conclusion

Whilst you’ve been watching what you download, installing a VPN, blocking bad IP addresses and generally securing your box – did you think of checking behind you? Don’t forget that school teachers, parents, siblings or even a spouse might not approve – even if it is just because you’re sucking up all available bandwidth! Be careful out there. If you do receive a nasty notice and are wondering what to do about it then we’ve got an class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/what-to-do-when-you-get-a-copyright-infringement-notice/">article that might answer a few questions.

How else do you protect yourself? Add a comment in the box below.

Image Credits: class="vt-p" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&searchterm=hacker&search_group=&orient=&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&commercial_ok=&color=&show_color_wheel=1#id=61647244&src=6eee8df2b6cdbad43c16e4eb790692ac-1-43" rel="nofollow">Intro (Shutterstock), class="vt-p" href="http://torrentfreak.com/riaa-mpaa-copyright-warnings-facts-and-fiction-090328/" rel="nofollow">Infringement Notice (TorrentFreak), class="vt-p" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/camknows/3726757043/">Server Room

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/active-tab-firefox.jpg?54167" alt="firefox active tab" />Most active Internet users are tab-fanatics. We have lots of active tabs open at a time and we are constantly looking for more ways to better manage and organize them. No wonder then that we have had so much tab-related advice shared so far, including learning how to class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/organize-manage-firefox-open-tabs-tab-groups/">organize your Firefox open tabs with Tab Groups as well as reading through many more tricks to class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/too-many-tabs-firefox-add-ons-to-manage-a-tab-jam/">to manage a TAB JAM.

But our tab advice is not solely focused on Firefox.  Why not try class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-extensions-chrome-tab-management/">the 10 best extensions for Google Chrome tab management?  Or learn how to class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/manage-tabs-opera-pro/">how to manage tabs in Opera like a pro.

Today we’re not really going to be talking about managing your tabs. It’s about making your browser more usable by making the active tab in Firefox stand out.

1. Make the Active Tab Bigger

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/active-tab-firefox-02.jpg?54167" alt="firefox active tab" width="550" height="36" />

One way to make your active tab stand out is to make it wider, compared to inactive tabs in the background.

To get started, install the class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/4-stylish-scripts-to-make-your-web-look-better/">Stylish FireFox addon and then use this class="vt-p" href="http://userstyles.org/styles/44083/ff4-ff3-increase-active-tab-minimum-width">user style to increase the size of a currently active tab. You can select the size for an active tab while installing (the default tab size in FireFox is 100, so I have found that the biggest size -150 – works best with me).

Tip! You can also customize the minimum width of your Firefox tabs with class="vt-p" href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/custom-tab-width/">this FireFox addon):

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/active-tab-firefox-01.jpg?54167" alt="active tabs" width="242" height="150" />

Note that the user style will enlarge your current tab even if they are minimized by addons like “Faviconize tabs”.

2. Highlight The Font On The Active Tab

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/active-tab-firefox-04.jpg?54167" alt="active tabs" width="550" height="36" />

Another fun tweak that doesn’t really interfere with your user experience is using your FireFox profile userChrome.css to somehow change the look of your active tab (in terms of color and font). class="vt-p" href="http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Profiles">Here’s a great guide on locating your Firefox profile folder under various OS types.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/active-tab-firefox-03.jpg?54167" alt="Active tab" width="415" height="146" />

After you’ve found your profile folder, open the folder /chrome, open your userChrome.css (or userChrome-example.css) and edit it to contain the following:

tab[selected="true"] { /> color: blue !important; /> }

tab { /> -moz-appearance: none !important; /> }

This code should color the font in the active tab in blue (unless there’s any addon installed that will interfere).

Now, save the file and re-start the browser.

You can also make the active tab font bold:

tab[selected="true"] { /> color: blue !important; /> font-weight:bold /> }

tab { /> -moz-appearance: none !important; /> }

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/active-tab-firefox-05.jpg?54167" alt="Active tab font bold" width="550" height="33" />

Playing with this code, you can color the whole active tab in a different color of course, but that was just too bright for me. I wanted something less intrusive.

3. Darken Inactive Tabs

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/active-tab-firefox-06.jpg?54167" alt="firefox active tab" width="550" height="21" />

Here’s another class="vt-p" href="http://userstyles.org/styles/33963/firefox-4-darker-inactive-tab">user style to somehow fade the inactive tabs. Just have it installed (again, you’ll need Style addon installed for that) and you’ll see your inactive tabs much darker.

Bonus! Easily Close All Inactive Tabs

class="vt-p" href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/close-other-tabs/">Close other tabs does not change your browser tab look in any way but it makes it much easier to control all *other* tabs around it with your keyboard. With it installed, you can close inactive tabs using the following four keyboard shortcuts:

• CTRL+Shift+F3 closes all tabs on the left of the active one.
• CTRL+Shift+F4 closes all tabs except the active one.
• CTRL+Shift+F5 closes all tabs on the right of the active one.
• CTRL+Shift+F6 closes all tabs with the same domain as the active one.

(use Command instead of CTRL if you are using MAC OS).

The addon supports grouped tabs ( class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/organize-open-tabs-tab-sugar-chrome-firefox-panorama/">Firefox Panorama) and app tabs.

Do you have any other tips to make the active tab in Firefox stand out? Are you aware of similar tricks for other browsers? Please share them in the comments! />
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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/tumblrlogo_11.png"/>About a week after I wrote my href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-tumblr-tips-users/" alt="tumblr blogs">first list of Tumblr tips, the site made changes to its all pervasive Dashboard. The re-design was a welcome facelift for many members, while others lodged some major complaints. Nevertheless, the features of the Dashboard remain basically the same with a few enhancements.

If you’re hopping onto the Tumblr bandwagon—I recommend you do—here are some additional—perhaps advanced—tips you might be interested in after having set up your Tumblr blog and built a following. And don’t worry, none of these tips require that you get your hands dirty with code.

Oh, and by the way, if you haven’t set up your Tumblr blog yet, this href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-use-tumblr-to-easily-create-a-rich-media-blog/">article will show you how.

Pages and Tags

Let’s return to Tumblr’s Dashboard Preferences, for there are other little tools you might want to enable in there to enhance your blog. I covered few other Preferences features in the previous article.

Pages:

Similar to the WordPress.com, you can add stagnate pages in your Tumblr site. You’re not limited to just your home page. On the Dashboard page, click on the Customize button and select Pages > Add a page. You can add three types of pages: Standard, Custom Layout, and Redirect.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/customizepages21.png" alt="tumblr blogs" width="500" height="288" />

You can pretty much add anything you like to these pages. Here’s one idea you might find useful.

Tagged Post:

If you get in the habit in tagging your Tumblr blog posts, as discussed in the last article, you can create a page that will show all your posts with a specified tag. So for instance, you might want to highlight all your posts that are mini “essays.” Here’s how to set it up.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/redirectpage.png" alt="tumblr personal blogs" width="500" height="489" />

Select the “Redirect” page. Now copy and paste the URL for one of the tagged posts that you want inserted into your new page. It should look this—with the name of your blog, followed by “tagged,” and ending with exact name of the tagged posts you want filtered on the page.

style="text-align: center;">http://sampleblog.tumblr.com/tagged/essay

Finally, be sure to select “Show a link to this page,” and type a name for it, which will show up in the menu bar of your homepage. When the page is clicked, it will show all your posts with that designated tag.

More Appearances

While we’re in Tumblr Preferences, let’s click on the Appearance tab and see a few other features that are not turned on by default.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/appearance.png" alt="tumblr personal blogs" width="297" height="323" />

Show Streampad

If you want to add some musical ambiance to your Tumblr homepage, click the Streampad box, and essentially the plug-in will play songs that have been uploaded to your Dashboard.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/screenshot640.png" alt="tumblr blog ideas" width="293" height="83" />

Depending on your Tumblr theme, the player should show up at the end of your homepage. If you want to further customize the player, click over to this href="http://www.streampad.com/getit#">Streampad page and follow the directions for making changes and adding the code.

Fixed Sidebar

If keeping visitors and readers focused on the sidebar content of your homepage is important to you, then check this box. It will keep the sidebar in a fixed position, even when readers scroll further down your page to browse all your awesome Tumblr posts.

Small Follow Box

When the “People I Follow” icons get long and unwieldy, clicking this box will put them into a smaller scrolling box for you.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/smallfollowbox.png" alt="tumblr blog ideas" width="169" height="204" />

Ask Me Widget

If you’re fairly new to Tumblr, you might often see the people you’re following posting a question to others on their Dashboard—in the form of a text box for responding to the question. It’s a great little feature, but it’s not quite obvious how to set it up.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/askaquestion.png" alt="tumblr blog ideas" width="580" height="294" />

To do so, simply create a Text post, and then type the question you want to ask. Be sure that the question ends in a “? “mark. When you do this, a little box, “Let people answer this”, will appear on the right side of the Dashboard. Click it and add your post like you normally would. The responses will show up in your Inbox. The checkbox will not appear until you put the question mark at the end of your question.

Mobile App

If you’re an iPhone, Android, or BlackBerry user, and a Tumblr addict, you will no doubt want to download the Tumblr app for your mobile device. I find the href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tumblr/id305343404?mt=8">iPhone version (iTunes Store link) super easy to use. It allows you to both browse your Dashboard as well post Tumblr blogs.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/screenshot641.jpg" alt="tumblr personal blogs" width="580" height="405" />

Other third-party apps like href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/instagram-photo-editing-and-sharing/">Instagram include Tumblr support as well.

Well, that’s it for these round of tips. Tumblr is taking the lead as the fastest growing microblogging site, so many more features and upgrades are sure to be arrive in the coming months.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/tumblr_july_09_stats2.jpg" alt="tumblr blogs" width="306" height="425" />

Let us know about other Tumblr tips that new bloggers should know about.

 

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/intro3.jpg" alt="creating a photo collage" />Creating collages can be a bit time-consuming if you do it yourself in MS Paint or Photoshop. If you don’t feel exactly creative, your work may not even bring you the results you want. I know I’ve been there. I might spend a few hours trying to create collages, without any fancy effects, just lining up images in rows and columns, and the whole thing just doesn’t look as glorious as I imagine it to be.

There are many solutions that will save you the headache, and will instead, produce aesthetically pleasing results with just a few clicks. Read on to see more about these very-easy-to-use tools!

Creating Collages Online

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/collage12.jpg" border="0" alt="creating a photo collage" width="580" height="571" />

ShapeCollage

class="vt-p" href="http://www.shapecollage.com/">ShapeCollage is a class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-make-an-amazing-collage-on-your-computer-with-shape-collage-windows-nb/">great cross-platform application that helps you create beautiful collages in the shapes that you choose with only a few clicks. ShapeCollage even provides a simplified, web-based version that can produce collages shaped in different forms. All you have to do is paste the URLs of the images you’re interested in (though you can use URLs of Flickr tagged search, Youtube, Google Image Search, and more), choose a shape, type in some text to adorn the whole collage (or leave it blank if you don’t need text), and press the Create button.

Fotonea

class="vt-p" href="http://fotonea.com/">Fotonea is a relatively simple-looking web app that class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/fotonea-making-eyecatching-collages-online/">creates eye-catching collages. You can upload up to 6 pictures of 2 MB or smaller, select a background, a frame, and then create a beautiful collage.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0px initial initial;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/collage23.jpg" border="0" alt="photo collage ideas" width="464" height="389" />

The cool thing about Fotonea is that you can manually rearrange the size and layout of each photo, and you can also add extra items on your collage, such as text, sticky notes, speech bubbles, etc.

Hockneyizer

class="vt-p" href="http://bighugelabs.com/hockney.php">Big Huge Labs’ Hockneyizer is another interesting class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/hockneyizer-photo-collage-generator/">collage maker of sorts that creates a cool polaroid effect out of a single image that you upload, or get from your Facebook or Flickr account. You can choose how many polaroids will show up on your collage (you can have anywhere from 1 to 20). The resulting effect adds a refreshing twist to regular photos. Here’s one I made with 10 polaroids. If you like this kind of effect, you should also check out class="vt-p" href="http://ipiccy.com/editor">iPiccy, which is class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/ipiccy-photo-editing-web-application/">surprisingly powerful and offers a lot more options in effects after you complete this look.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/collage34.jpg" border="0" alt="photo collage ideas" width="580" height="363" />

Creating Collages With Desktop Software

Instead of loading up Photoshop, GIMP, class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-use-facial-recognition-technology-in-picasa-web-albums/">Picasa to spend a while creating a collage, you can use the open-source and cross-platform class="vt-p" href="http://code.google.com/p/fotowall/">Fotowall to easily create photo collections.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0px initial initial;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/collage41.jpg" border="0" alt="photo collage ideas" width="441" height="466" />

It hasn’t been updated for about a year, but it still allows you to create nice collages with a few clicks, and customize effects for individual pictures, as well as manipulate sizes, layouts and frames. What’s cool is that you can pull graphics from online image searches (Flickr and Google Image Search). With Fotowall, you don’t have to be enormously creative to come up with nice-looking collages!

Creating Collages With Software You Already Have

You can use a variety of specific collage-making software like class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-make-an-amazing-collage-on-your-computer-with-shape-collage-windows-nb/">ShapeCollage and class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/create-stunning-photo-mosaics-in-minutes/">AndreaMosaic (which creates those stunning photo mosaics you see in commercials with hundreds of tiny pictures that make up a larger photograph), or you can also use programs you already may have like Microsoft Word and Windows Live Writer to make cool image galleries. In Windows Live Writer, for example, you can create galleries of many forms when you add several pictures to a blog post.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/collage5.png" border="0" alt="make a photo collage" width="452" height="417" />

After you select at least 3 images and choose photo album instead of inline pictures, you’ll be presented with a few collage-friendly layouts.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0px initial initial;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/collage6.jpg" border="0" alt="make a photo collage" width="464" height="445" />

I’ve personally made at least a couple of introductory images from Windows Live Writer for the class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/photoshop-15-amazing-logos-portraits-open-source-tools/">No Photoshop: 15 Open-Source Generated Logos & Portraits article and the class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/15-awesome-dualmonitor-wallpapers/">15 Dual-Monitor Wallpapers post.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/collage7.jpg" border="0" alt="creating a photo collage" width="580" height="291" />

Let’s hear from you now. What do you use to create collages? Let us know in the comments!

Image credit: class="vt-p" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=75447187">Shutterstock – Zurijeta

 

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/office300x.png" alt="" />Learn to get the most out of the latest version of Microsoft Office with our latest free guide! Office 2010 includes many improvements over 2007. As with all Office releases, however, these improvements are far from obvious to the average user.

Enter Office 2010: Ultimate Tips and Tricks. This manual, by author Matt Smith, points out all the best new features of Microsoft’s latest office suite, and explains them all in one handy guide. In most programs, it’s not hard to find every single feature, but Office 2010 is so expansive that even veteran users will often find that they aren’t expert in even half of the capabilities the software offers.

Whether you recently purchased Office 2010 and want to get the most out of it, or are considering an upgrade, you don’t want to miss this free guide. There’s much to be learned here, so check it out!

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/2010-3page.png" alt="Microsoft Office 2010: Ultimate Tips & Tricks" width="580" height="270" />

This guide will show you how to:

• Get the most out of 2010′s cloud capabilities.
• Turn off the annoying file block feature.
• Speed up document creation in Word with building blocks.
• Present data at a glance with Excel’s new Sparklines.
• Edit video from within PowerPoint.
• Broadcast a PowerPoint presentation over the web, live.
• Adding social functionality to Outlook.
• and much more!

style="text-align: center;"> href="http://manuals.makeuseof.com.s3.amazonaws.com/MakeUseOf.com_-_Office_2010_tips_&_tricks.pdf">DOWNLOAD Office 2010: Ultimate Tips and Tricks /> (take a moment and share this guide with friends on Facebook and Twitter /> using the social network sharing buttons below)

style="text-align: center;">or

style="text-align: center;"> href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/52247809">Read Now on Scribd

 

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There is nothing I love more than sitting at my desk in the morning, sipping my cup of coffee and browsing through the daily updates on Google News. Not only is it a nice way to kick off the day getting up to speed with what’s going on in the world, but the news stories give me ideas about things to write about.

One day when I was browsing news stories, I noticed that one particular story was published not by CNN, Associated Press or the Washington Post, but instead by a small time blogger who had landed a pretty cool exclusive story. Front page Google News.

For a moment I thought about the traffic that must have offered her site, not to mention some nice points in search engine land for authority and legitimacy. It didn’t take me long to realize that I could do the exact same thing. So I set out to learn exactly what it takes to become an authorized Google News publisher.

Submit Your Site – But Be Flexible

The first time I submitted my blog URL to be considered as an authorized Google News publisher, I was flat out rejected. I was pretty disappointed but I was also impressed with how Google handled the rejection. They provided very solid points about my blog that disqualified it for consideration. Most notably, I was a sole author and I had no contact information listed on my blog. So for the next couple of months, I set out to correct these two points and then try again.

The first thing I started doing was hiring authors for the site. One basic requirement for Google News is that you need a team of writers. Then I created an “About Us” page to list all of the bios for each writer.

With that task out of the way, I moved on to my next task, creating a professional contact page. I didn’t want to put my home phone number on the Internet, so I established a Google Voice phone number, and created a contact form with all the contact details on the same page.

Two months later, with a solid writing team and a page with contact details, I re-submitted my URL for consideration on Google News. Within a few weeks, I received an email from the folks at Google telling me that I’d been approved.

However, with that monumental task out of the way, reality sunk in. Getting accepted was one thing, but getting listed on the main news site was quite another. Even if you finally get accepted as a Google News publisher, there are a few more things you need to do so that the crawler will pick up on your latest updates.

Create A Googe News Sitemap

Just because you’re a publisher doesn’t mean that your site is optimized for the news crawler. Google News recommends that all publishers establish a news sitemap. Specifically they want to know the name of your “publication”, the language, access time (whether you require registration) and the Genre. There is a great Google News Sitemap plugin that will dynamically create this sitemap for you.  It lets you define the default settings when you first activate it.

Each time you write a post, the footer will also have a section where you can tell Google News exactly what the post is all about. If it’s not a breaking news item, change the Genre to “Blog“, and click “Non-News Item“. This is where you also add keywords.

Identify The Originating Source

Another new technique Google is using to track down the source that originally scooped a story is by trusting publishers to tell Google who the originating source was.

The rule is pretty simple. If you are sharing a blog update about a news story you’ve read, Google News requests that you add a meta tag named “syndication-source” and assign it the URL of the original story you got it from. If you’re the the originator – if you wrote an exclusively researched news story – then use a meta tag named “original-source” and assign it the URL of your news story.

Of course, as those of you with WordPress blogs know – adding custom meta tags is easier said than done. Well, I have a solution for you.

Just place the following code in the header.php file inside the <head> section:

<?php if ( get_post_meta($post->ID, ‘original-source’, true) ) : ?>
<meta name=”original-source” content=”<?php echo get_post_meta($post->ID, ‘original-source’, true) ?>”/>
<?php endif; ?>

<?php if ( get_post_meta($post->ID, ‘syndication-source’, true) ) : ?>
<meta name=”original-source” content=”<?php echo get_post_meta($post->ID, ‘syndication-source’, true) ?>”/>
<?php endif; ?>

What this does is checks whether you’ve created a custom field named either “original-source” or “syndication-source” and if you have, it will tag the page with the appropriate meta information with the page URL.

Adding the custom tag on the post is fast and easy for you, and you make Google happy because they get a better idea of where the news story first broke.

Accurate Title & Keywords

Google News is almost entirely automated, and it relies heavily upon the accuracy and honesty of publishers to tell Google News what the story is about. The best way to do this is through accurate title and keyword information. I suggest installing the SEO All-in-One pack.

Make sure to use the most accurate title and keywords with every post. The cool thing about doing all of this fine-tuning for Google News is that you’re also improving your site for general Google searches as well. So you get a double bonus for your efforts.

If you have a blog and you’ve tried to get approved as a Google News publisher, share your experiences with us in the comments section below. Have you had any failures or major successes? We want to know!

More articles about: blogging, blogging tips, Google, google news, journalism, news, publishing, wordpress

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class="align-left" style="border: 0px none; margin-left: 20px; margin-top: 5px; float: right;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/00.jpg" alt="manage rss feeds" width="270" height="195" />You may have href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/rss-feeds-work-simple-terms-technology-explained/">RSS feeds accumulating dust over time, but that unfortunately doesn’t mean the number of unread items will kindly reduce for you. Usually, the feeds (find some interesting ones href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-8-rss-feeds-motivational-quotes-day/">here) get updated often and increase daily so in order to catch up with the reading, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/enjoy-fullblown-visual-rss-feeds-feedlooks/">displaying your feeds somewhere more accessible or at least, have them come to you may prove useful.

What’s better than showing you your feeds to read right on your desktop? You could benefit from any built-in gadgets that can show you bits of news to help you catch up with unread pieces.

id="more-65469">

Be Selective With The Feeds You’re Trying To Keep Up With

In order to reduce the number of items to read, you could also narrow down the topics you’re interested in, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/edit-existing-rss-feeds-yahoo-pipes/">edit the RSS feed yourself (unless your favorite blog offers feeds by categories)  to remove items that you’re not going to read or care about anyway. If you want to be in total control of what shows up in your feeds, you can also href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-create-an-rss-feed-for-your-site-from-scratch/">create your own feeds by learning a bit of code.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/111.png" alt="manage rss feeds" width="462" height="213" />

To save yourself some time, there’s href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/2-online-alternatives-standard-rss-readers/">Skeedy, a web-based app that helps you follow your favorite topics, instead of any specific blogs. You could also try your luck with href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/summarize-website-rss-feeds-easily-tldrit/">tldr.it, which summarizes long articles or frequently-updated feeds to smaller, more manageable versions.

Making Your Feeds Come To You (Display Them On Desktop)

If you’re more like me and have a few favorite blogs you’re always looking forward to read but don’t have enough time, consider displaying your feeds on your desktop with gadgets for Windows. While Windows Vista’s sidebar gadgets often left the user with more to be desired, Windows 7’s gadgets have a few additional features. You can make the gadgets a bit bigger, and for the feeds gadget, you can even add and edit the feeds (which I don’t think you could do in Vista).

The list of feeds on the feeds gadget by default are, according to Internet Explorer 7 , the feeds you’ve subscribed to and ones that you might be interested in. In order to add your favorite blogs to the RSS reader gadget in Windows 7, you’ll need to first visit the webpage you wish to see on your desktop (for instance, CNN) in Internet Explorer and subscribe to the feed.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/2.jpg" alt="unread rss reader" width="348" height="274" />

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/31.jpg" alt="" width="447" height="318" />

You can double-check that you’ve added the site by going to Favorites > Feeds. Now, right-click on the desktop and select Gadgets.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/0.jpg" alt="unread rss reader" width="235" height="316" />

Once the gadgets show up, add the RSS gadget and click on the wrench icon for Options on the side of the gadget.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/0.5.jpg" alt="" width="580" height="348" />

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/52.jpg" alt="unread rss reader" width="380" height="229" />

You should now have the recently added feed in the drop-down list.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/61.jpg" alt="unread feeds" width="379" height="262" />

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/71.jpg" alt="unread feeds" width="377" height="267" />

You can now select how many entries to display and click OK. If you resize the widget, you’ll probably get a better view of the feeds.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/9.jpg" alt="" width="580" height="243" />

The benefit of having a gadget on Windows 7 is that it won’t be too resource-intensive and you don’t need to download anything extra, just a tiny bit of set up in Internet Explorer.

Using additional, third-party RSS feed viewer gadgets include href="http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=bb23ed80-d97c-43b3-bdc0-bfebb73c481c&bt=8">Feed Viewer, href="http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=cff1abbd-2cc8-4afa-9043-22912db23490&bt=1">Hermes auto-scrolling reader and href="http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=7c034078-195c-40d1-a2f0-8394d0b036df&bt=1&pl=1">RSS Reader Plus can be a great idea because they are usually steps above the simple (built-in) RSS reader. With RSS Reader Plus, for instance, you can customize everything in the feed displayed, including fonts, color and sizes.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/10.jpg" alt="unread feeds" width="315" height="708" />

It even provides scrolling text, especially useful when you’re trying to get an overhead of everything that’s being expressed. One thing about the RSS Reader Plus is that it’s currently very young so there are typos in the gadget.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/desktop.jpg" alt="manage rss feeds" width="525" height="330" />

If you prefer full-blown programs, you could benefit from using href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/feedling-read-feeds-pc-desktop-windows/">Feedling, which sticks your feeds on top of your wallpaper, perfect for this purpose (see Timmy’s screenshot above). Don’t forget there are many traditional desktop applications, such as href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/desktop-google-reader-awesome-rss-reader-syncs-google/">the cross-platform Google Reader app, and href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/rss-bandit-impressive-open-source-desktop-feed-reader/">the open-source RSS Bandit.

How do you manage keeping up with the constant stream of updates from your favorite news sources? Share your tips in the comments!

Image credit: rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/pandemia/457723666/in/pool-964330@N21/">pandemia

 

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class="align-left" style="border: 0px none; margin-left: 20px; margin-top: 5px; float: right;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/MapsSearch05.png" alt="google map search" /> title="Google Maps" href="http://maps.google.com/">Google Maps is one of Google’s most exciting and innovative services. Apart from providing thorough Google Map search features, users can view the world as seen from a satellite, wander the streets of foreign cities in street view, and add informative or entertaining content across the virtual globe.

There is no shortage of things to discover on Google Maps. However, sometimes you just want to access a map or find a location quick and easy. This article provides you with tips and tricks on how to search Google Maps faster and smarter.

id="more-65255">

1. Use Keyboard Shortcuts To Navigate Maps

To browse the map and gain an overview or find a location, keyboard shortcuts are easier to use than pointing, clicking, and dragging with the mouse. Fortunately, the respective keys are easy to remember.

• pan left, right, up, or down = arrow keys
• pan faster = End, Home, Page Up, or Page Down keys
• zoom in or out = + or – keys

Before you can use the keyboard shortcuts, however, you have to use your mouse and click the map to select it.

2. Change The Default Location

Are you going on a vacation or do you frequently look up places like restaurants or other businesses in your local city? You should consider setting a custom default location. Apart from letting you access your personal points of interest quicker, it’s also a nice change of view if you don’t happen to operate in North America.

Go to Google Maps and on the left-hand side click > Set default location. Enter the address, city, and/or country, eventually pick one of the suggested results, then click > Return to set the default location.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/MapsSearch01.png" border="0" alt="google map search" />

If a default location was set in the past, you can click > Change default location.

3. Refine Your Search

This is a very small and seemingly insignificant feature, but it can have a huge impact on the amount of results you have to weed through.

Next to the ‘Search Maps‘ button is a ‘Show search options‘ text link. Click it to add a pull-down menu with categories, including Locations, Businesses, User-created maps, and Real estate. Next time your search produces too many results, filter search results for the matching category.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/MapsSearch04.png" border="0" alt="google map search function" />

4. Use The title="Bookmaplet" href="http://www.bookmaplet.com/main.jsp">Bookmaplet Bookmarklet

There is only so much you can do with Google Maps itself and you always have to go there first. To really speed up your map searches, I recommend title="Bookmaplet" href="http://www.bookmaplet.com/main.jsp">Bookmaplet. It enables you to view a location in Google Maps by highlighting a city name or address on a website and clicking the bookmarklet in your browser toolbar. You don’t have to leave the page, but you can open Google Maps in a new tab if you want to.

To set up the bookmarklet, go to to the title="Bookmaplet" href="http://www.bookmaplet.com/main.jsp">Bookmaplet website and click & drag the ‘Map that address‘ bookmarklet to your browser toolbar. To use it highlight a location of your choice in any online text, it can be an address, city, or country, and click the ‘Map that address‘ bookmarklet in your toolbar.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/MapsSearch02.png" border="0" alt="google map search function" />

Per default, the ‘Open in Google Maps‘ link will open in the same tab, unless you have changed your browser preferences. In Firefox and Google, a mouse middle click will open the link in a new tab.

If you’re not fond of bookmarklets, but use Google Chrome, try the title="Select To Get Maps extension" href="http://www.google.com/support/chrome/bin/static.py?page=guide.cs&guide=27542&topic=27546&answer=174131">Select To Get Maps or the title="MiniGoogleMaps" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/minigooglemaps-access-google-maps/">MiniGoogleMaps extension.

5. Enable Google Maps Labs Features

As Tim has pointed out in a previous article, Google tests “ title="4 Really Cool Google Maps Labs Features" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/4-cool-google-maps-labs-features/">new beta-type features in what they call ‘Google Labs’.” There are currently two features that let you zoom into a location faster and smarter. One is ‘Show Me Here!‘, which lets you zoom to the maximum zoom level of a location instantly via the context menu; the other is ‘Drag ‘n’ Zoom‘, it allows you to mark a region you want to zoom into.

To access the Google Maps Labs features, click the ‘ style="color: red;">New‘ link in the top right toolbar on the Google Maps page. A window showing all experimental features will come up. Enable the ones you find interesting or useful, close the window, and click the button to > Save changes.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/MapsSearch03.png" border="0" alt="google map search" />

Hooked on maps? There is a lot more to discover. title="Google Maps tips for life" href="http://www.google.com/help/maps/tour/">Google Maps tips for life contains tons of useful information on how you can use Google Maps. Below is a selection of related articles on MakeUseOf:

• title="How Does Google Maps Work" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/technology-explained-google-maps-work/">How Does Google Maps Work? [Technology Explained]
• title="Add Your Business To Google Maps" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/add-business-google-maps/">How To Add Your Business To Google Maps
• title="Best Things About Google Maps" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/the-five-best-things-about-google-maps/">The Five Best Things About Google Maps
• title="Historical Google Maps Mashups" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-awesome-historical-google-maps-mashups/">3 Awesome Historical Google Maps Mashups
• title="Create Shared Collaborative Google Maps" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-create-shared-collaborative-google-maps/">How To Create Shared Collaborative Google Maps

How do you use Google Maps and what is the most valuable feature to you?

Image credits: title="World Map" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-53773066/stock-vector-detailed-vector-world-map-of-rainbow-colors-names-town-marks-and-national-borders-are-in-separate.html?src=36bcde7fbe095970bf9d5fa10a697d29-1-4">ildogesto />
/> Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on href="http://www.makeuseof.com/answers/">MakeUseOf Answers!

/>

 

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class="align-left" style="border: 0px none; margin-left: 20px; margin-top: 5px; float: right;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Shutterstock-Chef.jpg" alt="cooking websites" width="250" height="158" />If you are an incurable foodie who cooks more than he (or she) gorges, then the overplus of cooking makes for sweetened browsing. When you browse through websites that inspire you to take to the apron and the kitchen, you will realize that there’s isn’t a facet of cooking that has been left uncovered.

Okay, maybe we still haven’t taken a good look at some video recipe websites yet. Top tier cooking websites like href="http://allrecipes.com/">Allrecipes and href="http://www.epicurious.com/">Epicurious have pretty well stocked cooking video sections. But then there are some websites which present video recipes as the main course. Why for the love of food should one miss out on them?

So, don your apron and check out these eight which dish up some appetizing video recipes.

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href="http://www.ifood.tv/">iFood.tv

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The cooking website features around 25,000 video recipes further souped up with 150,000 recipes of all kinds. Then there are the food snapshots to stir up a monk’s appetite. What I really like about the site is the prominence given to cuisines of all kinds from A (American) to S (Spanish). The videos are arranged around categories like Places, People, Educational, Health etc. You can use the search to get to a video demonstration of a recipe. A free registration also allows you to upload your own videos.

href="http://www.chow.com/">Chow

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Cooking02.jpg" alt="cooking sites" width="580" height="370" />

If you are a ‘Chowhound’ who spends every waking hour thinking about the next meal, then this site is meant for you. The site combines the best of multimedia to cook up a visually appealing website. You have large high-resolution graphics and videos, and neatly explained recipes. You can browse by complexity of recipe, by cuisine, and by course. Videos are organized by collections and playlists. One of the features of the site are the ‘Hacks’ which are basically tweaked version of recipes.

href="http://cookblast.com/">Cookblast

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Cooking03.jpg" alt="cooking sites" width="580" height="360" />

The cooking website currently hosts 16,000 cooking videos arranged simply around ingredients, dishes, cuisines, and techniques. Cookblast is also a video recipe search engine which scours recipes from other sites. You can follow the link to read the text of the preparation on the source site if Cookblast lacks it (see href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/cookblast-cooking-video-search/">Directory mention).

href="http://foodtube.net/">FoodTube

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Anything which has ‘tube’ attached to it generally stands for video. FoodTube is trying to organize itself as a YouTube-like source for cookery videos. So you can browse through Channels, check out featured videos, dive into Groups, and also add your own video recipes. The collection of 3,300 videos in a range of categories is enough to keep you busy with your ladle.

href="http://www.tastydays.com/">Tastydays

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Cooking05.jpg" alt="best cooking sites" width="580" height="425" />

Tastydays is one of those cookery websites which can turn you into a recipe spouting foodie. The site has a video section and a section that covers cooking shows with snippets from the likes of Celebrity Masterchef. The cooking shows could do with some more content as some of the names on the list do not show any content. But the recipes don’t suffer from the same problem as every recipe has a video to boast of.

href="http://www.cookingvibes.com/">CookingVibes

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Cooking07.jpg" alt="best cooking sites" width="580" height="270" />

CookingVibes is a cool href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/microsoft-silverlight-geeks-weigh">Silverlight web application which provides you with a stock of recipes submitted by users. Most of the recipes are enhanced with videos. There is also an index of restaurants worldwide, enabling you to review and save them to your favorites. CookingVibes encourages community participation so you can interact with fellow foodies and professional chefs.

href="http://startcooking.com/">Start Cooking

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Cooking06.jpg" alt="best cooking sites" width="580" height="389" />

Kathy Maister takes you through the basics of cooking and then into more advanced epicurean delights with a series of videocasts. From learning how to boil an egg, you can graduate to making a sausage and egg casserole. If you are a beginner cook don’t miss the Kitchen Basics section. You can download the videocasts with iTunes as episodes and carry them around in an iPhone or an iPod. The other option is to download them as MP4 or FLV files to your desktop.

href="http://www.legourmet.tv/">Le Gourmet.tv

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Cooking08.jpg" alt="cooking websites" width="580" height="437" />

Le Gourmet has 600 plus videos on food and beverages. Then there’s a small section which takes you to chef school to teach some of the basic stuff. Le Gourmet also explores roadside cuisine with a selection of travel videos focusing on street food.

With the riches of cooking websites on the web, it’s quite easy now to polish your taste buds. You can go from href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/7-helpful-online-resources-beginner-cook/">7 Good Online Cooking Guides For The Beginner Cook to href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-fascinating-unique-recipe-sites-brush-culinary-skills/">5 Fascinating Recipe Sites To Brush Up Your Culinary Skills and maybe stopover at title="5 Of The Best Sites For Kid-Friendly Recipes" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-sites-kidfriendly-recipes/">5 Of The Best Sites For Kid-Friendly Recipes. Our href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/cooking/">cooking and href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/recipes/">recipe websites will help you keep the kitchen fires burning.

Do you find video recipe websites helpful? Let us know of your personal favorites.

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style="border: 0px none;margin-left:20px;float:right;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/email-title.png" alt="troubleshooting email problems" />As a part of my job, I deal with a lot of email issues – problems sending and receiving email. Over the years, I have noticed that many people experiencing email problems can have them easily fixed and actually fall under just a few categories. Occasionally, email problems will be caused by a problem that only a system administrator can fix but for the majority of problems, they can be fixed by the end user (you) with minimal effort.

Read on to find some quick tips to help you when sending emails become an issue.

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

1. Check The Spelling Of The Email Address

I would say this is the most common error that I come across. One of the first things I do when walking someone through an email problem is confirming that the email address they are trying to send to is the real email address of the person they are attempting to reach.

The problem is further broken down into 2 types of typos – the first is the “username” part (the part of the email address before the @) and the second is the email domain (the part after the @).

If the username part does not exist on the remote email system, one of two things will happen – the first is that you will simply hear nothing back. The second is that you will get a message back that says something to the effect of “the user ‘username’ does not exist on this system.”

If the domain does not exist you will typically get a message back, from your own mail server, which states something like “DNS Error: Domain name not found“.

Read The Error Message

Usually when an email is rejected for some reason, there is a detailed error message passed back with the technical details of why it failed. Most of this message is for technical system administrators who can trace back a message if there is a further problem, but I’ve found that usually the error message that is within this email explains what the problem is. If you read through the message, look for the “core” problem.

Usually it is one of the following:

2. The Mailbox Is Full

This happens when the person whom you are sending the email to has no more disk space left on their email server. The most typical message returned is “mailbox is full” or “quota has been exceeded“. There is nothing you can do on your end about this and the best thing to do is to call or contact the person using another method and let them know about their problem so that they can talk to their email provider.

3. Your IP is on a blocklist

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/rbl-check.png" alt="troubleshooting email problems"/>

This is an anti-spam measure and if you aren’t sending spam then either your computer has been compromised in some form, or you are an innocent bystander in the “war on spam.” The error messages are usually technical in nature and can be hard to decode. Here is a sample message I recently received after sending a mail from Gmail:

554 554 5.7.1 Service unavailable; Client host [74.125.82.47] blocked using dnsbl.sorbs.net; Currently Sending Spam See: http://www.sorbs.net/lookup.shtml?74.125.82.47 (state 14).

The name for these lists vary but are typically called blacklists, RBL (realtime block/black list), black hole or blocklists. I’m personally not a fan of them because many times they do affect “innocent bystanders” – but using them does help to cut down on spam considerably. In this case, the actual blocked IP address is owned by Gmail and there is nothing you can do about getting off this list if you do not own the email server.

In this particular case, I just re-sent the email and it uses another IP address going out and was delivered fine.

What To Do If Your IP is on a Blocklist

You can check to see if your local computer’s IP address is on a blacklist by visiting a website such as href="http://www.aboutmyip.com/AboutMyXApp/BlackListCheck.jsp">this one on AboutMyIP or via the Check My IP link at href="http://multirbl.valli.org/">valli.org. Email servers do not necessarily use every RBL, but most usually use some. If you are on a consumer internet provider connection, chances are you will be listed in some and it will usually note that. This is because generally speaking, email does not actually go out on email servers hosted on a consumer internet connection – they provider their own servers for sending email.

You can also check the IP of your outgoing email server if you know it, otherwise your email server system administrator would need to check it at the links above.

On your end, make sure you have href="http://makeuseof.com/tags/anti-virus">antivirus on any computer on your network because if you have been “hacked” and a bot is running on your computer this is a common reason why you might be on a blocklist.

4. When There Is No Error Message At All

If there is no error message, and you have confirmed the email address is correct; it is very possible some anti-spam provisions implemented by the mail server administrator is filtering your email. This can be based on the IP (as above) or based on some content in your email such as an image, phone number, or other text. Unfortunately these can be hard to trace – since there is no error message you need to contact your mail service provider to see what the problem might be.

5. I’ve Checked Everything – What Next?

If you have checked everything and you still can’t send email to someone – it is time to take it to the next level. If you are on a consumer internet connection and you are trying to send email from your provided email address, contact customer service to see what the problem might be. They will probably ask for a sample of the email you are trying to send along with any error messages or codes that you’ve received. Make sure to give them whatever they need to help solve your email mystery as they are your best bet at getting your email working again.

Have you ever had problems sending emails? What did you have to do to get it fixed? Let us know below so that your experience can benefit others!

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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/2010/10/FacebookSearch01.png" border="0" alt="facebook search " width="210" height="209" />Like no other social circle before, Facebook has managed to draw in the masses and keep people engaged. It’s almost a perversion that the one thing that makes users come back and convinces new ones to join, is the attention they give each other. It’s a genial system because it feeds its own growth, almost like a class="vt-p" title="Perpetual Mobile" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion">Perpetual Mobile.

Now, the sheer amount of people and data available on Facebook is something you can use to your advantage. You might be looking for a job or you are interested in trends. So how do you obtain the information you’re looking for and make the right connections? You (re)search.

This article will provide some ideas for searching Facebook and finding specific information.

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1. Search Multiple Terms Simultaneously

You can search Facebook for two, three, four, or more things at once by adding the “|” sign (minus the quotation marks) between the terms. For example “MakeUseOf | Lifehacker” will give you the result pictured below. This way you can see results of terms you want to compare on a single page.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/FacebookSearch02.png" border="0" alt="facebook search " />

2. Specify Your Search

This may seem pretty obvious, but wait ’till I get there. You can display different types of results by clicking the categories listed to the left. OK, that was kind of obvious. Now note that the list also features an option to only search for posts by your friends or from everyone, i.e. all over Facebook.

And that’s where it gets interesting, as you can now filter the results by language and post types. This is perfect if you’re looking to hook up with people from a certain area or just find local information.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/FacebookSearch04.png" border="0" alt="facebook people search" />

3. Facebook App: class="vt-p" title="Advanced Search 2.2. beta" href="http://www.facebook.com/advancedsearch">Advanced Search 2.2 Beta

Using Facebook apps you can fill a specific niche. The Advanced Search app improves your search options within Facebook. It adds several new categories and search options. For example you can search for applications and have the results sorted by ‘most fans’ or ‘relevance’.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/FacebookSearch03.png" border="0" alt="facebook people search" />

4. Website: class="vt-p" title="FacePinch" href="http://facepinch.com/">FacePinch

FacePinch is a real-time Facebook search engine. So if you’re wondering what is being said right now about say Justin Bieber, this is where you would find out. The site also keeps an eye on trending topics and popular searches.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/FacebookSearch05.png" border="0" alt="facebook people search" />

To use either Facepinch or the following website, Openbook, you do not need to own a Facebook account. They are open to the public.

5. Website: class="vt-p" title="Openbook" href="http://youropenbook.org">Openbook

At Openbook you can basically do the same as on FacePinch, with one little difference. You can discriminate between updates from guys, girls, or all genders. So if you were interested in female opinion only, that would be the place to check it out.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/FacebookSearch06.png" border="0" alt="facebook search" />

The idea behind Openbook was to make people aware of what they put online and that there are consequences. Their tagline is “Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life. Whether you want to or not.” Next to it is a button that says “Learn why this is bad!” If this made you think, be sure to check out our security-related Facebook articles listed below.

We have previously shown you how to search and find people and pictures on Facebook:

• class="vt-p" title="Tips for Effective People Search on Facebook" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/7-tips-effective-facebook-people-search/">7 Tips For Effective Facebook People Search by Mahendra
• class="vt-p" title="Effective Picture Search on Facebook" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/ins-outs-effective-facebook-picture-search/">The Ins & Outs Of Doing An Effective Facebook Picture Search by Steve

Facebook is no longer a playground for only college kids. It has become an important marketing tool for businesses and private people alike. Now that you know what type of data is easily accessible, you should be even more careful about what information you release about yourself.

If you’re worried about people finding out stuff about you through Facebook, make sure you look over your privacy settings. These articles will shed some light on the matter:

• class="vt-p" title="Protect your Privacy on Facebook" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/protect-privacy-facebook/">6 Simple Tips To Protect Your Privacy on Facebook by Brett
• class="vt-p" title="Regain Control over your Privacy on Facebook Pt1" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/8-steps-to-regain-control-of-your-facebook-privacy-part-1/">8 Steps To Regain Control Of Your Facebook Privacy (Part 1) by Mahendra
• class="vt-p" title="Regain Control over your Privacy on Facebook Pt2" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/8-more-steps-to-regain-control-of-your-facebook-privacy/">8 MORE Steps To Regain Control Of Your Facebook Privacy (Part 2) by Mahendra

What is your experience with finding things on Facebook? Has it changed your life? />
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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/windowsubuntu.jpg" alt="ubuntu tips" /> href="http://www.makeuseof.com/pages/getting-started-guide-linux">Linux is probably the href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-create-a-custom-splash-image-for-grub-2-linux/">most customizable of all mainstream operating systems. There’s an incredible amount of options, tools, themes and steps you can take to make the time you spend in the company of your PC more aesthetically pleasing.

If you’re on the pursuit of eye-candy, perhaps a Mac OS X flavour or even want to pretend you’re still in Windows-land then with enough tweaking and the right resources you can.

The following tools and resources are all free (as usual) and should hopefully transform your drab href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-customize-your-linux-desktop-with-gnomeart-ng/">GNOME desktop into a pimped-out play area.

id="more-56029">

Compiz Settings Manager

Compiz is responsible for all those pretty animations, fades and window-wobbles that your href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/ubuntu-1004-extremely-simple-operating-system-linux/">Ubuntu install can already do. If you want to pick and choose, however, you’re going to need to install the Compiz Settings Manager.

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Open up a new Terminal window (Applications, Accessories then Terminal) and type:

sudo apt-get install ccsm

Input your password when asked and once the download and installation is complete you will find a new entry in System, Preferences called CompizConfig Settings Manager. Open her up and behold at the treasure-trove of effects and eye-candy.

Then it’s up to you – but I’d recommend you enable Desktop Cube and Rotate Cube which provides 3D goodness when switching between desktops.

Emerald Window Decorator

Easily the best of all the window decorators, href="http://wiki.compiz.org/EmeraldThemeManager">Emerald provides elegance and advanced behaviour customization all in one package. There’s a startling amount of themes available, most of which are beautifully put together, with lashings of transparency.

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I personally didn’t like GNOME’s default (GTK) window decorator all that much, so when I found this I breathed a sigh of relief. To install Emerald (and everything it needs to work) simply open a new href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-applications-to-change-the-way-you-work-with-linux-terminal/">Terminal window and type:

sudo apt-get install compiz compiz-plugins compiz-gnome compiz-core emerald compiz-fusion-plugins-main compiz-fusion-plugins-extra fusion-icon compizconfig-settings-manager

This will also install the Compiz Fusion Icon, a useful system tray icon that allows you to switch window decorators, change themes and access configuration settings with ease. Once installed you’ll find it in Applications, System Tools then Compiz-Fusion Icon.

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Mac4Lin

This package (despite being slightly outdated) attempts to bring the OS X interface to a variety of non-Mac platforms. This will work on Linux, FreeBSD, openSolaris and any OS that takes advantage of GTK.

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To install the package simply href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/mac4lin">download the .ZIP file from the downloads page and unzip it to a directory of your choice. You’ll then need to find the Mac4Lin_Install_v1.0.sh file, right click it and choose Properties then the Persmissions tab. Check Allow executing file as a program and then OK Double click it, choose Run in Terminal and you’ll then be guided through the installation.

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Once complete you should notice href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/iconvert-converts-your-icon-files-across-multiple-platforms-online/">some familiar Apple icons, be able to choose the Mac4Lin Aqua or Graphite themes, as well as OS X fonts and wallpapers. Ideal if you’re already running Ubuntu on your Mac and just can’t let go of that OS X look.

There’s also a Mac4Lin_Uninstall_v1.0.sh file, which (you guessed it) removes the OS X look. Just remember to make it executable first.

Get The Windows Look

If you’re particularly fond of the way Windows dresses itself up then it is possible to imitate the environment with GNOME. For a Windows XP look then try href="http://www.ubuntu.online02.com/node/14">XPGnome which does a startlingly good job and will fool most of your pals.

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If you’ve recently come from Windows 7 and find yourself missing the interface then there’s also the href="http://ubuntu.sun.ac.za/index.php?title=W7_Theme">W7 Theme to transform Ubuntu’s interface into that of Microsoft’s latest offering.

It is worth mentioning that there’s a chance something might go wrong, and neither author takes responsibility for this. But you probably knew that, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/tweak-ubuntu-the-easy-way/">so tweak away.

Resources

There’s a number of great resources for downloading Emerald (and other) themes, icons, wallpapers and dock skins, and you won’t have to spend a penny!

href="http://gnome-look.org/">Gnome Look – An exhaustive collection of user-contributed themes for a huge variety of applications. Probably the best place to find that theme you’re after.

href="http://art.gnome.org/">GNOME Art – The official repository for GNOME skins and customization. There’s a fair few themes and backgrounds, plus the chance to contribute and submit your own efforts. You can even href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-customize-your-linux-desktop-with-gnomeart-ng/">add an awesome tool that connects to the site and allows you to peruse from the comfort of your desktop.

href="http://ubuntu.hamdi.web.id/">ubuntu.hamdi.web.id – A nice blog with a decent collection of downloads for customizing your Linux install.

href="http://www.deviantart.com/">DevinantArt – You’ve probably heard of DeviantArt before and if you can get past the mounds of pretentious crap then there’s a wealth of skins and themes for pretty much any OS, window manager or application you happen to be using. Make sure you choose to view submissions from All Time when browsing for the best of the bunch.

Conclusion

There’s bound to be something here for everyone. I was going to mention Linux docks, but we’ve already got  href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/8-power-docks-for-your-linux-machine/">an excellent article all about them. If you’re sick of GNOME and href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/switch-gnome-kde-45-ubuntu-1004/">fancy giving KDE a try (Kubuntu, essentially) then you can do that too. There’s also href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/8-great-alternative-desktop-managers-for-linux/">a few other desktop environments you might want to take a look at if you’re really bored.

Have you got any other tips and tricks to a sexier Ubuntu desktop? Perhaps you’d like to share your desktop with the rest of us and let us know how you achieved it – post away in the comments! />
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