There are an increasing number of people who love to use Tumblr as a blogging platform. As blogs go, Tumblr is flexible, stylish and easy to use. Many people use it simply as a light-hearted way to repost their favourite images, while others have taken to using Tumblr as more of a lifestream. Those people in the latter group may have noticed something annoying Tumblr did last year – they stopped letting you import RSS feeds to Tumblr.

In an attempt to ensure they could provide Tumblr’s core services to the massive number of users they have, Tumblr made a decision to cut RSS imports to new Tumblr blogs. Older blogs with RSS imports have mostly had the imports kept functional, but no new RSS imports can be added. That is, not without outside help – help in the form of TumblRSS.

Why On Earth Would I Import RSS Anyway?

Okay, so maybe you’re wondering why people would want to import RSS feeds to Tumblr in the first place. The lifestream example is the best one: some people just want a blog to share with friends and family which collects all the best things they do online into the one place.

For instance, collecting a few of their best photos from Flickr, book reviews from Goodreads, movie reviews from Flixter and blog posts from their WordPress blog. A Tumblr like this would be ideal to show relatives and friends who just want to see the equivalent of an online snapshot. But to do this, the user requires RSS feeds to be imported to Tumblr. They need TumblRSS.

Get Started With TumblRSS

Logging into TumblRSS is simple as you merely authenticate with your Tumblr account and allow TumblRSS to access your Tumblr blog. Don’t worry about it showing you just your primary Tumblr blog, since later you will be given the option to choose which blog to import RSS into.

When you first click on “Get Started” it will ask you to provide an email address so that you can be uniquely identified in the system. To avoid problems, ensure this matches the email address you use for Tumblr.

Importing An RSS Feed To Tumblr

The RSS import is straight forward to set up. All you need to do is choose which blog to import to, choose whether to import text or links and insert the RSS feed’s URL.

Limitations

• Any photos in the feed will be inserted as if part of a text post at this stage, however the developer hopes to add full support for photo feeds in the future.
• TumblRSS doesn’t yet support importing tags, but they hope to add this feature soon.
• RSS imports into Tumblr are limited to 100 posts per day. Currently the TumblRSS application is blocked for any user who reaches that limit, so it’s best to avoid hitting it.
• If you later change the Tumblr’s URL, the RSS import will be broken and you will need to set it up again. This is because TumblRSS sees the blog as an entirely different blog. There’s no unique identifier for Tumblr blogs other than their name.

Despite TumblRSS’s limitations, it still provides a useful service that Tumblr doesn’t currently provide. I look forward to the proposed improvements eagerly.

Do you import an RSS feed into Tumblr? Why? Do you think Tumblr should re-introduce the ability to import RSS or should it be left to developers like TumblRSS?

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ChromeMarks Lite for Android can sync your Google Chrome bookmarks with your Android device. The tool supports syncing bookmarks in both ways between Google Chrome on your desktop and the Android app. Limitations of the free version include that you cannot edit your bookmarks or sync them with the browsers installed on your Android device.

Set Up Bookmark Syncing In Chrome

For ChromeMarks Lite to work, you first need to enable syncing of your Google Chrome bookmarks between computers. In the browser, click the wrench icon in the top right and open > Options. It will open in a new tab. Go to > Personal Stuff and click the > Sign in to Chrome or > Set up sync… button, depending on what is displayed for you.

In the advanced sync preferences pop-up window, select the items you want to sync, such as your > Bookmarks. When you’re done click OK.

Your bookmarks will now be synced with your Google account. To access your Google Chrome bookmarks on a different installation of the browser, simply perform these same steps and all your synced data will be imported from your Google account and subsequently synced with it.

Set Up ChromeMarks Lite On Your Android Device

To access the bookmarks that are synced from your Google Chrome desktop browser to your Google account, download and install ChromeMarks Lite.

When you first open the app, you will see that there are no bookmarks in the database yet. Click the > sync button to initiate the synchronization.

Note that you first have to provide permission to the app. Once this is done, it will initialize and start syncing your bookmarks from your Google account.

This procedure will only take a few seconds and then all your bookmarks will be available in the ChromeMarks Lite app, as shown below. Note that ChromeMarks Lite does not support auto-syncing. Hence, to get the latest bookmarks from your Google account, you occasionally need to click the > Sync button in the top right.

When you click a bookmark, it will either open directly in your default browser or ask you which browser you want it to open with.

By the way, clicking on a bookmark for more than a second will open a menu with options to open it in a new window, share the link or copy the URL.

Does ChromeMarks Sync With My Android Browser Bookmarks?

ChromeMarks Lite does not offer this feature. To integrate ChromeMarks with your Android browser, you have to upgrade to the full version of the app. Unfortunately, Honeycomb and some Samsung users are partly left out, as the tool does not integrate or sync with the stock browser on Android Honeycomb and some Samsung phones. However, before you risk upgrading, you can verify whether or not your device will support the upgrade options using ChromeMarks Lite.

Click the menu icon in the top right, then select > Settings and go to > Upgrade Options.

A green checkmark indicates that your device supports the respective feature, while items marked with a red cross will not be available. Since I am on a Samsung Honeycomb tablet, ChromeMarks presently is not able to sync with my browser bookmarks.

Conclusion

It is a pity that you have to use a third-party app on your Google Android device to access bookmarks synced to your Google account. However, at least this app comfortably enables you to access bookmarks synced with your Google account and despite the limitations of the free version, it is very useful. I reckon that the paid version is worth upgrading to if your Android device supports syncing with your installed browser. Otherwise it’s only worth it if you want to enable manual editing of bookmarks and auto-syncing.

How do you sync bookmarks between your desktop and mobile devices?

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A few of us here on MakeUseOf like Reddit, and apparently so do quite a few other people out on the Internet. Some of those people like it so much that they even create their own web apps and phone apps to use the site in much more creative ways.

Once again, we have another unusual way to use Reddit, and this time, it comes in the easy-to-digest form of the Reddit Investigator, a covert web app for all you Internet snoops out there. So grab your binoculars and your notepad (and maybe a first aid kit), for today, we’re jumping into the Reddit Investigator.

Get To Know Someone (Better)

I’ve seen several instances on Reddit in which people say that they have met other users of the site, and although the chance of meeting someone is probably better than I think, it at least seems rare. This almost makes the online world “real”, and it’s at that moment when you go to these sites that you realize you are dealing with actual people. With that being said, since we’re in the social networking era, I believe it can be safely assumed that everyone still stalks their friends online on at least some level – don’t deny it.

The issue here is that Reddit isn’t so of much a social networking site as it is a link aggregator with many users. However, at the same time, it builds up quite a bit of discussion and sometimes even friendships. So there certainly is a social element, and for those lucky few whose friends are also Redditors, it can be assumed that social element is kicked up a few notches.

But let’s say that you just met someone and found out they are a Redditor….well, in this hypothetical–not–likely-gonna–happen situation, Reddit Investigator is a great way to creep up on them.

Discover Their Interests

It’s fairly simple to figure out someone’s interests with Reddit Investigator. Simply plug in their username on the front page of the site, and the web app will lurk the corridors of Reddit, peeking into every hall and scouring each electronic scroll in which the searchee has written their thoughts upon. It’s interesting that it’s able to do this, and although I’ve harped about privacy before, you have to understand that this is Reddit – it’s a rare instance if anyone knows who you really are.

Basically, on the left side of your Reddit Investigator results, you will see every single subreddit that the user has commented in since the beginning of time itself (except not really). Furthermore, you’ll be privileged to find every single subreddit that they have submitted items to, as well.

Check Out Their Stats & Data

Some of you are number crunchers (for those of you that can figure out the chances of meeting another Redditor, please do). With Reddit Investigator, you jump on those crazy little things called stats that some of you crave. Here are just a few of the things you can unravel:

• Most Active Hours Timeline.
• Link Karma Timeline And Data.
• Comment Karma Timeline And Data.
• Activity Timeline.
• User Data.
• Word Data.
• Fun Guessed Data (stuff like location, political stance, reputation).

For those of you that noticed the timeline that covers the Redditor’s most active hours, I can only hope that your boss doesn’t know your username. At least you could probably figure out how to best manage your time with this web app. Always a silver lining, right?

Conclusion

That’s pretty much all there is to it, ladies and gentlemen. Honestly, there isn’t any tool quite like a functional tool, and that’s what we have here. You really can’t beat that. Granted, I don’t know how legal your intentions are for Reddit Investigator, but in the meantime, I’ll play dumb.

What other tools for Reddit do you use besides Reddit Investigator? Did you find anything interesting about this one? Have you ever met someone from Reddit?

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/intro_soundcloud_300px.jpg" alt="" />Discovering a new artist, album or record label that corresponds with your tastes and expectations can be a rewarding experience. These golden discoveries can be few and far between and that’s where I turn to using a few extra tools to help hone in on the music I love.

We first featured href="http://www.soundcloud.com/">SoundCloud on MakeUseOf initially href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/music-in-the-soundcloud/">back in 2008, and while the core service largely remains the same; much has changed. If you’ve been wondering what SoundCloud is, whether you can make use of it and what makes it so special then read on to find out why you should probably have been using this free service all along.

Follow The Music

The service operates much in the same way as href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/twitter">Twitter whereby, once registered, you can follow other users and receive notification of new activity in your stream. The process really doesn’t get more complicated than this, and once you’ve followed a few users then your stream will begin to look fairly busy.

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Along the top of the page is the main navigation, including your Dashboard (essentially a stream), You featuring all your activity, including comments made, favourites and so on, Tracks which is a quick way of exploring music on offer (now includes a href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-creative-commons-projects-pay-attention/">Creative Commons option), People for finding other users and Groups. You can of course search for music, though you’re probably better going by tags for specific genres.

width="100%" height="81" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"> name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /> name="src" value="https://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F28395070&show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=f71200" /> width="100%" height="81" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="https://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F28395070&show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=f71200" allowscriptaccess="always" />

Listening to music via SoundCloud can provide an oddly visual experience. For starters, each track is represented by a waveform with comments layered on top. Comments are tied to specific points in the song, and will be displayed accordingly for future listeners. Much of the time whilst using the service I find myself transfixed by the waveform and fairly amused by the barrage of comments, especially near a drop.

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Comments are not only somewhat amusing but also a great way of discovering other artists you may like. If you notice someone is frequently passing comment on music you’re fond of then why not see who else that user is following.

The player itself really has come a long way since our last profile of SoundCloud, and there are a wealth of options for each song. As well as sharing with a lot of social networks, clicking “Like” to favourite the song and of course adding a comment, it is also possible to buy or download the song (depending on what the artist has stipulated) and even href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/embed-mp3-player-website">embed the player within a website.

I’ve taken advantage of this here to bring you a few choice cuts from the service, and to demonstrate a great way of sharing your favourite tracks with those not currently using SoundCloud.

style="text-align: center;"> width="100%" height="81" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"> name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /> name="src" value="https://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F9243449&show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=f71200" /> width="100%" height="81" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="https://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F9243449&show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=f71200" allowscriptaccess="always" />

SoundCloud Mobile

By far one of the best ways of using the service is via one of the mobile apps. Both the Android version and SoundCloud for iOS received updates recently, and whilst I can’t really speak too much for href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/android">Android, the updated app I’m running on my href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/iphone">iPhone is better than ever.

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The recent iOS update finally added the viewing of comments during playback and refreshed the UI. Your followers’ activity in both versions is now constricted to the Stream tab with any sounds you choose to record or share going in the Activity tab. As you’d expect, the iPhone version continues playback in the background without a hitch (some apps still don’t do this) and you can skip and pause from your homescreen.

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The only thing that the mobile version really lacks is the ability to download tracks, though if you really like a track that much you can favourite it and download it the next time you’re near a PC. The mobile SoundCloud experience is generally a faster and more pleasant way of checking your stream, and I’d thoroughly recommend it.

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Download: href="http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/soundcloud/id336353151?mt=8">SoundCloud for iOS @ App Store /> Download: href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.soundcloud.android&hl=en">SoundCloud for Android @ Android Market /> View: href="http://m.soundcloud.com/">SoundCloud Mobile (Web)

Other Ways To Get Your ‘Cloud On

SoundCloud really has been growing for a long time now, and as a result there are a lot of ways to use the service. Mac OS X users who are running 10.6 or later can jump right in and download href="http://soundcloud.com/apps/soundcloud-desktop">SoundCloud Desktop, directly from the href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/mac-app-store/">Mac App Store. The interface somewhat resembles iTunes and the software is ideal if you’re thinking of streaming SoundCloud for a party.

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There are further add-ons and plugins for the href="http://soundcloud.com/apps/soundcloud4ps3">PS3, href="http://soundcloud.com/apps/boxee">Boxee and href="http://soundcloud.com/apps/roku">Roku. In addition to this there are a wealth of apps that take advantage of the SoundCloud service. If you’re fond of mobile music making apps like the href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-app-review-imaschine-powerful-portable-groove-sketchpad-ios/">recently featured iMaschine or href="http://soundcloud.com/apps/ims-20">KORG’s iMS-20 then you’ll be pleasantly surprised to find out you can share your creations straight to SoundCloud simply by logging in using your chosen app.

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SoundCloud’s href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/api-good-technology-explained/">API has spawned literally hundreds of additional ways to use the service, be it creating an online presence using your taste in music, setting up a trigger to href="http://www.ifttt.com/">Tweet your uploads using If This Then That or simply sharing a rough loop or two with your followers.

View: href="http://soundcloud.com/apps">The SoundCloud App Database

style="text-align: center;"> width="100%" height="81" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"> name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /> name="src" value="https://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F28878460&show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=f71200" /> width="100%" height="81" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="https://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F28878460&show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=f71200" allowscriptaccess="always" />

Finally…

Who exactly is SoundCloud good for? Well aside from being an awesome tool for you and me to quickly discover new music, SoundCloud is also great for artists and record labels, particularly smaller ones.

My SoundCloud favourites are populated mostly by tracks from obscure artists, some just starting out, who I would never have discovered were it not for the service. Similarly, many of these artists and producers would never have received the same level of exposure had it not been for SoundCloud.

So there’s your final reason to sign up, download and wallow in the SoundCloud service. If you’d like to share any tracks, your profile or artists in the comments then go ahead.

Do you like SoundCloud? Have you used it for a while? Noticed the mobile updates? Post your thoughts in the comment box below.

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/imovie_icon.png" alt="" />Several years ago I developed professional wedding videography skills using iMovie, Final Cut Pro, and iDVD, but I get a kick out of shooting and editing small family flicks with nothing but my iPhone.

The HD quality of the iPhone 4 and 4S video camera app is just as good as many consumer video cameras. While it may be a stretch to shoot hour-long video productions with an iPhone, it’s a perfect in your pocket at all times device for shooting and editing family, event, and documentary style presentations.

If you haven’t tried your hand on the href="http://itunes.apple.com/app/id377298193?mt=8&ls=1)">iOS version of iMovie ($4.99), you probably are not taking full advantage of your iPhone or iPad 2. Let me walk you through the main features to get you started.

Preparation

Though it is quite easy to pull out your iPhone and shoot video on the fly, it is much better to have at least a mental shot list for what your production might look like. See my article href="http://itunes.apple.com/app/id377298193?mt=8&ls=1)">here for tips on shooting video.

Also keep in mind how much memory storage you have on your iPhone. Video files on the device are about 80MB per minute, so you probably will want to keep many of your video clips under 5 minutes apiece.

Editing with iMovie

The iOS app is basically the same for the iPhone and iPad 2. With the iPad of course you have more screen real estate to work with, but in this how-to, I use the iPhone version.

You start a production by tapping the + button which will take you to the video clip timeline and other tools.

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To get clips into the timeline, you tap the Media Library button in the menu bar. This will bring up all the clips in your Camera Roll.

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You can add one or more clips (and photos) at a time by first tapping the Media Library and then double-tapping a clip . I find it easier to navigate and edit one clip at a time.

Most of what you will do in the editing of clips is take out nonessential footage. As with any movie production you will want to keep your project short and entertaining—removing parts that seem to drag or don’t add any significant value. In other words, a lot can be shown in five to ten seconds of a video clip.

Splicing Clips

To splice a clip, move the red timeline marker to where you want to slice a clip, and make sure the clip is selected. To make the cut, press your finger at the top of the marker and press downwards. (To undo the cut, shake your iPhone back and forth to bring up the undo button.)

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A dissolve transition will be automatically placed where you make the edit. However, you can move the marker over some more and slice again to edit out chunks of a clip. Again, don’t be modest about taking out extraneous footage. If something seems boring to you, it will probably be boring to your viewers as well.

Notice also you can use the yellow trim handles to shorten or lengthen the timing of a clip. The same can be done for photos.

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Project Themes

After you have inserted one or more of your clips, and you have an idea of what you want your production to look like, you might want to tap the gear button in the upper right of the top menu bar and choose one of the eight themes to work with.

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Each theme has its own background music (which can be looped), title, and transition styles.

It’s also a good idea to turn on the fade in–and fade out to black buttons, which will make the beginning and ending of your video less jarring.

If a particular theme is not working for you, it is not a problem to replace it with another one.

Transitions and Titles

Transitions are useful for moving from one scene to the next in your video, even if the production is only 2 minutes. You can double-tap on any transition to change it to a cross dissolve or any other transition style for your selected theme. You can also shorten or lengthen the duration of the transition.

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You can also double-tap on a clip and insert a title at the opening, middle, or ending of a clip. Unfortunately you don’t get other controls over the titling. You need to make sure your clip is long enough for a title, for you can’t adjust the duration for how how long the title stays on the screen, which can be as long as 20 seconds.

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Audio & Music

Each theme inserts its own background music into your production. For the most part, I find the theme music suitable for quick family videos. However, if you don’t like the selected music, you can double-tap on the track and delete it.

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You can also tap the Media library in the menu bar and select music from another theme, or add a track from your iTunes library. However, some tracks you purchase from the iTunes Music Store will not be available for use. You can also add sound effects.

To add more than one track of music to your production, make sure your first track is not set to loop before inserting another one after or before it.

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If you’re going to use more than one music track, it might be best to first edit all your video clips and then insert additional tracks. You can select a music track and press down on the beginning or ending yellow handles to adjust the duration of the music track.

The same can be done for the audio in your video clips. Double-tap on a clip to adjust the sound level or mute it all together. For some family videos, I like to lower the audio of the video clips if what is being sad is not relevant to the production, and then increase the volume of the background music.

Sharing Your Videos

To share your production, tap the Home button and then tap the share (small arrow icon) to bring up the sharing options.

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You can save productions to your Camera Roll or export it to Facebook, YouTube, the iTunes library on your computer, or to CNN iReport.

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Your first production using iOS iMovie may seem a little challenging, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll like the ability to both shoot, edit, and share short videos all from one device.

Let us know what you think of iMovie on the iPhone and what tips and strategies you use to edit your video.

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/featured-podcasting.png" alt="make your own podcast" />I recently had the opportunity to become part of a href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/podcast">podcast which I’m sure you’ll hear about soon enough – and it’s all fairly new ground for me. As the only one with enough bandwidth to host, and clearly the most experienced of the group in WordPress ninja-ship, I also took it upon myself to setup the necessary protocols that make an actual podcast, as opposed to being just audio files posted on a blog.

Thankfully, there’s a fantastic, free plugin for WordPress that handles the difficult bits, and I was able to get the show on the road within an hour of buying a domain.

What Is A Podcast, Technically Speaking?

A podcast is a special extended form of RSS, or href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/rss-feeds-work-simple-terms-technology-explained/">really simple syndication. Regular RSS just provides HTML content, as well as some additional meta-data such as preview image, a title, a date etc. A podcast feed on the other hand also includes links to the audio/video files in a way that special podcast clients – such as href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/itunes/">iTunes – can understand.

When a podcast feed is updated, the client will prompt you or automatically download the associated media. iTunes also specifies some additional meta-data fields such as description, which it uses to populate the information in the iTunes podcast directory.

Hosting

First off, you need to think separately about the title="The Various Forms Of Website Hosting Explained [Technology Explained]" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/website-hosting-technology-explained/">hosting of the actual podcast media files – typically anywhere from 5MB (10 minutes of audio) to 500MB (video) – to the hosting of the podcast feed.

Today I’ll only be discussing self-hosting both the files themselves and the website used to make the podcast feed, but if you have a particular bandwidth-limited webhost then you may need to consider placing your files on a low-cost host such as title="4 Great Uses For Amazon’s S3 Web Services" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/4-great-amazons-s3-web-services/">Amazon s3. Either will function the same, but you will need to consider this beforehand. While the bandwidth required to access the feed will be no more than a regular blog, the bandwidth needed for 1,000 people downloading your 100MB podcast every week can rapidly escalate.

An alternative solution is to use a low-cost feed/file host combination, such as href="http://www.libsyn.com">libsyn. The problem with using a hosted service is the same as using a hosted blogging service – if you become popular and need to migrate to your own domain, things can become difficult and you may end up losing listeners in the process.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/libsyn.png" alt="make your own podcast" width="580" height="384" />

On the other hand, many all-in-one hosted solutions offer access to their automated advertising insertion systems. I can’t testify as to the profitability of these, but I assume it’s much the same rules as Adsense – the more downloads you get, the more money you can make. In my opinion, monetization should never be your primary goal on any web project – start off making great content, and only consider monetization once you’ve gained traction.

To clarify a common misconception – the iTunes store will not host your podcast for you, nor will they set up any of the necessary meta-data needed in your feed. This is entirely your responsibility to set up. For podcasts, the iTunes store functions in a similar fashion to a link directory. With the feed correctly set up, you submit the address, and wait for approval. That’s it. You need to provide the file hosting, and the podcast feed hosting.

Using WordPress & Podpress

So assuming you’re going to host your own files on either your own web server or Amazon s3, the next step is to set up a website or front-end to manage the podcast feed, again on your own server, for which we’ll be using the world’s best CMS – href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/wordpress">WordPress. I strongly suggest you get your own specific domain for the podcast too – we got ours for $6 with a coupon at GoDaddy – and that’ll save a world of hassle later on.

A standard WordPress installation won’t do podcasting out of the box, and for this we’ll install a plugin called href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/podpress/">podPress - search for it from the Add Plugin menu option within WordPress.

Basic iTunes meta-data is automatically added to your site feed now. Go to the podPress->Feed/iTunes Settings to customise this with your own:

• summary
• preview image (this is what people will see in the store)
• owner
• subtitle
• keywords
• explicit tag

You’re also able to set up additional feeds, but I won’t go into detail with them here as the setup is significantly more complicated. These can be used if you plan on releasing different formats – for example, keeping the main feed as a plain MP3, or also providing a video feed.

Adding Your First Podcast

Releasing a new episode is basically as simple as creating a new post and associating the relevant media file. You can’t actually upload the podcast on most hosts, due to the upload file size limit which is usually about 2MB. You’ll need to open an FTP connection, create a folder for your podcasts, and enter the URL manually on the post screen in the new podPress section.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/podpress-media-new-post.png" alt="how to create your own podcast" width="580" height="313" />

Anything else you write in the post content area will become the “show notes” and description for iTunes.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/description.png" alt="how to create your own podcast" width="580" height="69" />

Submitting To The iTunes Store

Before you submit, make sure you’ve changed all the defaults from the podPress settings screen, and be sure to have a feed image set, as well as accurately marking if the feed is explicit or not.

You’ll need an iTunes account to submit the podcast. Just navigate to the iTunes Store -> Podcasts section from iTunes, and click Submit a Podcast in the top right. Paste in the feed address of your blog, and step through the wizard. There’s a 2-3 day wait time to be approved, and after that the feed will update daily (so you may not see your new episode immediately in the iTunes directory).

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/submit.png" alt="make your own podcast" width="272" height="253" />

I understand Dave is in the process of writing a full guide on the topic of podcasting, so if you’re unsure of the process or you don’t to host it yourself, wait for that in a few months. Comments welcome, or questions if you’re having problems as I’ll try to help as best as I can. If you need more help on blogging in general with WordPress, may I suggest href="http://www.makeuseof.com/pages/set-up-your-blog-with-wordpress-the-ultimate-guide">my own fantastic free guide.

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/iOS5-300.jpg" alt="ios operating system" />Learn all about iOS 5, the latest operating system for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. If you’ve upgraded but aren’t sure what’s new, or are considering upgrading but want to know what you’re getting into, this manual from Lachlan Roy is what you looking for: “Using iOS: Your Guide to the Latest and Greatest Mobile Operating System.”

When Apple released the iPhone back in 2007, it was different to anything else on the market. It wasn’t the first touchscreen phone, but it was the first one to be so pretty. But as gorgeous as the hardware was, that wasn’t what made the iPhone so great, or what shook the cellphone industry. It was the software which made the iPhone what it was.

Now iOS 5 has been released, providing updates, tweaks and brand new features to make the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad even better and easier to use than before. Want to know what it brings to the table? Download this manual to find out.

style="text-align: center;"> href="http://www.makeuseof.com/pages/using-ios-your-guide-to-the-latest-and-greatest-mobile-operating-system">DOWNLOAD Using iOS: Your Guide to the Latest and Greatest Mobile Operating System

style="text-align: center;">The guide is free but password-protected. Gain access to the guide by:

style="text-align: center;">1- subscribing to our newsletter (you may do this on the download page itself, link above). Existing subscribers will receive the password via email in the next couple of hours.

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

style="text-align: center;">2. Simply share the guide on Facebook, Twitter or Google+ on the download page. Quick and easy.

 

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/iOS5-3page.jpg" alt="ios operating system" width="580" height="270" />

Download this free MakeUseOf guide to learn:

• What iOS 5 is, and which devices you can use it on.
• New features in iOS 5, from reminders to Twitter integration.
• Mastering the new, Android-style dashboard.
• Using the new messaging to send texts for free over WiFi, even from an iPod touch.
• Device-specific features, such as Siri.
• iCloud: what it is and what it does.

style="text-align: center;"> href="http://www.makeuseof.com/pages/using-ios-your-guide-to-the-latest-and-greatest-mobile-operating-system">DOWNLOAD Using iOS: Your Guide to the Latest and Greatest Mobile Operating System

style="text-align: center;">The guide is free but password-protected. Gain access to the guide by:

style="text-align: center;">1- subscribing to our newsletter (you may do this on the download page itself, link above). Existing subscribers will receive the password via email in the next couple of hours.

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

style="text-align: center;">2. Simply share the guide on Facebook, Twitter or Google+ on the download page. Quick and easy.

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/image19-300x300.png" alt="" />I’ve read that href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/the-best-6-sites-to-get-free-ebooks/">e-books are the future of books, and href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/243129/ebooks_vs_print_books.html">it’s not a matter of if they’ll surpass print books but when.  Being still in college, I wondered if that was the case for href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-websites-purchase-electronic-college-textbooks/">e-textbooks. There’s certainly more buzz on e-textbooks as they’re cheaper and it means that students don’t have to break their backs with heavy physical books. But are they better? Is going all digital better?

This whole semester I’ve been dealing with e-textbooks and using just an href="http://www.makeuseof.com/pages/best-android-apps">Android href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-fun-apps-kill-time-android-honeycombtablet/">tablet (Acer Iconia A500) to digitize all of my schoolwork to answer these questions. It’s not even the end of the semester but I can conclude that it’s been more of a hassle than a convenience. The href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-android-tablets-today-buyer-check/">tablet itself is great, but using technology in school isn’t quite the same. Remember the href="http://www.zdnet.com/blog/education/the-kno-is-deadlong-live-kno-thanks-to-30-million-from-intel-et-al/4545">Kno tablet? While I thought it was revolutionary, the concept didn’t seem to be picked up by schools. Universities, professors and students simply (some may be but most) aren’t ready to embrace digital textbooks, and not all professors make it easier for students who want to use their laptops or tablets to replace pen and paper.

Have An e-Textbook? You Will Fail An Open-Book Test

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The argument of e-books versus traditional textbooks books goes beyond whether you prefer the look and feel of an actual book to the more unnatural book-on-a-screen experience. In terms of practicality, there are many obstacles and opposing forces to replacing physical books with digital versions for good. For instance, even right now when tablets have been hot for at least a year since the iPad 1 came out and there are quite a few people who can afford them, none of my professors at my href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/infographic-schools-rule-web/">apparently-expert-in-social-media school so far have declared that they prefer digital textbooks. One of my Computer Science professors reasoned that you can easily cheat on a test, go online on your web-enabled device and easily call or email your mom and ask her to look up the answer in a textbook for you. You could also simply Google the answer.

Having e-books and web-enabled devices also limit forms of testing, which is a just a headache for instructors. They’ll probably hate you for making them figure out a way you can’t cheat on the test and giving them additional work. This is true when the study material is as difficult as figuring out the answer to some obscure logic riddle, and some professors might prefer to give open-notes and open-textbook tests. Right now, since there are some students with the physical books and some with the e-books, those who purchase the digital versions of the textbooks end up disadvantaged.

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Students could solve this by printing segments of their textbooks for the exams, but this is usually not permitted per the textbook publisher. How do I know this? My classmates who buy the (cheaper) digital textbook end up going through hoops of inconvenience to secure a remotely decent grade during these open-textbook exams. That usually includes having to figure out a way to bypass the limitation the textbook publisher has imposed for the e-book – you can only print 10 pages at a time. So the unpleasant options you have when you buy the digital textbook are to either print 10 pages at a time, harass a classmate to make photocopies of their physical book or buy the textbook anyway. I swear this is happening in one of my classes this semester.

Have An e-Textbook & Are Majoring In The Sciences? Your Book Will Confuse You

Another downside I have seen when traditional textbooks are replaced is that not all the text in a specialized textbook will be compatible with the rendering engine of an e-reader or tablet. I am NOT kidding. I’ve seen this first hand when one of my classmates who got the Kindle textbook ended up being totally confused with a formula. The way the formula was displayed on the Kindle involved a delta triangle instead of the correct symbols.

Talking about incompatibility, here’s an example of something equally confusing from my actual Logic class notes on my Android tablet.

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I’m pretty sure those squares up there in the screenshot were meant to be curly braces, but that is just a guess.

Stylus Or Not, Hand-Writing On A Tablet Will Suck (& Be Slower Than If You Just Freakin’ Use Pen & Paper)

Right now, iPad and tablet owners have probably thought it best to try a stylus in the hope that they can replace paper. I know I have. I used href="http://www.amazon.com/Bamboo-Stylus-for-iPad-CS100K/dp/B004VM0SE6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1320470440&sr=8-1">Bamboo’s Stylus for iPad, which is supposed to be one of the best styluses out there, on href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.adsk.sketchbookhd">Autodesk’s SketchBook Pro, which is probably the best drawing app on the Android Market right now. Though both were good, no matter how long I tried to get used to it, I have found that using a stylus on a touchscreen just isn’t as pleasurable as it is using pen and paper.

It’s probably too much to ask for the stylus experience to be similar to what you get with a pen, I reckon, but it’s the precision and extra pressure you need to add that put me off. Want some proof? Here are my actual notes, taken with a stylus. Does this look legible to you?

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Parts of my hand-writing aren’t so bad; some other parts look like hieroglyphs. If you own an iPad and have experienced something different, let me know in the comments. For me, no matter how much I try to like a stylus, it just doesn’t cut it for me.

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As you can see here in my actual Logic class notes, another problem I’ve experienced is that if you’re focusing somewhat hard on making your notes legible, guess what, it’ll take you longer than usual and perhaps the professor will have moved on and erased the tidbit of information that was meant to copied quickly.

There are also problems when your tablet doesn’t actually support palm rejection or requires you to write really big and you have to keep zooming in and out. There have been some newer tablets that hold promise and seem to solve some of these problems, like the href="http://noteslate.com/">Noteslate (which seems to be vaporware), the HTC View and the href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pz48l2Va3Wk">Lenovo Thinkpad tablet. If you have these tablets, please share your experiences in the comments.

Now if we’re talking about a graphics tablet (like a 12’’ href="http://www.wacom.com/en/Products/Cintiq/Cintiq12WX.aspx">Cintiq), it might be a whole different ball game, but you’ll have to lug around both your laptop and the graphics tablet to school, and set up your little office during every single class, provided you have enough desk space…

There’s No Way To Sync Last-Read Points In Your Study Material

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You like having your leisure books synced on the Kindle, Kobo, Google Books, etc. apps, right? Imagine having to study books and slides (especially PDF slides and Powerpoint presentations that professors use so much these days) and not having a way to sync these across your computer, tablet or phone. It becomes increasingly annoying when there are more and more instructors relying on these slideshows and there’s always a need to either print them out (countering the purpose of saving paper in the first place) or re-figure out again where it is that you last read.

This frustration is something I’ve personally experienced and perhaps is not well-founded since you could try to figure out a way to remember the last checkpoints in your collection of slides, but I just don’t see why e-books can be synced so easily nowadays, yet digital slides, online tutorials, etc, aren’t so easy to organize.

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That’s why I appreciate ideas like href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/ibisreader-cool-ebook-reader/">Ibis Reader which allows you to upload PDF documents and read them on the web with any device, but until the project is optimized for bookmarking last-read pages and so forth, it’s just for the casual reader that’s not in school.

Yes, Benefits Do Exist

I’ve encountered some inconveniences as you can see, but there are more good sides of owning a laptop , tablet or smartphone.

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Not only do tablets (and smartphones too!) make good clocks, they also are just lighter than a pile of textbooks of course, offer excellent battery life, are great e-readers (not for school), can be your personal planners, etc.

The point of this post isn’t to bash tablets or laptops. This rant is just my opinion of the current state of personal technology in schools. There are many ways to solve or remedy these concerns, but as of right now, the notion of having digital textbooks and using tablets for school is fraught with many problems. The transition to digitizing schoolwork is just fractured in many places because some are enthusiastic about the old ways, and others are ready to touch the future (on their tablets).

Agree or disagree? Let us know your opinions in the comments below!

Image credit: href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=49607542" rel="nofollow">karam Miri, href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=86344822" rel="nofollow">Dmitry Lobanov, href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=85314694" rel="nofollow">Digital Storm, href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=77151811" rel="nofollow">Olaf Speier

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class="align-right"src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/gnome_pie_intro.jpg" alt="launch applications linux"/>Over the years, we’ve changed a lot about the way we try to launch our applications. Out of all the operating systems out there, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/service/linux">Linux seems to be the experimental playground to try out different methods of launching applications. First it was typing in their name on the command line, then there were menus, then there was href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/find-launch-linux-applications-flash-gnome/">Gnome-Do, and recently there was href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/quickly-find-search-launcher-app-synapse-ubuntu/">Synapse.

However, all those have slowly faded, and a new, promising solution has appeared which already offers an effective way to launch your applications in Linux.

About GNOME Pie

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/gnome_pie_multimedia.jpg" alt="launch applications linux" width="580" height="422" /> /> href="https://github.com/Simmesimme/Gnome-Pie">GNOME Pie is the latest piece of software that lets you launch any of your applications, favorite locations, and more using a hotkey combination and your mouse. When configured correctly, it seems to be very effective for users, but also visually appealing. So you have been warned: work comes before play.

Installation

The program can be easily installed via href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/ubuntu">Ubuntu thanks to its system of personal repositories, while users of other Linux distributions will have to compile it themselves (if you’re willing to do that, then you probably don’t need my help with that). So, in Ubuntu, you can run the following commands to add the repository, update your package lists, and install the new package:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:simonschneegans/testing /> sudo apt-get update /> sudo apt-get install gnome-pie

Usage

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/gnome_pie_applications.jpg" alt="launch apps linux" width="580" height="433" /> /> Once that completes, you need to launch GNOME Pie via your terminal by entering gnome-pie. The application will, for now, run from the terminal, so if you close the terminal, you close GNOME Pie, but we will fix this shortly. Once it is opened, you can get the feel for it by playing around with it for a while. The default hotkeys are: View Bookmarks: Ctrl+Alt+B, Multimedia: Ctrl+Alt+M, Sessions: Ctrl+Alt+Q, Applications: Ctrl+Alt+A, Main Menu: Ctrl+Alt+A, Space and Windows: Ctrl+Alt+W. To exit, you can either hit Esc or simply right-click.

Settings

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/gnome_pie_options1.jpg" alt="launch apps linux" width="557" height="580" /> /> Once you’ve had a little fun (or just want to go to the settings first), you can do that by clicking on the very nice looking system indicator (aka tray icon) and clicking on settings. In the General tab, you can choose things like whether you want it to startup on login, whether it should show an indicator, “turbo mode”, the overall size of the entire pie, and which theme you’d like to use. Ubuntu users will probably use the href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/ubuntu-1104-unity-big-leap-linux/">Unity theme as that is Ubuntu’s shell. GNOME 3 users will probably want to use Adwaita to keep everything uniform.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/gnome_pie_options2.jpg" alt="launch applications linux" width="553" height="580" /> /> In the Pies tab, you can change any number of aspects for each pie. You can add new pies, add new slices, delete some as well, and change the hotkey combination to launch each pie. The exact configuration is up to you, so there isn’t much else I can say here. Configure as you please!

More Love

Now that you’ve configured everything to your liking, you can play around some more. Launching applications is very intuitive. After pressing the hotkey (Ctrl+Alt+Space), you’ll be presented with the different categories, where you can then click on one and get a different set of items on your pie, according to the category that you have chosen.

Conclusion

That’s it! GNOME Pie is easy to install, configure, and use, and its visual appeal is also very much appreciated. Now you can launch all your applications and folders quickly and in style. In time we’ll see whether GNOME Pie is just another fad like Synapse, or whether this little app is going to stick around for quite some time. Personally, I like it and hope that it gets to stay around.

Windows users, are you jelly yet? (For those who don’t know, “jelly” is slang among American youth for “jealous”.)

What are your opinions of GNOME Pie? Out of all the application launchers, which was your favorite? Why? Let us know in the comments!

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/wordpress-logo-300x300.png" alt="" />Most of you probably already know that href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/wordpress">WordPress powers a large amount of websites that we look at every day. With the large userbase and support, you can do a lot of cool things with it. While WordPress even offers one-click upgrades to the latest WP versions, some people simply can’t use it because their server doesn’t support it, they don’t have any href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/ftp/">FTP accounts (maybe you uploaded files using href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/ssh/">SSH?), or whatever else the reason may be. If this is the case, you’ve more than likely had to update your site by manually copying over the new files. However, there’s really no need to do that anymore, as you can set up your WordPress site in a way where updating is much more simple.

I will be explaining how to create a brand new WordPress blog on your Linux server using Subversion (SVN) as well as how to convert a “traditional” installation to an SVN-type installation, as most people who will want to do this probably already have a blog going. This is possible because Automattic (the creators of WordPress) operate a SVN repository that allows this functionality. Without this repository, none of this would work.

Before you start, you’ll probably need to install Subversion onto your server. For href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/ubuntu">Ubuntu and href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/debian/">Debian servers, use

sudo apt-get install subversion

while href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/linux-fedora-16-beta-distribution/">Fedora/Red Hat/CentOS users should use

sudo yum install subversion

Creating A New Blog

In order to create a new SVN-controlled WordPress instance, log into your server using a program such as PuTTY, using :

cd /path/to/a/folder

so you can use

mkdir blog

to create a new folder named blog in your current location. Then use

cd blog

to go into the new folder, and run

svn co http://core.svn.wordpress.org/tags/3.2.1 .

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to download and install WordPress into the current folder. If there is a newer version, replace 3.2.1 with the latest version. Also, don’t forget to include that lonesome period (.) at the end of the command as that is needed for the command to run correctly. Wait for the process to complete, then you can go ahead and enter in the correct URL to begin the installation script.

Converting From “Traditional” To SVN

Converting your blog to be controlled by SVN will require a few new steps. Essentially, this will create a new blog that is SVN-controlled, and move all your content and settings over to that new blog. This isn’t as invasive as it sounds, and shouldn’t mess up anything that you currently have on your blog.

To get started, use “cd” to go to where your blog folder is located (don’t actually go into the blog folder). Here we are going to assume that your old blog is in a folder named “blog” and your temporary new blog is going to be in a folder named “blog-new“. Go ahead and run

svn co http://core.svn.wordpress.org/tags/3.2.1 blog-new

which will create the new “blog-new” folder and download the necessary files into it. Please make sure that you download the same version as the one you are currently using. So if you’re not running the latest version, don’t choose the latest version in this process.

Next we’re going to go into the old blog folder by running

cd ../blog

and then copy the main config file as well as the htaccess file by running

cp -p wp-config.php .htaccess ../blog-new

so that these important files are in the new blog folder.

Now we’re going to copy over the actual content of your blog to the new folder, including plugins, themes, and whatnot. To do this, run

cp -rpfu wp-content/* ../blog-new/wp-content

and let that take a couple seconds or more, depending on how large your blog is. WordPress-provided plugins shouldn’t be affected, but you can double-check to make sure everything is running smoothly by running

svn status ../blog-new/wp-content.

Any files that were modified will have an “M” next to them and need to be reverted by using

svn revert ../blog-new/wp-content/some/file.

Any custom files or directories can also be copied by running

cp -rp images wp-digest ../blog-new

You can check that everything is copied over correctly and good to go by running

diff -rq blog/ blog-new/ | grep -v svn

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(This is an example after I intentionally removed some files)

We’re almost done! We’re now going to move out to the big folder containing the two blog folders by running

cd ..

and then renaming them to make the final switch-a-roo by running

mv blog blog-old; mv blog-new blog.

Congrats! Your SVN-controlled blog should now be up and running! If not, you may have forgotten to copy something from the old blog (now located in the renamed folder “blog-old”). You can now go ahead and update to the latest version if needed.

Updating Your Blog

To update your SVN-controlled WordPress blog, you’ll need to go into the directory of your blog using the “cd” command and then run :

svn sw http://core.svn.wordpress.org/tags/3.2.1/ .

which will switch your blog to the newest version. Remember to replace 3.2.1 with the latest version available.

Conclusion

For those that support it, SVN is a great version tracking tool that is highly effective, relatively easy to use, and very fast. It’s a great thing that WordPress can be controlled via SVN, increasing the flexibility of the already-flexible WordPress platform. No wonder it’s one of the most used frameworks for sites today.

What do you think about WordPress and SVN working together? Have you even known that this was possible? Let us know in the comments!

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/creader-icon.png" alt="text only google reader" />Do you want an immersive, text-only Google Reader? Try going through your reading list in the terminal. It’s easy to do with terminal web browser elinks and Google Reader’s mobile interface.

href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/google-reader/">Google Reader‘s interface is famously minimalist, but browsers hardly make ideal reading platforms. They give you convenient access to a plethora of distractions, from social networks to pictures of kittens. Avoid such distractions and focus on your reading by doing your reading in the command line. Besides, the command line is just plain cool, so you should be using it anyway.

eLinks is a text-only browser you can run from the command line. It is easily installed on Linux and Mac systems alike, so this idea works on both of those systems.

Installing eLinks

The first step, of course, is installing eLinks. Using Linux? Installing eLinks is simple, then. Just check your package manager of choice for it. Using Ubuntu? Simply href="apt:elinks">click here to install.

Are you a Mac user? Congratulations, most of you aren’t awesome enough to be interested in the command line. You think different. href="http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/26416/elinks">Find a Mac download for eLinks here. You’ll find the Terminal in your Applications folder, under “Utilities“.

Once you’ve got the program working, you can open it in the terminal by typing “elinks” and hitting enter.

Launching Google Reader

Want to get to Google Reader quickly? Type this command into the terminal:

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/creader-command.png" alt="text only google reader" width="580" height="119" />

elinks google.com/reader/m

Just like that, you’ve opened a web browser straight to Google Reader’s mobile page. You will need to log in now. Use the arrow keys to get to the entry fields, then hit enter to add text. Log in and you will see your reading list:

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/creader-list.png" alt="text only rss reader" width="580" height="199" />

Use your arrow keys to open up your article of choice. You will then see a text-only version of the article in question:

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/creader-content.png" alt="text only rss reader" width="578" height="192" />

I highly recommend pressing the space bar to scroll down; it will “turn the page” completely.

Of course, this all assumes that the RSS feeds you subscribe to are full text. If some of them aren’t, Google will do what it can to convert links to a mobile version if you click a link. Alternatively, you can href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-ways-view-full-rss-feeds-google-reader/">convert any RSS feed to full text with these tools. FullTextRSS in particular worked wonderfully for me.

Do you want a completely immersive reading experience? In most Linux distros, including Ubuntu, you can switch to terminal-only by hitting “ALT”, “CTL” and any of the “F” keys from 1 to 6. Pressing “ALT”, “CTL” and “F7″, for example, will bring you back to your graphical environment.

Alternatively, you could simply go full screen or maximize the terminal. That works too.

Other Potential Sites

eLinks doesn’t just work with Google Reader, of course – it’s a full blown web browser. Just about any site should work, but mobile versions of famous sites tend to work best, like the href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/mobile/i/">BBC Mobile version.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/creader-mac.png" alt="text only google reader" width="580" height="205" />

Can you think of any other sites you’d like to read in this way? Share them in the comments below, as always! Also feel free to share any other simple command line tricks you use to keep yourself from being distracted.

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/phishing1.jpg" alt="what is phishing" />I’ve never been a fan of fishing, myself. This is mostly because of an early expedition to a pond where my cousin managed to catch two fish with a bamboo pole, while the fancy fiberglass-reinforced rod I had caught me zip, zero, nada.

Similar to real-life fishing, phishing scams aren’t always best when they rely on advanced tactics, but there are many new techniques motivated by social networks. So what is phishing, and what should you be wary of?

The Basics of Phishing

According to href="http://www.microsoft.com/security/resources/phishing-whatis.aspx">Microsoft’s Safety & Security Center, phishing can be summed up as:

“A type of online identity theft. It uses email and fraudulent websites that are designed to steal your personal data or information such as credit card numbers, passwords, account data, or other information”.

In other words, phishers are the Loki of the Internet. They’re tricksters. Often, the techniques used by phishers have absolutely nothing to do with exploiting zero-day threats. Instead, they exploit human psychology.

There is one point on which I disagree with Microsoft, however, and that’s their description of phishing as “a type of online identity theft”. This isn’t always the case. As I’ll explain in some examples of recent scams, phishing tactics are often used to simply harvest data or to trick people into purchasing a product.

Traditional Phishing

In many cases, Microsoft is correct. Many phishing attacks are attempts to steal personal information. Often, they do so using link manipulation and website forgery. The traditional example is an email that seems to come from a legitimate source, like your bank. It claims that there’s been some problem, or perhaps offers you a lower interest rate on a credit card. All you need to do is log in via the link in the email, which appears legitimate.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/phishing2.png" alt="what is phishing" width="535" height="348" />

But it’s not. The link has been manipulated to look correct, but it actually redirects you to a forged website. Once you enter your login information, the phisher has it, and can use it to log in and use your account. Sometimes, the attack will go further and request you to fill in personal information like your social security number, credit card number, address, and so on. Identity theft is just a hop, skip and a jump away from there.

Traditional phishing can be combated by refusing to follow links in such emails. If you receive something from your bank that claims you need to log into your account, simply go to your bank’s website by entering the URL manually and then log in. In fact, some banks and other organizations no longer even send links to users precisely because doing so makes phishing attacks more effective, as users become confused about what is and is not legitimate.

You can also combat phishing using an Internet Security suite with anti-phishing features. These monitor your browser and look for signs that a website is a forgery. Extensions like href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/7-security-tools-you-absolutely-must-have/">Web of Trust can also be effective.

Phone Phishing

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/phishing3.jpg" alt="phishing scams" width="300" height="437" />

Within the last few years, phone phishing has become a popular tactic. I myself received a phone call last month claiming to be from the Federal Credit Union Administration, which said my debit card had been locked due to potential identity theft. All I had to do to rectify the situation was give them my debit card information so my account could be verified. Of course, it’s a total scam, and one that’s been going on for years. If you enter your information, it can easily be used for fraudulent purchases.

There’s no software solution to this particular threat, so you simply have to be skeptical. If you receive a call from an organization that wants personal information, call them back at a publicly listed number, rather than the one provided for you in the voicemail.  Phone phishing also tends to give itself away by being vague – usually, it won’t claim to actually be from your credit card company or bank specifically, but something more general, such as the “Federal Credit Union Administration” call I received.

Social Network Phishing

The rise of social networks has given phishing new life. After all, social networks are all about sharing. It’s not at all unusual for a friend to post a link to a nifty article, so users are less likely to be skeptical, and more likely to click on a phishing link.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that phishing on social networks usually isn’t as severe. Usually, the deception will be something href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/steve-jobs-scams-spread-social-networking-news/">like the recent Steve Jobs’ death scams, which are simply looking to harvest email addresses or send people to affiliate links. You might be annoyed by additional spam, but that’s it.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/stevejobsnews11.jpg" alt="what is phishing" width="570" height="341" />

Still, some of these attacks can be fairly harmful. Banks have Twitter feeds and Facebook pages too, and fake ones can be used to try and lure users to forged websites, just like a bogus email. These accounts can be hacked, too. href="http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/201138/7633/Report-Bank-of-Melbourne-s-Twitter-feed-used-for-Phishing">The Bank of Melbourne experienced this, although as is often the case with phishers, the messages sent by the compromised account weren’t of high enough quality to fool many people.

Phishing on social networks can be combated the same way as phishing through email. Security software and extensions can help. You can also use a href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/page-preview-time-saving-browser-add-onsfirefox-ie-flock-safari/">link preview extension to see if an abbreviated link is sending you where it claims.

Conclusion

Phishing will always exist, because there will always be ways to trick people. It’s easy to look down upon the victims as being stupid, but often the people who fall for the tricks simply lack proper education about computers, or are in a situation that compromises their judgment (don’t check your email while drunk, or excessively tired).

In this case, knowledge is power. With skepticism and a few security tools, you can avoid phishing threats and shut down one of the most common methods of identity theft.  Have you been a victim of phishing?

Image Credit: href="http://www.probillfish.com/">Pro Team Sport Fishing

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/bluefishlogo1.png" alt="create web pages fast"/>Although it has been decades since the first web designer opened up a text editor to create the very first HTML document, the tools of the trade haven’t really changed a whole lot.

Sure, websites are now powered by blog platforms like WordPress, or WYSIWYG editors like Kompozer, but the bottom line is that most hard core web designers will always find it necessary to pop open a text editor to tweak the style a little bit here, or to realign the template a bit more there.

I think that text editors are going to be around in the world of web design for a very long time, at least for those web programmers that are always neck-deep into improving and optimizing professional websites. So, it stands to reason that text editing tools would evolve that are more powerful and smarter; Tools created specifically for the needs of those hard-core web designers and web programmers.

Bluefish – The Text Editor for Programmers

For years, I was very adamant about sticking with Notepad, no matter what everyone else started using. In my opinion, WYSIWYG editors just padding way too much garbage into the code (particularly MS Word’s silly save-as-HTML feature).

I was very tempted to try Notepad++ when I first heard about it. Then, after reading Simon’s article on href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/sublime-text-the-text-editor-youll-fall-in-love-with/">Sublime Text, I was tempted yet again. I’ve always been hesitant to jump on any bandwagon until a good, solid winner takes root.

This year, I have to confess that I’ve finally found a code editor that I can’t resist – it’s called href="http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/index.html">Bluefish.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;"src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/bluefish1.png" alt="create web pages fast" width="503" height="389" />

When you first setup Bluefish, you’ll see the first reason I like it so much – it is designed to handle a huge assortment of programming languages, from straight HTML and PHP to Java, VB and even ASP. The kind of flexibility is a nice thing to have in a code editor, especially if you often have your hands into many different programming languages.

And Bluefish does programming well. But before we get to that, I wanted to just show you how cool this program looks. Up to this point I haven’t found a coder’s editor with this kind of aesthetic coolness on the front end – with the most important, easy-to-find tools and tabs right at your fingertips on the main screen, depending what code you’re focused on at the moment. /> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/bluefish2.png" alt="free web page editor" width="578" height="526" /> /> As you can see, file navigation is right there on the left – no need to flip back and forth between Windows Explorer and your editor. Do all of your file exploring from right within the application itself.

That includes all of the usual things you can do with a file explorer, like moving or renaming folders and files. /> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/bluefish3.png" alt="free web page editor" width="542" height="500" /> /> When you launch a new document from the file menu, if you choose template you’ll see that Bluefish has a few pre-built program templates available. This is especially useful if you write a lot of web pages, for example, and don’t want to recreate the same generic XHTML or PHP structure. Instead, just launch Bluefish’s template and you can immediately get into creating the content. /> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/bluefish3a.png" alt="free web page editor" width="472" height="503" /> /> The pic below is the standard HTML template with the header, title and body tags pre-built for you. As you can see, lines are numbered, and while you’re typing the application has a feature where it will auto-complete tags for you. /> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/bluefish3b.png" alt="web page editor" width="475" height="438" /> /> As you can see in the menu bar, there are also pre-built code snippets available under each program language. For example, HTML has standard code for web forms, and PHP has standard code snippets for how to connect to an ODBC or MySQL database. /> class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-89084" style="border-width: 1px; border-color: black; border-style: solid;" title="bluefish4" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/bluefish4.png" alt="" width="577" height="361" /> /> This can save a lot of time if you’re the kind of person (like me) that often forgets the exact syntax to do some of the most basic things. To complete the code snippet for you, the program will ask you for the details. In the case of making database connections, it’ll ask you for the data source and the login details. Then it’ll basically write the code for you. /> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/bluefish7.png" alt="web page editor" width="423" height="359" /> /> The same is true for a whole list of HTML tasks – making this app a web designers dream. You can code the same web page in half the time using Bluefish. Just tap the element that you want, provide the dialog box with a few details, and the code gets typed up and inserted for you. /> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/bluefish8.png" alt="web page editor" width="563" height="501" /> /> It isn’t WYSIWYG, but in my opinion it’s ten times better. You know what you want to do in the code, you just don’t have time to keep checking your reference book for the right syntax – so Bluefish lets you cut the headache.

More programming aids are available from the top menu as well. If you have an HTML file open, click the “Tags” menu and you’ll see dozens of quick code functions available to choose from. Create a web form with a fraction of the effort. /> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/bluefish9.png" alt="" width="535" height="420" /> /> As though the programming aids and tools weren’t enough, don’t forget to check out the “Tools” menu where you’ll find the ability to organize your code by joining/splitting lines, indenting, or using a filter to strip all empty lines from your code. /> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/bluefish10.png" alt="create web pages fast" width="580" height="577" /> /> At the bottom of the main window, you’ll also find an output variable area for coding in languages like PHP or C++, useful to see whether your code is really doing what you want it to do.

I think it’s safe to say that Bluefish has won over my heart when it comes to “intelligent coding” rather than just hacking away in Notepad. So, give Bluefish a try and let us know whether it simplified your programming experience at all. what do you like about it? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/createweb-pages-faster-bluefish-editor/">Create Web Pages Five Times Faster Using the Bluefish Editor [Cross-Platform] 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/2011/10/screenshot1413.jpg" alt="" />Almost a year ago, Apple introduced href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/locate-missing-stolen-iphone-ipad-ipod-touch-find-iphone-mac/">Find My iPhone, an iOS app that locates your iPhone, through an Apple me.com account. It allows you to either send a display message to your phone, a new passcode that will lock it down, or permanently wipe all of the data. With the introduction of iOS 5, Apple has created a similar app for finding your friends and family members called href="https://www.apple.com/icloud/features/find-my.html">Find My Friends.

Find My Friends enables you to geolocate your friends from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch (running the latest operating software, iOS 5). The app requires that both you and your friends are running the program on an iOS device. You and your friends must also have an Apple ID and an iCloud account for the app to work. You can use your contacts in your Address Book to send invitations, but the process doesn’t tell you if your friends has an iPhone or other iOS device.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/screenshot1412.jpg" alt="Screenshot1412" width="580" height="418" border="0" />

After your friends accept your request for location information, you will be able to keep track of where they are. Find My Friends might be useful for keeping track of your teenager or traveling companions when you’re on a vacation. You can’t contact selected found friends from within the app, but you can connect through FaceTime, phone, or email.  But the app could also have other consequences.  Allegedly, it has already been held responsible for href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/17/find-my-friends-iphone-4s-app-breaks-up-marriage_n_1015851.html">exposing an affair and breaking up a marriage.

You can also use the Temporary feature to allow selected friends to receive your geolocation for a specified period of time without them requesting it.

Find My Friends is href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/find-my-friends/id466122094?mt=8">a free download from the iTunes App Store.

What do you think of the app?  Extremely useful or rather creepy?

Source: href="http://www.macworld.com/article/162969/2011/10/apple_releases_find_my_friends_for_ios.html#lsrc.rss_main">Macworld

href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/find-friends-ios-device-news/">Find Your Friends Using Your iOS Device [News] 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/2011/10/command.png" alt="automate telnet" />Writing batch jobs ( href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/write-simple-batch-bat-file/">.bat) and more recently href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-awesome-windows-scripting/">Windows scripts (.wsf) is an activity that really makes up the bulk of how the large majority of network and system administrators do their jobs faster, and simplify what would otherwise be time-consuming, complex tasks. Using batch jobs, you can automate installing and uninstalling applications, doing an inventory of software and OS settings of all PCs on your network, and a multitude of other queries and jobs. However, there are certain tasks that sometimes go through multiple layers of authentication, such as telnet.

Many network administrators have to telnet into network switches in order to query or set up ports, monitor the health of systems, or even reboot network devices that accept commands via telnet. Wouldn’t it be sweet if you could automate telnet jobs just like you would script regular batch jobs?

The truth is that if you are accustomed to using VB script to create your Windows scripts (or even if you aren’t), VB scripts provides a very useful feature where you can establish the Windows Shell script as an object, and then issue that “object” carefully timed commands. Essentially, this is exactly like you are sitting at a command window and typing in commands. The only difference is that your Windows script is sending the window the commands for you.

Automate Your Telnet Job

There are basically two parts to this task. You need to establish the sequence of commands that you want to go through during the typical telnet session.

Here’s what I want to do. I have 5 devices throughout the network that can be remotely rebooted via telnet by issuing 4 simple commands. I have to first telnet to it using the IP address and a specific port. Next, a menu appears, and I have to first press enter.

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After I hit enter during this telnet session, the next menu expects a numeric response, followed by Enter.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/telnet3.png" alt="automate telnet" width="580" height="293" />

Sounds a bit impossible for a scripting job, doesn’t it? Well, never underestimate the power of Visual Basic.

Now, there are other methods to do this. Just check out Abhigyan’s href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/automate-multiple-rapidshare-downloads/">article on Tst10.exe to see how some people like to use the Tst scripting method to automate telnet sessions. Unfortunately, you’ll also see that it can be slightly complex for someone not accustomed to writing many scripts. Tcl is also another similar scripting language programmers have used for years for the same task.

However, I’m going to show you how a VB script file will do the same tasks in a fraction of the time and using a script that is monumentally easier to understand.

So here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to break up the script into sections. Put all of these into a text file called something like Autotelnet.wsf, double click, and it’ll run.

First – establish the telnet session:

<job> /> <script language="VBScript">

Option Explicit /> On Error Resume Next

Dim WshShell

set WshShell=CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

WshShell.run "cmd.exe" /> WScript.Sleep 1000

'Send commands to the window as needed - IP and commands need to be customized

'Step 1 - Telnet to remote IP' /> WshShell.SendKeys "telnet xx.xx.xx.73 9999" /> WshShell.SendKeys ("{Enter}") /> WScript.Sleep 1000

The section of code above will automatically open a command window and then telnet to the device on whatever specific port you need to connect. Replace “x’s” with your own IP.

The sleep command will wait long enough for the device to respond and prompt your script for the next command. Make sure this wait time is long enough for that action to take place.

Secondly, you need to send each command, one at a time, providing enough wait time between them for the telnet session to respond.

'Step 2 - Issue Commands with pauses'

WshShell.SendKeys ("{Enter}") /> WScript.Sleep 1000

WshShell.SendKeys "5" /> WshShell.SendKeys ("{Enter}") /> WScript.Sleep 1000

In this example, I’ve issued the two commands that I noted above. First, I have the script send the “Enter” command, wait a second, then send a “5″ and press “Enter” again. This short series of actions will perform exactly as though you were sitting in front of the telnet command window doing them yourself. You’ll just need to customize this script to perform the exact responses that your telnet session requires.

Finally, don’t forget to close the command window and end the script.

'Step 3 - Exit Command Window

WshShell.SendKeys "exit" /> WshShell.SendKeys ("{Enter}")

WScript.Quit

</script> /> </job>

That’s all there is to automate telnet – three easy steps inside a very uncomplicated script. Just take the three sections above and customize them to your heart’s desire. You’ll be automating all of your support tasks to manage network switches, time clocks or other remote systems that communicate via telnet.

If you have repetitive tasks that you have to do often, make your life a lot simpler by creating automated Windows scripts that’ll do those tasks for you. You’ll be more productive, and your boss will be really impressed!

Do you have any other ideas for cool tasks you could automate using this kind of Windows script? How have you been automating your own telnet tasks? Share your thoughts and insight in the comments section below.

Image Credit: href="http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/53295/53295,1131269468,1/stock-photo-computer-command-prompt-696439.jpg" rel="nofollow">Shutterstock

href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/automate-telnet-commands-vb-script/">How To Automate Telnet Commands Using VB Script is a post from: href="http://www.makeuseof.com">MakeUseOf

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/agimp-icon.png" alt="" />Do you love using href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/gimp/">the Gimp, but feel lost amongst all the tools and options? Find just the things you need for the job at hand, instantly, with a simple search. With href="http://www.adaptablegimp.org">Adaptable Gimp, you’ll even find step-by-step instructions for accomplishing precisely the thing you want to do. This software, powered by user contributions, makes it easy for just about anyone to use The Gimp. It all revolves around “TaskSets”, a concept so amazingly useful you’ll wonder why it wasn’t in The Gimp all along.

Want to remove red eye from a photo? There’s a TaskSet for that. Same for adding drop shadows to text, cropping and resizing photos and drawing basic shapes. Stop stumbling through controls. Whether you consider it a Gimp training tool or a full-blown replacement for the image editing suite, Adaptable Gimp is something you should check out.

Introducing TaskSets

src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/qP8c2R8YEb4?hd=1" frameborder="0" width="580" height="325">

For the most part, Adaptable Gimp looks like The Gimp. The main difference is the left sidebar:

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/agimp-default.png" alt="" width="578" height="345" />

As you can see, there is a search bar and a box containing a subset of Gimp tools. Search for a given TaskSet and you’ll quickly find results:

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/agimp-search.png" alt="" width="577" height="275" />

I’m constantly cropping and resizing photos for MakeUseOf, so “Crop and Resize” is the TaskSet for me. When I select this TaskSet, this is what I see:

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/agimp-toolset.png" alt="" width="578" height="345" />

As you can see, only the tools I need to crop and resize images are here, and nothing else. Even better, they are here in the order that I need them, and there are instructions for using them. This makes my job a lot easier.

Naturally, many of the toolsets are more complicated than this. Are you curious about the kinds of TaskSets that are out there? Find them all on the href="http://adaptablegimp.org/w/Browse_Tasksets">Adaptable Gimp wiki. This wiki isn’t just a fan-created list of all TaskSets: it’s the actual database used by Adaptable Gimp.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/agimp-wiki.png" alt="" width="527" height="293" />

New sets are added constantly, which is really nice. Users of the software keep making it better, meaning you can accomplish more and more with this software as time goes on.

Creating TaskSets

Do you want to help make Adaptable Gimp better yourself? Simple. A built-in TaskSet creation tool makes this easy:

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Just add the tools needed for a given job, then provide instructions. Your TaskSet will be saved to the wiki, making it available to all Adaptable Gimp users. You’ll be sharing your Gimp expertise with the world, and making this software better for everyone. So don’t complain if Adaptable Gimp doesn’t yet do something you want to do. Instead, add your own TaskSet and it will help everyone out.

Download Adaptable Gimp

Ready to start using Adaptable Gimp? href="http://www.adaptablegimp.org/w/Download_AdaptableGIMP">Download it here. You’ll find an installer for Windows, and installation instructions for Linux. Sorry Mac users!

Once you check it out, be sure to let us know what you think of the software. Can you see yourself using it regularly? If not, do you think it’s a useful tool for teaching others? Or do you prefer href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-websites-learn-gimp-photo-editor-online/">websites with instructions for learning The Gimp? Should Photoshop add something similar to Adaptive Gimp? Share these thoughts and more in the comments below.

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