BitDefender - Aktuelle Nachrichten

Cyberkriminelle tarnen Spam als konkrete Job-Angebote
Holzwickede, 09. März 2010 – Ein „alter Bekannter“ sorgt in der Welt der E-Threats wieder für Aufsehen. Die Sicherheitsexperten von BitDefender (www.bitdefender.de) registrierten jüngst vermehrt Infektionen durch Win32.Worm.Mabezat.J. Dieser verbreitet sich über englischsprachige Spam-Mails, die eine mit dem Wurm infizierte Datei „winmail.dat“ im Anhang enthält. Der neueste Trick: Die Mails wurden von Cyberkriminellen als konkrete Job-Angebote getarnt.

Überraschung im BitDefender Malware-Ranking: Trojaner Clicker nicht mehr unter den ersten Zehn
Holzwickede, 04. März 2010 – Viel Bewegung im aktuellen BitDefender E-Threat-Report (www.bitdefender.de): Gleich drei Neueinsteiger mischen sich im Februar unter die weltweit gefährlichsten Malware-Bedrohungen. Exploit.PDF-Payload.Gen belegt sogar auf Anhieb Rang vier. Für eine kleine Sensation sorgt dagegen Clicker. Noch im Vormonat auf Position eins und im gesamten vergangenen Jahr stets unter den ersten drei platziert, ist der bekannte Trojaner plötzlich nicht mehr in den Top 10 zu finden.

BVB-Sponsorenmesse bietet Blick hinter die Kulissen und Chance auf 100.000 Euro
Holzwickede, 24. Februar 2010 – Fußballbundesligist Borussia Dortmund veranstaltet am 2. März seine 5. Sponsorenmesse im SIGNAL IDUNA-Park. Von 10.00 bis 18.00 Uhr lädt der BVB Interessierte dazu ein, sich auf der Nordtribüne über Produkte und Dienstleistungen ihrer Sponsoren und Partner zu informieren, Kontakte zu knüpfen und einen Blick hinter die Kulissen des größten reinen Fußballstadions der Bundesliga zu werfen. Mit dabei ist einer der jüngst dazu gekommenen Partner des BVB – die BitDefender GmbH aus Holzwickede. Der Sicherheits-Software-Hersteller bietet neben dem Einblick in sein Produktangebot für Consumer und Unternehmen zusätzlich die Chance, 100.000 Euro zu gewinnen.

QuickScan von BitDefender: Schnelltest ab sofort auch unter Google Chrome verfügbar
Holzwickede, 22. Februar 2010 – Der Sicherheitsexperte BitDefender (www.bitdefender.de) hat sein Online-Tool zur Erkennung von Malware erweitert: BitDefender QuickScan ist nun neben ActiveX, Internet Explorer und Firefox auch mit dem Webbrowser Google Chrome kompatibel. Damit steht Usern eine intelligente Alternative zu herkömmlichen Online-Scannern zur Verfügung. Das Tool ermöglicht eine schnelle sowie zuverlässige Überprüfung des PC, ohne dabei Bandbreite und Systemressourcen zu belasten.

BitDefender: Webinar vermittelt detailliertes Know-how zur „Security for Exchange”
Holzwickede, 23. Februar 2010 – Der Antiviren-Spezialist BitDefender führt am 18. März ein Webinar für den fachgerechten Einsatz seiner Software „Security for Exchange“ durch. Von 15.00 bis 17.30 Uhr erhalten die Teilnehmer einen umfassenden Einblick in die Installation und optimierte Nutzung der Business-Security-Software. BitDefender-Partner und Fachhändler können sich unter www.bitdefender.de kostenlos anmelden.

Make Tech Easier

How to Create Space Scenes Quickly and Easily in Gimp
I’m a sucker for a cool space wallpaper, and judging by the images I find online, so are many of you. Creating a cool space scene can be done in a few minutes once you’ve got the basic method down, and Gimp provides several ways to go about adding random elements to keep things interesting. In this guide we’ll cover a 10 minute method to creating a galactic landscape that may not win you any awards but will certainly add some depth to your desktop. If you do not already have Gimp (available by default in current Ubuntu versions) it’s freely available for download here for Windows, Linux, and Mac. This tutorial will be using Gimp 2.6.7. Creating the Stars We will, of course, want to start with a layer of stars. With Gimp open, go to File -> New. At the minimum, you will want your image size to be your desktop resolution, such as 1024×768 or 1440×900. Under Advanced Options, choose Fill With: Foreground Color (black). Now it’s time to create our stars. On the canvas window, go to Filters -> Noise -> Hurl. Select Randomize and click OK. To remove color from the stars simply click Colors -> Desaturate -> OK. We can always add in color later if desired. To thin out the dots, set your image zoom to 100%, then choose Colors -> Levels. In the first text box, enter a number from from about 220 to 240 to get a medium density star field. To improve the stars’ appearance, click Filters -> Light and Shadow -> Sparkle. Set Flare Intensity to somewhere between .10 and .15 for a fairly subtle sparkle effect. Save and minimize the star field canvas for now, because we’ll be creating a new image for the planet. Creating a Planet First we’ll want a good looking high-resolution texture. Since we’ll be warping the texture with a lens to make it look better on a sphere, it’s very important you find a large, high resolution image even for a small planet. You can find many such images here. Open your new texture in Gimp and use the Crop tool to make it an even square shape. Just click the Crop tool (Shift+C) and drag a square box around the area you want to keep. To make it look properly spherical, click Filters -> Light And Shadow -> Apply Lens. Choose Set Surroundings to Background Color and click OK. Some image types may leave a white background like in the example above. To remove the white space, first right-click your planet layer and choose Add Alpha Channel. Then pick the Fuzzy Select tool (or hit U on the keyboard), click any white space, and hit the delete key. For our shadow, create a new layer above the planet, and choose the Ellipse Tool (or hit E on the keyboard). Drag a box from one corner of your image to the other, creating a circle roughly the same size as the planet. Use the bucket tool to fill this selection in with solid black. Click Layer -> Scale Layer and increase the shadow layer to about 150% of its current size. Next, click Filters -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur. I’m using a 2000×2000 texture, so with my image the blur had to be set to 500 to achieve the desired effect. To drag our big black blurry shadow in to place, click the Move tool (or hit M) and drag the shadow wherever it looks good. Now save your planet image as planet.png. Make sure you do not use JPG as it will not properly handle the transparency. Now we’re ready to combine our images. Back in the star field canvas from the first section, choose File > Open as Layer and pick your planet file. It will be big, so shrink it down with the Scale tool (Shift+T) to the size you like and place with the Move tool. Adding Nebulas For a nebula effect, start by creating a new transparent “nebula” layer. Now pick Filters -> Render -> Clouds -> Plasma. Select Randomize and hit OK. Colors can be adjusted by opening Colors -> Color Balance. To make it look a little smoother, choose Filters -> Blur -> Motion Blur and set to an appropriate level for a smooth, cloudish look, probably at least 20. Now just set the opacity on your nebula layer to the level you like from the Layers window.. To top off our image, we’ll use Gimp’s Supernova filter. First create a new transparent layer called nova. Then click Filters -> Light and Shadow -> Supernova. Set color, size, and placement options as desired and click OK. And now we’ve got a passable space scene created in just a few minutes. If you’d like to improve on it further, I’d suggest using a similar method to our shadow creation to create a atmospheric “halo” around the planet, setting up layer masks to get finer control over the nebula, and adjusting color saturations for a more cohesive look. This basic method can be expanded dozens of ways to create space scenes of all types. How to Create Space Scenes Quickly and Easily in Gimp originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

GeekTool: Turn Your Mac?s Desktop Into An Information Center
Being a geek, you have the urge to modify everything you own. That’s of course applies to your desktop as well. You saw how your Linux friends can modify their desktop and display information with Conky and you are dying to have the same setting in Mac. If that is the case, then GeekTool is the one you are looking for. GeekTool is a System Preferences module for Mac OS 10.5. It allows you to display information on your Mac desktop so you can quickly check out the time, your Twitter stream, or any other things without any hassle. Let’s get our hands dirty, shall we? To fully utilize GeekTool, you got to have a simple knowledge of shell command. But don’t worry, we will guide you through and make it easy for you. Download GeekTool here and install it in your Mac. You should now see the GeekTool entry in your System Preferences. Adding day, date and time to the desktop Open GeekTool and drag the shell icon to the desktop. A blank holder and a configuration window will appear. The holder is where your information will appear. You can drag and move it to the position you desire. The configuration window is where you customize the shell command, font size, color etc. In the configuration window, add the following command to the Command field. date '+%H:%M.%S' The above command will produce a clock that displays time in 24 hour format, minutes and seconds. It is important to note that for this script to be properly effective you have to update it every second, or every minute (naturally you just put 60 in the Refresh Every field) if you do not include the %S portion of the command. After you have the clock on your desktop, drag another shell script onto the desktop and add the Month by using date +%B then drop another one on your desktop and add the command date +%d in order to put the number on the desktop. Once you have all these dropped on to the desktop you can start changing the fonts to whatever you desire, making them very personalized in the process. There are some very interesting ideas of what to do with GeekTool within this flickr tag set. Adding Twitter stream to your desktop If you want a twitter stream on your desktop, then the command is curl -s -u username:password http://twitter.com/statuses/friends_timeline.rss | grep title | sed -e 's// /' | sed -e 's// /', make certain to substitute your username and password in the appropriate space. Adding calendar event to desktop If you are keen to place your iCal event in your desktop, you might want to install the custom build of GeekTool by icalBuddy instead. 1. Download custom build of GeekTool. Install it in your system (replace the old GeekTool if required). 2. Launch GeekTool from System Preferences. 3. Click New from the left bottom pane. Select “Shell” from the right dropdown field. 4. Insert the command: icalBuddy -sd -ic Work,Home -ec WeekNumbers eventsToday to show all uncompleted tasks, separated by calendar. You can also check out the icalBuddy manual page for more information on configuring your iCal events. Adding Facebook feed to the desktop This involves a series of steps that I won’t go into detail here. You can check out this flickr page for the full detail. In a nutshell, you have to 1. Create an Automator action that grabs your Friend’s status feed. You can get this feed URL after you have logged into your Facebook account 2. Using the Automator to extract the text from the RSS feed and formats the text with the title, author, and date. Save the text in a txt file. Also save the Automator as a workflow. 3. In GeekTool, you got to insert two shells, one for the workflow and another to display the text file. Create a new shell called “Workflow refresh” and paste in the code: Automator Runner ~/filepath-to-the-workflow-file.workflow Create another shell called “Facebook” and paste in the code: head -n 300 ~/filepath-to-facebook-text-file.txt | grep '[a-zA-Z-0-9]' Adding weather information to the desktop The final item I’ll contribute now is putting weather on the desktop. This one is another shell script that runs in the command field. Make certain to change the city code to the one yahoo weather provides for your city, curl --silent "http://weather.yahooapis.com/forecastrss?p=YOURCITYCODE&u=c" | grep -E '(Current Conditions:|C

XMind: A Cross-platform Mind-mapping Solution
The human mind can be a beautiful thing. Great human minds have constructed towering structures, synthesized cures for diseases, and created works of art that inspire millions with hope and compassion. But even the best of minds need a little help, and often times, the more a person has floating around in his/her mind, the more likely it is to become a jumbled mess. Mind-mapping is a way to organize one’s thoughts before taking action. One excellent free and open source mind-mappoing solution is XMind. Whether you need to brainstorm, create an outline, or even design an organizational chart, XMind is the perfect tool for the job. Getting XMind XMind is currently available for free download for Windows, Mac OS X, Debian/Ubuntu Linux, and in source code. The website also offers a portable version for Windows, Mac, and Linux all in one package, convenient for USB drives, and optional “XMind Pro” subscription services that add some advanced features. Getting Started Once you have XMind installed, you can get started right away. It will first ask you if you want to log in, enabling some of its participatory features. This is completely optional, and XMind will work whether you are connected to the Internet or not. The initial screen will present you with the default balloon with the title “Central Topic”. To change the title, press the Spacebar. Type in the new title and press Enter. To make a “main topic” press enter again. You will see it branch off from the central topic. If you press enter again, another main topic will appear off the central topic. Press the tab key to create a subtopic under one of the main topics. You can also make numerous subtopics using the same method. All of this makes it easy to get your mind juices flowing without taking your hands away from the keyboard. Features XMind comes with a number of useful features: Several different structure options, including map (the default), fishbone, spreadsheet, org, tree, and logic chart. Style elements such as font type, size, weight, color, alignment, shape of topic balloons, line type, and numbering. Global style elements like wallpaper, legend, branch colors, and tapered lines. The ability to add special notes to topics. Relationship markers to show topic correlation. Topic attachments for various file types. Topic summaries. Multiple sheets in a “workbook” with sheet thumbnails for easy identification. Predesigned templates for brainstorming, meetings, organizational charts, project management, reading journals, and personal management. Markers with both icons and color coding to categorize and classify. Export support for multiple formats, including HTML and Images. Participatory Component XMind takes mind-mapping a step beyond individual mind-mapping with its online services and features. One of its useful free services is called XMind Share, which allows users to upload their mind maps and share them freely with the public. Other users can then view, comment, and even download those mind maps. Mind-mapping Made Easy Overall, XMind is easy to use and has certainly helped me organize my thoughts better, particularly when I am writing something that is longer than a few pages and/or requires research. It is also very useful when planning events or organizing a group of people on a project. For students who need help brainstorming and outlining for writing, XMind can take their work to the next level. Ultimately, the ability to use it in presentations or share it with the world sets XMind apart from other mind-mapping software. Best of all XMind is free and open source. What other mind-mapping software do you use? XMind: A Cross-platform Mind-mapping Solution originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Get 1-Click File Sharing And Backup Features With Tonido + Free Giveaway
If you have followed us for some time, you will know that I am a great fan of the Tonido software. We have previously covered TonidoPlug, but a recent update to the software brings new feature to Tonido which I think is worth a second mentioning here at MTE. Furthermore, we got free giveaway for our readers, so read on… Just to refresh your memory, Tonido is a free software that turns your desktop into a personal server. It allows you to access and share your files, media, calendar and apps from everywhere. Be it Windows, Mac or Linux, you simply install the software and have your own personal cloud server up and running in no time. Features found in the Tonido software include Jukebox, Photos gallery, Blog, Torrents download, WebShare (simple file sharing with anyone), Workspace and ScreenShare (share your computer screen with anyone via web browser). The latest addition to the family include Money Manger, 1-click sharing and backup. Let’s take a look. 1. Browser based Money Manager The popular Money Manager EX (MMEX) is now integrated into Tonido. This useful money management app has been the favorite software for plenty of users, as it tracks your finance and provides a comprehensive report for all your income/expenses. Existing users can also import your database into Tonido without any hassle. 2. Tonido 1-Click Sharing Albeit this feature is only available for the Windows version, it is still an useful feature. With a simple click (actually it takes several clicks, but it is definitely not complicated), you can now share your file with others. Click on the Tonido icon at the system tray and click on the files that you want to share. A window will pop up and show the URL to share. You can then copy and share this URL with your friends. As simple as that. Update: Venkat just verified that it requires only a right click to get the file sharing URL, so the 1-click sharing claim is still valid. 3. Tonido Backup We have discussed plenty of useful software to backup your computer. One caveat to those software is that they only work for a particular platform. If you have a great backup software for Windows, you won’t be able to get it working in Linux or Mac. Tonido has just make things simpler for you. With Tonido Backup, you can now backup your data from any computer to any other remote computer running Tonido, regardless of its platform and its location. It works both in your LAN and across internet. There’s no reason for you not to backup your computer now! Free giveaway Venkat from the Tonido team has gladly sponsored 2 TonidoPlugs (99$ plug computer, read here for its full review) and 20 WebSharePro ($14 value) licenses for MakeTechEasier readers. Here’s how you can win the prize: First, be our Facebook fans (skip this if you are already our fans). Second, share this post in Facebook. Third, leave a comment in this article with a link to your Facebook profile. We will randomly pick 2 + 20 winners from the list. Make sure you leave your correct email address so we can contact you and send you the prizes. This giveaway will end on 12th Mar 2010, 12pm, Central Time. MakeTechEasier would like to thank Venkat from CodeLathe for his generosity while participating in this giveaway. Interesting in sponsoring? We?d love to hear from you. Get in touch with us. Get 1-Click File Sharing And Backup Features With Tonido + Free Giveaway originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Paragon Backup: Another Great Backup Software For Windows
Recently I had an incident with my netbook where I had to reformat the hard drive. I am glad that I had all of my really important data backed up. I personally use a variety of methods to back up my docs and info. I use a combo of Dropbox, Gladinet and was using Easeus To-Do Backup. Having everything stored in a different location really minimized the loss of data. Given the fact I was working from a clean slate, I thought I would try a new back up program. Don?t get me wrong, Easeus To-Do Backup did exactly what I needed it to do. I just like to see what else will work. Enter Paragon Backup and Recovery. Backing Up Options Differential Backup What caught my eye was the differential back up. If you aren?t sure what this is, the easiest explanation is it backs up only the files that have changed. This is a must to schedule every couple days or every week. That way you will have minimal loss of information if something happens. Full Backup This is what you expect it to be. It makes a backup of the whole drive or area you ask it to. This is great for the initial back up and the occasional full back up. If you choose to, you can have it make an exact copy of your hard drive or partition, OS and all. Add to Archive The add to archive feature is pretty neat. It allows you to add a file to a backup archive even though it wasn?t part of your back up. Cyclic Backup The cyclic backup feature allows you to have a revolving back up. There are two settings, basic and differential. The basic backup will make multiple base images, where the differential backup will make one base image and the other(s) will save any compared to the info in the base image. Restore Restoring has equally as many options as backing up does. Having a multitude of ways to restore is helpful for those times you may not need a full restore. Bootable Disc or Drive Making a bootable drive feature built in is super handy. With a lot of the computers coming sans optical drive, having a USB drive with your OS on it is a huge timesaver if the need ever arises. I made a test backup in a couple minutes and was easier than the one I recently used. Partial Restore Being able to restore only a portion of your saved file is a feature you don?t think you will need until you accidently delete an important folder or have a corrupt file. You don?t need to replace everything, just the part that?s messed up. Full Restore A full restore would be used when disaster strikes and you need to revert back to a point where everything was working. It is good practice to have a full backup at least monthly if not more frequently. Partitions Paragon gives you the ability to create, hide, format and delete partitions. In many cases you would need an extra piece of software to do this. Personally, I am impress with Paragon Backup software as it comes with plenty of useful features not found in other software. The basic version is free and should suffice for general usage, but if you are looking for more sophisticated features like copying the whole partitions/HDD, disk wipe etc, there is a premium version that you can purchase ($69.95) What is your go-to free backup tool? Paragon Backup: Another Great Backup Software For Windows originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

What is PubSubHubbub and How to Implement It In WordPress
One of the most frequently asked question from content publishers (that means all bloggers, you and me alike) is “How to make sure that my feed subscribers can read my latest update the moment I publish it?” This nearly real-time technology is not really possible in the past, but with PubSubHubbub (yes, it kinda sounds dorky), it changed the whole ball game. Simply said, PubSubHubbub (aka as PuSH in short) is publish/subscribe protocol addon to the current Atom/RSS technology. It enables your RSS subscribers to instantly receive your feed as soon as you publish your content. What exactly does PubSubHubbub do? Previously, when you publish a content, it doesn’t get push to the feed aggregator automatically. Instead, the feed aggregator poll your site (RSS feed) at regular interval and check if you have new content. If yes, it will then broadcast to your subscribers. With this push technology, there is often a delay in syndication and it could be several hours after your content went live before your RSS subscriber can read it on their RSS reader software. PubSubHubbub aims to get rid of this time-delaying barrier and make everything real time. This means that as soon as you publish the content, your end subscriber will also receive it instantly. The technology is simple. Instead of the feed aggregator constantly polling your site for new content, it will now act as a hub. Whenever you publish a new content, you notify the hub, which in turn send your update to the end user. You can watch the interesting video below for better understanding. Sound simple, but how do I implement it in WordPress? Feedburner way Now, if you are using Feedburner to manage your feed, your site is already PuSH enabled. You just need to turn on the service in the Feedburner Dashboard. Go to Feedburner and login to your account (most likely is your Google account). Click on the Publicize tab at the top. On the left, click Pingshot. Click the Activate button to enable the service. That’s it. (You may also want to ensure that http://ping.feedburner.com is in your ping list) Custom feed If you are using the default WordPress feed rather than Feedburner, there are several plugins that you can use to PuSH-enabled your blog 1. PuSHPress PuSHPress is the plugin used in WordPress.com. There is no configuration required. Simply activate the plugin and you are good to go. The big difference in this plugin compared to the other PuSH WordPress plugins is that it includes a PuSH hub built in. Download PuSHPress here 2. PubSubHubbub Another simple plugin that requires minimal configuration. This plugin does not implement a hub, but it allows you to select which hubs you want to ping. The default is Demo hub on Google App Engine and SuperFeedr. Download PubSubHubbub here 3. WP Pubsubhubbub This plugin is functionally similar to the PubSubHubbub plugin mentioned above. It allows you to specify the hubs you want to ping as well, so choosing this or the other is really dependent on individual preferences. Download WP PubSubHubbub here Have you started implementing PubSubHubbub in your WordPress blog? What is PubSubHubbub and How to Implement It In WordPress originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How to Connect Two Windows Computers On LAN Using an Ethernet Crossover Cable
Do you have multiple computers at your home or workplace? It becomes extremely difficult to manage multiple computers and operating systems simultaneously. If you need to transfer files, folders, videos, music, documents from one computer to another frequently, you can use the following three options: Using a USB stick or an external hard drive. Using Internet and File sync services like Dropbox. Connecting both the computers in a home network. The first two options have certain disadvantages. Using a USB drive is way too slow and you can not move large files or directories among multiple computers easily. In that case, you have to use external hard drives which unfortunately are costlier. Using the Internet and file sync services like Dropbox seems like a good idea, but what if the internet connection fails? You can’t afford to wait for all files to get uploaded and then download them to the other computer. The best option is connecting the computers in a home network. This procedure is fast, efficient, reliable and you need just an ethernet crossover cable to do the job. Create a home network using an Ethernet cable Things you will need: 1. A network card installed in both computers. 2. Supported and installed network drivers. 3. A crossover ethernet cable as shown below Following are the steps involved to configure both computers and connect them using a crossover ethernet cable: 1. Turn off both computers and connect one end of the ethernet cable to the network card slot of computer1. Then connect the other end of the ethernet cable to the network card slot of computer2. The network card slot is located at the back side of computer CPU and looks somewhat similar to the following screenshot: image credit 2. After both the ends of the ethernet cable is connected, turn on both the computers one by one. It doesn’t matter which one you start with. 3. Now you have to assign a unique Workgroup to each computer. The following step is applicable for Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. If your operating system is Windows XP: From the Start menu, right click on “My Computer” and select “Properties”. Click the “Change” button and assign this computer to a unique Workgroup. As for example: my desktop computer runs on Windows XP and I have assigned it to a Workgroup called “Workgroup”. If your operating system is Windows Vista / Windows 7: From the Start menu, right click on “Computer” and select “Properties”. This will open the system properties Control Panel window as shown below Click “Change settings” and assign the same Workgroup which you assigned to the earlier computer. Note: The computer name field can be given anything as your choice, but please keep in mind that both computers should be under the same Workgroup name or else this tutorial won’t work at all. 4. Restart both the computers one by one. It doesn’t matter which one you start first as Windows will automatically detect and apply the network settings. Now you are ready to share files and folders between the two computers, which are connected in a network. 5. On computer 1 which runs Windows XP, click “Start menu” and go to “My Network Places”. You will see a new icon of your second computer in the “My Network Places” folder. Any document which you share in computer 2, can be found on this folder in computer 1. 6. On computer 2 which runs Windows Vista, click “Network” from the start menu and you will see a new icon of your first computer. Any file which is shared on computer 1, can be found from this folder in computer 2. If you don’t see the networked shared folders in both computers, you might get a prompt to turn on “Network sharing”. Click the security pop-up in “Network and Sharing center” and select “Turn on Network Discovery and File sharing”. Then select “Make the network a private network” and restart both the computers again. Now both of your computers are connected in a network and you can simply copy/paste files, folders and documents in those shared folders. Hence you can move the files or folders between your computers instantly. Have you set up a small home network using an ethernet crossover cable? Let us know your ideas in the comments section. Image credit: RegNatarajan How to Connect Two Windows Computers On LAN Using an Ethernet Crossover Cable originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

[Mac] Resize Images Automatically Using Automator
We’ve written about Automator multiple times here at Make Tech Easier not only because we think it is an easy and fun tool to work with, but also because we believe that it helps in saving a lot of time for the average computer user. Apple has spent a lot of time in making this tool extremely easy to use for the beginner and at the same time incorporating enough bells and whistles for keeping the power users happy. For a blogger and a mac user, Automator can be quite handy if used correctly. Now, resizing images is something that almost everyone with a digital camera has to do these days. Whether you’re an average computer user looking to share your photos on Facebook or a blogger looking to upload screenshots of an application to your website, resizing images is a necessity. Considering how important this small function is, it’s actually surprising that modern operating systems don’t come with a built-in feature to automation this task. Well, if you’re a Mac user, Automator has you covered. Let’s suppose you’re an amateur photographer and you want to upload all the photos from your recent trip to your website. The photos have all been clicked at the highest resolution possible and you’d want to resize all the images to a respectable 800×600 to save bandwidth and space on your webhost. Let’s create an Automator script to do this for us. Fire up Automator and select the Workflow template. Now, select and drag the Copy Finder Items action to the workflow area. Select a location where you want to copy the working files. These are the images that the next action in the Workflow will work on. Don’t select the Replace existing files checkbox. This is important because if something goes wrong in the workflow, you don’t want to lose your originals too. The second step is to add the Scale Images action from the library. Drag the action and select a size depending on your need. If you want to make sure the images are saved in a “Web friendly” format, add the Change Type of Images action from the library. Automator will ask you if you want to add a Copy Finder Items action since the type of the original image is changing. Since we’ve already saved the original images in the first step, you can safely select No here. Now, save the workflow that you just created to an easily accessible location and don’t forget to select Application as the file type of the workflow while saving. To use the workflow on a set of images, just select the images in the Finder and drag them onto the Workflow application. Now, you can browse over to the location that you chose in the first step of the Workflow. Your resized files will be available over there. There ! Doesn’t that make your work much easier ? What kind of other routine tasks do you guys perform on your computer everyday ? Have you tried using Automator to help you ? [Mac] Resize Images Automatically Using Automator originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

SlideScreen: A Beautiful Alternative to Android Home Screen
The default Android home screen is rather functional. You can fully customize it by placing various kind of widgets, shortcuts on the desktop, change the wallpapers and you can swipe to switch screen. Now, if you are looking for a more functional home screen, one that can allow a busy person like you to better manage all your information at one place, then SlideScreen could be the one for you. SlideScreen is a visually pleasing home replacement utility for Android. There are two ways to utilize SlideScreen. You can use it as a full replacement for your home screen or as a standalone app. Whichever you choose, you will get the same interface and functionality. The concept of SlideScreen is somewhat different from the traditional Android home screen. Instead of providing you several screens to place your widgets or shortcuts, there is only one screen in SlideScreen and all your information from various media streams (SMS/emails/RSS feeds/calendar event/Facebook/Twitter/Stocks) are loaded on the screen. It is surprising that the developer can squeeze all these information into a single screen without making it seems overcrowded. it is definitely useful for those want a quick overview of what’s happening out there from various streams. After installation, it will first walk you through a series of steps to setup the required services. It integrates with the inbuilt Gmail and Calendar apps and will grab your RSS feeds from Google Reader with the same Google account (You can change the Google Reader settings if you are using another account to read your feed). You will have to configure your location (for weather display), your Facebook and Twitter login. The whole design of the SlideScreen revolves around this thick center bar with information of the date, time and weather. Above this center bar is your SMS, emails and calendar feeds while the bottom contains your RSS, stocks, Facebook and Twitter feeds. All the information streams are categorized with different colors so you can easily differentiate one from another. To mark a feed as ‘read‘, simply swipe it to the right to dismiss it. The best thing about the center bar is that you can slide it up/down to show more of a particular feed. If you move it all the way down, you can read your SMS/emails in full screen. Similarly, sliding it all the way up allows you to read Twitter update, RSS feeds in full screen. Tapping the small icon in the center bar will switch between various streams. Slidescreen doesn’t come with a button for you to access the application launcher. You have to press the Menu button to access all your applications. One good addition is the shelf situated at the top of the screen. You can place up to 8 of your frequently used applications in the shelf for quick access. Simply long press an app (the background will black out, showing only the selected app) and select a cell in the shelf to place it. Conclusion As visually pleasing as it can get, it definitely won’t be the ‘must-have’ app for everyone. If you are not into reading RSS feeds on the move, stock or even Facebook or Twitter, this app will be an overkill. Personally I not ready to use it as my default home screen yet, but I find myself using it very often to get a quick overview of all my information streams. It is really efficient to have all the information in one place, rather than opening several apps to view each feed. I have this habit of installing apps from the market, only to uninstall them after a while. One thing for sure, SlideScreen is going to stay in my installer list for a long time, at least until a better app appear. SlideScreen is available in the market as a free download for Android phones. The free version comes with ad at the home screen bottom and you can remove it for $7. SlideScreen: A Beautiful Alternative to Android Home Screen originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Smarter P2P with FrostWire
FrostWire is a free, open source multiplatform Gnutella and Bittorrent P2P client. It’s based on LimeWire, and includes many features from LimeWire’s Pro version. It includes such features as live chat, encrypted transfers, iTunes compatibility, and even built-in content through FrostWire’s 100% legal content site – FrostClick.com. Getting FrostWire Windows, Mac, and Linux packages are available from the FrostWire download page. Depending on your platform, the package may include the Java runtime as well. Linux users can run the package by double-clicking the .deb file from within your file manager. Configuring FrostWire Once installed, FrostWire should show up in the appropriate menu location. On first run, you’ll be asked to set the locations for incoming files and outgoing shares. Downloaded files do not necessarily need to be shared to everyone else, and incoming files are often in an incomplete state, so it’s recommended to use two separate locations. Next we have a few additional settings to get things tweaked just right. Most people should be fine leaving the connection type at Broadband. The nickname section near the bottom will come into play if you decide to participate in the community chat feature. Next, we choose exactly which type of files FrostWire will include and which to ignore when creating shares. This is an important feature, as it allows you to only share things like audio and video files while keeping documents, programs, and other potentially sensitive files private. After a checkbox agreement that you will not use FrostWire for copyright infringement, you’ll get the main screen. Getting Content Chances are, the first thing you’ll want to do is get some files. The Search tab will perform a standard Gnutella network search, and results will trickle in as they’re found. You can search for specific types of files (including torrents) and you’ve got plenty of filtering and sorting options to choose from. The panes on the left side will allow you to filter the results by different sets of criteria, based on what you’re searching for. If you’re not in to the Gnutella side of things, Bittorrent is fully supported in FrostWire. While LimeWire may be the Gnutella backend, Azureus is the core of FrostWire’s torrent capabilities. The program itself shows little difference between the two download methods as they show up more or less identically in searches and the download pane. FrostClick FrostWire’s content site, FrostClick.com, doesn’t so much host content as collect it. Of the multiple categories available (audio, video, software, e-books, etc) you’ll find the most content in Audio. That’s not to say there’s a whole lot there, but the current count of 287 legal, DRM-free music torrents could make for a nice treasure for those who like to experiment with their music. The software section is full of a fair amount of games, as well as a lot of free (open and closed source) applications like Hydrogen, GNU Solfege, and Paint.NET. All of which are, of course, available elsewhere. All this seems to make FrostClick less about providing something unique and more about having a single place to browse for interesting content. This would be better if there was more content overall, but as the popularity grows, the content usually comes along with it. Have you ever used FrostWire? How does it stack up to LimeWire or other GNutella or Bittorrent clients? Let us know in the comments below. Smarter P2P with FrostWire originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)