Archive for April, 2010
How To Easily Set Custom Icons For Folders In Windows
I have blogged about a number of programs that help users better organize their computer via better folder organization. Usually this is done by batch-renaming a folder or sorting files of certain file formats together in a particular folder. But only recently I discovered a new way of folder organization – color coding.
Imagine having a folder with a large number of subfolders. Some of these folders belong to a certain category. Instead of creating a new folder and putting the similar ones in this new folder, what if you could flag them by a similar color? For instance you could mark red all the folders you want to delete tomorrow.
In Windows such folder icon setting is easy but becomes a tedious process if one wants to do it for many folders. For many folders, Folderico can be used.
Folderico is a freeware application about 4MB large that currently works best with Windows 7 32bit. After installation it places a new submenu entry in our Windows context menu (the menu resulting from right clicking somewhere). The options in this entry let us choose colored icons for whichever folder we right click on.
(image via Lifehacker)
As you can see from the image above, it is very easy to assign a new icon to our folders by right clicking on them. Not only can we choose to assign them simple colored folders, but we can also choose from other Windows icons.
In other versions of Windows, if context menu entries are not successfully added, then the application’s main window can be used to specify a folder and select an icon.
Particularly for Windows 7 users Folderico provides a great to differentiate a folder from its peers. Alternatively the program can be used to group similar folders together by assigning them same icons.
Remember to give Folderico a try and let me know you think.
Absolutely Amazing 3D Computer Graphic Artworks That Make You Say Wow
Here is an interesting post on Detailed CG artwork that we have carefully compiled after browsing the internet for several days. 3D computer graphics or CG always produces the most dazzling and implausible effect, and this is the main reason why it is so popular and everyone loves 3D Computer Graphics (CG). Here we have gathered some amazing examples of 3D Computer Graphics in which you can notice the detailed CG artworks and the effort that artist put to create such types of comprehensive and complex artworks, we hope that you will like this collection, feel free to share your comments.
You are welcome if you want to share more amazing examples of 3D Computer Graphic Artworks that our readers/viewers may like. Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at SmashingApps.com just subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter as well. Click on the images to go from where the images has been taken and learn more about their creators and to appreciate them.
SciFi Cityscape: Curse of Aladdin, Finn Meinert Matthiesen (3D)
Alien Vs Predator: Chess, Benjamin Parry (3D)
Phillips Exeter Academy Library
The Berserker – Game Character, Sebastian Patric (3D)
Wolverine, Who is the beast? , pascal ackermann (3D)
The travellers library, Sergej Bolgert / Dinschik (3D)
Dreaming a diver, hodong la (3D)
A travel into the Sky City”, zhiyi huang (3D)
PocketSmith: Online Calendar To Manage & Forecast Cash Position
People with a lot of money hire financial advisors to monitor their spending and point out the rights and wrongs in that spending. The money that is saved from correcting the wrongs is then invested into potentially profitable ventures to benefit the client.
However the percentage of people who are that rich is considerably low. Most people are like me, not rich enough to hire external help. We have to manage our own finances and catch our own mistakes. Doing this single-handedly can be quite a task; an extra bit of help can end up benefiting us a lot.
PocketSmith is a free web service and one of those “extra bits of help” which we can employ to manage our finances. It basically acts as a calendar which we can feed our expenses in and which can forecast our future cash positions.
Once we sign up for a free account, we can start feeding in our budget and begin creating expense events.
These expense events can be any financial event: our salary date, dates of bills to be paid, etc.
We can then specify which of these events will be recurrent; PocketSmith will use this information to generate to 6 or 12 month cash forecast.
The forecast is what helps us plan our budget for the upcoming year. We can make the necessary deductions to our financial events and know what needs to be done to stay within our budget.
Just like we balance our checkbook at the end of month, we can use PocketSmith to juxtapose our expenses with our income.
The expenses versus income figures can greatly help us in staying within the limits of our budget. More reliable figures can be gotten by uploading our electronic bank statements and such. The more we share with PocketSmith, the more realistic the resultant figures will be.
We can check the figures per-day-wise for the upcoming year and know if there even a single day on which our cash flow is going in the negative.
PocketSmith is a remarkably friendly tool for computer users that can help planning our budget effectively.
Google And Android Teaming Up To Beat iPhone
The Android may still behind in market as compare to iPhone App Stores in terms of quality, beauty and variety, but there is something which needs to be considered about the Android operating system, that it is tightly integrated with existing Google products, and the variety of devices and carriers. No doubt iPhone apps are wonderful and stunningly beautiful, but Android’s smart syncing with existing tools, interesting experiments done by Google labs for Android coming every day, and some tools by its open marketplace model may give a pause to average user of iPhone.
Android is completely open-source, that means the apps can change the functionality and appearance of the OS, well if you allow them to. It can be a safety issue, but it’s great for customization. So, I am not asking you to throw your iPhone and buy Andriod, what I am telling you is, if you want a change from iPhone and you are a die hard fan of Google then you better go for Android. There are four apps from Google for Android I will talk about and you can consider them if they suits your work and mobile lifestyle.
Google Finance
Users who have some deep attachment with stock portfolio 24/7, Google Finance is a useful tool for getting updated, real-time and customized quotes. The Android app syncs directly to your Google Finance portfolios and it streams live and updated data, charts and financial news right into your hands. Right now Android is the only mobile platform with an official Google Finance app.
Google Voice
Google Voice allows you to keep your existing cell number, but it forwards your missed calls and voice mails to a generated Google number so that you can check them on the app or e-mail as convenient. Google voice service automatically generate voicemail transcription and instead of getting a voicemail on your phone, you will receive an email or text message with the transcription. Users can scroll through their messages visually like inbox and stream the audio messages from the mailbox as needed. Right now Google Voice is an invite only service. You can request for an invitation here or look for friends who are already users of Google Voice.
There are no doubt other great voicemail alternatives for the iPhone exists, but the deep integration of Gmail with Google Voice makes it a greate deal to your mobile arsenal of communication tools.
Gmail and Calendar
Android OS has built-in utility of fully integrated Gmail and Calendar app and that must not be missed. Gmail and Google Apps user should go Android because its the handset which will complete the suite for cloud computing productivity tools. The working of Google apps like Gmail, Calendar, and Google Voice are flawless in Android because of the intrinsic link between Android and Google. Whatever you do with your Gmail inbox via web, it will be updated on your Android and same with Calendar, like you updated a birthday reminder on the web calendar, the updated calendar can be seen on Android.
Google Listen
Google Listen is one of its kind app by Google Labs, it functions like a search engine and subscription tool for podcast across the web. If you are on the way to somewhere and realize you have missed to see the latest episode of your favourait daily soap, simply jump on Google Listen, search for it and stream it right way from the source. With Google Listen you dont need to download podcasts or connect to your handset with you PC, and with its builtin subscription option, once you find a show you will never miss an episode while on the move.
If Google apps are most important for you then, the Android handset is the perfect choice for you isn’t it?
For Chrome: Clear Browsing History With A Click Of A Button
Clearing our browser’s cache is a good practice. It reduces the clutter on our hard disk and leads to better performance. More importantly cache clearing is a way to maintain our browsing privacy. Cache clearing ensures that another user on our computer is not able to view our browsing history. During cache clearing we also delete cookies that track our internet activity.
Apart from a browser’s built in tools, there are numerous third party tools that enable users to wipe their data off their browser. Usually this clearing requires a browser restart. Since this might cause an inconvenience for some users who would like to continue work on the currently opened webpage, I searched for a competent cache clearing tool that would not restart the browser.
Fortunately I found the tool I was looking for – Click&Clean.
Click&Clean is a free cache clearing solution that comes as a Firefox Add-on) and a Chrome Extension. It also has a desktop application that works for Internet Explorer and Opera (click here). Since I use Chrome as my default browser, I will be moving forward with Click&Clean’s Chrome extension.
The extension places an extra icon on Chrome’s address bar which provides quick access to cache clearing.
With one click on this icon we can clear Chrome’s cache without the need to close and restart the browser.
The options of the extension lets us specify what will and will not be cleared during the cache cleaning.
With its array of features, Click&Clean is a wonderful cache clearing option to go with; it is an absolute must have for all computer users.
Techinline-Remote Desktop Sharing and Customer Support Solutions
Do you own a small company and want to offer remote computer support to clients and customers? You might want to connect to another computer located at any place in the world, transfer files and documents and chat with the customer using a single application. You would also want to deliver online demonstrations and conduct training sessions between two computers.
Check out Techinline – an easy to use Remote Desktop solution which offers all these services under one interface. The service can be used to connect to any computer in the world which has an active Internet connection and a web browser. You can then transfer files, conduct presentations and chat with the customer live from your computer. The service also offers sharing screens so you can visually illustrate anything you want and convey the message on the other side.
How to Connect To a Remote Desktop Using TechInline
The entire process is very simple. Just register an account with Techinline here and they will send you a username and password in your email account. You can then use the web browser to connect to any remote desktop from any computer. There is nothing to download and install and thus you can use the service on any computer – your office, home, workplace, Internet cafe or a friends house.
Here are the step by step procedure to connect to a remote desktop using Techinline browser based service:
1. Start a support session by loggin in to your Techinline account here. You will have to enter the username and password which you obtained during registration.
2. This will take you to the browser plugin install page. Click “Allow” and the required extension will be installed in your browser.
3. Once the browser extension in installed, the browser is restarted and the service is automatically launched. The following interface apears:
Now you are ready to provide remote desktop support to your client.
4. Ask your client to open techinline.net in his browser and he will be asked to install the browser plugin.
5. Once your client has installed the browser extension, the Client Page is automatically launched in his browser. It will appear as in the following image:
This 6 digit client ID is randomly generated by the Techinline server. Ask your client to copy the “Client ID” and give it to you using email or instant messaging. Your client can use the “Send Client ID by Email” link to forward the client ID by email.
6. Once you receive the client ID from your client, simply enter it into the Client ID text box in the Techinline expert application page.
7. Next, hit the “Connect” button and the remote desktop connection would be succesfully established between you and your client.
This is how your screen looks once the connection has been established:
And this will be your clients screen:
You can read more on the setup procedure in the Quick start guide page.
Communicating with the client and providing Real time support
Once the connection is established, you can offer the following support features to your client:
1. Instant messages: This works just like an instant messaging client like Google Talk or AIM. Your client can send a message or ask a question from the browser window. You can then reply to his message and thus the communication continues.
2. Viewing the Clients computer: If you want to view your clients computer, just click the “View Remote Desktop” link from your browser.
This will send an immediate notification to your client that you have requested to view his computer screen. This is how your Client’s computer will look:
When the client clicks “Accept”, you will be granted the required permissions to view his screen. This will open an application window in your computer which will contain the entire view of your clients desktop.
You would be able to see all the mouse movements, windows, application settings and everything that’s happening at your clients screen. Then you an view the screen and send feedback using the instant message panel. Please note that in the “View” mode, you would not be able to control your clients screen in any way. For example: You can not access your clients mouse or change window positions or desktop items. You are just allowed to view your clients screen from your computer.
3. View clients computer and share controls of the mouse and keyboard: This mode is more flexible as it allows you to control your clients computer using your mouse and keyboard. To start this mode, click “share controls of the mouse and keyboard” link from your browser window.
This mode works the same way as the previous mode, your client must grant access you permission before you can view his screen and control his computer using your mouse and keyboard.
4. Other modes: There are two other modes available which lets your client view your computer or control your computer from his mouse and keyboard. Both of these modes can be started by you (not by your client) from the Techinline remote desktop application page. To view all the features of Techinline, head over to this complete Feature set page.
Why Use TechInline for Remote Desktop Assistance ?
There are many web based as well as desktop based applications which lets you establish a remote desktop conection between two computers. Some of the most popular services are LogMeIn, GoToAssist, Bomgar, NTR Global, etc. But here are a couple of reasons why you should prefer Techinline for remote desktop assistance:
1. Cheap pricing Plans: Techinline provides very cheap subscription plans as compared to other services that offer remote desktop services. There are 4 basic subscription plans to choose from and the rates come in really affordable prices. Furthermore, Techinline offers a very flexible “pay as you go” pricing model which practically all of their competitors lack. This pricing model allows a user to purchase a number of credits (“sessions” as they call them) which can be used at any point. This is ideal for sporadic or rare use.
Here are the current plans available with Techinline:
Now let’s compare the pricing plans of Techinline with GotoAssist.com – another service which offers remote desktop and customer support services. The monthly plan at GotoAssist.com is 69$ while the monthly plans at TechInline is only 30$. So you have more than 50 % savings and the feature set is the same in both the services.
2. Easy to Use and Customer Friendly: The most impressive feature of Techinline is the ease of use and simplicity. Everything is kept simple at the clients end and there is nothing to download, configure and install.
Imagine a situation when you are proving support to a client. You ask the client to download a bulky software and send him a 3 page guide on how to configure it. Your client may not be tech savy and will easily get confused. The result: He will prefer using any other company for getting help and you lose one prospect just because the remote desktop setup appeared too geeky to your client.
Techinline simplifies this issue and provides Zero distractions at Clients end. There is nothing to download or install. Your client just needs to send a 6 digit code to you and it’s all done.
Overall, Techinline is one of the best solution for providing an on Demand Remote Support to clients and customers. The company has grown rapidly in the past few years and is surely a better option, when compared to it’s competitors on the field of remote desktop sharing services.
Congratulations To The Winners Of WordPress Theme And jQuery Template By FlashMint
Thanks to all of the participants of contest in which Win A Copy Of WordPress Theme Or jQuery Template By FlashMint. We ran the MySql random query and selected these 16 commenter to give them WordPress Theme And jQuery Template By FlashMint.
FlashMint is a leading and incomparable Flash Templates provider known to supply web masters with the exclusively sufficient collection of premium web layouts together with the most helpful and supportive service.
WordPress Themes (2 licenses for each template)
WordPress Themes by FlashMint comprise innovative possibilities allowing to use interactive options within your website powered by WordPress. Satisfying contemporary web design technologies, Flash Animated WordPress themes possess premium quality and ingenious design ideas making your site the most vivid and dynamic source on the web.
Flipbook photo blog wp flash template
Won by Radwa samir and aamir shah
Freelance writer wordpress theme
Won by camilia and Abdelhadi Touil
Photographers blog flash animated wordpress theme
Won by flashscope and Dawg Digital
jQuery Templates (1 license for each template)
jQuery Templates developed by FlashMint will become an excellent solution for establishing a stunning dynamic website which will stand out by premium quality and high grade design. Using our unique jQuery templates you will be able to create any online presence you need for your particular purposes with minimum time and effort no matter whether it is a personal home page or a corporate project. You are not required to possess any development skills to set up a live and vivid website which will look unmatched and impress your every visitor due to the superb facilities of our exclusive jQuery Templates.
Won by Debbie Chiang
Crazy design portfolio JQuery template
Won by antonio de castro
Accordion jQuery Studio template
Won by Ayaz Malik
Strawberry jQuery slider template
Won by Optimize Guyz
Congratulations to all the winners from SmashingApps.Com. All of the winners will be contacted soon. If you are not winner at this time so please be patient and keep visiting here or subscribe to our rss feed, you can follow us on twitter and do not forget to become our fan on facebook as well. because we are coming up with another new great contest earlier next week.
Thanks to FlashMint for sponsoring this wonderful contest at Smashing Apps.
If you want to conduct any contest at Smashing Apps just contact us and send us all the details.
Beautifully Treated Black And White Stunning Photographs
The Black and white photography in this era of digital technology produces a nostalgic feel of 20th century. Although it gives the impression of 20th century but even then it is in used by many artists. We have previously featured some different types photography that inspired you a lot, so we thought to add some more beauty and bring some Black and White Photographs to this section by adding these stunning photographs. We are sure you would love them. Feel free to share your comments.
Hope you will like this post and share it with your friends. You are welcome if you want to share more amazing examples of black and white photos that our readers/viewers may like. Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at smashingApps.com just subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter as well. Click on the images to go from where the images has been taken and learn more about their creators and to appreciate them.
A White Cup by ~jakethesnake999
Run Tambi run by by KalerBlind
Handle with care by Ingo Dumreicher
Winterlich(t) by manfred-hartmann
Stairscape by .: Philipp Klinger (In Prague)
It rained by .: Philipp Klinger (In Prague)
Black and White Heaven by ~dditi
Leave it all behind by rahmat mulyono
Echo Of Small Things by Midnight-digital
Lotus Flower – IMGP7600 by Bahman Farzad
Down by the sea by Soffia Gisladottir
Missing Peace by Kent Mercurio
The path to your nightmares by ~Soczi
A Diamond Leaf by Ilja Hackman
Stallion in a Pin Stripe Suit by Don
Geese in a Snow Storm by Daniel
The Beast by Daniel Hasselberg
The Mist by Darius Sinkevicius
Ballon im Gegenlicht by Quasebart
Crouching Duckling Eats the Dragon by Daniel
The ancient spine by hoogen imagery
Swan attack by Daniel Hasselberg
Caesarea :: Larisa by Sam Rohn – Location Scout
Double Business Man by Sion Fullana
I call to a seagull b/w by Daniel Hasselberg
The Silver Surf Football Game black/ white by moonjazz
New Snow, Taylor Creek by Peter Bowers
How To Organize & Manage All Your Online Passwords Securely With Mitto
I often point out how I own multiple social media accounts. Not only do I own multiple (many) social media accounts but I also own accounts on numerous websites. As a professional blogger I have reviewed many websites (I have lost count of exactly how many websites) and sometimes I need to create an account on the site to test it. When I like what the site has to offer, I keep the account active and use it every now and then.
People like me who own so many accounts face problems when it comes to password management. Keeping the same password for all our accounts is a terrible practice and should not be followed. But having differing password is not always easy to remember. Various password managers let us store our password on our computer but this means that we cannot have access to our passwords from another computer. Therefore online password managers are the best ones to go with.
One such competent online password manager is Mitto.
Mitto’s aim is to be the most secure and feature-rich free online password manager. Their password keeper is designed with a full range of features that make it easy to access all of your important password-protected sites while protecting your security from hackers and other dangerous online predators.
After signing up on Mitto, you receive an email which contains the code to activate your Mitto account. Once our email has been activated, we proceed to select the services which Mitto will be managing our passwords for.
We are then taken to the dashboard where we can see our added site on the left pane.
(In the image above, you can see that I only added a Twitter account.)
Mitto even has a bookmarklet that gives us an accessible button with which we can easily add a service to be managed to Mitto.
Check out this official mitto video to know more:
Anybody who has troubles managing multiple passwords will find Mitto to be user friendly and extremely helpful. Give this wonderful online password manager a try and let us know what you think.
5 Free Services To Enhance Your Experience On eBay
eBay is a massive online shopping network that lets individuals, companies, and groups sell products online. As a shopper, to search and compare all the products being offered relevant to a query is a mountain of a task. Luckily there are other online tools that make comparing products on eBay easier then it is on eBay itself.
I have gathered a list of 5 online tools that offers this functionality and more. If you are an eBay user, give this list a read. You will surely find something useful.
You are welcome if you want to share more free eBay related services which our readers/viewers may like. Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at SmashingApps.com just subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter and do not forget to become our fan on facebook as well.
WatchedItem is the first entry in my list. It presents users with a friendly interface that lets them select a category and then enter some keywords of the query. The results are then shown with their prices and details. A link is provided with each result which can be clicked for further details.
Auction-o-Maniac offers one more feature over WatchedItem. This feature is that in addition to selecting a category and keywords, we can enter the country the eBay offers should be from.
Usage of Stuff Alert requires you to sign up for a free account first. Stuff Alert can be configured to email us a notification each time our hard-to-find item becomes available on eBay.
Q-Compare has a basic interface that will appeal to people looking for a something with a simple interface. The search options include country of the offer, category, and keywords of query.
BidFlyer’s interface is the most visually brilliant when compared to other tools in this list. Our eBay search results are presented in the form of thumbnails. We can then hover our mouse over an image and the details of it are shown right there. These details include the title and price of that product.
