Category: ifttt

By (author unknown), Dilbert Daily Strip – July 26, 2012 at 01:00AM

By Craig Snyder, MakeUseOf – July 25, 2012 at 10:00PM

Software packagers like Ninite are at an uptick in popularity now that the old seek-and-download method is quickly drawing close towards extinction. Imagine what your kids will think when you tell them that you actually had to search for and manually update certain essential software in the future. Crazy, right?

iOS and other platforms come built around automatic updates to core functionality and additional software that you should install. That’s one huge benefit of having the App Store. Windows isn’t quite there yet. However, that hasn’t kept certain third-party developers from molding that sort of a feature for you. As mentioned before, Ninite makes that easy on you. Soft2Base makes it even easier, and I’ll show you how today.

Click here to check out Soft2Base!

Soft2Base is a software manager for Windows that scans for over 60 of the most popular applications and ensures that your computer is running the very latest version. If not, Soft2Base can silently download and automatically install them for you.

On launch, Soft2Base makes it easy for you by displaying all of their supported software. As you can see at the bottom left, there are display filters that will allow you to narrow down the listed software by installed or not, need to be updated, already up to date, and more recent than listed. In the next screenshot, you’ll see that I’ve filtered to only see software on my system that needs to be updated.

You can then check off the software you’d like to update and click Next. Here, you’ll notice more important options at the bottom left of the screen. You’re able to choose if you’d like to install without comparing, install silently, or download without installing. I never recommend running through silent installs, as that is how you can get toolbars and other bloatware stuffed onto your system.

Soft2Base will automatically begin downloading your software and the installation prompts will automatically pop up if you’ve chosen to install them manually.

I’ve yet to run into any issues on Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) and it’s worked like a charm thus far. Additional features include the ability to create and save a profile that consists of only certain software that you’d like to monitor and keep up to date. The software supports English, Bulgarian, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish and Turkish, and is completely portable. You’re also able to view logs and downloaded files, all within the interface.

Simply put, Soft2Base does everything that we’d be doing manually in an automatic way. Running Soft2Base also means that you’ll be able to disable annoying system services, like iTunes’ auto-updater, Google Update, Java’s update process, and more. This could mean, if you’re on a less beefy system, a faster computer.

As Soft2Base grows, look forward to a larger base of software being supported. From what I’ve read, there are no plans to support Linux and Mac versions of applications yet. Let me know what you think of this neat little tool in the comments!

By Craig Snyder, MakeUseOf – July 25, 2012 at 10:00PM

Software packagers like Ninite are at an uptick in popularity now that the old seek-and-download method is quickly drawing close towards extinction. Imagine what your kids will think when you tell them that you actually had to search for and manually update certain essential software in the future. Crazy, right?

iOS and other platforms come built around automatic updates to core functionality and additional software that you should install. That’s one huge benefit of having the App Store. Windows isn’t quite there yet. However, that hasn’t kept certain third-party developers from molding that sort of a feature for you. As mentioned before, Ninite makes that easy on you. Soft2Base makes it even easier, and I’ll show you how today.

Click here to check out Soft2Base!

Soft2Base is a software manager for Windows that scans for over 60 of the most popular applications and ensures that your computer is running the very latest version. If not, Soft2Base can silently download and automatically install them for you.

On launch, Soft2Base makes it easy for you by displaying all of their supported software. As you can see at the bottom left, there are display filters that will allow you to narrow down the listed software by installed or not, need to be updated, already up to date, and more recent than listed. In the next screenshot, you’ll see that I’ve filtered to only see software on my system that needs to be updated.

You can then check off the software you’d like to update and click Next. Here, you’ll notice more important options at the bottom left of the screen. You’re able to choose if you’d like to install without comparing, install silently, or download without installing. I never recommend running through silent installs, as that is how you can get toolbars and other bloatware stuffed onto your system.

Soft2Base will automatically begin downloading your software and the installation prompts will automatically pop up if you’ve chosen to install them manually.

I’ve yet to run into any issues on Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) and it’s worked like a charm thus far. Additional features include the ability to create and save a profile that consists of only certain software that you’d like to monitor and keep up to date. The software supports English, Bulgarian, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish and Turkish, and is completely portable. You’re also able to view logs and downloaded files, all within the interface.

Simply put, Soft2Base does everything that we’d be doing manually in an automatic way. Running Soft2Base also means that you’ll be able to disable annoying system services, like iTunes’ auto-updater, Google Update, Java’s update process, and more. This could mean, if you’re on a less beefy system, a faster computer.

As Soft2Base grows, look forward to a larger base of software being supported. From what I’ve read, there are no plans to support Linux and Mac versions of applications yet. Let me know what you think of this neat little tool in the comments!

By udijw, DIYPhotography.net -DIY Photography and Studio Lighting – July 25, 2012 at 12:55PM

Who said that hi-end lighting equipment has to be expensive?

And who says the only way to shoot with fluorescent light is to use the flicker-free kino-flo lights that can cost you thousands of dollars?

I began using this fluorescent lighting technique nearly 10 years ago, long before kino-flo’s and Peter Hurley became popular. I have been asked to describe it so many times that I decided it was time to put together a few tutorials to show how to build it and how to use it.

In this article, I am going to deal with the “how-to use” the fluorescent studio lights. Jump to the end and you will find a video and parts list that will help you build your own set-up for less than four hundred dollars.

read more

By Thorin Klosowski, Lifehacker – July 25, 2012 at 08:45AM

With the release of any new operating system comes a list of annoyances for veteran users. OS X Mountain Lion is no different, and while a number of its new features are great, a few annoyances have popped up that are pretty easy to fix. Here’s how to do it.

De-iOS-ify the Interface

It’s no secret that Mountain Lion takes a lot of cues from iOS for its interface. Like Lion before it, Mountain Lion has tweaks that are a little annoying. These include reverse-scrolling on trackpads, hidden scroll bars, and more. The good news? If you disabled everything in Lion your settings will cross over to Mountain Lion. If you didn’t? Most everything is in the same place, even if it’s worded differently. Check out our guide to De-iOS-ifying OS X Lion for a rundown of doing the same thing on Mountain Lion.

For an additional set of options you can also check out the free software Lion Tweaks 2. Lion Tweaks was initially released to get rid of some of OS X Lion’s biggest annoyances, but has been updated with support for Mountain Lion. With Lion Tweaks you can quickly disable the resume feature for apps, get rid of the Calendar’s leather look, show hidden files, and more.

Take Control of Hyperactive Gatekeeper Settings

Gatekeeper is Mountain Lion’s new privacy system to keep you from installing apps that aren’t approved. It also alerts you when apps try to access private information. This is pretty handy for new users, but for anyone who wants to step outside the Mac App Store ecosystem it’s a bit of a pain.

To change your Gatekeeper settings open up System Preferences and click Security & Privacy. The big change here is under the General tab where the “Allow applications downloaded from” option exists. If you know what you’re doing and want to use software downloaded from outside the Mac App Store you can change this setting to either “Mac App Store and identified developers” or “Anywhere” in order to use your own software.

Gatekeeper also adds a few new customization options on the Privacy tab. Here you can select which apps have access to your location and address book. When you first start launching apps that access your address book you’ll get a lot of pop-ups from apps requesting that access. This is valuable information, but gets annoying over time. The Privacy tab is your one-stop shop to enabling and disabling access.

Integrate Growl Directly with Notification Center

Most of us have been using the system notification tool Growl for a long time, but the introduction of Mountain Lion’s own Notification Center means we now have a new option.

Not all of your apps are going to get updated to support Mountain Lion’s handy new Notification Center. Thankfully, you can integrate the two together with an app called Hiss. With Hiss installed, all of your apps that support Growl will push notifications into Notification Center for a relatively seamless integration between the two. Hiss is still in beta, but it has worked well for us so far. You can’t fine-tune the notification types like you can in Growl, but it works to make Growl and Notification Center play nice together. You can always, of course, disable Notification Center completely in the System Preferences under Notifications and use Growl exclusively.

Disable Annoying Notification Alerts Before They Start

By default, Notifications are set up for all the stock Apple apps. If you haven’t really been using these apps then the notifications—and their accompanying sounds—might come as a big surprise.

For instance, all Apple software has notifications enabled. This means Game Center, Face Time, Calendar, and every other app that comes packed in with Mountain Lion that can push notifications. It’s a bit surprising to get a notification from something like Game Center if you don’t really use it, so it’s wise to pop into the Notifications settings in System Preferences and tweak the setting accordingly.

Turn Off Automatic System Updates

With Mountain Lion, you can automatically install software updates when your computer is sleeping. By default, this setting is enabled. If you’re not comfortable getting silent updates for software without reading the list of changes it’s not hard to turn off.

In System Preferences, click on Software Update. Here you can disable automatic software updates, security updates, and automatic downloading of apps purchased on other Macs. We’d say most people would want to keep at least the security updates on, but software updates are entirely up to you.

Get AirPlay Mirroring on Nearly Any Mac

One of the major annoyances with Mountain Lion is that the AirPlay mirroring feature that sends your Mac desktop to your TV via Apple TV only works on Mac’s released after 2011.

The good news is that you can do this anyway with AirParrot, a $10 application that adds the same functionality to older Macs. We’re fans of AirParrot and if you don’t have a 2011 or newer Mac, it’s the easiest way around Mountain Lion’s AirPlay restrictions.

Install Mountain Lion on an Unsupported Older Mac

Apple dropped support for a few older models of Macs with Mountain Lion, but that doesn’t mean you still can’t check it out. Currently, the forum users in MacForums have put together a couple different guides for installing Mountain Lion on unsupported Macs. The only solutions require a lot of manual work to get your files in order, but if you’re dying to use Mountain Lion it’s an option. Just remember that Apple won’t support your computer if anything goes wrong.

By Melanie Pinola, Lifehacker – July 25, 2012 at 08:45AM

You can easily download OS X Mountain Lion from the App Store any time after purchasing it, but if you want your own physical copy of the installation, here’s how to make your own Mountain Lion install DVD or USB drive.

Having the installer on physical media is necessary if you ever want to do a clean install of the operating system or install it on a Hackintosh.

As with last year’s Lion upgrade, once you run the installer on your system, it disappears from your Applications folder. You can get it back by holding down the option key while clicking on the purchases tab to re-download the file or restore the installer from a Time Machine backup, but to save you some time, it’s best to do this disc burning before you update your Mac to Mountain Lion.

The Easy Option: Use Lion DiskMaker

Lion Disk Maker is a donationware app from Serial Server. Version 2rc2 burns Mountain Lion or Lion to an external drive or DVD. You’ll need at least an 8GB USB flash drive, USB/Firewire drive, or SD card to make the bootable disk or a single-layer or dual-layer writable DVD. Note that the program will overwrite all files on your USB drive or SD card when creating the bootable disk.

Lion Disk Maker finds your copy of Lion downloaded to your Applications folder, asks you what media type you want to use to create the install disk, then handles the rest.

DIY Option: Use OS X’s Built-in Disk Utility

The steps for burning Mountain Lion to disk are essentially the same as the ones for Lion:

1. Download Lion from the Mac App Store—but don’t install it yet, because of the disappearing installer issue noted above.
2. Find the installer in your Applications folder and right-click on it then select “Show Package Contents.” Head to Contents > SharedSupport and look for the file called “InstallESD.dmg”
3. Open up Disk Utility from your Applications > Utilities folder and drag the DMG file into the sidebar on the left.
4. If you’re burning to DVD: insert your disk, select the DMG file in the sidebar, and hit “Burn.” Skip to step 6.
5. If you’re burning to USB, you’ll need to first format the drive properly:
   • Insert the disk and select it in the sidebar in Disk Utility. Select the Partition tab, select “1 Partition” from the dropdown menu and choose “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” for the format type.
   • Click the Options button and choose “GUID Partition Table”—this will make the drive bootable and formatted correctly for the Mac. Hit Apply to format—which will completely erase—the drive.
   • Now click the Restore tab and choose the DMG file as your source and the USB drive as the destination. Hit the Apply button to make it happen.
6. Finally, to boot from your install disk/drive and install Mountain Lion, restart your Mac and hold the Option key down when you hear the startup chime.

Besides installing Mountain Lion, your installer disk/drive will have the host of handy utilities on it such as Disk Utility and Time Machine recovery. Note that when you install Mountain Lion, you’ll have a recovery partition on your drive in case something goes wrong. That said, it’s always nice to have a disc or flash drive handy in the event you need to perform a clean install.