MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [July 6th]” plus 12 more

Cool Websites and Tools [July 6th]
The Sony Playstation Network Hack [Infographic]
Mixcloud – Stream Music & Talk Show Podcasts [Web & iOS]
How To Take Awesome Screenshots In Windows 7
How To Install PHPList To Host Your Own Subscriber System
Hot Tech Deals – Hard Drives Galore + more
The New Features In WordPress 3.2 & Why You Should Upgrade
Facebook Introduces Video Calls Using Skype [News]
Download Files Directly To Dropbox Or Email Using sideCLOUDload
MagicPrefs: Another Powerful Mouse & Trackpad App [Mac]
BartsideeTV: Quickly Search For Videos In Boxee & XBMC
How To Link MS Word 2010 To OneNote & Use It For Writing Linked Notes
Online Pharmacies Phish For Google Plus Fans With Fake Invites [News]

Posted: 06 Jul 2011 08:31 PM PDT

Check out some of the latest MakeUseOf discoveries. Most of the listed websites are FREE or come with a decent free account option. If you want to have similar cool website round-ups delivered to your daily email, subscribe here.

Add Your Website Here!

Masher For Facebook – Masher is a popular web service that lets you easily create videos from photographs. The site requires you to upload photographs before you can add text, audio, and video effects to the images. But thanks to Masher's Facebook application you can now create videos directly from your Facebook photos. Read more: Masher For Facebook: Create Videos From Your Facebook Photographs

		Reader Plus – If you use Google Reader on a frequent basis, and want some more features like the ability to change the theme or direct sharing to sites like Facebook then you might want to try out this Chrome extension called Reader Plus. It adds a lot of features to Google Reader, some of which are a colored list view, an unread counter and much more. Read more: Reader Plus: Enhance Google Reader With Cool Features

		Gigwalk – Numerous people are willing to pay for various tasks that they do not have the time or ability to complete by themselves. These tasks can be anything from investigating a road block to taking a picture of a restaurant's menu. To find people for such tasks and to earn money by completing such tasks, you can start using a tool called Gigwalk, an iOS application sized at 5.1MB. Read more: Gigwalk: A Great Service That Lets People Post & Complete Jobs

		College Packing List – When you leave home to start living in your college's dorms, you need to leave prepared. You need to ensure you have all the necessities packed for your stay in the dorm. Here to help organize your packing is a web service called College Packing List, that lets you create and organize packing lists. Read more: College Packing List: Create, Save, Share & Print College Packing & Shopping Lists

		TimerTab – There are several applications and websites that have time related functions but having all of them right from within your browser helps a lot. TimerTab is a Chrome extension that gives you a timer, stopwatch and alarm in a browser tab. You can start the alarm and timer with a single click and even pause the stopwatch whenever you need to. Read more: TimerTab: Google Chrome Based Stopwatch, Alarm & Timer

Add Your Website Here!

These are just half of the websites that we discovered in the last couple of days. If you want us to send you daily round-ups of all cool websites we come across, leave your email here. Or follow us via RSS feed.

Cool Websites and Tools [July 6th] is a post from: MakeUseOf

My Life In The Cloud

If you’re a huge advocate of on-demand streaming, cloud storage and despise waiting for downloads to finish then Mixcloud will certainly appeal to you. Your only option when it comes to listening to a chosen show is by streaming it directly to your device, be it your home PC or smartphone.

Mixcloud restricts its listeners to this for legal issues and claims to ensure artists featured on music cloudcasts receive their royalties. Admittedly, when the “why can’t I download this” penny dropped I was slightly put off.

Then I saw the sheer volume and variety of shows available, the shiny new iOS app and suddenly felt the need to adjust my wireless router for optimal streaming in the garden. What can I say?

As you’d expect, the Mixcloud website and app follow the same formula. Cloudcasts are essentially sorted by trend (that’s the current most popular shows) and show category. If you’re simply looking for something to dull your boredom, there’s usually plenty of variety in the popular column.

Browsing by category is often the best way to discover mixes, shows and artists and if that fails then there’s always search. Once you have listened to a few shows and shared a little personal taste with Mixcloud the service begins recommending shows and users you might like.

Unfortunately there is (currently, version 1.2.0) no way of retrieving these recommendations using the app on your iPhone or similar, only via the web interface. A future update will probably rectify this – fingers collectively crossed!

Twitter For Music?

If you’ve noticed a particular user is uploading consistently good material then you can opt to follow them. This will fetch their listens, favourites and uploads which will appear in your feed. The mobile app doesn’t have a feed as such, though if you tap Profile on the start screen your followers and any users you’re following are listed.

If you use Twitter or Facebook you can connect your accounts and find friends already using the service, or simply browse your way through the content on offer till you find someone who tickles your fancy.

The overall format does vaguely resemble Twitter, with cloudcasts listed in a short succinct form. You can favourite a track as well as share via social networks. Each listing contains three small icons – plays, favourites and shares.

The overall effect is a very social experience, geared towards sharing, recommending and discovering content that is relevant to you. Mixcloud claims that as they’re storing all their data on the cloud they have a lot more data to play around with, making recommendations that little bit more personal.

Nobody’s Perfect

There are a few annoyances with Mixcloud, though these aren’t particularly major considering how the whole package is free. Unfortunately there’s no way of skipping through a cloudcast – both via the browser interface and app. This is fairly frustrating when the list of tracks (if you’re listening to music) is displayed in front of you and tapping them does nothing.

Not everyone will be put off by this (remember radio?) but adding a mix to your favourites because you love track 7 and then never being able to skip to track 7 without listening to tracks 1 though to 6 is a bit tiresome after a while.

Download Mixcloud for iOS (3.0+ required)
Visit Mixcloud.com

Conclusion

Mixcloud provides a fantastic database of streaming audio entertainment, with a snappy web interface and useful little app. Whilst the app is lagging behind a little (no feed or recommendations) it’s still a fast and reliable way to access your cloudcasts. Anyone can upload to the Mixcloud service, so any prospective podcasters or DJs reading this might want to explore the exposure that Mixcloud might bring. We’ve got an article about creating your own podcast right here.

Have you tried Mixcloud? Do you use the app? Any features you’d love to see? Share your thoughts and favourite mixes below!

Mixcloud – Stream Music & Talk Show Podcasts [Web & iOS] is a post from: MakeUseOf

More articles about: audio, cloud, iOS, ipad, iphone, ipod touch, music, Podcast, streaming, streaming music

The Basics

I bet you all know that you can take a screenshot of your entire computer screen by clicking the Print Screen or PrtScrn button on your keyboard. Depending your keyboard, you might have to click a function (FN) key in combination with the [PrtScrn] button.

print screen

Now did you know that you can take a screenshot of only the currently selected window by holding down the [ALT] key at the same time as clicking [Print Screen]? This is quite handy if you want to save yourself some cropping.

By the way, the [Print Screen] button is called that and not screenshot because back in the days before Windows, clicking this button would actually print the current screen.

Where Is My Screenshot?

In case you didn’t know, clicking this button loads an image of the entire screen (a screenshot) into your Windows clipboard. From there you can paste it into an image editing tool to work with it, e.g. crop or annotate it. So what do you do once you have taken a screenshot?

To save or work with a screenshot, you need to paste it into an image editing program. Simply open the program of your choice, for example Paint, eventually open a new file, then click [CTRL] + [V] to paste your screenshot from the clipboard. From there you can edit it and save it as an image file.

You can use any image editor or even Word. Personally, I prefer IrfanView. It’s a lightweight but powerful tool that allows you to view, crop, resize, and batch process image files. In fact, all I use to create my screenshots is the above mentioned buttons and IrfanView. You can read more about IrfanView here:

I save all my screenshot images as PNG (portable network graphics), a format optimized for transferring images on the Internet.

Windows 7 Snipping Tool

If you’re not comfortable with manually taking a screenshot and pasting it into an application for editing and/or saving or if you often take partial screenshots and want to save time cropping the image, you should try the Windows 7 Snipping Tool. You can find it under > Start > All Programs > Accessories > Snipping Tool.

windows 7 snipping tool

You can select from taking a free-form Snip, a rectangular Snip, a Windows Snip (same as [ALT] + [PrtScrn]), or a Full-screen Snip (same as just [PrtScrn]). The partial screenshot is pretty neat and something you cannot easily do with the manual method described above.

print screen

When you’re done taking your screenshot, the image is opened in the Snipping Tool editing window. Here you can draw with a pen, highlight elements, copy the image for further editing elsewhere, or save it.

capture partial screen

You can do all that and more with IrfanView and other tools. For simple screenshots, however, you may find it more comfortable to work with the Snipping Tool.

5 Tips For Optimizing Your Screenshots

Avoid Resizing
When you resize a screenshot image, it tends to become fuzzy and text will be hard to read. Rather than resizing…
Crop Images
This way you eliminate things you don’t really want to show. Use the [ALT] + [PrtScrn] key combination to capture only the current window, then crop further.
Annotate
With annotating I mean highlighting key elements in your screenshot, for example by pointing an arrow to a certain position, circling a button, or highlighting text. You can also add text comments. If you’re using IrfanView, go to > Edit > Show Paint dialog to get a menu with the respective features (also shown in screenshot above).
Edit to Perfection
Sometimes you take a screenshot of something and there is an add in the middle. To enhance your screenshot, cut it out. You can also cut out superfluous space and make your screenshot more compact than what you see on the screen. In IrfanView for example, you can easily copy and paste selected parts of your image and thus re-arrange it.
Use Dedicated Screenshot Software
There are lots of great screenshot tools out there. Some are free, others not. Our Managing Editor Mark swears on SnagIt (not free). I would recommend Screenpresso. Our writer Jessica, who edits her screenshots to absolute perfection, also uses FastStone Capture 5.3.

For more screenshot tips and tricks, check out the following articles:

How often do you actually take screenshots and what technique have you been using so far? Do you wish the Print Screen button would actually still print the current screen?

How To Take Awesome Screenshots In Windows 7 is a post from: MakeUseOf

More articles about: image tools, screenshot, Windows 7

Installing PHPList On Your Own Web Server

What’s the benefit of installing the script on your own server? Well, number one, your entire list and everything associated with the subscriptions and newsletter are stored somewhere that you control. It’s also free.

First, download a free copy of PHPList, and save it to your PC. Just as when you install WordPress, using phpMyAdmin, or whatever utility your web host uses to create a new SQL Database, add a new database called “phplistdb” and then add a new user “phplist” with password “phplist“, and grant all rights to the phplistdb database.

In the downloaded Zip file, you’ll find a “public_html” folder with an index.html file and a “lists” folder. Upload these to the sub-directory on your web server (in the public folder) where you want to store your PHPLists script. Before you upload, go in and make sure to edit the config.php file in /lists/config/.

The important settings are toward the top of the config.php file. Just make sure that the database name, user ID and password are the same as the ones you used when you set up the database. Another important setting is $pageroot and $adminpages – make sure those point to the correct directory where you uploaded the “lists” directory.

If you’ve set up the database and the config file correctly, when you open up “http://<your-domain>/subscriptions/lists/” , the script will open up the page where you can run the PHPlist install script. I’ve used “subscriptions” in this case, but you’ll use whatever sub-directory where you uploaded the script.

Click to install PHPList, and you’ll see the script populate all of the tables in the PHPlist database you created.

Once that’s done, click on “main page“, and then click on “Setup phpList” on the next screen.

This next screen makes it ridiculously easy to set up phpList to run on your server. All you have to do is go through each item on the list. The procedure walks you through everything.

On the page configuration pages, you can customize just about everything that the users see during the subscription process.

Customizations include the general formatting of the “subscribe me” page, as well as where people are forwarded after successfully subscribing – allowing you to offer a “thank you for subscribing” page that you’ve built yourself.

As you can see above, nothing is set in stone. Want the header of the subscription page to look just like your own site, go ahead and edit the “header” code to your liking.

Keep in mind that you don’t have to do all of this customization. You can install, set up and run phpList right out of the box without any customization. All you have to do is create a “subscribe” link on your site, and send visitors to the /lists/ directory – they’ll see the sign-up page where they can enter in their email address to subscribe to your newsletter.

All information gets stored on your server, not some service where everything gets stored out on the “cloud” somewhere. They subscribe and get forwarded directly to the “thank you” page.

There is one caveat to keep in mind – the script needs the ability to send email on your server. It can use SMTP if you configure it in the config file, but it can take some work to get it to send if you don’t use the standard port 25. There are lots of help forums out there that can help with this setup, but just keep it in mind if you hit a brick wall. You may also need to work closely with your web host service so that your account has the appropriate permissions to send out mail. Or you can set up the system on your own web server and open up the right port yourself.

So, give phpList a try and see what it’s like to control your own subscriber list. You’ll never have to worry about losing the list that you worked so hard to build – you can export and save that list so that you’ll always have it. Let us know what you think of the service, and whether you know of any similar newsletter scripts that work as well on a web server.

How To Install PHPList To Host Your Own Subscriber System is a post from: MakeUseOf

More articles about: blogging tips, blogging tools, hosting, install, newsletter, php, self-hosted

New Minimum Requirements

First up, WordPress has raised the bar for your server requirements, and you absolutely must be running PHP 5.2.4 and MySQL 5.0 or higher. If you're not sure what versions you're running, an easy way to check is to create a php file in the root of your website (any filename will do as long as it ends in .php, but for the sake of demonstration I'll call mine phpinfo.php) – then add the following single line of code to the file:

<?php phpinfo();?>

Save, and access the file using your browser. Directly at the top will be a line saying which version of php you have, and if you do a text search for “Client API version”, you'll see what version of MySQL you have too.

Ready To Upgrade?

Having checked the minimum requirements, take a full backup of your files and database. I described how to do this via the command line before, or you can try the non-techie method if you don’t have SSH access.

Bear in mind that while the majority of plugins generally don’t have an issue, if you're using something particularly hardcore such as caching or major functionality changes then you may run into some problems. In that case your only option is to either restore from a backup or find alternative plugins. Make sure all of your plugins are up to date before proceeding with the core WordPress update through the admin panel.

What Do To If Things Go Wrong

The first step is to try a manual installation. Download a fresh copy of the files from WordPress.org and re-upload everything to your FTP server EXCEPT wp-content. If you overwrite your wp-content folder, all your uploads and pictures etc will be gone, as I found out once. Be careful! Once fully uploaded, manually visit yourdomain.com/wp-admin/upgrade.php to run the upgrade process manually on the database.

If you've upgraded but you're getting errors or a blank screen, it may be a particular plugin. Rename your plugins folder to temporarily deactivate them all, then move them back one by one to find the culprit.

So, What's New?

Speed!

For those of us with larger sites, speed is a major issue. 3.2 brings a ton of speed improvements, most notably in the admin side of things where you'll find yourself zipping around now. The core code has been updated too, removing unnecessary functions and optimising database queries.

Distraction Free Writing

Wow – this is actually really cool. When using the visual editor to write your post, there's a new button on the toolbar. Click that to hide all interface elements, and jump straight into a WriteRoom-esque fullscreen distraction-free UI.

Moving the mouse will cause a minimal set of buttons to display as well as the exit fullscreen, but they soon fade to this:

Beautiful… and combined with the speed improvements I think this will really cause a lot of people to stop writing offline in tools such as Windows Live Writer. Fullscreen mode also works in HTML view, but the button the toolbar is labelled as simply “fullscreen”, so it's easier to find.

New Default Theme

Twenty-Eleven is the new included theme, and it's simple incredible. Built from the ground up to take advantage of HTML5, it now offers far more customisation than ever before, including options such as layout. It's going to set new standards in theme design and puts many premium templates even to shame. Let's have a closer look.

Post Formats

Built into the theme are now Tumblr-like post format options – asides, links, quotes, gallery. I haven’t had time to explore these formats in much depth, but for many these are going to be the highlight of the new theme I think.

Layout & Style Options

Choose between either light or dark, sidebar on left or right or none at all, and change the default link color. You can get a dramatically unique look in seconds. The underlying look and feel of the theme is fantastically clean and tidy.

Random Headers

Upload more than one file to use as a header and you'll now be able to rotate through them randomly, which is nice.

For some rather odd reason, they decided to remove the sidebar from single post pages, a rather obvious oversight but one that is easily fixed by downloading a slightly modified child theme from here.

Better Admin Toolbar

It was an interesting feature added in version 3, but to be honest I never saw much point to the admin bar. Thankfully, it's been updated with lots more useful links on the Add New menu, so I might re-enable it.

Should You Upgrade?

The underlying code in WordPress 3.2 has been cleaned up so that not only the backend is faster but core functions too, so for that alone it's worth upgrading. The new default theme is such a vast improvement that hopefully it'll prevent some of the cookie-cutter default installs I see so many of when people just can't be bothered to customise their blog at all.

That's all for today – if you have problems upgrading then let us know in the comments or crowd source your problem to the tech support community part of MakeUseOf. I'm nearing completion of my upcoming WordPress guide too, so subscribe today to be the first one to know when that's released, and don't forget to check through all our previous WordPress tutorials.

Need Assistance? Ask questions to MakeUseOf staff and thousands of other readers on MakeUseOf Answers!

The New Features In WordPress 3.2 & Why You Should Upgrade is a post from: MakeUseOf

More articles about: blogging, blogging tips, blogging tools, upgrade, wordpress

Just A URL Away

The combination of sideCLOUDload and your private Dropbox account will act as your virtual USB drive. If you always keep your computer on and the Dropbox client running, you can provide sideCLOUDload with the download URL when you are on the go, and have the file ready when you arrive home.

00b scl logo

To use sideCLOUDload, have the download link ready and put it in the “Source URL” field. There’s no registration process because the service is intended to be used anonymously. You can save your user information if you want to. This step will save you from the boring repetition of filling out the form, but is not advisable if you are using a public computer.

01a URL

If you want to send the file to your Dropbox account, choose Dropbox and fill in all the required fields. Please note that you can change the filename and save location if you want to.

01b dropbox

The ability to choose your own location to put the downloaded files opens up other possible usages, such as remote triggering torrent downloads.

If you prefer to have the downloaded files in your inbox, you’ll have a slightly different form to fill.

01c email

Click the “submit” button to start the cloud download process.

01d submit

That’s it. You’ve downloaded your first file directly to Dropbox. It can’t be simpler than that.

Add A Bookmarklet To Simplify

Another feature that will enrich the downloading experience is the bookmarklet. Go to the lower part of the screen and you’ll see the “sideCLOUDload BookMarklet” button. Click the information link to read more about the item.

02a bookmarklet

Drag the button to the bookmark area to install it. You’ll be asked to rename the bookmarklet. Choose something short that you can easily remember.

02b bookmarklet name

With the bookmarklet installed, you can add any download URL quickly by clicking on the bookmarklet.

According to the information, you can edit the sideCLOUDload bookmarklet to suit your needs. If you want to do that, open the bookmark list.

02c show bookmark

Select the bookmarklet from the list and choose to edit the address.

02d edit address

From the script, you can see three important things. First the “cloudChoice“. You can choose where to send your files between “dropbox” and “email“.

02e script

The second option is the saving location. The default value is “sidecloudload“, but you can change it into the name of other folders inside your Dropbox folders.

The “submitIt” value determines whether to execute the upload directly (“true“), or not (“false“). If you want to change the value to “true“, you have to save your user information on the machine where you have installed the bookmarklet. Again, this is not advisable if you are using a public computer. If you want to, it’s possible to have multiple instances of this bookmarklet installed on your browser, each with different settings.

This is the pop up window that will appear when you click on the bookmarklet.

03a url

I personally find sideCLOUDload very useful. But what do you think? Will you need the service? Do you know of other alternatives? If so, share them using the comments below and don’t forget to check out our article about a similar service called URL Droplet.

Image credit: mnsc

Download Files Directly To Dropbox Or Email Using sideCLOUDload is a post from: MakeUseOf

More articles about: cloud, cloud computing, downloader, dropbox, email

MagicPrefs’s Features

I personally find BetterTouchTool easier to use than MagicPrefs because, for some odd reason, its Tap to Click feature is not as smooth as the default settings that Apple provides. But aside from that, MagicPrefs offers twice as many gestures and other controls.

Gestures

MagicPrefs enables you to, for example, activate OS X’s Exposé All Windows, Spaces, Dashboard, Spotlight, or Application Windows with say a two, three, or four-finger click or swipe.

Screen shot 2011 06 27 at 12 49 51 PM

To activate a setting, first select the action under Clips & Taps and then click the accompanying hand gesture.

Graphical Display

If you've never used an application like MagicPrefs before, then you will probably not find it intuitive.

Screenshot

The application includes real-time graphical displays for each selected action, so you will get an idea of what you need to do with your hand and fingers to activate a specified action.

Custom Actions

MagicPrefs includes custom actions for navigating specific applications, keyboard shortcuts, and even AppleScript actions.

Plug ins

When you select a specific application, that means the select hand gesture, click or tap will only work when that application in the forefront. Unlike BetterTouchTool, basic AppleScripts Actions (for navigating iTunes and adjusting audio volume) are not embedded into MagicPrefs. But the site provides a simple set of scripts that you can use with MagicPrefs to get you going.

Keyboardshortcuts

To add keyboard actions, select a Click or Tap action, then from the drop-down menu select Custom Actions > Manage Keyboard Actions. In the resulting window, click inside the data entry to clear it, and then type in your keyboard shortcut. You will need to enter the modifier key(s) and letter(s) individually—not all at once. If you make a mistake, click in the text box again to clear it and start over.

Keyboardshortcut

You can add as many keyboard shortcuts as you like, and then select and apply them when you choose a click, tap, swipe, or rotate & pinch action.

Other Features

MagicPrefs includes other features, such as “inverse scrolling” – something Apple will be adding to OS X Lion – which simply means that when you scroll your two fingers up, a selected page scrolls down, and visa versa when you scroll downwards.

OTHERFEATURES

Other unique features include “Disable capslock notification” and the ability to configure the MagicPrefs icon in the menu bar to display your Trackpad and MagicMouse's battery level.

Screenshot728

MagicPrefs also includes a set of plugins, such as the iSightSnap which enables you “to save a snapshot from your iSight to Photo Booth” and the MagicLauncher, “a small interface that shows a clickable list of Recent Applications icons at the mouse position“. The other listed plugins, like MagicTerminal, which allows terminal commands to be sent from a remote iOS device are for purchase at the App Store.

I found MagicPrefs to be a little buggy in places, but because it's a free download, I think it's worth downloading it and taking it for a trial run. See if it fits your particular style of tapping, clicking, shipping, and launching applications and other items on your Mac.

With the upcoming release of OS Lion, Apple is indicating that many Mac users will want to navigate their Mac similarly to how they navigate their iPhone or iPad, using a trackpad and MagicMouse. Let us know what you think of MagicPrefs, BetterTouchTool, or other similar applications. Have you abandoned your traditional three-button mouse for finger actions instead? Why or why not?

MagicPrefs: Another Powerful Mouse & Trackpad App [Mac] is a post from: MakeUseOf

More articles about: mac hacks, mouse, mouse gestures, productivity

Using BartSideeTV

Using BartSideeTV really couldn’t be simpler. Just open the plugin and you’ll see a search interface. Start typing the show you want to watch and see the results:

If the result is a movie or individual episode, click it to watch. If the result is a show or folder, you can browse the videos inside:

Note that Hulu seems to be having some trouble lately, even if you’ve managed to get Hulu working in Boxee again. Hopefully another fix is on the way; feel free to point to one in the comments below. Having said that, Hulu is by no means the only service this supports.

Managing Sources

Before you can do anything with this service, you’ll need to add some sources. Head over to the settings and you can enable various things:

Once you add your sources of choice you’re ready to go!

Sources

A variety of different sources work with this, many of which will only work in particular countries. They are:

Hulu (not working on Boxee box)
BBC iPlayer (including HD and subtitle support)
Dutch channels ( sbs, uzg, nl24, tmf)
YouTube
svtplay (Swedish)
CBC (Canadian)
Navi-x (No script support)
ZDF and ARD (German)
AnimeFreak TV
Chinese TV

Of particular interest here are the results from NaviX, the must-have media browser add-on for XMBC and Boxee. With its easy access to search, BartSideeTV is the fastest way to quickly find something on NaviX.

More sources are on the way of course, so be sure to check out the “Settings” from time to time and see what’s new.

Installation

Ready to install this plugin and see how it works for yourself? Head over to the official BartSideeTV page for installation instructions for Boxee. It’s pretty simple: just add a repo and you’ll find the app waiting for you.

XBMC users will have to check this blog post for installation instructions, assuming they haven’t been added to the above link by the time you read this.

Conclusion

BartSideeTV clearly sees itself as being influenced by Google TV. The logo is so closely related, it might end up being sued. Having said that, the idea that searching for videos is faster than clicking through various menus is a solid one. I hope this project grows to take on a wide variety of sources.

What do you think? Is this a useful media center extension, or have you seen better? Leave your comments below!

BartsideeTV: Quickly Search For Videos In Boxee & XBMC is a post from: MakeUseOf

More articles about: entertainment, media center, movies, online videos, search, search engine, streaming video, TV, tv shows, video search

The Linked Notes Feature and the Uses We Can Put It To

The direct benefit of the Linked Notes feature is that you can take notes in a docked OneNote window on your desktop while you work side-by-side in the other programs. This linking allows you to refer back to either the note or the main document by clicking on the link. Quite simply, you don't have to copy-paste information manually. You can use the Linked Notes feature to work with MS Word 2010 (or PowerPoint) and OneNote side-by-side. Plus, you can use Tags on OneNote (like, Remember for Later; To-do etc) to flag the notes or even assign an Outlook Task to it.

In fact, the PowerPoint blog has a very nice explanation on the uses to put Linked Notes to.

This free 'exchange' of information makes for a great information management and research aid. But how do we set it up? Let's try out with a demo.

Let's Make OneNote and MS Word Work Together

Launch MS Word 2010. Please note that the document needs to be saved in Word 2010's DOCX format. The Linked Notes button can be found on the Review tab of the Ribbon.

OneNote opens up and displays the Select Location in OneNote dialog box. You can click and expand the notebooks to pick a location to save the linked notes.

With a click on the OK button, you can start your note taking. When you select the note, a small Word icon (or a PowerPoint icon if you are working there) appears to indicate the link with the document in context. Of course, like in the earlier versions too, if you copy-paste any content from places like web pages it appears with the source link as reference.

To show the other side of how these two Office programs work together, close both the linked note and the main Word file. Open OneNote and the saved note. Click on the little Word icon or the little link icon on the upper-left to get to the connected Word document.

Managing the Linked Note Window

One of the easiest ways to take quick notes is by clicking the Dock to Desktop button on the View tab in OneNote 2010. Dock to Desktop allows you to take notes while working from any program on your computer. To reiterate again, if it's Word or PowerPoint; your notes will be stored in context.

Clicking the Normal View button on the View tab closes the linked note taking session.

If you want to remove any of the linked notes, click on the chain link button on the upper-left and click on Delete Links on This Page.

The 'in context' linking handshake between OneNote and MS Word or PowerPoint is a great help when you are looking to extend your research with extra notes and external resources. It takes away some of the headaches involved in organizing notes and puts it all within the reach of a mouse click.

Do you use this new feature of MS Office 2010? If yes, how useful do you find it?

Image Credit: Shutterstock

How To Link MS Word 2010 To OneNote & Use It For Writing Linked Notes is a post from: MakeUseOf

More articles about: microsoft office, microsoft powerpoint, microsoft word, note taking, notes, research tools