Imagine how much easier things would be if you could display notification counts for messages and unread items on your pinned tabs. Luckily, you don’t have to imagine anymore because the Notifycon extension is here to save you.

Notifycon is a simple Chrome extension that can display notification counts on your pinned tabs in Chrome. It’s very easy-to-use and works right out of the box.

Here’s how to use Notifycon.

1. Install the Notifycon Chrome extension from the Chrome Web Store.

2. Once installed, you’ll see the new icon on your browser toolbar. There aren’t any options for the extension, so there’s nothing to customize.

3. When you click on Notifycon’s icon, you’ll see a small pop-up letting you know that you must pin the tab in order for the extension to work.

4. Click on the red “pin now” button in the above window to pin the tab. Alternatively, you can right-click on the tab (in the browser toolbar) and then select the “pin tab” option. You can also unpin tabs in the same manner (both methods).

5. Once pinned, you will see the notification count appear (if supported) for new and/or unread items. The extension is not very clear regarding the supported sites, so you’ll have to test it out for yourself. You can see from the image that Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Reader are all supported.

Note: If you have Gmail Lab’s favicon unread count enabled, you may want to disable it while using Notifycon.

With Notifycon, you can save tab space on your browser without missing a thing. Now your notifications are in clear sight and you’ll immediately know about any new messages and notifications.

The post Show Notification Counts on Pinned Tabs in Chrome appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

gfxCardStatus is really easy to use since it essentially just lists the power-hungry applications on the menu bar. Additionally, it also lets you monitor your graphics card and manually switch modes to increase battery life.

Here’s how to view which apps are affecting your battery life.

1. Download gfxCardStatus from this Web page; it’s compatible with OS X 10.7 and up. When you unzip the file, drag gfxCardStatus.app to your Applications folder.

2. When you run the application, you’ll see a new item on your menu bar. Click on the icon to see information about your graphics card and the applications that are affecting your battery life (listed under Dependencies).

While you can’t close out applications from this menu, you can close them out directly. As you can see, this is a really easy way to extend your battery life – just close out the apps that are using the most power.

3. You can also switch your graphics mode from the gfxCardStatus menu by choosing: integrated, discrete, or dynamic. Dynamic Switching is best for extending your battery life.

Note: Certain applications may not allow you to switch your graphics mode to Integrated Only, which is the more battery-friendly mode. You can find out more on the gfxCardStatus website.

gfxCardStatus quickly and easily shows you which apps are affecting your battery life, and you can in turn close them out and spend more time using your Mac and doing the things you really want to do with your time. Do you have any other methods for determining how your battery life is being affected? Let us know in the comments area below.

Photo Credits: polaroidmemories and Surat Lozowick

The post Find Out Which Apps Are Affecting Your Battery Life in Mac appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Unfortunately, Mac OS doesn’t include any time of lazy loading feature for Login Items, but there is an app that can help. DelayedLauncher is a free Mac app that will delay the startup time of your Login Items, thus decreasing the time it takes to start using your Mac.

Since DelayedLauncher doesn’t come with any instructions, here’s a quick tutorial to help you out.

1. Download DelayedLauncher from this Web page, unzip the file, and drag the .app file to your Applications folder.

2. Next, head over to your Login Items (Apple menu -> System Preferences -> Users & Groups -> Login Items). From here, remove all of the items that you plan to add to DelayedLauncher.

3. You’ll also want to add the DelayedLauncher application to your Login Items. To do this, click on the + (plus) button and choose DelayedLauncher from your Applications folder. When you’re done, it’s safe to close out System Preferences.

4. Now you’ll want to open DelayedLauncher and your Applications folder (in Finder). From here you can drag items from your Applications folder to DelayedLauncher.

Note: Even if you don’t want an item delayed, you can still add it to DelayedLauncher since there’s also an “instant” option.

5. Once you’ve added all of your desired applications to DelayedLauncher, you can customize the delays for each one. Click on an item and use the slider at the bottom of the window to choose a delay time – from instant all the way up to 5 minutes.

6. When you’re done, you can close out DelayedLauncher. The next time you login into your computer, the DelayedLauncher app will start up and your applications will load according to the delay times that you’ve chosen.

There you have it. No more sitting around and waiting for all of your applications to start all at once when you log into your Mac.

The post How to Delay the Startup Time of Your Login Items [Mac] appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

While this may be one of your personal productivity techniques for browsing the Web, it’s not always the smartest method. The longer you keep a tab open in Chrome, the more it eats away at your computer’s memory. Before you know it, your browser starts to move really slow and may even become responsive.

Luckily, there’s a simple way to avoid this huge headache, thanks to The Great Suspender extension for Chrome. With this extension, you can suspend a tab until you’re ready to use it, which in turn helps to reduce Chrome’s memory footprint. Here’s how to use it.

1. Install The Great Suspender Chrome extension.

2. Once installed, click on the browser icon and go down to Settings.

3. On the Settings page you can choose to: turn on screen capturing, automatically unsuspend a tab when it gains focus, whitelist keywords or Web pages, view or clear your suspended tab history, and choose a length of inactivity that needs to go by before a tab suspend automatically.

Everything is pretty self-explanatory, but if you’re wondering about the screen capture feature, it’s experimental. It’s done using a script called html2canvas. The script will take a screenshot of your suspended page and display it on the tab. This helps you to remember what was on the page.

4. When you’re done, you’re ready to suspend your tabs. To do so, click on the browser icon and click on suspend this tab or suspend all tabs. Once a tab is suspended, you’ll see a yellow bar at the top of the page along with the name of the website, URL, and favicon. If you’ve enabled screen capturing, you’ll see the screenshot below the yellow bar.

5. To unsuspend the tab, click the yellow bar to reload the page. If you’ve suspended more than one tab, you can choose the “Reload All Tabs” option from the browser icon to unsuspend them all at once.

As you can see, The Great Suspender is an invaluable Chrome extension. Not only is it lightweight and easy-to-use, it also improves your browsing experience.

The post Temporarily Suspend a Tab in Chrome to Free Up System Memory appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

This time I’m sharing a similar tool called AppsBar. It also adds an iOS-type multitasking functionality to the Mac via a launch bar. However, AppsBar displays your recently closed apps at the top of the screen, as opposed to the bottom. It also uses very few resources and does not engage the discrete GPU, so you won’t have to worry about it slowing down your computer.

Here’s how to get quick access to your recently closed Mac apps with Appsbar.

1. Download Appsbar from the Mac App Store. I happened to catch it when it was on sale for free, but it’s now priced at $2.99.

2. When you open AppsBar, you will see its icon in your menubar. Clicking on the icon will open the launch bar and you will see your recently closed applications in the order in which they were last closed; less used apps will have a semi-transparent icon. Clicking on an icon will immediately open the app.

3. Click on the icon on the far right side of the launch bar; it will look like 3 arrowheads pointing down. This will bring up AppsBar settings.

4. There are just three options to turn on/off: autostart at login, drag gesture, keyboard shortcut. Turning the drag gesture on will let you left click on the menubar and then drag down to open AppBar. Turning the keyboard shortcut on will let you use “Command + Option + B” to open AppsBar.

5. If you want to remove an app from the launch bar, just click and hold on it until an “x” appears at the top right. Then click on “x” to close it out.

Just as AppsBar is much simpler than TaskBoard, it’s also easier to use and more convenient. You won’t have to worry about your Dock or anything else getting in the way. do you have a different way of accessing your recently closed apps on a Mac? Let us know in the comments below.

The post Get Quick Access to Your Recently Closed Apps [Mac] appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Google created this tool so that you can give your data to a trusted family member or friend, and they can do with it as they wish. Luckily, there’s great flexibility; you get to choose who to share with, what exactly is shared, how long to wait before acting up on your final wishes, and more.

Using Inactive Account Manager

1. Go to the Inactive Account Manager page from your Google account (Google App accounts are currently not supported).

2. Click on the blue “setup” button to get started; you’ll be directed to a new page.

3. Choose an “Alert me” method. Google will alert you before any actions are performed via your mobile phone. Optionally, you may also choose to add additional email address(es) other than a primary Gmail email address.

4. Choose a timeout period; you can choose 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, or 18 months. Your account will time out if you haven’t used it after this amount of time. Google will alert you one-month before the timeout period ends.

5. You may choose to notify up to ten family friends or friends that you trust about your inactive account. What’s great about this is that each contact can be unique. For instance, you can just alert one contact, but alert and share your data with another. You also get to choose which data to share (e.g. Contacts, Drive, YouTube, Google Voice, Gmail, etc). They’ll be able to download that data for three months.

6. Enter a phone number for your contact(s), as they’ll receive a verification code before being able to access your data. After that, you’ll be able to customize an email message to be sent to them. You can use this to provide additional instructions, or even to send a heartfelt farewell message – it’s up to you.

7. You may choose whether or not to have Google delete your account. This will only happen after all other actions (above) have been completed.

8. When you’re done with all of your settings, be sure to click the “Enable” button at the bottom. Optionally, you may choose to be reminded occasionally that Inactive Account Manager is enabled for your account.

Now you don’t have to worry about your Google account being inactive for eternity! You can simply pass it on to a spouse, relative, or friend for safe keeping, or just delete it without anyone even knowing. The power is in your hands.

Note: Inactive Account Manager is not available for Google Apps accounts; it’s only available for Google accounts.

The post Plan Your Digital Afterlife with Inactive Account Manager appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Phlo may not seem that useful if you’re working in the browser already, but if you’re working in another application, Phlo is a great way to do a quick search when needed.

Here’s how to search websites from your desktop with Phlo.

1. Download Phlo from the Mac App Store; it’s currently free (regularly $3.99). When you run Phlo, the search bar will appear on your desktop.

2. The first thing you’ll want to do is customize its Preferences so that it’s just the way you want it. To do this, go to Preferences from the Phlo menu.

3. In Preferences you can set up a global hotkey that can be used to show/hide the search bar. By default it uses Option+Spacebar.

You can also choose where to show Phlo’s icon: on the dock, menu bar, or both dock and menu bar. The icon simply serves as a way to show/hide the search bar.

4. On the Sites tab in Preferences, you can add, remove and edit your search engines and searchable websites. You can edit the search URL and name if you need to. If you add new websites, you can also test them to make sure they’re working properly.

5.  There are a ton of websites included with Phlo and in different languages, so you probably won’t need to do much here. When you’re done, close out the Preferences window.

6. When you want to perform a search, you can click the Phlo icon or use the keyboard shortcut. To change the search engine or website, click on the name of the website on the right side of the bar.

That’s it! When you enter a search query, the results page will open in your default Web browser.

The post Search Any Website from Your Mac Desktop with Phlo appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

With two-factor authentication, when you sign in with your password, you’ll always need to enter an additional security code provided by that service. It can sometimes be a pain, but as they say, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Thankfully, Microsoft has recently added this feature to Windows Live; you can protect your account no matter where you are.

Here’s how to enable it:

1. Sign into your Microsoft account.

2. On the Security Info page, you will see a new option at the top: two-step verification. Click on the “set up two-step verification” link.

3. On the next page, click “next” after you’ve read their little spiel regarding two-step verification.

4. You’ll need to choose your preferred method for receiving your verification code. You can have Microsoft send you a text message, call you on the phone, or send you an email.

5. Click on “next” and you will receive a code via the method chosen in step number four; enter it into the text area.

6. After that, you’re all set. Two-step authentication will be turned on. From now on, each time you sign in you’ll need to get an additional security code before you can log into your account.

It’s important to know that some apps and devices don’t support security codes. In these cases, you’ll need to create an app password to sign in.

You can also use a mobile authenticator app to get security codes (great when you have no mobile phone coverage) and pair it with your Microsoft account. I’m using Google Authenticator for iOS, and it only took a minute to pair my Microsoft account with it, via a bar code scan.

Do you use a two-factor authentication app? Let us know in the comments area about your experiences setting it up.

The post How to Enable Two-Factor Authentication For Your Microsoft Account appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Here’s how to add your browser bookmarks to Spotlight.

1. Download the Brow app from this website and install it on your Mac.

2. When you run the app for the first time, you’ll see its icon in your menu bar. If you find the icon irritating, you have the option to make the Brow icon invisible so that it only runs in the background. Since the app does not need to be running for your bookmarks to be accessible with Spotlight, this is simply a matter of preferences.

3. You’ll also need to grant Brow access to your browser’s bookmarks. Click on “OK” to get started.

3. When that message disappears, you’ll see two options that are off by default: run invisible and launch at login.

You can turn either or both options on if you’d like. If you choose to run invisible, then you’ll still able to access Brow’s preference window from Launchpad, Spotlight, and Finder.

4. Now you can grant access to your Firefox and/or Chrome bookmarks. Click on the “Grant Access” button next to the appropriate browser in the preferences window.

5. When you click “Grant Access,” brow will open a file selection window. There’s no need to browse or to select any file or folder though; just click on “Grant Access” and you’re done. Brow will begin to sync your bookmarks. You will also need to grant access to your sync data output folder.

6. You will know that your bookmarks are synced because a green light will show next to the Sync Status. You’ll also see the number or bookmarks synced next to the browser. Once everything is all synced, you can quit Brow.

Note: It seems that Brow only works with Google Chrome and not other Chromium based browsers. I’m using Chromium on my Mac, but it does not show up in the browser list. Lucky for me, I’m using Xmarks so my bookmarks are the same in all of my browsers.

That’s all there is to Brow. Now when you search in Spotlight, you’ll see your Firefox and/or Chrome bookmarks shown in the Documents section.

Note: Safari bookmarks are shown in the Webpages section. This makes it easy to tell the difference between the two.

The post Search Your Browser Bookmarks from Spotlight [Mac] appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

If so, it only makes sense that Google allows us to share photos from Google Drive to Google+ account in just a few clicks. Since the option is hidden by default, you may not be aware that this is even possible.

If you aren’t’ aware of this option, here’s the easiest way to share photos from Google Drive to Google+.

1. Go to the Google+ homepage and sign into your account if you need to.

2. Next to the “Share what’s new…” box, click on the camera icon.

3. At first glance, you will only see three options: add photos, create an album, and from instant upload. Move your mouse over the tiny arrow at the bottom of the list to bring up two more options: Take a Photo and from Google Drive.

4. Click on “From Google Drive” to upload photos from your Google Drive account.

5. Choose a photo or photos that you want to share from your Google Drive account. If you have a lot of photos, you can use the search bar to quickly find what you’re looking for. You can also switch from thumbnail view to list view.

6. Select your photos and you’ll be able to edit them, tag them, add more images, or remove them. As per usual, you can also add a text message and choose which circles to share with.

I haven’t been a huge Google Drive fan in the past, but with all of the great integrations (i.e. Gmail and Google+), I use the cloud storage service regularly, especially with the ability to share photos from Google Drive to Google+

The post How to Share Photos from Google Drive to Google+ appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Openera is a Web service that constantly monitors your Gmail or Google Apps email account and automatically backs up your documents and images to your favorite cloud storage. Openera has a free account, the “Free Lifetime trial” and also has Pro, Teams, and Enterprise accounts. Even though the free account is limited to just one email address, one cloud storage service, and a few other things, it’s still worth using and is sure to come in handy to auto-file gmail documents and images.

Openera is an invaluable tool that I’ve been using for the past four to five months. Once you set it up, it just works; you’ll totally forget that you’re even using it. Here’s how it works.

Setup

1. Click on “Sign Up” on the Openera home page, and you’ll be taken through the signup process.

• Connect your email account; enter the email account that you want to use and click “Authorize.” You’ll be taken through the Google email authorization process.
• Connect a cloud service; you can choose Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, or SkyDrive. You’ll be taken through the authorization process for the service that you’ve chosen.
• Create a password for your account.

2. Openera will start going through the important files in your Inbox. In a few hours (or longer depending on your Inbox), you’ll receive an email from them letting you know what was found.

3. Openera will start you out with a few default filing rules. As you can see in the screenshot above, it can file contracts, invoices, receipts, documents, images, presentations, spreadsheets, and more. Note: The supported file types may vary by cloud storage service.

If you’re happy with the rules given, click on “my account” where it says: “No thanks, just take me to my account.” Otherwise, click on the green “View My Rules” button to change your rules or add more.

4. Once you go to your account, you won’t see any activity listed. You will need to give Openera some time. I remember when I signed up some months back, it seemed to take around twenty-four hours for my files to show up. Since you’ll get an email from Openera, there’s no need to leave the page open, or to keep going back to check.

Final Thoughts

Openera is a true lifesaver. No longer do you have to worry about accidentally deleting an important document or image. Just go to your cloud storage and you’ll find your files safe and sound. You can choose to receive a digest daily or weekly to let you know which new files were backed up from your email to your cloud storage.

With a free account, Openera limited the number of files saved daily to just 7; if you upgrade you’ll get an unlimited daily file quota. Also, you’ll only be able to save 200 of your most recent files. If you’re someone that does not receive a lot of documents or images in your email, then you won’t have any problems with the free account.

Is there another service you have found that will allow you to auto-file gmail documents and images to the Cloud? Let us know about it in the comments below.

The post How to Automatically Backup Your Gmail Attachments to the Cloud Storage appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

If you’re looking for a really quick way to kill running applications, meet AppKiller. It’s a simple Mac app that lives in the menu bar and lets you kill running applications in one click.

Here’s how to kill running applications form the menu bar with AppKiller.

1. Download AppKiller from this Web page. You will see it linked within the text, towards the bottom.

2. You will need to unzip the downloaded folder and drag AppKiller.ap to your Applications folder.

3. Once you run AppKiller, you will see its icon in your menu bar. Click on it to display all of your running applications and simply click on the application that you want to kill. Clicking on a running application will immediately kill it (without a verification message), so be sure that you indeed want to quit the application before clicking.

4. By default, your running application list is sorted by PID (process identification number) in ascending order. However, scrolling over the Preferences menu option will show even more sort options.

For instance, you can sort by CPU usage or Memory usage. This makes it easy to find and kill those CPU or memory hungry apps that may be slowing down your Mac. From Preferences you can also display all process, only your processes, or only your windowed processes.

Plus, the “Click sends” menu options let you change the BSD signal that you send to your running applications via a mouse and via a keyboard shortcut. The option “Killed” is selected by default, but there are many other options like: quit, terminated, suspended, stopped, information request, and more.

Note: AppKiller is a 64-bit application and runs on Mac OS X 10.8 or later; an Administrator password is required to install it.

The post Quickly Kill Running Applications from the Menu Bar [Mac] appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

To help you boost your productivity when using your Mac, we’re providing you with a cheat sheet featuring all of the top and most important keyboard shortcuts for Mac OS:

Download Mac OS X Keyboard Shortcuts Cheatsheet

Can’t get enough of this? We have prepared a downloadable cheat sheet for you so you can access to it when you need it.

Download it here.

The post Mac OS X Keyboard Shortcut CheatSheet + Download appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Sure, you can still use the bookmarklet or an extension to pin from here, but doing this will bring up all the images on the page, and you’ll have to find the one you want. Using Bing’s new Pin It button will save you time since it’s right below the image.

Here’s how it works:

1. Perform a search on Bing Images. This can be done several ways, such as from your browser’s address bar or search bar, depending on the browser you’re using and your default search engine. You can also go to the Bing homepage or directly to Bing Images to do a search.

2. If you’re on the Bing Web results page, click on “Images” at the top so that you can see the images related to your query. Otherwise, if you’re already on the Images page, you should see your results below the search bar.

3. Click on any image to see a larger view of it and to also display the “Pin it” button. You should see the button right underneath the image – toward the right side.

4. Clicking on Pin It will pop up a Pinterest “Create a Pin” window just as it does anywhere else. You can choose a board, add/edit the description, and Pin It.

Sharing images from Bing to Pinterest is quicker and easier thanks to Bing’s new Pin It button. What ways do you use to share Bing images on Pinterest? Let us know below in the comments.

Photo Credit: Bunches and Bits {Karina} via Compfight cc

The post Use Bing’s New Pin It Button to Pin Images to Pinterest appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Wappwolf is an awesome tool that works much like IFTTT. It automates your cloud services – specifically Dropbox, Google Drive, and Box. It lets you drag-and-drop files into your cloud folders, then automatically converts them to other formats. It can even sync items to your favorite Web services like Evernote, Facebook, and SlideShare.

There are many possibilities with Wappwolf such as:

• Converting documents to PDF
• Converting PDF files to TXT
• Converting audio files
• Uploading videos and photos to Facebook timelines and fan pages
• Rotating images and adding effects
• Converting images to black & white and grayscale
• Uploading files to Evernote, Sugarsync, SkyDrive, and Basecamp

Earlier last year, we did a brief review on Wappwolf, then known as Dropbox Automator. Since then, Wappwolf has evolved and added even more cloud services to its roster (as mentioned above). It’s such a useful service that I’d like to show you just how to use it with Dropbox, Google Drive, and Box.

Here’s how to get Wappwolf working for you:

Dropbox

1. Click on the red “Try now!” button on the home page; this will take you to the Dropbox website where you’ll need to sign in.

2. On the next page, you’ll need to grant Wappwolf permission to connect to your Dropbox account.

3. Choose a folder; this is basically the trigger part of your automation. Every time you put a file in this folder, something else will happen.

4. If you want to create a new folder in your Dropbox account, you can do that as well by clicking on “new folder” at the bottom of your folder list.

5. Click “Next” at the bottom of the page.

6. On the next page you can choose an action that will be performed after you put a file in the folder you selected on the previous page.

There are many options here under the following categories: documents, pictures, audio, video, any file, send info, advanced. I won’t go through the long list; they’re all pretty self-explanatory.

One of the more interesting things here is the ability to upload/sync items to various services like Google Drive, Slideshare, Facebook, Google+, FTP-Server, Box, SkyDrive, Sugarsync, Evernote, and Basecamp.

7. Once you choose an action, it may be an action you need to customize. For instance, you may have to connect your account to the service or choose a preferred format (for conversions).

You may also notice that some actions are premium actions, meaning you’ll need to upgrade your account to use them. Unfortunately, many of the best actions are premium only, but the cost for a premium account is very affordable at just $5/month.

8. You can add more actions to an automation if you’d like and remove actions if you change your mind. Removals are done at the top of the page where your actions are listed. After you choose your first action, some of the selectable actions my disappear – depending on which one you choose. This just means that the two actions can’t be performed on the same item.

9. When you’re done, click on “finished” at the top of the page. You’ll see your automation listed, and you can stop it, delete it, or create a new automation.

Google Drive and Box

While the example shown above is on Dropbox, you can be assured that the same steps can be used on Google Drive and Box as well. You’ll need to choose a folder (or create a new one) and then choose your desired action(s). When you’re done, click on “finished” at the top.

Final Thoughts

Once you get past the clunky interface, Wappwolf is a really great service that can perform many different automated tasks for you. If you’re constantly using different cloud services, Wappwolf is a real lifesaver. Just choose a folder, choose some actions, and you’re all done!

The post How to Automate Your Cloud Services with Wappwolf appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

To use a picture password in Windows 8, you can forget about typing in a password. Instead, draw (with your mouse) three custom gestures over a picture of your choice. Best of all, this method is more secure than a traditional password.

Here’s how a picture password in Windows 8 works:

1. First, make sure that you have the picture you want to use already on your computer. Then, go to the “Change PC Settings” option, which can be accessed from the desktop, Windows Start Page, or any other application.

2. To get to the picture password option, open up the Windows charms which will pop out on the right side of the screen. You can access the charms by moving your mouse to the top right corner or bottom right corner of your screen, or you can use the “Windows Key + C” keyboard shortcut.

3. Click on the “Settings” charm – the one at the bottom.

4. A sidebar will open, and you will see the “Change PC Settings” option all the way at the bottom; click on it.

5. Once PC Settings opens up, click on “Users” on the left side, and then click on “Create a picture password” on the right side – under “Sign-in options.”

6. You’ll need to confirm your current password first, and then you’ll be able to choose a picture from your computer. Click on “choose picture” on the left side of the page.

7. Once you’ve chosen a picture, you can drag and position the picture so that it’s just the way you want it. When you’re done, click on “use this picture.”

8. Now you will need to draw three gestures on your picture using your mouse. These gestures can be any combination of circles and straight lines. Once you draw your three gestures, you’ll need to repeat them for verification. At any time, you can click on the “start over” button at the bottom left corner if you mess up.

9. Once you’ve verified your gestures, you’re all set! Your picture password will be used the next time you sign into Windows.

What’s even better is that you can change your picture whenever you want. So if you find a cool picture while browsing the Web, you can save it and use it as your new picture password in Windows 8. Oh, and don’t worry, if you forget your gestures, you can switch back to your old password.

Photo Credit: totumweb

The post How to Use a Picture Password in Windows 8 appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

This menu bar application has features that, in my opinion, should be included with every Mac. For starters, you can tell Wimoweh not to go to sleep while running specific applications. You can also set a sleep timer to have your Mac sleep during certain times.

You can also easily keep your Mac awake indefinitely, or at least until you’re ready for it to go to sleep. This is already available in Mac OS X, but Wimoweh gives you easy access to it.

How to Use Wimoweh

1. First, download the Wimoweh application from its official Web page. You’ll see a link to download the most beta recent version right under the News heading.

2. Once you unzip the folder, drag the Wimoweh.app file to your Applications folder and open the application.

3. You should now see the Wimoweh icon in your menu bar. When you click on it you’ll see your current power source and the minutes remaining (if you’re on battery power).

Along with that, there are four important menus/options that are used to customize Wimomeh and control the way your Macs sleeps:

Apps Prevent Sleep – This displays any applications that are currently preventing your Mac from going to sleep; you’ll only see something listed here if you’ve enabled one or more apps in the ”Never Sleep Whilst Running” menu or if you’ve enabled the “Prevent Computer Sleep” option.

Never Sleep Whilst Running – This is where you can choose a single application or multiple applications that must be running in order for Wimoweh to keep your Mac awake.

Prevent Computer Sleep – This is an option to prevent your computer from sleeping. Click on it to enable, otherwise it will stay disabled. Note: If you enable this option, then you can’t use “Prevent Computer Sleep Until” menu; it will be automatically disabled.

Prevent Computer Sleep Until – This menu is much like the sleep timer feature on most televisions. It lets you choose a specific time (in military time) to put your computer to sleep. Drag the slider until you’re at the desired time/minutes. Note: Using this menu will automatically disable the “Prevent Computer Sleep” option (above).

4. After you have everything set the way you want it, you will want to go down to the preferences menu; there are just a few options that can be enabled here – everything is disabled by default.

You can choose to open Wimoweh at login, prevent your display from sleeping, and hide power information from the menu. You can also purge remembered apps, which is basically like a reset button. This is good if you want to start over.

Final Thoughts

Wimoweh is a simple application that’s extremely easy to use, and it includes some essential features that are great at controlling how and when your Mac sleeps. Whether you use your Mac as a media player, use it for downloading, or something else that shouldn’t be interrupted, Wimoweh can definitely help.

The post How to Control When and How Your Mac Sleeps appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Just imagine going to your “Posts” page in your WordPress dashboard and having a variety of posts at different points in publication – drafts, pending, published, etc.  Sure, you can look under the “Status” column to see what type of post each one is, but having them color-coded is so much easier. Colors catch your eye and are easy to identify.

So how can you color code the WordPress Posts page for easier post management? Just install the Color My Posts WordPress plugin. This WordPress plugin really caught my attention when I first came across it, because I immediately realized how useful it could be; it can also serve as a huge productivity booster.

It’s important to note that you will need to have some basic knowledge of CSS in order to use this plugin.

Here’s how it works:

1. Go to your WordPress dashboard, and go over to the “Add New” plugins page (Plugins -> Add New).

2. Search for the Color My Posts plugin, install, and activate it. (If you can’t find it, here is the download link)

3. Here’s the bad part of the plugin – Color My Posts doesn’t have a Settings/Options page in the free version. Instead, you have to edit the color-my-posts.php file. To find it, go to the Plugins editor (Plugins -> Editor), then select the Color My Posts plugin from the drop-down menu.

Note: Upgrading to the premium version will give you a built-in color picker and even more options.

4. Scroll through the color-my-posts.php file until you see the style section; it will start with the <style> tag and say “Color by post Status” right below it.

5. This is where the plugin’s customization begins; you can edit the background colors as you’d like. As you’ll notice, the post status styling is already filled in for you with default colors.

However,  you’ll have to fill in the styling for color by author data, color by post format, color by post category, color by post tag, etc – if you choose to use any of these criteria.

As you can see, you simply add “background: #color !important;” to the brackets. I’d suggest the use of a color picker extension like Eye Dropper, or a Web color chart to help you choose the perfect colors.

6. If you’re using additional post statuses (often done via the Edit Flow plugin), you’ll want to add them to your CSS as well so that they’ll be styled.

Final Results

When you’re done, your WordPress Posts page will look similar to the screenshot above. As you’ve probably noticed, each post type is very easy to recognize.

Color My Posts would also work great for multi-author blogs, since you can color posts by author. This would make it really easy to see who has written what at a quick glance.

With the ability to color code your posts by many different types of criteria, it gives you many possibilities.

The post How to Color Code Your WordPress Posts Page appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

I hate to miss out on good content, so I went on a search for a tool to help fix this issue, and I came across PageZipper. It’s a bookmarklet that automatically merges multiple page articles into a single page and adds auto pagination functionality.

Here’s how to turn those multi-page articles into a single page.

1. Add the PageZipper bookmarklet to your browser; drag the PageZipper link to your bookmarks toolbar.

Note: PageZipper is also available as a Firefox add-on and Chrome extension. I’m using the bookmarklet simply because it’s lighter on my browser – I have enough extensions installed already.

2. Click on the bookmarklet, and you should see a little box with arrows and page numbering at the top right of the page. As you scroll through the pages the numbering will automatically increase (2/3, 3/4, 4/5, etc), so don’t be alarmed if it only says 1/2 when you first click the bookmarklet.

3. As you scroll down the page, you’ll notice that the page keeps on scrolling continuously until you get to the end of the article; there’s no need to click on “next” to go to the next page. You can even use the arrows at the top to automatically scroll down and skip directly to the top of the next page.

These arrows really come in handy, because you’ll have to scroll through all of the comments on an article in order to get to the next page. If an article has a ton of comments, you’ll be doing a lot of scrolling. Those arrows really save a lot of time.

That’s really all there is to using PageZipper. It basically “unzips” those multi-page articles and eliminates the need to click next over and over again. It’s a huge convenience.

The post Turn Multi-Page Articles Into a Continuously Scrolling Single Page appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

I often change my default browser depending on the task at hand. As you probably know, all browsers have their benefits and work great for different things. This is where Objektiv really comes in handy.

How to setup and use Objektiv

1. Download Objektiv from its official Web page. Then unzip the folder and drag the .app file to your Applications folder.

2. Open the Objektiv application. Immediately in the menu bar you’ll see the icon for your default browser on Mac.

3. Clicking on that menu bar icon will display all of the browsers that you have installed on your Mac. When you select a browser from the status menu, it will become your new default browser.

4. If there is an application listed that has been incorrectly detected, hold down the ALT key and then click on the item. This will blacklist that app and hide it from the status menu. For example, RealPlayer and Snagit are not browsers, yet they show in my status menu (pictured above), so I’ve hidden them from my list.

If you ever want to add something back that you’ve hidden, you’ll find it under “Hidden Items” in the status menu. Click on it to add it back.

5. You may also want to go to Preferences so that you can launch Objektiv on login and/or autohide the status bar icon. Another option is to record a hotkey for the app, which can be used to launch the app or to show the status bar icon (if you hide it).

With Objektiv, changing your default browser on Mac can be done in a matter of seconds. As you can see, this app is sure to save you time and boost productivity if you switch often.

The post Quickly Change the Default Browser on Mac From the Menu Bar appeared first on Make Tech Easier.