Note: Pencil is supported in Windows, OSX and Linux. In this article, we will be focusing on the Linux version of Pencil.

Installation

Pencil is no longer available in the Ubuntu repositories (as of Raring, at least), but it is an easy install via DEB package from the project’s website. Install by double-clicking on the downloaded package, or with the following terminal command:

sudo dpkg -i evoluspencil_2.0.3_all.deb

The only dependency is Firefox, so if you’re on a system that doesn’t include this by default, you’ll need to install it (or use a GUI package manager, which will handle the dependency for you).

Usage

Whereas with a program like GIMP or Krita, you generally need to create your own graphic pieces. Pencil provides you with a wide array of shapes you can quickly drag onto a page and modify to your liking. The pane on the left lists available shapes, in groups such as “Common Shapes” (basic squares and circles), “Desktop – GTK Widgets” (if you wanted to prototype a Unity or GNOME application), and “Sketchy” (one of my favorite for web mock-ups, which looks like a pencil sketch). Items in these groups can be mixed and matched.

To add one of these to the drawing, simply click-and-drag it onto a page (new pages can be added via the “New Page” button in the upper right).

Once on the page, the size can be changed by dragging one of the corners or borders of the shape, or via the “Location & Size” toolbar fields (useful if you need the drawing, such as a web mock-up, to fit a certain resolution).

Double-clicking most shapes allows text to be added, which can be customized with alignment, font, bold/italics, and point size using the “Text format” toolbar buttons.

Mock-up Basics

I draw wireframes and other diagrams all the time, and the basic process I use is as follows (using the example of a homepage mock-up for a website).

Background

For a webpage, this starts with the browser window – The “Window Frame” item from the Sketchy collection is used here for simplicity’s sake. To place this at 0px x 0px (i.e. the top-left of the screen), the “Location & Size” controls are used. The bottom and left edges are dragged so it fills the entire screen.

A “Box” shape is added all the way across the top to indicate the URL bar … sometimes placing things exactly with the mouse is difficult, but the arrow keys can also be used to move a shape once it’s selected:

Page Elements

A big slider can be added to the page at the top. The “Image” shape is used to indicate the slide, and two “Sketchy Triangles” to act as forward and back controls. Clicking twice on an object turns the edge/corner handles pink, which allows them to be rotated:

Lastly, three regions are added at the bottom to hold news, a video, and a contact form (The “Box” shape is used to outline each region). The news will just be a heading and some text (using the “Label” Sketchy shape with some varying text sizes), the video region is made by dropping a “Sketchy Triangle” inside a “Sketchy Circle” within a “Box” (i.e. a “Play” button), and the last will be a “Label” accompanied by three “Text Fields” and a “Button”:

By using the pre-made shapes, drawing programs allow you to very quickly (the above took about ten minutes) illustrate ideas in a way that others can understand. This Microsoft Visio alternative allows you to create diagrams in an intuitive and portable (Evolus Pencil itself is cross-platform, and drawings can be exported to PDF or PNG) way to share with colleagues.

HelloSign is one good example. It allows you to sign a document sent to your Gmail address and sign it from there, without the need to install any additional software. It doesn’t even lead you to another website, or app. It’s integrated with Gmail, and it works seamlessly within the Gmail interface.

HelloSign for Gmail is a Chrome extension that you can download from the Web Store. After installation, you will notice another option beside an attachment which says “Sign”, in addition to the standard ones which are “View” and “Download”.

Note: Firefox user can find the extension here.

HelloSign can open most document files, including PDF, MS Word and MS Excel.

To sign an attached document, simply click on the “Sign” button. This should bring up the HelloSign pop up window and it should take a few seconds to open and load the document.

Once the document loads, you are then given the HelloSign interface, with four buttons on top. These buttons indicate what information you want to add to the document. In addition to signature or initials, you can also add a check box, the date signed and a text box.

Drag the Signature or initials box to where you want to insert your signature on the document. This will bring up another window where you can choose how to add your signature.

If this is your first time to use the app, then the best choice would be “Draw it in”, where you can use your mouse to draw your signature.

If you wish to use your initials, then you can choose “Type in signature” instead.

If you have an image file of your signature, or have taken it with your smart phone, then there are additional options available for these instances. Simply choose “Add image file” or “Smartphone” from the menu panel.

In the screenshot below, I chose to draw my signature using the mouse.

When you’re done, you can either choose “Insert” or “Save & Insert Signature”. I found that the second option is very convenient if you want to use the same signature in all future documents, to save time.

The signature should now appear on the specified area in the document, and you can drag the box to reposition or, drag the bottom right corner to resize it.

You can now click on “Save and Attach to Email” found on the top right corner, and the document should now be ready to be sent back along with your reply.

HelloSign for Gmail is an ingenious tool for signing documents right out of the Gmail interface. It’s brilliant for people who don’t have access to a printer but need to sign a document right away. With this tool, a user saves time, energy and resources when signing and sending important documents that are also very urgent.

Image credit: Businessman sitting at office desk signing a contract with shallow focus on signature. by BigStockPhoto

Developing a search engine is complicated and requires a demanding amount of resources. Long before Google started hosting vast amounts of data in Gmail and Google Drive, the company needed to invest heavily in infrastructure just to sustain their initial search service. Suffice to say, most people cannot design and maintain their own web search engines, and there is a reason only a few key players dominate the arena. Yet regardless of which search provider you turn to, the process for how search engines work is largely the same.

1. Crawling

First, developers create Internet bots capable of reading hyperlinks and HTML. These web crawlers browse the Internet looking for web sites in order to index them. They are provided with a list of URLs to start with, and the bot scans all of the hyperlinks on each of these pages and adds them to the list of URLs to visit next. Crawlers can only download a certain number of pages within a given time period, which is why search results sometimes suggest websites that have since been deleted or removed. The websites these web crawlers visit are indexed according to the information the bots can gather by reading each site’s HTML.

2. Indexing

Indexing speeds up the process of retrieving relevant webpages. Searching an index is a substantially less intensive and time-consuming task than searching all of the possible websites. Imagine having to send out new web crawlers to discover the answers to every search inquiry. It would be akin to sending explorers out into the wilderness blind rather than using a map.

Indexes must be stored, and considerable time and effort goes into keeping indexes up-to-date, but the trade-off in speed makes the effort worth it.

3. Searching

Searching is the most visible step of the process. When you type a term into Google, Bing, Yahoo, Duck Duck Go, or any number of search engines, they search their respective indexes for the best results. This information is then displayed on search engine results pages (SERPs).

4. Making Money

Since search engines are free, how were some able to grow into such massive companies? Like much of the Internet, search engines make money by selling ad space. Some advertisers pay to have their products or services ranked higher in search results. Some engines, such as Google, run search-related ads alongside their general search results. As search engines became the most popular way of finding information on the internet, they also became the most popular way of advertising online. Potential consumers may not read the same websites, but they do turn to the same search engines.

Final Thoughts

The process is immensely complex, and there is a great demand out there for people who understand the intricacies of how search engines work. This guide just scratches the surface, but there’s a wealth of information out there. Thanks to search engines, finding that information is easier than ever.

Let’s Get Started

Lets say I want to share a video about intelligent malware with a friend. They don’t exactly practice safe computer, and I want them to be aware of the risks. The first thing I need to do is find the video on YouTube and copy its URL.

You will then need a screenshot to insert into your email. For some reason, you cannot use just any image for this to work. Instead, do a YouTube search for the video you want to link to. Then take a screenshot of the correct search result.

There are many ways to create the image you need, such as using a screenshot capturing program that lets you select just a portion of the screen. While I tried opening a full screenshot inside an image editor and cropping it down, I found that this technique no longer worked with certain images that were edited. The less tampering you have to do to create the image, the better. Here is the image I will insert into Gmail.

Next, load up your Gmail account and start composing an email. Insert your cropped image into the email the way you would any other picture.

Now, select the image, and insert the hyperlink. You can do this by clicking on the image and clicking on the pop-up that appears. Alternatively, you can highlight the image and click “Insert link” in the toolbar at the bottom.

Your recipient should receive a video with a YouTube video still inserted at the bottom of the page. This bottom video can be expanded and viewed without having to open a separate page.

Yet if this were a longer email, you may not want someone to have to scroll all the way to the bottom before realizing there is a video available. Also, clicking on the video you personally embedded will provide for a better viewing experience than clicking on the video at the bottom. The screen will dim, and your recipient will be offered a near full-screen viewing experience that’s arguably better than watching the video on the YouTube site itself.

You’re Done!

Gmail has long embed YouTube videos into the bottom of emails containing links to YouTube videos. While this option is convenient, it isn’t the most attractive. By manually embedding your video, you take control of your email’s appearance and provide a better experience for your recipient. Go ahead, surprise someone with a video clip, and let us hear about your experience in the comments below.

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.

1. Is Bitcoin a safe currency?

This question is kind of tough to answer, considering the complex algorithms it uses to generate new units of the currency and the significant decentralization of the currency itself. There’s one universal law in digital cryptography which applies to Bitcoin: Nothing is 100 percent safe. But you probably didn’t want to know whether it’s absolutely safe. Rather, you are curious about how safe Bitcoin is.

Its method is tried and true. Bitcoin cannot be hacked on a catastrophic/holistic level. Your wallet’s safety, however, depends on how you take care of it. If you attach weak passwords to your wallet, expect mayhem at some point in the future. Bitcoin itself may be impermeable to attacks because of its decentralized nature, but your wallet falls entirely in your hands.

But just because Bitcoin is cryptically safe doesn’t mean that it can’t be exploited. I came across an article about a Trojan Horse that forces computers to mine Bitcoins for the hacker that infects them. So, it’s not a perfect system, but even those hackers aren’t going to hoard their Bitcoins forever. Eventually, that money will fall into someone else’s hands, and so on, and so forth. The economic cycle continues whether or not the system was exploited. So, there’s no real harm.

As a recap: Yes, Bitcoin can’t be hacked conventionally as a whole. Your wallet is an entirely different story.

2. Is Bitcoin impermeable to government intervention?

The short answer: No.

The long answer: It depends on what you mean by government intervention. If you’re talking about some pieces of paper passed by Congress, it can totally happen. If you’re talking about government action against Bitcoin, it’s… complicated.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the U.S. tax collection agency. They are working on ways to tax the flow of Bitcoins between individuals. How would they manage this? The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) gets notifications when U.S. bank account holders make transactions. They can forward this notification to the IRS at any time. If you make a transaction for Bitcoins, they’ll know that you converted that money. What they have a little difficulty tracking, however, is the Bitcoin-to-Bitcoin exchanges themselves (since they happen on decentralized peer-to-peer networks). Although the Internet is very difficult for governments to regulate, you still should be concerned.

This brings us to another question: Exactly how concerned should you be? Read this. At the exchange level, it’s easy to regulate and seize assets. In the linked article, the author describes how the Department of Homeland Security (another U.S.-based government doohickey)  got a hold of Mt. Gox’s accounts. Here’s the surprising thing: Mt. Gox is a company in Japan. However, a U.S. authority managed to seize accounts. Of course, the situation is more complex than that. Mt. Gox violated U.S. banking law by lying on its application to register Mutum Sigilum LLC and open a bank account for the company. The bank it was opening the account with asked if the business was engaged in monetary services. In short, Mt. Gox answered “no.” While this was deceptive on behalf of the company, it’s clear that government can entangle itself with Bitcoin in significant ways that we have yet to see.

3. Is Bitcoin a worthy investment?

This is a tough one. On the one hand, you have a currency that’s practically inflation proof. On the other hand, you have a currency whose value rises and falls sharply at some points when compared to the U.S. dollar and Euro.

Some people mistakenly consider a currency that’s less susceptible to inflation as an asset with a stable value. This is completely wrong on many levels. The aggregate demand of the currency is subject to change, which also changes its value. What “inflation-proof” means, in this case, is that Bitcoin is limited only to a certain number of units (there’s a hard limit of 21 million). While the number of Bitcoins in circulation grows, it will never pass 21 million. If you’re looking for a currency that doesn’t lose its internal value, this currency will be worth the investment.

However, if you’re looking for a currency that has a very stable U.S. dollar, EU, Rupee, Ruble, Leu, or Cordoba value, you”ll be very disappointed. Bitcoin has a large number of booms and busts that make it a less-than-ideal get-rich-quick currency. Don’t buy Bitcoins expecting to make a fortune out of them later on. It’s a relatively volatile market for the moment.

Also, competitors to Bitcoin are popping up, making the market more diverse. You have many other currencies to invest in now, such as Litecoin, Namecoin, and PPCoin. Here’s a little secret: Litecoin has the strongest encryption algorithm out of all of them (scrypt).

BONUS: Is there such a thing as a “physical” Bitcoin?

Yes, there is! Casascius makes physical coins that represent a value in Bitcoin. They also sell a gold-plated 100-BTC bar. The offer is very lucrative if you buy from a business that accepts Bitcoin as legal tender, although I don’t think that this will ever really happen.

Here’s how they work: They contain a tamper-free hologram that protects a private key which can be used to decrypt the coin’s “address” on the Internet. By decrypting it, you can redeem your funds at any time online.

The coins really don’t have practical uses except for storing your money within a physical object that you can carry around. The coin would also make a great conversation piece. Of course, the cost of a physical coin is slightly higher than the value it represents (i.e. a 25 BTC coin will actually cost you 26.20 BTC). This covers Casascius’ cost of production and a little bit of a markup for profit.

Conclusion

I hope this answers any potential questions you may have had about Bitcoin. I have attempted to make it as factually accurate as possible. If you’d like to add something to the discussion, leave a comment below and we can talk!

Setting up WebCopy

The first time you open WebCopy after downloading and installing it, click on “Tools,” then “Options” to take a look at its settings.

General, Copy and Notifications Options are all basic and require no real walkthrough.

Appearance Options, however, are a way for you to customize how the saved websites look. You can change the variable and fixed fonts as well as how the Sitemap created for your offline website looks and feels.

Saving a website

For the purpose of our walkthrough, we’ll be using Cyotek’s tutorial web site to show you how to get the most from WebCopy.

1. Enter in a URL in the Website field, then click “Copy Website.”

2. If everything goes smoothly, WebCopy will begin the process and save the website for offline viewing.

Depending on the website and hierarchy of how it’s designed, it’s possible that WebCopy may not be able to actually download it for offline use. If this occurs, the copy will be halted and you will see an announcement.

You will also be given the opportunity to look at the error logs to hopefully determine what the problem is. However, most likely there will not be much you can do on your end to correct it.

3. Once the website is finished downloading, there might still be errors detected, and you will still be alerted and allowed to go through the various results.

4. Click on the “Green Arrow” next to Save folder.

This will open the folder where you website has been downloaded, if you click on any of the web pages, it’ll open in your brows navigate through the site as you would normally.

WebCopy saves the layout, and by generating a sitemap of the web site, it can create a natural direction through the site as if visiting it in real time. This is where the real beauty of WebCopy comes into play.

5. Click on the “Floppy Disk” icon to save your new saved website.

Saving your website project allows you to come back to it, re-download components and use the website offline any time you need.

Working with the wesite panels

After you save websites for offline viewing, these results show you what was downloaded properly, what errors occurred, the background files downloaded to load your offline site and more. This can be a way to piece together what pages are missing, what changes have been made between fresh downloads of a single website and issues you might encounter when browsing a website offline.

The first panel you’ll work with is the Results. This will give you a breakdown of how WebCopy downloaded a website. You can see if a page was successfully downloaded, if an error occurred and other information.

The next panel you work with is the Errors. This will show you every error that occurred during the download, such as 404 errors.

The Sitemap panel gives you a look at how the sitemap organizes after the download.

The Skipped panel shows what pages were skipped in the website hierarchy during the download. In most instances, any domain linked outside the original domain you wanted to download offline will not actually download as part of the overall structure.

The Files panel showcases everything that was downloaded to create your website offline, including HTML files, images, JavaScript applications and more.

Finally, the Missing panel will show you what downloaded in a current website copy that may not have been included in previous downloads.

These panels give you an overall picture of the website hierarchy which can be useful for creating rules to govern how a website is downloaded for offline use.

Utilizing rules for offline web site downloads

WebCopy lets you create a set of rules to apply when downloading a web site for offline use. For instance, you might not need the images from a website when viewing it.

1. Click “CTLR + R” to open the Rules Editor.

2. Under the “Rules Properties,” in the “Pattern” text box, type “\.jpg” or substitute whatever image type you want to exclude from your website downloads.

3. You can select what Options you want for the rule, in this case, we’ll click “Exclude.”

4. If we click “Enable this rule,” this will exclude all JPG images from downloading when you get a new copy of a website for use offline.

You can create a variety of rules for a particular website and save them all within the Project for use whenever you update your offline sites.

Conclusion

WebCopy gives you control over how you save websites for offline viewing. It’s an amazing utility for websites you visit frequently and would like to have available when you can’t get online.

Getting Started

Using the Wikipedia example, the first step is to create a folder and name it “Wikipedia.”

You then need to find an image to use as your web app’s icon. The file must be named “icon_128.png” and resized to 128 by 128 pixels. Pixlr Editor is a Chrome Web App you can use to resize .png files and preserve their transparency. When you’re done, save the image into the folder you just created.

Before getting started, you will need to have a text editor installed that can export to a .txt file. Scratchpad won’t cut it, as it cannot export a .txt file, but you can create a .txt file inside any browser using EditPad.

Copy and paste the following text into your text editor. If you want to create a web app for another website, change the references to Wikipedia to your website of choice.

{
"name": "Wikipedia",
"description": "App description (132 characters or less, no HTML)",
"version": "1.0.0",
"manifest_version": 2,
"icons": {
"128": "icon_128.png"
},
"app": {
"urls": [
"http://www.wikipedia.org/"
],
"launch": {
"web_url": "http://www.wikipedia.org/"
}
}
}

Save your text file inside your Wikipedia folder and rename it “manifest.json”. Your Wikipedia web app is now complete and needs to be imported into Chrome. Go to the extensions page and enable “Developer Mode.”

Click “Load unpacked extension…” and select the folder you just created. Your completed app should appear in both your list of extensions and your app drawer.

What About The Browser?

If you don’t use Chrome OS, the same process will work for creating custom web apps inside Google Chrome. You can stop here, and as long as you don’t delete the folder containing your app, it will continue to work.

If you want a more convenient solution, you can package your app. Return to the extensions page and click on the “Pack extension…” button. You will be prompted to select the folder containing the extension you want to package. Select the folder you just created and click “Pack Extension” when you’re done.

A .crx file should appear on your desktop. Drag this file into the folder containing your web app. Uninstall the version you previously installed so that it doesn’t conflict with the new version, then drag the .crx file into the Chrome browser to reinstall your application.

Notes on Creating Web Apps.

If you create a web app that happens to point to your own website, you are free to submit it to the Chrome Web Store. Be sure to back up all of your custom web apps afterwards, just in case you accidentally delete the folders containing them. Web apps may cease to work as desired if they can no longer find their target folders.

Conclusion

Creating custom web apps may not be as easy as creating a bookmark, but it saves time having your favorite websites placed front and center. If you have any questions about creating custom web apps for either Chrome OS or the Chrome browser, feel free to ask them in the comments below.

Offline Control

An important aspect of kids’ computer usage is the amount of time they spend in front of the screen. A limitation and control of kids’ computing time is vital to avoid future addictions, and let’s face it, kids need to play with real toys, exercise, and so on.

timekpr is a program developed to track and control the computer usage time of a system’s accounts on a daily basis. It allows this limitation to be set both as a “green” period of the day (setting a period of time in which that specific user may use the system) and/or as an amount of hours per day. Unfortunately, timekpr is not available for ubuntu 11.04+ yet, even though its creators expect to provide a new release by August 2013.

Controlling Internet Usage

Surfing on the web requires lots of care and responsibility even to adults. Kids are curious and have a natural tendency to explore, so it is no wonder that they end up visiting dangerous or less appropriate websites (not only in a content point of view, but also dangerous to the system’s security). In order to prevent these kind of situations, there are several programs available, usually called “parental control” programs.

Gnome Nanny will help with parental control in Linux and is probably the most well-equipped and user-friendly program available. Specially directed to infant control, it helps define separate rules for different users. It has a tabbed interface divided in “PC use time”, “Web browser”, “Mail client” and “Instant messaging”.

The first feature presents the same functionality as timekpr, so if you want a full suite, Nanny is probably better to fulfill your needs. The second feature is probably the most important, giving the possibility to establish which sites are forbidden and which allowed, either by hand or by downloading lists available online. As far as the site informs, the latest (and unstable) Nanny version was released back in 2010, so its development probably ended back then. It is also reported that Nanny works only with three browsers, Epiphany, Firefox and Konqueror, so if you use other browser I recommend that you test Nanny’s effectiveness.

DansGuardian is another program, this one designed for web content filtering, using several methods such as phrase matching and URL filtering. It is also more tailored for running on servers, which is specially useful for schools, libraries and such. The great advantage provided by DansGuardian in comparison to other software is the previously mentioned filtering through phrase matching; sometimes pages with bad content do not have addresses revealing such content. DansGuardian searches pages for “bad” words such as “hate” or “pornography”, providing a much more effective content filtering.

Finally, WebContentControl is a different kind of program, since it is made to, with its GUI, take control and help users configure other programs – specifically, DansGuardian, FireHol, and TinyProxy. Besides controlling these apps, it provides an easier way to start/stop filtering, backs up configuration files, only changes what is really necessary, and provides SSL filtering.

Now, back to you, how do you configure your computer to restrict Internet access for your kids?

Image credit: Baby With Notebook Portable Computer by BigStockPhoto

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

If you are a Firefox user and are experiencing the same problem, you should try the Easy Access add-on for Mozilla Firefox. What this add-on does is that it adds a quick menu to open applications without leaving Firefox. These programs can include My Computer, Pain, Notepad, etc. If you want, you can even customize the quick access menu and add any application you want to your Firefox taskbar.

How to Launch Programs from Within Firefox

First of all, go to Mozilla Add-on repository and install Easy Access for Firefox. Once installed, you will notice a small wheel icon in the add-on bar (lower right corner of Firefox). Click on it, and it will show you the default apps that come with the add-on. If you want to add any other program to the list of shortcuts, you can do so by going to the add-on settings. Click on the wheel icon and go to ”Manage Your Easy Access”.

When you open “Manage Your Easy Access”, it will show you two tabs: “Add to Add on Bar” and “Customize Your Quick Launch’. Add To Add on Bar contains shortcuts to some of the most commonly used programs in Windows such as Calculator, Notepad, Paint, My Computer, etc. If you want to add any of these programs, just check the box right next to the program and click Ok.

If you want to customize the easy access menu and add some other program, open Customize your Quick Launch and click on Add EasyAccess.

All you have to do is browse the location of the program you want to open. It will automatically add the name of the app, but you can edit it if you want. After adding the required information, click Ok and you are done. Now, the selected shortcut will appear on the add-on bar.

Conclusion

EasyAccess for Firefox is a very handy add-on that can make it easy to open applications without closing Firefox. It’s simple and one click away. The add-on does exactly what it says, and during my testing, I didn’t come across any issues or problems with the add-on.

If you tried EasyAccess for Firefox, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.

For instance, holding down “Ctrl + Shift + T” (Windows and Linux) reopens the last tab you closed. Holding down Shift and then clicking on a link opens the link in the new window, while “Ctrl + Shift + link” opens it in a new tab.

Here are more navigation keyboard shortcuts for Chrome:

It takes a bit of practice (and this cheatsheet) to master these shortcuts, but it’s well worth it. Soon, you’ll find that you don’t always have to rely too much on your mouse. Doing stuff within Chrome by using only your keyboard is possible, and hopefully this article gives you a head start.

Download Chrome 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.

Should You Encrypt?

If you encrypt your Android phone, it provides an extra layer of security by creating an extra loop for intruders to jump through. Encryption can be cracked, but it takes deliberate effort and plenty of time. Unless someone specifically wants your data, they will probably give up and try to steal data from a more easily accessed device.

The average thief probably doesn’t care about your pictures or the contents of your email account. They simply want to wipe your device and sell it to someone else. Encrypting your device does nothing to prevent your data from being erased. If you are more concerned about maintaining access to your data rather than keeping people out, you should consider backing up your device.

An encrypted device suffers a performance hit, and your phone may become noticeably slower as every file has to be decrypted before it can be accessed. Games that already put a strain on your phone may become more than it can handle. Encrypting your phone also disables pattern lock. You will have to rely on either a password or a pin. Depending on your preferences, this may make your phone less convenient to use throughout the day.

Lastly, if you ever decide to change your mind, you will need to restore your device to factory settings to remove the encryption. There is no way to decrypt your device and keep your data at the same time.

Getting Started

Open the Settings app on your Android phone and scroll down until you see “Security.”

Under the Security menu, you will see the option to encrypt your device. Unless your phone is plugged in and its battery is adequately charged, the option will be dimmed.

If your phone has an SD card slot, you may find yourself faced with three options. You can encrypt both your phone and SD card, offering the most security. You can choose to encrypt just your phone, leaving the photos, apps, and other personal data on your SD card easily accessible to anyone who can pop out your card. Conversely, you can encrypt just your SD card, protecting the personal data that is saved on your card without causing your phone to take as much of a performance hit when running apps.

Note that encrypting anything other than just your SD card requires you to use either a password or pin. If you haven’t already set one up, you will be greeted by this error message.

From this point forward, the process will be largely straightforward. You will first be asked to confirm you password or pin. The encryption process can take over an hour, and you cannot use your phone to make calls or do anything else during this time. If you interrupt the process, you may lose some or all of your data. Don’t proceed unless you are sure you have the time.

Conclusion

Your smartphone is now probably more secure than your computer. Combine encryption with the ability to remote wipe your device, and you’ve set up a pretty solid line of defense. Still, there are chinks in any armor, and if someone gets access to your PIN or password, it doesn’t matter if your device is encrypted. Unfortunately, Android uses the same key you lock your phone with to encrypt your device. This limits how long passwords can be, as who wants to type in a 16-digit alphanumeric code just to check email?

This guide also applies to Android tablets, and the same pros and cons apply. If you’re still not sure whether you should encrypt your Android device, let us hear your concerns in the comments below.

Since Temporary Bookmarks is a Firefox add-on, it doesn’t require a login or account for you to use it. You only have to download it from the Add-on store. After this, you can then start saving web pages into a bookmark folder called Temporary Bookmarks.

To do this, just right-click on any link in a website and select “Add to Temporary Bookmarks.” One thing I noticed is that this option is only visible when you right click a link from a web page, and not from the URL address bar.

To locate your saved bookmarks, find the Bookmark icon on the top of the browser (a square with a star inside). Click on this and go to Bookmarks bar. If you already have the Bookmarks bar visible on the top of the browser, then you should be able to find the folder from there. Look for the folder labeled as Temporary Bookmarks. You should see all the links saved here.

By default, the add-on is set to get rid of the bookmarks after one day, but you can change this setting by going to the add-on’s Preferences page. To do this, click on the Firefox menu button on the top left corner, click on “Add-ons”, and select Options right beside the name of the add-on.

Here, you can change when or what action is required for Firefox to delete the bookmarks. You have an option to delete the bookmarks when the browser closes, or choose from a number of days from one to seven. I tried setting it to remove bookmarks when I close the browser, and sure enough, the bookmarks were gone when I restarted it.

One notable feature is that you can also remove bookmarks saved in other bookmark folders. Click on the drop down beside “Remove bookmarks in” to view the complete list. If you have other bookmark folders that need cleaning up, then this add-on can help you do just that.

Temporary Bookmarks is a no-brainer solution for users who don’t want to sign up for a note-taking app, or who don’t want to store web content for too long on their browsers. It’s easy to use, and a good way to also prevent the browser from getting too congested with data. It also encourages a user to be organized when browsing the web, without having to clean up after. If you tend to pile up your bookmarks and don’t have time to organize or delete them, then this add-on is definitely a great tool for that.

Image credit: An image of a nice clock with time to bookmark us by BigStockPhoto

Background

Chrome OS may seem very locked down, but it’s actually running on top of Linux. The Chromebook Pixel is a high-end device intended, in part, to be adopted by developers who want to create software for Google’s cloud-centric operating system or Linux in general. For these tinkerers, a Google employee developed crouton, a tool that enables you to run Ubuntu inside of a virtual instance within Chrome OS. Once installed, you can simultaneously run both Chrome OS and Ubuntu on a Chromebook Pixel without having to dual-boot or otherwise restart to switch between them.

Getting Started

You will first need to enable developer mode. To do this, hold down the ESC and Refresh keys at the same time and then briefly press down the Power button. Your computer will restart and send you to a recovery screen displaying the following text:

Chrome OS is missing or damaged.
Please insert a recovery USB stick or SD card.
(note: the blue USB port will NOT work for recovery)

On this screen, press Ctrl + D followed by Enter to boot into developer mode. Your computer will then proceed to erase all of your local data as it transitions. The process can take over ten minutes, so don’t panic if it takes awhile.

Once the transition is complete, you will be greeted by a warning screen with the following message:

OS verification is OFF
Press SPACE to re-enable

This screen will display every time you boot up your computer in developer mode. It’s a message to warn you that as long as OS verification is disabled, your computer will be less secure than it was before. This is a given. In the end, you will be running Ubuntu alongside Chrome OS, and were your computer to fall into the wrong hands, they could also run software in the background without you knowing. This is a risk most users have lived with since computers first hit the market, so there’s no reason to be alarmed. Press Ctrl + D or wait thirty seconds for the screen to go away.

Installation

First, download Crouton, then open a terminal inside Chrome OS by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T.

Inside the terminal, type “shell” and press Enter to switch to a Linux terminal. From here you have two options. You can install Ubuntu with either Unity or Xfce. If you want to install Ubuntu with the default Unity interface, type in the following command:

sudo sh -e ~/Downloads/crouton -t unity

This command will begin the actual installation process. It may take some time as the files are downloaded and installed onto your Pixel.

Once it’s done, enter these commands to enter your new Unity session:

sudo enter-chroot startunity
sudo startunity

You will be then find yourself looking at the familiar Unity interface. After downloading a new default wallpaper, here is how mine looked.

Given the Chromebook Pixel’s high resolution of 2560 x 1700 pixels, everything looks obscenely small. You can tweak this somewhat by increasing font sizes, but for the time being you’ll have to accept that windows and websites won’t scale naturally when you’re not using Chrome OS.

If Unity’s not your thing, you can try running Xfce. It’s a desktop environment that is lighter on resources and more customize-able. Depending on your computing background, this interface might look more familiar. Install Xfce with this command:

sudo sh -e ~/Downloads/crouton -t xfce

Switching back to Chrome OS is instantaneous. Hold down Ctrl + Alt + Back. If you want to return to Ubuntu, hold down Ctrl + Alt + Forward plus Ctrl + Alt + Refresh. If you log out of Ubuntu, you can return to it by again opening up a terminal and retyping either:

sudo startunity

or

sudo startxfce4

If you grow tired of running Ubuntu on your Pixel or want the peace of mind that comes from running your device with verified boot enabled, turning off developer mode is even easier than turning it on. Simply restart your computer. At the warning screen that pops up, press Space followed by Enter. Your computer will wipe itself again. Once it’s done, your computer will be as good as new.

Conclusion

Installing Ubuntu on a Chromebook Pixel is very useful if you still need to use Skype or compile code. Perhaps you’re curious to see if a Chromebook Pixel can handle Steam, which it can. Maybe you just want to experience what 2560 by 1700 is really like. Regardless of your motivation, installing Ubuntu on a Chromebook Pixel is now as easy, if not easier, than installing Ubuntu on any other PC. Linus Torvalds, the father of Linux, bought a Chromebook and installed Linux on it. That’s quite the endorsement. If you try it, check back in here in the comments and let us know about your experience.

Open source licensing

Open source licensing has been around for a very long time.  It’s a type of accepted copyright license for software that allows developers to modify and share the source code behind it.  Beyond that, open source software can be freeware, shareware or paid for outright by users depending on the developer’s preference.  It’s also determined by each open source developer whether or not their name must be attached to the source code should it be modified or distributed in a new way.

There are many organizations and groups that oversee open source licensing, which makes it a more viable way to protect the work as a software developer.  Since more people recognize the oversight, it’s easy to protect your source code should someone use it in a way you didn’t authorize.

Open source comes as is with no guarantee it’ll even work or that you’ll have the support behind it to fix an issue that comes up.  Since open source software is being developed, tweaked and distributed with changes by various developers, they may not have the time or energy to fix or change anything that is considered an issue.

Some of the most well-known open source software out there includes Linux, WordPress, Firefox and the Chromium engine.

Proprietary licensing

Proprietary licensing is more of a free form licensing that has no real oversight.  When you download a software title under a proprietary license, the developer makes the rules of what can and can’t be done with it. However, under the law in most countries, there are really no repercussions to govern this because proprietary licensing is not overseen by any laws backing it.  This is why you see many well-known proprietary software titles being modified without official access to its source code.

Since proprietary licensing is not recognized by the law, that means that just about every proprietary title requires you as a user to accept a long set of Terms and Conditions.  Once you accept this legal document, it becomes a binding contract between you and the developer, which means you’re liable for any terms you break.

Proprietary licensing offers support, bug fixes and patches, along with other helpful solutions when needed from the developer.  Since they’re the only ones who can fix issues related to the source code, the developer is most apt to find the fixes and apply them to continue turning a profit.

Some of the most common proprietary-based software out there include Windows and Mac OS X.

Open Source and Proprietary License Compared

Open source licensing and proprietary licensing have two very different goals in mind: The latter has turned into a game of making a profit whereas the former is all about taking a basic idea and turning it into something bigger and better.

Can Open Source and Proprietary License Work Well Together?

Opera has recently taken the step forward as a proprietary-based company deciding to make the leap into a more open source atmosphere.  Opera has made the move from using its rendering engine to utilizing the WebKit engine.  In this case, the brand of Opera is still proprietary, but the engine it uses is open source, meaning developers can tweak the coding behind Opera in ways they never could before.  This can lead to leaps forward for the Opera browser, similar to how the Chromium engine has evolved, without them giving up everything about the Opera brand.

Conclusion

Big name companies can still retain the rights to the brands they own, but by allowing developers and everyday users to tweak the code in places, who knows what could be possible for your favorite software titles and operating systems.  This is how open source and proprietary license can work together to produce better software for everyone.

Getting Started

JustBeamIt is a direct P2P file transfer tool that advertises itself as “file transfer made easy.” Pay the JustBeamIt website a visit and see for yourself. The service invites you to drag a file into the window to get started. If you prefer to manually select the single file transfer, click on the parachute to open a file selection dialog.

After you have dragged or selected a file to upload, the item will appear inside JustBeamIt. Since I am a big fan of minimalist footwear, I have selected a barefoot running guide to share with people. All I have to do is press the green “Create link” button to create a link I can share via email, instant messaging, or however I so desire.

The link that JustBeamIt generates is short, making it easy to fit inside a tweet or text message. Note that JustBeamIt is not a file hosting service, so you cannot share a link with more than one person. After it has been accessed once and the file has been successfully downloaded, the link will stop working.

JustBeamIt also provides a handy QR code that you can access from its location tucked away in the middle of the screen. This makes the service a great way to transfer files from your computer to your smartphone without having to dig for cords. There is also an Android app available if QR codes just aren’t your thing. Regardless of how you choose to share your file, don’t waste too much time. Links do time out after a while. Granted, the process is so simple that it isn’t too much hassle to start over.

Receiving a file through JustBeamIt is even easier than sending one. You do not have to be familiar with the service to download files successfully, making it a great tool for sending files to friends or family members who are still easily confused by computers. Just click on the file in the middle of the window to begin the download.

You’re Done!

No seriously, that’s it. JustBeamIt makes single file transfer as simple as posting a status update. We at Make Tech Easier strive to help everyday users accomplish tasks on their computers more easily, and I’ve seen few services simplify computing as successfully as JustBeamIt. Transferring files is now so straightforward that even people who have only a minimal understanding of what a file is can send one successfully. If you remember how much of a chore transferring files used to be, share it with us in the comments below.

Facebook now allows users to select three to five people as Trusted Contacts who can help the user get access to his/her Facebook account through a set of security codes. All they have to do is visit a secure link after logging in to their account and they will be asked if it’s really you who is trying to access the account.

After confirmation, the contact will be shown a security code to be shared with you. Simply enter the codes from all the contacts you added to your Trusted Contacts list and add them into the recovery page option.

How to Enable Trusted Contacts on Facebook

To enable the Trusted Contacts feature, click on the privacy icon and select “See More Settings”.

From the sidebar, click on Security Settings and you will be able to find an option to enable Trusted Contacts from there.

Click on “Choose Trusted Contacts”, and it will ask you add at least three people to the list. The reason why you are required to select three contacts is because there are chances of one of them getting their accounts compromised. Make sure you add those people to the list who can be contacted via phone, and more importantly, that you trust them with this kind of information. After adding all the names, click Confirm.

You will be asked to enter your password as confirmation.

The people you will add to the Trusted Contacts list will be sent an email as well as a notification on Facebook that you have added them as a trusted contact. There is no option for the recipient to accept or reject this.

Later, if you decide to change the list of people you added to the Trusted Contacts, you can do so from the same security settings mentioned above.

It should be noted that this feature is not yet available for every Facebook user and is still new. Hopefully, you will be able one of the users to receive the Trusted Contacts recovery option in case your account becomes compromised.

Is it Really Useful?

There are a lot of arguments both for and against this feature. Most importantly, how can you be one-hundred percent sure that the person you added to your Trusted Contacts list will not try to access your account? This may not be the most convenient method to recover your account. But personally, I think if you have Two-Factor Authentication on your Facebook account, it will be safe. In the end it’s up to you to decide whether it can be helpful to you or not.

What are your thoughts about this new feature? Feel free to share your views using the comments section below.

What Are “DoS” And “DDoS?”

DoS and DDoS are both attacks that are carried out on a particular computer or server. Both of these attacks have one thing in common: They flood the destination server with connection requests and/or data. The goal of both attacks is to overwhelm the server with so much data that it will simply stop accepting new connections. Other users will not be able to use the services provided by that network endpoint. In other words, if someone succeeds in attacking a website through a DoS or DDoS attack, you won’t be able to connect to it.

The difference between the two terms lies simply in the number of computers attacking.

DoS, or “Denial of Service,” attacks are carried out by one single computer.

DDoS, or “Distributed Denial of Service,” attacks are carried out by multiple computers (either voluntarily or involuntarily).

Both attacks can be dangerous, but DDoS is the most dangerous of all.

Methods of Execution

While a DoS attack may involves one single computer just running a DoS “tool,” a DDoS attack is often much more sophisticated. DDoS attacks are usually carried out from within botnets. A botnet is a group of computers that have been rounded up against their will, usually because of a virus or something else. They all connect to a central “command center.” This command center can be something as simple as a private password-protected chatroom. After the computers have all connected to the terminal, the hacker can simply command all of the connected computers to flood the target machine. A typical botnet looks like this:

Sometimes, this involves thousands of computers, all pouring the full brunt of their bandwidth into one server. This poses an extreme risk.

How Does DDoS Affect You?

There are two ways to be a victim of a DDoS attack: Your computer can either be infected with the botnet virus, or you can be the target of a DDoS attack. Both of them can pull you offline for a very extended period of time! I’ve had a DDoS attack flood my servers with over 8 Gbits/second of data for an entire week. This really interrupts many things, and the infected computers didn’t even know that they were attacking me.

How To Protect Yourself From DDoS

Although a corporate network is more likely to be on the receiving end of one of these bad boys, it’s good to be protected at all times. I’m going to tell you a harsh truth: There’s little you can do to prevent a DDoS attack from ripping your bandwidth to shreds. A firewall will only do so much. One decent way to defend yourself against DDoS is to buy a decent switch or router with network-level packet filtering technology.

But even that method is kind of ineffective. If you really want to protect yourself, you’d better hope you have a dynamic IP. This will allow you to change your IP address any time you disconnect from the Internet and connect to it again. You can do this by unplugging your router and plugging it back in again. If you have a static IP, there’s nothing you can really do except wait out the attack or call your Internet service provider (ISP) and ask them to change your IP. This strategy will allow you to finally have some breathing room.

That’s not all you should do, though. Changing your IP is just one step of many (and probably the last step you should follow in the entire strategic process). You should close any program you use on the Internet (Outlook, instant messaging, syncing utilities, etc.) and then just open your browser to look through the web. Do this for a few days. Afterwards, you can pop your head out of the water to see if all is safe. Doing this puts you below the radar. Using an application like AdvTor in tandem with your Internet utilities can really confuse a hacker trying to attack you with a DDoS. It hides your IP and allows you to resume all operations safely while you wait out the attack.

In fact, one of the best ways to prevent a DDoS from ever affecting you is to use a proxy or the previously-mentioned application at all times. When you hide your IP, you give yourself more power.

What If You’re Infected With A DDoS Virus?

First of all, software firewalls are very effective at stopping a virus from penetrating your network. The only times they’re ineffective is when you accidentally add a virus to the firewall’s application exception database. Check what programs are listed as exceptions. If any of them seem suspicious, do a quick search on the web to determine whether it’s something you should be worried about.

In general, keeping a healthy and strong antivirus application on your computer helps you stop these kinds of things from happening. There are exceptions (such as newly-created “0-day” viruses). In this case, you should go back to your firewall. Configure it to disable your Internet connection for absolutely everything except applications that you allow. Better yet, clear the exception list entirely. When a program asks to use the Internet, a notification will appear asking you to approve its use.

If you don’t feel confident that you’ll catch the virus this way, use a network monitoring application like netmon from Microsoft.

The image above shows how netmon looks after I’ve started a new capture for a few seconds. It shows me exactly what programs are using my Internet connection on the left-hand panel. This transparency can help you tell whether there’s a program using your Internet connection without your consent.

Conclusion

While you may not be a likely target of a DDoS attack, you’re better off if you’re armed with the knowledge necessary to combat one. If you have any questions, please leave a comment below, and you’ll get an answer to you quickly!

YouTube’s Traditional Model

While many YouTube watchers have been annoyed by the steady increase of ads on the website, they are a necessary evil. Traditionally, these advertisements provide the money YouTube makes. While Google makes money when advertisers pay to put banner ads across the site, YouTube partners make money only from the ads that appear within videos.

The vast majority of people who produce content for YouTube never see a dime. The simple truth is that it takes millions of views to make even thinking about becoming a partner worthwhile. Official numbers haven’t been produced, but YouTube partners are known to make a fraction of a penny per view.

Let’s say you obtain 200,000 views on a video. It’s a respectable number, but a penny-per-page view would amount to $2,000. At a mere fraction of a penny, partners would be grateful to bring in an eighth of that amount. Again, the official rates are not published, but there is anecdotal evidence out there.

Video advertisement can be bought by ad agencies at a certain rate per thousand views. Some of this makes it to the YouTube partner, but we do not know how much. Some ad buyers pick specific videos they want their ads to appear in. They also pay varying amounts for different types of content, and they may choose to pull their ads out of videos containing content considered too inappropriate or risky.

YouTube provides an ad performance report to each partner that displays data based on CPMs (cost per 1,000 views), gross revenue, impressions, and playbacks for each ad format that runs on their content. This allows partners to monitor how well they’re performing and how much they can expect to make.

Third Parties

YouTube producers can supplement the income they bring in from Google with money made from outside sources. Some companies will pay YouTube partners to sponsor their product. For example, a producer known for her makeup reviews may get offered a certain amount of money to review specific makeup products on her channel. Some YouTube sensations are paid to come on TV shows or offered large sums of money to appear in commercials.

Paid Channels

YouTube’s new model allows channels to produce pay-per-view content. To watch the videos, visitors must first subscribe to the channel. YouTube partners can set their fees as low as 99 cents per month. Each comes with a 14-day free trial and can offer discounted yearly rates. Some may still come with ads, but if a paid channel charging $1.99 a month has 125,000 subscribers, we can start making better guesses regarding how much that particular partner might be making.

In Summary

When looking at the way YouTube partners make money, it’s much like making money from blogging; it’s a very murky process. It varies based on each person’s success, their marketing skills, their outreach, and their ability to negotiate. Even then, much of it is luck. The popular “David After Dentist” video brought its creator over $100,000 after acquiring over 100 million views, but there’s no predicting when or if similar home videos will go viral.

Making a living off of producing content for the internet is still a relatively new and rapidly changing frontier. YouTube’s new model could join Netflix, Hulu, and similar video streaming services in shaking up the traditional way commercial media is created and delivered to consumers. But this will only happen if YouTube partners continue to flock to the service and visitors show an interest in subscribing to content. How much money partners make on YouTube depends mostly on whether viewers will continue to see watching YouTube and streaming media online as preferable to watching cable or satellite. Only time will tell.