Use Google Spreadsheet As Website's Time-Machine (Web Archive alternative)

This is the second and the last part of our tutorial on how to get the most out of Google Docs to get things done the clever way. In case you missed it, here's the first part: 3 Things You Didn't Know Google Spreadsheet Can Do For You (Part 1)

LICEcap Is The Best Alternative To Recordit To Screencast & Create High Quality GIFs

Web Archive is everyone's go-to place when they want to see how a specific website looks in the past. It's a wayback-machine that randomly creates snapshots of your site as reference so you can anytime check back when your site's gone awry in the future.

While Web Archive is one reliable tool to do just that, you cannot however specify how frequent a snapshot should be created. If you want to automatically create a site snapshop daily or weekly, then, Google Spreadsheet can do you a favor.

Using Google Sheet as Archive.org Alternative

Here's how:

1 Go to Screenshotmachine.com and create a FREE account. After sign up you will get an account key necessary for the API request.

2 Sign-in to your Google account and make a copy of this Google sheet (File > Make a copy).

3 Provide the required parameters as required like Account Key, URL to Capture and Capture Frequency.

4 Click Verify Now button to see if the API works or not. If it works, a new folder called Web page captures should be automatically created on your Google Drive account. This is where all screenshots will be saved.

Note: you’ll get a pop-up asking for authorization. Grant the necessary access.

5 Click Start Capturing button. You're done.

Depending on the capture frequency you specify, Google Sheet should automatically instructs Screenshotmachine.com to create a site snapshot and send it back to Google Drive.

mHotspot Is A FREE Alternative To Connectify That Turns Your Computer Into Wifi Hotspot

(3/3) Use Google Spreadsheet to Scrape Web Contents Online

One of my favorite features of Google Sheet is the importXML function which basically allows you to grab contents from another site. It's one pretty useful feature of Google Sheet as it saves you time especially if you're asked to web scrape or copy the entire contents of a site.

Watch this video below and see how web scraping can be done so easily using Google Documents Spreadsheets:



The information you get can then be imported to your website using the right apps and tools like WP All Import (if you're using WordPress as your site platform).

How To: Extract All Images Embedded In .DOC Word Documents All At Once

So next time you're asked to export the existing content of a website, then, importXML of Google Sheet is one nice function you can exploit.

3 Things You Didn't Know Google Spreadsheet Can Do For You (Part 1)

There's no denying that we are all slowly becoming too dependent on Google apps. From a simple task of digging the world's information down to locating the nearby coffee shop, we always turn to Google and get the information we want in the blink of an eye.

One of the best web services that Google has ever made for everyone is the Google Docs suite. Its powerful, cloud-centric features along with its ever-improving mobile app makes it really a mature and capable platform.

Open and View Online Documents of Any Format Directly On Your Browser without Downloading Them

But just as every finest web app available in the wild, there are things that you might have missed & didn't realized you could do with Google Sheet app. And in this post, we are going to explore some of the lesser-known Google Sheet hacks and tricks to make your digital life a lot easier.

3 Clever Uses of Google Sheets You Might Not Know Yet (Part 1)

(1/3) Use Google Spreadsheet to monitor website downtime and uptime

If you have a blog or website, you know exactly how important web monitoring apps like Pingdom and Uptime Party can be. These are apps designed to monitor your website's uptime that should alert you in real-time when your site is down or inaccessible. These website monitoring apps work great, but they often come with a price.

In case you need a FREE Pingdom alternative, you can turn to Google Spreadsheet and use it as a website monitoring tool to track your site's downtime and uptime. As with premium apps like Pingdom, you get instant email or SMS notification delivered straight to your inbox once your site is down.

The process should only take about a minute or so to setup, and you're good to go.

Here's how to get started:

1 Sign-in to your Google account and make a copy of this Google sheet (File > Make a copy)

2 Put your website URLs in cell B2 (comma separated) and your email address in cell B3. If you wish to receive alerts by text messages, put Yes in cell B4.

3 You’ll find a new Website Monitor menu in your Google Sheets toolbar. Click Initialize and you’ll get a pop-up asking for authorization. Grant the necessary access.

4 Go to the Website Monitor menu again and choose “Start Website Monitor” to begin the monitoring process. Close the Google Sheet.

That's it. Google Sheet should now monitor and alert you in real-time when your site goes down, as seen below:

Get Notified When A Collaborator Made Some Changes On A Shared Google Spreadsheet

CONTINUE: 3 Things You Didn't Know Google Spreadsheet Can Do For You (Part 2)

How To: Web-Optimize, Compress Videos Without Losing Quality (90% Reduction Guaranteed)

Few days ago, I ran into a problem trying to embed a 40-seconds video into a website.

The problem:

The short video was too large — about 80MB in size — which doesn't seem to justify the length of the video we need to upload. With that ridiculously large size, we cannot easily upload and make it publicly accessible in the website for some performance reasons (if you're a web guy, you get it).

Since video hosting services like Vimeo and YouTube were not an option at that point, we had to come up with ways on how to minify the video without compromising the quality before finally embedding it to the site. And thankfully, we found this awesome tool called Handbrake.

Optimize, Compress Video for up to 90% (Useful for Web Embeds)

Handbrake is one bad-ass video optimizing software that will surely save your day. It allows you to compress any videos of any format, thus significantly reducing the file size without losing quality. It's lightweight, free, and it just works like a charm.

Here's why everyone loves Handbrake:

• Great video format support. You can compress any types of videos like .wmv – Windows Media Video File, .avi – Audio Video Interleave File, .m4v, .mov, etc.
• It is Open Source. That means you don't have to spend a penny
• It works on Windows, Mac and Linux so everyone can enjoy.

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Using Handbrake is pretty easy. First, you have to specify the Source video file, define Output settings as well as the Destination folder, then, hit Start. It's that easy. See the demo below (click to enlarge):

LICEcap Is The Best Alternative To Recordit To Screencast & Create High Quality GIFs

The result:

Look at that file reduction I got — from 80MB I was able to shrink it down to 7.6MB. That's 90% reduction!

Still not convinced? Download Handbrake for Windows or Handbrake for Mac and see it for yourself.

How To: Upload, Edit Files Without FTP — Use WP-Admin Access To Manage Web Files (WordPress)

Few days ago, I ran into a problem trying to access and update some of the web files inside a WordPress site.

The problem: I needed to access and update htaccess file but I only have /wp-admin/ account and there's no FTP or cPanel account given. Getting back to client and asking for FTP credential was not even an option, as he was already out during that time.

Normally, managing and editing files on a web server requires an FTP or cPanel account. Without a valid FTP or cPanel account, file management is impossible. But with WordPress, that's not the case.

How To Access Remote Web Files Without Using FTP Client

In this post, I'm going to show you a simple workaround on how to get an FTP-level type of access to your WordPress files so you can quickly manage and edit web files from your root directory using only a WP administrator account. This is rather a “dirty” trick and I discourage everyone to do this unless you've got an FTP account in hand.

Using WP-Admin Access To Upload, Edit Files Without FTP Account in WordPress

As you might already know, the real gem of WordPress comes from the thousands of ready-made plugins freely available for everyone. And here we're going to explore yet another awesome plugin called WP-FileManager.

WP-FileManager is a tiny WP plugin that gives you the ability to access and update files on your web server without an FTP account. Sounds like impossible but yes, you can use your wp-admin account to update and manage web files without FTP account.

Getting started with WP-FileManager

Just download and activate WP-FileManager from WordPress plugin repository. Once activated, you'll find a new tab called FileManager. Under this tab comes File Manager and Configuration. The plugins' default home directory is /wp-admin/ and it comes with all options disabled so you may need to go to Configuration first and set the default home directory and tick all the boxes, as shown below:



Once you've done this you can navigate back to FileManager and browse through files and folders.

How To: Automatically Generate Thumbnails, Screenshots For Any Website

WP-FileManager works almost like cPanel's file management system; you can browse through folders and root directory files, create new file or directory and upload files. The only downside: it won't let you edit files on the fly — you've got to download the file first, edit it on your computer, then re-upload it back to the server.

You're done!

As a final note, you only need to install WP-FileManager if and only if that's the last resort and you absolutely need it. Having WP-FileManager installed on your WP site gives everyone with admin account a full access to your web files, including wp-config.php file and htaccess.

Get Notified When A Collaborator Made Some Changes On A Shared Google Spreadsheet

No matter how advance Project Management and CRM tools can get, no one can ever ditch Google Sheet.

Google Sheet is still one powerful tool that if you know how to exploit the service to your advantage, you know that it's more than just a spreadsheet-editing software.

And if you're using Google Sheet as an additional tool aside from your usual project management service, here's a nifty tip on how to enable email notification so you'll be notified in real-time whenever a collaborator is making some updates on a shared spreadsheet; no need for you to waste time waiting for hours for other collaborators to update the sheet.

Gmail's Addon Streak Lets You Monitor, Track If Emails Are Read, Viewed By Recipients

Enable Email Notification On A Shared Google Spreadsheet

Email notification for Google Sheet is actually a built-in feature, but not activated by default. You have to manually enable it to start receiving email notifications. Here's how:

• Open the spreadsheet where you want to get notified for any changes.
• Go to the Tools > Notification rules.
• In the window that popups, select when and how often you want to receive email notifications.
• When:
• “Any changes are made”
• “A user submits a form”
• How often:
• “Email - daily digest”
• “Email - right away”
• Hit Save.

You're done. Whenever someone made some changes on a shared spreadsheet, you'll be automatically alerted via email, like this:



You may also need to setup email push notification on your smartphone so that no emails will be missed.

Use Mover.io To Copy, Move Files From FTP To Google Drive, DropBox, SkyDrive and Vice Versa

Google Sheet is still my go-to place when it comes to working and collaborating with clients for a specific project. During a website pre-deployment, after the QA, we have a client review phase where a client is expected to inspect and jot down all design & functionality hiccups of a website. While BaseCamp, Asana or Teamwork may be used to collect the findings, I find it a lot time-saver and efficient if I can get a consolidated view of all findings inside a single Google sheet. And now that I can setup email notification, both the client and I can save time.

Get Notified When Someone Talks About You On The Internet

New Chrome Add-on Lets You Watch YouTube Videos While You Search, Browse — Similar to YouTube Mobile App

Last year, YouTube rolled out a massively popular update to their iOS and Android app which completely redefines every YouTuber's streaming experience. The revamped YouTube's mobile app gets a multi-tasking support which allows you to watch videos while you search and browse channels and playlists.

That was pretty useful, clever functionality which, unfortunately, YouTube's web app counterpart is currently deprived of.

Get Instant Lyrics for Grooveshark, Spotify and YouTube Web Players with This Cool Add-on

Now, if you heavily stream YouTube videos on your computer, you too can get the same multi-tasking treatment with this Chrome extension called Seek 'n Play.

Watch YouTube Videos and Search at the Same Time, Like On Your Mobile Phone (link)

Seek 'n Play is yet another useful Chrome extension that brings YouTube mobile's multi-tasking functionality to your desktop. With Seek 'n Play, you can search and browse for videos while you are watching another video, just like the mobile app.

How it works?

Every time you navigate to another video or you browse through another channels or playlists, the current playing video will be automatically positioned, fixed at the bottom of your screen so you can continue watching while you keep exploring YouTube . And that's a big user experience boost!

New Browser Extension Turn Off The Lights Gives YouTubers The Feel Like They're In A Cinema

Seek 'n Play is truly a great extension. It's lightweight, free, and it works great!



Download: Seek 'n Play or check out developer's website for more.

GistBox: The Best Place to Store, Organize Code Snippets and Pastes

Whether you are a seasoned coder or a newbie dabbler, you need a code snippets repository.

A code snippets repository is a place where you can keep a file of your own most-used codes so you can check back and copy the needed lines of codes without having to rebuild them from scratch. Code snippets will basically save you time when developing or administering a website as you no longer have to rewrite the codes to achieve the desired results.

For example, here's a tiny code snippet you can add in your .htaccess file to speed up your site:

Responsimulator: The Most Accurate, Reliable Web-Based iPhone, iPad Simulator Online

While there are already long standing, well-reputed code snippets storage sites freely available out there, there's not such an abundance of apps that can beautifully store and organize your code snippets similar to how GistBox works.

In this post, we're going to explore how GistBox can help you in becoming more productive and learn why you cannot stay away from it once you get your hands into it.

So, what is GistBox?

GistBox is another code repository service designed to make code snippet management a little less boring. GistBox uses GitHub's backend but it comes with its own advanced label and search functionality — the features which are missing in GitHub's Gist.

Use Mover.io To Copy, Move Files From FTP To Google Drive, DropBox, SkyDrive and Vice Versa

GistBox was designed to be a curated, personal snippet library – like long term memory for the practicing software engineer.

Here's a few reasons why GistBox is the best:

I like Gist, but it's too limited; it lacks of important functionality like being able to organize your code snippets via tags or labels. So here allow me to point out the notable goodness of GistBox.

Color-Coded Labels. You can create labels as much as you want and assign a color for each label. GistBox Labels works like categories, so for every code snippet you add you can organize it by language, project or purpose.

Advance Search. GistBox's search functionality is surprisingly amazing. If you like how Gmail's search works, then, you'll also love GistBox. With GistBox, you can search through the entire code snippet library or through specific labels.

Collaborate with a group. Another cool feature of GistBox is it's ability for you to create groups and share useful snippets among co-workers — great if you're working with a team.

Split Screen: Splits Your Web Browser into Multiple Resizable Windows

GistBox is lightweight, free and usable. And it's a must-have to all devs!
Still not convinced? Go, check out GistBox and see it for your self.

New Chrome Extension Lets You Preview Virtually Any Files (e.g. PSD, AutoCAD) On Your Web Browser

We are a big fan of anything that makes things less of a hassle. Whether it's about extracting text from an image without using image editor or moving around large files from FTP server to your DropBox account, we constantly hunt for the best apps and methods to make the process a little less painful.

And today, we are thrilled to share with you yet another interesting Chrome extension that you might want to add in your arsenal.

Preview Almost Any Kind of File In Your Browser (e.g.PSD, Word, AutoCAD, Video, Audio, etc).

Introducing... FilePreviews.io. It's a nifty browser add-on currently available for Google Chrome designed to generate previews of almost any kind of file including, but not limited to PSD, AI, AutoCAD, Excel files, and much more. And the real cream of the crop? It works straight from your web browser; no need to launch third party apps like Photoshop, Illustrator, AutoCAD apps, etc.

When is it useful?

FilePreviews.io may not be something you use all the time, but in case you want to have a quick look of that large PSD or AutoCAD files you stumbled on the web, you can turn to this app to quickly generate snapshots of those files.

How it works?

As with any other Chrome extension, all you have to do is to install FilePreviews.io from the Chrome WebStore. Once installed, just right-click on a link and from the context menu, select “Preview from source...”. The add-on should automatically take you to a new tab displaying the file preview without ever leaving your browser. How cool is that?

Lazarus Is Your Time-Saving Chrome Add-On That Saves Anything You Type On A Web Form

Go check out FilePreviews.io.

The Quickest Way To Remove Duplicate Tracks In Spotify Playlist

If you've been using Spotify for a long time, chances are you've come across an issue with duplicate tracks. It happens from time to time and as more and more songs you add in your playlist, so do the problems that come with it.

Dealing with duplicate files is no easy feat, much more if you're dealing with a large, collaborative playlist. Thankfully, finding and removing duplicate songs on Spotify playlist is not that difficult as what you might think. Here we're going to show you can easily declutter and deduplicate songs on your Spotify playlist in seconds.

Find, Delete Duplicate Media Files On Windows 7 (CopyTrans Method)

Find and Remove Duplicate Tracks in Your Spotify Playlists

Meet Spotify DeDuplicator, an online tool that allows you to remove all exact duplicate tracks from a selection of Spotify tracks. The tool works this simply:

1) You select all tracks in a Spotify playlist
2) Drag-and-drop them to the the textbox just above the “Deduplicate” button
3) Press Deduplicate
4) Drag-and-drop the result back to your Spotify playlist (or in a new playlist)

As seen on the GIF above, you may need to empty the entire playlist before you drag-and-drop the results back to Spotify, or else those tracks will be added as another duplicates.

Add or Set Music Sleep Timer To Spotify iOS App (No Jailbreak Requried)

So if you start seeing tracks displayed more than once in your Spotify playlist, go check out Spotify DeDuplicator.

New Android App 'Party Player' Lets You Enqueue, Play Song Via SMS

Imagine you're chilling outside together with your friends, maybe on the veranda with beer, enjoying the night while your party playlist is humming in the background.

What if I told you there's an app that allows you or anyone to enqueue, play tracks by simply sending a text message to your phone?

Enqueue, Play Next Song By Title Through Text Message (link)

Well, that's basically the premise of this brand new app called “Party Player”, a free music app currently available for Android that allows your phone to receive and automatically play song requests through text messages. And no, it doesn't need an internet connection to work.

How it works?

The app works this simply: you or your friends will just have to send a text message "Play<space>Song Name" to your Android phone. Party Player will then automatically stop any currently playing song and look for and play the matching track found on your phone. When the song request finishes, the previously playing song will be continued.

How To: Remotely Lock, Password-Protect Your Lost/Forgotten Phone Thru SMS

Party Player is surprisingly smart; if a song request returns multiple results, the sender automatically gets a reply via SMS prompting them which song they want to play.

How cool is that?!

Of course, song requests can come from different sources, including song requests coming from non-Android devices. The app also comes with a simple “Blacklist” support so you can disallow certain contacts from requesting a song, useful if you have friends with poor music taste :D

It's creator, iamcamcamiam22, teased the app on Reddit yesterday, showing how the Party Player works. Here's the creator with his demo video:





Download: Party Player [Play Store]

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Project Naptha: A Mind-Blowing Chrome Add-on that Lets You Copy, Extract Text from Any Images Online

How many times have you gone to situations when you needed to extract text embedded in an image but went helpless because no app can quickly and perfectly do just that?

Well, not probably once.

To anyone who wants to be more productive on their online gigs, you should go and check out Kevin Kwok's latest work: Project Naptha, a mind-blowing browser extension currently available in Chrome that allows you to copy text from any images straight from any websites.

And yes, it works great.

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But how was it possible?

As with any other text extraction software, Project Naptha is powered by a complex Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology which quickly identifies and builds a model of text regions, letters and words that you can extract and copy from virtually any images you encounter on the web.

One notable feature of Project Naptha is the "Erase Text" functionality which allows you remove text from any images -- useful if you want to grab images online free from captions or annotations.

Project Naptha has already making a lot of headlines today, and the media attention it gets can potentially attract tech giants like Google, Bing or Yahoo who might consider acquiring it and incorporate into their search engines.

Here's why:

Project Naptha is a clear demonstration that it's possible for search bots to decipher and index all images flooded online, similar to how search engines index the standard text-based websites. And that's music to the ear for search engine companies who might want to take a big step  forward in search. Sooner or later images we embed in our websites will be as valuable as text. And those online images' copyright violators will get the biggest Google slap.

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There's not such an abundance of OCR apps both desktop and online that works out of the box without requiring you to upload the source files for remote processing. With Project Naptha, OCR processing all takes place straight from your web browser. And that's a work of genius.

Project Naptha Firefox extension is expected to arrive in the coming months.



LINK: Project Naptha

Responsimulator: The Most Accurate, Reliable Web-Based iPhone, iPad Simulator Online

Every front-end developer knows how downright disappointing it is to get asked to fix some design hiccups in which you cannot fix as you cannot replicate them on your end.

And this is a very a common problem among web developers: your iPhone/iPad simulator says it's perfect but in real physical device, the overall look-and-feel of a website may be a bit awry, unacceptable. We don't want our clients to get back to us angry right?

Use Mover.io To Copy, Move Files From FTP To Google Drive, DropBox, SkyDrive and Vice Versa

But fret not.

A web design company Flexify has this no less ordinary iPhone/iPad online simulator app that you will gladly welcome into your web dev toolbox: Responsimulator. This is not Screenfly or any other online simulators you may have used before.

Here's why:

The level of accuracy renders by this web-based iPhone/iPad simulator is so impressive that you can quickly squash every single visual bug you encounter which may not normally appear in your usual emulators. And that's great especially if you constantly do web development or QA and you don't have real iPhone or iPad to perform visual checks on your end.

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Simulators have always been the most indispensable tools among front-end web developers. These are everyone's go-to tools to ensure every single detail and element of a website is displayed well on any screens or platforms prior to site deployment. But you've got to be careful as not every simulator delivers results as promised, except of course for Responsimulator which seems to be the most web developer-friendly, accurate iPhone/iPad simulators available as yet.

The Cons:

• Only portrait mode is currently supported
• Works only on websites with RWD implementation (translation: Media Query-reliant websites)

Do you know any other mobile and tablet simulators? Buzz off in the comments.



LINK: Responsimulator

Bubbli Is A Jaw-Dropping App That Lets You Create Streetview-Like, Responsive Spherical Images (iOS)

Drop Photosynth,  AutoStitch Panorama, Cycloramic, or whatever panorama-making apps you used to worship and obsessed with.

Here comes another revolutionary app that will change the way you document, snap your precious travels or events in your life. Think this is another boring Instagram or panorama-shooting apps? That's a big NO.

Bubbli is the next big thing -- here's why (link)

Meet Bubble, a brand new app (currently available for iPhone & iPad) that allows you to create a beautifully stitched, dynamic spherical photo. What I mean with dynamic spherical photo is that the resulting photo is complete with encompassing sides, top, and bottom of the entire scene around you - including sound. Bubbli termed this technology as bubbles.

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Adding to that 3D multimedia feel is the Gyroscope-guided image navigation, where you can virtually span around the image by changing your device's position and orientation. The result? Not just an ordinary 360-degree shot or the streetview-like images of Google Maps; it's a visually stunning, immersive three-dimensional experience straight from your iPhone/iPad.

Demo Bubbles

Let these featured bubbles do the talk (best viewed on your sensor-enabled iPhone/iPad):







Still not impressed? I don't think so. The first time I used the app it got me thinking Bubbli is the next billion-dollar app Facebook or Google will soon snatch. It has all the potential to become the next Instagram or Snapchat and even beyond that.

Using Bubbli

As with any advance photo-snapping apps, there's a bit of trickery you need to acquaint at first. Right after you launch the app, you'll be greeted with a welcome screen with an intro video, detailing what Bubbli is all about and why it's different from standard Panorama.

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The app then serves you a sample bubble, demonstrating you how to get started. Here, you can tap "next" to proceed with registration, which is required so you can store your Bubbles online. I advise you to go download the app and browse through the manuals/demos built into the app. It got a decent collection of video demos on how to capture a perfect spherical photos.

Bubbli Features

Notable goodness of Bubbli includes: the ability to share your bubbles on social media sites. It also got "Featured" section, displaying a grid of public bubbles published by Bubbli users. You may tap on any of them to explore.

The Bad

My only problem with Bubbli is that it consumes quite a lot of resources (at least in my case). Maybe app like this is naturally a resource-hogger? But thinking of how game-changing & revolutionary the idea & the execution of this brilliant idea, I think this is forgivable.



DOWNLOAD: Bubbli

LICEcap Is The Best Alternative To Recordit To Screencast & Create High Quality GIFs

For the uninitiated, Recordit Fast Screencasts is a Mac-only piece of software recently launched that lets you create video screencasts FAST. This app works similarly to Jing; you decide what particular area of your screen you want to screen-capture, hit the record button, then wait for a few seconds for the app to upload & generate a unique link for the screencast. If you have a Mac, go check out Recordit.

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What makes Recordit unique is the nifty GIF support, which is kind of envy to all Windows users out there considering that there's not much good screencasting apps available for Windows with decent GIF support.

But fret not, I got you here a decent (even better) alternative to Recordit that works well on any Mac and Windows computer.

LICEcap Records Your Screen Activity And Saves It As High Quality GIF (Windows & OSX)

LICEcap is FREE and fully functional GIF creation tool both for Windows and Mac that allows you to capture an area of your computer and store it as a high quality GIF. LICEcap is very lightweight and there's no extra fuss to get started. Just grab and install the app, and you're good to go.

LICEcap Features:

• Record directly to .GIF or
• Move the screen capture frame while recording
• Pause and restart recording, with optional inserted text messages
• Global hotkey (shift+space) to toggle pausing while recording
• Adjustable maximum recording framerate, to allow throttling CPU usage
• Basic title frame, with or without text
• Record mouse button presses
• Display elapsed time in the recording

Why use GIF when there's a video?

The problem with most video screencasting software today is that the size of video or flash file it generates is too large that you can't quickly embed it on a web page nor share it to your co-workers or employer. With GIF as an output format, the size is too minimal, thus saving you time.



Link: LICEcap

Best & FREE Alternatives To Otixo To Manage Multiple Cloud Storage Accounts

How To: Automatically Logout Of Facebook After Certain Time (Chrome)

Sounds absurd but this kind of application can be useful too.

An app that can automatically log you out from Facebook after certain time may not be something you'll use everyday. But just in case you're on a shared computer and you don't want others to mess around with your account, this category of app is proved useful.

Facebook Auto Log Out: Automatically Logs You Out From Facebook After User-Specified Time (link)

Meet Facebook Auto Log Out, a nifty Chrome extension designed to do just that. Using the add-on is pretty straightforward; just install the add-on from Chrome Web Store, log in to Facebook, set a timer, and you'll be logged out automatically when your time is up. It's that simple

This is particularly helpful for people who have this hobby of leaving the computer opened/unattended.

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Another, rather more advanced, Chrome extension is Auto Logout. It automatically logs you out of all logged in accounts including Gmail when your browser is closed, recommended for use in shared computers to help keep different accounts safe.

mHotspot Is A FREE Alternative To Connectify That Turns Your Computer Into Wifi Hotspot

Previously on this blog we have talked about Connectify, a tiny piece of app that turns your laptop into a wireless hotspot so you can quickly share your internet connection without having to spend hours of frustration doing it via Ad-Hoc.

Connectify is great, but only if you're willing to toss $40 for the lifetime Pro version that unlocks a plethora of features which of course you don't need all. While there's a Connectify Lite version, I find it too limited especially the latest version. And that's not only my opinion.

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Now if you want a decent and FREE alternative to Connectify to share your LAN, 3G/4G internet connection, then, you might you want to check out mHotspot.

mHotspot Transforms Your Computer Into Portable WiFi Hotspot  (link)

mHotspot is a 100% free software which converts your Windows-based computer into a functional and secure Wifi Hotspot. If you have DSL or 3G/4G broadband at home, you can quickly share that to other wireless devices. Absolutely no router or additional external hardware required.

With mHotspot, you can:

• provide internet access to other devices (10 devices max)
• set your own hotspot name without any prefix or restrictions (unlike Connectify Lite)
• secures your wireless hotspot with WPA2 PSK password security
• application size is 400KB only (that's cool)
• share any type of Internet connection (LAN, Ethernet, 3G/4G, etc)
• see the details of the connected devices (e.g. device name, IP & Mac Address)
• see the network usage (upload and download speed)
• turn your laptop as a repeater

mHostpot, the best Connectify alterntive as yet, has already amassed over 2 million downloads to date. Go check out mHotspot.

Must-Have: Recover All Items Stored On Your Clipboard with Ditto (Windows)

Solayo Is Your Spotify For YouTube — Lets You Search & Create Playlist From YouTube, SoundCloud

The early demise of YouTube-powered app LoudLee creates a new opportunity for new starters.

Filling that void is yet another awesome web app Solayo which brings even better integration to these big streaming sites.

So what is Solayo?

Just like LoudLee, Solayo harnesses the power of YouTube so you can easily search music and create personalized playlists from multiple sources including YouTube and SoundCloud.

Get Instant Lyrics for Grooveshark, Spotify and YouTube Web Players with This Cool Add-on

Solayo is basically a "Spotify for YouTube"; that over 11 millions of covers seen only on YouTube are now at your disposal to pin & add to your playlist.

At Solayo we want to enhance how you Search, Play and Collect multimedia content online. We’ve all suffered the same problem of having half a dozen Youtube tabs open or waiting for another content we’re listening/watching to finish playing before embarking on searching for another one.

Well here at Solayo, we’re developing this platform in solving these problems. We believe that it is time for people to be able to search their video or music content from as many source providers out there and not only that, but the ability to listen/watch and collect these contents should be as easy and mesmerising as possible.

Whom Is It For?

Solayo is for anyone who wants to turn YouTube into an online music radio. If you're a big fan of independent artists who produce awesome covers only on YouTube, then, Solayo is ideally right for you. Or if you don't have access to Spotify & if you think Grooveshark's music library is too limited for you, then, try this out.

Link: Solayo (Beta)

5 Essential Non-Jailbreak iPhone Apps That Apple Should Allow In App Store

App makers outside Apple know best what needs to be developed and what's not. Users'thirst of really useful, great apps are not left in the wild unnoticed. In fact, it motivates and drives competition among developers who create a great selection of apps for us to enjoy.

Unfortunately, great apps don't easily make its way to Apple's AppStore. Not because they're too buggy or useless but because of Apple's restrictive policy, preventing developers to accomplish something great.

5 Essential Android Apps That We Wish Existed On The iPhone

In this post, we're going to explore some of the great, useful apps that exist in other mobile operating system but not in non-jailbroken iOS. These are apps that are sure a big hit and will make your iPhone a little less dumb once made available in iTunes.

Smart app protector to password-protect individual iOS apps without Jailbreak

I have a non-jailbroken iPhone 5 and just like you, I've been looking for iOS apps similar to Android's AppLock so I can restrict access to some of my personal & finance apps by protecting them with a password. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to have a way out except for iAppLock, a jailbreak app that can password-protect apps in iOS devices.

The reason why Apple can't approve such apps is that it is a violation of terms for an application to make a system-wide change and make a password for individual app. Applications have to one-by-one add password locks if they want to. Yeah, I know. It sucks!

More in this category:

How To: Remotely Lock, Password-Protect Your Lost/Forgotten Phone Thru SMS
How To: Password Protect, Lock Google Chrome Browser
How To: Lock, Protect Certain Programs Installed On Your Computer

An offline answering machine for iOS

Offline Answering Machine for iOS is undoubtedly one awesome app! This is a kind of software that automatically answers phone calls with your pre-recorded greeting and records/saves the voice message straight to your iPhone, bypassing telco's voice mailbox service. Not only can you cut your phone bills but sure you can avoid unanswered phone calls from important people.

Back in Symbian days, Voice Inbox is one of my must-have apps that does just that. If you still have s60v3 phones, you should go and get this app. Things you can do with it: replay voice messages anytime without calling an operator, see the name of the caller (not just a number), call back in a click.

As yet, neither Android nor iOS has an app for that.

A call-recording software for iPhone

Being able to record phone calls (and even Skype calls) is sometimes necessary, most especially if someone is giving you important directions over the phone. If you're confused or unsure what your mom or boss has said, you can turn to the recorded phone call and listen it once again.

Both Android and Symbian have decent working apps for that. For iOS, I can't still find any.

Tasker-like automation app for iPhone

If you've been on Android in the past, you should have already heard about Tasker. Tasker is an award-winning app that brings complete automation to your Android device.

There are plenty of automation options you can exploit with Tasker; it can automatically send SMS to your parents when you're leaving the house, it can automatically switch your phone to “Silent” mode when you're in office, among others.

Automate Your Phone: Let Your Phone Perform Certain Actions Based On Your Location

While there's IFTTT for iPhone you can explore, Tasker is far more advanced and feature-rich as compared to IFTTT.

AdBlocker for iPhone to block pesky ads popping on your favorite game/app.

There's no need for me to enumerate the pros of having an ad-blocking software installed on your iOS device. Unfortunately, ad-blocking software are too controversial that they don't even make their way to Play Store or AppStore. Unless you do the risky business of jail-breaking or “rooting”, you can block ads on your Android or iPhone.

Have something to add on this list? Buzz off in the comments below. :)