Fatima Wahab

Mac Editor
Twitter: @Fatiwahab Follow me on Google+

[Giveaway] Mention: Google Alerts Alternative With Desktop, Mobile Apps & Analytics

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A few days ago we covered Talkwalker Alerts - a free web alerts service that does pretty much what Google Alerts does, by letting you add as many web-based alerts as you like and monitor them via an RSS feed. It’s a good service and a reliable one should Google decide to axe its offering. Mention is a similar service that's more suited for users who use alerts extensively to monitor specific topics being discussed online. The service has both free and premium accounts available, with the free accounts limited to a total of three alerts and 50,000 mentions per month. Mention has apps for Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android that allow you to monitor these alerts as they come. The service does not send email alerts, and your inbox therefore remains clean from the clutter. Mention has its own ‘inbox’ that you can read the alerts in. Alerts can be narrowed down to include or exclude a certain phrase/word, originate from specific source(s), and be in a language of your choice. Mention allows you to view stats for your alerts and download them in report form as a PDF file. Read More

Quickly Add Entries To Reminders App From Mac Menu Bar With Remind Me

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Reminder apps are very common for just about all platforms, and Mac as well as iOS come with one that syncs over iCloud. This app, called Reminder, is rather basic; it allows you to group reminders by list and lets you set the priority level for each of them. There are various more as well as less sophisticated reminder apps available for Mac but if you just want a quick way to add reminders to the stock Reminders app, try out Remind Me. It is a free app available in the Mac App Store that’s built to make the process of adding reminders to the stock Reminders app easier. If you’ve used Reminders, you know that you can click an empty line in the app’s interface and start typing. The text you enter is immediately added as a reminder, no questions asked. And that is, perhaps, where the problem lies. Once the reminder has been added, you have to click on its information button to view/edit is due date. Where Reminders is extremely simple, it’s also slightly confusing and liable to make you forget adding a due date to your reminder. Remind Me aims to be the extended 'Add reminder' dialog box that Reminder never had. Read More

Share Self-Destructing Media Or Text Messages Anywhere With ReadOnce

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There seems to be quite a market for self-destructing messages; popular apps like Snapchat and Facebook’s Poke are proof that people would like to say something and leave behind no trace that they ever said it. Jokes aside, if you’re using a smartphone, it is  likely that there is an app available for sending these self destructing messages. However, there are few options for doing the same from your PC, and the few that do exist support only plain text messages and have an unappealing interface. ReadOnce is a web service that lets you send self destructing messages. These messages can be plain text, images, audio clips, or videos. You can select how long the messages will be visible up to a maximum time limit of 59 seconds. The time can be customized down to the millisecond. The great thing about ReadOnce - apart from the different message formats - is that the message is only deleted from the recipient's side; you still get to keep it for 5 days, and can share it again with anyone. ReadOnce also lets you mask the URL you share using Bit.ly. Read More

Access Both Chrome Bookmarks & Apps From The New Tab Page

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No bookmarks bar has enough room to comfortably display all your bookmarked pages. Even if you sort them carefully into folders, you will not be able to see them all at a glance. Quick Bookmarks is a Chrome extension that gives you a more open view of your bookmarks. The extension takes over your new tab page and lists bookmarks and bookmarklets that you've saved to Chrome in a simple array of columns and rows, complete with their folder structure. There are quite a few extension that do something similar but Quick Bookmarks does so while still keeping your Chrome apps available from the New Tab page, and also makes it easier to manage bookmarks. You can add your frequently accessed folders as tabs to the new tab page, and drag & drop bookmarks around to move them. Read More

Zoolz Offers Incremental Cloud Data Backup With 100GB Of Free Storage

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There’s no shortage of cross platform file syncing services out there. Each has something special about it; some offer more storage, while others sell themselves on distinguising features or a great interface. Suffice to say, we’re swimming in file syncing services. Zoolz is different; it’s file storage and backup in the cloud. The app uses a desktop client to backup files to your cloud drive. Unlike file syncing services that will allow you to access backed up files at a moment’s notice, Zoolz backs them up for safekeeping and asks for a few hours (or maybe days) to retrieve it.  The desktop app takes regular backups of select folders or drives. You can restore files from a backup, but you will have to first download them, which takes time. Read More

Kahootz: Create, Share & Follow Calendars; Import Facebook & Google Events

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Birthdays are normally the only events that I find hard to remember; for everything else, there are post-it notes or reminders set on my phone. The easiest way to remember birthdays is, of course, Facebook. The other important events in my life I commit to memory, and hope I don’t forget any one of them. This approach won’t work for everyone and, on occasion, it fails me too. Kahootz is the first web app ever to compel me to use an online calendar for tracking all my important events. It imports events from both Google Calendar and Facebook, and allows you to create calendars as well as events. You can invite people to your events, and follow the calendars they've created. Kahootz gives you the option to add reminders to your events and create as many calendars as you want. Events and calendars can be either public or private. Read More

Shred Unwanted Files On Mac To Prevent Recovery Using Incinerator

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If you have a hard copy of a document or form that you never want anyone to see, you can shred it, burn the bits, and scatter them to the four corners of the Earth in hopes that the CSI team never finds them. It’s effective enough for physical documents but when it comes to files on your computer, deleting a file from your hard disk and your trash sounds as if it should be enough to get rid of them. However, these files can still be recovered either by using file recovery apps, or employing people from CSI. We've covered a tip on permanently erasing files from OS X using the Terminal, and where it is sufficient if you seldom need to securely delete files, the method isn't all that convenient for frequent use or if a lot of files are involved. Incinerator is a free app available in the Mac App Store that provides a more effective way to delete your files. It’s a file shredder that gives you free rein to choose how many times a file is shredded. You can choose to keep a dummy copy of the shredded file, or have the app delete it automatically once it’s been shredded. Read More

Fotor & Its Suite Of Photo Styling Options Now Available For PC & Mac

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Fotor is a very well known name among iOS photo capturing and editing apps, and the developers have just released Windows & Mac versions of the app, and that too with a price tag of free. Like Fotor for iOS and Andriod and Fotor for Windows 8, Fotor offers lots of features on Mac as well, including the same effects as its iOS variant, a sophisticated crop feature, and an excellent tilt-shift effect. In addition, it has the usual rotate and color adjustment options that you can find in most photo editing apps, which are usually paid. The tilt-shift effect allows you to add both a radial and linear tilt-shift effect, and its intensity can be adjusted in terms of focal point. You can crop an image to a size that's customizable down to the pixel, straighten an image, add borders i.e. frames to it, and of course, apply color filters. The app can also read EXIF data for your images. Read More

New In Firefox 20: Private Window, Improved Download Manager & More

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Firefox 20 is out on the stable channel and it’s packed with good stuff, this time mostly for end-users. The previous few versions have all or mostly focused on something for developers, making the browser more secure, or adding support for new web technologies. We’re not saying any of that isn’t important, but Firefox already commands a huge developer audience in its user base and it needs to up its offering for the ordinary user. This release sees the implementation of side-by-side private and normal browsing sessions, a new download manager, protection against extensions or apps that try to hijack your default search engine, a faster way to stop plugins that are unresponsive, and support for blend mode added for HTML5 canvas. Read More

Looking For A Google Alerts Alternative? Try Talkwalker Alerts

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Google, as both a search engine and an email provider is very popular and has users by the millions. It’s safe to say that the Google Search Engine and Gmail will never be taken off the shelves, but for Google services that are less useful for the greater masses, the same cannot be said. If Google Reader’s fate has incited you to look for an alternative for the lesser-used Google Alerts service, then you should give Talkwalker Alerts a shot. The service monitors the web for content containing keywords that you’ve entered. You can set up how frequently the alerts will be sent, what language they should be in, and whether or not the notifications should be in plain text or HTML. Read More

Auto-Detect & Add RSS Feeds From Websites To Protopage In Chrome

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Google Reader wasn’t just a feed aggregator; it was a service that apps and feed burners integrated into their own products. You could add a feed to Reader in just two clicks and there was rarely a need to manually subscribe to links. There are now quite a few emerging services that can be viable Google Reader alternatives but it will take time for app developers to decide which one they want to favor. Till then, we might no longer be adding feeds with just two clicks. Protopage RSS Reader is a Chrome extension for the Protopage service that automatically detects and adds feeds to your Protopage account. The service provides you with feed widgets that can you can manage and read on your profile page on the service. Read More

Nextly Is A Fast & Elegant Reddit, Twitter, Facebook & News Aggregator

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We’re always looking for a better way to browse the internet; websites redesign their interface to make content easier to read, apps are developed to assist reading and bookmarking, and then there are all the extensions that allow us to improve our browsing experience with just a tap of a few keys. Nextly is a web app designed to help you read content streams. It is presently limited to your Twitter and Facebook streams and a few choice websites including Reddit, Cracked, Time Magazine, etc. You can save your favorite streams, bookmark stories from them, and add tags and comments to your bookmarks. You will have to create an account with Nextly in order to use the service. Read More

Easily Add Favorite Google Services Shortcuts To Firefox Toolbars

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Google’s black bar that appears at the top of all its services is a convenient way to quickly access the major Google Services you use, but it isn't necessarily loved by everyone. It's safe to say that some users find it both ugly and distracting since your Google Plus updates are always there to divert your attention from the task on hand. There are also those who find the black bar indispensable, and you might even find some complaining about the bar not being omnipresent across the internet. Google Shortcuts is a Firefox add-on that fixes this; it provides you with Google Services’ buttons that you can place in your URL bar. Users choose which buttons will appear there, so that they aren't bothered with services they don’t use. Provided you're signed in to your Google account, your Google Drive, Calendar, and mail become just a click away. Read More

Mac OS X Tips & Tricks That You Might Not Know About

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OS X has some really great features that Windows’ users might envy; There are the well documented and much talked about features like Mission Control, Desktop Spaces, and the Launchpad, but OS X is also stocked full of several smaller and less hyped about features and tricks that even some veteran Mac users are unaware of. Regardless of how long you've been using the platform, it's always nice to learn a new trick or two that your Mac can do, and we've complied whole list of them to help you use your Mac more efficiently. Read More

Get Chrome Desktop Alerts For Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn & YouTube

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A while ago, we reviewed Chime - a Chrome extension that connects with your personal accounts on multiple social networks and gives you notifications for any activity. Chime stands out for two reasons: its gorgeous interface, and the multitude of services that it supports. The Notifications for everything is a Chrome extension that does something similar but supports fewer services and slightly greater customization. Chime kept a historical record of activity in your different account while The Notifications for everything is like the notification system that Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube lack. You can select which of the four mentioned services you want to receive notifications for, start receiving desktop notifications for them or simply view them on the extension’s icon. Read More

Add Aviary Photo Editing Tools & Filters To Facebook In Chrome

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Aviary's powerful image editor is widely used in photo editing apps for smartphones. Though it's far less common to see it integrated in on the web, since most web services do not provide a lot of editing options, or offer their own tools instead. Fly Photo Editor for Facebook is a Chrome extension that integrates Aviary's photo editing tools in Facebook. The extension lets you enter an edit mode from the theater view of any photo, and you can then proceed to add filters and frames to the image, crop it, add stickers to it, draw on it with a free hand drawing tool, and more. Once you've made the desired changes, the extension uploads your edited image to the same album as the original one. Read More

Screenbird Is A Java-Based Screen Recorder With On-The-Fly ‘Do Over’ & Online Sharing

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One good web app can often end the whole ‘which platform has better apps’ debate, and Screenbird is arguably one of those apps. It's a screencasting tool that runs entirely in your browser and allows you to record anything and everything on your screen. Unlike most browser-based screen recording tools, Screenbird is not restricted to recording inside the browser window. The recorded videos can be saved locally and uploaded for sharing as well. The service’s free version allows you to upload up to 150 minutes of videos to the cloud. That isn't Screenbird's best feature though; it has a 'do over' feature whereby you can select any point in a recording and re-record from that point onward. The portion of the video before that point remains intact, while the rest is overwritten. Read More

HyperSwitch Is A Windows-Like Preview-Focused App Switcher For Mac

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App & window switching in OS X is separated into two different shortcuts. For users who have migrated from a Windows PC, this is often hard to get used to. Mac users are less likely to have any problems with it but that’s not to say the feature can’t be improved. HyperSwitch is a free Mac app currently in beta that lets you get more out of app switching. At the core, it works like Mac’s default app and window switcher; both functions are still separated by keyboard shortcuts but unlike the default feature, it allows you to preview app windows as you move through them. Additionally, HyperSwitch lets you continue to use the default app switcher, and adds options for accessing functions like launching a new window or tab, and control iTunes. Read More

How To Import RSS Feeds Into Microsoft Outlook For Windows

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As most of you must have heard by now, Google Reader is retiring this summer and we've guided you through the process of backing up your Google Reader RSS feeds as well as given you a healthy list of alternatives for Google Reader to switch to, once it's gone. Though our list focused on apps that were always meant to be RSS feed readers, and we purposely left out the ones that offered RSS subscriptions as a side feature. Outlook - one of the most popular desktop email clients out there that's known mostly for helping you organize your contacts, remembering appointments, and sending emails - actually supports RSS feeds natively. The feature has been ignored by most so far, but the death of Google Reader has finally brought it much attention. If you use Outlook for your email, contacts and calendar already, there's no reason why it can't take care of your RSS subscriptions. So let's take a look at how you can import your feeds from Reader to Outlook, and switch to it as your RSS app. Read More

Remotely Manage Your Android Gallery From Chrome With SnapPea Photos

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We've covered quite a few tools that let you move files between your phone and your desktop. What most of these apps do is let you transfer photos over the same Wi-Fi connection. The point is to be able to transfer files without needing to connect your phone to your computer via a USB cable or Bluetooth. SnapPea Photos is a Chrome extension with an Android app that collectively work to let you manage the photos on your Android device right from your browser. The operative word here is ‘manage’, since you won't just be copying files from your phone to your computer, but will also be able to rotate and delete them. Read More