Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Magnetic Levitation Sculpture

Magnetic Levitation Sculpture: The Idea: In this instructable, we build a diamagnetic levitation
sculpture, complete with easy adjustments for optimizing the levitation
of the small cube magnet. The instructions are fairly complex, and
need a number of tools, but the end result is very nice! Items
required: About 1 squa...
By: jfehr67

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Friday, August 26, 2011

Upload Audio Files to YouTube with uMusic

Upload Audio Files to YouTube with uMusic:

uMusic is a free software which lets you upload your music to YouTube by mixing it with a picture or slideshow of pictures. There are lots of programs available online which lets you download YouTube videos or audios from the YouTube videos. But what if you are trying to upload a song to YouTube? There are not many programs available online which will aid you to upload YouTube videos especially when the content you are trying to upload is an audio song.

umusic

In order to do that there is only one way left. You have to mix it with a picture or slideshow and then upload manually by any browser. That’s may be tolerable if you are not uploading too much songs. But if you have a number of songs to upload then it will be a really frustrating experience for you. This is where the necessity of uMusic comes. This YouTube mp3 mixer and uploader will do it all for you so that you do not have to waste your time in Windows Movie Maker thinking which format will be the best. All you will have to do is to select the songs and the pictures you want to mix and upload.

Using uMusic is very simple. After opening the program you will see the e boxes and browse buttons. Select the source file from the Browse button behind the song text box and below that select the pictures in the same way. There is a preview window where you can watch the preview of the output file. After combining those you will have two options. Either you can save it to your hard drive or you can upload straight to YouTube using the built in uploader provided with uMusic. This uploading option is one of the best features of this software which will save a lot of time for you.

If you are looking for simple YouTube uploader, you can try Free YouTube Uploader, VideoSpin and MP32Tube reviewed by us.

Features of uMusic:

  1. It has a very easy to use interface. Selecting the songs and the pictures is all you have to do.
  2. Built in uploader. You can upload the songs directly without wasting much time.
  3. Option to upload to file hosting sites like Rapidshare also gives more choices for uploading.

uMusic is available for download at uMusic’s official website. It’s only 600KB in size and supports Windows. Download uMusic free here.

Related posts:

  1. MP32Tube: Convert Image to Video, Upload Video to YouTube
  2. Free YouTube Uploader – Upload Videos to YouTube
  3. docdroid: Upload and Share Files

The 7 Best Online Resources To Burn Your Bridges When You Quit Your Job

The 7 Best Online Resources To Burn Your Bridges When You Quit Your Job:

Officially, as of August 12th, I changed employers. I used to work for a massive global computer consulting company, with 60,000 employees across the globe. After suffering through the last few years, I decided it was time to look for a company that better values its employees. After “managed vacations” (a.k.a. forced vacations), unpaid furloughs and the ongoing and never-ending threat of layoffs, it became more than apparent that it was long past time to leave this poorly managed computer consulting conglomerate.

However, just leaving didn’t really feel like my style. I mean, I’ve worked for the same company for 13 years and it just didn’t seem cool to just silently walk off into the sunset. Therefore, I decided to share the management shortfalls and corporate shortcomings of this company with the entire world. I decided to “burn my bridges” I guess you could say.

7 Resources To Share How Companies Fail Employees

One thing that I noticed when I was job hunting – around the time when I wrote about the 10 most effective job hunting websites – was that there are a few websites out there where former employees provide completely honest reviews of what it’s like to work at the company. Those sites provide such a great insight of what it’s really like at the company.

Ann offered a few great websites where you can vent about your job or boss, but during my explorations, I discovered 7 more awesome sites where I could provide other job-seekers a similar service, once I quit my job for greener pastures.

Glassdoor

The first of those services is definitely Glassdoor. It’s fast and easy to quickly post a review about any company that you’ve worked for (or are currently working for).

What I like most about Glassdoor is that it allows you the space and freedom to write whatever you like. So long as your comments aren’t vulgar or outrageous and you’re fair and honest with your review, it’ll get published. If you want to get your company review before the eyes of potential employees, this is the place to do it.

Ping My Company

Another great website for slamming your former company and burning those bridges is a site called PingMyCompany. At this site, you can “ping” the company on a variety of factors like management, pay and more. Take a look at what other people have pinged the company for.

Then when you’re ready, go ahead and ping the company yourself. Choose a category that you want to review the company on and then go ahead and post your comments for the world to see. Other users will read your comments and either ping the company up or down based on their own experiences.

Rate Your Company

There is another fairly new website in the company ratings came called RateYourCompany. This website is pretty fast and easy. Just quickly add the company and position information at the top, and then rate the company on the 12 factors listed. You can go ahead and slam them in the areas where you know the company sucks, but be honest in the areas where they don’t.

Payscale

Payscale is another great website to use if you want to warn prospective employees of the pathetic wages that your former employer offers. Just fill out the PayScale survey and make sure to include your salary numbers so that they get tabulated into the overall results that PayScale offers for that employer.

Worked Here

Yet another fairly new employer review website with great potential is WorkedHere. This site offers a unique way to rate companies based on geographic location. That way you can go right to the map to find the company that you work for, quickly click on it and offer your own rating in addition to everyone else’s.

If you don’t see your company listed on the map, then go ahead and add it along with your rating. It’s fast and easy, and all you need to add one is an email account. You can make your rating anonymous if you like.

Rate Your Job, Rate Your Boss

There’s another fairly new ratings website called RateYourJob-RateYourBoss that lets you burn your bridges big time by not only rating how crappy the company is, but also your boss. I personally didn’t feel the need to do this, because I actually liked the boss that I worked with, but I took great pleasure in rating my old company on this site.

LinkedIn

Finally, there is one last site you can use to slam your former company in a big way, and that site is LinkedIn. LinkedIn is fast becoming the site of choice for people that are searching for a new company to work for. What better way to slam your former company than to issue an update about your departure from the company and why.

Leave no doubt as to which company you’re talking about. Search for the company page on LinkedIn, and then click the “Share” button to share a comment about that company. It’s a quick way to slam the company at the same time you’re slamming the door on your way out.

One thing many professionals will tell you when you leave a company is to never burn your bridges. For the most part, this is true. You never know when you may need to work for the company again some day. However, when you’re leaving a particular company that you know beyond any doubt that you’ll never want to work for again – feel free to use the above resources to burn all of those bridges in style.

Have you ever used any of the sites listed above to review a company? Did you ever offer a very negative review? Share your experiences in the comments section below.

Image Credit: Daino_16



Cyberduck: Best FTP Client for Both Windows and Mac

Cyberduck: Best FTP Client for Both Windows and Mac:

Cyberduck is an open source FTP/SFTP client both for Windows and for Mac OS. Previously this free ftp client was available for Mac only and the Windows users have only FileZilla as a complete ftp solution. Cyberduck natively supports Google Docs, WebDAV, Amazon S3 cloud storage, Rackspace Cloud Files besides directory synchronization.

cyberduck

Comparing to its alternatives, Cyberduck has an elegant and easy to use interface. So begin with, click the Open Connection button. After that enter the FTP details to connect and that’s all. You will also get the cloud storages services and WebDAV servers. The directory of the servers is displayed in the main interface of the program and you can perform all the actions simply by right clicking on the files or folders.

Managing ftp servers is not the only job of this free ftp client. Besides it also let you organize your Google Docs account and upload docs easily. Cyberduck has a seamless integration with the external editors so that you can easily edit the content of the text files or documents files using your favorite editor. The documents can also be converted automatically to native Google Docs format if you upload them using Cyberduck. The bookmarking features are also handy which let you organize your bookmarks easily with drag and drop simplicity. The file browser has a fluid interface, which let you browse quickly and with caching enabled it will give you the best performance among all the ftp clients. You will not only be able to download and upload between server and your pc but also you will be able to copy files between the servers. Cyberduck can also be integrated with Growl which will notify you when different file transfer events will take place. The compatibility with both Windows and Mac will help you to be in your habituated environment even if you change your PC or operating system. In both Windows and Mac Cyberduck utilizes the core advantages of the OS and give you the ultimate performance.

You can also try Selteco FTP Client, FTPRush and BitComet reviewed by us.

Features of Cyberduck:

  • Cyberduck has the most easy to use interface among most of the ftp clients.
  • It supports a good number of servers besides cloud storages services that even includes Google Docs.
  • Besides uploading and downloading from PC, inter-server file transfer is also supported.

Download Cyberduck Free here.

Related posts:

  1. Joukuu: Desktop Client for Dropbox, Google Docs, and Box.net
  2. WinDroplr: Droplr Client for Windows
  3. Desktop Client for Amazon Cloud Drive to Access Cloud Drive as Windows Folder

Manage Your Torrents Remotely More Easily With µTorrent Remote [Windows & Mac]

Manage Your Torrents Remotely More Easily With µTorrent Remote [Windows & Mac]:

Manage your µTorrent downloads from any browser, without having to change settings on your router or get a static IP. With µTorrent 3 and the new remote function all you need to do is set a username and password. We’ve taught you how to set up a PC as a remotely controlled torrent box before, and that guide still works to this day if you want to manage torrents inside your home network. For accessing your torrents away from home, however, things got complicated; you needed a static IP or DynDNS in order to connect from outside of your home network.

Geeks have no problem with this of course, but it’s not something everyone wants to spend time setting up. Happily it is no longer necessary with µTorrent 3, which offers an extremely simple way to manage your torrents remotely. Whether you want to simply add a torrent to your download queue, manage which files are downloaded within a particular torrent or even change your client settings, µTorrent Remote gives you full access to µTorrent from anywhere.

Getting Set Up

The first thing you need to do, if you haven’t done it yet, is install µTorrent 3 - find the download here. Downloads are available for Windows and Mac. Once you’ve got your new version of µTorrent up and running you’ll notice a new button on the menu bar. Click it:

Doing so will quickly take you to the “Remote” section in µTorrent’s preferences. Now you need only add a username and password:

You should see “Status:Accessible” under these boxes shortly after you fill them in. If not, try another username/password combination. When you do see “Status:Accessible” you’re done.

Yep, that was it.

Web Interface

Ready to check out the web interface? Simply head to remote.µTorrent.com. You’ll need to move your mouse around to help encrypt the communications, then you can enter your username and password. Should all go well you’ll then be looking at the web interface of µTorrent:

Everything you can do in µTorrent itself you can do here, it seems, from managing your torrents to changing your download settings.

This isn’t a dumbed-down version of µTorrent for the web; everything is here, and it’s all very easy to find if you’re familiar with µTorrent’s interface already. I was able to add an RSS feed, set certain files not to download within a torrent and cap the total amount of bandwidth used by all downloads.

Privacy

So what are the privacy implications of logging into your torrent client over the web? Many are concerned with this, but it seems to me that the µTorrent team spent a lot of time making this secure. Read their privacy FAQ here for more information.

Conclusion

I’m not sure how often I’ll be logging into µTorrent to manage my downloads; I’ve been using Dropbox to start torrent downloads for a long time and don’t usually need more than that. Still, it’s nice to have the option to log in without the need to configure my network settings.

Do you see yourself using µTorrent’s remote function often? Let us know in the comments below, along with any other tips for achieving the same thing.



Get 21 gigs of free online storage with ZenOK

Get 21 gigs of free online storage with ZenOK:

ZenOK ScreenshotWant free online storage? Dropbox will give you a free 2GB, Sugarsync will give you 5GB, but if you want something more, to the tune of say … 21GB, then check out ZenOK.

ZenOK is a cloud storage service that is soon to be launched. No, I have not tried it yet and this is not a review, but it is possible to request an invitation right now to be amongst the first to try the free service; if, that is, you are prepared to post a tweet about the service on your Twitter account.

ZenOK will support a local client for Windows, Apple OSX, and Linux, and will provide the ability to mirror local folders. It will also support Android, iOS, and Blackberry devices.

ZenOK online storage promises to support file compression, automatic versioning (i.e it will keep earlier versions of changed files), and file encryption, all while being light on resources. It is unclear right now which services will be free and which will be based on a fee, but commercial applications, such as backup/protection plans for companies will be offered on a paid basis obviously. More pricing details here.

Of course, there are services out there that offer even more cloud storage (a.k.a Adrive, which offers 50GB, and Windows Skydrive, which offers 25GB); however, desktop integration for these is somewhat lacking, without folder mirroring or any of the other advanced services. So, a free 21 GB with ZenOK sounds like a really good deal, if indeed the services it provides can live up to the promise.

Go here to sign up for ZenOK’s free online storage.

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Design Your Perfect Home With Autodesk Homestyler

Design Your Perfect Home With Autodesk Homestyler:

There’s a designer in all of us. When it comes to designing for ourselves, it doesn’t get any more personal than designing your own home. Of course, you can hire a professional to do the job, but if you have a good eye and want to give your home your own touch, try your hand.

Autodesk Homestyler is a cool free online tool that lets you experiment with interior design on the browser. Using a home designing solution like Autodesk Homestyler also lets you visually decide on things like furniture placement and color combinations. You might finally plonk down money for some professional advice, but experimenting on Autodesk Homestyler helps you give some personal inputs to the designer along with the money.

So, let’s play around with the very promising online designing tool and see if it can bring our interior design plans to life. All you need is a browser. Autodesk Homestyler also has a Chrome app.

After you register and log-in, press the large green button to start designing. Autodesk Homestyler takes you through five stages to your perfect home.

You can start from scratch or pick a design from the gallery. I am going to build it fresh from the ground up. What you get is this very sleek canvas for the house of your dreams:

Designing the basic structure is a simple case of drag & drop. You can easily change the dimensions to match your structural drawings. The little pop-up on the side lets you Split or Demolish the walls to change the shape of the rooms or create passage ways. Those little pop-ups are context sensitive and will give you selective options depending on the item you are using in your design.

You can work with the gamut of these structural items when it comes to completing your designs. Clicking on the little Home icon on the catalog side-panel reveals the entire list.

Here’s a snapshot of the choices for doors. There are categories like – entry doors, closet doors, interior doors, garage doors, and patio doors to sift through for the perfect requirement. Homestyler takes great pains to cover all generic items you might need to design your house.

Below the generic items you will notice a catalog of related products (Brands & Collections) advertised by retailers. Homestyler brings a rich menu of well-known brands for your entire design needs. What’s really cool is that you can drag and drop their products on to your design. The products are proportionate to the actual measurements, so you get an idea of the area an item takes up. In fact, you can also start a shopping list with the branded items you are planning to put into your house.

You can design a multi-level house one floor at a time. From the 2D floor plan, with a click on the 3D button, you get an idea of how exactly everything is coming together. You cannot add items in the 3D view but you can drag paint walls and move anything (doors, windows etc.) that are attached to the walls. Autodesk Homestyler gives you 200+ choices to play around with the wall color of your choice. I just brushed (actually dragged & dropped) the wall of my ‘house’ with Reddish Earthtone. The pan-zoom- rotate controls help you view the model from all angles.

Oh, did I forget to mention that you can add trees, potted plants, as well as landscaping items to create your dream outdoors.

One of the really cool features of Autodesk Homestyler is it allows you to take snapshots with a very handy ‘online camera’.

Once you click your snap, it is sent for processing and you get an alert when it comes back from the ‘lab’. Here is mine:

That’s it! My first level house is ready. Frank Lloyd Wright would probably rollover in his grave, but this was my first attempt and a very casual one for the purpose of this article. A more professional job will look like this:

Waxing Praise

If you are hankering for a free online tool to create mockups of your dream house, I think you will love this this program. It’s sleek, fast, and pretty much full-featured. In fact, if I can hazard a guess, it can hold its own against the best online home designing solutions out there. Plus, it’s all free. I haven’t mentioned a few more features like the export and sharing options which are pretty much standard stuff. The one thing you should check out is the lineup of video tutorials that take you through the program.

Are you a wannabe home designer? Potter around with Autodesk Homestyler and give us a feedback. You can also check out some previous posts for design inspirations:

Create a House Floor Plan with FloorPlanner
3 Floor Design Services to Decorate and Plan your House
The 6 Best Blogs For Architectural & Interior Design Ideas