10 Unique Ways To Use Microsoft OneNote

 OneNote is one of Microsoft’s most underrated apps. Not only can you jot down notes or keep to do lists, you can use a stylus to do it, convert handwritten notes to text or organise your recipe collection. OneNote is available on almost every platform, making this ridiculously useful app even more relevant.

Although OneNote is available with good functionality on mobile devices, the tips below are mainly intended for running OneNote 2013 on Windows and Mac OS X.

Managing Your Shopping List

Ever arrived at the supermarket and found that you forgot what you went for? Even on a paper-based list, it’s easy to forget things if you haven’t got a pen to mark them off.

Back in 2010 when Windows Phone was released, one of the advertisements (in a Microsoft “multi-product” ad that also promoted Windows 7) featured a dad going shopping using OneNote on his phone as to view a shopping list that was updated by his cheeky sons as the trip went on. This was possible by using the same Microsoft account on the phone and the version of OneNote that was used to create the list.

You don’t have to use a Windows Phone to create and use a shopping list in OneNote, however, as the note-taking app is now available for Android and iOS (as well as Mac OS X). Simply create a list on one device, select the items and select Tag as To Do to add check boxes. While you’re shopping, mark off items as you go – and look out for your significant other sneakily adding 12 bottles of wine to the list!

Managing Recipes In OneNote

If you’re a bit of a foody (and if you’re also a Windows 8 user there are plenty of useful apps for you to gather recipes!) then it might interest you how easy it is to manage recipes in OneNote.

You can approach this in different ways. Begin by creating a new section in your notebook and labelling it “Recipes”. You can use the camera on your mobile device to snap recipes in books and magazines or use the Print function in your browser (choosing OneNote as the printer) to add recipes to this new section, organising them onto individual pages for each recipe, or perhaps each meal type.

For those using a device that recognises handwriting, you can also use your finger or stylus to make notes on the recipe as you cook – perhaps a measurement has been printed incorrectly, or you need to make a temperature adjustment for your fan oven!

OneNote As Your Newsreader

An amazing way of using OneNote is to adopt it as an extension of your newsreader app. It sounds pretty unlikely, but is made possible thanks to IFTTT, which has recently launched a OneNote channel. A number of different integrations are available, enabling many recipes, and we think that this is one of the best.

The recipe uses Feedly and enables you to set posts you enjoyed in the news reader app and set as favourite in OneNote. This is particularly useful as it saves you having to track back and find them later on, and of course OneNote will sync the content across devices, making it easy to find.

Use this button to get started:

 

Ryan previously wrote about another OneNote recipe for IFTTT that works with Reddit.

Use It As Your Media Player

Don’t have time to set up a playlist in iTunes, Xbox Music or whatever your chosen MP3 player is? Why not just play your favourite tunes through a OneNote page?

This is particularly useful if you’re working in OneNote, perhaps on a long collection of notes. All you need to do for this is find the MP3s in question by browsing Windows Explorer and drag and drop them into your OneNote page. From there, arrange them so they’re not in your way, and click play to begin listening.

Note that the MP3s will become part of the document while you work, and if you use OneDrive they’ll also be synced with the cloud, so you may want to avoid an unrealistically large file size by removing the tracks from OneNote when you’re done with the page.

Recording A Demo Tape

This is a variation on using OneNote for interviewing. If you’re a musician or singer songwriter and want an easy way to record tracks and keep all music, notes, chord changes and lyrics on the same screen, OneNote is a really good way to do this – and it lets you record at the same time!

After you have got everything you need to record the demo together, use Insert > Record Audio to record the song. Obviously this isn’t meant for demos intended for record companies or radio stations, rather those that you would produce to share with bandmates and collaborators, or as a point of reference to develop your track further.

Manage An Interview With Text To Speech

For writers (or researchers) using the app’s recording facility is a must, and combined with the presence of text on the page, you can easily turn your OneNote running computer or Windows tablet into a device that will record questions as you ask them!

Prepare your interview by using OneNote to write your questions. When the interview commences, use the Insert > Record Audio (or Record Video) to begin recording the discussion. Transcribing the interview will then be much simpler as you can easily press play and pause the dialogue as you go. You might even use the Windows Speech Recognition tool to transcribe the interview as it takes place!

OCR: Converting Images To Text

Another of OneNote’s superb built in features is OCR, optical character recognition. This means that images (perhaps taken using your Windows Phone) are scanned and the text in the image captured and converted to text that you can edit in OneNote. What applications might there be for this?

Following on the suggestion above, you might wish to transcribe the contents of a historical document quickly so that you might share it with others researching similar records. Alternatively, you might use OCR as a quick note-taking tool – it’s particularly useful for writers who have kept press clippings about particular topics.

Scan & Manage Receipts

OCR can also prove useful for managing your scanned receipts. Everything that you add into OneNote is made searchable, which means that you should be able to easily find any receipt simply by entering a date, name of the item or store, or the value that was spent.

If you have a good reason to collect receipts (for expense claims, perhaps) then this functionality can help you save a lot of time looking for expenses that you wish to claim from your employer. Planning on trying this out? It’s a good idea to start a new section especially for receipts, and to group them by month-to-a-page.

Illustrate Your Family Tree

Whether you’re handy at using your mouse or you have a touchscreen device with an accurate stylus, a great use for OneNote is planning things out – in particular, the branches of a family tree. You might be learning about your family tree for the first time or be an experienced researcher in this field, but it’s always good to have something you can jot down and share instantly.

OneNote’s ability in taking down notes and illustrations makes it a great option for anyone wishing to create a quick outline of ancestry. However you might also go further, dedicated single pages to each individual in your tree where you can add notes and images as facts are uncovered.

Our guide on researching your family tree online offers more information in this area.

Create An Instagram Photo Journal With IFTTT

A quick browse of the IFTTT OneNote channel (see above) will reveal a lot of useful automations, but one of the most effective is the creation of a photo journal using the images uploaded to your OneNote account. Each time you create a new photo in Instagram, it is synced to your OneNote notebook, enabling you to create a record of your images in a more accessible, browsable form.

The possibilities here are strong: you might convert the notebook into Word or PDF format (using File > Export) and then have the book printed using a POD solution such as Lulu or CreateSpace.

To do this, use the IFTTT Photo Journal recipe below:

Do You Have Unique Uses For OneNote?

We’ve given you a collection of very unusual uses for Microsoft OneNote, from using it as a newsreader to managing recipes, interviews and receipts. The added dimension of IFTTT integration brings a lot more to the table.

How To Workout Without Going To The Gym

 

You only have 24 hours in the day. It’s hard enough setting aside time for actual exercise, but throw in your commute to-and-fro and it can add up to a lot of wasted time – time that you can’t afford to lose. So here’s the good news: you can still have an effective workout without ever leaving your home.If you look in the right places, you’ll find some great at-home workout routines that you could do in your pajamas if you were so inclined. Here are some good starting points.

Where to Find Workout Routines

Fitness Plan Generator

The Fitness Plan Generator is a simple tool that asks four questions: your fitness level, the type of workout you want, how much time you can spend, and which pieces of equipment you have available. Based on your answers, it will generate a list of workout routines that you can try.

It’s not a comprehensive tool; in fact, it’s quite basic in what it offers. However, it’s a great jump-off point for those who are still in the beginning phase of exercise. The routines are easy to understand and each exercise has an in-depth description of how to perform it.

Couch-to-5k Running Plan

Running. You either love it or you hate it and most of us lean towards the latter. Who wants to deal with burning lungs, aching thighs, wobbly knees and shin splints? If that describes your typical running experience, you’re probably doing it wrong. When done correctly, running can be quite enjoyable.

That’s what the Couch-to-5k program aims to address. Most newbie runners push themselves too hard on their first few runs, which is why they end up in pain and discomfort. The right approach is to ease into it even when it feels like you aren’t getting a good workout.

With this plan, any couch potato will be able to run a non-stop 5k by the end of 8 weeks and all it requires is three days per week, 20 minutes per day.

SimpleFit

Like the Couch-to-5k program above, SimpleFit is a simple ease-into-it workout plan for newbies whose bodies aren’t exactly ready to take a beating just yet. SimpleFit only requires 3 days of exercise per week, 20 minutes per day. In fact, why not combine it with the Couch-to-5k program?

SimpleFit is divided into beginner, intermediate, and advanced plans, where each one is a sequence of 8 weeks. By the end of it, you’ll be in good shape to start on some tougher challenges, such as the Tabata interval training routine.

Nano Workouts

For those who truly have no free time, your last resort might be the Nano Workout. These are individual workouts that you can perform while doing something else.

Are they as effective as tried-and-true exercises? No, not quite. However, some exercise is still better than none, and these allow you to fit them in when you have so little time that you can’t even set aside a 7-minute workout.

For example, there are bathroom workouts:

• Toothbrush squats
• Leg stretches in the shower
• Back stretches on the toilet

Need more examples? How about office workouts:

• Leg workout on the phone
• Chair crunches for your abs
• Chair dips for your arms

/r/BodyweightFitness

It’s hard to talk about fitness websites without mentioning fitness-related subreddits. As one of the largest communities on the Internet, Reddit is a treasure trove when it comes to user-driven hubs of information.

And while you can find a lot of general purpose fitness subreddits on Reddit, /r/BodyweightFitness subreddit is great for workouts that don’t require a gym membership.

On the sidebar, you’ll find a section called Bodyweight Training Info which contains links to a beginner routine, a FAQ for bodyweight training newbies, and a training guide that will get you up to speed on the theory that drives bodyweight fitness. Plus, under the Weekly Threads section, you’ll notice Training Tuesdays where you can discuss routines with other people.

Tools For Tracking Fitness Progress

Half the fun of working out is tracking your progress and seeing concrete evidence of your personal growth. Feel free to use traditional pen-and-paper, but if you want some neat bells and whistles to go along with your journal, these web apps can be nifty.

BodBot (Android, iOS, WinPhone, Chrome)

BodBot is an app that fulfills all three roles: personal trainer, nutritionist, and coach. It starts by asking you what you want to achieve by exercising (lose fat, gain muscle, improve cognitive health, etc.), where you want to work out (home or gym), and such. It lets you manage your own training schedule or it will plan one that’s tailored for you.

Over time, BodBot will adapt to your workout pace and adjust your training for optimal gains and these changes will be sensitive to your schedule. As far as nutrition is concerned, BodBot will recommend the best foods for meeting your goals and track your meals day-to-day to see how you’re doing.

JEFIT (Android, iOS, Web)

JEFIT is the premier workout tracker app. With it, you can define your own routines and track your progress with every completed session. The best part is that it doesn’t just record how often you complete your exercises, but also the changes in your workout intensity, body mass distribution, and how many personal records you break.

JEFIT can be accessed by app or by web and it will stay synchronized between the two.

Fitocracy (Android, iOS, Web)

Fitocracy is one of the best gamification tools for improving your life. While exercise is often an individual activity, this app turns it into a social activity by offering allowing users to follow the progress of other users. The other big feature is a gamified goal-and-reward system (called “quests”) that keeps you motivated and on track.

Not only can you use Fitocracy to record progress, it can also be used for workout routine recommendations. Its database is packed with hundreds of different exercises, but if you don’t have time for that, there are also full routines that are hand-designed by Fitocracy’s fitness experts.

Save Time And Money: PriceZombie Brings The Deals To You

Today, you can buy almost anything online. Since there are a multitude of Internet retailers offering every product you can think of, trying to find the best price can become a little intimidating. Online shopping, which we’ve written plenty about, has become so big that there’s no way any person could hope to keep track of all the price drops and deals that occur dozens of times in a day.

Fortunately, there are online services to uncover the best deals for you. Once such service is PriceZombie, which is a newcomer to the field but has high aspirations. Let’s take a look at how using PriceZombie can benefit you when spending money online.

The Web Service

PriceZombie’s website allows you to look up different items and check out their prices all over the Web. Type in any item, and you’ll be greeted with a number of partial matches. Choose a more specific item for details.

You can view the current prices at different stores, as well as the historic high and low prices at any one retailer. If you’re really interested in price trends, you can check out the graph, which will show you the movement in price over the past several months for the item in question. If nobody has the item at a cost you’re willing to pay, you can tell PriceZombie to alert you when it hits your desired level.

The Chrome Extension

The service gets even better, however, with its Chrome extension. Install it, and you’ll know when you’re on a compatible page based on a small icon in your omnibox. The extension works with dozens of online retailers, including Amazon, GameStop, Best Buy, Auto Zone, HP, IKEA, Newegg, Target, and The Home Depot. When you click the extension icon, you’ll get info about the item.

In the popup, you can view the historical pricing of this item at the current site (Newegg), see how much it costs now at other stores, or add it to your watchlist. It’s much more convenient than having to manually find the right item on the PriceZombie website.

To prove that the service is finding authentic prices, PriceZombie includes screenshots of the historical high and low prices. Find an item, and next to the extremes you’ll be able to view the screenshot of the other price – if you doubt that the app is doing its job, try this feature out.

If you’re not a fan of using Chrome extensions, PriceZombie offers a bookmarklet instead. Bookmarklets are underrated alternatives to extensions that don’t run in the background – keeping your browser light.

Simply drag it to Chrome’s bookmark bar, and click your new bookmarklet when on an applicable page; you’ll be taken right to PriceZombie’s info for that item. It’s just as functional as the extension and for almost anyone using the service, it’s probably a better choice.

Other Useful Features

Price Trends

If you’re not looking for any specific item, but just to become more knowledgeable about shopping overall, PriceZombie’s Price Trends feature will prove interesting. Choose a category, like Books, Vehicles, Jewelry, or Appliances and you’ll see a chart detailing price trends of the past year for that type of item.

Evidently, book prices rise in the Autumn and Winter months, so buying them at another time would be wise. Let’s check another category: Movies and TV.

This group is the opposite of the above; the best time to buy Movies and TV is in the late Summer and Autumn. This tool is quite useful; try it and see if you’re a savvy shopper!

Price Protection

Many online retailers and some credit cards offer price protection – meaning that if you purchase an item and the price drops within a few weeks, you’ll be refunded the difference. This can be hard to keep track of, however, and differs depending on where you buy and what type of card you use. PriceZombie’s Price Protection Tracker takes care of the work for you.

If a price drop happens, you’ll be notified so you can be reimbursed. You’ll never be burned on a purchase again!

Lowest Prices And Price Drops

If you love browsing deals, PriceZombie’s Lowest Price Ever section can be a great place to find items cheap. This part of the site does not divide items by category by default, but rather shows products that have been discounted sharply. Once an item reaches an all-time low price, it will show up here.

Granted, because it determines this by a percentage, a product may only be a few cents cheaper than usual to be considered its lowest price ever. Not all items are like this, however, and you should check here often to find some discounted goods. If you’d like to only see certain categories on this page, you have that option, too.

Similar to the Lowest Prices page is the Price Drops page. Instead of showing items that are priced at historical lows, it shows items with the biggest reductions. This is the place where you’ll find discounts as huge as 90% off. At the time of writing, for instance, a pair of shoes normally priced at $47 was available for around $16. You can filter by category here, too, if you want to find more specific deals.

Get Shopping

With PriceZombie working for you, you don’t have to worry about getting a good deal when shopping online. A quick check when you’re about to make a purchase could end up saving you a lot of money; coupled with its other tools, it is essential for anyone who purchases goods online frequently.

PriceZombie’s extension is also available for Firefox, with Safari support on the way. The bookmarklet, however, will work in any browser.

If PriceZombie isn’t a fit for you, Yaara has covered some different Chrome extensions to enhance Amazon shopping. Or, if you’re looking for a Firefox add-on, check out Saikat’s review of Booly.

How To Sync Google Calendar With Every Other Platform

 Google Calendar is arguably the easiest, most intuitive and most versatile way to organize your day. The only problem users commonly encounter is syncing it with their devices. While this is dead simple when using Android, and easy enough to view in a browser on a PC, syncing with other platforms is not always so obvious. Here’s how to do it.

A Quick History Of Sync

Syncing your Google account has become more difficult over the last year due to Google’s decision to stop supporting Google Sync for standard accounts. This service let users sync Google accounts with devices over the Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync protocol. However, Google started to phase out Sync beginning January 30, 2013. The company now relies on a different standard called CalDAV.

This means there’s a ton of now-outdated instructions for syncing with Google Calendar (and other Google services) that are no longer correct. If you start reading a guide to syncing with Google and it recommends selecting Microsoft Exchange in an options menu, move on. That method no longer works for your bog-standard free account.

Except if you’re a user of Google Apps for Business, Government and Education. These paid services retain Google Sync functionality and, as such, the old instructions remain valid. Subscribers to Google Apps also have access to support documentation with instructions for connecting Google Sync to various platforms.

This article assumes you’re not a user of Google Apps, and thus have few options for syncing your Google Calendar.

Windows 7 / Windows 8 / Outlook.com

There’s currently no way to properly sync your Google Calendar with Outlook, the Windows 8 Calendar app or Windows Live Mail. However, you can view your Google Calendar in these apps. To enable this open Google Calendar in a browser and then open calendar settings using the drop-down box (screenshot, below).

Find the Calendar you want to see in Windows and click on it, which will open its settings. Near the bottom you’ll see a “private address” listing which includes XML and ICAL. Click ICAL, then copy the provided URL.

Now, go to Outlook.com and login. Go to your Calendar and click Import, located in the toolbar at the top of the screen.

A menu will open with Import and Subscribe tabs, click Subscribe. In the page that appears enter the ICAL URL you copied under “Calendar URL” and then enter whatever name, color and charm (icon) settings you desire.

This will make your Google Calendar visible in Outlook.com, the Windows 8 Calendar app and Windows Live Mail (which bundles a calendar for Windows 7). The latter two programs won’t show your Google events unless you’ve logged into them with the same Microsoft account you used to subscribe to your Google Calendar’s ICAL URL.

Windows Phone 8

Microsoft’s phone platform suffers the same problems as its desktop operating system. Rumor has it that Microsoft will be bringing new sync functionality that works with Google Calendar in Windows Phone 8.1, but this update is not yet available to the general public.

You can sync with Google Calendar via third-party apps, however. The options include True Calendar 8, Cal and Chronos Calendar, all of which can sync with both Google and Outlook.

Mac OS X

Syncing Google Calendar is the Mac OS X Calendar app is simple. You simply need to open the Calendar app, go to Preferences, then the Accounts tab. Click on the plus “+” button to add your Google account. You’ll need your login and password or, if you use two-factor authentication, an app password.

Once synced, individual calendars can be managed using the menu bar on the left side of the Calendar app. You can add and edit events much as you would when using Google Calendar in a browser, as the changes are carried over to the server.

However, you must have your Google Calendar selected in the menu when you create an event to sync it with Google. If you instead have iCloud (or some other source) selected at the time the event is created, it will not sync with Google. The OS X Calendar app tries to make this obvious by color-coding your calendar. In my app, for example, Google Calendar is red, which means only red events are synced with Google.

You cannot create a new Google Calendar from the app, you will have to open the service in your web browser to do that.

iOS

Setting up Google Calendar with iOS is simple, too. Open Settings and then tap Mail, Contacts, Calendars. Tap Add Account and, in the menu that opens, hit Google.

Enter your login information (once again, you’ll need an app password if you use two-factor authentication) and once you’ve done that make sure Calendars is enabled. You’re done! If things aren’t working as they should, you can troubleshoot Google Calendar and iOS some more.

The rules of the OS X Calendar extend to iOS. Events that you create must be created under your Google Calendar; if they’re created in iCloud or some other source they won’t sync with Google. You also can’t create a new Google Calendar from the iOS app.

BlackBerry

The way that you sync a BlackBerry with Google Calendar varies depending on its age and the operating system it’s running. If you have an older model running version 5, 6 or 7 of the BlackBerry OS, check out the company’s official instructions on how to sync with Google. This synchronization is two-way, but is limited to a fourteen day window, so you won’t see events that are more than fourteen days in the future. Repeating events are an exception.

If you’re on a newer BlackBerry you can sync by downloading the Calendar Sync app from the BlackBerry World app store. The app is a third-party utility and costs $1.99. You’ll have to enter your Google username and password, of course, which means once again you’ll need to generate an app password if you use two-factor authentication. This app also supports two-way synchronization, meaning you can both view and add events to a calendar.

How To Stream Live TV To Your XBMC

Not so long ago, XBMC added a live TV option. The catch: it depended on you having a TV tuner card on your media centre computer, and a way to get a signal. This could mean using an antenna for free, over the air TV – or it could mean paying for a cable subscription.

But what if you live in an area with bad reception, and don’t want to pay for cable? You’re not out of luck. You have several options for getting live, streaming television on XBMC, and we’ve outlined the best ones below. Whether you’re hoping to watch the World Cup or relax with some sitcoms, we’ve got you covered.

Not sure how to get started with XBMC? Check out our complete guide to XBMC.

FTV Guide: Live TV, With Listings

We’ve shown you how FilmOn can let you watch live TV online, for free. Now there’s an XBMC add-on that makes this even better. FTV Guide gives you an EPG for browsing, and watching, what’s on FilmOn (and a few other places) right now.

The British channels show up first, but if you keep scrolling you’ll also find US channels – not to mention a few from Ireland, France and the Middle East. You can remove channels you’d rather not see, and customize the order everything shows up in. For example, I moved my favorite local channel to the top as the mountains interfere with TV reception. Streams are frequently HD, though this varies from channel to channel.

You’ll need a few other add-ons installed for FTV Guide to work. These are:

• FTV, which provides access to FilmOn channels. Geoblocking is mysteriously unsupported, meaning you can watch every channel – not just those from your own country. Annoying, right?
• TVCatchup, a UK-only service for watching TV online.
• USTVNow, a subscription service intended for US peoples living abroad.
• SportsDevil, an XBMC extension for watching sports and other live television from a variety of sites.

This forum post provides a list of currently supported channels, and which plugin powers them.

OnTapp.tv: Another EPG Option

Another EPG setup for XBMC, On-Tapp.tv also uses a variety of sources to provide TV broadcasts from around the world. FTV is supported, as are a number of other XBMC addons, though you’ll need to add many of the stations yourself by pointing to the proper stream.

TV listings aren’t free, and the makers of OnTapp aren’t willing to steal them. As such, using this add-on isn’t free: you’ll need to pay for a subscription. This isn’t for the streaming itself: just the listings. Streaming comes from other add-ons, including the ones listed above.

If OnTapp looks similar to FTV Guide, that’s not a coincidence: FTV Guide was made as a response to OnTapp requiring a subscription. Of course, the subscription means the listings work consistently – something that can be inconsistent with FTV Guide.

Mashup: An Assortment Of (Pirated) TV Channels

MashUp for XBMC tries to be the ultimate XBMC add-on, combining a wide variety of video sources. You’ll find various sources for TV shows, movies and more than a few lists of live streams.

The streams offered can be confusing to browse, and vary in quality. Most of these streams are unauthorized, and not all of them work. You also can’t expect live TV listings. Still, if there’s only a couple of channels you want, you might find them here – but be aware of the legal implications in your jurisdiction.

World News Live

Are you mostly just interested in watching the news? We’ve shown you how to watch the news using XBMC, and World News Live is the best way to watch live news stations.

You’ll find a few stations including BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera English.

Simple IPTV

IPTV is a protocol used in some Eastern European countries to provide live TV services. If you live in such a country, consider using Simple ITV Client. With it you’ll be able to browse stations using XBMC’s built-in live TV functionality.

There’s More!

There are a few more add-ons worth mentioning here.

• iPlayer for XBMC lets you watch BBC stations live, if you’re in the UK.
• SportsDevil, mentioned above, provides live sports from a variety of (legally questionable) sites.
• Addons like NHL Gamecenter for XBMC give you access to legal streams, if you have a subscription. Search for your sport of choice, there might be a legitimate option.

10 Ways To Create A Small And Simple Website Without The Overkill

WordPress is not the be all and end all of website creation, as some other excellent services will prove to you.

The sturdy WordPress platform continues to be one of the top choices for creating a website, and deservingly so. But, in certain scenarios, WordPress as a website solution can be overkill.

Say, you’re a writer or a photographer. All you want to do through your website is showcase some of your work, introduce yourself to people, give them a way contact you, and maybe throw in a landing page for your next product. In such cases, you’re better off choosing from alternative platforms like the ones outlined below.

Some of them need a working knowledge of HTML/CSS, which is easy to acquire if you put in the time and effort to go through our XHTML guide. We recommend it, since HTML/CSS skills will stand you in good stead in the Internet era.

For The One-Page Lovers

Ideal if: You want a simple solution, preferably a point-and-click one, to create a visually engaging single-page website. The concept of single-page websites goes well with our increasing use of hand-held devices. If you’re undecided whether you should opt for such a website for your next idea, Matt’s post on the benefits of a one-page website will help you make a decision.

Flavors.me

Pricing: Freemium

Flavors.me started the trend of unifying your Web presence and presenting it as a rich tapestry of color and content. Since its inception, it has introduced various features for customization, but its basic format of content aggregation from various services and social networks has remained the same. There’s no coding involved, but just a WYSIWYG interface and enough options to craft a unique landing page for yourself.

In late 2012, Moo, a successful business card printer, acquired Flavors.me. It hasn’t made any attempt to change the original flavor (no pun intended) of Flavors.me. Only free business cards courtesy Moo.com have been added to the mix. Users have to pay the shipping charges only.

About.me

Pricing: Freemium

With About.me you can have a Web page for yourself or your business up and running within minutes. Like its biggest competitor, Flavors.me, About.me is all about pulling content from multiple Web services and turning them into a beautiful, centralized Web presence. There’s no technical know-how required whatsoever.

Getting a new business card? Add your About.me url to it, so that when people decide to look you up online, they’ll be greeted by your interesting new home on the Web.

Strikingly

Pricing: Freemium

Strikingly provides an easy-to-setup one-page website that looks gorgeous on any device. It doesn’t get much simpler or better than that. Sign up, pick a template, use the WYSIWYG editor to add content and tweak the visuals to your satisfaction, and hit Publish. Your site is now live!

In addition to a contact form, analytics, privacy settings, and a Twitter summary card, there are various settings to bring your website to perfection. Of course, some of the options are available only for premium users. Here’s an interesting feature of Strikingly. You can turn your LinkedIn profile into a neat online résumé in just one click.

The Personal Page

Pricing: Free (code is licensed under the MIT and GPL licenses)

A stunning backdrop, a logo, and a brief overview of your work and life. If that’s your vision for your website, The Personal Page is just what you need. It’s a lightweight, mobile-friendly one-page HTML template that you can upload to your server. To modify the page, you’ll need a little bit of HTML/CSS knowledge — just enough to replace the default text and images with your own. Upload an interesting high-res image to make the page inviting, but ensure that it doesn’t detract from or overpower the textual content.

For The Tinkerers

Ideal if: You want more control over how your website looks and behaves, or if your website requires multiple pages and additions like a blog or a store front.

Squarespace

Pricing: Paid, with a 14-day free trial

Everything about Squarespace is sleek and beautiful, right from its shiny, responsive templates, to its point-and-click editor. The service gives you the versatility of WordPress plugins, without asking you to learn coding if you’re not inclined to do so. Options like analytics, social media integration, and SEO optimization are built into Squarespace’s dashboard by default.

Whether you want to create a portfolio website, a personal page, an e-store, or any other kind of website, Squarespace makes it possible. It’s perfect if you want something feature rich minus the coding aspect that lies at the heart of website creation. That perfection comes with a monthly fee based on your requirements. But with web hosting, a domain name, and a steady, reliable service included in the fee, the pricing is well worth it.

Virb

Pricing: Paid, with a 10-day free trial

If you want a robust website builder, Virb is a great choice. With its sole pricing plan, you get unlimited access to all of Virb’s features, which include cloud hosting, custom domain support, password protection, file support, integration with Dropbox, Google Tools, and social media. Choose from a selection of beautiful responsive themes, take advantage of the built-in blog, or set up a storefront.

You don’t have to fiddle with any piece of code unless you are interested in the workings behind the scenes. If you have something basic in mind for your website, Virb might be an expensive pick, and one of the single-page options listed above would be a better choice.

Jekyll

Pricing: Free

Jekyll is a powerful platform to create a static website and to retain minute control over it. But using it is not for the faint-hearted, especially if coding is not your thing. With its 5-minute install, even WordPress might be easier to set up. The good news is that if you’re willing to get your hands dirty and learn as you go, there’s plenty of detailed documentation to help you set up your website using Jekyll. Begin with the Jekyll by Example tutorials or Jekyll’s Getting Started guide.

With this popular website generator, you can abandon your hosting provider and instead use GitHub Pages to host your website, on your domain, for free. What’s more, with Jekyll driving your website, you can blog with Markdown, which is a smart way to write for the Web, as Bakari shows you in our Markdown guide.

Type & Grids

Pricing: Freemium

As far as difficulty levels go, Type & Grids is a step above WYSIWYG options like Flavors.me and several steps below i.e. easier than code-heavy solutions like Jekyll. It is not a standalone service, but a set of two almost ready-to-use, mobile-friendly HTML templates that you can upload to your Web host. The changes you need to make involve replacing the placeholder information and images with your own.

If you crave neat, responsive interfaces with beautiful typography and icons, you’ll love Type & Grids. There are no sign-ups and monthly fees to bother with. The free plan comes with six color schemes and six typography themes that you can mix and match to your liking. Type & Grids is best suited for portfolio pages. You can download the free two-template set by sharing your email.

Want more out of Type & Grids? Opt for one of the Pro packages, which provide more color and type themes as well as smooth integration with the popular flat-file CMS Statamic, allowing you to add a blog to your portfolio, with ease.

Cargo

Pricing: Freemium

Cargo is ideal for people whose work has a visual element at its core, such as designers, illustrators, photographers, and architects. The platform presents simple tools to showcase your work in the best possible light.

You will need some knowledge of HTML/CSS to mold the website as you see fit, but even without it you should do okay, thanks to the comprehensive knowledge base on the website. If you’re interested in the development side of things, you can delve into your site’s full code. The option to follow people and bookmark their work imitates the social aspect that we have become comfortable with, and look forward to, on the Web.

Signing up for Cargo involves the extra step of applying for an account by sharing a bit of info about you and your work. But don’t let that scare you off. It’s not as stringent a barrier as you think.

Brace

Pricing: Freemium

If you like and appreciate the simplicity and the ease of use of Dropbox, how about using your favorite cloud-hosting service to set up your website? Brace.io makes that possible by creating a special folder in your Dropbox to hold your website files.

You don’t really need to code a website from scratch. Choose from one of the free or paid templates available online, upload the template files to the Brace.io folder in Dropbox, and make HTML/CSS changes based on how you want the website to look. Brace.io automatically updates your website based on these changes. But this website version stays as a draft until you ship/publish it. The live website is hosted on Amazon’s cloud.

There are a couple of suitable website templates right here in this post. The Personal Page is one, and Type & Grids is the other. Instead of uploading the corresponding templates to your web host, put them in your Dropbox and ship them using Brace.io.

An Attractive Web Presence Made Simple

Based on your website requirements, not all of these services will turn out to be perfect solutions for you. Although some of them can handle complex websites, their overall approach to website creation lends itself best to compact and static websites. If that is the kind of website that you’re after, you might just be ready to skip WordPress and give one of these services a shot.

8 iPad games to download before your next business trip

We all run into unexpected delays from time to time. Put this selection of games on your iPad when you need a distraction or to fill time during a lengthy layover.

The iPad is great for on-the-go productivity, but it also shines as a gaming device. The big screen plus multi-touch feature has given developers free rein to make some truly stunning games. To save you the trouble of navigating the thousands of games on the App Store, here are eight of my favorites that you should definitely snag before your next two-hour layover on a business trip.

Note: This article is also available as an image gallery.

1. Monument Valley

This devilishly clever game, which costs $3.99 (USD), won a prestigious Apple Design Award this year. The player guides a silent princess through an Escheresque world with strange physics, hidden passageways, and more (Figure A). Monument Valley may sound strange, but it’s one of the most beautiful and challenging games ever to hit the App Store.

Figure A

Monument Valley on an iPad.

It uses the iPad’s touchscreen perfectly, with an elegant soundtrack that deserves headphones. The game isn’t particularly long, lasting a little more than an hour, but it is one of the best games ever released on the iPad.

2. Tiny Wings

Tiny Wings ($0.99) and Tiny Wings HD ($2.99) were named Game of the Year by Apple. It’s deceptively simple, but — like Tetris — it’s a little different every time. The player controls a bird that can’t fly on its own. Instead, it slides down hills gathering speed before slingshotting into the air. By linking flights, the bird can fly faster and farther (Figure B).

Figure B

Tiny Wings on an iPad.

There is only one control: the player taps the screen to make the bird plummet, timing it just right to maximize the hills. Each game lasts only a couple of minutes, but replays can be nearly endless.

3. Hundreds

This tricky puzzle game, which costs $4.99 (USD), requires players to increase the size of circles to total 100. It sounds simple, but advanced levels are filled with spinning gears that can destroy the bubbles (Figure C) — oh, and everything is constantly bouncing around, and if the bubbles touch while growing, the level is over.

Figure C

Hundreds on an iPad.

Hundreds is difficult to describe, but is quick to learn and exceptionally challenging in the later levels. It’s a fantastic use of the iPad’s multi-touch display and highly recommended for puzzle lovers.

4. Ridiculous Fishing

This game, which costs $2.99 (USD), is aptly named. An Apple Design Award winner in 2013, Ridiculous Fishing drops a lure into a nearly endless sea, dodging jellyfish and eels before hitting the bottom and running back up, catching as many fish as possible along the way (Figure D). Then, when the lure (now loaded with fish) hits the surface, the fish explode in the air and the fisherman must shoot them out of the sky with machine guns.

Figure D

Ridiculous Fishing on an iPad.

Powerups like chainsaws and a bowling ball make it easier to catch more fish, sending Billy the fisherman on to bigger and badder oceans. Yes, it’s ridiculous, but it’s incredibly fun and one of the best games on the iPad. Absurdity has never felt so good.

5. Strata

This puzzler game, which costs $2.99 (USD), has the player attempt to strategically layer ribbons into a grid so that ribbons of the proper color are on top when it’s finished (Figure E). It may sound boring, but Strata is actually one of the most challenging games around. With tons of unique puzzles, but with levels that only take a minute or so to play (well, at least in the early stages), Strata is a great game to pick up when you only have a short amount of time to kill.

Figure E

Strata on an iPad.

That said, Strata can easily take up hours of time with dozens of puzzles. It starts with straightforward levels, but it gets incredibly difficult later on. Great fun.

6. Leo’s Fortune

This platform adventure game, which costs $4.99 (USD), is another Apple Design Award winner. The premise of this game is to help a character named Leo find the thief that stole his gold (Figure F).

Figure F

Leo’s Fortune on an iPad.

With glowing reviews from gamers and critics alike, Leo’s Fortune has players solving puzzles and moving through an incredibly beautiful game world from forests to deserts and cities to mountains.

7. Threes!

This game, which costs $1.99 (USD), is yet another Apple Design Award winner. It’s been unceremoniously ripped off by the also-very-popular 2048, but the original is the game to play.

With a near perfect design, Threes! has players shuffling numbered playing card monsters around a 4×4 grid. 1 and 2 cards can be combined, but after that, cards can only be combined with themselves — 3s with 3s to make a 6, 6s to make a 12, and so on (Figure G). The larger the numbers that are combined, the more points you get.

Figure G

Threes! on an iPad.

It sounds simple, and (for a while) it is. But once you get into larger numbers (768 is as high as I’ve gotten), the game gets exceptionally challenging. Wicked fun, Threes! is the best $2 you can spend on an iOS game.

8. Plague Inc.

This game, which costs $0.99 (USD), is filled with black humor. Users control a pandemic that’s attempting to infect and kill every human on Earth. Gamers can choose which symptoms they wish to evolve, balancing infectivity, severity, and lethality to wipe out the planet before the world’s doctors and researchers attempt to devise a cure (Figure H).

Figure H

Plague Inc. on an iPad.

In-app purchases unlock additional game types (including Zombies!), but hours of fun can be had just progressing through the levels included for $1. Mass extinction has never been so fun.

All these games are available on both the iPhone and iPad, and — with the exception of Tiny Wings — you get both platforms for one price. Enjoy, and let us know your favorite iPad games in the comments below.

How To Find Your Android Phone Or iPhone In A Room Even On Silent Mode

Here’s the situation: Your phone is in the room, but you don’t know where. There isn’t another phone around to call it. How do you find your handset? Two neat apps let you yell or whistle to get your phone back.

Marco Polo is a paid app for the iPhone and iPad, while Whistle Finder is free to download (albeit with some ads) for Android devices. Both apps have the same base purpose: you make a sound, the phone detects it and responds with its own sound so you can find it. It’s basically like making a call, except you aren’t making a call!

Why These Apps Matter

Let’s face it, we have all been in the aforementioned situation several times, frantically looking under your pillow or overturning that pile of receipts and mail to find your phone. Then you need to look either for your landline (who even has those anymore?) or someone else who can ring your phone, and then go find it.

The problem with that method is that if your phone is on silent, calling it won’t help either. It will ring, of course, but you won’t be able to hear that ring.

Plus, what if you’re alone and don’t have another phone around to call yours with? You’re pretty much stuck then.

Both Whistle Phone Finder and Marco Polo don’t have any such issues. They are reliant purely on your ability to make a noise with your mouth, and work even if the phone is on silent. Plus, the sheer convenience of not needing another device to find your phone can’t be understated.

Do note, however, that these apps are useful only in finding a misplaced phone, not a stolen one. If your iPhone was lost or stolen, get it back with Find My iPhone. And Android Device Manager recovers lost/stolen phones with ease too.

How Whistle Phone Finder Works

Install this free app from the Play Store and fire it up. In the settings, you need to enable the app, set up the whistle sensitivity, and choose from the different audio alerts and its volume — I favour Psy’s Gangnam Style, but it’s up to you. When you need to activate it, just whistle.

The app worked perfectly from all the way across a 200 sq. foot room, although you do need to whistle clearly and loudly. When I kept the phone under a pile of clothes, I needed to be roughly 15-20 feet away before it could detect the whistle.

When the app is activated and it’s in your pocket, some high-frequency noises will set it off again, but it doesn’t happen so often that you would want to disable Whistle Phone Finder.

How Marco Polo Works

You’ll need to pay a dollar for Marco Polo, and the only thing you get for that is the ability to choose different voices for how it says “Polo”. The app worked just as advertised, again announcing itself loudly across the 200 sq. foot room and picking up the “Marco” shout 20 feet away while under the same pile of clothes.

One thing I did find annoying about this app is that when you keep it on, the notification bar turns red and keeps flashing “Marco Polo” there. I hope there is some way to disable this in the future.

Do They Drain The Battery?

Both these apps need to be running in the background at all times for you to be able to access their features. And obviously, this has meant that many people are concerned about the battery life. Thankfully, I read about these battery concerns before I installed either app, so I was able to compare the before and after effects. All numbers below are rounded off.

Whistle Phone Finder: Before installing the app, my phone took 2 hours to drop 10% in battery life. This was a test environment, so the same conditions of the phone were applied after the app was installed. It took a few minutes less than 2 hours to drop 10% in battery life. The app was invoked once this whole time.

Marco Polo: Before installing the app, my phone took 1 hour and 35 minutes to drop 10% in battery life. This was a test environment, so the same conditions of the phone were applied after the app was installed. It took 1 hour and 30 minutes to drop 10% in battery life. The app was invoked once this whole time.

To me, that isn’t a significant enough drop in battery life to warrant not using these apps, but it does show that they do consume your phone’s battery while running in the background. If you’re short on power, these apps should be the first ones you kill. In any case, if you are worried, there are ways to improve battery life on Android.

To Download Or Not?

With both these apps, my recommendation is yes. They have a light footprint and don’t affect battery significantly enough, so having them installed is worth the convenience of being able to quickly find your device. You’ll be surprised how often you have been misplacing and looking for your phone!

Download: Whistle Phone Finder (Free | Android)

Download: Marco Polo ($1 | iOS)

How to Access POP3 Email Accounts in Windows 8

 

The Mail app included with Windows 8 only supports IMAP, Exchange, Hotmail/Outlook.com, and Gmail accounts. Mail offers POP3 as an option when setting up the account – but if you select POP3, you’ll be informed that Mail doesn’t support POP.

To use the Mail app with a POP3 email account, giving you features such as live-tile email notifications and a touch-friendly interface for reading your email, there’s a trick you can use.

Use Outlook.com or Gmail

While Mail itself doesn’t support POP3 accounts, it does support Outlook.com and Gmail accounts. Both Outlook.com and Gmail have a built-in feature that fetches mail from a POP3 server and stores it in your webmail inbox. If you configure one of these services to access your POP3 account, you can add the webmail account to the Mail app.

To get started, visit Outlook.com or Gmail and create an account if you don’t already have one. Log into your account, click the gear icon at the top-right corner of either Outlook.com or Gmail, and select the Settings option.

On Outlook.com, click the Sending/receiving email from other accounts link.

On Gmail, click the Accounts and Import tab.

On Outlook.com, click the Add an email account link.

On Gmail, click the Add a POP3 mail account you own link.

Continue through either process and add your POP3 account details as if you were adding them to the Mail app itself. You’ll need to know your email address, password, the POP3 server’s address, and the port it uses. After you’re done, Outlook.com or Gmail will automatically fetch new email and place it in your webmail inbox.

Add Your Outlook.com or Gmail Account

Go back into the Windows 8 Mail app and open the Settings charm. You can do this by pressing Windows Key+I or by swiping in from the right and tapping Settings. Select the Accounts option and tap or click Add an Account.

Select Outlook or Google – whichever type of account you used above – and sign into the account with your username and password.

The Mail app will now display the mail from your POP3 account, which is fetched by your Outlook or Gmail accounts. You’ll see new emails appear on the Start screen.

Sending Mail

Unfortunately, this solution doesn’t give you any way to send email from the POP3 address. POP3 servers are generally paired with SMTP servers. In a normal desktop email program, you could add the SMTP server to send outgoing email from your email account’s address. You can send emails from your POP3 account from the Outlook.com or Gmail interface – but not from within the Mail app.

To get around this, you can read your email in the modern Mail app and use a separate interface to reply to and send emails – either a desktop email program like Outlook or the Outlook.com or Gmail websites.

You could also reply to people from within the Mail app – recipients will see mail as coming from your @outlook.com or @gmail.com email address, however. Make sure they expect emails coming from that address.

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The Mail app may be slick, but the omission of POP3 may be a deal breaker for some people – IMAP and Exchange Active Sync (EAS) may be the future, but that’s little consolation to people with POP3 accounts in the present.

This isn’t an ideal solution – but it’s the best we can do with the Windows 8 Mail app. In the long-term, we’ll probably see email apps that support POP3 in the Windows Store.

How To Make Skype Calls Via Your Browser

 Learn how to make a Skype call from Outlook.com in just a few simple steps. Because some moments are just right for Skype. Set up a couple of simple things and you could soon be bringing all your friends into Outlook with one click.

If you are always in your browser, and hate opening up apps you’ve probably realised that Skype is one of those things you generally forget to open. Well, that just changed. You can get Skype in your browser. Here’s how.

Install The New Skype Plugin

Microsoft recently released the Skype Web Plugin for browsers, meaning that it will let you trigger Skype calls from within your browser (Chrome, Firefox, IE, or Safari on Windows or Mac), ready for easy video conference calls. Install this, and you’re halfway there. If you don’t install this, or you later look at Outlook.com on a new computer, it will prompt you to install the plugin.

The Skype Web Plugin is a much lighter version of Skype, meaning that it is less resource-hungry when in use. Also, by enabling this plugin you will naturally see when your friends are online without having to have a program running in the background. You can instantly connect to them from your inbox itself. This is a big plus!

By the way, if you’re a Chromebook user getting excited about this method, I can say for a fact it doesn’t work and may not ever, as the plugin needs to be installed on your computer somehow. If Microsoft were to release a regular extension for Chrome, it would work. But I’m sure they have their reasons for avoiding doing this.

Outlook.com

Next, you need to log in to Outlook.com using your Microsoft account, or by creating a new account. You click on the messaging icon (the face) in the top-right corner and choose which services you want to use for messaging. If you have not already linked your Skype and MSN messenger accounts, it will ask you to do so, and all you need to do is supply your Skype log-in credentials and follow the prompts.

Once you have linked your Skype and Microsoft accounts (using any device), you should have access to Skype via Outlook.com and from within your OneDrive (formerly known as SkyDrive). You’ll see the Skype icon in the bottom-right corner of the browser within the messaging pane. If you are not in a supported country, the Skype logo won’t show up here. However, the rollout is ongoing and should reach you soon.

You can browse your online friends by clicking in the “Start a Conversation” box, narrowing down your search by typing a few letters in if need be. When a Skype user is online, you will see the call icon and can start a call. If you use Outlook.com for your email, a quick click on a contact’s name will let you know if you can chat to them via Skype or another IM service like Facebook immediately. If you have a webcam and microphone, you can make Skype HD video calls to your friends on Skype. If you just have a microphone and speakers, you can make VOIP calls via Skype.

Here’s some extra information to learn more about Outlook contacts and messaging, and how to connect Skype to Outlook.com. It also seems that you can’t yet add new Skype contacts via the Outlook.com site, so you would have to open the full Skype program on one of your devices to add new friends.

Recording Calls In Browser

Using the Skype app in the browser makes it more difficult to record Skype calls, unlike the simple methods available for the Skype for desktop clients and many alternatives to Skype which are easy to record. Is recording your calls that important to you though? If so, check out Apowersoft for browser recording and some other recording alternatives.

How About Hangouts?

Doubtless, Microsoft came up with this solution as a competitor to Gmail’s Hangouts from within Gmail. From a regular user’s perspective, the two are indeed much the same. While you’re busy checking your email it’s quite easy to see if a contact is online and start a call or video chat in seconds. However Hangouts do allow you to add more people to your video calls for free (a limit of ten), which Skype doesn’t allow without a premium fee. It also may not work within the limited plugin. I can’t check this as I’m not a premium Skype subscriber, but I wouldn’t expect this plugin to do more than the basics in this regard — there is certainly no obvious button to add new people to the call.

The main difference for the most part is that the Outlook/Skype tool is only available to those who are willing and able to install the plugin. For Gmail users, Hangouts just works no matter what. Until Outlook and Skype can do that, Gmail and Hangouts have the upper hand.