Drag and Drop to Quickly Share Files from your Desktop

CloudUp is a simple but useful utility for Windows and Mac that lets you quickly share pictures, documents, pictures, music and other files.

You can drag one or more files from the desktop to the CloudUp icon sitting in the Windows Taskbar, or the menubar of your Mac, and they are instantly sent to the cloud. And not just files, you can drag-and-drop entire folders to the CloudUp icon and it will upload all the included files in one go.

A link to the uploaded files is automatically copied to the clipboard that you can share over email, IM chats, text messages or the social web. CloudUp generates the URL even while your files are getting uploaded in the background so there’s no waiting time.

The files that you upload to CloudUp have a secret but public URL and anyone who knows that URL can see your files and download them. You however do have an option to password-protect your shared files for added privacy.

CloudUp is slowly opening up to new users but you may use this link to jump the waiting list.

CloudUp isn’t the only app that offers simple drag-n-drop style file sharing. There’s Droplr(available for both Windows and Mac) and CloudApp (Mac only). These apps offer similar functionality but there are restrictions on how much data you can share with free accounts.

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CloudApp lets you share up to 10 files a day and the maximum size of a file can be 25 MB. Droplr offers 1 GB of storage and the limit is 25 MB per upload. CloudUp is more generous – you can upload up to 1,000 files and the maximum size of files can be up to 100 MB each.

Find Who has Access to your Files in Google Drive

Google Drive lets you share files with specific contacts or you can make them public and anyone can then view your files. Sharing also prevents you from clogging someone else’s mailbox. For instance, if you are sending a large file as an email attachment, a better option would be that you upload the file to Google Drive and share the link instead.

Who Can View or Edit your Shared Files?

If you have been using the sharing feature of Google Docs (now Google Drive) for some time, you may have quite a few files in the Drive that are accessible to other users. Would you like to review this list?

Here’s a simple Google script that will scan your Google Drive and prepare a list all files that have been shared from your Google Drive.

To get started, click here to copy the Google Script in your own Google Drive. Then choose Run->Start to execute the Google Script. The script will ask for authorization since it needs to check the sharing permissions of the file in your Google Drive. Say “authorize” and you’ll soon get an email with a list of all the shared files that were found in your Google Drive.

The report, see the above screenshot, will have links to the shared files and also a list of users who can view or edit that particular file. If a file can be viewed by anyone, the user will be mentioned as Public.

The Google Script checks the sharing permissions of every single file in your Google Drive and thus it may take a minute or two to finish if you have too many files in the Drive.

6 Blog Design Tips That Will Get You Better Results

With most blogging platforms being geared for beginners, blog design can be as simple as

choosing from a selection of pre-made templates and uploading a logo for some users. This might work for you, but if you want to take your efforts to the next level, then be prepared to take it up a notch.

Following are six high-level blog design tips that will help you see noticeably better results.

1. Design with Purpose

If your blog is to make a lasting impact, then you must think beyond looking good with your design. You need to work with a specific purpose in mind.

- What is the focus of your blog? Whatever it is, make sure your design is aligned with the topic as much as possible.

- What makes your blog special? The unique value proposition of your blog should stand out on first glance. A combination of powerful copy and a solid design will make sure it does.

- Who is your audience? Finally, always remember that the look and feel of your blog should accommodate the people who read it. If they don’t find it effective, then something is definitely wrong.

2. Small Details Matter

When it comes to blogging, those small, seemingly insignificant nuances can turn out to be huge deals that put a damper on your efforts. Details you want to pay attention include:

- Tags. Please don’t underestimate the power of tags. They offer tremendous SEO value and could be the difference between a blog post that enjoys a high visibility in the search engines, and one that is buried deep within its own domain.

- Search function. Most blogging platforms support internal search functionality, yet very few bloggers take advantage of this luxury. Some visitors could come in looking for something in particular, and by providing this feature, you can make sure they have an easy time finding it.

- Author attribution. Who wrote your blog post? It wasn’t really a nameless team member known around the office as “Admin”, was it? Simply giving proper attribution to posts can go a long way in creating bonds between your authors and your readers.

3. Optimize Your Images

By now, most bloggers know all about how images can dramatically enhance the visual appeal and value of your blog posts. However, few are actually using images to their full potential. When you upload photos, you can take the time to optimize them by entering keywords in the description and available text fields, or just insert them into your posts. I vote for optimization because it makes your images search-friendly. You can make them more powerful altogether by adding compelling captions that draw attention to your content.

4. Adopt the Grid Approach

The grid system has been used in print media for years. It is currently one of the hottest trends in web design. The system uses a combination of rows and columns to create unique layouts that accommodate content-rich sites. A grid can provide a solid foundation that makes your blog much more flexible and easier to build on in the future. And due to the organizational component, a grid system can also greatly improve the navigation experience for visitors.

5. Be Careful with Fonts

Fonts are normally an afterthought, but they can be very helpful if you know how to use them. While there are tons of options out there, it is generally best to keep it simple with fonts. What you think is creative could be turning people off or causing an unwanted distraction. Think basic fonts like Arial, Georgia, Times New Roman, and Verdana. Stay simple in terms of font style, keep the number you use to a minimum, and you’ll be in good shape.

6. Learn to Love White Space

One of the biggest mistakes bloggers make is attempting to cover almost every inch of their template with content. They have widgets on one side, a huge blog roll on the other, and an extensive tag cloud at the bottom of their post. There is nothing wrong with utilizing your available space, but white space can be an attribute. Use it right, and it will highlight your calls to action and other aspects you want people to notice.

Content is indeed king, but since your blog design supports it, it is equally important to your success. Design is so vital, that it pays to revisit it every once and a while to determine if tweaks need to be made. No matter the situation, with everything in place, these tips are sure to help you see significant improvements. 

Folders Actions for Windows Lets you Automate Tasks like Mac OS X

Mac OS have plenty of unique features which other operating systems don’t have. In the latest version Mavericks, Apple introduced iOS style notifications for Mac, iCloud Keychain for protection and much more. So every time they update their OS, plenty of new features and functions will be introduced. One of the important and useful features in Mac is Automating a process. Instead of an user doing some repeated actions like copying files, converting video and audio files to specific format, OS X has the feature to automate those actions.

Today I came with an application called “Folder Action for Windows”, which brings that same feature to your Windows OS. By using this application you can easily rename, copy and convert different file types automatically.

Once you download and install the application, you have to choose folders where you need to pick the files and automate the actions. Folder Actions will have two panels, left and the right one. Left panel will have all the folders you have chosen and in the right panels you have options to automate. To select folders, click the “+” symbol on the top of the window and choose the folder from your drive. You can add any number of folders you  need and automate the actions.

In the right panel, the first option is “No Actions”. It is to temporarily revert the automation you have made to a specific folder. Next you can set an alert or move files to a particular location, when a new file is added to a specific folder. Third option is to automate the process to renaming multiple files. Just type the file name and extension of both the existing file and the new one you need. So whenever you add a file in that name will be renamed automatically.

Next three options are to convert image, audio and video files to different formats. If you want to convert a bunch of video and audio files, just copy to a folder or select the existing ones and automate the conversion process in this application easily. For instance, if you want to convert multiple video files for your mobile supported format, Folder Action will be very helpful for you.

Another interesting and useful option in this application is decompressing the ZIP andRAR files. Just add the compressed file to that folder, it will automatically unzip those files. Folder Actions is completely free for personal use and educational purpose but you have to buy license for the commercial use. So download and try this app on your Windows and share your experience with us in the comments.

Download Folder Action for Windows

Downcast for Mac Brings Out Favorite Podcatcher to OS X

OS X: We love Downcast-it's my favorite iPhone app 

You won't have trouble finding great podcatches for mobile, but as soon as you want to listen on your computer you'll have to pay a high price or suffer through iTunes. Fortunately, Downcast decided to release a Mac app so you can listen on your Mac just the same as you would on your iPhone (or other iDevice). Because it syncs through iCloud, you can listen on your phone during your commute and pick up where you left off on your Mac when you arrive home.

Downcast includes all the great features of the mobile app in a format for the desktop. You can add protected feeds, search for popular podcasts (including ours), set your preferences globally and for individual feeds, and much more. While all of this will cost you $10, you'll pay twice as much if you go with previously mentioned Instacast (the primary competition). While not for everyone, if you're a fan of the mobile app and want a desktop counterpart you can get it right now on the Mac App Store.

Downcast ($10) | Mac App Store

A Slick New Featured Posts Image Slider For Blogger

In the past I have provided Blogger users with a number of different Image sliders or featured posts sliders.Recently while working on a blog design job I had a client looking for a very specific slider to display some of their best images.The slider needed to have some specific specifications which were not covered by my previous efforts.I also needed to make the slider lightweight and easy to edit so the client could quickly change the images and links. So we were looking for the slider to be :1. Full Width - so it spans the entire width of the blog but also for this tutorial I wanted the width to be easily changed.2. Auto and manual scroll - We wanted the slider to scroll through images automatically, the slide would stop on hover and also visitors would have the option to scroll at their own pace.3. Two ways to scroll - We wanted to have the classic Next/Previous buttons but also bullets below the slider to skip to any image.4. Easy to edit - The HTML code for the slider can be accessed via the layout page rather than buried within the template. So in this post I have to tutorial to add this new slider to your blog.You can see a live demo of the slider by following the like below :     And here is the tutorial to add the slider to your blog.Add Featured Slider To Your BlogRemember Always Back Up Your Template Before You Make Changes - How To Back Up A Blogger Template Step 1. - In Your (New Design) Blogger Dashboard Click The Drop Down Menu For Your Blog > Choose Customize > Advanced > Add Css, as shown in the video below.

How to Copy Gmail Messages to your New Gmail Account

If you are moving from one Gmail account to another, you can easily copy all your Gmail messages from the old account to the new one using the built-in Mail Fetcher program of Gmail.

The Mail Fetcher program, available for both Gmail and Google Apps for Gmail accounts, will download messages from one account and copy them to your other account using POP access. It works for old Gmail messages and also any new messages that arrive after you have set up the Mail Fetcher.

How To Transfer your Gmail Messages to Another Email Address

Say you have an old Gmail account and you would like to transfer all the existing email messages from the old account to your new email address. The new address could be on @gmail.com, @outlook.com, Google Apps (@yourcompany.com) or anywhere else.

Gmail does include the useful Mail Fetcher utility to help you automatically transfer mails between Gmail accounts or between Gmail and Outlook accounts.

If you are however planning to transfer your existing Gmail messages to another email service that doesn’t support POP3 based importing, you can make use of a simple Google Script that will auto-forward all your old messages, one by one, to your new email address.

How to Transfer Gmail Messages – Step by Step

To configure the script, log on to your old Google account and then follow these steps:

1. Click here to copy the Mail Forwarding sheet to your Google Drive (associated with old Gmail Address).
2. You’ll see a new Gmail menu in the Google Sheet. Choose Gmail -> Authorize to allow the script to access your Gmail account.
3. Once the script has been authorized, choose Gmail -> Transfer and type your new email address where the old messages are to be auto-forwarded.

The Google Script will now run in the background and will auto-forward every single message from your old @gmail.com address to the new one. The script will add the label “cloned” to all the threads that have been successfully forwarded. This is required to keep track of messages that have been processed.

The transfer process, depending upon the size of your mailbox, may take a few days to complete because of Gmail’s daily sending limit. The messages in the Trash, Spam and your Sent Items folders are ignored.

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Also, the “Transfer My Gmail” script works on your entire Gmail mailbox. If you would like to auto-forward a select group of messages, see the previous tutorial on how to auto-forward Gmail messages in bulk.

Collection Of The Best ScreenCast Tools For Screen Recording

A screencast is a great way to create tutorials and unique blog content.The main factors I look for in a screencast tool is for it to be simple to use, have good editing options and quick options to save online or publish to YouTube.

So let's get to the list, I have listed 5 screencast tools I have personally tried.As with most online tools there are free and paid options so this will be part of your decision.

Drive Tunes Converts Google Drive into a Personal Music Service

If we want to listen to music from our browser, either we choose YouTube or some other web apps like Sound Cloud. What if you can listen to songs from your Google drive account ? Cool isn’t it. Let’s see how to do that. In our blog we’ve reviewed plenty of useful Chrome extensions to improve your productivity and efficiency of the browser. Today I came with a new Chrome extension called “Drive Tunes” which helps you to play songs from Google drive without moving from the page or downloading it. It  embeds a music player into your Google drive and listen to your favorite songs right from the browser.

Compare to other desktop media players I like VLC because of its simple interface. I’ve seen the same thing when I’ve installed Drive Tunes for first time in my Google drive. The interface of this application is very simple and has a clutter free design. I don’t had any music files when I first installed Drive tunes in my browser. So I uploaded an album to “My Drive” folder to test the application. Once you finish upload, all those files will be added to the playlist automatically. Also if you have any mp3 and m4a files on your Google drive, it will detect and add it to the playlist.

After you install the extension, if you go to your Google drive account, it will look normal and won’t have any options to access the music player. To start the music player, open a new tab in chrome and click the “Drive Tunes” icon in the page. This will actually open the music player. In some media players, finding the play button is a biggest challenge but this minimal interface design will be more convenient for the usage and to identify the controls.

Another important feature of the application is the search option. Instead of bringing the search results, it will eliminate the files based on your keyword. All the files matches your keyword will be on the menu and others will be eliminated. The  repeat and shuffle options will be available in the left bottom corner of the screen. Also you can create folders to organize the music and to see all the audio files in your Google drive, click “All Music” option on the left panel.

If you have a Chromebook, then this application will be very helpful. It helps you listen to your favorite songs on the go. Only thing missing in this extension is the desktop integration. The “Drive Tunes” development team has said that, they were working on more audio formats support. It will be more convenient, if they introduce the desktop integration in future. So, try this in your browser and share your experience with us in the comments. Thanks for reading, do share this post with your friends.

Download Drive Tunes