Sendoid Offers Instant and Secure P2P File Transfer

Sendoid is a file sharing client designed to shuttle files quickly between browsers and desktops with little need for configuration or firewall tweaking.
The web-based interface allows you to send files up to 1GB in size just by sharing a link with the person you want to share the files with. If you need a more flexible solution that allows for larger files and password protection you can download the free Adobe Air-based desktop client. The Sendoid servers merely facilitate the connection between you and the file recipient, all file transfer is conducted between the two browsers or your Sendoid client and their browser.
Hit up the link below to take it for a test drive or grab a copy of the desktop client for an easier to manage file sharing experience.
Sendoid [via Mashable]

Turn a Webcam into a Motion Detecting and Email Notifying Security Cam

If you have an old web cam or two laying around you can convert them into a CCTV system that pushes email and growl notifications to you any time motion is detected in the area they are monitoring.
Sean, a DIYer from the UK, wanted to put his always-on-server to even more use. By linking a webcam to the server and setting up Yawcam (for the motion detection and email notification) on the server and a growl/prowl server (for the push notifications to desktops and iOS devices). So far his setup has worked perfectly, his next project is to build a more weather-proof enclosure (rather than a simple piece of flashing to keep direct rain off, as we see in the photo above).
Hit up the link below to read more about his project and setup an emailing/growling security cam of your own.
Webcam into Growl CCTV Camera! [Sean's Project Blog via Hack A Day]

2 Sites To Find The Best “Socially-Selected” Desktop Wallpaper

• June 1, 2012
  
• By Craig Snyde

It’s pretty difficult to find a quality wallpaper site anymore. There’s a ton of them, but many are packed full of plain, boring, “stock” wallpapers that you don’t want sitting on your desktop. There are many more that are polluted even more nefariously, with adware, risky pop-ups and pop-unders, and more. That’s not the kind of stuff I’m into.
I like my web content curated. When I want to read the news, I don’t go to WSJ and NYT. I go immediately to Reddit, where the contributions of relevant news is incentivized. That way, I can count on the next guy to force feed me all of the news I want. Isn’t it beautiful? Since that formula works, why not use it for everything? While the aforementioned Reddit does have some a few really awesome wallpaper-related subreddits, that’s the obvious way to go. I’ve got more for you.

4walled

4walled, as the name casually suggests, is an aggregator that indexes all of the beautiful wallpapers posted on 4chan, the largest imageboard in the US. Yes, 4chan. You know, the evil and hateful site that once bred today’s Anonymous? It’s not so bad, overall. The imageboard’s main attention-grabber, /b/, comes attached with a filthy reputation, but they’ve got plenty of other beautiful boards where intelligent conversation is fairly common. /mu/ for music, /fa/ for fashion, and /wg/ for general wallpapers.

As you can see, 4walled is really a wallpaper search engine. Everything you’d expect is there. For board, just keep it as the default selection if you aren’t familiar or interested in 4chan. Now if you don’t know what SFW is, it’s “safe for work.” Basically, the default here is going to include nudity. You’ll probably see a lot of it if you select the default. If you’re not into any of that, select “Safe For Work”.

Here, I ran a search for the keyword “sunset”. As you can see, there’s nothing extra, no fillers, just awesome wallpapers. You can click them to see some statistics about the individual wallpaper and submitter, and from there save the wallpaper to your hard drive.

Social Wallpapering

Social Wallpapering has adopted that same model as Reddit, where users are able to upvote and downvote wallpapers so that only the highest-quality pieces are visible to new users.

Sign up and you’re able to vote for your favorites and upload your own wallpapers to be ranked by others. As far as browsing goes, you can sort wallpapers by their rank, by their category, screen size, or even just randomly.

Just like 4walled, you can see that it takes a really no-nonsense approach. Your wallpapers are all there in a thumbnail for you to easily preview and browse. Click one and you’ll see statistics and resolutions for all available. Contributing to the quality of the site overall is just as easy, as you can favorite or vote for wallpaper by just hovering over the thumbnail.
There’s no reason to make it harder than it should be. Social internet means we can all be freeloaders. Personally, I love when people do the work for me. It’s always nice to contribute, though! What do you think of these two websites?

Make Professional Looking Logos Quickly And Easily With Logotype Creator

One of the first impressions a business makes is with their logo. It may be the first thing a customer sees when they look into your business, and if your logo does not catch their eye, they may just move on to something else. Of course, not everyone is a graphic designer with the skills to design custom logos, and while you can pay someone to do it, this can be costly. Do not worry, because I have stumbled across a cool website that will provide you with a professional looking logo free or for  cheap.
Of course, no website can replace the skills of a true graphic designer who can build a logo exactly to your specifications, but if that just is not in your budget right now, this website can certainly give with one that looks great. It is easy to use, so even if you have never spent a minute designing graphics, you will be able to use Logotype Creator.

How Do You Use Logotype Creator?

The first step is actually incredibly simple. All you need to do is enter the name of the company you want made into a logo and click the “Generate Logo Now!” button. It will take a moment to generate the logos, and then it will show you some logos from which you can choose.

The logos are broken down into two categories. First, you have the free logos. The free ones are not unique, so someone else may make the exact same logo. The second type is not free, but is unique to your company. The unique ones cost 9 Euro (11 dollars), which is certainly less than a graphic designer would charge.

Once you choose a base logo that suits your liking, click it, and then click “Personalize and Download logo.” This will take you to the screen where you can change the logo and make it exactly what you are looking for.

At first glance, you might think the editor is just for changing the colors or font of your custom logo, but you can almost redo the entire thing from this screen. It has options for adjusting the font, effects, size and location of image and text and just about every detail to make the logo your own.

By default, your logo will have text with a cool looking font and an image to the left of the text. If you do not like this layout, you can use the arrows on the bottom left of the screen to move the image.

If you do not like the text of the logo, fear not, because there are well over 100 fonts available. Whether you are looking for some futuristic text or some street-art style, there is almost certainly an option for you.

You can also add effects to the image and text. You can use the tools to drop a shadow, add reflections, and more. For the person who wants to go a little deeper into the graphic design options, you can click the “Settings” button next to the effect and fine-tune it.

Once you finish creating your logo, click the “Download Logo” button on the top right of the screen to save it, and use it for whatever you need. You can choose any size you like for your logo, so you can make it suit your needs perfectly.

Conclusion

This is a cool way to make a custom logo without having to spend any money. Of course, if you want to make sure the logo is yours and yours alone, you will have to open your wallet a little. My favorite thing about the app is that it lets you customize the logo if you want, or just use it as it stands. For people who just want to use the logo and not deal with customizing, you can have it redo the logo creation process until it makes one you like.
I highly recommend checking out this website if you are looking for a quick, easy way to get a logo for your business.

WidgetBlock Speeds Up Browsing by Removing Social Media Widgets

Chrome: If you’re tired of web pages cluttered with social media buttons, WidgetBlock bans the buttons and speeds up the load time of web pages in the process.

Even on a snappy internet connection you’ve likely noticed, thanks to the deluge of social media buttons loading in the background, a noticeable lag on popular web sites. WidgetBlock blocks widgets from loading (just like popular ad blocking software blocks ads from loading). The above screenshot, taken from a popular media site, shows just how much screen real estate is taken up by social media widgets. Installing WidgetBlock banishes the social media widgets and speeds load time.

Hit up the link below to grab a free copy.

WidgetBlock [Chrome Web Store]

YouHaveDownloaded Tells You Whether Your IP Has Been Tracked

Has someone you know used a public peer-to-peer network to download ‘files of interest’ and were curious if there was a record of it? Then a quick visit to youhavedownload.com may provide for an eye opening experience. The website presents a publicly searchable database and will verify whether an IP address is on record there or not.

From the blog post: In many ways, the technology behind the site merely recreates in a publicly searchable way what the entertainment industry has been doing for years: It tracks and records information that users share when they download and upload files on public peer-to-peer file-trading networks. But the free service does have the potential to make people think twice about downloading pirated movies, games and music, because it shows how easily this information can be discovered and archived.

You can read more about how the website works, the stats for the site, its limitations, reactions from those who have found themselves on record there, and more using the link to the full blog post below.

Who Knows What Youhavedownloaded.com? [Krebs on Security]

Special Note: If you do choose to visit the YouHaveDownloaded website linked below, then know ahead of time that it will cause WOT to throw up a safety warning (mixture of Green for Trustworthiness, Yellow for Vender Reliability & Child Safety, and Red for Privacy).

Visit the YouHaveDownloaded Website

Download 128 Ready to Use Pre-Made Windows 7 Shortcuts for Your Computer

Shortcuts can be very useful as a quick way to access Windows 7′s native programs and settings, but do take time to create individually for your desktop or app launchers. Rather than go through all that work and hassle you can download this awesome set of pre-made shortcuts ready to use on your favorite system instead!

From the blog post: These shortcuts work on any computer. Some of the tools though, are available only on certain Windows 7 versions so their shortcuts will not work if you have a version which does not include them. The collection was made using Windows 7 Ultimate.

Please also note that:

• The Windows Mobility Center shortcut will work only on mobile computers such as laptops, and not on desktops.
• The shortcuts for Microsoft Security Essentials will work only if you have this security product installed.
• The Empty Recycle Bin shortcut empties the Recycle Bin found on your “C:” drive. If you have more than one partition, it will not empty the Recycle Bin on all partitions.

The download link for the zip file containing the pre-made shortcuts can be found at the bottom of the 7 Tutorials post.

Download The Biggest Library of Windows 7 Shortcuts [7 Tutorials]

The Top 5 Alternatives to the Android Market

Google’s Android Market isn’t the only place you can get Android apps. Whether you’re looking for free paid apps, social recommendations or an app store to replace a missing Android Market, you have a lot of choice.

Each app store is completely legit — the ones that offer free apps pay the developer for the privilege. You may even have an alternative app store on your device already if you’re an Opera user.

Allowing Non-Market Apps

By default, Android blocks you from installing apps from anywhere that isn’t the Android Market. To use any of these alternative app stores, you’ll have to enable the “Unknown Sources” option in the Applications settings screen. Check out our article on installing non-Market apps for more detailed information.

Amazon Appstore

Amazon’s app store is probably the most well-known alternative to the Android Market. It’s included by default on the Kindle Fire . The big drawback to this app store is that it’s only available in the US.

If you are in the USA, the Amazon App Store is a great alternative to the Android Market. Not only is it chock-full of paid apps and free apps, it gives away a new paid app every day. Visit it each day to check out the new free app — these apps are only free for a 24-hour period.

GetJar

GetJar isn’t as well-known, but it’s available everywhere. GetJar also gives away paid apps for free.

Unlike Amazon’s app giveaways, GetJar’s paid app giveaways don’t expire. GetJar adds new paid apps to its free “Gold Apps” section every week.

AppBrain

AppBrain takes a different, more social approach to an app store. It sells itself as an app recommendation system. With its social features, you can friend people and view your friends’ favorite apps. You can also see the apps that are currently hot, site-wide.

AppBrain’s recommendation engine scans your device and, based on what you currently have installed, gives you personalized app recommendations.

SlideME

You may not have heard of SlideME, but it claims to be the top alternative app store worldwide. It’s preloaded on a variety of devices, particularly in regions where the Android Market isn’t available.

SlideME provides a large collection of both paid and free apps. When you buy an app on SlideME, SlideME gives a higher percentage of the revenue to the developer than Google does for the Android Market.

Opera App Store

If you’re a fan of the Opera web browser, you may be surprised to know that you already have Opera’s app store on your device. You’ll find a link to it on Opera Mobile’s default speed dial page.

Opera acquired its app store though a purchase of Handster in 2011. The store contains Android apps, in addition to apps for other platforms. You can access it through a browser on your device, or use a browser on your PC and download app APK files to your computer.

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There are many other app stores that aren’t included here. With so many alternatives, access to the Android Market is becoming less important with each passing day.

Download the Roboto Font from Android Ice Cream Sandwich for Your Computer

Have you been admiring the awesome Roboto font that Google created just for the Ice Cream Sandwich release of Android? Now you can download all 16 variations of Roboto for your favorite computer!

Once you visit the webpage below just look for the download link on the right side of the page and get ready to enjoy all that Roboto goodness.

Roboto Font – Android Design Website [via CNET News]

Download the Windows 8 Logo and Icons to Use on Your Favorite Computer

Do you like how the icons from Windows 8 look and want to use them on a different system? Then you are in luck! The good folks over at 7 Tutorials have pulled out nineteen icons from Windows 8 and packaged them into a downloadable set.

Note: White icons not shown above.

Download the Windows 8 Logo & Other Windows 8 Icons [7 Tutorials]

Which Browser is the Best to Use When Running Your Laptop on Battery Power?

Squeezing the maximum amount of usage time out of your laptop battery can be challenging at times…it all depends on the software you are using. One software we are all likely to be using is a browser to keep up with our online lives…

If your laptop is older, then getting the most out of your laptop’s aging battery is definitely a must. The good folks over at the 7 Tutorials blog have done a comparison test to see which browser is the gentlest on your laptop’s battery and the results may surprise you. You can view the results by visiting the link below…
Had better (or worse) luck with one of the browsers tested? Then make sure to share the results with your fellow readers in the comments!
Test Comparison: Which Browser Will Make Your Laptop’s Battery Last Longer? [7 Tutorials]

How to Convert DMG Files to ISO Files on Windows

The DMG image format is by far the most popular file container format used to distribute software on Mac OS X. Here’s how to convert a DMG file into an ISO file that can be mounted on a Windows PC.
First head over to this website and grab yourself a copy of dmg2img by clicking on the win32 binary link.

Once the file has downloaded, open your Downloads folder, right click on the file, and select extract all from the context menu.

You will then be asked where you want to extract the binary to, extracting it to your Downloads folder is fine for now.

Now hold down shift and right click on your Downloads library, then select open command window here from the context menu.

Now use the following command syntax to convert your file:

dmg2img <source file.dmg> <destination file.iso>

In my example I want to convert a DMG file on my desktop called random.dmg  and save the resulting ISO in the Documents folder so my command would be:

dmg2img “C:\Users\Taylor Gibb\Desktop\random.dmg” “C:\Users\Taylor Gibb\Documents\ConvertedRandom.iso”

Note: I am enclosing the paths in quotations because I have spaces in my file paths, they are not required if you don’t have spaces in your file paths.

Once you hit enter your file will be converted.

You can now burn the ISO file to a disk.

There are plenty of other tools that claim to help you convert DMG files, however this is the most reliable way I have come across.  Have you ever needed to convert a DMG file? Let us know how you did it in the comments.

Point-by-Point Comparison of Free Cloud Storage Services

If you’re looking for a cloud-based storage service, this handy overview will help you pick which one is the best fit for your needs.
At Freeware Genius they’ve rounded up a collection of cloud storage solutions and compared them based on factors like initial free storage, max storage, OS support for desktop apps and mobile apps, number of supportive devices, and so on. They even detail why certain services were excluded (such as lack of a desktop folder syncing app).
Hit up the link below to explore their chart.
Comparison of Free Cloud Storage Services [Freeware Genius]

5 Alternative Search Engines That Respect Your Privacyimage Google, Bing, Yahoo – all the major search engines track your search history and build profiles on you, serving different results based on your search history. Try one of these alternative search engines if you’re tired of being tracked. Google now encrypts your search traffic when you’re logged in, but this only prevents third-parties from snooping on your search traffic – it doesn’t prevent Google from tracking you. DuckDuckGo DuckDuckGo is a popular search engine for the privacy-conscious. As its privacy page says, DuckDuckGo doesn’t log any personally identifiable information. DuckDuckGo doesn’t use cookies to identify you, and it discards user agents and IP addresses from its server logs. DuckDuckGo doesn’t event attempt to generate an anonymized identifier to tie searches together – DuckDuckGo has no way of knowing whether two searches even came from the same computer. Its home page is simple and clean – even more so than Google’s. Because DuckDuckGo knows nothing about you, it can’t serve different results to different users. You’ll get the same results as everyone else. DuckDuckGo’s donttrack.us page explains search engine tracking and DuckDuckGo’s approach in an entertaining way. Startpage If you prefer Google’s search results and just want more privacy, try Ixquick’s Startpage. Startpage searches Google for you – when you submit a search, Startpage submits the search to Google and returns the results to you. All Google sees is a large amount of searches coming from Startpage’s servers – they can’t tie any searches to you or track your searches. Startpage discards all personally identifiable information. Like DuckDuckGo, Startpage doesn’t use cookies, it immediately discards IP addresses, and it doesn’t keep a record of searches performed. If you’ve heard of Scroogle – a Google scraper that no longer exists – Startpage is a similar service. Startpage also includes a proxy feature — you can open a page in Ixquick’s proxy directly from the search results. This is slower than normal browsing, but websites won’t be able to see your IP address. The proxy also disables JavaScript to protect your privacy. Ixquick Ixquick is the main search engine from the company that runs Startpage. Unlike Startpage, Ixquick pulls results from a variety of sources instead of only Google – this can be a good or a bad thing, depending on how much you like Google’s search results. Ixquick and Startpage have essentially the same design. Ixquick includes the same privacy features Startpage does, including the Ixquick proxy links in the search results. Blekko Blekko doesn’t go as far as DuckDuckGo and Ixquick, but it’s still a big improvement over Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Blekko does log personally identifiable information, but deletes it within 48 hours. In contrast, Google stores this information for 9 months – and then anonymizes it without actually deleting it. If you create an account and log in, you can disable the data collection entirely by enabling the SuperPrivacy setting. Blekko even lets you disable ads entirely if you’re logged in. Ask.com – AskEraser Ask.com offers an optional AskEraser feature that you can enable from its Settings page. When you enable this feature, Ask.com will set a single cookie in your browser – indicating that AskEraser is enabled – and delete all other Ask.com cookies. With AskEraser enabled, Ask.com won’t store your search history except in rare circumstances. Ask.com does clarify that your search history will be stored if a critical error occurs (logging will resume until the problem is solved) or if law enforcement asks Ask.com to log your search activity.

Google, Bing, Yahoo – all the major search engines track your search history and build profiles on you, serving different results based on your search history. Try one of these alternative search engines if you’re tired of being tracked.
Google now encrypts your search traffic when you’re logged in, but this only prevents third-parties from snooping on your search traffic – it doesn’t prevent Google from tracking you.

DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo is a popular search engine for the privacy-conscious. As its privacy page says, DuckDuckGo doesn’t log any personally identifiable information. DuckDuckGo doesn’t use cookies to identify you, and it discards user agents and IP addresses from its server logs. DuckDuckGo doesn’t event attempt to generate an anonymized identifier to tie searches together – DuckDuckGo has no way of knowing whether two searches even came from the same computer.
Its home page is simple and clean – even more so than Google’s.

Because DuckDuckGo knows nothing about you, it can’t serve different results to different users. You’ll get the same results as everyone else.

DuckDuckGo’s donttrack.us page explains search engine tracking and DuckDuckGo’s approach in an entertaining way.

Startpage

If you prefer Google’s search results and just want more privacy, try Ixquick’s Startpage. Startpage searches Google for you – when you submit a search, Startpage submits the search to Google and returns the results to you. All Google sees is a large amount of searches coming from Startpage’s servers – they can’t tie any searches to you or track your searches.
Startpage discards all personally identifiable information. Like DuckDuckGo, Startpage doesn’t use cookies, it immediately discards IP addresses, and it doesn’t keep a record of searches performed.

If you’ve heard of Scroogle – a Google scraper that no longer exists – Startpage is a similar service.
Startpage also includes a proxy feature — you can open a page in Ixquick’s proxy directly from the search results. This is slower than normal browsing, but websites won’t be able to see your IP address. The proxy also disables JavaScript to protect your privacy.

Ixquick

Ixquick is the main search engine from the company that runs Startpage. Unlike Startpage, Ixquick pulls results from a variety of sources instead of only Google – this can be a good or a bad thing, depending on how much you like Google’s search results.
Ixquick and Startpage have essentially the same design. Ixquick includes the same privacy features Startpage does, including the Ixquick proxy links in the search results.

Blekko

Blekko doesn’t go as far as DuckDuckGo and Ixquick, but it’s still a big improvement over Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Blekko does log personally identifiable information, but deletes it within 48 hours. In contrast, Google stores this information for 9 months – and then anonymizes it without actually deleting it.

If you create an account and log in, you can disable the data collection entirely by enabling the SuperPrivacy setting. Blekko even lets you disable ads entirely if you’re logged in.

Ask.com – AskEraser

Ask.com offers an optional AskEraser feature that you can enable from its Settings page. When you enable this feature, Ask.com will set a single cookie in your browser – indicating that AskEraser is enabled – and delete all other Ask.com cookies. With AskEraser enabled, Ask.com won’t store your search history except in rare circumstances.

Ask.com does clarify that your search history will be stored if a critical error occurs (logging will resume until the problem is solved) or if law enforcement asks Ask.com to log your search activity.

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