Toondoo, the comic strips maker website

Comic strips lover should never miss this comic strips maker site. It's a great site where we can create our own comic strips easily. Just sign up at http://www.toondoo.com/  and you'll be able to create our own comic strips.



Choose your favorite props, characters or backgrounds, then you can create your own one or create your toonbook. After that you can share. Who knows your creation will be editor's pick. There many things you can do with toondoo. Not only create, I should say "play, enjoy and share". So, start making your comic strips now with toondoo.

Free RapidTyping Typing Tutor 1.9.9.8

RapidTyping Typing Tutor 1.9.9.8 is a free program you can use to learn typing with 10 fingers. It has underwater background with some simple moving fish. You can choose various lessons from: letters, syllables, words, capitals, digits and symbols, and texts. You can also know your typing speed and errors. Have fun with this typing tutor! Click here to download from www.download.com

Generator, software that makes work lighter

Using computer technology, things could be done more easily. To make things easier, there are software with the name like: generator, maker, producer, creator, tools etc. For example: if you want to create a game, you probably would search for game maker. To make report easily, programmer will make report generator for generating the report to make their coding easily. To compose music you can search for music creator.

By using this, it really makes the work lighter for advanced user or for beginner. So, nowadays, people can forget more about programming and start using "generator" or "maker".

Frame Mask in FastStone Image Viewer

Faststone Image Viewer is one the best image viewer program that I like best. I have ever posted about this viewer before. You can download it by clicking here. This time I would to introduce you one of the best features it has, that is Frame Mask. Using frame mask is like giving special borders to your pictures/images. It's also like a border with blur effects.

Faststone Image Viewer comes with various frame masks you can use to make your photos more beautiful. You can apply many special masks like heart, shuriken, whirlwind, maple leaf, snow, ancient scroll and many artistic masks. And moreover, it's free. Faststone Image Viewer is really the alternative for those who don't want to spend money on commercial viewer like ACDSee.

Beware of Money Making Site

Money making sites seem to be more and more on the internet. They could be easily found through e-mails (sent as spam actually), ads on pages or pop ups, links in forum, or even links on IRC chat. Be careful when responding to this kind of offer. When you receive e-mails that you believe as spam, just click to mark it as spam. But if you really want to know more about the spam e-mail you can just type the name of the sender in Search Box at toolbar like Yahoo! or Google.

About sites that provide information on money making jobs, you can also do the same. Type the suspicious site name on the search box and then put a word like "scam" (or words with similar meanings). Then you'll find a lot of links describing the true face of the site.

Another way to get know about this is by using Yahoo! Answer. Usually, people who are curious about it, will also post a question about it at Yahoo! Answer. Then some people, probably those who are experienced or experts will answer. So, it's easy to get the info you want.

But actually, when this come to you, just ignore it, mark as spam and delete it or close the page or pop up ads. Fortune doesn't come easy as described on the promotions. Everything needs work hard. And remember Greed will lead to Misfortune.

So, for curious people, I think no better way than go searching at Yahoo! or Google.

Embed code on your site

Searching and browsing are two common activities for any internet users. If you are a blogger or webmaster, who always search for material that could be used for site, you probably notice a button on some videos or flash animation. The button has a word "embed" or probably like this one. I capture the picture of the button from www.vimeo.com Faststone Image Viewer.

If you click on the button, you will see a new window with html code. This is the code for you to copy and paste in your site if you want the object of the button (probably the video or animation where you click the button), to appear in your site. And that's what we call embed.

Using embed code in our site is better than downloading the video and upload it to our site. Imagine how slow the process is and how troublesome to upload a video that takes up a lot of space. But using embed is like giving a link to the site that provides the video and the video appears on your site (unlike using text hyperlink).

N.B. Click here if you want to know how to embed videos from Youtube

Can't save Excel file

Microsoft Excel is my favorite spreadsheet program. Last Sunday, I created a spreadsheet using Microsoft Excel but I couldn't finish the work that day. So, the next day, I went to work as usual and continued the spreadsheet again at my work place. But what amazed me was that I couldn't save my work. I saved to another temporary files. And every time I wanted to save I got the same message that the file was saved to another name. I was quite puzzled why did it happen. It also meant that my work seemed to have more trouble in saving files.

Then I took noticed on my Avast antivirus. I found that it scanned my file-saving process. After that, I disabled the Avast antivirus to see whether it could remove trouble of the saving process. And I really did. The saving process worked normally when the antivirus had been disabled.

I just want to show a tip on this post: "When you find a trouble in saving, it could be an unallowed process by your antivirus."

N.B. It's also a bit risky disabling the antivirus. Make sure you scan the file later cause Excel file could be infected by macro virus.

Big Buck Bunny - open source movie

Big Buck Bunny is a movie created with Blender. It's a great movie with stunning 3D effect and animation. You can click here to go to the download page. Available on 4 different video formats and 3 different resolution of the movie.

"Big Buck Bunny tells the story of a giant rabbit with a heart bigger than himself. When one sunny day three rodents rudely harass him, something snaps... and the rabbit ain't no bunny anymore! In the typical cartoon tradition he prepares the nasty rodents a comical revenge." ~ this is a review what I found using Creative Commons.

You can also click here to watch this 3D cartoon at Vimeo.
These are some pictures of the original frames of Big Buck Bunny.
Or you can click here to watch at YouTube

Blender 2.46

Blender is the open source 3D animation program your can rely on to make 3D animation. It has all the tools you need from modelling, animation, and rendering until post-production. You can use it to create 3D animation for games or movies. It also comes with real-time shadow, cloth and fur simulation and particle simulation. Learn by doing from the tutorials provided on the site.
Click here to download the program.
Also visit: Blender movie gallery. The pictures shown here is the snapshot taken from the movie gallery.

Making high quality slide show

Since many years ago, I've already known how to create slide show VCD from pictures or photos. But that time, I just couldn't create very clear VCD for shown on TV. When I compiled the VCD, I choose "VCD compilation". I also tried Mpeg1 or Mpeg2 (from many video editing programs). I also tried compiling using different computer from Pentium II to Pentium IV. I tried using pictures/photos in JPEG format and couldn't get the desired quality. Then I changed to BMP to make the slide show VCD. I still get the same undesired quality.

Then a few years after that I tried using better programs in 2007. This time I thought it could be better. But almost the same (just a bit better). Later, I realized that I hadn't tried using AVI (because I knew that the file size would be very big - that the reason why I didn't use it - also thought that Mpeg would be the same).

After using AVI file for the Photo Slide Show, I found that it shown really clear on TV, just like what we can see on professional VCD. And that's the answer. Compile the photo slide show in AVI first (you can also convert to Mpeg after that to make the archive), and then burn to blank disc with a program like Nero Burning ROM.

N.B. To use AVI files, you need a lot of disk space, so make sure you have enough free space.

Use better power supply

Power supply, like other hardware also comes with various prices and quality. Don't spend your money on cheap power supply that will make you regret after buying. When I was buying a new computer a few months ago, I was recommended the Simbadda Power Supply. It cost me about US $45. They also offered me a cheap power supply that cost only $10. I bought the $45 one. It seemed to be quite expensive for me, though as I had spent quite a lot of money on other hardware.

I don't know how good it is until a few days ago, a short power failure at my home. The lamps and fans were suddenly off for about 5 seconds, just a while. But what amazed me was that my computer was still running in that 5 seconds. I thought this could be advantage gaining from the better power supply I had bought that saved my computer from being off for about 5 seconds. Almost forget to tell you. Until now, I'm still not using a UPS.

New Software, Old Hardware

Don't force your computer to do things that burden itself. What I mean is if you just have Pentium II and you can work with old programs, don't try to upgrade the software (especially photo editing and multimedia or audio/video editing software except the device driver) you are using without upgrading the hardware. Certain software goes well with certain hardware.

Usually we can read minimum requirement for a software to run, but it's better to follow the standard requirement. Many of my friends have a habit of upgrading software, but not hardware. After their upgrading, I always ask them how is the new software. They will frankly tell me how bad the performance was. But every time after I ask them about the PC specification they're using they will answer they're still using the old PC. Of course, this is forcing your PC to have more work load cause newer software (or upgraded version) will consume more memory.

The result of this is your computer becomes very slow. And what's next? You'll uninstall the software to remove the burden on your system (and that's what most of my friends do). I can say that's a waste of time. But if you just want to experience the upgraded or new software, that's ok. My advice is before installing a new software, check the standard requirement of the software you want to install and compare it to your PC specification.

Speakers malfunction

Two weeks ago, I put my mobile phone near a computer. Then, I walked away. Suddenly my phone rang, and the speakers of the computer near my phone gave out strange sounds. It's hard to describe the sound. It's like the sound of horse-galloping (It's what I think - probably not). If you want to know, put your phone near your PC speakers and call the number of your phone with another phone. You'll hear it. : )

Well, I am not going to tell you about horse or the strange sound. Guess, what happened next? The speakers seemed to be malfunctioned. It didn't give out any sound at all anymore after that strange sound. When this happened, don't panic. Don't think that you need to buy another pair of speakers first.

For beginners, when something happens, and you don't know what to do with your computer hardware problem, all you need to do (before you call a technician) is to restart your computer. If it still won't work. Try another tip. Shut down your computer. I mean turn it off, and wait a while at least one minute then turn it on again.

Yeah, that's what I did to my speakers. It's back to normal again.

Wrong date and time

If your computer can't display correct time and date, perhaps you can try readjusting the time and date first. After that, if you still get the wrong time and date, you may need to change the battery. There is battery inside your casing on the motherboard. It keeps the setting of your BIOS and CMOS. Usually when the battery has run out. The settings are always wrong. You always need to reset the setting everytime you turn on the computer. Actually this troublesome matter is not really important, but if you want to have the correct date and time displayed on your taskbar and you want your files to be saved with the correct time and date, you really need to do that.

Temperature and CPU Fans

Temperature on the processor and the inside of your casing, should be carefully handled. The usual way to lower down temperature is to fix fans on the available places on your CPU. This is to ensure that the air inside would be blown out. In this way the temperature, should be lowered down. My computer has 4 fans on the casing. 1 inside on the processor, 2 under the power supply facing out and 1 on the side of the casing. A heatsink is also fixed to reduce the heat on the processor.

Don't use too thin paper

Paper used for printing we can buy at supermarket or any bookstore should be selected carefully for use with our printers. Do not look for very cheap and low-quality paper, especial 60 gsm. It's too thin to use with your printer. At least use 70 gsm.

For photo paper, the standard is usually 210 gsm. A little bit thinner is still ok, but buy one to try first. Because photo paper has a coated surface. Cheap photo paper is usually bended, so it sometimes causes a problem for the paper to go through the printer. Don't use paper with thickness more than 260, because most printers can't support very thick paper. You may use it at your own risk.

F1 - Help button

Do you know that you can always press F1 on your keyboard to get some basic helps on the program you are running? F1 is the button that specially used to HELP. It has been a convention that people use for it. So, every programmer will also set F1 for his/her programs help.

Creative Commons in Firefox

Creative Commons is a site that lets you search for pictures, audio, video, and free software. Whether you are a blogger, educator, student, artist, or just an ordinary computer user, you can search for the media you want, without having problems with copyrights. Start unveiling your creativity and use Creative Commons rather than using copyrighted material.

If you use Mozilla Firefox as your browser, then you can turn your google search into creative commons search. Look at the arrow on the picture.

Flash Intro and Banner Maker 2.0.85

Flash Intro and Banner Maker is a small program that create wonderful flash intro and banner ads for beginner. You don't need Flash knowledge or Action Script to create a professional banner. All you need to do is to type the text and then choose the available effects for your banner. You can even create e-card easily. The program is not freeware.

Click here to download the trial version.You can use it for 30 days trial.

Check Ink Levels on Epson C110

Printing half way and stop just for changing the ink cartridges is something that a computer user dislike. Some printers like Epson C110 Series, have this kind of printing habit. Although it always reminds you to change the cartridge before your ink runs out, it also stops suddenly before you can finish printing. This is the disadvantage of this printer that I dislike. My printer always prints half way and stop when ink is almost up. Because of that, I have a lot of half-printed paper that can't be used.

Then the solution?
I always use the Check Ink Levels utility to see how much ink is left for certain color. When I am sure which color should be changed, I will print a picture of mainly that color on plain paper to avoid that I print half way on better paper like photo paper. Of course to determine this, you still need a little experience to avoid wasting. But this better than letting the printer print half way on your costly photo paper.

Restart Computer

After printing for quite a lot and printer seems to print so slowly, you should consider restarting your computer.
This is to ensure that your computer has enough memory resource. Also make sure that you don't click the print icon simultaneously to avoid slow printing condition appear. Start a new printing only when you have finished the previous one or at least when almost finish.

My Experience on Printing CorelDRAW files

A few days ago when I was working with printing brochures, I found that my printer print very slowly. I tried increasing the memory, freeing up harddisk space, scanning virus. But it didn't seem to get better (except freeing the disk space because my harddisk was too full). I thought probably the problem was with the size of pictures in my brochure because I used three pictures with very high resolution. Then I tried converting the whole A4-size brochure in a jpeg file.

After that, I started a new printing with the jpeg file. Amazingly, the speed was boosted up. Now, I realized that sometimes converting a CorelDRAW publication to a Jpeg file can save a lot of space and time for printing. But of course, you shouldn't delete the original CorelDRAW file. Keep it with the Jpeg file because you can still edit it when needed.
printing, high resolution picture, CorelDRAW file

How to make printing run faster?

Printing can be an easy job if everything goes smoothly, but sometimes it runs very slowly. There are some reasons:
1. Insufficient memory
2. Limited free space on harddisk
3. System infected by virus/worm/trojan or spyware
4. Printing too large file.

Then what's the solution?
You can increase your computer memory, delete some unused files on your harddisk, run defragmenter, scan for viruses and lastly convert your files to another format and try again. These are common solutions to slow printing problem.

CamStudio 2.0 - Record your desktop activity

CamStudio is an open source program you can use to record the live screen of your desktop activity (including mouse pointer movement). After finishing, you can save it to a file. You can save to either AVI or SWF format. It's a simple and free program, so you can use it without spending any money.
It can also be used to create tutorial videos.
Click here to download.

Templates for Blogger and Wordpress

If you are creating blogs and you need good templates for your blogs, you may visit
http://www.finalsense.com/services/blog_templates/ and get the free templates. There are many kinds of templates, including 3-column and 4-column that you can use. The templates are designed for Blogger.

If you are using Wordpress, visit http://www.wordpressgallery.com
It provides many beautiful templates, too.

NetObjects Fusion Essentials 7.5

NetObjects Fusion Essentials 7.5 is an easy program you can use to build a website. It is WYSIWYG, thought. It works like a Desktop Pulbishing software, like Microsoft Publisher. You can easily create your website. You can even use it to create Photo Gallery website.
Click here to download.

Video conversion for burning solution

Last night, when I was doing to burn my slide show AVI files to a blank disc to make VCD, I got a problem. It took me about 3 times repeatedly encoding and trying burning. I use Nero Burning ROM for this job, but never succeeded last night. Then I tried to lower down the speed till 8x, and still failed.

I thought I had to buy a new one to do that, but I had to finished it as soon as possible. It's already very late at night. Then, something came across my mind. I thought maybe I could try encoding with a video converter after three times failed encoding with Nero internal encoder. Then I started to use my favorite video converter. It's Koyote Free Video Converter.

I started adding files and then converted the AVI files to Mpeg1. After that, I returned to Nero to start my recording again. It also went through encoding process, but it took lesser time. And it really works this time. I successfully burnt my Mpeg1 files to a blank disc as VCD at 8x speed.

The conclusion is if you can't burn AVI files directly to your CD writer, try using conversion first and lower down the burning speed. This is also important when you have limited harddisk space. You can then delete the AVI files and keep your Mpeg1 as archive.

Recording with an old CD writer

CD writers, like any other hardware when used for a certain time, will start losing their capability of recording in high speed. I've got a SONY CD writer, which I bought a few years ago. At first it can burn VCD in high speed up to 48x (but I usually use it at 24x or 16x only). Now, the maximum speed I can burn is only 8x. I use Nero Burning ROM that bundled when I bought.

So, when you noticed that recording seems to be always failed, you can decrease the recording speed and see whether it burn at lower speed. If you can't even burn CDs at 8x or even 4x, I think you should consider buying a new one. But try once again burning data with Windows writing CD function in the Explorer. If you can't even do this, maybe you should really buy a new CD writer.

Alternative use of printer

Printers actually have another usage. Guess what! You've probably ever noticed money counting machine in banks. Well, you can use your printer to do counting jobs, of course counting paper not money. : )
When you print something in white color, for example a single letter or a dot or line, you printer will let the paper go through it. So, you just need to set number of copies on your print dialog box. Try it. But I don't suggest it for newly bought printer - better use your old printer or a printer with print head defect cause it doesn't print anything.

Kea Coloring Book 3.6

This coloring book software is purposely made for young children. They will enjoy it. Parents can accompany their kids to play with this coloring software. It has enough pictures for kids to enjoy.
Click here to download.

My favorite and my new Epson printer

Epson C110 Printer is a new fast-printing printer. I print a black and white jpg only takes about 6 seconds. I was amazed because formerly I used Epson C87 and Epson C83. To me, I still prefer C83 and C87 because it's really durable. Epson C87 also comes with C87 Plus which is a bit faster than C87.

A few years ago, I got an Epson R250 printer. I bought it and used it for not more than a year. The print head was actually fine, but it became broken when a paper jammed in the printed. I thought it could be as durable as C83. So I pull out the paper. Later, a problem happened to the moving head when it was printing, something stuck in the printer. I tried to move the head and accidentally, the print head stop and not long after that the belting inside the printer snapped-off. I tried to find this belting in local printer repair shop, but they said out of stock. I was very disappointed for touching the moving head. NEVER TOUCH THE MOVING HEAD WHEN IT WAS PRINTING OR STOPPED PRINTING FOR A WHILE.

But now, I am working with my Epson C110 and I feel quite satisfied with it, especially the speed of printing that saves me time.

Free DVD to 3GP Ripper

Acala DVD 3GP Ripper 3.0.1 is a freeware you can rely on to convert your DVD movie to 3GP format. In this way, you can play your favorite DVD movie on your mobile phone. It's also an easy to use DVD ripper.
Click here to download.

Your Cybercafe Billing Software

HandyCafe 2.1.34 se is a cybercafe billing software. It can monitor the activity of your cyber networking. It can restrict websites, connection or filter the website your client computers users visit. You can even shut down client computer from your server. What makes it more special is that it's free.

Click here to download.

Simple Page Rank

If you are interested in knowing what the pagerank of a site is, or the alexa rank, you can simply visit http://www.simplepagerank.com/ to get information about the rank.

After visiting the website, just type in the url you want to know, you'll then see: the pagerank, alexa rank, backlinks and domain age. To get detailed info, just click Check after you see the result.

Search in Your Blog or Website

Yahoo! Search, Google Search and MSN Search are three famous search engine. We all know that searching for information is a common thing besides browsing by typing URL.

If you have a blog or website, you probably want to have a search engine specially for your blog or website. You can easily put search engine for your website or blog by visiting the following website.
http://www.apollofind.com

After entering this website, just sign up and fill in your website/blog information. Then, you'll see HTML code. Copy the code and then paste in your blog or website. You'll then see your website/blog already has a search engine like those in Yahoo! or Google!

Tips on buying photo paper

If you want to print high resolution book cover, consider whether you want to print on one side only or double side. If you intend to print on one side, you just need to buy common single side photo paper. But if you want to print on both side, you need to buy "double side matte paper". This kind of paper is usually used for book cover, or for box-making purpose.

Usually Matte Paper is not glossy. So, if you want to have double sided glossy printing, you'll have to buy double side photo paper.

But if you just intend to print double-sided, but one side with glossy and another side with text only, you can just buy single side photo paper BUT make sure that the unglossy side is not smooth, because you can't print on smooth side (I mean uncoated smooth side).

Usually branded single side photo paper can't be use to print on the back side EVEN with text only!

This is because most ordinary inkjet printer ink will be smeared on the smooth back side (I've ever tried on Fuji Photo Paper with refill ink).

So, just buy a pack of photo paper and test. Nothing is better than to experience it yourself.

Open Clipart

If you want to find images or cliparts for your private use or commercial use but don't want to have any trouble with copyright, you can take photographs with your digital camera, design with software by yourself or you may use OPEN CLIPART.

Visit http://www.openclipart.org

This site provides a lot of cliparts or images you can use for any purpose without having any copyright problems. See whether you can get what you want. You can also share cliparts.

The clipart I use in this post is OPEN CLIPART.

Linux Printer Drivers site

Are you troubled with printing within Linux?
Can't find suitable driver for your printer? Don't worry. Just click the link below and you'll see linux open printing site. Then search for your printer.

http://openprinting.org/printer_list.cgi

Promoting your website or blog

If you have a website, or a blog, you'll probably want to let everyone know the existence of your website or blog. Then, you'll need to submit your website to search engines.
Here are a list of links you can use to submit to search engines.

Just click the links and type your site url and your e-mail address.
Then check your inbox for confirmation e-mail.

After that, your submission will be complete. Most of the search engines submission sites will ask you to put their links on your website.

Links to submit your website/blog:

Google http://www.google.com/addurl
Yahoo http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html
MSN http://beta.search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx
Dmoz http://www.dmoz.org/add.html

http://www.submitexpress.com/submit.html
http://www.addme.com
http://www.addpro.com
http://www.freewebsubmission.com