One of my biggest problems with WordPress is with uploading images. I try to keep all images a max of 640 px wide, but then link the images to the original size so you can click and see the full image with Fancybox. The only problem is, by default, WordPress sets large images to 1024 px width, then medium images are a tiny 300 px width. And if you go to change the image size in the default WordPress photo uploader, you have to choose a size percentage. Not an ideal situation, and it was frustrating enough that I’d started resizing images in Photoshop Elements before uploading them.
Turns out, you can change the default image sizes in WordPress, without hacking PHP code. Tucked away in the settings menu on your WordPress dashboard, you’ll find a Media tab. Here, you can set your favorite sizes for large and small images, thumbnails, and media embeds like YouTube videos. Enter the max height and width you want to use, and WordPress will scale your images proportionally to fit in either or both of these maximums.
Now, next time you upload a picture into a post, you’ll have your new image settings. Getting the size of image you need is now only a click away. And, hey, if those new sizes don’t work for you, you can always change them again.
Now we just need drag and drop image uploading built into WordPress core…
Have you ever changed a file, and then seconds later realized that you still need the information in the original document? Or have you ever wished you could restore the last good version of a file that’s been corrupted? If your file was saved in Dropbox and the change happened in the past month, chances are you can still get the original file. Here’s how to restore any file, or an older version of a file, in your Dropbox account.
Time Travel, Today
With most of our data today stored on computers, the chances of losing something important is, unfortunately, very high. Dropbox is great for keeping your files synced between your computers and saved securely online, which makes it much less likely you’ll lose a file. But, what if you changed a file on any of your computers, and then realized you needed something from the older version? Or what if a file was corrupted on one computer? Odds are, by the time you realize the problem, it’ll have already been synced between your computers.
That’s where Dropbox Previous Versions comes in. From your Dropbox.com account dashboard, you can browse through your files and see everything saved in your Dropbox. You make a variety of changes to files right from the webapp, including restoring previous versions of your file. Turns out, Dropbox keeps the changes for all of your files saved for 30 days, even on free accounts. To get to the older versions, hover over the file you need to restore and click the blue arrow that will appear. Now, select Previous versions from the menu.
Select Previous Versions from the file menu in the Dropbox webapp
You can also quickly access the Dropbox Previous Versions of a file right from Explorer or Finder in your computer’s Dropbox folder. Simply browse to the file you need to restore an older version of, right-click the file, then select Dropbox > View Previous Versions. Note that this only works on individual files, not folders; if you need to restore a file that’s missing from a folder, keep reading.
Either way, you’ll see the Dropbox Version History for that file open in your browser. You’ll be able to see every time that file has been changed in the past month, who changed it, and the size and time differences between the files. Click the magnifying glass icon to view the file, and if you want to restore an older version, select its bullet and click Restore on the bottom. Alternately, if you want to keep the current version and the older version, you could open the preview of the older version, then re-upload it to Dropbox with a different file name.
30 days of restore not enough for you? Dropbox offers unlimited undo history with its Packrat upgrade option as well. If you have a premium Dropbox account, you can add Packrat for an additional $39/year. Once this is activated, Dropbox will save all previous versions of all of your files, forever. Do note that this is not retroactive; you can’t add it today to get access to previous versions of files you changed 2 months ago. But, once it’s enabled, you won’t have to worry about deleting files at all.
Restore Deleted Files
You may notice that this only lets you access files you’ve changed, but doesn’t help if you’ve deleted the file or, worse yet, deleted a whole folder of important files. Don’t worry; Dropbox still has you covered. Just login to the Dropbox site again, and click the Show deleted files on the top of your online file explorer.
You’ll now see grey icons for the files and folders that you’ve deleted, either within the last month for most accounts or ever if you have the Packrat upgrade. You can browse through the folders and view files as normal, and if you need to restore the data, just open the file or folder’s menu and select Restore folder. Or, if you’re certain you never want the file again, you can permanently delete the data as well.
With these features, Dropbox is not just a great way to keep your files synced between your devices and the cloud, but it’s also a great way to protect yourself from, well, your own self. I’ve accidentally saved numerous documents on top of the old file instead of renaming the new file, only to realize days later when it’s time to submit the original essay. Both the built-in Windows Previous Versions tool and Dropbox’s Previous Versions have saved me so many times, that thankfully this has never been an actual problem. It’s always good to know you can go back and undo changes you’ve made to a file or undelete a deleted file if you need. With Dropbox, you can always know your data is saved online … including the changes you’ve made.
If you've used Windows PCs for any length of time, you're almost guaranteed to have had problems with application incompatibilities and messy uninstalls. Over time, your computer can get increasingly junked up with fragments of programs you've uninstalled. Then, if you have multiple computers or, say, use a home computer and a work machine, there's no way to have all of your programs synced between your computers. You'll have to install and setup all of your programs on each of your computers individually. Even in 2011, we're still tied down with '90's limitations on our computers.
This problem is only extrapolated in enterprise settings. Managing applications installed on hundreds or thousands of computers can be terribly difficult. Then, keeping each employee's files and settings on their machine even if they get a new computer, and making sure everything stays cost effective, all together makes for a complex situation. That's where Microsoft's Application Virtualization, App-V, comes in. It lets you created virtualized, self-contained copies of programs that can be streamed from the server and run on client machines without being installed. Everything work the same, no matter what computer you're on. This is what I hope the future of computing looks like, and based on rumors, Windows 8 may include similar technology for standard users, but for now, this can be a reality in the enterprise.
Several months back, I was excited to discover Elements+, a great addon for Adobe Photoshop Elements that brings many missing features to the otherwise excellent photo editing app. It’s become part of my standard PSE workflow, letting me unlock layers in folders and get more power out of Elements.
The developer behind Elements+ is back with a new tool: Script Arsenal. This new set of scripts is designed for standard Photoshop, and runs on Photoshop CS3+ for Windows and OS X. Script Arsenal contains over 100 scripts that can speed up your Photoshop workflow and give you easy access to features that make editing images a snap. I haven’t been able to try out Script Arsenal, since I do not have a copy of full Photoshop, but was impressed at the detailed descriptions of all of included functions. You can use it to quickly close all other photos, add torn edges or a page curl to your images, open photos from a folder based on a set of rules, and more.
Best of all, Script Arsenal is reasonably priced at $12 a copy, so it’s a cheap way to make Photoshop easier to use. Check out the documentation for more info, then download the trial and see if Script Arsenal is the tool for you. If you do purchase and use it, please let us know your experiences!
Editor's Note: Following is our first guest post, written by Patrick Bisch, a blogger that reached out to me a couple of weeks ago about writing a guest post for Techinch. He did a great job explaining the craze of location-based social networks, a trend I've never gotten into. I keep my Facebook profile quite private, and seldom share location info - let alone use Foursquare or the rest. Should you, though? Keep reading to see what Bisch says.
I really want to hire a private investigator - just not for the typical reason people hire private investigators. I want to hire one to ask, "How hard is your job?". I mean really... do private investigators need to exist in today's world? We now willingly offer up what used to be considered private information with a few taps on a phone.
The Private Investigator
Picture yourself as a private investigator in the early 1990's. Now think about the routine you would have to endure just to gather information about your target. There are no social networking sites. No Google to search your way to your victim's personal life. If you have to find out where they went out to dinner last night, how would you go about doing so? I hope you're willing to spend a few hours waiting outside their house until they jump in their car and rush to meet their reservation. Want to know who they met at the restaurant and their relationship? That will cost you another few hours in your car. I hope you had time to pick up some Chinese to go - this might take a while.
Okay... so what if I'm letting typical Hollywood stake-out movies distort reality to prove a point? My point being that gathering this type of information used to take a lot of time and patience. But with social check-in services it's gotten a whole lot easier. So as you sit in your car waiting for your target to finish his meal, you think to yourself, "I hope there's an easier way to do this in the future".
The Check-In Services
Now fast forward to the Internet-age of social check-in services such as Foursquare and Gowalla. These websites must be a private investigator's dream. It's becoming overwhelming with new check-in services popping up so frequently and detailing our every move. I'm not even considering Facebook profiles whose owners haven't touched the privacy settings or people tweeting information that shouldn't be posted online. Those websites are gold mine for private investigators and lawyers, but I'm strictly talking about these new age check-in services.
[caption id="attachment_2997" align="aligncenter" width="641" caption="Screenshots of the Foursquare iPhone app"][/caption]
Arguably the biggest name in location-based check-in services is Foursquare, a mobile application that allows users to "check-in" to physical locations such as restaurants, recreation centers, or literally any place in the world. In the case of Foursquare, the app uses your phone's GPS to determine where you are and displays a list of known places around you. When you check into these places your location is then broadcast to your friends on Foursquare or anyone you choose to share it with.
Check-in services have been popping up left and right ever since Foursquare debuted its service in mid-2009. It seems you can check-in to almost any activity that a human being is capable of now, whether it's eating at a favorite restaurant or chatting about a celebrity. I pulled together a list of check-in services and couldn't believe how many there were. Behold, the new world of check-in services:
[caption id="attachment_2995" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="A list of social check-in services"][/caption]
So, there's a lot of them. These are just a handful of services I'm familiar with, but I'm sure I missed a few. Undoubtedly you've heard of Foursquare (if not, I hope you have by now) or Gowalla, but some of them are a little less popular. For example, let's take a look at Meebo, the online chat service that integrates several IM services into . Recently Meebo rolled out a check-in service for its users that allows you to check-in to websites. Let me repeat that. You check-in to websites. Dear Meebo, I present to you the Most Over-the-Top Check-In Service Award. Congratulations. Who needs packet sniffing or zombie cookies anymore? Just use Meebo to find out where your victim is going online! Honestly, when are we going to ask ourselves, "When is enough, enough?".
The Proposal
Yes, I'm guilty. I use a fair amount of these check-in services myself, and always feel the need to check-in to TV shows, places, restaurants, and more. It feels like if we don't check-in then there is less value in the activity itself. Checking-in to a restaurant or TV show seems to bring a greater sense of importance instead of just doing the activity alone. It's as if your visit to your favorite restaurant would be rendered meaningless if you don't check-in and let all your friends know.
So here's my proposal: let's not let check-in services define our social activities. Let's do these activities for the sake of filling our stomachs or learning something new or - hey, even just browsing the Internet - without having to check-in. You don't have to check-in somewhere just to make that experience more meaningful. Plus, using these services less may also remind you of that long-lost sense of privacy you give up every time you tap Check-in.
I also want to add that I'm not encouraging people to start removing the Foursquare app from their phone or disabling their Facebook Places app. Like I said before, I'm a big check-in user myself. Recently I've thought about how much information these apps are exposing to others. The information itself is harmless. It's the person on the other end that knows where you are that might not be. So next time you're out at a restaurant or watching your favorite TV show, think about this proposal before you check-in.
So what do you think? I think I'm still doing the right things staying off of Foursquare et al., and hey, Facebook and Twitter are too much to keep up with on their own. What do you think? Do you use social check-in services, and why? We'd love to see everyone's opinion on it!
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This guest post was written by myself, Patrick Bisch. I reside in the great city of Chicago, Illinois and started my own technology blog back in mid-2010. If you liked this post or want to lash out in a fit of rage, you can find more of my writings and ways to contact me at pinglio. If you can contain your rage in under 140 characters you can follow me on Twitter, too.
The newest app to help you keep up with articles you'd like to read, Readability started out as a bookmarklet to clean up articles online. It's grown up now, with a full-blown HTML5 mobile app so you can read offline from your browser.
Evernote, one of the best cross-platform note taking apps, has just unveiled their newly redesigned webapp. While there are Evernote apps for Windows, OS X, iOS, Android, and more, the webapp is the easiest way to edit your notes from any computer. Until now, the Evernote webapp has been the service's weakest link. It was rather difficult to use, and the design quality was much lower than their desktop and mobile apps.
[caption id="attachment_2987" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="The newly redesigned Evernote webapp"][/caption]Not anymore. Evernote unveiled a new design for their webapp today that makes it almost as powerful as the desktop app. It looks like the desktop app, shows thumbnails of your notes in the middle and lets you read them in the right column. Edit notes with one click, without having to go to a new window. Best of all, edits auto-save as you type, so you'll never lose the data you've entered. And, you can share notes right from the webapp with others with a link or Facebook integration. It just might be the most full-featured online notes app.
Now, of all things, I've personally have been switching to more plain-text note apps like SimpleNote, mainly because the Evernote Windows app is still rather pokey, even after tweaking it to speed it up a bit. Hopefully they'll now focus on improving the desktop apps again, too! For now, though, the Evernote webapp is almost nice enough to use on its own, sans desktop apps. With the Chrome Web Clipper for Evernote, it's a great way to remember everything you come across online.
My review of Automattic's new VaultPress WordPress backup service is now published on Web.AppStorm. Short version: it's the best backup service I've touched, period.
Techinch.com is now backed up with VaultPress, and it's so much better than other WordPress backup solutions it's not even funny. Now with Jetpack bringing all the other Automattic addons to WordPress, and Akismet keeping spam out of our comments (including the very odd comment spam we get daily advertising Bing and the Zune...), we're all set!
Microsoft may have killed off the fabled Courier Tablet, but if two enterprising developers have their way, it may live again ... as an iPad app! 2 Boeing engineers are on a quest to redesign the Courier interface on the iPad with an app called Taposé, and you can pledge $10 or more from now until May 21st to help make sure the project gets developed.
The Courier Tablet was a Microsoft Research project designed to make a dual-screen tablet where you could browse the web, email, and more on the left screen and then manage your notes and add content on the right screen. It was one of the first Microsoft products in a while to make even Apple fans excited. Or at least it was going to be. Unfortunately, Microsoft killed off the project, so Courier as we knew it will never see the light of day.
That's where the Taposé Project comes in. It'll be an app that will let you gather info from a left pane, and save it in a notebook on the right. The developers plan to let you share notebooks, so presumably there will be a Taposé webapp as well. Either way, it'll be exciting to see what they cook up! As a PC and iPad user, it'll be very interesting to see if Microsoft does end up making a Courier-style tablet in the future, but until then, this might be the killer productivity app we've been waiting for.
BraveNewCode is one of our favorite WordPress developers, and their WPtouch 2 Pro plugin it what powers the awesome mobile and iPad versions of Techinch. One of their other, less well-known plugins is the equally awesome WordTwit. This simple plugin lets you automatically publish your new posts on Twitter without setting up a third-party service. I've featured it before in an article about Moving Your Tumblr Blog to WordPress, since Tumblr automatically tweets new posts by default and WordTwit gives you that same feature.
WordTwit just got a bit more awesome today with the release of the new WordTwit 2.6. This new version lets you configure your site as a custom Twitter application! This means, when you publish a new post, it'll be tweeted immediately, listing your site as the app it was tweeted from. This is great for branding, and plus, for anyone who loves to tweak everything they touch, it's a fun way to customize your site's tweets.
[caption id="attachment_2956" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="And.... it works!"][/caption]To enable this, you'll need to register your site as a new Twitter application at http://dev.twitter.com/apps. Then, update WordTwit on your site, and enter your OAuth unique codes from Twitter. Finally, activate it with your account, and your site will now automatically tweet your new posts and let the world know they were sent from your site!
[caption id="attachment_2954" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="Can Techinch access my personal Twitter account? Sure!"][/caption]For more info about the new features in WordTwit 2.6 and setting up the Twitter custom app feature, check out BraveNewCode's blog post about it from today. There's a new pro version of WordTwit that BraveNewCode will be releasing in the near future, so it's especially neat they went to the trouble to add the custom app feature to their free plugin. Thanks, BraveNewCode!
Turns out, you can change the default image sizes in WordPress, without hacking PHP code. Tucked away in the settings menu on your WordPress dashboard, you’ll find a Media tab. Here, you can set your favorite sizes for large and small images, thumbnails, and media embeds like YouTube videos. Enter the max height and width you want to use, and WordPress will scale your images proportionally to fit in either or both of these maximums.
