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Friday, February 28, 2014
Friday, February 28, 2014
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3 Game Capture Software Solutions Tested
Gaming is awesome: but sharing that with the world is even better. To do that, you’ll need some way of recording your antics. In today’s post, I’llgive you the best way to record from a PC, a console, and even from an iPad.
- Open Broadcaster Software: OBS is completely free, and Joel wrote a comprehensive guide on getting started with it. It’s not the most user friendly app, and it will require a hefty amount of resources – but it’s free, and the choice of PC gamers world wide.
- XSplit: For recording from a console, you’ll need a hardware device too – like the Roxio Gamecap HD Pro we reviewed. Although your device will come with some basic software, XSplit software is a professional choice allowing you to voiceover, mix in different layers of video and setup alternate scenes. It is however a premium app, which runs on a subscription model of $5/month. Compared to OBS it’s a lot more user friendly.
- Reflector ($12) creates an AirPlay target to which you can broadcast from any compatible iOS device. There’s virtually no configuration, and it works wirelessly, but it’s limited to straight recording – if you want to add a voiceover, you’ll need to do that in post-production.
My personal choice goes to XSplit. They can get away with premium pricing because no other software rivals it in terms of features or ease of use. For recording just PC games on a shoestring budget though, there’s certainly nothing wrong with OBS.
What’s your favourite game capture solution? Do you record your console gaming with a hardware device, or just upload clips using the new generation of social features? Let us know in the comments!
7 Really Free Things You Can Do On Amazon Without Spending A Single Dime
No, this is not an article about that gizmo or the book that has gone free. This is also not about grabbing goodies for cheap off Amazon.com’s digital racks. This is about diving into Amazon’s depths and coming up with useful free resources you can make use of.
Amazon.com was named after Earth’s mightiest river. It also launched with the tagline — Earth’s biggest book store. Twenty years later, it is a gigantic “warehouse” that stocks anything you can think of. Like a personal tank, maybe. Amazon doesn’t seem to be straining under the load of being the world’s largest online retailer. Everything here might be tagged with a dollar sign, but there are many alternative ways to use the resources on Amazon. Yes, they are free.
Read The Book Blog
We aim to share our passion for the written word through news, reviews, interviews, and more.
The world’s largest bookstore should have a book blog. It does, with a punchy name likeOmnivoracious. It is run by the book editors at Amazon.com. This is a town-center gathering of authors, book afficionados, and publishers who are talking everything and anything about books. Thankfully, it is not promotional. There are insights on books across all genres, there are opinions on authors and their latest warbling, author interviews in text and as podcasts, and there are humorous anecdotes as well. Here, you can share your bookshelf too.
Join The Book Club
One of the best ways to learn more about books is through book clubs. Amazon has its own book club which again invites community participation. The Amazon Book Club has a feature called the Reading Group Guides which helps you start your discussions around good books. Oprah has her own suggestions as well. You can head to the “Best Books of 2013″ and see if you missed any great reads last year. Even if you don’t buy anything, it is a wealth of information around the books which make the cut…and many gems that lie undiscovered.
Visualize With A Free Storyboard Tool
All that reading has to spark off some imaginary brainwave. Amazon Storyteller is a beta tool that helps creatives create professional looking storyboards quickly. Visualize your movie/novel ideas with the library of backgrounds, characters, and props. You don’t need to be a drawing virtuoso as the tool tool “reads” a script and selects characters, backgrounds, and shots to form storyboard panels. It is a part of Amazon Studios and free to use. The storyboarding works with movie scripts that are part of Amazon Studios in the RTF format.
Find Creative Ideas
Susan Coil’s nice video show you how you can use Amazon’s riches to come up with interesting content ideas (or ideas of any kind) for any niche. Watch the video…it is as simple as paging through a book to come up with ideas and brainstorm around them. A book’s table of contents is also useful to get a quick birds-eye view of any topic. Look into the reviews for clues about what readers want or are missing. Use the nuggets for creative ideas of your own and not as a Xerox.
Boost Your Online Visibility
Reputation too. Amazon is a social network under the surface. There may not be friend lists and status updates, but there’s a lot you can do to make your voice heard around the community. It starts with creating a public profile after you log into Amazon.com with an account. Anything you do on Amazon will be tied to this profile. The obvious way to get some online cred is through relevant and responsive reviews. It helps all the more if you can craft the review like a small blog post with helpful hints and tips. Expert online reviewers are a breed of their own and they influence many a buying decision. An interesting study in 2012 found that Amazon consumer reviews are just as good as ones from professional experts when it comes to determining quality of books.
Become a trusted Amazon Vine reviewer and see how you can get free stuff from Amazon. You can also create a So You’d Like to… guide to share your advice, experiences, and product recommendations with consumers.
Online Visibility expert Denise Wakeman has some great pointers on how to maximize your Amazon profile and boost your online visibility. So, don’t write off the value of posting good reviews!
Use As A Research Tool
Most of us have used Amazon as a free research tool without buying anything from there. Tie this to the last point on the value of Amazon consumer reviews (throw in some shopping research with YouTube, and you can have the best of both worlds). Maybe, Amazon’s Advanced Search feature doesn’t get used as much but it gives you the keyword filter for surgically precise searches. Use the advanced search across categories like books, magazines, MP3 downloads, classical music, and movies and TV.
On the other end, Amazon hosts public datasets on AWS (Amazon Web Services) which anyone can use for empirical research. The completely free datasets cover subjects from astronomy to mathematics.
Have A Laugh
They said shopping is therapeutic. No seriously. Amazon is rolling off at the top with humor. Put your funny bone to the test with these funny Amazon shopping reviews we put together in an earlier article. The above screenshot is taken from the reviews on Haribo Classic Sugar Free Gummy Bears.
Amazon continues to flow. Creating vicarious wishlists could be a favorite free feature for many armchair shoppers. Wishlists are worthwhile when you create them for gift-giving. Then, there are the free Kindle books and the Amazon App Store with free apps for the day (learn how toinstall and use the Amazon Appstore app on Android).
There are little nooks and crannies around Amazon where you can do useful things without opening your wallet. Apart from shopping, how do you use Amazon? Give us your best tips and tricks.
Cool Websites & Tools – Text A Love Message, Be Looked After, & Open Source Bookmarking
SofaPlay – is a streaming app for Mac. Just drag any media file onto SofaPlay and it will appear instantly on the big screen in front of you. SofaPlay streams your media files wirelessly to your TV. Your Mac is completely controlling and managing your TV.
Romantimatic – with the amazing technology we have in our pockets, we can fly through the day without remembering to send a simple “I love you” to the most important person in our lives. Romantimatic for iOS can help with this.
Tables Generator – Entering tables in LaTeX documents can be burdensome because of the necessary formatting directives. For this purpose Tables Generator will allow you to generate LaTeX code you can just copy & paste into your document’s source.
Kitestring – is a service which looks after you. Walking solo at night can be unsafe, but if you have to go out, let them know when you will arrive at your destination. Text them when you are there. If you don’t reply, your emergency contacts will be texted.
Bookie – is an open source bookmarking application. Host it yourself or feel free to signup for the hosted version. Features include open source, imports from Delicious.com and Google Bookmarks. A Google Chrome extension and a bookmarklet is also provided.
Retailers continue to liquidate last year’s goods — this week, we’ve got almost $200 off the iPhone 5c and even larger savings on a semi-rugged Samsung Galaxy S4. Also featured are a super cheap SSD, RAM and a Surface Pro, among other wallet-friendly options.
Tablet and Smartphone Users
Looking for high end smartphones at cut-rate prices? This week we’ve got a Samsung Galaxy S4 Active (water resistant) and an iPhone 5c at a bargain!
16GB Virgin Mobile Apple iPhone 5C
![2014 02 26 20h32 39 Cheap iPhone 5c, Samsung Galaxy S4 Active and More [Tech Deals]](http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/2014-02-26_20h32_39.png "Cheap iPhone 5c, Samsung Galaxy S4 Active and More [Tech Deals] image")
- Price: $359.99; compare to $549.99 brand new
- Retailer: Virgin Mobile – Buy it Now!
This deal remains the best I’ve ever seen on the iPhone 5c. Unfortunately, it comes locked to Virgin Mobile. Virgin Mobile, in my opinion, ranks among the best MVNOs (what’s an MVNO?) offering prepaid service on the Sprint network.
Their monthly plans begin at $35 per month, offering 300 minutes of talk time and unlimited data (throttled after 2.5GB) and messaging. It also includes 4G, wherever the Sprint network offers 4G. Check your coverage, here.
If you do take the plunge, be sure to check out the best apps for the iPhone.
Samsung Galaxy S4 Active 16GB (Refurbished and Unlocked)
![samsung galaxy s4 active Cheap iPhone 5c, Samsung Galaxy S4 Active and More [Tech Deals]](http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/samsung-galaxy-s4-active.png "Cheap iPhone 5c, Samsung Galaxy S4 Active and More [Tech Deals] image")
- Price: $389.99; compare to $699.99 MSRP
- Retailer: eBay — Buy it Now
The Samsung Galaxy S4 Active is a semi-ruggedized phone, offering water resistance, a quad core Snapdragon 600, 2GB of RAM and LTE connectivity. The phone comes unlocked so you can add service to it using an MVNO (what’s an MVNO?) and save a huge amount on your monthly cellular bill. According to the seller, these are manufacturer refurbished units, offering a “Samsung warranty” – that could mean a full year, but I have my suspicions about that. Refurbished warranties typically hover between 60 and 90 days.
Also see:
- Apple iPad 2 16GB from $259 via Walmart
Laptop Users
Ever want to try out the Surface Pro but couldn’t stand the price? Well now it’s finally affordable!
Microsoft Surface Pro 64GB (Refurbished)
![surface pro Cheap iPhone 5c, Samsung Galaxy S4 Active and More [Tech Deals]](http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/surface-pro.png "Cheap iPhone 5c, Samsung Galaxy S4 Active and More [Tech Deals] image")
- Price: $479.99; compare to $799.99 MSRP
- Retailer: Microsoft — Buy it Now
The original Surface Pro offers very good specs and build quality. It includes a 10.6-inch screen with 1920×1080 resolution, 4GB of RAM and a low voltage variant on the Ivy Bridge (2012) Core i5 CPU. As far as hybrid laptop-tablets go, the Surface remains one of the best. While it was initially overpriced when it entered the market, the Surface Pro now offers a very good price for the hardware. It also includes a one-year warranty, despite it being a refurbished model.
On the downside, the nearly half of the 64GB hard drive is consumed by Windows 8, which doesn’t leave much for software. Fortunately there’s a similarly discounted 128GB model, for $549.99, found at the same link above.
System Builders
This week, we’ve got great deals on a cheap SSD boot drive and 8GB of RAM!
8GB Patriot Viper Xtreme (2x4GB Stick)
![patriot vipre xtreme Cheap iPhone 5c, Samsung Galaxy S4 Active and More [Tech Deals]](http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/patriot-vipre-xtreme.png "Cheap iPhone 5c, Samsung Galaxy S4 Active and More [Tech Deals] image")
- Price: $54.99 after $30 MIR; compare to $84.99
- Retailer: Tiger Direct — Buy it Now
- Rebate: Download
It’s hard finding good deals on RAM nowadays. The timings on this particular brand are CAS10 – not particularly great, but unless your system build incorporates an APU (what’s an APU?) RAM timings don’t make that large a difference for most kinds of operation.
Keep in mind that rebates require that you process paperwork. Download the rebate form and fill it out as soon as possible. There are a few tricks to getting rebates properly paid.
SanDisk 64GB SSD
![sandisk Cheap iPhone 5c, Samsung Galaxy S4 Active and More [Tech Deals]](http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/sandisk.png "Cheap iPhone 5c, Samsung Galaxy S4 Active and More [Tech Deals] image")
- Price: $54.99; compare to 89.99 MSRP
- Retailer: Newegg – Buy it Now
Recently a lot of good deals on solid state drives popped up (how do SSDs work?). Finding a really low price isn’t all that easy. While you can get a 120GB SSD for about $20-30 more, if you only need a small amount of storage (for a boot drive), these well-priced SanDisk drives offer the best value. Over a traditional hard disk drive, an SSD delivers astounding performance and can make many slower machines much snappier.
However, you will want to optimize your system for SSDs. And for many Windows users, you will want to slim your installation size down.
Also see:
- AMD FX-8320 8-Core AM3+ CPU for $149.99 via Tiger Direct
- Kingston SSDNow V300 120GB SSD for $65.99 via Newegg
- Samsung 840 EVO 250GB for $144.99 via NCIX (this deal is HOT!)
Conclusion
The iPhone 5c from Virgin Mobile is a really killer deal for anyone looking for an unlocked smartphone. I also love the deals on the Surface Pro and the Samsung Galaxy S4 — although they come refurbished, they both include (supposedly) a year-long warranty, which is as good as new.
That’s it for this week! Check back in next week for the same low prices.
Cook Like an Award Winning Chef With Free App Look&Cook
Would you like to impress your guests with delicious meals, but lack fancy ingredients and clever ideas? Try the free cooking app Look&Cook. It gives you step-by-step instructions to create a formidable menu.
With recipes from one of Israel’s best-known celebrity chefs, Meir Adoni (who was oncereviewed by none other than the New York Times, Look&Cook (available on the App Store,Amazon Fire, and very soon, Google Play) is a cooking app that takes you well-beyond the never-ending list of community-posted recipes you find on other cooking apps and websites.
As CEO Oran says: “When someone decides to cook a recipe from our app, we want him or her to get it right and delicious 100% of the time.”
What are the Recipes Like?
Given the quality of instructions given, none of the 51 recipes within the app are particularly testing, but many will require a little more of your concentration, so may be best reserved for a special occasions. The recipes are split into eight categories: Everyday, Breakfast, With The Guys, Barbecue, Picnic, Romantic, Dinner Party and Vegan Pleasures.
Each recipe is accompanied by step-by-step high resolution photographs, which make up some of the best cooking photography I’ve ever seen. Occasional video and audio instructions are also thrown in to help with the more complex steps.
Although I’d like to see more choice, it seems like all the bases have been covered and the developers will continue to add more recipes on top of what’s currently there. A few examples of meals you can rustle up now include:
- Ribeye Steak with Eggs and Creamed Spinach
- Roasted Butternut Squash, Baby Carrots and Black Quinoa
- Gnocci with Roasted Tomatoes and Artichoke Hearts
- Chocolate Truffles
- Green Papaya and Preserved Tuna Salad
It must be said, this app has been featured before on MakeUseOf in our 2013 article on top cooking apps, but there are a few features I’d like to highlight that make this app stand out from others that’re available.
Two Ways of Viewing Recipes
Once you get past the enticing ‘intro’ images to the dish, you’ll find a ‘one page overview’ of the recipe, so you can quickly see the steps that are involved, and the precise measures of ingredients needed. This is pretty much all you’ll get in most off-the-shelf cook-books, but continue to slide through the recipe and each step from the overview is explained in much more detail (including video content).
This lets you choose the standard of guidance you personally need for each recipe.
Image Collages For More Complex Steps
You know those more complex steps that’ll usually have you running back and forth from the recipe book every 30-seconds to check you’re following along correctly? Look&Cook has tackled this problem well by providing clear, explanatory image collages.
Video Steps
Too many times when following a recipe, you’re just not sure whether your whipped cream has reached the right consistency, or if the bread you’re cooking is supposed to look like that. Yet, with videos included in the app at carefully selected stages in each of the recipes, you’ll know exactly what you’re looking for when it’s your turn to cook.
Enlarged Text For Easy Reading
When you’re knuckling down to cook a recipe, simply tap on the instructional text, and the image will shrink, while the text expands, so you can more easily read insturctions without needing to squash your nose against the screen. Swipe the screen to go to the next step.
A Handy In-Built Timer
When you reach a step that requires you to cook something for a certain amount of time, the app has an in-built timer, just in case you fall asleep, or get carried away watching Game of Thrones, while your meal turns to ash. You’ll see the relevant cooking times appear as a button within the instructions, which once pressed allows you to set a timer to alert you of when to check on the food and when to move onto the next step.
An In-Built Online Store
For some of the recipes, kitchen gadgets can help make the desired results that little bit easier to achieve. If you scroll to the end of the recipe (or click the Shop button in the top-right corner of the app), you’ll see a few recommended accessories which you can purchase from Amazon.com (it’s not immediately obvious how to change this setting to an international Amazon store, though).
Conclusion
Being someone who loves to cook, but is often stuck for inspiring ideas of what to actually serve on a plate, this app has been a godsend, enabling me to put together dishes that I would never have thought of myself (Merguez Sausage and Swiss Chard ShakShuka anyone?).
Although I would love to see more choice with regard to the recipes, it’s still taught me plenty of neat little tricks in the kitchen that I continue to use outside of the app. And with such beautiful imagery and ease of use, it’s definitely the first cooking app on my iPad I reach for in times of culinary need.
Although some users may miss certain features, such as adding your own recipes, or creating your own shopping list (check out Evernote’s very own Food app, all-singing recipe manager Paprika or Epicurious’ recipe and shopping list manager for more feature rich options), there’s no doubt that this is one of the most visually appealing cooking apps on the market, and sticks to what it set out to do: to enable you to cook proven, stunning plates of food each and every time.
To learn more about the app, head to the Kinetic Art website.
Download: Look&Cook for iOS / Kindle Fire (Free)
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