Paul McCartney cannot read sheet music, and nor can I. The internet has done wonders for budding bedroom musicians all over the world. Since the rise in the popularity of free guitar tablature websites, it is now possible to conduct a quick search and learn how to play some of your favourite songs without actually reading music.

For those of you still in the dark, guitar tabs offer a visual representation of a guitar’s fretboard except instead of notes and musical symbols you get numbers and letters. Each line represents a string, each number represents a fret – anything extra, like bends and slides are added with good old ASCII characters.

Simple? Well yes and no.

The only problem with guitar tabs lies in their approachability and ease of use. As the concept isn’t that deep, some important bits – like timing – are overlooked. This means that if you haven’t got the song on in the background (or a perfect memory, of course) then getting it spot-on can be frustrating.

Enter Power-Tab, a free guitar tablature editor with MIDI accompaniment. The software is aimed at both composers and average Joes looking to learn a few songs. The interface looks complicated, but if your only request from the software is to learn a song or two you’ll soon get nicely acquainted with the Play button – which is all you need.

Those of you who fancy using the software to its fullest potential will find a cornucopia of features, but it certainly helps if you’ve had a bit of experience writing music before. As you construct your tab, Power Tab Editor will transcribe your numbers and letters into actual sheet music – a very nice touch.

Tabbing music is a simple case of choosing a string and assigning a numerical number. You can use the keyboard for this, and though it may seem an arduous process the features provided in the software make for a powerful tool.

Anyone Can Play Guitar

The software does a great job of providing you with a true-sounding MIDI representation that’s perfect for helping decide rhythm and tempo. This does of course depend on the skill and determination of the person who originally tabbed the song, but if you find a few good sources (more on that later) you’ll be rocking out in no time.

Head over to the official website to download Power-Tab, the .ZIP file you need is just a little under 6MB. Once you’ve downloaded, extract and run the set-up.

Once you’ve installed and had a quick play, you’ll probably want to find a few songs to learn. The internet holds the key to a great number of guitar-related tools and you can download Power Tab (.PTB) files from a couple of good sources, though the developers are reluctant to link or provide any on their site.

One of the best sources for .PTB files (and everything else guitar-related) is Ultimate-Guitar. The Russian-hosted site has grown exponentially since 1998 and now hosts an impressive collection of normal tabs, Guitar Pro tabs and precious .PTB files.

This is the first place I go to when I want a tab, and the whole portal provides news, reviews and a regular stream of new tabs. If all else fails then there’s always 911Tabs, a search engine which crawls other tablature websites and has a section dedicated to Power Tabs.

Conclusion

If you often find yourself stuck when it comes to rhythm and timing when trying to play your favourite songs then you’ll probably find Power Tab Editor to be a welcome addition to your Windows PC. Those of you who’ve “always wanted to tab something” will find this one easy to learn with plenty of features to map out some of the most complicated solos. It probably won’t make you a better guitarist overnight, but any software that can help teach you guitar for free deserves a look-in.

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Lot of users swear by VLC as their preferred media player, but there’s plenty of other capable players out there, like the multi-functional video/audio player and converter Media Cope (which also resizes/converts photos, and creates slideshows). When it comes to resource-friendly media players, the list narrows down.

Splayer (version 3.5) is a lightweight, open-source media player that carries quite a few features underneath its simple interface, making it very user-friendly. It uses the GPU to render videos, just like the video players listed here that support GPU acceleration and pretty much leave the CPU alone to carry out other tasks.

Splayer (which stands for Shooter player) plays major video and audio formats, as well as Blu-Ray and DVDs.

Now, whether or not you’ve set it as your default player, you can easily drag-and-drop media files onto the player.

In playing an audio clip, you won’t have any visualizations as it shines with a minimal interface. To enable more options, right-click inside the player.

Let’s go over some of the player’s features (using the open movie, Big Buck Bunny).

Selecting What Files To Play

Upon downloading the player (I’m using the portable version which runs beautifully and is available here in a ~8MB .7z file, so you can unzip and extract with 7-Zip), you’ll be able to set whether you want it to become your preferred media player for audio clips, video files or both.

Playing Incomplete Files

If you want to make sure  your video file is high-definition, for example, playing incomplete files in Splayer is a no-brainer.

Setting Actions After Playback

You can choose whether your computer should go into Sleep mode, go on Standby, shut down, or log off, which can come in handy to automate things, or if you have a long movie that might make you fall asleep. To access these options, right-click on the video area, head to Playback, then select the preferred task.

Showing Statistics

You might find this useful if you’re making your own subtitles or want to look at the frame count.

You can either press Ctrl + 4 or right-click on the video, go to GUI > More Panels > Statistics.

Finding Subtitles

Speaking of subtitles, one of the unique features of Splayer is that you can automatically get subtitles for a popular title if you enable Smart Subtitle Matching (which should be checked by default).

For lesser-known films, you may not have as much luck but the player might still attempt to find subtitles.

You can also upload a subtitle file on the player’s website to expand their subtitle database.

Setting Multi-Tasking Options

Multi-taskers might like how Splayer offers an option to stay on top of other windows and also set opaque or transparent properties for the file.

To adjust the transparency or set to stay on top, hover over the top area of the video and click the following icons.

Alternatively, to set the transparency, you can press Ctrl + 5 or right-click on the video area, go to GUI and select Transparent Control. To select the Stay On Top option, press Ctrl + T or right-click, go to Pin To Front > Always.

Generating Images From The Video

Creating an image preview of the video’s contents with Splayer is really easy. You can hover over to the top bar and click on the camera icon.

Alternatively, right-click, select Capture and you’ll have four options. This screenshot will be pretty self-explanatory.

You can basically copy the current video frame (i.e. scene) as a JPG or BMP (Image), to your clipboard or automatically (Save w/o Prompt) assuming you’ve set a default folder. You can also generate a thumbnail (also in JPG or BMP format) of the video and customize how many pictures you want in all (by selecting the rows and colums) and the image width.

Here’s a sample thumbnail using the settings from above.

Recording From Webcam

You can also choose to record from your webcam and save the recording in an AVI, MKV (Matroska) or OGM (Ogg Media) file. You can also choose to save the audio as a separate WAV file. To get started, press Ctrl + V or right-click > Open > Video Capture.

Unfortunately in my testing, the player kept showing me that dreaded Not Responding message and eventually closing itself, which might be because of conflicting capture filters from my default webcam program (CyberLink YouCam). If you have better luck, feel free to let us know about the results in the comments!

There’s other helpful features such as options to rotate the video and adjust the brightness/contrast of the video.

We certainly didn’t cover all of the possible options with Splayer. If you have other tips, please enlighten us below.

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One of the issues I’ve always had with my free Yahoo email account is the fact that it’s so difficult to deal with it anywhere outside of the online Yahoo Mail system itself. There aren’t very many online email systems that will let you extract email from your Yahoo account as easily as you can get it from your Gmail account. This is because, unlike with Google Mail, a free Yahoo Mail account does not include free POP access.

Recently, I wrote a review of RSS Bandit, a very cool feed reader with the ability to pull in email feeds from Gmail accounts. It doesn’t use POP access, instead it utilizes the authenticated Atom feed that Google provides to all Gmail users. This is awesome, but once again it made me regret ever signing up for a free Yahoo account, because it’s once again left out in the cold. No matter what, I always have to go back to the online Yahoo email system to check those emails. In a Web 2.0 world, Yahoo Mail feels so disconnected from everything.

After writing the RSS Bandit article, I realized that if there’s some way I could convert my free Yahoo email account into an RSS feed, I’d have an instant connection to that free email account without the need for a POP connection. It actually didn’t take very long to discover YmailFeed, an awesome free service hosted on Google AppSpot (ironically) that lets you convert your free Yahoo email account into an RSS feed.

Setting Up Your Yahoo Email RSS Feed

The first thing you’ll need to do to set up your Yahoo Mail as an RSS feed is to visit YmailFeed, sign up for your free account, and then click on “Start the Process“.

You’re then taken to your Yahoo account sign-in page. This is a legitimate Yahoo sign-in, it’s not a scam! YmailFeed is not collecting your login information, you simply need to log into your account so that the YmailFeed system can retrieve a unique key associated with your authentication.

This is similar to when you give external applications permission to access your Facebook account. Likewise, by logging into your Yahoo account, you are “approving” that YmailFeed can access your incoming email. To hammer this home, Yahoo requires that you sign off on this request, since you’re basically opening up your email account to a third-party app that is going to convert your incoming mail into a feed format.

Once you agree, your account is active and all new, unread email is converted into a feed. You can see a preview of that feed in the left window in your YmailFeed account. You have three important links at the bottom of the next screen, which is basically the feed for your free Yahoo email account. If that URL is ever compromised and falls into the wrong hands, just click on “Regenerate the Codes” and a new set of feed URLs is provided – the old ones will be disabled.

Three types of feeds links are provided, AutoDiscovery, a standard RSS Feed and an ATOM feed. Now that I’m using RSS Bandit, which can handle AutoDiscovery, I just initiate a new feed and add the feed under my existing email group. The feed shows up under “Feed Details” just like any other regular RSS feed.

The way RSS Bandit handles it when you click on the email itself is that it opens up a direct link to Yahoo Mail within the lower content panel. Another cool way to make use of your Yahoo feed is by clicking that little “Netvibes” link on the YmailFeed page with your feed URLs. In just two clicks, you can add an awesome Yahoo mail widget to your Netvibes account.

Getting Yahoo Mail loaded into my private Netvibes dashboard is something that I haven’t been able to get working for a long time, but now with YmailFeed, it works like a charm.

If you just want to get your most recent Yahoo mail in Google Reader, simply add the RSS Feed from your YmailFeed account and you’ve instantly connected Google Reader to your Yahoo inbox. Now, how cool is that?

In fact, having your free Yahoo inbox as an RSS feed like this opens up a whole world of possibilities. You could install the GreatNews RSS Filter and use it to analyze all incoming Gmail and Yahoo email and send you alerts. Rather than setting up filters in all of your email accounts, you can process all incoming email in one place.

Can you think of other cool ways you can make use of your Yahoo email RSS feed? Share your ideas and insight in the comments section below!

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One of the issues I’ve always had with my free Yahoo email account is the fact that it’s so difficult to deal with it anywhere outside of the online Yahoo Mail system itself. There aren’t very many online email systems that will let you extract email from your Yahoo account as easily as you can get it from your Gmail account. This is because, unlike with Google Mail, a free Yahoo Mail account does not include free POP access.

Recently, I wrote a review of RSS Bandit, a very cool feed reader with the ability to pull in email feeds from Gmail accounts. It doesn’t use POP access, instead it utilizes the authenticated Atom feed that Google provides to all Gmail users. This is awesome, but once again it made me regret ever signing up for a free Yahoo account, because it’s once again left out in the cold. No matter what, I always have to go back to the online Yahoo email system to check those emails. In a Web 2.0 world, Yahoo Mail feels so disconnected from everything.

After writing the RSS Bandit article, I realized that if there’s some way I could convert my free Yahoo email account into an RSS feed, I’d have an instant connection to that free email account without the need for a POP connection. It actually didn’t take very long to discover YmailFeed, an awesome free service hosted on Google AppSpot (ironically) that lets you convert your free Yahoo email account into an RSS feed.

Setting Up Your Yahoo Email RSS Feed

The first thing you’ll need to do to set up your Yahoo Mail as an RSS feed is to visit YmailFeed, sign up for your free account, and then click on “Start the Process“.

You’re then taken to your Yahoo account sign-in page. This is a legitimate Yahoo sign-in, it’s not a scam! YmailFeed is not collecting your login information, you simply need to log into your account so that the YmailFeed system can retrieve a unique key associated with your authentication.

This is similar to when you give external applications permission to access your Facebook account. Likewise, by logging into your Yahoo account, you are “approving” that YmailFeed can access your incoming email. To hammer this home, Yahoo requires that you sign off on this request, since you’re basically opening up your email account to a third-party app that is going to convert your incoming mail into a feed format.

Once you agree, your account is active and all new, unread email is converted into a feed. You can see a preview of that feed in the left window in your YmailFeed account. You have three important links at the bottom of the next screen, which is basically the feed for your free Yahoo email account. If that URL is ever compromised and falls into the wrong hands, just click on “Regenerate the Codes” and a new set of feed URLs is provided – the old ones will be disabled.

Three types of feeds links are provided, AutoDiscovery, a standard RSS Feed and an ATOM feed. Now that I’m using RSS Bandit, which can handle AutoDiscovery, I just initiate a new feed and add the feed under my existing email group. The feed shows up under “Feed Details” just like any other regular RSS feed.

The way RSS Bandit handles it when you click on the email itself is that it opens up a direct link to Yahoo Mail within the lower content panel. Another cool way to make use of your Yahoo feed is by clicking that little “Netvibes” link on the YmailFeed page with your feed URLs. In just two clicks, you can add an awesome Yahoo mail widget to your Netvibes account.

Getting Yahoo Mail loaded into my private Netvibes dashboard is something that I haven’t been able to get working for a long time, but now with YmailFeed, it works like a charm.

If you just want to get your most recent Yahoo mail in Google Reader, simply add the RSS Feed from your YmailFeed account and you’ve instantly connected Google Reader to your Yahoo inbox. Now, how cool is that?

In fact, having your free Yahoo inbox as an RSS feed like this opens up a whole world of possibilities. You could install the GreatNews RSS Filter and use it to analyze all incoming Gmail and Yahoo email and send you alerts. Rather than setting up filters in all of your email accounts, you can process all incoming email in one place.

Can you think of other cool ways you can make use of your Yahoo email RSS feed? Share your ideas and insight in the comments section below!

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If one half of our day is spent on the browser, you can be sure that the other is spent on the mobile phone. Mobile apps are the ‘new’ web. Today, we are using them to do nearly everything; from watching out for a sunny day to taking the latest stock quotes. But how do you download the mobile apps you need?

Maybe you go to the app stores of your operator’s website or the handset manufacturer’s. Or to any of the other websites that index and keep free mobile apps for Windows, Android, Symbian, and the iPhone.

What’s missing in all of this is a search engine that can help us carry out a quick click and download job.

A search engine for mobile apps is increasingly a necessity because the whole mobile scene is splintered with different operating systems and types of devices. A search engine is just the right tool that can help us connect to mobile content, mobile downloads, and mobile apps from one search box.

So if you are in front of your browser, add the following five mobile search tools to your hunt party.

Mimvi

They know a thing or two about search because the guys behind it also ran the music search and recommendation engine SeeqPod (now inactive). The same proprietary search technology is now on Mimvi. The mobile apps search engine covers iPhone, Android, Blackberry, and web apps.

The site is still new so apps search for iPad, Windows and Nokia phones are still being worked on. Enter your keyword (e.g. ‘weather’ or ‘friends’) and you get results tagged by an icon for the right platform. Use the keyword ‘free’ or ‘freeware’ for free mobile apps. You can dive deeper by clicking on the ‘People who searched this item also searched…’ link.

Mimvi also has platform specific search pages for Apple, Android, and one for Games.

App Explorer

AppExplorer.com is a handy alternative to iTunes search. You can search for iPhone, iPad, or iPod specific apps and filter them by category, price, or user rating. You can further sort the search results by price, popularity, rating, or newest apps first. As soon as you type in your search query, you will get a dropdown with auto-suggestions. The suggested apps also have the price mentioned.

The app specific page gives out a lot of useful info on the app. A very useful feature is the price alert which lets you watch for dropping prices or special offers. You can share your favorite apps with your friends or keep the desired ones on your wish list. The appstore search engine makes it convenient if you can’t access iTunes.

UQuery

Uquery.com is a new search engine that converges on iPhone & iPod Touch applications. It is similar to the previous mobile search engine. For your search results, you can get to the right app by using the filters on the left of the page. A star rating system and recommendations (Facebook login required) help to get the better ones.

AppStoreHQ

To term AppStoreHQ as just a search engine would be wrong. It offers a lot more as it taps into the leading tech and iPhone blogs and Twitter to get the entire buzz on iPhone, iPad and Android apps. It calculates the ‘hotness’ of a particular app by tracking mentions of it on the blogosphere and Twitter. It is this carefully cultivated index of mobile apps you can search through for the download.

For iTunes, all apps in the U.S. App Store, rated by Hottest are listed on top. Each app comes with lot of details on its own page like reviews and social mentions.  The lists that are worth checking out are Hottest, and the Hottest on Twitter.

Google Search for Mobile

If you are in the U.S, you can search for iPhone and Android apps from your mobile browser using Google. The Google Search for Mobile displays special links and content at the top of the search results which point to the app’s Android Market or iPhone App Store page. The results will appear when your search relates to a mobile app and relevant, well-rated apps are found. The Google Mobile blog says that other platforms and devices will slowly be included in the search results.

Mobile app downloads are leapfrogging ahead as devices get more sophisticated. These handy mobile app search engines are just a few more tools to keep up. If you need more help, check out our mobile phone tips.

Image Credit : Geek And Poke

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