How To: Web-Optimize, Compress Videos Without Losing Quality (90% Reduction Guaranteed)

Few days ago, I ran into a problem trying to embed a 40-seconds video into a website.

The problem:

The short video was too large — about 80MB in size — which doesn't seem to justify the length of the video we need to upload. With that ridiculously large size, we cannot easily upload and make it publicly accessible in the website for some performance reasons (if you're a web guy, you get it).

Since video hosting services like Vimeo and YouTube were not an option at that point, we had to come up with ways on how to minify the video without compromising the quality before finally embedding it to the site. And thankfully, we found this awesome tool called Handbrake.

Optimize, Compress Video for up to 90% (Useful for Web Embeds)

Handbrake is one bad-ass video optimizing software that will surely save your day. It allows you to compress any videos of any format, thus significantly reducing the file size without losing quality. It's lightweight, free, and it just works like a charm.

Here's why everyone loves Handbrake:

• Great video format support. You can compress any types of videos like .wmv – Windows Media Video File, .avi – Audio Video Interleave File, .m4v, .mov, etc.
• It is Open Source. That means you don't have to spend a penny
• It works on Windows, Mac and Linux so everyone can enjoy.

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Using Handbrake is pretty easy. First, you have to specify the Source video file, define Output settings as well as the Destination folder, then, hit Start. It's that easy. See the demo below (click to enlarge):

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The result:

Look at that file reduction I got — from 80MB I was able to shrink it down to 7.6MB. That's 90% reduction!

Still not convinced? Download Handbrake for Windows or Handbrake for Mac and see it for yourself.

How To: Upload, Edit Files Without FTP — Use WP-Admin Access To Manage Web Files (WordPress)

Few days ago, I ran into a problem trying to access and update some of the web files inside a WordPress site.

The problem: I needed to access and update htaccess file but I only have /wp-admin/ account and there's no FTP or cPanel account given. Getting back to client and asking for FTP credential was not even an option, as he was already out during that time.

Normally, managing and editing files on a web server requires an FTP or cPanel account. Without a valid FTP or cPanel account, file management is impossible. But with WordPress, that's not the case.

How To Access Remote Web Files Without Using FTP Client

In this post, I'm going to show you a simple workaround on how to get an FTP-level type of access to your WordPress files so you can quickly manage and edit web files from your root directory using only a WP administrator account. This is rather a “dirty” trick and I discourage everyone to do this unless you've got an FTP account in hand.

Using WP-Admin Access To Upload, Edit Files Without FTP Account in WordPress

As you might already know, the real gem of WordPress comes from the thousands of ready-made plugins freely available for everyone. And here we're going to explore yet another awesome plugin called WP-FileManager.

WP-FileManager is a tiny WP plugin that gives you the ability to access and update files on your web server without an FTP account. Sounds like impossible but yes, you can use your wp-admin account to update and manage web files without FTP account.

Getting started with WP-FileManager

Just download and activate WP-FileManager from WordPress plugin repository. Once activated, you'll find a new tab called FileManager. Under this tab comes File Manager and Configuration. The plugins' default home directory is /wp-admin/ and it comes with all options disabled so you may need to go to Configuration first and set the default home directory and tick all the boxes, as shown below:



Once you've done this you can navigate back to FileManager and browse through files and folders.

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WP-FileManager works almost like cPanel's file management system; you can browse through folders and root directory files, create new file or directory and upload files. The only downside: it won't let you edit files on the fly — you've got to download the file first, edit it on your computer, then re-upload it back to the server.

You're done!

As a final note, you only need to install WP-FileManager if and only if that's the last resort and you absolutely need it. Having WP-FileManager installed on your WP site gives everyone with admin account a full access to your web files, including wp-config.php file and htaccess.

Get Notified When A Collaborator Made Some Changes On A Shared Google Spreadsheet

No matter how advance Project Management and CRM tools can get, no one can ever ditch Google Sheet.

Google Sheet is still one powerful tool that if you know how to exploit the service to your advantage, you know that it's more than just a spreadsheet-editing software.

And if you're using Google Sheet as an additional tool aside from your usual project management service, here's a nifty tip on how to enable email notification so you'll be notified in real-time whenever a collaborator is making some updates on a shared spreadsheet; no need for you to waste time waiting for hours for other collaborators to update the sheet.

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Enable Email Notification On A Shared Google Spreadsheet

Email notification for Google Sheet is actually a built-in feature, but not activated by default. You have to manually enable it to start receiving email notifications. Here's how:

• Open the spreadsheet where you want to get notified for any changes.
• Go to the Tools > Notification rules.
• In the window that popups, select when and how often you want to receive email notifications.
• When:
• “Any changes are made”
• “A user submits a form”
• How often:
• “Email - daily digest”
• “Email - right away”
• Hit Save.

You're done. Whenever someone made some changes on a shared spreadsheet, you'll be automatically alerted via email, like this:



You may also need to setup email push notification on your smartphone so that no emails will be missed.

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Google Sheet is still my go-to place when it comes to working and collaborating with clients for a specific project. During a website pre-deployment, after the QA, we have a client review phase where a client is expected to inspect and jot down all design & functionality hiccups of a website. While BaseCamp, Asana or Teamwork may be used to collect the findings, I find it a lot time-saver and efficient if I can get a consolidated view of all findings inside a single Google sheet. And now that I can setup email notification, both the client and I can save time.

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New Chrome Add-on Lets You Watch YouTube Videos While You Search, Browse — Similar to YouTube Mobile App

Last year, YouTube rolled out a massively popular update to their iOS and Android app which completely redefines every YouTuber's streaming experience. The revamped YouTube's mobile app gets a multi-tasking support which allows you to watch videos while you search and browse channels and playlists.

That was pretty useful, clever functionality which, unfortunately, YouTube's web app counterpart is currently deprived of.

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Now, if you heavily stream YouTube videos on your computer, you too can get the same multi-tasking treatment with this Chrome extension called Seek 'n Play.

Watch YouTube Videos and Search at the Same Time, Like On Your Mobile Phone (link)

Seek 'n Play is yet another useful Chrome extension that brings YouTube mobile's multi-tasking functionality to your desktop. With Seek 'n Play, you can search and browse for videos while you are watching another video, just like the mobile app.

How it works?

Every time you navigate to another video or you browse through another channels or playlists, the current playing video will be automatically positioned, fixed at the bottom of your screen so you can continue watching while you keep exploring YouTube . And that's a big user experience boost!

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Seek 'n Play is truly a great extension. It's lightweight, free, and it works great!



Download: Seek 'n Play or check out developer's website for more.

GistBox: The Best Place to Store, Organize Code Snippets and Pastes

Whether you are a seasoned coder or a newbie dabbler, you need a code snippets repository.

A code snippets repository is a place where you can keep a file of your own most-used codes so you can check back and copy the needed lines of codes without having to rebuild them from scratch. Code snippets will basically save you time when developing or administering a website as you no longer have to rewrite the codes to achieve the desired results.

For example, here's a tiny code snippet you can add in your .htaccess file to speed up your site:

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While there are already long standing, well-reputed code snippets storage sites freely available out there, there's not such an abundance of apps that can beautifully store and organize your code snippets similar to how GistBox works.

In this post, we're going to explore how GistBox can help you in becoming more productive and learn why you cannot stay away from it once you get your hands into it.

So, what is GistBox?

GistBox is another code repository service designed to make code snippet management a little less boring. GistBox uses GitHub's backend but it comes with its own advanced label and search functionality — the features which are missing in GitHub's Gist.

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GistBox was designed to be a curated, personal snippet library – like long term memory for the practicing software engineer.

Here's a few reasons why GistBox is the best:

I like Gist, but it's too limited; it lacks of important functionality like being able to organize your code snippets via tags or labels. So here allow me to point out the notable goodness of GistBox.

Color-Coded Labels. You can create labels as much as you want and assign a color for each label. GistBox Labels works like categories, so for every code snippet you add you can organize it by language, project or purpose.

Advance Search. GistBox's search functionality is surprisingly amazing. If you like how Gmail's search works, then, you'll also love GistBox. With GistBox, you can search through the entire code snippet library or through specific labels.

Collaborate with a group. Another cool feature of GistBox is it's ability for you to create groups and share useful snippets among co-workers — great if you're working with a team.

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GistBox is lightweight, free and usable. And it's a must-have to all devs!
Still not convinced? Go, check out GistBox and see it for your self.

New Chrome Extension Lets You Preview Virtually Any Files (e.g. PSD, AutoCAD) On Your Web Browser

We are a big fan of anything that makes things less of a hassle. Whether it's about extracting text from an image without using image editor or moving around large files from FTP server to your DropBox account, we constantly hunt for the best apps and methods to make the process a little less painful.

And today, we are thrilled to share with you yet another interesting Chrome extension that you might want to add in your arsenal.

Preview Almost Any Kind of File In Your Browser (e.g.PSD, Word, AutoCAD, Video, Audio, etc).

Introducing... FilePreviews.io. It's a nifty browser add-on currently available for Google Chrome designed to generate previews of almost any kind of file including, but not limited to PSD, AI, AutoCAD, Excel files, and much more. And the real cream of the crop? It works straight from your web browser; no need to launch third party apps like Photoshop, Illustrator, AutoCAD apps, etc.

When is it useful?

FilePreviews.io may not be something you use all the time, but in case you want to have a quick look of that large PSD or AutoCAD files you stumbled on the web, you can turn to this app to quickly generate snapshots of those files.

How it works?

As with any other Chrome extension, all you have to do is to install FilePreviews.io from the Chrome WebStore. Once installed, just right-click on a link and from the context menu, select “Preview from source...”. The add-on should automatically take you to a new tab displaying the file preview without ever leaving your browser. How cool is that?

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Go check out FilePreviews.io.

The Quickest Way To Remove Duplicate Tracks In Spotify Playlist

If you've been using Spotify for a long time, chances are you've come across an issue with duplicate tracks. It happens from time to time and as more and more songs you add in your playlist, so do the problems that come with it.

Dealing with duplicate files is no easy feat, much more if you're dealing with a large, collaborative playlist. Thankfully, finding and removing duplicate songs on Spotify playlist is not that difficult as what you might think. Here we're going to show you can easily declutter and deduplicate songs on your Spotify playlist in seconds.

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Find and Remove Duplicate Tracks in Your Spotify Playlists

Meet Spotify DeDuplicator, an online tool that allows you to remove all exact duplicate tracks from a selection of Spotify tracks. The tool works this simply:

1) You select all tracks in a Spotify playlist
2) Drag-and-drop them to the the textbox just above the “Deduplicate” button
3) Press Deduplicate
4) Drag-and-drop the result back to your Spotify playlist (or in a new playlist)

As seen on the GIF above, you may need to empty the entire playlist before you drag-and-drop the results back to Spotify, or else those tracks will be added as another duplicates.

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So if you start seeing tracks displayed more than once in your Spotify playlist, go check out Spotify DeDuplicator.

New Android App 'Party Player' Lets You Enqueue, Play Song Via SMS

Imagine you're chilling outside together with your friends, maybe on the veranda with beer, enjoying the night while your party playlist is humming in the background.

What if I told you there's an app that allows you or anyone to enqueue, play tracks by simply sending a text message to your phone?

Enqueue, Play Next Song By Title Through Text Message (link)

Well, that's basically the premise of this brand new app called “Party Player”, a free music app currently available for Android that allows your phone to receive and automatically play song requests through text messages. And no, it doesn't need an internet connection to work.

How it works?

The app works this simply: you or your friends will just have to send a text message "Play<space>Song Name" to your Android phone. Party Player will then automatically stop any currently playing song and look for and play the matching track found on your phone. When the song request finishes, the previously playing song will be continued.

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Party Player is surprisingly smart; if a song request returns multiple results, the sender automatically gets a reply via SMS prompting them which song they want to play.

How cool is that?!

Of course, song requests can come from different sources, including song requests coming from non-Android devices. The app also comes with a simple “Blacklist” support so you can disallow certain contacts from requesting a song, useful if you have friends with poor music taste :D

It's creator, iamcamcamiam22, teased the app on Reddit yesterday, showing how the Party Player works. Here's the creator with his demo video:





Download: Party Player [Play Store]

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Project Naptha: A Mind-Blowing Chrome Add-on that Lets You Copy, Extract Text from Any Images Online

How many times have you gone to situations when you needed to extract text embedded in an image but went helpless because no app can quickly and perfectly do just that?

Well, not probably once.

To anyone who wants to be more productive on their online gigs, you should go and check out Kevin Kwok's latest work: Project Naptha, a mind-blowing browser extension currently available in Chrome that allows you to copy text from any images straight from any websites.

And yes, it works great.

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But how was it possible?

As with any other text extraction software, Project Naptha is powered by a complex Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology which quickly identifies and builds a model of text regions, letters and words that you can extract and copy from virtually any images you encounter on the web.

One notable feature of Project Naptha is the "Erase Text" functionality which allows you remove text from any images -- useful if you want to grab images online free from captions or annotations.

Project Naptha has already making a lot of headlines today, and the media attention it gets can potentially attract tech giants like Google, Bing or Yahoo who might consider acquiring it and incorporate into their search engines.

Here's why:

Project Naptha is a clear demonstration that it's possible for search bots to decipher and index all images flooded online, similar to how search engines index the standard text-based websites. And that's music to the ear for search engine companies who might want to take a big step  forward in search. Sooner or later images we embed in our websites will be as valuable as text. And those online images' copyright violators will get the biggest Google slap.

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There's not such an abundance of OCR apps both desktop and online that works out of the box without requiring you to upload the source files for remote processing. With Project Naptha, OCR processing all takes place straight from your web browser. And that's a work of genius.

Project Naptha Firefox extension is expected to arrive in the coming months.



LINK: Project Naptha

Responsimulator: The Most Accurate, Reliable Web-Based iPhone, iPad Simulator Online

Every front-end developer knows how downright disappointing it is to get asked to fix some design hiccups in which you cannot fix as you cannot replicate them on your end.

And this is a very a common problem among web developers: your iPhone/iPad simulator says it's perfect but in real physical device, the overall look-and-feel of a website may be a bit awry, unacceptable. We don't want our clients to get back to us angry right?

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But fret not.

A web design company Flexify has this no less ordinary iPhone/iPad online simulator app that you will gladly welcome into your web dev toolbox: Responsimulator. This is not Screenfly or any other online simulators you may have used before.

Here's why:

The level of accuracy renders by this web-based iPhone/iPad simulator is so impressive that you can quickly squash every single visual bug you encounter which may not normally appear in your usual emulators. And that's great especially if you constantly do web development or QA and you don't have real iPhone or iPad to perform visual checks on your end.

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Simulators have always been the most indispensable tools among front-end web developers. These are everyone's go-to tools to ensure every single detail and element of a website is displayed well on any screens or platforms prior to site deployment. But you've got to be careful as not every simulator delivers results as promised, except of course for Responsimulator which seems to be the most web developer-friendly, accurate iPhone/iPad simulators available as yet.

The Cons:

• Only portrait mode is currently supported
• Works only on websites with RWD implementation (translation: Media Query-reliant websites)

Do you know any other mobile and tablet simulators? Buzz off in the comments.



LINK: Responsimulator