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June 2014

My Music Recognition identifies songs playing on your computer

Have you ever played a video on YouTube in which a song was used that you liked a lot but could not identify because the video itself, description or title did not reveal its title or artist?

Or maybe you listen to Internet Radio regularly and want to identify music that is playing from time to time. Or, you have an mp3 file that is not named properly that you want to identify.

Get 3GB of extra OneDrive space by enabling Camera backup

Microsoft announced a storage upgrade for all SkyDrive OneDrive customers recently. Free customers who signed up recently for the service get a bump to 15 Gigabyte from the previous 7 Gigabyte, while paying customers one to 1 Terabyte of storage space in the cloud.

While that is still no where near the 25 Gigabyte that old SkyDrive users received back in the days when OneDrive was still named SkyDrive, it is a step in the right direction.

Greenhouse for Chrome reveals a politician’s campaign contributions

When members of Congress voice their opinion and speak for or against something, it is not always clear why they are doing so. While some may believe in what they are doing, others may be influenced by other factors such as campaign funding.

You can look up campaign contribution data for members of Congress, but only if you know where to look for it. If you do not, you may still find information related to this by searching on the Internet, but it takes time to do so.

Ocenaudio is a an easy to use Audacity audio editor alternative

When it comes to free cross-platform audio editors, Audacity is usually then one that is being mentioned or recommended. While the editor deserves to be mentioned first, thanks to its immense feature set and functionality, it may be overkill for a lot of users who just want to edit audio files quickly.

Ocenaudio may be an alternative for those users. It is also free and cross-platform but not as complex as Audacity is in many regards.

How to display previously read notifications on Google+

If you happen to use Google+ occasionally like I do, it may not be obvious immediately how you access notifications that you have previously read on the site.

As you may know, Google+ displays notifications when you click on the notification icon in the top bar on the website. When you click on the icon, all notifications that you have not clicked on yet are displayed here, regardless of age.

Once you click on a notification, it is hidden from the listing and there is no obvious option to bring it back.

All-in-One Sidebar for Firefox review

While going through the best Firefox add-ons list here on ComTek4u I noticed that I missed to review some of them. The first add-on that caught my eye was All-in-One Sidebar for Firefox, a browser extension that improves the sidebar in the Firefox browser in several ways.

Reason enough to review it. As you may know, Firefox is one of the few modern browsers that is still supporting sidebars. While the feature is not really that advertised by Mozilla, you can display the history or bookmarks as a sidebar in the browser.

Search, save and use icons for free with Icons8

I'm not a designer and whenever I have to add an icon to a website or software that I'm creating, I'm relying on others to help me out.

One option that users have when it comes to icons that they want to use for their projects is to use icon packs. Many are freely available while some are paid or require you to attribute the icon in a specific way.

How to add animated png (apng) support to Google Chrome

Animated PNG files work in many regards just like gif files displayed on Internet sites. They offer several advantages over gif files on the other hand including support for 24-bit and 8-bit transparency which gifs do not support.

Transparency and the fact that 24-bit colors are supported are what makes animated PNG files interesting as they look good regardless of the background they are embedded on and thanks to the increased number of colors, usually better than comparable gifs.

The downside to this is that they are usually larger in size because of it.

bitCommander is a new Windows file manager with several unique features

Just as Windows Explorer the default file manager of the Windows operating system has not changed significantly in regards to functionality or interface, so have not third-party file managers.

While they provide access to an interface that is more comfortable to use thanks to customization options and two or more panes that can display files at the same time, they all look more or less the same.

How to block YouTube channels permanently

One of the most annoying features of the video portal YouTube is its recommendation feature. Whenever you open the start page on the website, you see a mix of channels you are subscribed to and recommendations based on your location in the world and the selected regional version of YouTube.

If you are not subscribed, you only get recommendations. While it may make sense to feature popular channels from a region to users, it can become annoying quickly as channels are rarely swapped out.