Software : How To: How to create eBooks on a Mac

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• How To: How to create eBooks on a Mac
• The 8-character bug crashing Skype everywhere and here's the fix
• Updated: 20 Windows 7 free apps for to download today
• Google Maps finally shows real-time transit info, if you live in these six places

How To: How to create eBooks on a Mac Posted: Introduction Pages is a fantastic program used to create visually appealing documents, but you might not realize how versatile it is. It can also be used to create digital books for the iBooks app, and sold on the iBooks Store. This conversion from Pages to iBooks is done via the ePub file format, which is used for digital books on Apple's iBooks app on both OS X and iOS. With Pages for OS X you can export a text document straight into ePub, and import it directly into iBooks for OS X. For those looking to self-publish, in Pages you can add Retina display-quality images, chapters, headings, custom artwork, even video clips. Pages turns it into an ePub you can share, or even sell on Apple's iBooks Store. Step 1 The text document Open your soon-to-be book's text file in Pages; in this example, we're using The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven by Alexander Wheelock Thayer from Project Gutenberg (gutenberg.org), downloaded as a text file, to turn from plain text into a media-rich, digital book. Step 2 Use the Format window It's possible to turn a text document straight into a digital ePub file using the guide in Step 8. But digital books are far more friendly if you format the text first. Choose View > Inspector > Format. Click the Paragraph Styles area to view the text styles available. Step 3 Change the title Find the book's title (or write it in full). Highlight the text and choose Title from the Paragraph Styles menu (Format bar). Styling up the title is important because Pages uses it to list the book in various areas, such as Contents. Only use this Title style once. Step 4 Add chapter headings You use Styles to identify chapters. These are then used to create the contents. Find the first chapter title and change its style to Heading. For a sub-title, change its style to Heading 2. You can also use Heading 3 and so on, but it can make the contents look cluttered. Step 5 Cover image Create a cover image by going to the start of the text and choose Insert > Page Break. Now drag an image file to the first page. Click the image, drag it so it snaps into position, then use the drag handle (bottom right) to resize it. You want it to fill up the entire page. Step 6 Create the chapter list At the start of your text (after the image) choose Insert > Table Of Contents > Document. A Generating Table Of Contents box appears. You'll see a box displaying the title and headings marked with the Styles. This appears when you click Contents in iBooks. Step 7 Adding video For the full digital feel, you can even add video clips to ePub documents. Drag a video file from the Finder into the Pages document. The video clip is converted to a iOS-compatible format when you export the file from Pages for OS X. Step 8 Export the book To create the book, Choose File > Export To > ePub. Fill out the Title and Author fields, and select a genre for the Primary category. Click Advanced Options; select Use the First Page as the Book Cover Image and click Next. Save when prompted, then click Export. Step 9 Open in iBooks Open iBooks and choose File > Add to Library. Select the ePub file and click Add. It appears like any other book in the iBooks app – click to open it. Your first page will be the cover and the Contents icon displays the contents you added using Styles. Enjoy your book!

The 8-character bug crashing Skype everywhere and here's the fix Posted: After Apple's popular iMessage platform last week, it's now Microsoft turn to experience some serious problems with its ubiquitous messaging/communication application, Skype. Anyone can cause Skype to crash by typing "http://:" without the quotes in the message. Unlike what Apple users went through last week, this one doesn't actually cause your tablet to reboot. Skype user Giperion reported it first on Skype's forums while some of us here at TechRadar experienced it first-hand with the error message "access violation at address 0153B3AC in module Skype.exe. Read of address 0000004". "Clearing chat history not helps, because when skype download chat history from server, it will crash again." Giperion added in his/her description of the issue. Will Google be next? The issue affects Skype for Windows, Android and iOS but strangely enough, not OS X. Skype has confirmed the bug and has started to filter out offending characters according to Venturebeat. Skype issued a statement a couple of hours ago saying "We are aware of a problem that was causing Skype clients to crash. Our engineering teams worked hard to resolve this issue, and have released updates for all impacted Skype platforms." To solve that issue, users only have to download and install the latest version of Skype without the need, apparently to uninstall the application. Sources: Venturebeat, Skype

Updated: 20 Windows 7 free apps for to download today Posted: Introduction Update: also see our feature on 12 free Windows 7 power-up downloads. Even though Windows 10 is out on July 29 and many Windows 7 users are expected to take Microsoft up on its free upgrade offer, there will still be plenty taking the cautious route and sticking with their existing OS. Thankfully for those staying loyal to Windows 7 there is plenty of free software that allows your PC to continue to hit the heights. Whether it's editing your latest set of photos from a trip abroad, optimising the performance of your PC or simply surfing the web, there are so many free offerings out there. We've managed to whittle this mountain of software down to the best 20 that will truly take your PC to the next level. So what are they? Read on, and find out. GIMP The Paint application got a much needed improvement in Windows 7, but it doesn't cater to the needs of professionals and by no stretch of the imagination can it be considered an Adobe Photoshop replacement. GIMP, a diamond of freebies, is simply remarkable in terms of quality and quantity, with an array of options. From 3D perspective tools to eye-popping render effects, GIMP impresses throughout. (For a less professional, more basic and easy to use image editor, Paint.Net is a good alternative). VLC Media Player VLC Media Player is not about the cool menu colours or the glow of the play button seen in its rivals. The developers of this fantastic piece of software have focused on the core aspects of a media player, and it succeeds by being able to play virtually any video and audio format with impressive quality. One of the best features of VLC Media Player is the ability to increase the volume of any video above the level that is usually available in other media players. If you've ever downloaded a video that you can't hear at all then this feature will be incredibly useful for you. All in all the great ease of use makes this media player a must-have. Handbrake Converting video from one format to another is child's play with Handbrake, which accepts practically any format as a source. Handbrake also includes chapter selection, basic subtitle support and audio embedding. With tree diagrams and tabs in the interface, Handbrake is a pleasure to use. Firefox The browser war is pretty fierce and everybody has their favourite browser. However, the star of open source development is undoubtedly Mozilla Firefox. Does your browser look dull? Then download one of the many themes from the Mozilla website. You can also increase functionality and productivity with add-ons such as Firegestures. Of course there are plenty of other choices when it comes to browsers for Windows 7 including the pre-installed Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Opera, and Torch. Picasa Created by Google, Picasa gathers and organises all your photos to make them easily accessible. Adjusting and fixing your photos, posting them online or viewing a timeline are all functions which are just a few clicks away, and amateurs will appreciate the simple yet very effective layout in Picasa. Included with Picasa is the excellent Picasa Photo Viewer to preview pictures in Windows Explorer folders, and the fact that it links in with Google+ to store your photos online as well as on your PC makes this an incredibly useful tool. Fences Windows 7 might offer a brand new taskbar, but it doesn't do much to improve upon the main desktop itself. Fences is a great way to make your desktop organised, by arranging and sorting icons into various 'fences' or labelled shaded areas in a well-presented manner. Fences makes life a lot easier. Any Windows 7 PC users who own an Apple or Android smartphone will immediately be enamoured to this program as it makes your PC look like a huge smartphone thanks to the fenced off areas, and this means a far more intuitive experience all round. CCleaner CCleaner works hard to completely banish clutter and unwanted files yet it will always ask your permission before doing so. Whether it is dealing with temporary internet files, cookies or redundant files, CCleaner is more than a match and will have you wondering what it was you did before you installed this program. There is even an added uninstall feature to remove annoying programs that refuse to leave your computer and all this means that CCleaner is strongly recommended. EnhanceMySe7en From cleaning up registry problems to detecting system clutter, EnhanceMySe7en notifies you about improvements that could be made on your computer. However, the supreme aspect of this program lies in the insane amount of data and tools provided, including hard drive monitors that measure 'Work Time' and 'Temperature' and helpful options such as 'Time to wait when a program hangs'. Adobe Reader Adobe Reader might be an unnecessarily larger download than its rivals, but it manages to keep a consistent and steady footprint in terms of resources (unlike Foxit PDF Reader that has a constantly increasing footprint) and with a browser plug-in included, it's a good idea to stick to the software provided by the creators of the PDF format themselves. There are various programs hosted online that allow you to edit PDFs within emails but Adobe's offering remains one of the best applications out there, and with constant updates it will never become outdated or insecure. Notepad++ Unlike Paint, Windows 7 makes absolutely no improvement to the Notepad application. Fortunately, the freebie, Notepad++, expands on the functionality of the default notepad by including tabbed windows. It's a programmer's dream, with support for various programming languages. One of the best things about Notepad++ is that updates are continually delivered to users and the last one arrived very recently on May 23. This program justly deserves the name 'Notepad++'. Ditto Since Windows 7 doesn't improve upon one of the most commonly used techniques seen on a PC – namely copy-paste – the freebie Ditto enhances copy-pasting by placing a universal clipboard storing every single object that has been copied, to be pasted in whatever order is required. Defraggler Defraggler, from the creator of CCleaner, is a complete defragmentation tool for Windows that is easier and far more intuitive to use than the bundled tool that comes as part of Windows 7. It does, however, have a couple of stand-out features beyond being simply a defragmentation program. Its best feature is the ability to defragment individual files or a specific part of a drive without touching anything else thus making sure that you are defragmenting only what is needed. This saves a great deal of time compared to a whole drive defragmentation which can often take hours. Recuva Recuva is a freeware app that recovers files that have been accidentally deleted from the Recycle Bin, MP3 players and memory cards, claiming to recover files that have also been corrupted by viruses or damaged disks. The slick Recuva Wizard at startup appeals to both amateurs and professionals, and with no price tag, this program can be priceless when you recover those important photos or documents. 7Stacks Stacks is a fantastic addition to the Mac OS X Dock. Wouldn't it be great if you could do that on a Windows taskbar? 7Stacks does exactly that. When you've downloaded 7Stacks, it gives you the chance to enjoy an overview of all your documents in one place after just a few seconds of setting up, and makes your PC appear similar to a Mac from the off. Given the fact that this is completely free of charge, there's nothing stopping you enjoying one of the Mac's most intuitive features. Switcher Another great Mac OS X feature is Exposé, the ability to view all running windows in various thumbnails in full screen. Switcher mimics this feature, allowing you to decide which mouse or keyboard shortcut you would like to activate the Switch. Anyone waiting for Windows 10 won't need to worry about Switcher when it arrives as the Task View that is included as part of the new OS performs the exact same task as Switcher. Until then, Switcher remains the very best way to achieve this in Windows 7. 7-Zip Compressing files has many advantages since they take up less space and are therefore quicker to download from the internet. Featuring a host of compression formats, 7-zip lets you uncompress almost any compressed data, and with the unique 7z format, files can be compressed up to 40% smaller than Zip formats. SuperCopier Copying files in Windows 7's default Explorer can be laborious at the best of times. That doesn't have to be the case thanks to SuperCopier's set of tools. The program copies files at a far faster rate than Windows Explorer can ever hope to achieve and allows you to perform a number of tasks along the way. This includes being able to prioritise certain files in the queue so that you can get the files you need faster, and there is a detailed error log that notes down anything abnormal about your files. You can even decide the speed that files are copied making SuperCopier a must for any Windows 7 PC owner. Windows Essentials Getting the very most from your copy of Windows 7 can be as simple as downloading the rebadged version of Windows Live, Windows Essentials. Inside the package is a collection of useful programs such as the classic Windows Movie Maker, Live Mail, Live Writer to create blog posts with added photos and videos, and it even contains OneDrive as standard. Whilst there are obviously separate programs that can perform the same functions as Windows Essentials, this little collection is very handy when you are just starting out and don't need to carry out anything more advanced than the bare essentials. Eraser Most people store some sort of important personal information such as passwords or bank statements on their PC. Files deleted from the Recycle Bin are not necessarily lost forever, and it could be a disaster if someone managed to retrieve such sensitive information. Eraser makes sure the file is actually erased from the hard drive by overwriting the selected file several times in 'carefully selected patterns'. This means that the file is not just deleted, rather it's permanently nuked and gone forever. OpenOffice OpenOffice, a popular open source suite, is an immensely powerful set of applications considering the fact that you don't have to dish out a single penny for it. OpenOffice is very similar to Microsoft Office, and features like macros and built-in templates will please advanced users. OpenOffice is by no means the only free Microsoft Office alternative on the market. The likes of Google Docs, LibreOffice, Atlantis Word Processor, WPS Office, and Office Online all offer a different slant on the popular productivity suite and are again free of charge. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Google Maps finally shows real-time transit info, if you live in these six places Posted: A new feature we've all wanted from Google Maps has finally arrived: real-time transit information. But it's only available if you live in certain areas. San Francisco, UK, Netherlands, Budapest, Chicago and Seattle are the six lucky places where Google has added over 25 transportation partners providing real-time data to make sure routes run smoothly. It doesn't appear like the feature will head to other locations just yet, and will probably be added later on. However, if you're not in one of those cities or countries, the company has at least cleaned up the app to provide clearer courses of action. A recommended route is shown where others are summarized and clumped neatly together so you have a list of public transport options. The update for the app should be out today for both Android and iOS devices though it has yet to appear on the latter. Miss the biggest Android conference of the year? Catch up on everything Google IO here.

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