It’s no big chore to share your pictures via email, but it’s not the most sophisticated way to distribute them either.  So, you may ask, what are the tech-savvy using to share their family photos this holiday season?  A new web service called Min.us.

Min.us is making some noise and may even upset the current king of photo sharing simplicity – imgur.  Min.us boasts a two word motto: “Share simply”, and it allows you to do just that.  The site cleverly uses drag and drop, right onto the web page, which is a first for any image sharing service I know of.  It also automatically creates a “gallery” of the images you have dropped into your browser, making it easy to rename, delete, rearrange and share your pics.

After sharing the gallery link, your recipient can choose what pics they want from the group and then download just those pics into a zipped file.  Neato!

Additionally, min.us allows for all the same things as other popular sharers, like linking to a single image, and has support for JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, and APNG file types.  Near the picture’s direct link you’ll see the dimensions and file size – it’s like everything you need to know, right there on one page!

Probably the most notable feature of all is the way min.us uses an effective navigation system which is controlled either by click, or by using the directional keys for skimming through the gallery pictures quickly.  The only restriction is that images are limited to 7MB, so the biggest challenge of sharing your photos might be explaining to grandma how to compress those holiday memories from her new 12 megapixel camera, ha!

Update: Since writing, there have been more updates like the option to file browse OR to just drag and drop.  Follow site and blog updates here.

The post Easily Share Photos this Holiday Season with Min.us first appeared on Techerator.

Step One: Download and extract the Android SDK for your operating system.  SDK stands for Software Development Kit, and is what developers use to design Android software on a PC.

Extracting the files is all you have to do – you don’t actually have to install anything for this to work.

Note: You also need to have Java JDK installed (not just JRE which is more common).  More information can be found on the Android SDK requirements page.

Step Two: On your Android-based phone, go to Settings –> Applications –> Development and enable USB debugging.  When you’ve enabled debugging, connect your phone to the computer.

In my case, I had to install additional Motorola USB drivers for my phone to be properly recognized in debugging mode, even though it worked fine before I enabled it.

Step Three: In the folder where you extracted the Android SDK files, open the tools folder and run ddms.bat.  This will launch the Dalvik Debug Monitor, and if your phone is connected properly you should see it in the list of devices as shown below.

Step Four: To take a picture of your current screen, select your device in the list and click Device –> Screen Capture. You’ll then see a high resolution screenshot of your device’s screen!

The post How to Take Screenshots of an Android-based Phone first appeared on Techerator.

If you want to install Windows instead, check out our previous guide: How to Install Windows from a USB Flash Drive.

UNetbootin, which stands for Universal Netbook Installer, is a program for Windows and Linux that can create a bootable USB drive for many Linux distributions.  UNetbootin can not only use an existing disc image (.iso) to create a bootable USB drive, it can also download dozens of Linux distributions through a handy dropdown menu.

Step One – Installation

Download and install UNetbootin.  When you open the program, you will presented with the following window:

Step Two – Select a Linux Distribution

UNetbootin can automatically download dozens of Linux distributions.  With the Distribution button selected, use the dropdown menus to choose your favorite distribution and version of Linux.  Be sure to read the installation notes if they are available.

If you already have a Linux disc image (.iso) downloaded, click the Diskimage button and select the image file.

Step Three – Formatting the USB Drive

At the bottom of the main screen, verify that USB Drive is selected and then select the drive you would like to use (Note: All data will be lost on the selected drive).  When you are ready to create the bootable USB drive, click the OK button.  If you chose to download a Linux distribution in Step Two, the duration will vary based upon your internet connection speed.

Once the process has finished, you can now use your USB flash drive to install Linux.

Using the USB Boot Drive

Most modern computers support using USB drives as a boot device, but if yours does not you can check your manufacturer’s support site to see if a BIOS update is available.  To set your USB drive as a boot device, you can typically press the ESC key just as your computer turns on and select the drive from a list.

If pressing the ESC key doesn’t work, you may have to enter your computer’s BIOS to manually set the drive as a boot device. You can typically access your computer’s BIOS by pressing DEL, F2, F10, or F12 at system startup, but refer to your manufacturer’s support information for more details.

Installing an operating system from a USB flash drive is much faster than using an optical disc.  In our tests, we were able to install Ubuntu in less than six minutes which is much faster than performing an installation with a LiveCD.

Have a better method of installing Linux on your computer?  Let us know by commenting below.

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Luckily, Windows 7, XP, Vista, Server 2003 and Server 2008 can be installed from a USB flash drive with a few simple steps.  In this guide, I’ll be using a program called WinToFlash to create a bootable USB drive for Windows 7.

Prerequisites

• A Windows installation disc or disc image (.iso)
  • If you have downloaded a Windows installation disc (such as the Windows 7 Beta or RC), you should already have the .iso file.
  • If you have a physical installation disc, skip to Step 2.
• A USB flash drive – minimum 3 GB.

Step 1:  Extract the Windows .iso

If you have an installation disc image (.iso), that file contains all of the files from the Windows installation disc.  To extract these files, download and install 7-Zip (free) and browse to the location of your Windows .iso in the file browser.  Click ‘Extract’ and wait while the files are expanded.

Step 2:  Processing Installation Files with WinToFlash

Download the latest version WinToFlash and extract the files.  Open WinToFlash.exe and click the ‘Windows setup transfer wizard’ button to get started.

After clicking Next, you need to select the path to your Windows installation files and your USB drive.  If you have a Windows installation disc, select your optical drive.  If you had an .iso image, choose the location where you extracted the files from Step 1.

WinToFlash will configure your USB drive and transfer all installation files.  This will take approximately 5-10 minutes.

Once the process has finished, you will receive an “All done” message.  Click Exit to close the application, and your USB drive will now contain a bootable version of your Windows installation files.

Step 3:  Install Windows

Now that you have your USB drive prepped and ready to go, you need to set your netbook to use your USB drive as the primary boot device.  This can be done by accessing your computer’s BIOS by tapping the key your manufacturer specifies (typically Delete or a function key like F2) just as your computer starts.

In my instance, I had to go to the Boot tab and select ‘Hard Disk Drives’ first to set my USB drive (listed as USB:SanDisk Cruzer) in the 1st Drive field.  I then had to go back to the Boot Settings menu and open ‘Boot Device Priority’ to set the USB:SanDisk Cruzer drive in the 1st Boot Device field.

Note: While most newer computers support USB drives as a boot device, some older models may not.  Refer to your manufacturer’s support information or check if an update to your BIOS is available.

After setting the USB drive as your primary boot device, save your changes (typically with F10) and restart your computer.  While booting up you may see a message to “Press any key to continue…”.  You can now proceed through the Windows installation like usual, and once the installation is finished be sure to go back into your BIOS and change your settings back to the way they were originally.

Have another method to install Windows on a netbook?  Share it with us in the comments!

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Virtual CD Control Panel is a free (albeit unsupported) program from Microsoft that lets you quickly mount images in Windows XP.  Although the program doesn’t list support for DVD images, I mounted the Windows 7 installation DVD without any problems.

Getting Started

1. Download Windows XP Virtual CD Control Panel and extract the files.
2. Copy VCdRom.sys (included in the zip file) to C:/WINDOWS/system32/drivers(or see detailed instructions below).
   1. Click Start –> Run.
      
   2. Type %SystemRoot%/system32/drivers and press enter.
      
   3. Copy VCdRom.sys into this folder.
3. Run the program by opening VCdControlTool.exe
4. Click Driver Control, then click Install Driver.
   
5. Navigate to the folder where you copied VCdRom.sys (C:/WINDOWS/system32/drivers), select it, and click Open.
6. Click Start, then OK.
   

Mounting an Image File

1. In the Virtual CD Control Panel application, click Add Drive which will create the virtual drive.
   
2. Click ‘Mount’ and select the ISO file you would like to use.  Click OK in Special Mount Options.
   
3. Your disc will now be fully accessible in My Computer, just the same as if you had the disc in your optical drive.
   

Unmounting an Image File

1. In Virtual CD Control Panel, select your virtual drive and click Eject.
2. Click Remove Drive.

Virtual CD Control Panel is a free application for Windows XP.  [Download]

The post How To: Mount Images (ISO Files) in Windows XP with a Small, Free Microsoft App first appeared on Techerator.