I Abandoned PC Gaming, But Now I’m Back & Here’s Why [MUO Gaming]

Years ago, I was fully into gaming on my PC. I owned a PlayStation 2 and barely ever hit the power button to turn the thing on. I just did not see the value in console gaming and I was a PC gaming loyalist to the end. So I thought. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 launched with graphics that rivaled mid to upper range PCs and I figured it could not hurt to dabble in console gaming for a little while.

Fast forward a few years and my gaming PC was so weak that it could not even run Diablo 3 at higher than 10 frames per second. I realized I was out of the loop and I needed to get back in the game. The PC gaming world left me behind, and I needed to get back in the swing of things. I hit the Internet and bought a new PC. Nothing too crazy, but it runs almost everything at their max settings at 1080p.

So why did I feel the need to get back into PC gaming?

Graphical Supremacy

I will admit that graphics only draw me into a game, but they never keep me playing. Still, at this point in the life cycle of the consoles, the difference in graphical ability between a high-end PC and a console is staggering. A high-end first person shooter running a constant 50-60 frames-per-second on a PC looks absolutely incredible and current consoles are incapable of reproducing that experience. 

As I said before, graphics are only a small part of the experience. However, I had forgotten how much a game with incredible visuals increases immersion into the world. A game that looks better makes you forget that you are playing a game. It makes you feel like you are a part of the world. After all, one of the reasons we play games is to be sucked into the world, and better visuals certainly enhance that feeling.

The MMO Factor

I swore I would never go back to World of Warcraft, but here I sit, writing this article while taking a break from adventuring in the world of Azeroth. They have tried to make console MMOs, and none of them have been worth becoming invested in.

It all started with Diablo 3. I played so much Diablo 3 it makes me sad to think about it. Then, I wanted more. Diablo brings similar gameplay mechanics to most MMOs, but it lacks the “other people” part of the experience. Sure, you can play cooperatively, but it is really a single player game.

Diablo made me want a new PC; MMOs will keep me using it for some time. The fact is, the MMO is an experience only available to the PC gamer, and it was enough to bring me back to the dark side.

Steam

Steam is an incredible digital distribution platform. They practically have a stranglehold on the digital distribution of PC games, yet they constantly crank out fantastic deals like their recent summer sale. Not having to leave my house and still getting a good deal on games is something unique to the PC gamer, and it was something I was sorely missing on my consoles.

Sure, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo offer games digitally, but they are not usually the newest releases, and they are almost never a good deal. With Steam, you get convenience and value, which are two things that rarely go together.

HDMI Video Cards

My go-to argument for why I switched to console gaming was, “I can sit on the couch and play games on my TV.” Almost every decent video card comes with HDMI out, so you can still enjoy PC games from your giant TV, just as you would a console. I was thinking about MMOs, shooters with a mouse and keyboard and prettier graphics, and they most certainly piqued my interest, but hooking it up to my TV put me over the edge.

Hooking your computer up to your TV with HDMI is awesome for gaming. It is also great for consuming video content. Forget Steam, forget MMOs; playing PC games on my TV in full 1080p is the main reason I went back, and it is something anyway who has turned away from PC gaming should consider.

Conclusion

Do not take this article as an attack against console gaming; I assure you it is not. I still love my consoles, and I will continue to play games on them. I see no reason we cannot all be console gamers and PC gamers (provided it’s in your budget). I had completely turned away from PC gaming, and it feels good to be back. Maybe you should consider dipping your toe into PC gaming again if you have abandoned it.

If you have stopped playing PC games, what would bring you back? Let us know in the comments!

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Turn Gmail Into A Productivity Beast With These Chrome Extensions

Gmail is a fantastic email client. In fact, I will go as far to say that it’s the best. With that said, can it really get any better? With these Chrome extensions, it can. And not just “better”, but also fantastically improved. Through my experience of using Gmail, I have stumbled upon lots of extensions for it – many of which I try and then uninstall. There have been some, however, that have really impressed me. These range from contact management to visual adjustments to scheduling and email management tools.

Do note that not all of these can or should be used together. Some are “competitors” and others just have features that take the place of another extension. That said, I feel all of these are excellent in what they do and should be tried out – I guarantee you will like them.

Before we get started, my goal is to show you the options. My personal opinion will come out and I’ll do some slight comparisons between rival extensions, but the primary purpose is to show you what is available and allow you to make the decision for yourself depending on whichever works best for you.

Insert Text

Insert Text is a subtle addition within Gmail that allows you to easily… well… insert text. After adding your preferred text in the options, all you have to do is right click in a text box in Gmail, hover over “Insert Text” in the dropdown menu and choose your weapon. 

Notice that I said “a text box” and not just the email text field. This means you could use it for adding certain canned recipients into the “To:” field. It also means you can insert specific text into the subject line. This is a huge time saver for people who you email constantly. Unfortunately Gmail doesn’t have the ability to add a group of contacts to the “To:” field yet, so in the meantime this is a nice workaround.

The options include two different text views: plain text and rich text. You also have the ability to organize your different text files into folders, and import and export files.

Insert Text is the kind of tool that is either very useful or not useful at all, depending on how you integrate it into your workflow. In other words, it is very customizable and only as useful as you make it.

Right Inbox

Right Inbox is an essential to Gmail and fills several missing features, the biggest and most popular one being scheduling emails. But there are also other features that it provides, such as email reminders. These are reminders that you set to send an email back to you based on different criteria, like if your contact doesn’t respond within a specific time frame that you have set, or if you just want to be reminded about the email later either because you don’t have time now, or it’s more relevant some time in the future.

There is one other feature that puts Right Inbox above similar extensions and that is the ability to track the email you’re sending. You can now get an email whenever the recipient opens your email and also can be notified whenever a link in an email is clicked. The free version permits ten uses of each of these features per month.

Boomerang For Gmail

Boomerang is the more popular contender to Right Inbox. They share many of the same features, including only allowing 10 uses per feature per month in the free version. However, Boomerang differs in that the free version doesn’t support email tracking in the sense that you are notified if a recipient opens your email or clicks on a link. It does, however, offer more features in the premium version.

These include notes for email reminders so that you know why the email reappeared in your inbox a week later. Other premium features offered are mobile access and the ability to schedule recurring messages.

Both Boomerang and Right Inbox integrate very well in Gmail and while they have their slight differences, they are quite similar. I recommend you try both out to determine which fits you best.

Boomerang Calendar – Beta (And Invites!)

If you haven’t heard, the creators of Boomerang For Gmail have created likely the best tool to connect Gmail and Google Calendar. Honestly, it’s quite surprising that Google hasn’t already created something like this, but I’m sure glad there is something now.

No more bouncing back and forth between tabs, copying and pasting event information or accidentally scheduling something in the wrong place because you had the wrong week selected in Google Calendar. The video above does an excellent job with describing all of the functions that Boomerang Calendar can do for you.

One feature that blows my mind is the ability to detect times and dates in emails. It’s quite accurate and helpful.

As a bonus, we have got some invites! Just enter the code “makeuseof” to get it!

Note: there is a limited number of invites, so hurry!

Smartr Inbox for Gmail

Created by Xobni, Smartr Inbox for Gmail is like your personal emailing assistant. Once you log in and catalog all of your emails and contacts with Xobni, you can see contact information, statistics for which contacts are emailed the most, your most recent emails, etc. Smartr Inbox is always displayed on the right side of Gmail whether an email message is open or not. This is either a benefit or a nuisance, depending on how you like to view your inbox and also how big your screen is. Although, the sidebar is collapsible, which is a feature that I haven’t seen in other similar extensions to Smartr Inbox.

Smartr Inbox offers other features such as newsfeeds from your social networks directly within Gmail. I’m still deciding whether I like this or not. Email can be a place of productivity. “Can” being the key word. By bringing in the option to read and post tweets and statuses to social networks, productivity is threatened. Now, if reading and posting tweets and statuses is somehow a part of your productivity workflow, great, but this could likely be a distracting feature to the majority of Gmail users.

Rapportive

Rapportive is another contact management tool for Gmail. And actually, it came first before Smartr Inbox. It’s also been mentioned here and there on MakeUseOf and is definitely a favorite of mine.

Rapportive works by displaying your contacts’ information that they allow to be seen publicly on their social network profiles. This allows you to connect with people much easier and faster than before. Personally, I like the way that Rapportive integrates into Gmail better than Smartr Inbox. Xobni did a great job with their plugin, but in my opinion, I prefer Rapportive – it’s fast, lightweight and simple.

Attachments.me

I’ve actually already mentioned Attachments.me on MakeUseOf, but this article wouldn’t be complete without it. I won’t expand much on it – I’ll leave my other article to do that, but I will say that it is an excellent sidekick to Gmail and will transform the way that you access and manage your attachments.

Gmelius

Gmelius, also previously mentioned on MakeUseOf, is a tool that allows you to clean up Gmail and customize it the way you want. Although some features that it provides may be controversial, such as removing ads (but Rapportive does this too), many of its features can improve your productivity and your overall experience in Gmail.

I have taken a couple screenshots of my Gmail before Gmelius was enabled and then after. Some changes are subtle, while others are drastic. Each person’s preferences are different and Gmelius provides a lot to choose from.

Before:

After:

Minimalist for Everything

Minimalist for Everything has been included in our Best Chrome Extensions page and is the updated version of Minimalist for Gmail, which was covered here previously on MakeUseOf. Minimalst for Everything is in beta and still growing, and currently only has two “modules” – Gmail and Google Reader, but more is promised to be coming in the future and I’m guessing you can expect there to be a module for pretty much… everything. When trying this extension out, I saw great potential, but personally I experienced some quirks. I wasn’t entirely sure if it was just my computer, or if there were some bugs to be worked out of it, but it was nothing major.

Personally, I feel Gmelius is the more stable option at the moment, but try out Minimalist for Everything and see how it compares! And if it doesn’t quite meet your expectations (although I bet it will), keep an eye on it because I predict there will be some excellent improvements and changes for it very soon.

Before:

 

After:

Conclusion

There are many other Gmail and Google Chrome extensions available that help with productivity, however, I feel that these are some of, if not the best. If you have one of your own, I would love to hear about it – and I’m sure all of the other readers would too!

Be sure to take a look at this other article that features some excellent Gmail extensions. Looking to become even more productive within Gmail? Shortcuts are key. Also checkout the MakeUseOf Guide, The Ultimate Guide To Gmail.

Which of these extensions do you use in Gmail? Remember to share the ones that you use that aren’t listed here!

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Don’t Miss A Moment Of The Olympics With Customized ESPN IFTTT Recipes [Updates]

The London 2012 games started a few days ago with a big splash, and the opening ceremony alone has seen more tweets than the entire 2008 games in Beijing. Seeing that these are very social games, IFTTT, the best known web automation tool around, has launched some ESPN triggers which will help you stay on top of the Olympics without so much as lifting a finger. So how does this work?

Visit the ESPN Olympic coverage channel on IFTTT to find all the Olympics-related recipes currently available. The channel started out with only five recipes, but the bubbling IFTTT community has since increased that number to over 300. For example, you can find a recipe that will automatically send you a text message every time your country wins a medal, or a recipe that will log your country’s medals in Evernote. Once you trigger the recipe, these things will happen automatically.

As the number of recipes increases, so do the chances that you’ll find a trigger that does exactly what you’re looking for. Of course, if you have the patience and will, you can write your own recipe for your own country, if it’s still missing. These triggers and recipes will only be available during the Olympic games, and since some medals have already been won, you better hurry up. You don’t want to miss a single moment!

What is your favorite Olympic recipe? What other recipes would you like to see?

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Gmail Video Chat Now Replaced With Google+ Hangouts [Updates]

Are you a Gmail user who enjoys the video chat feature? Starting now, and rolling out gradually over the next few weeks, that feature is going to be going through a major change. The feature will now go through Google+ Hangouts instead of the standard chat it used before.

For people who do not use Google Plus, you will still be able to make use of the improved features that come with this update. If you and the person you are speaking with both have Google+, you will get “even more from the Hangouts experience.” Either way, this is not an optional update, and whether or not you are a Plus user, your Gmail video chats will use Hangout’s infrastructure.

So what is the benefit for Gmail users? The first is that the old Gmail chat relied on peer-to-peer technology and Hangouts uses Google’s infrastructure for improved performance. In addition, you get the benefits of having up to nine people chatting at once, watching YouTube videos together and sharing your screen with each other.

For those professional meetings, Google+ Hangouts offers plenty of corny effects you can add. You can give yourself a stylish mustache and other fun stuff.

Overall, this is a great update for Gmail. It keeps the same video calling functionality that users expect with some cool improvements. It adds some better performance and cool features that should improve the user experience overall.

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Troubleshooting Guide: How To (Re-)Enable The Facebook Timeline

When Facebook introduced Timeline last year, the first reactions were mixed. Many people who tried it, quickly wanted to get rid of it again. The trouble was that once you had converted, there was no way back. Until some clever coders offered tools that would allow you to view Facebook without the Timeline. Now the tide is turning and many people come to us for advice on how to get their Timeline back.

If you are one of those who now want to switch to the Timeline view, this troubleshooting guide is for you. Together we will figure out whether you have enabled the Timeline in the first place, or what exactly you did to get rid of it, and how you can undo that. And if none of the advice works, you can always ask for help in the comments.

By the way, if you are looking for a way to do the opposite, i.e. remove the Timeline, just apply your smartest brain cells and reverse engineer this guide to disable the Facebook Timeline.

How To Get Timeline?

First, let’s see whether you have Timeline already. Log into your Facebook account, then visit the Introducing Timeline website. At the bottom of the website, you should see a navigation bar. In the very right of that bar, there is a button that says Get Timeline. Click it, then click on your own name anywhere on Facebook or go to facebook.com/your-user-name (your Facebook Wall) to check whether you can now see your profile in the Timeline view.

Alternatively, log into Facebook, click the little down button in the top right next to Home and select Enable Timeline.

Note that your Facebook Wall (where you see the Timeline) is not the same as your Facebook News Feed, i.e. what you see when you go to Facebook.com while you are logged in! To see your Wall and hopefully the Timeline, click on your name in the top left of your Facebook News Feed.

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Problem: Facebook says I already have the Timeline, but I cannot see it!

If you cannot push the Get Timeline button, you already have Timeline. This is the case for me, as shown in the screenshot below.

If you cannot see your Timeline, even though Facebook claims you have already upgraded your profile to Timeline, try to find out how you disabled it.

How Did You Disable the Timeline?

So Facebook claims you already have the Timeline, yet you cannot see it. Unless something is terribly broken, there essentially is only one way in which you could have disabled the Timeline, which is using a browser add-on. So let’s see whether that is the case for you.

To check whether it is a browser add-on, log into Facebook using a browser you don’t typically use. For example, if you usually log into Facebook with Firefox, use Internet Explorer or Chrome or Safari instead. If you can see the Timeline in another browser, you most likely used an add-on with your standard Facebook browser to disable the Timeline. Proceed to the Solutions.

If you cannot see the Timeline in any of your installed browsers, chances are, something else is going on. Try to log into Facebook from a friend’s computer who can see the Timeline on their Facebook Wall. If you still cannot see your Timeline, you probably installed a Facebook app to remove the Timeline.

If you can see your Timeline on another computer, but not on your own, regardless of what browser you try, I’m stumped. To my knowledge, there is no application that removes the Timeline for your entire computer. However, you could try to check all browsers, maybe you installed Timeline Remove add-ons for all of them.

Solutions: Manage Browser Add-Ons

If you figured out in the previous step that you most likely disabled your Timeline using a browser add-on, re-enabling your Timeline it is as easy as disabling or removing the respective add-on. Below are instructions for different browsers and add-ons.

TimeLine Remove

This is the most popular browser add-on used to disable the Facebook Timeline. You actually don’t have to uninstall it to re-enable your Timeline. Instead you can switch between enabling and disabling the Timeline. When this add-on is installed in Chrome and possibly on other browsers, you should see a ‘white t on blue’ button in your list of enabled extensions to the right of the Omni / Search bar. Simply click this button and click the status to enable or disable TimeLine Remove.

While TimeLine Remove doesn’t seem to work with the latest version of Firefox, it does still work with Chrome and it is also available for Internet Explorer (not tested) and Safari (not tested).

F.B. Purity

This browser plugin is available for Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera. It allows you to customize Facebook in a number of ways and one feature includes removing the Timeline. If you have it installed, you can enable or disable the Timeline, by clicking the TL (green letters with or without red X) next to the Facebook search bar. Alternatively, you can also disable or remove the browser add-on entirely.

Greasemonkey

Greasemonkey is a browser add-on that allows you to customize how you see websites, including Facebook. If you installed a Greasemonkey script to adjust how you see Facebook, you can undo these changes by removing the respective script. Please find instructions how to manager your Greasemonkey user scripts here.

Faking User Agent to Make Facebook Think You Are Using Internet Explorer 7

Maybe you used a more or less manual trick to disable the Facebook Timeline, which is not available in Internet Explorer 7. This trick is explained in detail on Techie Buzz. Simply reverse the steps for your browser to undo the changes.

Internet Explorer 8 and 9

• Open Internet Explorer.
• Click the Tools button and select Manage add-ons.
• Click the add-on type Toolbars and Extensions.
• Find the add-on that disables your Timeline, right-click it and either choose Disable or Remove.
• Close Manage Add-ons, restart Internet Explorer and enjoy your Timeline.

Firefox

• Open Firefox.
• Click the Firefox button in the top left and select Add-ons from the menu.
• Make sure Extensions are selected in the left-hand sidebar of the Add-ons tab.
• Scroll through the list of extensions and Disable or Remove the add-on that disables your Timeline.
• Click the Restart now link that shows up and subsequently enjoy your Timeline.

Chrome

• Open Chrome.
• Click the Wrench icon in the top right and select > Tools > Extensions.
• Scroll through the list of extensions and either uncheck Enabled or click the Trash icon.
• This should work without restarting Chrome.

If you are using another browser, e.g. Safari or Opera, please query Google for instructions on how to disable or remove add-ons.

Last Resort: Remove Facebook App

In case none of the solutions above worked for you, your last resort is to check whether you used a Facebook App to remove your Timeline.

• Log into Facebook and go to App Settings.
• Browse the list of apps for the one that disables your Timeline.
• Once you found it click the X in the far right to remove it.
• Clear your browser cache, restart your browser and enjoy your Timeline.

Do you know of other ways to reclaim the Facebook Timeline or have you not been able to enable it despite following all suggestions above? Please share your experiences in the comments for other to learn and help. Thank you!

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