1. Open the image you’re editing or make a new file. The example shown here uses an RGB 300 x 100 with a black background.
2. Draw the lines in the position you want the lightning to be. Use a 1px paintbrush.
3. Use the ‘Wind’ filter. Filter > Stylize > Wind. Select the method as ‘Wind’ and the direction ‘From the left’. Now repeat except change the direction to ‘From the right’
4. Rotate the image 90 degrees. Click Image > Rotate Canvas > 90° CW. Repeat the previous step and rotate it 90° CCW.
5. Move to Filter > Distort > Ripple, set the amount to 100%, and hit “OK”.
6. Go to “Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation or press Ctrl + U”. At the bottom right corner, hit “Colorize”. Now adjust the “Hue” bar and the “Saturation” bar until you get a color you like.

Direct Download: Quicktime (.mov), Flash Video (.flv)

Thanks to wikiHow for this article, which is under a creative commons license.

1. Go to Domain Dossier to find the mail server.
2. Type in the domain of the mail server eg. yahoo.com for a yahoo mail address.
3. Select DNS records then click go.
4. Find the DNS record which says MX in the type.
5. Press Start > Run > Type CMD > Press Enter
6. Once the command prompt window opens type telnet and hit enter
7. Type o (name of mail server) (port) without brackets eg  o screencastr.com 25
8. Type helo and press enter (one L it’s not a typo) the mail server should respond with hello and your ip address. I forgot this step in the video because it isn’t necessary for my mail server however many mail servers need you to type helo before you can go to the next step.
9. Type MAIL FROM:(From Address) eg MAIL FROM:info@screencastr.com press enter
10. Type RCPT TO:(To Address) eg RCPT TO:other@screencastr.com press enter
11. Type DATA press Enter
12. Type To: (To Address) eg To: other@screencastr.com
13. From: (From Address) eg From: info@screencastr.com
14. Type message eg Hello, Type contents of message then press enter for a new line
15. Type . then press enter again the message will now be sent.
16. Ensure you don’t make any mistakes as pressing backspace doesn’t work.

This episode shows some tricks for getting the best quality Youtube videos.

Direct Downloads

• H.264

Tutorial Links

• KeepVid
• Code for High quality embed “&ap=%2526fmt%3D18″ – paste after value and source in the embed code

Download of the Week: DVD Flick

Sponsor: DreamHost PromoCode: SCREEN1

Website of the Week: Hackosis Brute Force Calculator

This video shows how to retrieve an image from your web browsers cache.

Firefox

1. Type about:cache into address bar.
2. Under Disk cache device navigate in windows explorer to the cache directory.
3. Look through all the files in this folder until your find the right file. They have no extensions so this may take a while.

Internet Explorer

1. Click Tools > Internet Options
2. Under the Temporary Internet Files section in the General Tab click on Settings.
3. Click on View Files
4. The Folder is opened for you to look through the files.

Direct Download: Quicktime (.mov), Flash Video (.flv)

1. Open a color image in Photoshop. To get the best sketch image, high contrast images are preferable. If it’s needed, you can adjust the image’s contrast (Image>Adjust>Brightness/Contrast).

2. Desaturate the layer that contains the image. You can desaturate by clicking on Image>Adjust>Desaturate.

3. Duplicate the desaturated layer. On the layer palette, you can duplicate the layer by right clicking on the previous layer and selecting the option of duplicating that layer.

4. Note that there should now be at least two layers: two desaturated layers, and depending on which version of Photoshop you’re using, you may have a blank background layer.

5. Select and invert the duplicate desaturated layer. You can invert an image by clicking on Image>Adjust>Invert.

6. Notice that now, with the inverted layer selected, change the blending mode to “color dodge.” The image will turn all white with few black spots on it.

7. Set the Gaussian blur to this layer. You can do that by clicking on Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Then you can set the radius in between 3.0-10.0. Choose the one that creates a nice sketch effect.

Direct Download: Quicktime (.mov), Flash Video (.flv)

Thanks to wikiHow for this article, which is under a creative commons license.

Twitter search previously known as summize is a great way to search through the vast amount of information tweeted by people around the world every day. This post shows 8 less common uses for the service.

1. Search @username to find the replies to that person. Especially useful if they asked a question you want to know the answer to.
2. Search ? to see all the questions being asked on twitter. Following people and answering their question is a fast way to gain new followers.
3. Search hilarious filter:links to find links to funny websites. You can also add video, picture or flash game to the search query if you want something more specific.
4. Search for a Movie title to see what people are saying about that movie. You could also use a service like flixpulse.com to find twitter movie reviews.
5. Search “is down” to find all the website which twitter users are reporting are down.
6. You can also search for a certain site and “is down” to see how much that site is down.
7. Search just registered .com to find newly registered domian names.
8. Twitter search also provides a feed for any search which you can subscribe to in Google reader or any other rss reader.

Direct Download: Quicktime (.mov), Flash Video (.flv)

This episode shows how to create your own IM Bot.

Direct Downloads

• H.264
• iPod Video (mp4)
• WMV

Tutorial Links

• RunABot
• Labnol – How to create an IM Bot
• IMified

Download of the Week: Balsamiq Mockups

Sponsor: DreamHost PromoCode: SCREEN1

Quick Tip: Mail Bucket

Website of the Week: CrazyEgg

Steps

1. Click Bookmarks > Organize Bookmarks > Click Organize > New Bookmark
2. Type the Name of the Smart Bookmark
3. In Location:

The location field is where you will configure the smart bookmark.
The structure is place:queryType=(0-2)&sort=(0-20)&maxResults=(number of results)&terms=(optional)

queryType: What Firefox will search through to find bookmarks.

0- Searches only your history
1- Searches only your bookmarks
2-Searches both your history and bookmarks

sort: How Firefox sorts the bookmarks it finds.

0- Natural bookmark order
1- Sort by title, A-Z
2- Sort by title, Z-A
3- Sort by visit date, most recent last
4- Sort by visit date, most recent first
5- Sort by url, A-Z
6- Sort by url, Z-A
7- Sort by visit count, ascending
8- Sort by visit count, descending
9- Sort by keyword, A-Z
10- Sort by keyword, Z-A
11- Sort by date added, most recent last
12- Sort by date added, most recent first
13- Sort by last modified date, most recent last
14 – Sort by last modified date, most recent first
17- Sort by tags, ascending
18- Sort by tags, descending
19- Sort by annotation, ascending
20- Sort by annotation, descending

maxResults: The number of results the smart bookmark will show.

terms: Only used if you want to search for specific words in the title of the bookmarks.

domain: Search for bookmarks only in a certain domain.

Examples:
10 Most Visited Bookmarks:
place:queryType=1&sort=8&maxResults=10
10 Most Visited Sites with “Screencastr” in them:
place:queryType=0&sort=8&maxResults=10&terms=screencastr
5 Most Visited screencastr.com Pages:
place:queryType=0&sort=8&maxResults=5&domain=screencastr.com

This episode shows how to install XP as a virtual machine on either Windows XP or Vista.

Direct Downloads

• H.264
• iPod Video (mp4)
• WMV

Tutorial Links

• Microsoft Virtual PC

Download of the Week: Z-Cron

Website of the Week: Fontstruct

This episode shows how to recover your files even when they have been deleted from the recycle bin.

Direct Downloads

• H.264
• iPod Video (mp4)
• WMV

Tutorial Links

• Restoration
• Undelete Plus
• Inspector File Recovery

Download of the Week: Desktop Teleporter

Website of the Week:

• Public Profiler – World Names
• How many of me

Firefox Add-on of the Week: Ubiquity