How one man built a sliding house to adapt to the changing seasons

By Claire Bates

It gives new meaning to the phrase ‘moving house.’ At first glance, Ross Russell’s Suffolk home looks like a traditional East Anglian barn. But with one push of a button the house begins to change shape.

Moving house: Mr Russell spent a year designing and building his house In just six minutes the steel and wooden shell that covers the building can slide forward as a canopy, retract back to cover the annexe and yard but leave the bathroom open, or stop halfway covering the bathroom but revealing the conservatory.

The 22-ton mobile shell can be moved to provide shelter and sun in different parts of the house The 20 ton mobile roof and wall enclosure is moved using four electric motors powered only by standard car batteries. It measures 52ft long, 20ft wide and 23ft high. ‘In the winter we will have the roof pulled over to keep up warm,’ Mr Russell, 48, said. ‘But on a summer evening it is a magical experience to be able to pull the roof back and sit in the sunshine.’

Atmospheric: Natural light and views from the house change as the shell moves position Mr Russell, who had a successful business in the City decided he wanted to build a countryside home with his wife Sally that was a little different. ‘We put at the top of the brief, “We are prepared to be radical,”‘ he said. As he had never built a house before he contacted an old school friend Alex de Rijke who was now part of DRMM architects, and put his idea of a moving house to him.

Convertible garage: This image shows how one area is selectively covered to shelter the bikes Mr Rijke was enthusiastic and it took them 12 months for the house to be designed and built. ‘Sliding House offers radically variable spaces, extent of shelter, sunlight and insulation,’ Mr Rijke said. ‘It is about the ability to vary the overall building composition and character according to season, weather, or a remote-controlled desire to delight.’

Sliding doors: A graphic(R) reveals how the sliding shell moves to cover different areas of the house

The door openings are spaced so there is always an exit, at any point along the travel path, in case the mechanism jams.

The distinctive red timber cladding was designed to look like a Monopoly hotel and works to insulate the building in winter.

But on brighter days Mr Russell takes the opportunity to slide back the shell to reveal the beautiful views of the surrounding countrywide.

‘We were only ever going to build one house in our lives, so it had to be special and it had to be beautiful,’ he said.

Watch footage of the house in action…

8 Awesome Tools To Create & Manage All Your Passwords

by Abhijeet Mukherjee
The easier option would be to maintain a single username and password for all your online accounts, it is not advisable from a security point of view. Lack of strong passwords makes it easy for hackers to break into your accounts. Hence it is better to have a unique and strong password for every online account you maintain.

And of course, it is very important to remember all those different passwords, which unfortunately, not everyone of us is capable of.

Luckily, there are some cool tools available to help you with this task. Almost all of these are free tools which help you create strong passwords, remember them and also make them portable so that you can use them irrespective of the computer which you are on.

Here’s the list of 8 such tools which make the task of managing multiple passwords a breeze.
• Keepass
Keepass is an excellent password manager which is free, open-source and available for all the platforms (for Mac and Linux, KeepassX is available). It only requires you to remember a single master password for all your passwords. It is also available as a portable app for mobile phones.

• Roboform
Roboform for Windows is a robust password manager which also helps you easily fill web forms. It provides a browser extension for both IE and Firefox and also comes with a portable version. It is available for free with limited features. The pro version will set you back by $29.95.

• Firefox
Firefox’s in-built password manager could be a good option too for managing your web passwords. There’s also an option to create a master password which you might want to do in case you want to add an extra layer of security to your passwords. Here is how you can do it.

• Sxipper
Sxipper is an awesome Firefox extension which helps you to fill in forms, manage passwords and Open IDs. It helps you create separate identities for the purpose of filling in web forms and uses the Firefox’s in-built password manager to store all your passwords.

• LastPass
LastPass has recently added some cool features and could well become the most popular password manager out there. It helps you to create strong passwords, manage them from anywhere and fill in web forms. It works as a browser add on and also offers to import passwords from other password managers. And it helps you use them on any public computer too.

• Clipperz
Like LastPass, Clipperz is also an online password manager which not only stores passwords but also information like bank account numbers and credit card numbers. And as they mention, it uses very strong encryption technology to ensure that they themselves don’t come to know about your usernames and passwords.

• Password Hasher
Password Hasher is a nice Firefox extension whose main task is to create strong passwords for you. It is simple to use and uses one master key to generate multiple passwords.

• 1Password
And finally, we have the most popular password manager for Mac computers. 1Password is not free but works very well for Mac users and hence it is quite popular. It does what Roboform does for Windows and sports similar features. It also has a cool iPhone app which works great for iPhone/iPod touch users.

Effective Ways To Backup Important Data

by Monika Mundell.

· Google Docs/ Zoho
I use Google Docs and Zoho for all my completed client work. This means that once a client has received my project, I move the documents online to keep them safe and away from my hard drive. I feel this works really well as it keeps my hard drive uncluttered most of the time and therefore faster. If I need something fast, I know where to get it.

If you wonder why I keep this data online and not on an external hard drive, it is simply for convenience reasons. Having the data online allows me to access it from any computer in the world. If a client sends me a frantic email and tells me he lost his articles, I can log in to my admin and resend the missing files, even if I’m working from an Internet cafe.

You can upload many different formats to Google Docs and Zoho. I prefer Zoho, since they also support zip files which is great to compact storage.

· USB
I don’t use USB memory sticks as a real backup but I do use them to transfer some files from A to B. While you could use these for backup purposes, I like to use USB storage for portability purposes instead.

· CD and DVD
To be honest, I only use these for my photos. I don’t even keep all of my photos on CD’s; most of them are stored on a secondary hard drive. They are convenient because you can easily share them with your friends and family when you travel if you want to leave a CD full of pictures behind.

By the way, you can do this with memory sticks too. Next time you visit family or friends, why not take a 1GB memory stick with your photos for them. They make a great present and allow your loved ones to print out what they like.

· Online Storage
I have recently signed up with an online storage provider. I use Mozy for this and will be backing up my files over the next week or so. The only drawback to this is the initial backup; it takes ages. Most likely it will take a week for all my gear and that alone freaks me out a bit to be honest.

I suppose, I just need to keep my computer running and go for it since I paid my membership already.

· External hard drive
This is my favorite form of backup. I actually have two external hard drives. One being a portable and light one, the other a massive monstrous thing with some 500GB. While external hard drives are great to have peace of mind, they too could die for sure. That is why I own two of them and between them and my online backup, I should really be 100% covered.

I guess some of you are not as freaked out like me when it comes to backup and to be honest, except for the photos, everything else is replaceable. At least most of it.

· Software
Most computers these days come with their own built in backup software. I have Vista on my computer right now with a Windows backup restore center built in. This software lets me backup my hard drive on a separate partition on my computer. This means my hard drive will be split into two. Hopefully, the data will be kept intact on the partition if my main drive were ever to be fried.

This software also allows me to schedule backups in advance which is handy because often I just forget.

 Blog backup
To backup my WordPress blog, I use a really cool Plugin called WP DB Backup. This Plugin is so cool, it allows me to backup to the server, whenever I like. Even better, it lets me schedule email or server based backups so that I don’t have to think about them.

15 Most Useful Productivity Tips for Windows Users

Our pursuit of increased productivity is endless. Right when you think that you are at your peak productivity level, new ideas or technologies pop out of nowhere and force you to reconsider your process.

Listen, no matter how good things are, there are always things that can be tweaked to perform better. Take the PC for example. Out of the box, a Windows PC can be very unproductive since most of the applications that come pre-installed aren’t very functional. In this post, I’ll show typical Windows users how they can double or even triple their productivity.

1. Reduce the Number of Auto-starting Programs
   As your PC ages, it tends to get filled with a lot of auto-starting programs. These programs may be things you do indeed use a lot, but do they need to be started every time you boot your PC? You can remove unnecessary programs and services from starting-up automatically by downloading an app such as RevoUninstaller. RevoUnintaller is great for doing this because it tells you if the application is critical to the system and if it’s safe to disable.

1. Configure Windows Updates Properly
   There’s one very annoying thing about Windows Update. After it has downloaded the latest patches and fixes, it will constantly send up pop-up reminders asking you to restart your PC. You not only lose time clicking the ‘Restart Later’ button, but if you accidentally press the ‘Restart Now’ button or if it restarts your PC automatically, you can loose valuable data.

   To disable this behavior, right-click on ‘My Computer’, go to the ‘Automatic Updates’ tab, and select the 2nd option: ‘Download updates for me, but let me choose when to install them’. Click ‘OK’ and you’re done.

1. Get Mozilla Firefox
   Firefox is the best browser, period. It’s one of the fastest browsers and it’s limitlessly customizable. If you don’t use Firefox as your browser, you’re not maximizing your output. Firefox has a lot of plugins but these two posts will point you to the best ones:
   • 25 Must Have Firefox Plugins for Bloggers
   • 50 Best Firefox Extensions for Power Surfing

1. Learn Keyboard Shortcuts
   Most of the time it’s much faster to navigate Windows with a keyboard than with a mouse. This is especially true with applications such as your browser and your word processor. Learn keyboard shortcuts and you’ll be saving a lot of time everyday.

1. Get Digsby
   You probably have at least 3 instant messaging clients running on your PC at this moment. In addition to it being absolutely painful to search three services for someone’s name, it’s wasting a ton of time. The solution to your woes is Digsby. Digsby supports AIM, Yahoo!, MSN, ICQ, Google Talk, and Jabber. It even supports Facebook Chat! So now you can manage your email and social networking accounts right from the window. To keep things under control, it features tabbed conversation windows. What more could you ask for?

1. Declutter and Organize Your Desktop
   Clutter saps productivity. A clean and organized desktop will definitely make your more productive as you won’t have to sift through your collection of 91 desktop shortcuts. Remove the shortcuts to apps you don’t use regularly.

1. Use MemoKeys
   Some of you might have heard of AutoHotKey and know that is a way to assign key strokes to actions. MemoKeys is similar, just a lot easier to use and configure. It saves you time by letting you call up commonly used text with keystroke combos.

1. Uninstall Unneeded Software
   I’m sure your PC has lots and lots of programs that are just lying there, rotting away. Uninstall them! Removing the clutter from your PC will help you function better and get rid of distractions.

1. Get RoboForm
   RoboForm is a must-have utility that stores your login info for every site, fills-in forms automatically, and has a random password generator. It’s very useful as it saves the time you spend filling in forms, searching for passwords, and trying to remember all your user ids and passwords. It’s not freeware but you can use the code GOOG1 to get $6 off.

1. Use VLC Media Player
   Windows Media Player isn’t a good media player as it requires you to install codecs to play the more obscure formats. For this reason, VLC Media Player is a godsend as it can play virtually any media file you throw at it, including DVDs, CDs, and various streaming protocols.

1. Automate PC Maintenance Tasks
   Doing things such as defragging your hard disk, running a virus/spyware scan, and backing-up your files manually can be cumbersome and time consuming. Instead, use Windows’ ‘Scheduled Tasks’. Some apps also have built-in schedulers available. A more intuitive utility to do this is WakeupOnStandBy.

1. Use RadarSync to Automatically Update Programs and Drivers
   RadarSync can easily update most of your programs and drivers in one click. The premium version of RadarSync also allows you to schedule a scan for checking updates for your programs. A nice alternative to it is the FileHippo Update Checker.

1. Organize Your Most Visited Programs & Folders in Start Menu
   For quick two-click access to your most visited programs and folder, I suggest you add them to the start menu. To reduce start menu clutter, I also suggest you change the number of most-frequented programs that Windows automatically displays in the Start Menu to 0. You can do this by right-clicking on the start button, make sure the radio box beside ‘Start menu’ is selected, and click ‘Customize’. You’ll find the setting I mentioned under ‘Programs’.

1. Organize Your Most Visited Programs & Folders in the QuickStart Menu
   There’s one more way you can gain easy two-click access to your most-visited programs: through the QuickStart bar.

1. Use Docks
   A Mac-like dock can make it very easy to open frequented apps, and it’s a great alternative to using desktop shortcuts to launch stuff. The two best dock programs in the market are RocketDock and ObjectDock.

6 Very Important Gmail Security Tips

Some of you might be aware of the flurry which took over the blogosphere for a few days after the MakeUseOf blog broke the story about a gmail vulnerability which led to the hijack of its domain by a hacker (cracker, to be more specific).

As many blogs discussed this matter and speculated on Gmail’s security features, Google finally reacted and mentioned that it wasn’t due to Gmail, but due to a phishing scam.

Although I don’t agree with Google’s argument, as you can see in this comment thread at Lifehacker, the fact remains that like most of the web workers, I love Gmail and I can’t even think of using any other email application.

Keeping that in mind, it’s important to take every preventive measure possible to avoid any compromise of your Gmail account. Here are a few tips for Gmail users that are concerned about security. Note that most of these tips are recommended by Google itself and hence are extremely important.

Always Use HTTPS
This is a very important security feature introduced by the Gmail team recently and every Gmail user must know it. In Gmail, go to “Settings” and under the “General” tab in “Browser Connection” click “Always use https”. Then click save. That’s it! Such a simple step could add an extra layer of security to your Gmail account.

Check Your Filters Regularly
All the Gmail vulnerabilities which have been reported so far involve the setting up of malicious filters and email auto-forwarding. Hence you should check them regularly by going to your Gmail settings and make sure that you don’t see anything suspicious there.

Check For HTTPS
Yes, no matter where you login to your Gmail, make sure the url in the browser address bar starts with https:// and not http://. As Google says, “we recommend you only ever enter your Gmail sign-in credentials to web addresses starting with https://www.google.com/accounts, and never click-through any warnings your browser may raise about certificates.”

Don’t Use Gmail In Browser ( Only If You Want To Be Extremely Cautious )
This would be a tip for those who are really concerned and can do without Gmail’s web interface. Since most of the security issues reported so far are browser based, you might just want to avoid opening Gmail in browser completely and instead, access it through IMAP or POP.

I personally don’t do it because I am addicted to Gmail’s web interface. 🙂

Don’t Disclose Your Password
Sounds simple, isn’t it? Believe it or not, this is a major reason why email accounts are compromised. I’ll give you an example. Are you on sites like LinkedIn, MySpace or Facebook? If yes, then you probably know about their friend finder feature where you can enter your Gmail account and password and they check your contacts list and let you know if your friends are on the respective services. Well, when it comes to such reputed sites you could trust them, but don’t just start doing this on every other site.

Also, beware of emails which ask you for your Gmail account credentials. Gmail would never ask you for that, so you can be sure that they are phishing emails which you need to stay away from.

Backup Emails
This isn’t a security tip but certainly a very important thing to do if Gmail serves as your primary email account. I mentioned a few tips to backup your email in my previous post on important backup strategies for your PC. There’s another great way to back it up using Thunderbird along with some extensions, as Lifehacker mentions here.