20 free Google Chrome apps to boost your productivity

Google Chrome might well become the world’s most popular browser this year. It has already overtaken Mozilla Firefox and is well positioned to overtake Internet Explorer whose share dropped from 46 to 38.5 percent last year.

Chrome is a very easy browser to use and offers a number of useful extensions and apps. Google has redesigned Chrome’s interface allowing you to shift between most visited sites and Chrome apps. That means you can significantly increase your browser’s functionality.

So how can journalists make the best use of Google Chrome? Here are 20 free apps to check out and let us know if can recommend useful Chrome apps for journalism.

Yoono
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mjkbgbnoikoflalnbnofkfegidffigkeIf you are a social media fan promoting your articles and communicating with your audience via social media, this app is for you. You can share posts and read your feed on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr and others from a single interface.

iPiccy Photo Editor
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/imokeandodnlammaoenbgcnbhigjbpjhThis simple photo editor doesn’t require registration and allows you to perform basic editing to prepare images for the web. You can either upload photos from your PC or from a URL or Facebook page, or just take a picture with your web cam. The app allows you to resize and crop images, rotate them and adjust colours. You can also apply different filters and add text to your image.

Alternatively, you can use Aviary Image Editor (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dafkakmjmhfnnfclmjdfpnbmdeddkoeo)

It looks like a simplified Photoshop version and can even work with layers.

Aviary Audio Editor
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ajiijeebjcmkhdplmollbjpljcnelfhnThis is a free online audio editor which is much more comfortable to use than Audacity, a popular offline editor. It allows multitracking and simple editing operations. You can also record audio directly from you device and then save and edit it.

Mappeo
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lnempicjilmahngopecohbcbldlijkibYou can use Mappeo when covering regional stories. The app will show you geolocated videos from a particular area that have been published on YouTube.

Transcribe
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ogokenmicnjdfhmhocanoemnddmpcjjmTranscribing recorded audio might be tricky and tiring, if you have to constantly switch between the text document and audio player. Transcribe solves this problem and lets you play audio and write the transcript in one window. The app also works offline, all you need to do is to upload your mp3 or wav-file and then just copy the text into your document.

Read Later Fast
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/decdfngdidijkdjgbknlnepdljfaepjiIf you need to read a lot of documents and pages online during you research, this app is for you. It lets you save pages to read them offline later. You can also choose to read the article as plain text or in the original view. You can add the articles to your personal archive to make sure you can find them even if they have been deleted from the website. The app is available in a number of languages, including English, German and Russian.

Quick Note
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mijlebbfndhelmdpmllgcfadlkankhokThis app helps you to take notes online as well as store and search them afterwards. A useful tool if you don’t want to get distracted by searching for a sheet of paper while browsing.

Scribble
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/offpaifnchmpbnjhjbhpdffahlofdkfb

Note-taking is even more fun with scribble which is a more sophisticated app. It will organise your notes on a virtual pinboard in a stylish way. You can create notifications and set reminders for your notes which will then appear on your desktop.

Ge.tt
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cdgghbbgmhcpidlmnepkbihehhkmjomcUsing Ge.tt will let you share files up to 2 GB via Facebook, Twitter or email. All you need to do is upload the file and publish the link on the chosen channel. For example, the tool comes in handy if you need to quickly share an interview or a picture.

Todo-inator
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/heademcnccmohllepccefjhjohlifcac

An extremely simple task management tool with a reduced design. You can create new tasks by clicking on the green “add” button and choose if the will be marked as important or set a concrete date. Deleting the task is even easier: you just click on the left square near the task and it’s gone. The app also works offline a helps you keep track of your current tasks.

History eraser
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/jjolhjmdgbhebcdnfjhngobjggghoipaResearch on the web also means you need to be able to cover up your tracks. This free app deletes typed URLs, cache, cookies and all your downloads. You can decide on the time period and delete either everything, or just the track of your activities for the last hour, day, week, month. Just don’t forget to save the stuff you will need later.

Task timer
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/aomfjmibjhhfdenfkpaodhnlhkolngif?hl=enA simple tool to keep track of the time you spend on different tasks online. Just type in a new task and, if necessary, set the date you are supposed to spend on it. You will then be notified when you have reached your limit. You can stop, reset and delete tasks. The app will show all your tasks as a pie diagram which can be an enormous motivator.

Writebox

Writebox

This simple text tool is for you if you get distracted by the numerous possibilities and functions of sophisticated text processing software. You will land on a black-and-white page with extremely reduced design which should help you concentrate on the text itself.

Alternatively, you could also use  Quietwrite (QuietWrite) which doesn’t require the sign-in.

Lovely Charts

Lovely Charts

This is an easy to use app to visualize things, such as drawing diagrams, flowcharts or sitemaps using drag’n drop mechanism. You can then export your work as a png. or jpg. file. The tool is perfect for bloggers and freelancers.

Mind map
MindMap
Mindmaps help you to structure your thoughts during a research and visualize connections between different ideas and tasks. The app doesn’t require a registration, so you can start drawing your map right away. You can then save it locally for later use, print or save as a picture.

NewIP

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/oemclhambjcmkmdkmhijfjagmgkoflni/details

This app will change your IP-address and will help you keep yourself anonymous during a hard-core research. After typing in the address you want to access, you will continue browsing through the NewIP page.

FeedSquares

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ddkahgkblobiogkkeedfnjkldecloidi

This browser extension will refresh your Google Reader feed and visualize it in an attractive and user-friendly way. It will automatically import feeds from your Google Reader. Separate feeds will be shown in a stream at the bottom of the page. You can open single posts by clicking on them. The posts you have read or scrolled through will change their color to grey so that you don’t have to return to them.

Google screen capture
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cpngackimfmofbokmjmljamhdncknpmg/details

An incredibly useful Chrome and Firefox extension for online journalists who spend time annotating screengrabs in Photoshop and other graphics packages.

TinEye
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/haebnnbpedcbhciplfhjjkbafijpncjl
Add this browser extension, right click on a picture or upload an image and you can find out where else it has been used. It is a valuable journalism tool to verify photographs.

ScribeFire

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/elkkomimknapgodalnkjeddkjnjkfmfpScribeFire allows you to blog from your browser, without opening the CMS or platform. You can post to platforms including WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, Windows Live Spaces, Tumblr, Posterous, Xanga, and LiveJournal. You can edit and update existing posts and also schedule posts for the future (if your blog allows that). You can also delete posts, save drafts, tag, categorize and upload images, and post to multiple blogs at once.

Grateful to: Natalia Karbasova

TENTH GHANA MUSIC AWARDS UK, NOV 24

The Ghana Music Awards - Europe ceremony is geared up to fulfil  all expectations and more at the prestigious Ocean Music Arena on Sat 24th NOV 2012.

Click HERE to vote for your favourite artiste 

VIDEO
Abrantee responds to "the Rise of Afrobeats" Guardian interview   

In a recent interview with Choice'Fm's Dj Abrantee with The Guardian newspaper , it was reported that the host of the popular Afrobeats radio show claimed to have formed the word "Afrobeats" to describe a new genre of the African music invasion into the UK.

This caused a storm in the Afro entertainment industry with the popular host coming under fire for the reported comments. Factory78tv caught up with Abrantee to discuss the recent interview and the storm that followed. Watch the full interview here.
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DJ Abrantee presents Afrobeats – review

On paper, it was a perfect idea: al fresco raving to the summer-friendly sounds of afrobeats, a natural opportunity to bring some of the most vibrant music around out of its natural underground club habitat, and to liven up Somerset House's genteel annual series of gigs.

Afrobeats is made for dancing in skimpy clothing under blazing sunshine, not amid a sea of ponchos and umbrellas while enduring tonight's deluge. But appropriately enough for a scene characterised by versatility, tonight displays afrobeats' capacity to fill even the most unpromising scenario with celebratory energy.

An eye-wateringly impressive performance by the Abladei dance troupe – fire-eating and casual contortionism feature heavily – is followed by a no-nonsense revolving door of artists. With every 10-minute cameo, the angle on the genre is adjusted slightly as each goes all-out to stamp their distinct personalities and backgrounds on the show. "It's about cultures – rep your countries!" calls Amour, the night's first host, in a declaration of pluralism that underpins the evening. Afrobeats, like all pop, is a broad church; its loosely defined unifying aesthetic takes disparate African club styles as a base from which to enlist anything it pleases, towards the end goal of making bodies move.

Thus, at various times tonight's music is reminiscent of dancehall, with Atumpan's exhortations to "wine down low"; then funky house, with Kwamz and Flava's propulsive Shine Your Eyes; and even the spirit of grime, with the rambunctious rapping and rewinds of London's own Vibe Squad. Digital, Auto-Tuned dancefloor bangers (Skob's Cum On) rub shoulders with irresistible call-and-response hooks (Mista Silva's Boom Boom Tah); there is slinky, loverman smoothness from Olu Maintain and even the incorporation of Spanish rapping courtesy of Angola's SOA. Tough, no-nonsense syncopated beats morph into heart-soaringly generous melodies and irresistibly cheesy chants.

The night's main host, DJ Abrantee, declares that the crowd – whose spirits have not been dampened one whit by the weather – is "making history" by raving in the rain with the air of a man who can't quite believe how far his baby has come; when he rounds tonight off with a selection of the biggest afrobeats anthems (including D'Banj's Oliver Twist and Davido's Dami Duro) and the entire audience does the genre's signature azonto dance, getting caught up in the party vibe overrides all else.

Grateful to: theGuardianUK

The rise of Afrobeats

It's the new sound of the UK underground, reworking the African pop of Fela Kuti for kids reared on grime, hip-hop and funky house. With stars like Kanye West wanting in, just how big will it get?

As London ushered in its Olympic year at midnight on 31 December, the official fireworks playlist blaring out over the Thames moved predictably through Vangelis, Soft Cell, Shirley Bassey and Adele. But it was accompanied by one less obvious choice:

D'Banj's Oliver Twist. It may have been the first time most of the 250,000 revellers heard the hit-in-waiting from the Nigerian rap star, but it probably won't be the last. At that moment, London DJ Abrantee, the man who gave the name "Afrobeats" to the hottest scene in the UK right now, was getting ready to fly to Egypt, where the very same song "tore the place apart" in front of a Cairo club crowd more used to house music. Most people are familiar with the Afrobeat styles of Fela Kuti – Afrobeats is something different; with the addition of the letter "s" comes a whole new chapter in global pop music.

Abrantee's neologism describes a new sound – a 21st-century melting pot of western rap influences, and contemporary Ghanaian and Nigerian pop music – but it didn't drop out of a clear blue sky. "I've been playing this music to three or four thousand people at African events in the UK for years," he explains. "Things like the Ghana Independence celebrations or the Hiplife festival at the O2 in London last year.

Bringing it to the mainstream is a different ball game, though – D'Banj getting played on New Year's Eve at the Thames, that kind of certifies it now – this is serious! For years we've had amazing hiplife, highlife, Nigerbeats, juju music, and I thought: you know what, let's put it all back together as one thing again, and call it Afrobeats, as an umbrella term. Afrobeat, the 60s music, was more instrumental – this Afrobeats sound is different, it's intertwined with things like hip-hop and funky house, and there's more of a young feel to it."

Abrantee is unfailingly cheerful, 30 years old, and astonishingly busy, his two

BlackBerrys buzzing constantly even on a Sunday evening. He hosts a radio show six days a week on Choice FM in London, yet when we meet his DJing has already taken him to Africa twice in 2012, and this is only in the first week of January. On his weekly Saturday night Afrobeats radio show, and for his forthcoming UK tour, the playlist is almost all Ghanaian and Nigerian – Africa's just too big to keep up with all its other genres, he laughs. "This is specifically the western African sound: there are a lot of shared ideas between these two neighbouring countries. I see Afrobeats as music which makes the heart beat. And it's funky, and hyped, and energetic and young."

It certainly is young – Abrantee only coined the term when his Choice show launched in April 2011 – but Afrobeats has found its way on to the MP3 players of a generation of under-18s looking for an alternative to British urban pop music. "It's striking how young they are – when I do these Afrobeats events there's thousands of people, and they're all youngsters, really." The kids are always the earliest adopters, though, so Abrantee reckons that this bodes well. "It's like when funky house first came out; the youngsters all jumped on it, it was the new thing on the street, the kids were all on it. It was the same when grime first came out. And now it's Afrobeats' turn."

This has had some amusing knock-on effects for black British fans. Abrantee has, he says, heard stories of UK-born kids saying to their African parents: "'Can I have some money to go to this Afrobeats rave?' and they've gone, 'Afrobeats? What is this, African music?' – and the parents are really pleased, and proud, that their kids are all of a sudden embracing their culture. It didn't used to be cool, but now they're going through their parents' record collections going, 'Have you got this old song by Daddy Lumba?'." He seems proud of having inadvertently united the generations. "I'm getting a lots of tweets saying, 'My mum loves you,' or, 'My dad's blasting your mix CD.'"

For 16-year-old Natasha, whom I find sodcasting – playing music in public through her phone – with her friends at a Hackney bus stop, it's just the ultimate party music: "Afrobeats is the best thing to dance to right now, it's got the best vibe," she enthuses, as her friends look for that same D'Banj song on their phones, in order to demonstrate.

It's not just the Afrobeats fanbase that's growing rapidly in the UK, but the interest from British and American urban music acts too. Ghanaian rap superstar Sarkodie has already collaborated with UK artists Donaeo and Sway, and a few weeks ago a video appeared on YouTube of him teaching Wretch 32 and Chipmunk how to do the Ghanaian Azonto dance, while they worked on songs together. "You're going to see more and more UK artists doing Afrobeats collaborations now," Abrantee says, pointing to further interest from Alexandra Burke and Tinchy Stryder. Meanwhile in the US, Kanye West has signed D'Banj, following his collaboration with Snoop Dogg on Mr Endowed; while last month Akon swooped to sign three Nigerian Afrobeats artists in one go, Wiz Kid, 2Face Idibia and P-Square.

According to Abrantee, the funky party sounds now emanating from Ghana and Nigeria are providing an injection of new energy into UK urban and US hip-hop. "The floodgates have opened. Music is always evolving, and everyone's always looking for the next drug. Funky house has died out, grime is still there but it's gone back underground, electro-pop's got UK urban music in the charts, but that'll die out too, it's got a short shelf-life. So everyone's looking for the next thing, the next hype – and people are finally noticing I'm getting 3,000 people coming out to dance to Afrobeats."

For British-Ghanaian hip-hop stalwart Sway, who has been rapping over Ghanaian beats and collaborating with Accra's finest for almost a decade, there are obvious similarities between the 1960s Afrobeat that swept the world and what's happening now. "Fela Kuti is obviously a massive legend in the game, and what he was doing is not too different to what D'Banj is doing now – taking western influences and adding them to African culture, and coming up with something new, that appeals to everyone."

Even with that history, Sway reckons that technology has heralded a highly accelerated three-way cultural exchange between Africa, America and Britain. "African music in

Africa is evolving in relation to what's going on abroad too. Via the internet they're picking up certain trends much quicker: so for example you have Auto-Tune and western styles of singing cropping up on all these Afrobeats tracks."

You can hear this influence on Nigerian rap star Ice Prince's hits Oleku and Superstar, and, he says, Afrobeats itself marks a new musical progression: "There's been a serious change in the music coming out of Africa lately," he explains. "The sound is heavier and clearer, the videos are better, there's been a positive growth in the African music scene. It was just a matter of time before people paid attention."

And now, Sway's peers in the UK and the US are waking up to Afrobeats' secret: it's accessible on so many different levels, but at its core it's just irresistible pop music. For Sway, its power is blindingly obvious: "When you've got African swag and African traditions combined with up-to-date western styles, and singing in English, well – you've got a winning formula on your hands."

DJ Abrantee's Afrobeats Mix Volume 1 is available now for free download from his website. An Afrobeats UK tour culminates at London Indigo2 on 29 January.

Grateful to: theGuardianUK

Eighteen year-old Sharon crowned Miss Malaika’ 1

Eighteen year-old High School graduate, Bridget Sharon Cofie was at the wee hours of Sunday crowned winner of the tenth anniversary of the Miss Malaika beauty pageant, which came off at the Accra International Conference Centre.

She beat nine other hopefuls, Anima, Frances, Aisha, Ama, Regina, Ella, Sadia, Sonia and Edlyn after ten months of intensive grooming and a night of fashion, beauty, brains and entertainment in front of a packed audience.

After Sadia and Frances were crowned the Miss Talent and Miss Photogenic respectively, the ten delegates were cut down to the Top 5 - Ama, Anima, Sadia, Sharon and Regina.

Edlyn, Sharon, Ama and Frances all emerged winners of Miss Congeniality after the ten finalists voted for their favourite contestant.

After a talent show and a Question and Answer session with Kafui Dey, host of the popular television series, Who Wants To Be Rich, MCs for the night, Chris Attoh and Naa Ashokor declared Sharon the winner.

Regina Anne Dei Van-Helvert and Sadia Sanusi won first and second runner-ups respectively.

Apart from the beauty and brains on display on the night, patrons were thrilled to some exciting performances from Nigerian star, Darey, Edem, D-Black and R2Bees.

Grateful to: myjoyonline

M.I – TRIBUTE SONG ‘ASHES’ FOR ALUU4

Multiple winner and the Co-host of The Headies 2012, Jude ‘M.I‘ Abaga has released a tribute song titled ‘Ashes‘ to ALUU4, the four University of Port Harcourt students who lost their lives in Aluu community, Port Harcourt. “4 young men died at the hands of a lynch mob on the 5th of October 2012.

Whether or not their deaths will mean anything, or fade out of our minds as just another meaningless tragedy, is up to us and what we do from here on.

I hope this song captures that message. Nothing would be worse than for a death to mean nothing.

Nothing.” -MI Abaga

DOWNLOAD: ASHES BY M.I.

Multiple-winner and the Co-host of The Headies 2012, Jude ‘M.I‘ Abaga has released a tribute song titled ‘Ashes‘ to ALUU4, the four University of Port Harcourt students who lost their lives in Aluu community, Port Harcourt.

“4 young men died at the hands of a lynch mob on the 5th of October 2012. Whether or not their deaths will mean anything, or fade out of our minds as just another meaningless tragedy, is up to us and what we do from here on.

I hope this song captures that message. Nothing would be worse than for a death to mean nothing. Nothing.”

-MI Abaga

Grateful to: HHWM