How to create screen captures with highlighted areas on the iPhone

I've been asked the following question by my readers several times "How do you get screen captures from the iPhone and highlight some areas? So instead of just answering my readers individually I decided to write a post with the steps I take to accomplish it. This way everyone wins.

First of all, I have the Photogene app which is a really good photo editor. This app has a lot of really great editing tools, it's like having a mini version of PhotoShop on your iPhone. You can download it here.

After you download the app you need to get all the photos you want to use as screen captures. If you're writing about the iPhone and you need some screen captures, you can press the Home and sleep/wake button at the same time (see image to right). This takes a photo of your current screen and the photos are saved automatically in your Camera Roll.

OK, so now you have all the photos you need so let's get down to business.

1. Access the Photogene app.

2. Tap Edit new photo and then select the photo from your Camera Roll.

3. Tap the crop tool (scissors) and resize the box to cover the portion of the photo you want to keep and tap Crop. This will trim the photo to your liking.

4. Tap the symbols icon (star) and swipe the bottom toolbar to the left.

5. Drag the square figure onto the photo.

6. Double-tap the square figure to remove text and click Done.

7. Tap the outline tool and select yellow and tap the fill tool and select transparent. (Choose the outline color that will be more visible with the background color of your photo.)

8. Put your finger in the middle of the highlighted square figure and drag it to the area of the photo you want to highlight.

9. Use the circled corners to resize the square to fit the area you want to highlight.

10. Tap the Done icon (check mark) and tap Save.

All your photos will be stored in your Camera Roll. Now follow the same steps with all the photos you want to use as screen captures. At first this might seem to long of a process but it's not. Each step takes a second to do and after you do a couple of screen captures you'll be able to do this in your sleep :O)

By the way, all these screen caps with the exception of first full iPhone photo were taken following these steps. To me this is one of the most productive apps that I have. I recommend you play with it because this is just one of the ways you can use it but it does so much much more.

If you want to be more productive you can paste those photos into an e-mail and use them to write an article in your inbox, send it to Posterous, and your article will be live in no time in all your social media sites.

What other cool things do you do with Photogene or any other photo app?

Free Alternatives to PhotoShop, MsOffice and Antivirus/Security software

In this day and age there are so many programs available for free that it's just not necessary to spend any money. In this post I'm giving you some alternatives to PhotoShop, MsOffice, and Antivirus/Security programs that will be of great benefit.

Two free alternatives to MsOffice Suite
OpenOffice - This suite has applications that look very similar to MsOffice. They have Writer (Word), Impress (PowerPoint), Math (Excel), and Base (Access).

The best part is that you can even save your documents as MsOffice documents so anyone with MsOffice can open and work on the documents. It's a very easy suite to learn if you know MsOffice because even the menus look similar.


Just like MsOffice, OpenOffice has templates available within the applications and also has more available online for you to download for free.

Google Docs - Is a free suite that has also similar types of documents as MsOffice as well.

This suite is available by logging into your online Google account and any documents you create are saved online. The great thing about Google Docs is that you also have the option to save the documents on your PC as either as PDF, PPT, Doc, XLS and other types. Just like MsOffice, Google Docs has over 400 templates available for you to use.
You can also manage your documents through facebook by adding the Google Docs application. If the login credentials are the same for facebook and Google when you add the application it will automatically interface with your Google Docs account.
Another great feature Google Docs is the share feature. You can share your documents with others and allow them to edit the documents.

Since this is an online application you also have the advantage of being able to organize your documents by folders just like in your e-mail inbox.

Check out Google Docs in Plain English video.



Two free alternatives to PhotoShop
PhotoShop is a great application for those that really need to edit images and photos. For the average person that only needs to do some minor changes and effects to their photos or graphics there are other solutions that work very well and that are free.

Picnik - This is a great online photo and graphic editor. They have a free version and also a paid version ($24.95 a year) but trust me, the free version is enough.

With Picnik you can crop, resize, rotate, apply special effects, fine-tune your results and all of this is working from on your browser, there is nothing to download.

You can select photos available either on your PC or available on any of your accounts in MySpace, flickr, facebook, photobucket, Picasa, Webshots, and Webs.

Everything is saved to your online Library, but you also have the option to save it on your PC as well or to share it on other sites such as Twitter, facebook, flickr, etc...
Picnik is available as an application on facebook and you can manage both your online account photos and your facebook photos. Just remember to Sign in if you need to access your online photos.

SplashUp - is another great alternative to PhotoShop and it's probably the one that has the most common features as well. SplashUp is another online editor with a twist. Sign up for a free account but don't be discouraged by the tools showcased on the home page, that's nothing.

When you click on Jump Right In on the Home page, a new window pops up with the editor which looks very similar to it's contender.

The nifty online editor has multiple image editing, pixel-level control and layers. You can work on images located on your PC or on facebook, Picasa, flickr, SmugMug, photobucket or display an image by URL. You can also save your images on these sites as well.

Three Free Alternatives for Antivirus/Security Software

There are several free alternatives available that work just as good as any paid Antivirus and Security software.

The following two were recommended by Consumer Reports as Best Buys even though they are free :O)

Avira AntiVir Personal - This software includes AntiSpam, AntiSpyware, Firewall, EMail protection and Parental control.

Microsoft Windows Defender - This software protects your PC against pop-ups, slow performance and security threats caused by spyware and other potentially unwanted software. This comes automatically with Windows Vista and it's also compatible to Windows XP.

Avast Home Edition - Great full AntiVirus software. The only thing some people may not like is that when you initially register the software you receive a license key only good for 60 days and then you need to register again to get license key good for 1 year, and you must register annually after that. But hey the software is free!

Some recommendations for finding free software:

Before you buy any software search on sites like download.com, tucows.com, and Freeware Files. You can also do a search on Google for example, search for free antivirus software. Chances are you will find a free version of it.

After you find names of free software, search for reviews on it. Even though it's free you don't want to use something that doesn't work, right?

You can find a bigger list of free alternative software at Web 2.0 Applications Reviews wiki.

What free alternatives do you use? Or tell us your experience if you've used any of the software mentioned in the post.