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- Cool Websites and Tools [June 26]
- How To Read and Interpret Body Language: A Quick Guide
- Use VocabGrabber To Be A Better Writer
- Gmail Tips: Four Degrees Towards Becoming A Gmail Ninja
- Audition - Groovalicious MMO Dancing Game
- Safari 4: Is It Time To Switch From Firefox?
| Cool Websites and Tools [June 26] Posted: 26 Jun 2009 04:00 PM PDT
(1) AppGiveaway - Website where you can get free promo codes for iPhone apps. Using these promo codes you can download cool and latest iPhone apps for free without having to pay its retail price. Browse promotions by categories and view the latest giveaways. Read more: AppGiveaway: Free Promo Codes For iPhone App (2) Assertize - As millions of people join services like Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed, Gmail etc, good account names are becoming a rare commodity. Some people are already buying and selling their online accounts just like domain names, and Assertize helps them with that. It acts as online marketplace where users can buy and sell online accounts. Read more: Assertize: Buy & Sell Online Accounts (3) Lectr - New video sharing site that focuses primarily on educational content. It provides videos of lectures given by various teachers and professors on a variety of topics and subjects that could prove helpful for college students. You can search for videos by typing in the query or browse by categories. Read more: Lectr: Educational Video Sharing Website (4) Vertex42 - Web resource where you can download free Excel templates, financial calculators, calendars templates and articles that are designed to educate, increase productivity and help people manage their time and finances effectively using Excel. Read more: Vertex42: Download Free Excel Templates & Calculators (5) WorldTexting - Online services that lets you send and receive text messages on your computer free of charge. The SMS messages can be send and received almost to and from anywhere WorldWide. In addition to free messaging, it also provides users with a bunch of cool features like an account to organize all your text messages, automated forwarding for times when you are not in front of your computer, scheduling etc. Read more: WorldTexting: Send And Receive Text Messages On Your Computer
These are just half of the websites that we discovered in the last couple of days. If you want us to send you daily round-ups of all cool websites we come across, leave your email here. Or follow us via RSS feed. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/ Related posts
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| How To Read and Interpret Body Language: A Quick Guide Posted: 26 Jun 2009 02:00 PM PDT
Understanding body language and using that knowledge can give you a huge advantage over people who don’t pay attention. What must be said though is that everyone is different, meaning not all signs typically associated with a certain emotion are true for every individual out there. The art is to be able to tell based on close observation. It’s a skill, it requires training, here are the clues. Bodycom has a short quiz that will give you an idea whether you’re instinctively able to read and interpret body language. Once your score is good enough, you’ll receive a complimentary diploma. So, what can you gain from being able to read nonverbal gestures? Detect Lies
Fortunately, the Pinocchio syndrome is a myth and our noses don’t grow when we lie. Rather than the nose however, eyes are a very strong indicator of lies. They clearly display what is going on in a person’s brain. Do they remember something, are they making something up? 2KnowMySelf has an excellent set of articles explaining everything about How to know if someone is lying to you. Similarly, What’s This? has three comprehensive articles on The Art of Lying, which explains body language in part two. Gain Respect
The article How to Command Respect at Even Happier explains how you can use posture, things you’re looking at, the way you are sitting, your head, face, and hands to air confidence and competence. A similar article also telling you what not to do can be found on InsideCRM - Leadership 101: How to Command Respect through Body Language. By gaining the respect of others, they will listen to you. It’s not a magic formula for world dominance, but at least that way, you can get your point across. Given both your verbal communication and the points you make are smart, you will eventually become more successful. Persuade PeoplePersuation has to do a lot with good communication and inevitably that includes nonverbal communication. Unlike gaining respect, persuading someone doesn’t mean you have to display your confidence, it means you show them that you’re on the same page, you sympathize. The website Persuasive has a Persuade Someone in 5 Steps guide that makes body language its primary point. In fact, it’s a tool to positively step into the conversation. Recognize Romantic Sympathy
The Adult Dating Body Language and Attraction Blog has an article that provides you with 33 Ways to Tell She’s Definitely Interested In You. And wikiHow features an article called How to Make the First Move, which also explains how to react to signs and express your own interest. What else?The humorous James Dean Guide to Being a Body Language Bad*ss analyzes Dean’s secret tools. They say he was notoriously insecure, it’s not obvious. Marc and Angel Hack Life has an excellent list on 25 Acts of Body Language to Avoid, which can serve as a quick reference as to what behavior you have to stop immediately. Changing Minds has a repository of emotions that can be communicated using body language and detailed descriptions what that might look like. Using Body Language is an encyclopedic collection for those wishing to go into the very details. How do you use body language to your advantage? Show it off in the comments. Picture credits: mmagallan, Sauerkraut, Splenetic, duchesssa Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too. Related posts
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| Use VocabGrabber To Be A Better Writer Posted: 26 Jun 2009 12:00 PM PDT
Then, why do you keep repeating the same words over and over again? Well, lets put an end to that! Maybe we can help you improve your writing skills or at the very least show you a great new tool. A new website called www.VocabGrabber.com is a great tool to help you see the errors of your ways in writing. This fresh, new service allows you to enter a block of text into a box and hit a button that says Grab Vocabulary. VocabGrabber analyzes your text and spits back a word cloud of terms used. From there, you can click on words and see synonyms as well as how many times you used a certain word. You can click on words to see their relationship to other words. It is a great tool for any writer – even if you are a seasoned paid writer! Check out the interface and we will walk you through how it can help you.
I grabbed the latest post from my personal website and pasted it into the box.
I hit the big green button and VocabGrabber instantly analyzed my text. It instantly (or at least it felt instant) spat back this word cloud.
The words that appear the most frequent have the largest font. From here, I changed the view into a list. This is easier for me to use. Below, you can see the button I clicked to show the list view – It is circled obnoxiously in red.
Ah now, I can see that the word backup was used 36 whopping times in that article. Maybe I should find another word to replace it with? VocabGrabber doesn't tell you that but it will help you if that is what you decide. On the right hand side of the screen, you will see a chart with your word and other similar words around it. You will see a few definitions for your word as well as have the ability to click on a word and have it open in a seperate mini-java Visual Theasaurus. This is not a free product but they do let you try it out.
In this instance, the only relevant synonym is Computer Backup and well, that just doesn't sound so much better. Let's try another word. I decided to pick “label” as you can see below:
So in this case, it suggested several words that can replace the word “label” – mark, tag or description. This is very handy and I would have killed for this in high school! Do you have some type of free writing tool that you would like to share with us? Then do so in the comments! Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/ Related posts
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| Gmail Tips: Four Degrees Towards Becoming A Gmail Ninja Posted: 26 Jun 2009 10:00 AM PDT
A few posts back, I had put up something on 10 Little Known Google Pages worth a Second Look. Now, here's another section of Google which is far more useful and worthy of a bookmark. Do you feel lost amidst the myriad options within Gmail? Some features pass by even the most involved users; I should know as I am one of them. Or on the other hand, you might have to explain Gmail to a rank babe-in-the-wood. If its the straight and easy help one seeks on Gmail, then who could be better than the experts at Google itself.
The page is not immediately apparent from the home page of either Google or Gmail and one has to search and click twice to land here. So if you constantly need to refer to Gmail's help, it's better to bookmark the Gmail Tips page. The way of the NinjaThe best thing about this section is that it takes a learner's (and leaner) approach instead of dishing out the usual 'Help and Support' geek-speak. What's with the 'Ninja' thing? The goal of Gmail Tips is to teach the user all the ins and outs of Gmail towards an ultimate goal of better email management. That's the way towards productivity. The Gmail Tips page has been put together from the contributions of Gmail boffins and what they think are the best productivity ideas. The Gmail Tips page does not follow a straight-laced approach as we see in most help pages. That's what scares away most technophobes amongst us, I guess. The page is more of a 'How to'. The page is divided into four sections each for a particular level of use.
Green belt: I get a dozen or so messages a day Black belt: I get a lot of messages a day Gmail master: I get a massive number of messages a day Ninja gear for the courseThe expanding list of tips and info are just one facet of the course. Also, included are embedded video clips which further help out. Especially handy is the 600KB printable guide which can be downloaded and kept as ready reference for all the tips listed on the site page. Presently, just two-paged… I can imagine that it will grow as more tips get added (A free laminated version was also there for the taking but it has run out). From a link at the bottom of the page, you too can share your own tips or upload a video to Google's YouTube channel.
The Gmail Tips page is an effective course for someone new to Gmail. But even old hands can pick up a tip or two. Here at MakeUseof.com, we aren't doing too badly either with ways to make the most of Gmail. Whether it's the Ultimate GMail Collection of over 80 Tools and Tips or How to Stay Connected with Gmail , our complete list of posts on Gmail covers quite a lot of ground. Also, you can’t be a ninja without downloading out cheat sheets! Check them out. Would Gmail Tips find a place amongst your bookmarks? Let us know in the comments. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too. Related posts
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| Audition - Groovalicious MMO Dancing Game Posted: 26 Jun 2009 08:00 AM PDT
Of course, for those of us who don’t feel like making the music but like experiencing it, we can trace our steps to the game that started it all: Dance Dance Revolution. As there are many PC clones of Guitar Hero, like Frets on Fire and JamLegend, it’s not a surprise to find PC adaptations of DDR as well. However, so far we only reviewed online flash games and missed some of the bigger fish in these waters. Today, we’ll show you one of, if not the most popular rhythmic dance games on the block. You better tie those shoelaces, because we’re getting ready for a dance battle. DISCLAIMER - Playing these games will most probably not make you a great dancer. Even more so, if you are Michael Jackson’s offspring, you’d do better hitting the club. Burning some calories, you know. AuditionAudition was based on a popular comic, and quickly grew out to one of the most popular rhythmic dance games since Dance Dance Revolution. Two summers past, Audition even made it to a PSP - and later, cellphone-adaptation, Audition Portable.
North American gamers were first supported by Nexon - the guys from MapleStory and Combat Arms - and support was later passed on to the now all Audition-dedicated RedBana. At the time, Audition is the playground for over 300 million dancers worldwide. GameplayGameplay is slightly different from most rhythm games. Players press the arrows displayed on their screen, and hit Spacebar or the Control key every fourth beat of a song. This starts out rather easy, but gets increasingly difficult, with more complex beats and the introduction of red arrows. When a red arrow scrolls by, you have to press the opposite directional arrow. Although you’re only using about four keys, your fingers will be quickly dancing across the keys.
Players can join an existing room, or create a new one (and seize the role of the DJ). This player is given control over the difficulty and choice of music. Creating rooms is especially fun when you want to play with a couple of friends, but there are enough rooms to join if you’re only there for a quick shake.
With great moves, players earn experience, and level up. Leveling up gives you a status in the game, but also makes it increasingly difficult to rise. Once you’re past level 5, you need to do a license challenge each time you raise a level. If you fail, you won’t have the license necessary to earn experience. CommunityMeanwhile, you can keep in contact with friends over the game. Hang out, or just have a chat. Audition comes with a built-in messenger tool, so you can view who’s online and where they’re at.
With the messenger, and in-game bulletin boards, Audition aims for interacting players and a community feel, and hits it right on the head. Audition is a great game to play with friends, or to make new ones, and it doesn’t stop after you log off. On the Audition forums, the show goes on long after the game has stopped. Bana Cash
The currency used in Audition is Bana Cash, which is bought through mini-transactions. Luckily, all purchasable articles are fashion-related, and none are gamebreaking. If you don’t mind wearing last year’s virtual clothes, you won’t notice a difference between free and paid play. What do you think? Do your (virtual) feet itch yet, or do you prefer to rock out on a guitar? Which are your favourite, free rhythmic games? Tell us all about it in the comments, we’d love to hear!
Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/ Related posts
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| Safari 4: Is It Time To Switch From Firefox? Posted: 26 Jun 2009 06:00 AM PDT
Today, you can see that Microsoft has decided to give a lot more attention to the design of its products. Windows 7 is a testament to that endeavor. It does sadden me that the majority of the UI improvements are derivations or adaptations instead of innovations. Safari 4 hasn't suffered radical changes since the beta version – except maybe for the tabs issue which generated a considerable amount of uproar – but it did a fantastic job of polishing rough edges. Safari 4 is fast, usable and has taste. Let’s dig in a little deeper, shall we? Unlike earlier versions of Safari for Windows, this iteration integrates beautifully with the default themes in Windows XP, Vista and even Windows 7. Whether we believe that "the new Nitro JavaScript engine that executes JavaScript nearly eight times faster than IE 8 and more than four times faster than Firefox 3" or that it "loads HTML web pages more than three times faster than IE 8 and three times faster than Firefox 3" is up to each one of us and the guys who benchmark milliseconds. It does however feel faster than Firefox and IE8 and about the same as Chrome 2.04. For many of you running Windows 7 (if you aren’t, what are you waiting for? Here’s how to upgrade), Safari 4 has another surprise – it works with the Aero Peek feature the same way IE8 does. The latest stable version of Firefox 3 does not support this capability.
As for the Top Sites view, I can't really decide what to think about it. It’s not particularly useful – like the integration with Aero Peek – but it does look good and does not impede my usual browsing habits. Use it for a couple of hours, maybe a day, and the most visited websites will be nicely presented when you open a new tab. And, believe it or not, this Minority Report style interface doesn't take any longer to load than a new blank tab in Firefox. What is useful is the Cover Flow view for History – it makes finding websites a snap for people with good visual memory.
Another aspect that persuaded me to switch to Safari was the layout of the interface elements – compact, streamlined, bare bones – modifications that I did myself in Firefox. Even the menu bar is hidden to save space. However, I didn't manage to convince the bookmark list to stay on the side in Safari, a perk for wide screen displays.
Thanks to an AdBlock list and a CSS file designed for Opera by Fanboy you can now disable most of ads. All you have to do is download Element Hider CSS file and go to Preferences -> Advanced -> Style Sheet –> Other. Select the CSS file you just downloaded. Remember though that you're undermining the revenue model for MakeUseOf and the writers behind it as well as other web publications. The only thing that’s missing from Safari right now is an add-on similar to NoScript. At that point, Safari is just an upgraded version of Firefox (without getting into a technical discussion about the different rendering engines, Gecko versus WebKit). All the graphical candy takes a toll on the system memory. While I can’t say it’s a memory leak or something else, Safari with 4 tabs open consumed about 200MB of memory repeatedly. Firefox isn’t far behind with a jump from 90Mb to 160MB - one hour staying in idle mode. You can also read my review of the Safari 4 beta as well as other posts related to Safari. Tell us in the comments what browser you use, why you like it and of course, your impressions on Safari 4. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too. Related posts
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Body language or nonverbal communication is a strong and often neglected form of communication. Although we instinctively use gestures to signal emotions, we are barely aware of it. Yet, we subconsciously react to these signals when we see them in others.
Our body speaks the truth. Most people don’t feel comfortable when they lie and their bodies will betray them subconsciously.
Other than reading and interpreting other people’s nonverbal communication, you can understand how others see you because of your body language and change it.
Ever met someone interesting and were unsure whether you could make a move on them? Observing their body language will certainly tell you whether they are interested as well or whether you should rather move on quickly.
So, you fancy yourself a writer, eh? You say you 
What's with Google? Googlers seem to never put down their thinking caps and out comes this little nugget of a page called 
Rhythmic games are “the shit” these days. After Singstar, games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band are now dominating the charts. It’s the retro days all over again.
Like many free games, Audition does need a source of income, and if they don’t want to bury you under the ads, most of the time that means in-game money.
Steve Jobs once said that Microsoft's products lack "taste". At the moment, it started a war between Windows and Mac fanboys. But to many people, that statement was justified – OS X was considerably ahead of Windows from a design and usability standpoint. 
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