MakeUseOf.com |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [July 2]
- How To Build A Great Media Center For Your Home [PDF]
- DoubleVision - The Best Web Browser for Secretly Watching Videos at Work
- 3 Free Uninstallers To Prevent Obsolete Files From Piling Up [Mac]
- 4 Better Alternatives To eBay’s Smart Search Tool
- June Roundup: MakeUseOf Authors
- Rotate Your Desktop Backgrounds Automatically With WallPapa [Windows]
- 5 Free Website Stock Tickers for Financial Geeks
| Cool Websites and Tools [July 2] Posted: 02 Jul 2009 04:00 PM PDT
(1) Collecta - Unlike Google, Bing or any other traditional search engine, Collecta searches what’s happening right now. When you enter a search term, it looks through social media content like blog posts, comments, news articles, Twitter updates, Flickr photos etc, and only shows results that have been posted after you started your search. Read more: Collecta: Find Out What's Happening Right Now (2) EventBrite - Web service that helps you organize ticketed events, promote them and sell tickets online. It makes it easy to publish your event on the web by creating a customized event web page and maximize attendance by promoting it online via its free online tools. Service is free if your event is free, and if you sell tickets for a price, Eventbrite collects a small fee on each ticket sold. Read more: EventBrite: Organize Ticketed Events & Sell Tickets Online (3) LifeTango - Goal-sharing and tracking website where you can set goals and monitor progress. You may set others' goals as yours if it inspires you. Also share your goals with family and friends for encouragement and support. Search the Tango community and find others who either have already or are trying to do the same things you're trying to do and share advice, encourage each other, and more. Read more: LifeTango: Goal Sharing & Tracking Tool (4) PicFog - This site provides a real-time search for images shared on Twitter. Using it, you will be able to search and browse latest images on any topic. The relevance of image results are based on how frequently they have been shared and discussed on Twitter. Search results are automatically updated with the newest images as they posted on Twitter. You can always pause the auto-refreshing by clicking the "pause" button or view image results in a slideshow. Read more: PicFog: Search For Images Shared On Twitter (5) ReSubj - Simple group discussion application accessible from both browser and email. Simply create an inbox with a message, add recipients and start your discussion. Participants may post or reply to a message in the inbox using browser or email. No sign up, only emails required. It has got some cool options, like threaded comments and private inboxes. Read more: ReSubj – Easy Online Group Discussion Tool
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 Build A Great Media Center For Your Home [PDF] Posted: 02 Jul 2009 02:00 PM PDT
But a good media center not only plays your files or lets you watch television, it also gives you the opportunity to stay connected over the web, to stream content, or grab subtitles and movie reviews. The reason so many people are still hooked to their VHS/DVD/VCR boxes, lies in relation to the vast size and complexity of the media center market. Acting as your guide in this realm, MakeUseOf proudly presents its latest PDF release - How To Build a Great Media Center. In this free PDF, active MakeUseOf contributor and eBook writer Stefan Neagu from tuxgeek.me, will walk you through all the steps of understanding and creating your own media center. Read all about the different hardware components, software candidates and media extenders, in this manual for geek to techno-deprived. Download this free PDF now, and get started! Using this illutrated guide, we’re confident that you too will be able to grasp and get started on the road to your very own media center. If you enjoyed this ebook, be sure to check out the other available MakeUseOf manuals. Related posts
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| DoubleVision - The Best Web Browser for Secretly Watching Videos at Work Posted: 02 Jul 2009 12:00 PM PDT
Double Vision is one of the best web browsers for this kind of thing - it lets you view and interact with two applications at the same time, without having to switch windows again and again. So, you could be working on your presentation and watching your favorite video or even better - a related tutorial at the same time. Technically, Double Vision is browser, however it has certain features that distinguish it from other browsers and make it perfect for these kinds of situation.
Browse to the website of your choice as you would do with any normal browser. Once there, click on the enter “Double Vision Mode”, the browser will turn translucent and here is the best part - you will be able to click through the browser’s window and interact with any other application underneath. Thus, you can continue working while you watch a video on YouTube, or you can follow along video tutorials and carry out the actions at the same time. You do realise that you can use this to sneak a peak at YouTube while at work? So, what happens when someone comes to your computer? Well, hit Ctrl + Esc and the browser turns off the sound and disappears as though it was never there in the first place. Hit Ctrl + Esc again and it resurfaces.
Being able to click through the browser window doesn’t take away your ability to control it. While in “Double Vision Mode”, Double Vision displays a tiny control Window that lets you play with transparency, move the window around etc. You can also press and hold the Ctrl + Alt key to restore the window to 100% opaqueness temporarily, interact and let them go to return back to the previous “Double Vision Mode” settings.
You can also watch videos stored locally using all the above features. Local videos are supported in Double Vision 2.0 which is a beta product, but you can try (remember to register or you will be denied access) to see if it works for you. Do you know of similar applications that will let you overlay stuff on top of each other? Let us hear about them in the comments. Related posts
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| 3 Free Uninstallers To Prevent Obsolete Files From Piling Up [Mac] Posted: 02 Jul 2009 10:00 AM PDT
Even though most Mac apps are stand-alone software (the files required for them to work are compiled into the app itself), some of them do leave a few preferences and configuration files behind after dragging the app to Trash. These files won’t affect the operation of the system and most of them are small in size. However, you can sometimes find a large unused chunks of files (such as saved data files from games) that will occupy a huge portion of your hard drive space. To really swipe everything clean, you’ll need the help of an uninstaller. Here are three free alternatives for Mac.
AppCleaner
To use it, just drop an application onto the AppCleaner window. It will find the related files, list everything down and let the user delete them. Users can also choose applications, widgets and other items (mostly plugins) to uninstall.
AppCleaner has the ability to prevent certain important apps from being deleted accidentally. Users can add any application to the list of their favorite apps in the Preferences. Jackson also listed AppCleaner in his list of Free Alternatives to 10 Popular Commercial Mac Apps. AppTrap
This uninstaller resides in System Preferences as a preference pane.
AppTrap is no longer being maintained or developed but still works fine under Leopard. DesInstaller
Caution! To be sure, you can also confirm the files you’re about to delete by looking inside the Trash before emptying it. Do you use uninstallers for Mac or you only depend on Trash? Do you have other alternatives? Share using the comments section below.
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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| 4 Better Alternatives To eBay’s Smart Search Tool Posted: 02 Jul 2009 08:00 AM PDT
Here we go. eBay DesktopThe official eBay Desktop is an Adobe AIR app which mirrors all the searching, tracking, and bidding functionality of the site, plus filtering features, search history, and my favorite part, real-time updates. It's refreshing to no longer need refreshing. Enter a keyword and watch the search results update by themselves.
Lastminute AuctionOne of my favorite eBay tools is the Lastminute Auction search. Auctions featured here all have current prices under $1 (not including shipping), and all have less than an hour to go. Register to keep favorite categories handy, and you've got a good chance here to snatch up a great deal.
Typo BuddyMy new favorite eBay search tool, however, is Typo Buddy. From this site, you can take advantage of human error and hopefully find yourself a steal. When you do an eBay smart search for "Nintendo", you get all the results with that keyword. What you don't get are "Nintedno", "Nintenro", "Nihtendo", or many other misspellings. Typo Buddy will find all of them, with the idea that the auctions' low profile will let you swoop in and pay a lower price for the items.
Unwired BuyerOne more site to mention, not because it's a search but because it's a unique tool, is Unwired Buyer, which keeps an eye on your watch list and lets you place bids by phone in the closing minutes.
Not forgetting Nabit, an application which Mark reviewed a couple years back. Follow this link to read all about it. Unfortunately, the developers of Nabit has discontinued its distribution. You might still be able to get a copy of it online. What's your favorite way to search eBay? Give us some ideas 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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| June Roundup: MakeUseOf Authors Posted: 02 Jul 2009 07:00 AM PDT
Simon Slangen is our PDF Manual Editor, so if there are any subjects you would like to see turned into a downloadable PDF manual, put your ideas in the comments below or send him an email at simon@makeuseof.com. You may also find the past manuals here. So, what has MakeUseOf served you in the month of June? Read on to find out. Watch Hulu & Flash Videos On Your WM Device With Skyfire Varun - Tech Crazy Enhance Windows Explorer's Context Menu With Shell Tools Saikat - The Things I Do How to Remove Microsoft Groove Synchronization Simon - Wombat Labs The Top 3 File Compression & Extraction Softwares Guy - Extreme IT 4 Very Light Alternatives to Adobe Reader Ryan - BetterContent 4 Really Popular Prank Call Websites & How They Work Tina 5 More Excellent Ways to Waste Time Online Damien - Make Tech Easier Bing: The Next Big Thing From Microsoft David - The 2.0 Life Tim - Twenty Ounce How To Turn Your Gaming Console Into A Media Center Jeffry - Super Subconscious 8 Free FTP Clients For Mac Stefan - The Tux Geek Recommendations On Movies, Music, Books From Glue [Firefox] Jim Henderson - Different Perspective 5 Websites to Learn a LOT More About Photography & DigiCams Mahendra Palsule - An Unquiet Mind 5 Tips to Maximize Your Windows Live Experience Leon Liberkey: 200+ Portable Apps Wherever You Go [Windows] Michael - Doodler Blog Photoshop Pathing: How To Use Photoshop Pen Tool Jason K - Third Error How To Download and Play Kongregate Games Offline Shannon - Shannon Rist 5 Free Twitter Tools For Smarter Tweeting Grant - The GrantBlog 10 Really Cool Free Blackberry Applications Will Mueller - Will M 5 More Greasemonkey Scripts To Make Browsing Easier Brad - OwensDomain The Top 5 Sites to Find Song Lyrics Online TanaG - Information Technology Writer 7 Common Reasons Why Windows Can Get Unresponsive Gary - Reichel Graphic Design SparkPeople - Free Online Health & Weight-loss Community 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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| Rotate Your Desktop Backgrounds Automatically With WallPapa [Windows] Posted: 02 Jul 2009 06:00 AM PDT
If you have downloaded a bunch of them, now would be a great time to try out Wallpapa. And try out Wallpapa is what I did. I downloaded the small installer from here: http://www.phoeniixz.net/software.html. Then, I installed it. Once it was installed, I saw this screen:
After adding a folder, you can browse through the containing image files in the bottom portion of the program’s window.
Simply by scrolling down and selecting a background image, you can make it your desktop background afer hitting the “Set as Wallpaper” button. Next, we will look at how the program can shuffle through your images in the selected folder.
Hit the Shuffle button and Wallpapa will do its thing, randomly select and change your background image! Very cool, especially for someone like me who has a million pictures of my beautiful daughter. Next up, we will look at the Find feature. You can type in a query and hit enter or click on the magnifying glass. This will narrow down your search in your selected folders. You can see it in action here:
And of course, what is an application if we don't check out the Preferences! By hitting the Preferences button, you can toggle the Preferences sidebar which is shown by default on the right-hand side of the program.
The choices are simple enough. You may choose how often to swap backgrounds and how to display your images: Cover, Tile, Stretch or Scale. You can also set how it deals with small images and the default background color behind items. This is a nifty application that needs to stay running for it to work and uses very little memory. Give it a shot and let us know how you like it! Also, check out other popular posts to pimp out your desktop: 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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| 5 Free Website Stock Tickers for Financial Geeks Posted: 01 Jul 2009 10:14 PM PDT
MakeUseOf has always offered solutions to financially savvy geeks, such as the article I wrote earlier on 3 blogs to get you out of debt, or Kaly’s 15 cool tools to track expenses and budget, but if you have a financial blog or website of your own, now you can embed free website stock tickers into your site with very little effort. Thanks to the wonderful Web 2.0 world of widgets, there are a number of quick and easy tools to integrate real-time stock information on your site. If you can copy and paste, then you can have updated stock information on your website. How to Use Free Website Stock TickersWhen selecting the best stock ticker widgets, I searched for those that are versatile enough to work on any blog platform or website. The stock widgets listed below are not only universal (most of them utilize Javascript), but they’re easy to customize for the exact stocks that you want to display on your website. These particular widgets aren’t just a standard stock ticker with just scrolling text, these all display stock data in a more graphical real-time format. Just review the following list, select your favorite and embed it on your own site! FreeStockCharts are Interactive and Free - It Doesn’t Get Much Better Than ThatOne of the best free stock charting widgets comes from FreeStockCharts, which actually lets you choose between one of two formats. You can either use the standard graphical chart that streams the data for the stocks that you specify, or you can use the “Hover Chart,” which automatically locates the ticker symbols in your content and provides your visitors with the ability to hover the mouse over those symbols and see a real-time chart of that stock. That’s a very cool feature to have on any financial website.
Once you choose whichever chart you want, you can customize it to suit your needs. Customizing only requires filling out a very simple one-page form where you can select the ticker symbol, update time, colors and other features for the chart.
Once you’ve finished customizing all of the chart features, all you have to do is copy the code that’s automatically generated at the bottom of the screen and paste it into your website or blog platform where appropriate. For my example, I’m going to embed the chart into my Wordpress blog FreeWritingCenter, which is just a matter of pasting the code into the Wordpress widgets section. After you’re done, the finished real-time chart will appear on your blog or website as shown below.
The NASDAQ Market TickerNo list of free website stock tickers would be complete without an honorary mention of the one offered by NASDAQ. This graphical ticker will actually work either on your computer desktop or on your web page. Once you click the “copy me” button on the widget page, you can choose from a list of services where you want to embed the widget. This lets the application customize the code to work best on your Blogger account, Facebook page or anywhere else. In my case, I just want the straight HTML embed code.
Once you have copied and pasted the code into your blog - you’re good to go. Unlike FreeStockCharts, you don’t have to sign up with your email address before you can use the ticker. Personally, I like the look and feel of the NASDAQ ticker better than most of the others.
With this ticker, your visitors can actually customize it to their own liking. If they click on “ADD,” they can enter their preferred ticker symbol and that stock will show up under the “My Stocks” tab. Now that’s coolness. The Yahoo Stock Ticker - For Financial YahooligansYahoo Finance is one of the most popular online financial resources on the net today, so it stands to reason that Yahoo would offer their own free stock ticker. Yahoo lets you choose from three types of modules for your site - large (quotes, charts and news), medium (quotes and charts), or small (quotes). You can customize the data with up to 10 ticker symbols, adjusting the width of the display, and choosing the color scheme.
Just like the NASDAQ ticker, you don’t have to enter your email, you only have to accept the terms and conditions to get access to the code. Usually I don’t really like Yahoo products because they’re typically kind of “plain vanilla,” with very few features. However, in the case of this stock module, the ability to customize it with up to 10 ticker symbols and choose from a variety of color schemes is very cool. SaneBull Displays Data From Global MarketsSaneBull, briefly reviewed before by Makeuseof, offers a whole range of awesome plugins for Facebook, iPhone, Mac and many other platforms. One of the best ones is the “World Market Watch” widget, where you can display stocks from markets all over the globe on your website. Like the NASDAQ widget, there are automatic installers for platforms like Blogger, Facebook and a variety of others.
If you do use any of these social networks, I highly suggest using this tool, especially if you’re not the type that likes to play around with adding the code yourself. However, I’m old fashioned - so I always go for the copy and paste approach. I’m weird like that.
I like the look and feel of the Sanebull stock widget - however if you don’t, then you’re out of luck because there’s no way to customize the widget. You get what you get. The extent to customization is that you can select only American, Asian or European markets instead of displaying them all at once. Using StockTwits for Stock TipsWhile not technically a stock ticker widget, StockTwits is a very useful stock widget for financial bloggers. Want to give your readers access to the latest stock tips? The StockTwits widget is a direct plugin to Twitter feeds of market investors. As investors “twit” personal stock tips, the StockTwits widget automatically updates the feed on your web page.
The major drawback with this particular stock widget is that you can’t customize it - not only in terms of its appearance, but also what information comes through. The feed is basically about any stock tip whatsoever, so expect to get a stream of random tips on any stock imaginable. Of course, for day traders or other folks who are always on the lookout for hot stock tips, that’s a great thing. Do you use any stock widgets on your own website or blog? What are your favorites? Share them in the comments section below. 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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Having a media center holds many great advantages. Besides an heightened flexibility, you can easily summon all of your files on your large screen television, be it pictures, music or video.
There must have been times when you wished that you could be at two places or do two things at the same time. How about watching a 
Mac is famous for their “drag and drop” installation/uninstallation process. Most of the time, the term “installing an app” simply means copying the app into the Applications folder (or anywhere you want the app to be). And likewise, uninstalling an app means simply deleting it from the computer - something that you should never, ever do in Windows.
There’s also SmartDelete - the option to delete an app properly when it’s moved it to trash.
It’s inactive by default. Upon installation, the user needs to activate it. There’s also an option to automatically start this app on login.
Whenever you are looking to buy something and aren’t willing to pay that much, 
June has been a busy month but we’ve kept our productivity soaring with Stefan’s new manual - 
Wallpapa is a lightweight application that can automatically switch your desktop backgrounds after a preset interval. Not only that, it also makes the process of changing your background easier than the built-in Windows interface. If you have been following MakeUseOf, you would know that I had recently 
If you’re at all interested in investing and the stock market, then the odds are pretty good that you’ve made use of website stock tickers in one form or another at some point. 
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