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- Cool Websites and Tools [July 4]
- Milo- Find Cheapest Local Store for the Item You Want to Buy
- MakeUseOf Geeky Fun: Latest Picks
- Opera Unite - File Sharing, Messaging, Note Taking & more Right in your Browser
- How to Find out Which Sites Have Embedded your YouTube Videos
- Hamster - Time Your Tasks & Track Your PC Hours [Linux]
- How To Easily Set Up Google Apps on Your Website
| Cool Websites and Tools [July 4] Posted: 04 Jul 2009 04:00 PM PDT
(1) Babelwith.me - Real-time chat translation app that lets you instantly communicate in multiple languages (up to 45). It automatically translates every message you type in into the language selected by the receiver in real time. Now, you could enjoy real-time conversations with friends without language barriers. Just enter your name, language and start the conversation. Read more: Babelwith.me: Real Time Chat Translaton Tool (2) CSS Redundancy Checker - This is an online app that can scan your stylesheet and find CSS selectors that aren't used by any of your HTML files. Works easy, simply enter your stylesheet URL and associated HTML pages, and click on the "Check" button. The application will scan that stylesheet and show you redundant CSS selectors that are not present on listed HTML pages. Read more: CSS Redundancy Checker (3) LaunchSplash - Web application that lets you quickly create a free “Coming soon” page for your upcoming site so you can update users about the progress and even have them submit their email addresses for future notifications. Read more: LaunchSplash: Create Free Coming Soon Page (4) Limmz - Search engine start page that provides links to a huge list of search engines and websites. Enter your query in the search box and click on the desired search engine. It then opens in a new tab showing the results. The search engines are neatly categorized under web, image, video, news, music and more. Read more: Limmz: Start Page with 50+ Search Engines (5) Ring2Skype - Web service that lets you receive calls on Skype from landlines and phone networks for free. Once you sign up, you get an online phone number and a private extension which lets you answer all calls from your Skype, no matter where you are in the world. You just need to be logged into your Skype. Read more: Ring2Skype: Receive Calls On Skype From Landline For Free
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 Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too. Related posts
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| Milo- Find Cheapest Local Store for the Item You Want to Buy Posted: 04 Jul 2009 02:00 PM PDT
What does this mean exactly? Milo is an online service that will search the inventory of major retailers in your local area to advice you of the availability of the product which you’re looking for. In other words, it’s a multi-search engine for shopping. I was then shocked to see them say that 95% of sales happen at real stores in the real world. That is brick and mortar shops as opposed to somewhere on the Internet. Are you surprised as well?? Crazy, right? If you have shopped for something in the real world recently, you’ll know that the stores with the cheapest prices are also usually sold out of what you want. And when do you find that out? When you get to the store, of course. I hate taking pointless trips! And I hate being unhappy even more! What about you? Enter Milo, which will help you answer these three questions:
Sounds pretty good, right? Well, it only searches 21 large chain-stores shown in the picture above. But heck, that's good enough for me. Let's try some searches in my hood! I decided to look for a Nintendo Wii locally. Even this long after its release, it is still an issue to find one in stock. Let's see what Milo can do for me.
Well, that gave me way too many choices. So, I decided to narrow it down with Wii Console instead and that brought up what I was looking for.
I selected my console which was conveniently the first item and then it loaded up local spots that may or may not have it in stock. And just as I expected, they didn't
I decided to expand my area and search Manhattan as well but no luck. I could find it online but I wanted it NOW! So for giggles I searched California and what do you know?
That's really not fair! But hey, Milo saved me a trip to the stores or even a phone call! Milo is currently in beta and only works in the following locations:
If you try to search another location you will get this cute response.
What do you think? Do you use an online search tool to check for a product’s availability before heading out to the store? Do you shop online? If you do, I suggest checking out 5 Online Shopping Sites That Will Actually SAVE You Money. Let us know what you think of Milo 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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| MakeUseOf Geeky Fun: Latest Picks Posted: 04 Jul 2009 01:00 PM PDT Check out the top picks from MakeUseOf Geeky Fun during the last week.
If you would like to keep up with all latest Geeky Fun additions, please subscribe to the Geeky Fun feed here. You can also subscribe and get the latest additions via email. 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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| Opera Unite - File Sharing, Messaging, Note Taking & more Right in your Browser Posted: 04 Jul 2009 12:00 PM PDT
Unite eliminates the need for a third party server that would normally proxy or relay the content, such as Flickr, Twitter or Yahoo Messenger. It's essentially like setting up a web server on your own computer, without the hassle of manually installing various software, configuring them and getting a DNS (Domain Name System) account. It also makes the installation of new functionality a “point and click” process.
I'm sure we'll have a review of Opera 10 shortly, but let's focus on Unite for the moment. Here are the steps you need to take in order to use the various Unite services.
You will now be able to start any of the services listed in the left sidebar, such as file sharing. They are designed to be extremely easy to use. For example, to enable File Sharing, click on the File Sharing icon and then on Start. To protect your privacy, it will ask you to select the folder that you want to share.
After you click the OK button, a web page will open that will showcase the content you selected in the previous step. On the left, you'll see your files, on the right the instructions for sharing with your friends and the permissions. All your friend has to do to access the files is to paste the link given in the right sidebar. A regular webpage will appear in your friend's browser along with download links for all the files.
All the files are hosted on your computer and are never transferred to Opera's servers. For the duration you wish to allow users to connect to your Unite services, you need to have the computer and browser open. Be aware that transferring unencrypted sensitive information is not recommended, as all transfers are done using HTTP. The Photo, Media and File Sharing use the same underlying technology while adding specific controls for each media type like a Flash music player and photo thumbnails.
This technology is not limited to the 5 bundled applications: Fridge (secure notes), Lounge (instant messaging), Photo and File Sharing, Media Player. It's open to developers and uses well-known open standards such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
Below is a screenshot of the Lounge, a quasi-instant messaging application. To invite other people, the host needs to send a link to the other participants. They can use any modern web browser to join the discussion. It is similar in functionality to a private IRC channel.
The Fridge application lets you leave notes for friends or yourself, similar to the 'Wall' on Facebook or direct messaging in Twitter.
Opera lets the geeks get a taste of the next paradigm shift in web browsing, a great way to win hearts, minds and developers. I've radically changed my tune about Opera after hearing from tens of fans and Thomas Ford, Communications Manager. I invite each one of you to give Opera Unite a try. Download the alpha which is available for Windows, Mac and Linux; and let us know what you think in the comments. What applications should the developers start working on to further extend Unite’s functionality? 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 Find out Which Sites Have Embedded your YouTube Videos Posted: 04 Jul 2009 10:00 AM PDT
Today, we’ll show you how to use this service and find out which websites have embedded your video. Let’s start it off. Head over to YouTube and go to your My Videos page. Browse for the video you want to check to see which websites have embedded it. Click the button labeled Insight for that video. You should be able to see a line graph of the number of views and a world map showing the location of the viewers. On the left side, there will be a list of options under the video name (Views, Discovery, Demographics, Community, Hot Spots). Click Discovery.
You’ll be greeted with a list of the number of people who have accessed and watched your video. Look for the option labeled Embedded Player and click it.
At the top, you’ll see a range of dates which represent the time period YouTube is getting the data from. In order to get a larger picture of the sites that have embedded your videos, click the range of dates and click 1y. If you want to see a more current list, click 1d instead.
Underneath the date range, you’ll see a list of all the websites that have embedded your video. Click any of these entries to be taken to the webpage (note: the link doesn’t bring you to the exact page where your video is embedded). A Few ProblemsYouTube does not specifically tell you which page these views came from. A workaround is to visit the YouTube video page, and open the Statistics & Data above the Comments. This will give you a list of all the websites that have “linked” (read: also embedded) to your video, along with a specific URL to the page.
You can also attempt a Google search with the following query: site:domain.com video keywords - replacing domain.com with the domain listed on the Insight panel and video keywords with any keywords related to your video or that you may find on the page embedding your video. If a user visits your video through the related videos scrolling browser within YouTube players, Insight will believe that your video was embedded on that website as well (which it isn’t) - giving you an erroneous result. These are easily identifiable by the low volume of total views for that particular website. Did this help you track down all the sites which have been showcasing your YouTube videos. Are you surprised to see your videos spreading like wildfire? Let us know if this “hack” has helped you! Other interesting articles regarding YouTube: 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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| Hamster - Time Your Tasks & Track Your PC Hours [Linux] Posted: 04 Jul 2009 08:00 AM PDT
Hamster is available as an applet for the Gnome desktop environment and you can install it using your distributions package manager. It is most likely in there (or else you can install from source). Ubuntu users may sudo apt-get install hamster-applet. Once installed, you can add it to any of your panels by right-clicking on the panel choosing Add to Panel and then look for Time Tracker (not Hamster).
Hamster will appear as “No Activity 00:00″ in your panel. Click on it, key in what you are doing and it gets down to the mundane work of counting how much time you spent in that activity. It also displays how much time you have spent in the current activity in the current session while inconspicuously adding them all together in the background to create reports for you.
Hamster lets you categorize and add description to your activities. This is especially useful if for instance, you want to view how much time you are spending on a “Complete Project” which itself is made up of sub-tasks or sub-projects. You just have to include @ when letting Hamster know what you are doing and it will automatically create a category and file your task under it!
Letting a program know what you are doing every time you are about to switch an activity might seem like too much burden if you are not into time tracking. So Hamster provides you a leeway, allowing you to enter activities that you’ve done in the past. Why would you want to do that? You will realize in a minute when we move to the reports. Click on the applet, expand “Today” and you will see what you have been up to on that day. Click on Show Overview and you will be greeted by pretty graphs and detailed statistics of what you have been doing this week, this month or this day. You can then click the “Generate Report” button and up pops your browser with a detailed report of your activities for the said period.
Overall, Hamster is an easy-to-use and intuitive time tracking application. Everything is just in place in the interface just as you might expect it to be. It is all the more useful if you are disciplined in its use or else, you can always go back in time and make entries (for a change). Did I mention the “Stop Tracking” button, just in case you feel the need! If you’re new on MakeUseOf, make sure to download our hugely popular productivity manual. Nothing comlicated, only the simple tips that are easy to follow and actually work. Do you use any time tracking applications? Which software or web applications do you prefer? 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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| How To Easily Set Up Google Apps on Your Website Posted: 04 Jul 2009 06:00 AM PDT
This was one of the reasons why I procrastinated so much - I am not much of a technical whiz and I was nervous that I would well and truly cack it up. Then I would have to go through the embarrassment of asking someone to look at my mess and clean up after me. Meanwhile, all my incoming emails would be disappearing into a black hole never to be seen again. But it turned out to be a cinch. I had the whole thing up and running in 30 minutes and the emails flowed in without a hitch (after being briefly slow at the beginning - but I put that down to the email servers being transferred over and my new Google Apps account being processed. After a while, email service went back to the normal speed). In case you have ever wanted to move over to Google Apps but you’ve been nervous about the set-up, I would like to help you end your apprehension and get you started. Kudos to Google for making it so easy. Fill Out The Online ApplicationIf you are a family, private user or non-profit organisation, Google Apps is free to use (businesses can have a trial period and then $50 per year per person). But for me and probably for most of you, the free “standard edition” is the one to go for. Go here and fill out the application. The first step of the application is to enter your domain name (or you can buy a new domain name though Google which automatically sets everything up for you). You also need to verify that you own the domain or if you are a member of the domain.
Then click “get started” and a standard application form pops up. Fill it out. Assuming all of the information is acceptable to Google and you are authorized to set the domain up on Google Apps, you will then be taken to your new dashboard.
The first thing to do is activate your email. You need to specify whether you like the URL Google automatically makes for you. So for example it may have made : http://mail.googleapps.yourdomain.com But if you don’t like that URL, you can easily change it to something secret such as : http://mysecretmailbox.yourdomain.com Now to activate the email. Go to the email settings page and there are two options - “create user accounts” and “change MX records”. OK, no need to get nervous. Let’s do them one at a time : Create user accounts
Change MX Records
It’s not a problem as Google provides step-by-step instructions for whoever your old email provider is. Just choose your hosting service from the drop-down list and you will get instant specific instructions on where to go and what to do. It basically involves locating the MX Records list in your hosting account (Google tells you where it is) and deleting them all (you may want to take a screenshot first in case you need to revert back). Then in their place, enter the following :
Then save the whole lot. And that’s it - email set up! As I said, it may be a little sluggish at first with emails trickling in slowly but once your Apps account is processed and set up by Google and your MX records get transitioned over, the email will start to come in a lot faster. Just be patient. If you had your Apps email address already previously set up to forward everything to your old Gmail address, you need to go to the old Gmail address and cancel the forwarding rule. Otherwise you will end up with two copies of the same email - one in your Gmail account and one in your Apps account. Next, you can decide if you want to change the destination links for your calendar, Talk app, Documents and Sites (just like you may have changed the URL for your email inbox). Then activate each service in the settings. The last thing to do is go to the CNAME settings in your hosting account (again, Google points the way) and you need to enter each URL along with ghs.google.com . That points everything to the Google servers. Save everything and you-are-done! Finito, The End.
I highly recommend moving over to Google Apps. It’s a nice all-in-one online email, calendar and documents application. The only grumble I have about it is that you can’t import your emails over from a normal Gmail account. Google doesn’t provide any email exporting function so your emails are stuck in the other account - unless you go the long tedious way of downloading the emails to Outlook or Thunderbird and then using an import tool to re-upload them. We covered one of these tools in the past. But it is very easy to import your filters and contact book over and I had the email purring along in no time. Do you have any experience of moving your online presence over to Google Apps? If so, how did it go for you? Please do let us know. If you haven’t moved over yet, has this guide persuaded you to give it a go? Feel free to leave all your questions and comments 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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Have you heard about Milo yet? According to the their website they dub their service as: "Your local shopping companion" 
While you may be content with knowing how many times your video has been viewed, it’s nice to know when other sites have decided to take the privilege of embedding your video on their web pages. YouTube has a tool for videos known as Insight, which provides demographics and other data on who has watched your videos. 
Time is a commodity that every single one of us needs to 
The other week I moved my email service over from 
You may have a lot of email addresses for your domain such as info, contact, your name, webmaster and so on. You need to now input all those email addresses into Google Apps. Or if you don’t feel like typing them all in, you can upload an Excel CSV file with the addresses already in it. Google Apps will then insert the email addresses into your email settings.
OK, now the biggie. The MX records shows which company handles and delivers your emails. You need to change the records from your old email provider to Google so your emails can be sent to your Apps account.
All that remains to be done is browse through the settings and customise everything to your liking (for example, you can replace the Google logo witb your own customised logo).| You are subscribed to email updates from MakeUseOf.com To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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