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- Cool Websites and Tools [November 19]
- How To Use Wordpress As A Twitter-Like Communication Tool
- How To Create New Design Projects Using Avery DesignPro
- How To Use Google Earth To Investigate Conspiracy Theories
- 4 Sites to Watch Old & Classic Cartoon TV Shows Online
- How To Create & Change Mac Icons Quickly & Easily
| Cool Websites and Tools [November 19] Posted: 19 Nov 2009 05:01 PM PST
(1) Apostrophe.me – Simple how to use an apostrophe website that provides a quick online "how to" flowchart for using the apostrophe sign. It asks basic questions like "Is it plural?" or "Is it indicating possession? and gives example situations when you would use an apostrophe. Read more: Apostrophe.me – Shows How To Use an Apostrophe
(2) DiggTV – This website is simply the channel for all Digg videos and shows. You can check the latest episodes from Digg shows like Diggnation, Digg Reel, Diggcetera, Digg Townhall and Digg Dialog in one place. Read more: DiggTV – Gathers All Digg Video Shows in One Place (3) Amazon Denim Shop – If you love Amazon you'd be happy to know that now you can buy your favorite pair of jeans online through this site. Denim Shop has been launched recently by Amazon and features all the premium denim brands and almost every style and type of denim you can imagine. Read more: Amazon Denim Shop – Buy Jeans Online (free shipping & returns) (4) WindowsPhone – New online directory of free & paid applications for Widows Mobile. Infact it's a web version of the Windows Mobile Marketplace which before was available only via mobile phone. The website has a clean interface and allows you to search for Windows Mobile apps, browse them by categories and check out popular or recently added apps. Read more: WindowsPhone – Official Directory of Apps for Windows mobile (5) Relatious – Asking people you know for relationship advice can be a bit tricky. Their knowing you makes their opinion biased and possibly unreliable. What would be a great way however is to know what an objective spectator would have to say about your situation. Relatious is a forum providing just that. Read more: Relatious – Anonymously Share Your Relationship Issues
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. Related posts
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| How To Use Wordpress As A Twitter-Like Communication Tool Posted: 19 Nov 2009 02:01 PM PST
There are many tools available to help people communicate. An important thing to remember is that different people have different preferences as to how they send and receive messages. For instance, some people prefer a phone call as opposed to a physical visit. Some people remember things better when they are written down and some people would prefer an answering machine message that they can refer to. These days, many people prefer an email as opposed to anything else to help them remember something. When it comes to social interaction, the Internet and the web 2.0 has afforded us many different options for communication. We have email, wikis, forums, IM, chat, Twitter and Facebook, plus many more. In this article I would like to share another tool that I think can be beneficial in ways that other tools are not. All you need is Wordpress, P2 (and a plugin called “Members Only” if you want it to be private).
The Automattic folks actually began using such a Wordpress microblog as an internal communications tool. They’d post updates on what they are doing, where they were going or what they were working on.
They basically put a short form for typing in posts right on the front page which means no messing with the back end at all. There’s also a line for adding tags which helps organize the topics or categories. The Wordpress microblog basically makes quicker, shorter messaging easier. P2 takes all of this to the next level with some super cool features!
First of all, editing posts and comments are done right on the front page.
With the click of a link, you can show and hide the comment threads to make finding things a bit easier.
There is a whole list of keyboard shortcuts for those keyboard lovers in the crowd.
And my favorite, it has real-time updates! As posts and comments are posted, they appear! Obviously if you have comments set for moderation, they won’t post until approved, but you get the drift!
So that’s P2 (or Prologue 2), a Wordpress microblog theme. The communication uses for such a tool are almost endless! It can be used like Automattic uses it, keeping the rest of the team updated on projects, etc. It can be used in Church groups. For instance, leaders can post memos, updates, schedules, and discussion topics allowing the rest of the group to stay informed and have a say in the comments. It could even be used as a micro-blogging tool much like Twitter, but self-hosted, and with threaded comments, like Facebook! What’s your opinion? How would you use a tool such as P2? What other Wordpress theme or plugin can afford a unique method of communication? Let us know! Image credits: MorgueFile.com 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 Create New Design Projects Using Avery DesignPro Posted: 19 Nov 2009 11:01 AM PST
For a long while, you needed to use Microsoft Word to design and print media resources using one of hundreds of Avery templates. But Avery also now provides two free standalone applications, called DesignPro (one for Mac and one for PC users) that includes all its templates and the design features for putting together and printing media projects. If you want, you can design your digital printing project in say Photoshop, save it as JPEG file and import it as an image file into DesignPro. In this article, however, I will give you an overview of designing a label project in DesignPro for Mac.
If you have any questions about using DesignPro, drop me a line in the comment box. Related posts
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| How To Use Google Earth To Investigate Conspiracy Theories Posted: 19 Nov 2009 10:01 AM PST
As a person who spends a great deal of his spare time researching old and new conspiracy theories, folklore and legend, I find the prospect of traveling to a remote part of the world for such exploration one of my greatest dreams. However, with a small family to support and responsibilities to my employer and my writing clients, there is very little time left over to travel around the world. With that said, there are times when some claims or legends really require an examination of the land, buildings and civilization surrounding a specific area. In this update I’d like to take readers on a few amazing adventures to explore some mysterious areas of the earth where local folklore and legend makes claim of strange creatures, scary encounters, secret military bases and countless other conspiracy theories. If you’ve got all of your gear ready and you’re ready to board the flight, let’s head out on our first adventure.
Exploring The Island Of MaltaBack in 2006, I wrote a speculative article about underground caverns around the world, and in particular about the amazing story published in Borderland Science magazine where an employee of the British embassy, Miss Louis Jessup, claimed that when she explored the catacombs beneath the Island of Malta, she had a surreal and terrifying experience where she saw large creatures walking around in the darkness. To give this story a little bit of reality, it would be interesting to explore the Island of Malta, in particular Valletta, to see if we can’t spot at least the entrances to these underground passages, or determine whether or not these places even exist in the first place. According to the archeological website I found that described the excavated caverns under the temples of this island, these temples with many underground levels of catacombs are scattered all throughout the island. The map below shows a significant temple, called the Hal Saflieni, an ancient site that dates back to 3,600 to 2,500 B.C.
It would be interesting to see what the area actually looks like. According to the archaeology site, the area should be free of buildings and structures, but with plenty of pits and recesses in the earth.
Let’s jump in our Google Earth plane and see if we can visit the island of Malta and locate the temple. Typing in “Valletta, Island of Malta” in the “Fly To” field gets us there.
Just from this distant overhead view, it’s pretty clear that the island is a beautiful place. The inlet of water must provide some beautiful scenic spots. Exploring the area on foot must be a real treat, with so many old palaces and other buildings to tour. However, we’re here to find the ancient temple Hal Saflieni – which, according to the archeological maps, was located just southwest of Valletta itself.
Sure enough, zooming in a bit closer and rolling the mouse over a few of the site markers lands the right one. Marker C is the legendary Hypogeum itself. Zooming in as much as possible without the map becoming blurry reveals a few details about the real location.
Sure enough, while there are buildings and structures around the area, the Hypogeum itself is an area of land that remains untouched. You can see the brown indentations of Earth where there’s no vegetation and the above ground parts of the ancient structure remains. While you can’t zoom any closer than this, you can click on the Wikipedia symbol to learn more about this particular Hypogeum.
Just reviewing the images of these subterranean caverns, it’s very easy to understand how so many local legends exist about these ancient ruins. To think that this is only one of the many multi-layer underground catacombs throughout this entire island is fascinating. Thanks to Google Earth, you can actually check out the location and read more about each one. The Human-Alien Conspiracy Theory – The Military Base of Dulce, New MexicoThis is a very fun conspiracy theory to explore because it’s one that I’ve seen debunked so often it’s almost pointless to pursue. But in this second half of this article, I wanted to show how you can explore even the most remote areas of the earth. Unfortunately I didn’t succeed in solidifying my case for no secret base…read on. According the the various silly legends and stories within Ufology throughout the years, the legend of the human-alien base near Dulce, New Mexico is an old conspiracy theory that claims that the military created the base around 1969 when Project Blue Book (the Air Force investigation of UFOs) was officially closed. According to the stories, the base entrance is at Mt. Archeleta, and the base itself exists on the Jicarilla Apache Indian Reservation (I’m not sure how the government got the Apache to allow such a project – go figure). Considering that there are actual, geographical locations to check out with Google Earth, this is an excellent exercise to show how you can use Google Earth to debunk such conspiracy theories.
The first thing you’ll notice when you map out the distance from Mt. Archeleta to the Jicarilla Reservation is that it’s well over 40 miles from one location to the other. An entrance to a base over 40 miles from the base itself? Not very likely. Forgetting about the Indian reservation, we’ll zoom in on Mt. Archeleta to show that the terrain is so rugged and the mountain so remote that nothing could ever make it there to enter any sort of “secret base entrance.”
You can zoom in pretty close in this territory, and following the various roads shows both roads or riverbeds traveling between the enormous mountains, but not a single road or trail headed up toward the steep incline toward Mt. Archeleta. There’s no obvious structure or even anything that looks like a cave anywhere around the isolated mountain. However, with that said, as I was scrolling around the peak of Mt. Archeleta, I noticed a very strange, faint track that looked like an old dirt road. Sure enough, when I looked a bit closer it was – and tracing it back along the winding peak I found that after a very long and twisty journey it joined up with the main road at the base of the mountain. The image below is the road along the ridge, headed toward the Mt. Archeleta peak.
Eventually, the road passes just below the peak of Mt. Archuleta, fades out quite a bit (I thought it ended there because the trail faded), but it does continue on well past the mountain.
Regardless of the very odd existence of the road (I could find no similar roads along the top of nearby mountain ridges), there was nothing at all in the area to suggest any sort of entrance or even a structure in this isolated and desolate area. Why don’t you take a look around yourself and see if you spot anything out of the ordinary? As you can see, exploring some of these isolated areas can be a lot of fun, especially when you base your searches around the Earth on the very strange and surreal conspiracy theories and legends you’ll find throughout the Internet. Do you know of any locations on Google Earth that might be fun to explore? Are you able to spot anything strange at any of those locations? Tell us about your Google Earth adventures in the comments section below! Related posts
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| 4 Sites to Watch Old & Classic Cartoon TV Shows Online Posted: 19 Nov 2009 08:01 AM PST
Unfortunately, today’s programming just isn’t the same anymore and animated TV classics are sometimes hard to come by. Before you go out and buy expensive DVD box sets of your favorite toon series, you can still relive your childhood days free of charge thanks to the Web. There are plenty of great resources available online for free streaming cartoons. Nothing beats the classics! Let’s find out how to watch them again online. ToonJet — Merrie Melodies, Felix the Cat, & More
The site offers live streaming marathons of cartoons via Livestream. Don’t like what’s playing? Check out the Featured section for tons of videos to watch anytime you like. Internet Archive — Betty Boop & PopeyeThe Internet Archive offers a great collection of classic cartoon TV shows all the way from the 1930’s and 1940’s. Its Film Chest of vintage cartoons includes everything from obscure characters to animation legends like Popeye and Betty Boop.
Each video includes the title of the animation, a short description, and other information like directors, producers, and production companies. Not only can you watch the classics, you can also download them! Just look for the movie files and download as Ogg Video, 512Kb MPEG4, or DivX.
The cartoons may be old, but don’t worry about the quality. According to Internet Archive, all of the videos have been transferred from original 35 film prints and digitally remastered. Kids WB — Looney Tunes, Jetsons, Flintstones, Tom & JerryI’ll always remember watching Kids WB on Saturday mornings and on weekdays right after getting home from school. Thankfully, the now online network boasts an impressive lineup of full episodes available for your viewing pleasure.
There’s over 30 episodes each of Looney Tunes, The Flintstones, and The Jetsons. Other shows include The Smurfs, Scooby-Doo, ThunderCats, and Tom and Jerry.
Batman fans should definitely not miss out on Kids WB’s DC Beyond site, which offers loads of episodes from the superhero’s cartoon series. Also, be sure to check out the Kids WB on SlashControl for additional free episodes and clips. Hulu — Rocky and Bullwinkle, Speed Racer & MoreWhile Hulu’s Animation and Cartoons channel is mostly full of modern stuff, there are some classics in the mix. Some of the cartoon series featured include Woody Woodpecker (new), Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends, The Pink Panther, and Speed Racer.
Can’t find your favorite cartoon? Your best bet would be to search YouTube for clips and maybe even full episodes if you’re lucky. It’s the only place I’ve been able to find old Nickelodeon shows online. Where do you go to watch classic cartoon tv shows? What are some of your favorites? Let us know in the comments. Image Credit : Walt Wabsco Related posts
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| How To Create & Change Mac Icons Quickly & Easily Posted: 19 Nov 2009 06:01 AM PST
In the computer world, icons are an app’s visual representative and personal identity. In terms of marketing, icons are the packaging and one of the selling points. I know some people who would try out (or even buy) applications just because of the beautiful icon. If you think I’m exaggerating, visit the iTunes Store and go to the iPhone applications department. Mac is famous for its good looking icons. Apple has set its icon standard so high that third party developers have to match or surpass the quality if they want to survive in the demanding community of Mac users. Giving Files & Folders Some PersonalitiesEven though Mac users can feast their eyes with tons of beautifully crafted Mac icons, some general items always use the same old icons. I’m sure that, just like me, sometimes most computer users would love to give their personal files and folders unique personalities.
I’m not talking about changing the whole set of Mac icons for the whole system using some icon packages. I’m talking about changing icons for individual items using your own customized creation. There are at least two ways to do that quickly and easily in Mac, manually and automatically. The first method could be done if you’ve already have ready to use Mac icons. Getting Mac IconsDue to the different file format, you can’t just use Windows icons in Mac – and vice versa. Mac icons are in .icns format while Windows’ is .ico. While a great number of sites with free downloadable Mac icons are only a search engine away, a free web service to create your own Mac icons is a rare breed. The only one that I could find is iConvert. This service will help you to convert images into Mac icons. The service is also able to convert images to icons, and icons to icons for other platform like Windows and Linux.
So we can use this service to convert and use Linux and Windows icons in Mac (should you ever need and want to do that To use iConvert, you need to browse and upload the image or icon file and click “Convert“. As simple as that. After the converting process is done, the icons are available in Mac, Windows and Linux formats, ready to be downloaded.
With the icons ready, we can continue to the next step: replacing the old icons with the new. Changing IconsReplacing icons in Mac is very easy. You just choose a file or folder with the icon that you want to change and hit Command + I (or File –> Get Info menu) to open the File/Folder Info window.
Then drag and drop the new icon to replace the icon image at the top left corner of the Info window.
That’s it. And as if the above method is not simple enough, the second option of changing an icon is even easier. The Automatic MethodAll the above steps can be done offline in a more simple manner using the help of a small application called img2icns. The app is available in the paid version and the free version – with some features disabled. But the free version is more than enough for daily uses. Just drag and drop the image that you want to change into icon to img2icns and it will be automatically converted.
The next step is another drag and drop. This time, ‘the victim’ is the file or folder which needs the facelift. The new icon will be attached without all the hassle.
Alternatively, you could save the new icon as an .icns file to be used later. Do you know of another application to create and change Mac icons? Share using the 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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One of the most basic problems in most organizations (and perhaps relationships) is the lack of communication. When lines of communication are not open and clear, a myriad of complications arise. If you think about it, many a conflict could have been totally avoided if only communication was what it should have been.
To save money on digital printing costs, I use 
Have you ever imagined what it would be like to pack up all of your hiking and camping gear and just take off for a few months to some obscure location in the Brazilian rain forests where there’s an alleged secret ancient city filled with treasures of gold? Or what about exploring the mysterious underground catacombs under the Island of Malta where legend has it there are strange creatures living deep under the earth?
Sometimes, there’s nothing better than to kick back, relax, and enjoy some of those classic cartoon TV shows from your childhood. It can really take you back to the good ol’ days of waking up early and just plopping yourself in front of the television on Saturdays for the morning cartoons.
Humans are, by nature, good visual learners. That’s why visual things are engraved easier in our brain. We will recognize faces in photos easier than listening to the description. That is also why the first thing that we will remember about a certain type of file or application is its icon.
), or convert Mac icons to be used in those other platform.
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