Latest Tips from MakeUseOf.com |  |
- How To Create Your Own Homebrew Atari 2600 Games
- Cool Websites and Tools [December 6th]
- How To Easily Create & Manage An FAQ Page For Your Wordpress Blog
- 6 Fun Sites To Find Out What Your Name Says About You
- 2 Amazing Widgets To Translate Your Website Into Over 20 Languages
- 4 Basic Actions You Can Perform With Google Quick Search Box [Mac]
- 4 Ways To Transfer Files From One Computer to Another
- How To Save $87 By Making A Free ‘Thesis’ Wordpress Theme Clone
| How To Create Your Own Homebrew Atari 2600 Games Posted: 07 Dec 2009 04:00 AM PST
You may be asking what a homebrew game is. Simply put, a homebrew game is any game made for a console by a person like you or me, under no contract from a company. Some systems are harder to program than others, therefore, some systems have more avid homebrew communities than other. The Atari 2600 has a devoted homebrew base and several homebrew games are released every year. Because of the age of the system, the only new content for the 2600 being released today is from homebrewers. Here is a list of some current games being worked on by people for the system. If you want to see what some people have done in the homebrew scene, here is Elevator Amiss, programmed by Bob Montgomery, and Go Fish, also by Montgomery. Most games on the 2600 revolve around getting a high score doing some arcade style task like shooting enemies or dodging obstacles. Thinking about creative ways to make simple tasks into games can be very fun and since games for the 2600 are generally pretty simple, game design is not all that hard. There is a snag though. The Atari 2600 was made a rather long time ago and people were completely happy to program in assembly language back in those days. Programmers were a lot more patient. Assembly for the Atari 2600 may seem daunting and for a novice programmer it is. Unfortunately, there was never much of another, more high level option for a programmer wanting to get into the VCS home brew scene. That was until now! In 2007, some Atari 2600 fans wrote a BASIC compiler for the 2600. This was ground breaking in the sense that now, anyone with at least some sort of programming knowledge could start writing homebrew Atari 2600 games without having to learn the unfamiliar 6502 assembly language. To get batari Basic up and running on your computer, you'll need a couple of things. First, you need to actually download the compiler source code, which could be found on the batari Basic website, under "Download". Thankfully, the compiler is multiplatform, it runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux, and instructions for installation and use of it can be found on their website. Just follow the instructions for your platform.
Next you will need an emulator to play your games after you compile them. Stella is a good one, but there are some others out there. Stella and z26 are both linked to on the batari website, also under "Download". If you're proficient at the command line, then you're good to go. All you'll need beyond that is some sort of text editor, like notepad on any Windows machine. If you want to go the command line route, thorough instructions for setting up all of that are included in the "Installation" and "Tutorial" sections of the batari Basic website. Basically, you need to download and extract the compiler and then set up the command path so you can use the "2600bas" command on the command line to compile your games. If you aren't comfortable compiling on the command line, then you can download a couple of Integrated Development Environments, both of which are Windows only unfortunately. Crimson Editor is linked to on the batari Basic website and instructions for setting that up are included in the "Tutorial". Your other option is Visual bB. You can download that here. Visual bB looks and works a lot like Microsoft Visual Studio and is focused on use with batari Basic, unlike Crimson Editor. This makes it streamlined for batari Basic. Best of all, Visual bB has integrated sprite and sound editors, further easing the development process. To set up Visual bB you just need to start the program. It will then ask for the path to the compiler and emulator. Just go through the folders on your PC to the executable for the compiler and then for your emulator.
Batari Basic is heavily documented and the documentation is linked to on the batari website. You can view that here also. If you have some prior programming knowledge, it shouldn't be too hard to pick it up.
This is where it gets fun. Start programming. Let your imagination run wild! batari Basic makes Atari 2600 programming approachable for the masses. Its main advantages lie in the ability it gives to program without learning assembly language, which is something we can all appreciate. Designing homebrew Atari 2600 games can be extremely fun and the Atari 2600 combined with batari Basic makes it so that almost anyone can get into it rather painlessly. So, why not give it a try? 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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| Cool Websites and Tools [December 6th] Posted: 06 Dec 2009 05:01 PM PST
(1) FireFound – Handy Firefox add-on that remotely clears your browser's personal data and tracks your computer's location if it ever gets lost or stolen. This extension logs your geo-location data to the FireFound server. Read more:FireFound: Firefox Addon That Helps to Locate Your Stolen Computer
(2) AppRejections – While everything went well with the iPhone, there was one area where everyone, starting from developers to hardcore Apple fans criticized the company. It was the rejection of iPhone apps based on reasons that didn't sound convincing. App Rejections is a forum for developers and other people tracking the tech industry to talk about their rejected iPhone apps. Read more: AppRejections: Aggregates All Rejected iPhone Apps In One Place (3) FlockDraw – Simple but elegant collaborative sketching website which lets you draw, share and collaborate on freehand sketches and diagrams. Just hit 'start drawing' and you are presented with a whiteboard which has a url that could be easily shared (no sign up required). Read more: FlockDraw: Online Collaborative Sketching & Drawing (4) SendSocial – Innovative service which allows you to send gifts to friends without requiring you to know their physical addresses. First, you send an item to the person's Twitter ID or email address. Read more: SendSocial: Send gifts to friends without knowing their address (5) WeTransfer – New file transferring service which allows you to easily transfer large (up to 2GB) files over the internet. Read more: WeTransfer: Transfer Large Files Over The Internet
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 Easily Create & Manage An FAQ Page For Your Wordpress Blog Posted: 06 Dec 2009 02:00 PM PST
Why an FAQ page?An FAQ (frequently asked questions) page can help your blog or site in several ways. For instance, it could save you the time of answering the same questions over and over again (check out SnappyFingers, a search engine that only searches FAQs for more targeted results than normal search engines). It could add some credibility to your site in the eyes of newer visitors. I also hear that it can help with your site’s SEO (Search Engine Optimization). So, if a plugin can make the process easy; why not add one to your site, right? About the pluginI came across this plugin by accident but I couldn’t resist trying it out. It’s called FAQ Builder and it’s made by Square Compass. There are a few aspects of FAQ Builder that make creating an FAQ page easy. First of all, creating and managing your FAQ page is simple. Secondly, receiving, moderating and answering questions from readers is effortless. Let’s see how easy installation and setup is! How to install and set upInstalling plugins is a cinch with Wordpress these days! From the dashboard of your Wordpress site, navigate to and click on “Add new” under the plugins menu.
In the search field, type in “FAQ Builder.”
The correct plugin should show up first on the list (cross your fingers!). If not, just look around a bit, you’ll find it. We’re looking for the one by “Square Compass.” Click Install.
Click the orange “Install Now” button.
Click “Activate Plugin.”
Now you should have a nifty little orange icon added to your tool bar so you can setup your FAQ page easily.
If you click the FAQ Builder link you’ll be given options such as adding new questions, editing existing questions, and adding the FAQ list to a page on your site. If you actually want to add the list someplace, simply use the short code given and it will populate it for you. Very easy. There’s also a short code to add a search field to the page. This is also the place you will moderate questions submitted by your readers. You’ll notice there is also a place where you can add categories for the questions. This will help in the organization of your FAQ page. If I’m not mistaken, once you have so many questions it will automatically make separate pages to make the list more manageable for your readers. As you can see, Square Compass’s FAQ Builder turns making your own FAQ page as easy as filling in a few fields and moderating a few questions from readers. I personally never really considered making an FAQ page for my blog until I saw how easy it really is. Here’s a link to the FAQ page I’m working on for my own blog. Do you have an FAQ page on your site or blog? As a reader, do you find FAQ pages helpful? Image credits: MorgueFile.com Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! Become a MakeUseOf fan on Facebook? – Our photos, MakeUseOf specials and more. Related posts
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| 6 Fun Sites To Find Out What Your Name Says About You Posted: 06 Dec 2009 12:00 PM PST
According to one study, elementary school teachers are prejudiced against pupils based on their first names. Non-traditional names are associated with bad behavior. Previous studies demonstrated that bearers of trendy names are generally from an underclass background. This may indeed account for their bad behavior, but seen in context it also has dramatic consequences. Not only do these kids live a less privileged life, but they must also disprove prejudice and convince teachers of their abilities with much better performances than the next kid that carries a traditional name. Cruel childhood. Maybe Shakespeare set the stage for it when he wondered, “What’s in a name?” It looks like names do have an impact on their bearers or on how people receive them. So, I started to wonder what does my name say about me? There are a number of sites out there that offer to calculate and predict your character, attractiveness, and luck. Please take this with a grain of salt, though. It’s just fun! Numerology Name AnalysisAt Astrobix.com, your name and birthdate are needed to calculate your expression or compound number. How these secret calculations reveal details about your character is a miracle. Would you like to know whether your name is lucky? Have this tool calculate whether your birth and compound numbers are compatible and explain to you what exactly that means.
What Your Name Says About You Quiz
If my name was Tina, which is only part of the truth, I would be dynamic but aggressive, artistic but extreme, unconventional but unstable, and finally ambitious but stubborn. Fortunately, this analysis is not the whole story. What Does My Name Say About MeOn Anvari.org someone posted an alphabetical chart that allows to compile the analysis based on the letters in your name. So for example our lovely editor can be characterized like this: M – Success comes easily to you. A – You can be very quiet when you have something on your mind. R – You are a social butterfly. K – You like to try new things. I rather let him be the judge. What Your Name Means
The analysis includes a summary of what your name means in different languages or cultures, your expression or destiny number, your soul urge number, your inner dream number, and detailed information regarding what this means. The note below the name field is most interesting: Most authorities agree that the full birth name as recorded on your birth certificate is the name that must be used for all calculations involving name. Nicknames, changed names including marriage name changes do not dilute the importance of the name given to you by your parents. Who or what exactly is an authority in name numerology? Behind the NameThis page finally is a little more serious. It’s actually based on historical records that reveal the origin and eventually meaning of your first name. For example Felicitas is the female version of Felix, the origin of the name is Spanish, and it essentially means “happy”. Now that was a very common example, but did you know Ryan was Irish and means “little king”?
Your Name HereAt last, here is a humorous approach, brought to you by The Weekly. According to this page, the literal meaning of Daniel, a foreigner who loves adverbs and whose nickname is characterized by desperate self-invention, is “born covered with fur”. The summary concludes with Daniel’s motto: “Does this look like a rash to you, or is it just where I’ve been scratching?”
This Daniel is of course a fictional character. No offense please! In a more serious article the Scotsman.com News reported what people see in names. Apparently, names like Elizabeth or William express success, while a Jack or an Emma are percieved as happy individuals, and Sarah or Chris are thought to be most attractive. Want to find out how popular your name is? Try the name stats page. Now what do you think of your name and all this numerology business? What does your name mean? Tell us in the comments. Image credits: porah Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! Become a MakeUseOf fan on Facebook? – Our photos, MakeUseOf specials and more. Related posts
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| 2 Amazing Widgets To Translate Your Website Into Over 20 Languages Posted: 06 Dec 2009 10:00 AM PST
Making your blog or website language-friendly is not at all difficult. In this article, let us see how you can use free translation widgets on your site to allow visitors to instantly translate your website into the most popular foreign languages. If you want to let users subscribe to translated RSS feeds of your website, you should check out Mloovi. Let's see how to use the Google Translate Gadget and the Microsoft Translator Widget and see how they compare. Translate Your Website with Google Translate GadgetGoogle Translate Gadget is powered by Google Translate Tools, and supports over 50 languages. The "gadget" is nothing but a short code snipped that you can place anywhere on your website. If you have a blog, the best place for the gadget is your blog's sidebar. As an example, we'll assume you have an English website powered by Wordpress. Follow these steps:
That's it! Your blog can now be read in over 50 languages.
Also, when a translated page is viewed, moving your mouse over the translated text paragraph pops up the original text. You can conveniently compare the original and the translated text in this way. Microsoft Translator WidgetThe Microsoft Translator Widget supports over 20 languages. This is the same translation engine that is used in MS Office, Bing, and the Messenger translation bot we previously covered on MakeUseOf. To use the Microsoft Translator Widget, follow these steps:
That's it! Your blog can now be read in over 20 languages. Just like the Google Translate Widget, when a translated page is viewed, the original text is visible on mouse rollover. Here is how the widgets look in the blog sidebar when stacked on top of each other:
Which Widget Should You Use?Choosing the right widget for your website may not be a simple matter of comparing the number of languages supported. Here are factors you can consider:
You might also want to check out ConveyThis, which takes a different approach by popping up a dialog letting users choose from different online translation services. Needless to say, machine (robot) translation has its limitations. Nevertheless, it can surely make your webpage comprehensible to foreign language users, who might otherwise quickly jump to another website. Will you try using these free tools on your site? Do they work well on your blog? Tell us 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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| 4 Basic Actions You Can Perform With Google Quick Search Box [Mac] Posted: 06 Dec 2009 08:00 AM PST
Several months forward, I wasn’t able to use Quicksilver anymore. It kept on quitting under Snow Leopard. Even the latest version – that supposed to go along well with SL – quit on me as well. Like it or not, I had to find a substitute. And what could be more perfect as a replacement than another creation by the same hands, the reason why Quicksilver was abandoned (or so they said): Google Quick Search Box (QSB). Quick actions using Google Quick Search Box | ||
| 4 Ways To Transfer Files From One Computer to Another Posted: 06 Dec 2009 06:00 AM PST
No matter how much you plan on taking along, you want to do it quickly. Spend the minimal amount of time before you can cut that old hardware loose. There are a number of ways to do this, and we’re taking a look at five of the ways how to transfer files from one computer to another. Depending on what you’re working with, some might be better than others. Use An External Storage MediaThe standard way of backing up data. These days, everyone has a USB stick, or a at least a computer that can burn CDs and DVDs. An even better alternative are external hard drives which you can connect over USB – these often combine crazy speed with incredible storage.
There are three back-up patterns you can follow. Often the easiest way is to create categorical folders to put your files in – movies, pictures, documents, applications, and so on. Back on your new computer, you can easily put these wherever you want to have them. Too lazy to do it manually? You can always use back-up software suites to do the work for you. These are often able to return your file to right location on your new disk, but are especially useful if you plan on doing periodical back-ups (e.g. every two weeks). Share Over LANYou can also use your existing home network to transfer your files, given that both of your systems are connected. The speed can vary from ‘incredibly fast’ on a wired network to ‘pretty damn slow’ on a wireless one. First and foremost, you’ll need to enable the sharing of your hard drive. In Mac OS X, just go to System Preferences -> Sharing, and the rest is pretty obvious. In Windows, the process is quite easy as well. Browse to My Computer -> (right-click) Properties on your hard drive. In the Sharing tab, you’ll need to enable file sharing for the folder. Below is a screenshot of how it looks like on a Windows 7 PC.
Vista and 7 — If your disk isn’t Shared, go to the Network and Sharing Screen and open the ‘Advanced Sharing’ settings. Here you’ll be able to turn on File and Printer Sharing.
Got everything set up? On your new system, you should be able to find the drive shared in ‘Network’. When opening the hard drive, you’ll probably be asked for a password. From there on, you’re free to go. Copy the files and folders as if the network drive is just another folder.
If you don’t have a home network, or don’t feel like using your wireless one, you can directly connect two computers with a crossover ethernet cable. This one looks exactly the same as your everyday internet cable, but has a slightly different wiring. You can buy these for a few bucks in most hardware and computer stores. Use an EasyTransfer CableWindows Easy Transfer is a new application that comes installed in most newer Microsoft Windows operation system. One way to use the program is with an EasyTransfer cable, a special double “male” USB cable.
The cable, that can be bought online and in computer stores, facilitates file transfers between two Windows systems and works great for our purpose. If you don’t mind spending the extra money, this is an option you might want to consider. Connect the HDD ManuallyThis is the way I ended up doing it – the geeky way. If you don’t have an external HDD casing, why not make one? By taking out your old hard drive and using the right connections, you’ll quickly have it hooked via USB to your new system. This has a number of advantages – the speed is well enjoyable, you don’t need (much) extra hardware, and you can copy the files straight from point A to B.
All you need are (depending on your hard drive model) a SATA to USB or an IDE to USB adapter. These can be bought separate or together with an external hard drive casing – which is often even cheaper. If you’ve got an external drive of the right type lying around, you can even use the casing from that one, and spare yourself the extra costs. Do you have any other data transfer tips? Share them with us 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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| How To Save $87 By Making A Free ‘Thesis’ Wordpress Theme Clone Posted: 06 Dec 2009 04:00 AM PST
But there is a downside to all of this. You see, in order to create a fully-functional website with no coding necessary, you have to pay. And pay big you will — $87 to be exact. However, I have found a free alternative Wordpress theme clone of Thesis which is almost identical, but it’s only for those of us who aren’t afraid to get our heads stuck into bit of HTML snipping and altering. It’s called ‘2 Column Neoclassical’ theme and it’s available to download at the end of this very long post. It looks almost exactly like Thesis. Below is a screenshot of my blog with the theme running. As you can see, it has the same fonts, format and style that Thesis has and I paid exactly $0 for it all.
Making A Wordpress Thesis CloneI customized my theme in three main ways. The first, and perhaps the most obvious was to change the header image to something more appropriate for my blog. With most themes, the code to do this is in the Header.php file so it knocked me off balance a little to discover it wasn’t. But never fear, in keeping with the Thesis ‘customization’ calling, the changes have to be made to the Custom.css file around halfway down. You’ll see the following area of code which I have highlighted. By standard, it will be like 'themes/neoclasical2/header.png'.
Enter in the location of your image (which you will have already uploaded using the ‘Add Media’ function in Wordpress). It should be the URL from the ‘/wp-content…’ part onwards. You can also adjust the dimensions of the picture using the code directly above the highlighted section. The standard dimensions are "width: 910px; height:200px;". The second change you may wish to make is to the sidebar; a place where many of us put most of our functions, feeds and fun stuff. Anyone who has used Wordpress before will know that this can be done by accessing ‘Widgets’ under the ‘Appearance’ tab in the WP Admin screen. As you can see, I have inserted images (Twitter badge and RSS icon) which are hyperlinked to their respective accounts. I also added in some counters (still shamefully low as it’s in its first month!).
Another thing you may want to add to your blog is advertisements. The bulk of services (such as AdSense) serve you your ads in HTML code. To add this to your sidebar (or indeed anywhere on your site), simply paste this code into a text widget on your sidebar (or elsewhere, into a code file if you want it somewhere else, such as in the header). Finally, if you want to spice your site up a little and boost traffic, add social media such as Twitter, Digg and Stumble Upon. For this task, I’ll direct you to a previous article of mine here on MUO which covers the subject in depth. What do you think of the FREE Thesis Wordpress theme clone? Which is your favourite professional-looking Wordpress theme? Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! Become a MakeUseOf fan on Facebook? – Our photos, MakeUseOf specials and more. Related posts
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So, you've been snooping around 
Why Wordpress? These days, many people run their blogs with Wordpress. 
Recently, the following story headline went through the German media: “Kevin is not a name, it’s a diagnosis” (
Blogthings.com has a much simpler tool to analyze your name. You really just need to know your name.
Paul Sadowski provides another numerology tool, which returns the most thorough report in this list.
Internet World Stats show that English web surfers represent 
I once was an avid Quicksilver user. I got so used to it that I don’t think I could life my Mac life without it. Then there was the news, the one that I didn’t believe was true, Quicksilver was abandoned by its creator.
When you buy a new computer – like I did recently – you’ll want to transfer most of your existing files over to the new computer. A lot of people, who spend their time gathering vacation pictures and family videos, will want to make a big move leaving nearly nothing behind. Others, like myself, only keep the essential stuff; some documents they’re still working on and a few application installations they’ll be needing shortly.
If there was ever a boilerplate 
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