Latest Tips from MakeUseOf.com |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [December 7th]
- Thank You To MakeUseOf Friends !
- Top 7 Charities That Offer Online Christmas Help For Low Income Families
- openSUSE 11.2 – A Linux System Perfect For New Users and Pros Alike
- How To Create Topical Brain Games To Embed On Your Blog
- Get Over Writer’s Block With OmmWriter, A Zen Distraction-Free Writing App [Mac]
- A First Look At Google Voice & 100 Invitations To Give Away!
- How To Make Ubuntu Even Easier To Use With Ubun-student [Linux]
| Cool Websites and Tools [December 7th] Posted: 07 Dec 2009 07:01 PM PST
(1) SecretTweet – Do you have some secrets that you are dying to let out? Then SecretTweet could be the right website for you. SecretTweet is a twitter-related web application that lets you post tweets anonymously. It also allows you to read secrets tweets from other users and reply to them. Read more: SecretTweet: Post Secrets to Twitter Anonymously
(2) WhoSampled – Nice site for music lovers. It has a huge collection of music samples used in rap, rock and pop. The site compares YouTube videos of songs side-by-side and also lets you know the exact time when the sampling appears in the song. Read more: WhoSampled: Discover Music Samples Used in Rap Rock & Pop (3) Branders – Convenient website that sells custom promotional products and corporate gifts for marketing, sales, and event planning professionals. This website allows you to order various customized items with your brand logo on it which can then be used as your company's promotional items or giveaways. Read more: Branders: Online Shop For Custom Promotional Products (4) BillsAreIn – If you've got 1 or 2 roommates and you share your household bills equally then BillsAreIn could benefit you tremendously. The tool aims to track expenses and overall money management for shared households. You can add bills, IOUs and payments easily. Read more: BillsAreIn: Shared Households Expense Tracking Online (5) Rootein – Changing habits isn't easy. Rootein is an online self improvement web app which aims to help you with that. It allows you to track change of habits and keeps a check on how effectively you are able to follow particular routine. Read more: Rootein: Online Self Improvement Tracker
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! Become a MakeUseOf fan on Facebook? – Our photos, MakeUseOf specials and more. Related posts
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| Thank You To MakeUseOf Friends ! Posted: 07 Dec 2009 05:01 PM PST It's time to say thanks to MakeUseOf’s friends who, once in a while, tip us great story ideas, help out on different projects and in some cases offer their services at discounted prices. Thank you guys! Walyou – Cool Gadgets for Geeks
Geeks Are Sexy – Tech, Science, News and Social Issues for Geeks
Pair – Reliable Web Hosting
Thank you guys! 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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| Top 7 Charities That Offer Online Christmas Help For Low Income Families Posted: 07 Dec 2009 02:00 PM PST
I’m going to share a little bit about my own past that I don’t share with many people I meet today. While I am now a fairly well-paid electrical engineer, and I’ve finally hit a certain level of success with my writing, I’ve not always been at this level of financial comfort in my life. I was a child in a family with one brother who had serious medical problems for most of his childhood, and parents who struggled to earn enough simply to make the 3 hour trips necessary to take him to the specialist, let alone feed five kids. Things weren’t always easy when Christmas came around and there was very little (if any) money for presents or celebration. I remember my young friends talking about their 14 or 15 awesome presents, and quickly leaving so that I didn’t have to tell them the truth. I remember the year my father lost his job at the wood chip mill, when people in the community came together to help to anonymously give the children in our family some of the coolest gifts. To this day I wonder who the wonderful people were who donated those gifts for us that year. Here at MakeUseOf, a few writers covered various innovative ways that you can support charities, such as Givv, which lets you donate to various charities with one monthly donation, and GoodSearch, a fantastic search engine where half of all ad revenue goes to support the charities that you choose. In this post I’d like to offer the flip side of this coin, not how you can give, but how you can receive. A little bit of Christmas help for low income families today who are in those kind of circumstances, where simple survival takes all of your resources, and you simply have nothing left to make the holiday magical for your kids. 7 Top Sources That Offer Christmas Help for Low Income FamiliesThe following resources are some of the most important organizations that do some very impressive work for families in need during the holidays (and the whole year). I’m afraid the majority of organizations on this list are U.S. based, but I did search for as many non-U.S. charities as I could – if you know of any and you can share those websites with readers, that would be very helpful and appreciated. To start with, I would like to mention one of the most important organizations that helps the families of kids who are terribly sick. The Make-a-Wish Foundation is one of the world’s most important charitable foundations, not simply because they grant the Christmas wishes of children, but because they grant all wishes of kids throughout the year. Even more importantly, they do so for kids who face life-threatening medical conditions aged from 2 1/2 to 18 years old.
If you know such a child and are eligible to refer that child, I would encourage you to do so as soon as you can. I guarantee the the Make-a-Wish Foundation will make that child’s holiday one of the most magical and special that they’ve ever experienced. And if you miss the holidays, don’t worry – the foundation grants the wishes of these children the whole year. Of course, no list of resources for families in need during the holidays would be complete without a mention for the Salvation Army. For some reason, charities like these make it much easier to give (usually straight from their home page) than to receive. I don’t think this is by design, but simply because it takes so much more effort to collect donations.
Of all charities in the world, I think when it comes to the holidays, the Salvation Army really comes out in full force. You’ll see them with collection tins and ringing bells just about everywhere you go when you’re shopping for holiday gifts, and I’ve seen the lines just outside the soup kitchens and food pantries of people hoping to collect a little bit of food to get them through. If you find yourself in need of a miracle for your kids during the holiday, you will do well by asking this organization for help. Just click on the link above and search for the closest location where you live using the map on the right side of the page.
Also, if you live in the UK, don’t forget to check out the branch of the Salvation Army based there. Another fascinating charity that most people probably wouldn’t normally contemplate is the Angel Tree Church program by the Prison Fellowship Organization. when people think of helping kids, they often picture families with two hard-working parents who are doing everything they can to make ends meet, but just can’t seem to bring in enough. However, have you ever considered what happens to those kids whose parents are criminals that end up in prison?
The truth is, these are children who did nothing wrong to deserve the situation they’re in, but with their parents in prison, they usually have a holiday that’s a lot more barren and depressing than most of us could possibly imagine. The Prison Fellowship seeks to show these children through “Angel Tree” gift collections across the world, that even if they live a community where everything seems hopeless, that there is a world out there where people love them and care about them. A similar charity to this is the ToysForTots organization operated by the U.S. Marine Corp. Finally, one thing that all children in developed nations should be taught during the holiday season is that even if their own family is struggling, there are children in other parts of the world that don’t even have food to eat. While it’s hard to go with no presents during the holidays, most kids understand that they’re lucky to have a roof over their heads and warm food to eat. When you look at what amazing organizations like the UK based ToyBox do for children across the world – it’s enough to warm your heart four times over. While I’ve only listed a few charities that can offer Christmas help for low income families, there are many more. The UK based website Donation4Charity.org is not only one of the best websites to find charities to donate to, but it’s also a great way to discover the charities that may be able to offer your family some help. And, no matter where you are or what your circumstances are during the holiday season and throughout the entire year, I’d like to wish all MakeUseOf readers a very festive holiday season, and a very prosperous and successful new year. 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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| openSUSE 11.2 – A Linux System Perfect For New Users and Pros Alike Posted: 07 Dec 2009 12:00 PM PST
It created a lot of buzz and quickly became a favorite distribution with its initial release of 10.0 in October of that same year. Controversy followed and the openSUSE Linux distribution saw its popularity fall and rise over the years, but according to poll results it is the second ranking distro with tuxmachines visitors and it usually sits at about second or third at distrowatch. openSUSE is geared toward new to advancing users all the way to power users, with a unique combination of ease-of-use on the surface and advanced options little further in. openSUSE Linux CharacteristicsopenSUSE is a popular distribution of Linux for new users for good reason. Hallmarks of openSUSE are professionalism, polish, and stability. Everything about the openSUSE project is very professional; from the website, to the press releases, to development and information, to bug handling, to releases, and the look and feel of their operating system. It’s obvious from the start that this isn’t a few guys hammering out an OS from their mama’s basement (not that some good work hasn’t come from independent developers). Professionalism is a side-effect from being sponsored by Novell and having an actual budget to work from. The accomplishments achieved from openSUSE development will likely find their way into Novell’s commercial system, SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop.
openSUSE has always been rock solid. Even their developmental releases were stable, much more so than other distribution releases. This is actually the most important element of any operating system. One of the first things to bash Microsoft’s reputation was the rash of operating system crashes and it subsequently became the longest running joke of the Internet and business world. Somehow openSUSE developers found the magic recipe for stability. Outstanding FeaturesThe best two features of openSUSE are the installer and YaST Control Center. The installer is a graphical wizard that walks the user through an easy installation and contains many advanced options for the power user as well. So many distributions are trying to dumb down their installers to accomodate new and migrating Windows users these days. While this may be fine for the majority of home users, there is a large class of users that need, for example, Linux Volume Management, RAID setup, static IP addresses, etc. The best thing about it, these advanced options are available and easy to find, but not in your face. openSUSE always finds the perfect blend of ease-of-use and customizable installs. The YaST Control Center is one of the best in the business, if not the very best. They really only have one rival and YaST offers many extra advanced configuration options. Even the most experienced system administrator can sometimes appreciate the convenience and ease of graphical wizards and configurations. Home users may never even need to access some of these modules, but may wish to configure a TV card, scanner, printer, or camera that possibly wasn’t detected or setup during the install. It’s rare, but it happens. In addition, from YaST one can back up and restore their system, tweak their bootloader, set up users, manage security features, set up Virtualization, and lots more. Also, the YaST Control Center is the one centralized hub for all things software management. While the actual software installer can be launched straight from the menu, YaST includes media configuration, Online Update wizard, Add-On Products setup, Media Check, and Webpin Package Search (that searches all known openSUSE repositories like the build-service and community contributions). openSUSE 11.2These features and characteristics have been the mainstay of openSUSE for the last five years, one could count on it – until 11.2. The last two years in Linux have seen a flux in desktop development due to the KDE’s complete redesign and rewrite of their popular desktop environment. The transition has been extremely difficult for distribution developers as well as the end user. Each release brings more stability and features back to the desktop environment, but many issues remain. Some of the side effects of this can be seen in this release of openSUSE. Their KDE environment just feels rough around the edges. Some KDE applications are unstable, some stemming from the upstream project, such as the newsfeed client and some settings don’t take effect requiring second and third attempts. The fonts are not as pretty as they usually are and this release is missing a nice window decoration like former releases.
There was a lot of heavy coding required for this release and it just feels like developers didn’t have time before the scheduled release to polish the appearance as much as usual. Having said that, there are many opposing opinions. Many feel this release of openSUSE is just as polished and stable as any that came before it. In addition, the GNOME interface did get a sleek new theme and appears just as nice as any previous release – perhaps moreso. The stack of applications is, as always, quite impressive. If not in the default install, openSUSE repositories contain one of the largest collections of software in Linux. Some applications include OpenOffice, the best office suite for Linux that rivals Microsoft Office on most fronts; the Firefox webbrowser, the most popular browser for Linux; and the GIMP image manipulations suite, the most capable and most used image software that is often compared to PhotoShop. openSUSE offers a choice of applications for most every task. There are instant messengers, blogging clients, audio and video players, downloaders, email clients, games, word processors, accounting software, a thesaurus and dictionaries, …just about anything you’d need you’ll find. One thing you won’t find is restricted code needed for some audio and video playback and proprietary graphic drivers. Legalese aside, this can be somewhat inconvenient and discouraging for many users. Ubuntu has their Restricted Formats utility but openSUSE has Webpin Search and Installer (shown in the image below) and the community maintained 1-Click Collection. ConclusionI would have preferred to have a bit more of a shiny version to introduce, but overall through the years openSUSE is the most consistently stable and polished desktop Linux available. It and its big brother SLED are used by government agencies, big businesses, education departments, security specialists, and everyday desktop users like yourself. One release with a few rough edges does not negate its otherwise exemplary track record. openSUSE is available in several formats. The install DVD is a large 4.3 gigabyte image with lots of software and your choice of desktop systems. The popular live CDs come in KDE and GNOME varieties and offers a nice stack of apps to get started. You can learn more at the openSUSE Website. What do YOU think of openSUSE 11.2? 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 Create Topical Brain Games To Embed On Your Blog Posted: 07 Dec 2009 11:01 AM PST
Last week I discovered a cool free tool that makes it possible to create online brain games and embed them to your pages. ProProfs is a web-based tool that lets you choose among multiple brain games in various categories (crosswords, puzzles, logic games, sudoku, etc) as well as build word games and customize them to your site topic. The process is really quick and smooth (to start creating games you will need to register at the site), here I am showing just one brain game sample of those you can make there (just for you to get an idea). Let’s start with one of the most enjoyable games to create and play: a sliding puzzle.
Creating & Solving A Sliding PuzzleI actually never thought solving a sliding puzzle online may be such a fun (especially if you create one yourself). What you need to do is to go to sliding puzzles at ProProfs site (which lists quite a few already) and click “Create a Sliding Puzzle” in the upper right corner. There you will be offered to choose a picture either by searching for it using Google Image Search or providing its direct URL or even uploading it from your computer. Let’s say your site is about sunflowers, so you might probably want your puzzle to feature a related image:
The more tiny details there are on the image, the harder the puzzle is going to be; I am choosing the easiest one here. After clicking “Create My Sliding Puzzle” you will be offered to provide:
Now you can try solving your own puzzle to test it; I am embedding it right here:
Looks like fun, doesn’t it? Now you can create more fun brain games and embed them to your blogs:
I am thrilled to hear your thoughts. Do you like the idea? Are you aware of other similar tools? Image source: edupics.com 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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| Get Over Writer’s Block With OmmWriter, A Zen Distraction-Free Writing App [Mac] Posted: 07 Dec 2009 10:00 AM PST
I’ve tried doing many things to help calm myself and churn out creative thoughts. I’ve turned the lights off. I’ve switched my phone off. I’ve selected a playlist of soothing music. Yet somehow, something always manages to pull me away from my writing. A window will pop up. A notification. A system update window. A lot of writers I know have resorted to using those full-screen distraction-free text editors like Dark Room or JDarkRoom. I’ll be honest, the green on black theme doesn’t really do much for my creativity. When I came across OmmWriter, I was intrigued. The concept took writing productivity, mixed in some solitude and added a dash of zen. The results? A beeeautiful and calming full-screen, distraction-free writing application with its own soundtrack.
I wrote this entire article in OmmWriter and I tell you, I’m loving it.
The next icon will allow you to adjust the font size, making it bigger or smaller. Nothing fancy here. The third icon switches the background from the white, snowy landscape to a textured sheet of paper to a plain white screen. Again, the idea is to pick one which relaxes you the most. I stuck with the snow. I liked the fact that even though I’m writing, the background doesn’t make me feel like I’m working.
The fourth icon lets you select your choice of music from seven different soundtracks. Among the sounds are some repeating, very zen-like tunes you’ll hear in classy health spas; to the sounds of nature like birds chirping and rivers flowing. You can also choose to turn off the music althogether if it makes you uncomfortable.
Another very interesting feature of OmmWriter is the addition of typing (key) sounds. I remember when these were a hit way back in Windows 98, for me at least. Somehow, they seem to have been forgotten. I supposed they contribute something to the zen-ish theme. Actually, it’s a pretty nice feeling to hear the keystrokes click away as my creativity gets imprinted on the screen. The experience is magnified with the use of headphones, blocking away outside noises and sealing yourself within OmmWriter’s serene environment. When you’re done with your writing, as I am now, you can easily save your work by clicking on the last icon. By default, it saves a OmmWriter document keeping your background, font and sound settings. You can still open it using TextEdit or any other text editor. You could also save your work as a text file. Like I said earlier, I wrote this entire article in OmmWriter and I have to admit that I’ve never finished my work so quickly. The quiet, soothing atmosphere that it provides leaves nothing else to be desired. All that’s left are your thoughts. I love this app. If you’re a writer and if you’re going through a dry spell, download OmmWriter and give it a go. I guarantee that you’ll enjoy it. Watch it in action.
Ommwriter from Herraiz Soto on Vimeo. OmmWriter is available for Mac OS X 10.5 and above (Intel only); and it works perfectly fine on Snow Leopard. It’s currently in limited beta but you can easily visit this page and request a copy; they’ll send it to you via email. What do you do when you’re having writer’s block? How did you get over it? 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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| A First Look At Google Voice & 100 Invitations To Give Away! Posted: 07 Dec 2009 08:00 AM PST
Well, seek no further! We have a limited amount of invites to give away, so read on to find out more about Google Voice, and how to get your hands on an invite! How Does Google Voice Work?Google Voice is Google's telecommunications service launched just this year. It is currently only available to the U.S., but I won't be surprised to see it go worldwide eventually. You can use certain features with your existing phone number(s), or set up your own Google Voice number for free and have access to even more great features! Use Google Voice with your Existing Phone NumberMost people, including myself, already use a well-established phone number and have no desire to change it. Luckily for us, Google offers certain features for use with an existing number, like Google Voicemail, voicemail transcription, the ability to share, download and embed voicemails, international calling at a highly discounted rate, custom greetings that can vary by caller, and more! Unfortunately, porting existing numbers is not yet available, although most everyone is requesting it from Google via their feedback forums. Google Voicemail uses a platform that looks very similar to the Gmail inbox, which is nice for those who are already familiar with Gmail. Set up custom voicemail greetings for different callers or groups, or have one main greeting for everyone. When someone leaves you a message, Google Voice can automatically transcribe it and send it to you via email or SMS. You can also play the voicemail, or forward it to other people, embed it in a webpage, or download it to your hard drive! The transcription service works pretty well, too. At the very least, it will give you a good idea of what the caller wants. Of course, you'll have certain people in your life that Google Voice just can't transcribe, like people with strong accents, or in my case, my grandfather. Although you might think this would be annoying, I actually find myself looking forward to his voicemails now, thanks to the occasional hilarity of the transcription. Sometimes it will simply say "Transcript Not Available," or it will transcribe it with some text in gray, indicating those words may not be accurate.
The international calling feature is also a big plus. You can view the discounted rates from your Google Voice interface, and add calling credits from there as well. Calls to Canada are free, whereas other places like France, Italy, Germany and Hong Kong (to name a few) only cost $0.02 per minute!
In addition to the main Help Forum, Google has provided a playlist of helpful videos outlining the services available to you when using Google Voice with your existing phone number. Choose a Custom Phone Number for More Great FeaturesYou can also set up your own Google Voice phone number to use with additional features like ringing a call to all of your phones, call blocking, the ability to record calls, free SMS services, call screening, the ability to move a call from cell phone to land line and vice versa, and more. When choosing your Google Voice number, you have total freedom regarding what phone number you end up with. As long as it's available in the database, it's as good as yours!
With this number comes many additional features, like the ability to ring all of your phones, or only some of your phones, based on the caller. For example, you could have your wife's calls ring to your home, cell and work phones, while your boss's calls ring only to your work phone. You also have the ability to switch from land line to cell phone and vice-versa, while in the middle of a call, without having to hang up. The call screening feature is another favorite of many users. You can set it up to ask unknown callers to state their name before deciding whether to take the call or send it to voicemail. You can even listen to voicemails as they're being recorded and choose to take the call right then, or leave it to voicemail. If you have an annoying caller that just won't leave you alone, you can elect to block the caller, and Google will play the standard "The number you have dialed is no longer in service" message next time a call comes in from that number. Another great option is the ability to record incoming calls. Beware, though, that the caller will be alerted when you start and stop recording, so there's no easy way to record secretly! The recording will be stored in your Google Voice account, and from there, you can email, embed or download it. Google also published a playlist showcasing these features, along with a few others, for use with your Google Voice number. Want an Invite?
If you missed out on this particular opportunity, you can still request an invite directly from Google by visiting their Request an Invite page. When I requested mine back in August, it took about a month to receive it, which was actually sooner than I expected, so don't worry! They say they are working through them as quickly as they can. Here are a few similar phone-related services we’ve reviewed in the past: 10 Sites to Send Free Text Messages to Cell Phones (SMS) Do you know of any unique ways to utilize Google Voice? Let us know in the comments! 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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| How To Make Ubuntu Even Easier To Use With Ubun-student [Linux] Posted: 07 Dec 2009 06:00 AM PST
Ubun-student is an interesting application that enhances your Ubuntu experience and makes Ubuntu easy to use for new users, including things like how to install software, change configurations and tweak things around. It is not included in official Ubuntu repositories so would have to configure software sources and add the PPA for Ubun-student if you want to install it using apt-get. Here is how you can do that quickly: (open up a terminal and issue these commands)
This will install Ubun-student on your computer. If you prefer, you can also install it from sources, as detailed at Ubun-student Google Groups page. Once it is installed you will find it listed under System Tools in the Gnome menu. Go ahead, fire it up and we shall see what it can do.
If it is the configuration and tweaking that you are more interested in, go ahead and click on Adjustments. You can now change various configuration settings related to your Ubuntu installation. The settings are appropriately named and the application gives you additional details if you hover over them.
Ubun-student also offers an awesome hardware and system information tool. Click on Info and then choose either Hardware information or Ubuntu Information to get details about the hardware capabilities and the current Ubuntu install respectively.
Ubun-student also makes it a snap to configure a number of third-party repositories. It offers Google, PlayOnLinux and Dropbox repositories by default. Now this list is missing a number of repositories that you might like to add software from. For a more comprehensive list, check out the guide to the New Ubuntu Karmic Koala. That said, you can enable the listed repositories by simply clicking the checkbox and hitting apply. Ubun-student than lets you launch Ubuntu software store or Synaptic package manager to install software form these repositories.
There is also a menu entry named Study, that basically lists a few web pages offering tutorials like “How to compose a latex paper?” and also lets you revisit Tips that Ubun-student offers when it first starts up. I feel that a dynamic listing of articles/tutorials from respectable sources would have made more sense in here. It would be interesting to see how this develops in future.
Overall Ubun-student is a great application that makes Ubuntu easy to use. It provides access to a number of common functions that a beginner to intermediate Ubuntu user might want to perform. If you are new to Ubuntu, it will help you along and you also let you learn what it is doing, if you are an intermediate users Ubun-student will save you some time that you would have spent installing, configuring or tweaking the traditional way. Do you know of any other similar software that might be of help to new Linux users? Let us know in the comments. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too. Related posts
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Every year, as the holidays approach, families around the world gather together to celebrate with festive decorations, feasts of all flavors and varieties and often also an exchange of gifts. What’s very easy to forget during these times of feasting and celebrating is the fact that there are so many families in the world that are struggling just to put food on the table for the kids, holiday gifts and elaborate parties just aren’t in the picture for them. They desperate need the Christmas help that’s available for low income families
It is always good to provide your blog readers with some fun they can entertain themselves with: this encourages people to share your content and boosts your site subscription numbers.
As a writer, I sometimes find myself struggling to spew out a proper sentence. Every profession has its drawbacks. In my case, it’s writer’s block — a creative dry spell that I desperately need to overcome. It’s not always easy. To be creative, one needs to be inspired, centered and focused. The tiniest distraction can break one’s distractions. That’s why most writers tend to write in the late of night or seclude themselves away from society. They need to be with their thoughts and block out the rest of the world.
Avid Linux users are adept at configurations via editing the gamut of configuration files. For those who are just starting out, there is 
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