MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [December 22nd]” plus 7 more |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [December 22nd]
- 5 Google Chrome Extensions That Could Finally Make Me Switch From Firefox
- 3 Sites To Make Money With Crowdsourcing Design Contests
- Sprixi – A Free Image Search Engine With Creditworthy Image Use For Blogs
- The Top 3 Free Coding Text Editors For Mac OS X
- How To Convert Audio CD’s To Audiobooks In iTunes [Mac]
- 5 Free Last Minute Easy & Quick Greetings & Gift Ideas
- TV Browser – A Digital TV Guide For Your Favorite Channels Listings
| Cool Websites and Tools [December 22nd] Posted: 22 Dec 2009 07:31 PM PST
(1) Goo.gl – There are a lot of URL shorteners out there, and MakeUseOf writers have profiled most of them. Well, Google is now providing it's own URL shortening tool: Goo.gl. The tool does exactly what you'd expect – take a long URL and output a small one ready for sharing on sites with restrictive character limits such as Twitter. Read more: Shrink Your URL's With Google's Goo.gl
(2) GoFISHn – There is a social network for everything nowadays, so why leave fishing behind? GoFISHn is a social network to exchange fishing stories, find fishing guides, share pictures, exchange angling tips and everything else related to fishing. Read more: GoFISHn: A Social Network For Fishing Enthusiasts (3) MyFoodapedia – If you're looking for nutritional information, you should check out the food pyramid's new website: MyFoodapedia. The site not only tells you the information missing from the new pyramid – recommended servings within the famous five food groups – but also allows you to research the nutritional breakdown of almost any food you can think of. Read more: Find Helpful Food Nutritional Information With MyFoodapedia (4) ShinySearch – Google is the most popular search engine on the Internet and using the power of Google Custom Search anyone can embed their search engine into their site. That is exactly what the guys at ShinySearch have done. If you've ever secretly desired to have a search engine as famous and awesome as Google named after you, ShinySearch is here to grant you your wish. Read more: ShinySearch: Create Your Own Themed Custom Search Engine (5) Digg 365 – is a new visualization tool under Digg Labs that was launched recently on the occasion of Digg's fifth anniversary. It shows the most dugg stories (top ten) by date and highlights the ones that are hot favorites for that day. It displays a nice circular calendar in the middle which helps you select the year, month and the specific date for which you want to check out the top ten popular stories. Read more: Digg 365: Visualize Digg Front Page Stories
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!
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| 5 Google Chrome Extensions That Could Finally Make Me Switch From Firefox Posted: 22 Dec 2009 05:31 PM PST
But now the Google Chrome Extensions Page has lots of browser extensions you can try out. As with everything else, it is populated with a lot of junk but the gems are there if you do a bit of searching. To use them though, you need to change your version of Chrome to the beta version. You can find it here and updating is very easy. And it goes without saying that you need to open up the Extensions website in the Chrome browser (just covering all bases here!) Here are 5 good Chrome extensions which are seriously tempting me away from Firefox. XMarks (Previously Known As Foxmarks) | ||
| 3 Sites To Make Money With Crowdsourcing Design Contests Posted: 22 Dec 2009 03:31 PM PST
So, what exactly is crowdsourcing? Simply put, it’s the concept of outsourcing a task to a group of people to come up with solutions. For example, let’s say the client is a website and needs a new logo. Through one of these online crowdsourcing design websites, the client becomes the contest holder and posts the requirements of the project, such as a description of what kind of logo he needs and a deadline. The client also decides on the amount of money that is to be awarded. Designers participate in the contest by designing logos based on what the client wants and submitting their entries for review. Then, the client looks for the best logo to use, chooses a winner, and that designer is awarded the prize money. Remember, with all these crowdsourcing models, it’s a contest and the competition is usually fierce, especially for the top-dollar projects. While no professional experience is needed, you should at least know your way around Photoshop or another graphics editing program in order to produce appealing and competitive designs to the clients. Check out An Idiot’s Guide to Photoshop for some help. Here’s 3 crowdsourcing design contest websites to make money with crowdsourcing.
99designs
Once you’ve decided on a contest to participate in, just read the design brief. It has everything you need to know about what the client is looking for, including an overview, the brand name, target audience, requirements, and payment methods of the cash prize for the winner.
After you’ve created your design, hit the submit a design button to upload a screenshot or thumbnail for the client to review. crowdSPRING
As a creator, simply find a project you can take on, read the brief for all the details, and you’ll be awarded the contest’s cash prize if your design is chosen. DesignCrowd
Same rules apply here. Read the open brief and submit your designs for review. Some clients do offer a base payment for just participating in the contest. This guarantees designers at least some money for their work even if they don’t win. However, participation payments are usually very limited and are not even offered at all. As for what it takes to win any of these crowdsourcing contests? First and foremost, always listen to what the client wants. After all, he does make the final decision. Pay close attention to his design description and feedback to your work. It’s also a good idea to submit different designs to get a feel of which ones the client really likes and revise the best ones to his liking. Other than that, be creative, persistent, and your hard work may pay off. What do you think about crowdsourcing design contests? Business owners, have you given any of these marketplaces a try? Designers, have you made any money working with these sites? Let us know in the comments. Image Credit : Anirudh Koul Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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| Sprixi – A Free Image Search Engine With Creditworthy Image Use For Blogs Posted: 22 Dec 2009 01:31 PM PST
So here's a little thank you to those innumerable photographers who charitably upload photos for free and fair use. The 'free' bit is grabbed with the fervor of a kid going for a popsicle but the 'fair' part gets waylaid on the side. That's where a little effort on our part to properly credit the source for the photo should always come in. All photo-sharing websites publish licensing information. But the site we are reviewing here makes it difficult to ignore and dead easy to use the photo with the due attribution. Head over to Sprixi. Sprixi is a free image search engine. Once you land on the site, using Sprixi is just a three step process – Search, Choose and Use. Sprixi sorts all images into topics. You can browse the topics in graphics or text using the Browse link placed right at the foot of the page. The search box is where it starts. Put in your search query and Sprixi takes over. What you get is a double framed window with the images on one scrollable pane. Choose any image from the results and view it in larger dimensions on the View pane.
Usefulness – Sprixi learns and tries to sort all images by usefulness i.e. relevancy. How fitting an image is it for a particular query comes from the users themselves. Images are rated according to use, downloads, the ratings added from the yes/maybe/no buttons etc. Images are weighted more by the ratings given by registered users. Images can also be flagged for inappropriateness. Image Size – Touch the bar chart like colored indicators and you can choose a specific size. Image Information – Head slightly below and the About this image section gives the complete dope on the creator and the license. The last step is to select your choice image and click on the corner placed Use tab. Sprixi gives you two options for fair use - The Image with credit option comes with the attribution inked in fine print while the Image without credit asks you to manually provide that link. A Copy button makes it easy to copy-paste the image attribution link.
Look at the same images below to note the difference between the two options.
The image with the assigned license (the first option) is useful for cases where the image credit source is not explicitly mentioned. Images which are smaller in size may need an explicit credit link. How Does Sprixi Source The Images?Sprixi uses the Flickr API (but the service is not officially endorsed by Flickr). According to the FAQ, Sprixi is presently sourcing images from its own collection, Flickr and OpenClipArt. It also has a leaning towards public domain and commercial-friendly Creative Commons licenses. We have covered quite a few web services for free image search. Image search is no longer about Google and Bing. For that check out 5 Good Image Search Engines Apart From Google Image Search. Services like Sprixi are re-working the usual with their unusual take. As I mentioned before, getting an image online is easy – what's overlooked is giving the guy who put it there in the first place, his rightful reward. Sprixi makes it a more deliberate affair. Let us know how you find the responsibility of the license and the way Sprixi goes about 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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| The Top 3 Free Coding Text Editors For Mac OS X Posted: 22 Dec 2009 11:31 AM PST
To clarify, with code-writing applications, I mean (free) text editors that are willing to highlight your code – compilation and validation optional, but often included. I discovered two things during that search. Firstly, Mac OS X has far less software alternatives than Windows, but second, nearly all of them are decent applications. Not having to sift through all that junk, I was quickly set up with a number of excellent coding text editor alternatives. Komodo EditWe’ll start out with a rather advanced application. If you want something lighter, check the application below, or scroll down to the bottom of the article for some additional recommendations. Komodo Edit (based on Komodo IDE) is built on the Mozilla code base, and offers the same extendability. That’s right – you can download extensions for this one. Whatever the flavor, you’ll be able to fit Komodo Edit to your personal taste. Oh, and did I mention that it’s also available for Windows and Linux?
SmultronThe coding text editor I ended up using is Smultron. Now mind, there’s a reason why I didn’t start the article with it. The developer, Peter Borg, has discontinued the work on the application. For now, you are still greeted by a near-blank page with a short explanation and the download links, but there is no guarantee of how long the application will remain available, or supported.
For now though, Smultron remains a great coding application. Comprehensive and accessible for beginners (like me), but also housing a number of tools for the more advanced user. Included are HTML, plist and XML validators, Java compilers, and several converters. Syntax highlighting is of course included for most popular (and unpopular) programming languages. MacVimVim is one of the older, and also more popular coding text editors in Linux. It’s open source and famous for being text-controllable. In other words, it hasn’t got a Graphical User Interface by default. MacVim is a port of Vim to the Mac OS X platform. And yes, it does have a GUI (phew). Since all the work on MacVim is done by ‘fans’, the application is usually a little behind on the official application. Just a little, though – MacVim tends to be quick on the ball, and is a rock solid text/coding application.
At the core, MacVim is very similar to the official application, save that it comes with OS X support, and a few added bonuses. It’s loaded with incredible features, but often needs a bit of trickery to get the most out of it. Learning to work with the application isn’t too hard, but its audience consists for the biggest part out of advanced users. Also noteworthy is the license; MacVim is released as charity-ware. In other words, if you like the application, they encourage you to support needy children in Uganda. Other mentionworthy coding text editor alternatives are jEdit and Aquamacs. What do you use to write your code? Let us know your preferred applications 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 Convert Audio CD’s To Audiobooks In iTunes [Mac] Posted: 22 Dec 2009 09:31 AM PST
Audiobooks are my perfect companions while I’m driving to and from work. Without even realizing it, I’ve finished tons of books on the road – from suspense sci-fi novels to self-help masterpieces. I would never have found the time to read those literature pieces had I done it the traditional way. The Need To ConvertThere are downloadable audiobooks all over the net, both free and paid. Sometimes you can find free audiobooks from famous authors as part of their book promotion campaigns. You can use search engines to start your treasure hunting, and you can also use this article as a starting point.
The problem is, ordinary MP3’s are not audiobooks. Due to their nature, audiobook files have certain traits different from ordinary MP3’s. For example: aside from having its own library, audiobooks are automatically bookmarked. So if you stop an audiobook in the middle and play something else, then go back to the audiobook, it will start playing where you left off. Audiobooks can also be played faster or slower than the normal speed in iPods. The Importing ProcessThere are several steps needed to convert CDs to itunes audiobook files. The first one is the usual iTunes’ audio CD import. Just put the CD into your Mac’s optical drive, and iTunes will ask you whether or not you want to import the CD.
After clicking “Yes“, iTunes will try to get the CD data from Gracenotes. This process can be triggered manually via the “Advanced > Get CD Track Names” menu.
Then iTunes will show the process of “Querying Database” in its screen.
And the importing process will begin.
The Audiobook Conversion ProcessAfter successfully turning the CD tracks into MP3’s, you need to convert those tracks into audiobook files. This process can be done easily in iTunes. First, select the tracks that you want to convert. And choose “Get Info” from the File menu (or use Command + I).
Choose the “Options” tab and change the “Media Kind” from Music into Audiobook.
You can also adjust other settings to make the files more “audiobooky”
Click “OK” and those files will be moved from Music into the Audiobooks library.
Combining The FilesFor those who prefer one audiobook file instead of several MP3 tracks, you can join the converted files using Join Together – available as a free basic version and $7 shareware Plus version. This application will combine audio files into one AAC music of audiobook files. There’s the option to “chapterize” the file with pointers to the individually joined tracks. The usage is pretty straightforward: you choose the files (by dragging and dropping or by selecting it in iTunes), adjust the settings, and click “Proceed”
Do you listen to audiobooks? Do you know other alternative ways to convert them from a CD into digital files? If so, please share using the comments below! Related posts
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| 5 Free Last Minute Easy & Quick Greetings & Gift Ideas Posted: 22 Dec 2009 08:31 AM PST
Well, let’s hope they have internet access because that could save your rear end. You can still prepare a lovely surprise and send it to them in time. After all, a virtual delivery is instant. Best of all, the following last minute gift ideas are all free, at least for the moment. Gifts don’t have to be expensive, it’s the thought that counts. Greeting CardThe most obvious last minute gift idea would be to send an electronic greeting card. There are many sites out there that offer free templates. Hallmark and Yahoo! Greetings now charge for eCards. Free eCards can be sent with sites such as 123Greetings & eGreetings. Care2The mission of Care2 is to support people living a healthy and green lifestyle. Their free eCards are of a very high quality with unique designs and animations. You can personalize your card, have it sent on a specific date, and receive a notification when it was picked up.
YouTube Holiday CardsIf you’re not a shy person and up for fun, why not produce a little video and surprise someone? Saikat wrote an article on how to Send Video Greeting Cards with YouTube. Virtual FlowersGreeting cards are all the same. Flowers, however, express a different message, even if they are only virtual. Virtual Florist and eFlowerGrams provide a wonderful selection. flowers2mailBy far the most original virtual flowers can be sent with flowers2mail. You can arrange an individual bouquet, select a vase, and fill in a little greeting card. Et voilà, your flowers are ready to be mailed, up to 15 days in advance.
CalendarIt’s not difficult to make a calendar. All you need is a free online tool, some unique motifs, and Adobe Acrobat Reader to open and print your calendar. My Calendar Maker To create a free personalized calendar, you have to register with the site. You can choose between different calendar layouts (full-size, half-size, tear-off), pick the start month/year and end month/year, upload your images, add captions of up to 100 characters, add or remove special occasions, for example birthdays and anniversaries, add a cover and a title, and finally save and print your calendar. Quick and very easy. The creators also offer My Free Calendar Maker, which creates non-personalized calendars. With the Yearly Calendar Maker, you can create a personalized yearly calendar. The advantage of both tools is that you don’t have to sign up. Gift CertificateUsing a gift certificate you can give one of the most precious gifts of all: time. Invite your friend for a home cooked dinner and spend an entire evening with them; offer your grandma to stock up her supplies, so that she doesn’t need to go shopping as often or carry heavy items; volunteer to mow the lawn of your parents’ house once a month; or help your friends with babysitting the kids and/or pets, so they can spend some time alone. To make your job easier, you can use ready-made templates and fill them in with your details. Ivy’s Gift Certificate MakerThe beauty of this gift certificate maker is that it provides you with a list of ideas of what you can possibly give. So simply tick an option in one of the gift giving categories (kids to parents, parents to kids, friends to friends etc.), add the recipient’s and your name, and preview the result.
This tool also suggests to make a coupon book, i.e. printing multiple certificates and stapling them together. This can make a lovely gift. Regiftable Personalized Gift CertificateNeed it custom and chic, but very simple and most of all fast? On this site you can choose from five seasonal templates and create up to three certificates at once. They will look like the example below. Quick and easy.
You can either print each certificate or save and mail them. Music PlaylistIf you want to make a very personal and instant gift, think of the music that connects you and your friend or relative. Every life, friendship, and relationship has its own soundtrack. Or maybe you know someone who loves to discover new music. You can sit down and record a CD or tape. There are some simpler options though. You can create an online playlist on several different sites. Actionext
This site provides a simple way to produce playlists without having to sign in. Simply search for songs, from the results list click the plus next to a song to add it and continue to search. Once down click Save and share the URL.
I reviewed this tool in my article Create Online Music Playlists with Actionext. MixTape.me
To create and share a permanent playlist with MixTape.me you have to get an account and sign in. But once you have passed that point you’re set to create something awesome. You could make several playlists with different purposes. For example one to cheer up a friend, another to let your family drown in happy memories, and a third to show everyone which music you love best.
David has written a thorough review on how to Build The Perfect Music Playlist With MixTapeMe. Have you completed your gift shopping yet? What are some last minute gifts you still need to pick up? Did you come up with a great last minute gift idea that would fit in this list? Please share! Image credits: zerobug Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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| TV Browser – A Digital TV Guide For Your Favorite Channels Listings Posted: 22 Dec 2009 07:31 AM PST
A lot of people would say that they use something like TV Guide channel listings or even TV.com. But one – they probably do not watch international television and two they always have a data connection up and ready. I do find myself watching TV via many methods from other countries and parts of the world. And I often find myself in a rural location with no internet when I am on vacation. Even when I can’t watch TV, I want to know what is on so I can grab the torrent at a later time. Or maybe your TV is up and running but your internet is not. So by using TVBrowser I can download my TV guide channel listings for the week and have the data already in my laptop so when the internet outage hits, we are already prepared. I downloaded a 2.63MB file from this link over here. Install it with the normal next, next next and a finish.
When everything is completed the application will test your connection. You’ll want to see this screen:
Click next and continue on and you will see a progress meter like so:
Then it will show you what it found and is trying to download:
Awesome – there are our channels. And here they come.
From the grid above, add channels that you want to the right hand side. You use the green arrows in the middle to actually transfer them to the right or left side. Hit next when you are finished adding channels. I added 4 for this example to speed up the download process.
You will then see this screen:
Now we can close the set up assistant and download our channel's TV guide channel listings
Hit update now and let us configure what we want to download and how. Drop down the box for Update program for: to download more than one day of shows. This is great for downloading a week or more at a time to take away with you. When you are done configuring your options hit update now. You can also allow for automatic updates when the program is opened or even when it is not.
That's it! Let's see what we have accomplished. You should now see a TV grid like in my screenshot below:
Awesome. You can move left and right to see the different channels and programs. You can click on an individual listing for a TV show and display its properties or associated information like so:
You will find genre, description as well as actor and actress listings. There are hyperlinks which will take you to Wikipedia pages. I clicked on Kevin James and was taken to his Wikipedia page. Very very cool! We have previously covered some other websites and apps for finding out television programme schedules - Two Ways To Never Miss A Television Episode – David Do you have another favorite application that does all this? We would love to hear about it – share it 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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I have been using Google Chrome since it first came out and it has a lot of features to recommend itself (the speed and lower memory usage being the main sells). But there were lots of features that were lacking which prevented me from making the full switch from Firefox. With my heavy usage of Greasemonkey scripts and a few “can’t live without them” extensions, I had to keep Firefox as my default browser and have Chrome sitting on the sidelines.
I have always been keen to have a decent Gmail Notifier but I didn’t want to install the 
One of the really big things lacking in Chrome was the fact that webpage RSS feeds were not being “auto-discovered”. I was so used to the orange RSS box in the Firefox address bar that when I started using Chrome, I instantly found it really annoying that this feature, which I took for granted in Firefox, was gone.
Are you a freelance graphic designer in need of some extra dough? Maybe you just like designing logos or websites for fun in your spare time? If so, it’s possible to earn a little extra cash with web-based crowdsourcing design contests.
99designs is one of the most popular design competition marketplaces on the Web. As one of its designers, there’s always hundreds of 
With pretty much the same concept as 99designs, crowdSPRING is another design marketplace. Project categories are divided into four categories: graphic design (logo, clothing, stationery, etc.), web design, industrial design (packaging, product design), and photography (custom photos, retouching).
DesignCrowd is yet another marketplace that offers various contests for designers to take a stab at. Design jobs include logos, web, brochures, posters, flyers, illustrations, stationery, business cards, and t-shirts.
As a web worker, finding the right image to use is almost as important as crafting the right post title. All our words and work would have come to naught if not for the easy availability of free images.
A few days ago I decided to start working on a school assignment; just some basic HTML stuff. My initial response to fire up Notepad++ proved useless, as I had moved to Mac OS X a few weeks ago. Unwilling to fire up my Windows emulation, I went looking for an alternative coding text editor.
About a year ago, I wrote an article in my blog about how people are 
.
So you totally forgot to get a birthday present for a good friend or send a Christmas card to a close relative? The time for a punctual delivery has passed and you’re in a mess. What can you do?
How do you check what is on TV?
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