MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [December 28th]” plus 6 more |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [December 28th]
- 8 Troubleshooting Resources to Help You Fix Your Mac Problems
- Geeks Weigh In: What Makes an Android Phone Different?
- Increase Your Website’s Profit By Linking To Free Giveaways
- How To Create Windows-Compatible ISO Disc Images on Mac
- Four Stress Reduction Exercises You Can Blog or Tweet About
- How To Fix Common Windows Problems In A Snap With FixWin
| Cool Websites and Tools [December 28th] Posted: 28 Dec 2009 07:31 PM PST
(1) ForiSearch – Are you interested in knowing what foreign language websites have to offer? Then you should check out ForiSearch. This simple online foreign image search tool lets you enter a search term in your native language and then find images and video for you from a different language that you selected. Read more: ForiSearch: A Foreign Image Search Tool
(2) BugAWord – is a fun and crafty app that shows how bad machine language translation can be. To use this app, just enter a phrase and choose a language. Your phrase will be translated into your chosen language and then retranslated back into the original language. Read more: BugaWord: Shows just how bad machine language translation can be (3) Windows 7 Test Drive – Are you thinking of upgrading to Windows 7 but can't make the leap yet? Then you should check out Windows 7 Test Drive. This web app lets you test a live version of Windows 7 straight from your browser. Read more: Windows 7 Test Drive: Demo Windows 7 From Your Browser (4) Nexty – is a simple online to-do list manager that focuses on David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) system when it comes to organizing tasks and schedules. You can create different projects and add “to-do's” to them easily. If you want to get an overview of your tasks, reminders and due dates then you could do it from one centralized page. Read more: Nexty: To-Do List Manager Based On GTD (5) AnybodyOutThere – is a online discussion platform that allows you to talk to people about particular topics in real-time. You can post a topic or a question and the website will help you find people that are eager to discuss your issues. Read more: AnyBodyOutThere: Have Online Discussions in Real Time
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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| 8 Troubleshooting Resources to Help You Fix Your Mac Problems Posted: 28 Dec 2009 05:30 PM PST
Apple DiscussionsWhen I need to do troubleshooting to fix Mac problems, I log into the Apple Discussions site itself and do a search or ask a question about a problem I'm experiencing. Typically I find someone has already asked a similar question, and in most cases I receive helpful responses within 24 hours. Find out the other resources I seek out when I need to troubleshoot a problem with my Mac. DocumentationAfter I’ve poked around some, I found that Apple provides a wealth of documentation and how-tos about all their products on its site. Pretty much all that you might learn from a book about Apple products can be found on its site, and not all of it is written in dry technical language. You can find support that includes screenshots and step-by-step instructions. There are even pages consisting of video tutorials for Apple's most popular applications. Of course, Apple being a profit-making company is not going to showcase it troubleshooting web pages on their homepage. But its support section is surprisingly well organized and easy to navigate. Switch 101If for example you're a switcher (coming from PC to Mac), Apple's Switch 101 includes tutorials for setting up Apple's Mail client, Address Book, and Safari web browser. Just as you read a computer reference book, the more you link and navigate the support sections of the site, the more you'll discover and learn.
Bookmark Your Apple ProductsOne simple approach to learning or troubleshooting about an Apple product you own is to bookmark related pages on the site itself. For example, the site's iPod Troubleshooting Assistant provides you links to common iPod issues for each generation of iPods. If you own an iPod nano, for example, then bookmark the pages related to that device.
Manuals and Tech SpecsAnother support section provides links to the manuals for all of Apple’s hardware products. Start with its Featured Manual page. You will want to bookmark and download manuals about your own computer. There are also pages for recent Apple software upgrades and tech specs. Tech specs inform you of what your Mac hardware is capable of. You learn everything from the screen size and resolution of your Mac, the type of video output options it has, to what type of storage drives it contains.
Getting User SupportApple’s user support forums are what you want to bookmark where they can be easily found. These user forums include feedback from both veteran Mac users and newbies helping one another troubleshoot problems, and they can often save you time, money, and stress. Before you start using the forum, you will want to register on it. The most important information to include in your registration profile is the current computer(s) and the operating system you're using. This information will be posted with each of your questions and responses so that other users won't need to ask you for those tech specs. When asking for help to fix Mac problems, it's important to research your question first. It's a waste of time for other users to respond to problems that have been previously addressed in a forum thread. Use the good old search box and just type in your question. More than likely you will discover that someone has already asked that question.
Also, be very specific in your questions and the title you use for your topic. I've seen users title their questions or topics with a mere one or two words, such "clean install" or "ipod". Those titles don't describe what you specifically want to know. Using detailed titles like "My iPod Touch keeps getting a blue screen" or "Smart playlists won't sync properly” will get you faster responses. After you post your question(s), subscribe to your thread so that you will get notified when others respond. It's very rude to post a question and never revisit your post, even if you fix the problem yourself. Responding to questions can often take time and serious effort, so you want to show your appreciation of the help you receive, even when a response does not fix your problem. Tech Support SitesOne other piece of advice when working on fixing Mac problems – make sure to check out Top 10 Sites For Computer Troubleshooting & Tech Support Share Your KnowledgeWhenever I post a question I try to go back into other forums to see if there any topics I can contribute to. It’s my way of “giving back” to a community that has had helped me. Like most web sites, Apple’s support forums can be subscribed to using an RSS feed. While you don’t want to subscribe to an entire forum, there might be a topic or two that you want to keep tabs on and occasionally contribute to. Technical support from Apple's support staff can often be costly if your hardware is out of warranty or you haven't purchased extended Apple Care support. But if you're patient and learn how to navigate Apple’s support sections, you can save lots of time and frustration, even when your iPod or MacBook is not performing as well as when you first purchased it. What support programs do you use for troubleshooting your Mac? Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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| Geeks Weigh In: What Makes an Android Phone Different? Posted: 28 Dec 2009 03:30 PM PST
Before we get into the specifics though, let’s look at an overview of how the Android mobile phone operating system came to be. Android originally began as a product of Android Inc. in 2003 and was founded by a group of people including Andy Rubin, a co-founder of Sidekick phone manufacturer Danger, and Nick Sears, a former vice president at large US mobile phone carrier T-Mobile. In 2005, Google bought the company, and although they knew little about Android’s inner operations, it caused people to speculate whether Google was interested in getting into the mobile phone market. During the years following the acquisition, Google worked to develop a Linux-powered operating system (kernel) for phones and Google was also reported to be meeting with device manufacturers to make phones with the new operating system.
As Android grew to more phones on more carriers worldwide, its popularity also grew. After fine-tuning the code that runs the inner-workings of the operating system, Google released the source code code to all, which developers and others saw a a big step forward because this made Android the only widespread open source cell phone operating system.
More and more carriers are picking up Android phones for use on their network. The new Motorola Droid as well as other new Android cell phones like the HTC/T-Mobile G1 are attracting a new audience for their ease-of-use and large feature set. While Android’s market share is still at only about 4%, the Android Market has over 9,000 applications and continues to grow, showing that Android, while different, is still headed towards being a big name in mobile operating systems.
Google also encourages developers to build for Android by offering huge prize money to popular and winning applications in the Android Market. Through user voting in their “Android Developer Challenge”, Google awards developers of popular applications with up to $250,000. Android’s market (the equivalent to the Apple App Store or Windows Mobile Marketplace) also has a smaller fee developers have to pay to submit applications. Instead of $99, developers can submit their applications for $25. Finally, Android also has what some consider to be an easier-to-learn and easier-to-use developer framework, which uses the widespread Java programming language. So, Android is also different because it is very developer-friendly. Do you have an Android phone? What do you like about Android phones? Share your thoughts in the comments below and also check out the Top 10 Free Android Apps [Part 1] and [Part 2] and the Top 5 Free Games for Android phones. Image credit: laihiu and bfishadow Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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| Increase Your Website’s Profit By Linking To Free Giveaways Posted: 28 Dec 2009 01:30 PM PST
I don’t know about you, but I love free stuff. I know that whenever I see an ad that looks like a legitimate free promotion or contest, I usually will check it out just to see if submitting my name for the promotion is really free. In fact, most marketers will tell you that the word “free” is one of the most effective advertising keywords in the world. For that reason, it’s no surprise that people type the word “free” into search engines over 10,000 times a day. So, you can imagine how powerful it could be for your website traffic if you offer a promotion to your readers that’s absolutely free. Don’t Have Any Money? Don’t Worry!You may appreciate the value of giving free blog giveaways to your readers, but you don’t really have the cash to invest in buying a cool product that you can offer as a promotion. Don’t worry – you can offer promotions and giveaways to your readers through cool website widgets that you can embed right on your blog. Using these widgets, you can present the opportunity for your readers to win amazing prizes or get free products directly from the convenience of your website. Let’s take a look at 5 very cool blog giveaway promotions that you can integrate directly into your website.
This allows you the flexibility of offering a tailored contest and prize that matches the content and theme of your blog, but it also means you need to buy the prize that you’re going to give away to your readers. ContextMachine offers 4 levels of pricing depending on the number of contests a month you’ll run, but there is a free account where you can run 2 contests a month limited to 100 entries per contest. Giveaway of the Day is a very cool website that offers visitors a free giveaway every day. As a blogger, you can embed the Giveaway of the Day widget onto your blog so that your visitors can see what the free item of the day is and how much time is remaining on the offer.
If your readers like the item that’s available that day, they can click on the widget and submit their information. This is one of the fastest and easiest ways to offer your readers free stuff without having to come up with it yourself! Have you heard of the annual HGTV Dream Home Sweepstakes? Every year, HGTV offers an impressive multi-million dollar home to a lucky winner. Some families have made it a yearly tradition to submit their information to the contest with the dream of one day living in such a home. Well, now HGTV offers the dream home sweepstakes widget.
Embed this dream home giveaway into your blog and let your readers dream big. Who knows, one of them might actually win! This widget would be perfect for any blog focused on money, frugal living and discounts, or free promotions. The “free stuff” widget that I’m most excited about, and plan to use on a few of my own blogs, is the Free-ebooks.net Free eBooks Widget. Not too long ago, I wrote an article about how you can make money selling eBooks. Well, you can also make money by giving away free eBooks on your blog. Even better, with this widget you can give away free eBooks that you didn’t even have to write yourself!
All you have to do is select the category of free eBooks you want the widget to display (meaning you can customize it for almost any blog), then select the color scheme and the size and embed the resulting code into your blog. Now your visitors can immediately download from a long list of free eBooks dedicated to the same topic that you discuss on your blog. The last cool widget for offering free giveaways to your readers is the one offered by EcoBunga! – a niche giveaway site that offers free stuff and deals for green (as in ecologically friendly) products. The widget that automatically updates with EcoBunga’s best offers is the one that you want.
While this widget is very convenient and offers a nice logo for Ecobunga at the top, you can actually create a widget like this of your own for any website out there that offers free deals or giveaways and includes an RSS feed. As long as the giveaway site provides an RSS feed, you can display those giveaway updates on your site by using tools like Scrollbox or FeedSource. One day you may be bringing in so much revenue that you can afford to purchase some cool, large prizes and offer amazing contests for your readers, but until then these widgets let you incorporate free stuff and cool contests into your blog without any investment required. Do you offer contests or free stuff on your blog? Have you ever won anything from these kind of online sweepstakes? Share your experiences in the comments section below. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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| How To Create Windows-Compatible ISO Disc Images on Mac Posted: 28 Dec 2009 11:30 AM PST
And guess what? Mac OS X does not disappoint. By combining the trusty Disk Utility and some black magic from Terminal, I was able to create an ISO that works in both Mac and WIndows. It’s actually pretty simple. Here’s how.
Now that we have the source of the disc image selected, click on File->New->Disk Image from “insert name of source”. In the pop-up window which appears, select the Desktop as the destination just to make life a little simpler. Next, make sure that DVD/CD Master is selected as the Image Format — that ensures the contents of the disk are completely copied into a resultant .cdr image (Tip: keep the image’s name short and simple so that it can be easily reproduced).
Click on Save and the disc image creation process will begin, indicated by a progress window. Depending on how large the disc is, the amount of time that’s necessary varies.
When the cloning process is complete, check the Desktop and the .cdr image should be there. You can use this image on Macs, it works perfectly. However, to share it with Windows computers, we first need to convert it into a recognizable format. To do this, the help of Terminal is required. Launch Terminal either by Spotlighting for it or directly double-clicking on the app in ~/Applications/Utilities/ and type in:
Then, enter this line of code to transform the .cdr to an ISO file:
Substitute both instances of [filename] with the name of the .cdr image. As you can tell from the screenshot above, Terminal will create a new hybrid image. This image can be read in both Windows and Macs and uses ISO 9660 and HFS file systems. So there you go. You can easily create cross-platform hybrid disc images with your Mac without the need for any additional applications. How neat is that? To mount the disk image in Mac, simply double-click on it. In Windows, CD/DVD mounting tools are required – Saikat featured a couple great tools and Jorge wrote about one which doesn’t require installation. That’s just one of the few uses of Disk Utility. Jeffry used it to install Snow Leopard from his thumbdrive — check the article out, it’s really neat. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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| Four Stress Reduction Exercises You Can Blog or Tweet About Posted: 28 Dec 2009 09:30 AM PST
Being thankful for the good things, however small or big, is one good way to be positive and see that reflected in a happier mood in yourself and others. Gratitude has been cited as a resource for fighting depression and improving mental health, according to studies by former American Psychological Association president, Martin Seligman. Seligman had more than 500 participants, some of whom were diagnosed with depression, in one of his studies where they completed these simple exercises daily. The participants consequently reported either increased happiness, relieved depressive symptoms or large positive changes. Let’s take a look at the simple stress reduction exercises from the study and how we can integrate them in our everyday lives. What are these exercises about?The exercises, it is proposed, touch upon one of the three components of happiness: positive emotion, engagement and meaning. Positive emotion involves our desires to feel good about the past (looking back at experiences with satisfaction and gratitude), present and future (looking at potential experiences with hope and confidence) for the longest time possible. Positive memories have been linked to feelings of happiness and can defend against depression. The second component, engagement, indicates deep involvement in your work, leading to absorption of your total attention (think enjoyment) in the activity.
In addition, lack of engagement has been correlated and causally linked to depression. We pursue meaning, the third component, by using our signature (or top) strengths “to belong to and serve something that one believes is bigger than the self,” as Seligman elegantly writes. In other words, the pursuit of meaning through the use of our best abilities for a bigger purpose that we identify with gives us a sense of satisfaction and happiness. Keep a journal of good eventsWe featured Memiary as a simple web app that only records five things or events of your day. In this somewhat-similar stress reduction exercise, you list 3 things that not just happened but also went well, and elaborate a bit more on each by adding why you think the event went well.
You can easily list the three events in Twitter (maybe you can even spread the word about the exercise with hashtags) or Facebook status or post on Facebook Notes or your blog. This exercise explores the gratitude concept once again and aims to make the writer become aware of the numerous opportunities that we constantly may overlook or take for granted. Carefully list your top 5 strengths and ways to use them dailyThis is also another good exercise for you to complete on your blog. Learning about your strengths can help you learn about the activities where you might become engaged at, and thus, enjoy with enough practice. Visit authentichappiness.org for a list of character strengths. What would you like your biography to say?Imagine that an author is writing your biography. What would you like it to say? Spend some time writing about what you would like to be remembered for the most. In the chapter of the book discussing a time when you were at your best, what strengths of yours would you like to be mentioned? Review and reflect on those strengths for a week. Then blog about it someplace. Say “Thank You”Express your gratitude to someone to whom you are very grateful but have not thanked properly. Craft that person a letter about how much you appreciate his or her kind gesture. If you can, deliver it to him/her over the phone or in person.
If perhaps you aren’t so sure about writing someone a thank-you note, get inspired by jumping into others’ unbelievable tales on Thanks-O-Meter or ThankfulFor. These sites feature a heaping collection of positive experiences that inspire you to become a poet for a day.
Other non-writing stress reduction exercises and activities that can help improve your mood
Interested in more Psychology studies? Find a ton of interesting articles on the Web. Do you recommend writing as a therapeutic outlet? Why or why not? Voice your suggestions for de-stressing in the comments! Image credit: AMANITO, psd, 416style, eren Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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| How To Fix Common Windows Problems In A Snap With FixWin Posted: 28 Dec 2009 07:30 AM PST
Now, I am not saying that you shouldn’t help people out, in fact it is always nice to do so. What I am actually trying to say is: wouldn’t it be great if there was an easy solution to the same common windows problems that you have to fix every time? Missing Recycle Bin icon, hijacked IE homepages and the likes are very common. If the computer happens to be running Windows you can use the following tool to quickly fix a lot of common problems and save yourself some time! Case in point: Fixwin. Fixwin is excellent little tool that can save you a lot of time that you would spent searching for a solution or a registry key value on the Internet. You can download FixWin here. The software doesn’t require installation, just extract and run FixWin and you are all set to squash some problems!
The Fixwin page as well as the application start page recommends two initial steps (which make a lot of sense) that you should follow before using FixWin. First step is to run the System File Checker utility. SFC as it is known, checks for corrupted Windows file and can replace them if required. Follow that by creating a System Restore point.
Once you have created a System Restore Point you now have an assurance. You can always restore the computer back in case things go wrong. You are now ready to fix some issues!
FixWin provides one-click fixes for a number of common windows problems. The issues (and their fixes) are divided into categories like: Windows Explorer, Internet, Media, System and a miscellaneous category. Click on any category and you will see the many common problems that can confront you. Towards the right is the “Fix” button that will do all the magic. Click on it and behind the scenes, FixWin will modify a value or two in the registry to give you the desired results. FixWin can also be used to enable utilities like task manager, command prompt, registry editor and others which may have been disabled due to virus infections.
There may be occasions where the computer at hand has multiple issues that need fixing. One important thing to keep in mind in such situations is that you should only apply one fix at a time and then restart your computer. This lets you know if the last fix was successful and in case something goes wrong, you instantly know what caused it.
Keep in mind that there can be many reasons leading up to a single issue, FixWin tries to fix the most common cause for an issue. If something else is causing the problem, then the problem can persist after applying the fix as well. In such a case, we advice you search various forums that are out there for your problem, before applying other fixes All in all, FixWin is a great tool to have in your repertoire for dealing with common windows problems. Granted it may not offer solutions for every issue that you are likely to encounter but it can save you valuable time and headache when dealing with common issues pertaining to Windows. Do you know of other applications that provide similar one click solutions? We would love to hear about them. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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We Apple fans boast about our "trouble-free Macs", and if you view past Macworld Keynotes you rarely witness problems with Apple software. Steve Jobs and his Apple staff make all their products seem cool and flawless. But we all know that's not true. Mac hardware and software have countless bugs and issues like any other computer technology. Sure, Mac programs are very intuitive, but they are not trouble-free.
There’s been a lot of buzz about the new 
If you’re like many other new bloggers, you’ve yet to establish enough of a subscriber base so that advertisers are coming to you with money for advertising. This is why so many new bloggers opt to use affiliate marketing or Google Adsense to generate revenue from their website. Since your website profit depends primarily upon your traffic levels, it would make sense to offer the sort of content that draws large crowds – like free blog or website giveaways.
I ran into this enigma a couple of days back. Here’s what happened: I needed to create a clone of a disc to be shared with friends and it had to be compatible with Windows (because it was a Windows-only disc anyway but that’s not the point). I knew for a fact that using Toast was a sure-fire way to create a clone of any discs. I began to do some research on Google, trying to find another method to create a Windows-compatible ISO disc image, without the use of any additional apps.
This Christmas week may be filled with places and events for you to attend and tweet about, but have you stopped to appreciate the beauty of all the events that have brought your family and you together in this busy season?
Its just around the time when you will be visiting your loved ones. If you are computer/tech-savvy then get ready to answer some newbie questions and fix some computers. I am sure you can relate to the situation. Geeks never miss such a trip, without fixing a computer or two.
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