MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [January 9th]” plus 4 more |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [January 9th]
- Speccy – An Advanced System Information Tool For Your PC
- Do Encryption, Decryption & Signing Easily With Seahorse [Linux]
- 10 Innovative Ways To Use Twitter For Business
- 5 PowerPoint Search Engines To Seek Out Publicly Available Presentations
| Cool Websites and Tools [January 9th] Posted: 09 Jan 2010 07:31 PM PST Check out some of the latest MakeUseOf discoveries. All listed websites are FREE (or come with a decent free account option). No trials or buy-to-use craplets. For more cool websites and web app reviews subscribe to MakeUseOf Directory.
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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| Speccy – An Advanced System Information Tool For Your PC Posted: 09 Jan 2010 05:31 PM PST
It is available in both a portable and an installable version. I choose the portable version as usual so I could through it on my memory stick. The 1.3MB download came in quickly and it was up and running on my machine rather quickly. I was amazed at the amount of advanced system information it showed me right on the first screen. On the summary page for my machine which you see below, you see it shows your operating system, CPU type, model, speed and temperature along with the architecture type, your memory or RAM amount and type, your motherboard make and chipset, graphics card information, hard drives, optical drives and audio information. It will show you everything you ever needed to know about your system and then some!
You might think that you would never need this much information about your system as a casual everyday user.But you would be wrong. This information is gathered for you in an easy to get to place and could help you in repairing your machine or even creating a detailed auction advert to sell your machine. If you are still with me let's see what it can really show us. Click on the operating system tab for detailed information about your operating system's build.
CPU will show you detailed, advanced system information about your CPU as you can see below:
The RAM section is very handy for seeing how many memory slots your machine has and has available. You can see each slot and what is in it as you can see below. From this information I know that I have only two slots and they are both filled with 2GB, or 2048MB as it shows here, sticks in them.
Next up is motherboard. This is a really easy to find out your motherboard’s BIOS version among other information as you can see here:
And if you ever need to know about your display driver or monitor driver you can click the display tab and see the following information:
The hard drive tab will show you everything you will ever need to know about your hard drives including SMART information about them. That can show you a drive that is heading for the graveyard months before it actually happens in some cases! You will also see partition information, manufacturer, size and interface among many other fields.
The optical drive tab shows you information about your CD and DVD drives:
And the final tab is audio which shows all audio devices on your system
This small portable application gathers all of this information into a single place and for me, who has to work on systems regularly, this is a huge help and plays a key role sometimes in diagnosing computer issues. It is part of my admin's toolkit. Do you have a favorite portable tool that does the same thing? We would love to hear about it in the comments! Related posts
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| Do Encryption, Decryption & Signing Easily With Seahorse [Linux] Posted: 09 Jan 2010 02:31 PM PST
All this while I had been using the terminal to encrypt a file or two when required. Seahorse makes the work so much easier by offering you a nice GUI to GPG. Under Ubuntu you can access Seahorse encryption via System > Preferences > Passwords and Encryption Keys. The menu entry is not entirely descriptive and you might write it off as a tool to manage stored passwords and encryption keys. Well Seahorse does that but it offers much more as we shall see.
One important thing to realize is that a password along cannot solve the problem when dealing with sensitive information. There are tens of ways you can read a file without even entering the password let alone needing to crack the password. The Public Key & The Private KeyThese two terms used to confuse the heck out of me. Things have gone better now and I would try to put it in as simple words as I can. Whenever you need to encrypt any file or message using GPG you would create a set of keys. One of them is called the Public key and the other is called the Private key. Both of these are like two keys to the same lock, either of them can be used to encrypt the file or message, but – there is a twist. The twist being that If you encrypt the message using the Public key it can be unlocked using the Private key and if you encrypt the message using the Private key it can be unlocked using the Public key. You might wonder, why use two keys in the first place. The answer to that will become clearer as you read ahead. For now remember that one of these keys is to be given to the recipient. Since you cannot actually use your handwriting or signatures you use GPG to “sign” messages. A signed message is accepted to be coming from the mentioned user and can be verified using the public key. Let us see how you can use Seahorse: Step 1: Create A keyClick File & New and choose PGP key. Enter in the required information. Leave the algorithm to DSA Elgamal if you are not sure about other options. You can bump up the strength if you want. With everything entered, click Create. You would then be prompted to enter a password or passphrase. Choose a real tough one, make it hard to guess, make it long. Remember a chain is only as strong as the weakest link and in this case the password/passphrase is the weakest link. At the same time, keep in mind that if you forget the passphrase all the information you encrypted using it would be lost.
Step 2: Publish The Public KeyAs I explained above two types of keys are generated. A public key and a private key. The recipient. will need to have your public key before he can view any messages or files sent by you. Choose Remote > Sync and Publish keys. Choose a server, click close and then Sync. While the idea of putting your public key on a server might seem scary, it is completely safe and foolproof as we shall see.
Encrypt The FileNow that you have done all the hard work, encrypting the file is easy peasy. Right click on the file and choose Encrypt… In the window that pops up check all the recipients whom you want to be able to see the message/file. Also choose the account you would like to sign it as. Send it along. The intended recipients will be able to view the file after entering their own passphrase.
Decrypt The FileAny file that was meant to be seen by you can be decrypted by entering your own passphrase. Keep in mind that you will need to have the sender’s public key. It is the combination of the fact that the message was meant for you plus you have the sender’s public key that makes it possible to decrypt the file and view its contents.
If you are interested in not only seahorse encryption but all types, you might want to check out how you can create a private encrypted directory on your Linux system, if you would like to do all the above on Windows you might want to check out this. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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| 10 Innovative Ways To Use Twitter For Business Posted: 09 Jan 2010 11:31 AM PST
In this article, Mahendra shows you how you can integrate Twitter into your Powerpoint presentation and receive instant feedback. Steven has written about using hashtags effectively. And also, you can learn more about Twitter Lists to follow people more closely. But to be more innovative in the use of Twitter for a business setting, here are 10 useful tips.
1. Expand Your NetworkUsing Twitter, you can join topic groups related to your business and career and gain valuable information from scanning others' tweets. Your company will gain new customers and potential partners. Do a search for keywords related to your product on Twitter Search and then follow the users. Anyone can use Twitter to build a personal brand. Your customers and prospective clients will perceive you as an approachable social personality. Twitter is designed to establish consistent and deeper relationships for future benefits. 2. Share Expertise To Build CredibilityIf you hold free workshops, seminars or web meetings; let people know that it’s starting soon, how to participate and join in by tweeting about it. You can also link to your presentations and videos. Twitter can help direct people’s attention to your events.
Offer solutions to those who are struggling with something in your field of expertise. Share your ideas internally in a very efficient manner and broadcast links and headlines that can drive traffic to your website. 3. Highlight What's Special
Twitter allows you to share the latest news and events related to your business in 140 characters. Set up a Twitter feed for the specific purpose of notifying customers when new products come in. You can use this free platform to inform event participants and highlight what’s special. Sharing valuable information and useful tips helps you build a strong web presence and gain visibility on the Internet. 4. Look For Leads On TwitterTwitter can be used to direct traffic to your websites. You can share information that is useful for prospective clients or employers to enhance your reputation. Avoid hard-sell tactics: focus on building relationships. Don’t be afraid to take full advantage of Twitter and gather information about what customers, competitors and others are saying about your business. Don’t think of what you can get, but rather what you can learn and what you can offer. Use free applications like Mr. Tweet to check your profile and finds relevant connections for you. 5. Communicate With EmployeesTwitter is a great collaboration tool, which can be successfully used to save time and money. Forget about sending endless emails and calls – you can rather release short tweets to your team members describing what you have to say. Share what you're doing so people learn about the type of work you do. 6. Run Special Deals & PromotionsOffer incentives to those who follow you on Twitter. You can give them free coupons, discounts, package deals and samples. Twitter is a great way to create interest and secure attendees.
Social networking is excellent for those who want to promote products, services and ideas directly to a target audience. Twitter marketing is a task that involves two-way audience engagement. 7. Receive Customer ComplaintsBy accepting customer complaints in the open, other consumers can see what kind of company you really are. Twitter allows you to respond quickly to shut down any impending service or complaint received. Communicate effectively with each of your clients and ask for their honest opinion. Make your goals public to compel you to reach them. 8. Interact With Your CompetitionYou can read the tweets of your competitors daily and stay in touch with them. Although this rarely happens in the real world, Twitter has changed it all. This free platform allows you to follow companies, experts, leaders and competitors in your industry. It’s not enough to monitor the latest projects released by your competitors. Tracking their mistakes is even more useful, because you can analyze their moves and see what exactly went wrong. 9. Organize A Local Tweetup
Twitter can help you organize meetups. All you have to do is to send a message announcing the time and place of the meeting. It's an informal and effective way of planning a meeting. You can get in touch with vendors, suppliers and other people with whom you can form partnerships. 10. Create Brand LoyaltyWith Twitter, you can always stay in touch with your followers. All these people are potential customers, so you must help them get used to your products and services. Participate actively to conversations and tweet constantly. This way, increasingly more people will find out about your business, while you will gain loyal clients. Using Twitter for business, you can convert conversations into actions. A fresh and interesting personality attracts followers. Share information that is helpful for potential customers or employers to gain recognition. Do you use Twitter for your business? Have you any Twitter tips to effectively reach out to your customers and business partners? Share them 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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| 5 PowerPoint Search Engines To Seek Out Publicly Available Presentations Posted: 09 Jan 2010 09:31 AM PST
In the age of information every document is a template for learning something new, whether by way of knowledge or through design. In the case of PowerPoint, looking at well designed slides is a crash course on how to design effective presentations. Also, searching out new presentations and learning how they are done can cure mental blocks when we have to design our own. Learning about color, backgrounds or animation is the easiest when it's taken from examples of already prepared slides. The web is the sink for every sort of document and publicly available PowerPoint files are also not beyond the reach of search spiders. So how do we search them out…using search engines of course. If data of any kind or value can have a dedicated search engine of its own, then why not PowerPoint presentations or in brief, PPT files?
Slideworld
This Powerpoint search engine searches for your query from nearly 7 million presentations. The site uses Google Custom Search to do the job. It also hosts presentations uploaded by users that's arranged in categories like computers, science, entertainment, culture, education and many more. These presentations can be searched out or narrowed down by categories or tags. Presentations can be viewed in the browser or downloaded to the local machine (downloading requires a free sign-up). Presentations can also be shared in social media and embedded in blogs or websites. Slideworld.org is the sister site of the last one and mostly geared towards medical presentations. Patients for example can search for presentations by ailments under Health Conditions. Medical practitioners can delve under various medical topics for a specific slide. SlideFinder
This is a site which indexes PowerPoint slides from across the web and also from universities which have made them publicly available. Presentations are also available in languages of the world, from English to Chinese and Icelandic. The site can also be added to your browser's list of search engines. Presentation2go
This PowerPoint search engine is powered by Google and Yahoo at the backend. The slides can be downloaded as PPT files, viewed in the browser as HTML or in a Flash viewer. Powerpoint Search
This is another simple search engine that can filter Google Custom searches and retain the results for PPT files. If you want to include it in your browser, it comes with a search extension. FileDigg
This one is not a dedicated PowerPoint search engine but one that also searches for PPT files among others. It simply uses PPT as a filetype operator, using Google's Custom Search. Results are also gleaned from hosting sites like Scribd, SlideShare and DocStoc. These can be filtered in the final results. The search engines that one finds for PowerPoint are mostly not standalone. Invariably their reliance is on Google Custom Search. Of all the five profiled here, SlideFinder is in my opinion the best, one reason being that it has an advanced search option which lets me narrow down the results. PowerPoint search engines occupy a small part of the segment; the other is gradually being populated by document hosting and sharing sites. We have reviewed quite a few like the ones below – The organization and preview features on these sites let you search out a specific slide in a more efficient way. But as these web services don't go beyond their hosted files, it becomes necessary to use the services of the PowerPoint search engines. Do you have a PowerPoint search engine that's not on this list? Let us know your way of hunting for PowerPoint files. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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I was just able to check out the latest beta of Speccy from the makers of 
Increasingly more companies use 
Are PowerPoint slides tailored to presentations or are presentations tailored to slides? Normally, it's the former and I would hate to sit for the presentation where the latter would be the case. The Zen of presentation also dictates that what we say during the presentation is the meat, what the audience sees on the slide should only reinforce our oral words.
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