MakeUseOf.com: “Show Us Your Love: Become A MakeUseOf Fan on Facebook!!!” plus 6 more |  |
- Show Us Your Love: Become A MakeUseOf Fan on Facebook!!!
- Cool Websites and Tools [January 2nd]
- Geeky Fun: Latest Hilarious Picks
- 6 iPhone Internet Radio Apps For Every Type Of Listener
- How To Find Your Favorite Movie Scenes In Seconds With MovieClips
- The Best 9 Fantasy Sports Online Resources
- 7 Historical Websites That Let Us Go Back & Take Another Peek At History
| Show Us Your Love: Become A MakeUseOf Fan on Facebook!!! Posted: 02 Jan 2010 08:00 PM PST Hey guys, Do you love our website? Do you find MakeUseOf articles helpful? If you do then do us a favor and become a MakeUseOf fan on Facebook. 1. Become A FanOne of the many inspirations to maintain MakeUseOf fan page on Facebook was to provide our readers with a really easy way to communicate with us and our writers, and to share with you some limited exclusive stuff that’s not published on the blog.
The fan page was made for you! It’s updated on a regular basis and we frequently share some exclusive stuff there: licenses to premium software, discount coupons, free Skype credits, free yearly membership to online services that would normally cost several hundreds of dollars, etc. That being said, by becoming a MakeUseOf fan on Facebook you’re actually helping us to grow.
Once you’re logged into Facebook, go to http://facebook.com/makeuseof/. As soon as you arrive, click on the “Become a Fan” button at the top of the page.
Let me quickly introduce some of the stuff we post on our fan page:
2. Suggest MakeUseOf to FriendsLike any new and exciting product, it’s only fun if you have someone to share it with; and our fan page is no different. As soon as you are a fan, you have the opportunity to recommend MakeUseOf to your friends. Click on the “Suggest to Friends” link and select everyone you’d like to share with and click “Send Invitations“.
This is really one of the best way you can help to us! 3. Once you’re a fanNow that you’ve joined the fan page, you’ll be kept well informed because our wall posts will appear on your Home page. In a glance, you’ll conveniently view the posts that were all the rave the day before — Yesterday’s Best; and what’s coming up the following day — Sneak Peek; as well as everything else we post on our wall. With every post on MakeUseOf wall, you may:
By “liking” a post and commenting, you’re sharing the love with your friends (they’re more likely to read it if they know that a friend already has) and promoting interaction — which is what the fan page is all about. 4. The Easy Way To Share MakeUseOf Articles With Your Facebook FriendsSometimes, an article you enjoyed reading on MakeUseOf and found really useful may not be featured on our fan page (we don’t want to spam our fans with every article) but you can actually share the article with your friends quite easily! At the end of each article on MakeUseOf.com you’ll see a “Share|f” button. It takes only two clicks.
Click on that button and you’ll be forwarded to a special page where you can preview and customize a message for your Facebook friends.
When ready, cllick on “Share” to post the article to your Profile wall. That’s about it! Please don’t be shy to share what you think about MakeUseOf by jotting a comment or two on our wall. We’re applaud suggestions and criticism from our fans. It won’t be any fun if we don’t receive feedback from you guys! We hope to see you on our Facebook fan page and join the other fans who are already enjoying the benefits of following us. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too. Related posts
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| Cool Websites and Tools [January 2nd] Posted: 02 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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| Geeky Fun: Latest Hilarious Picks Posted: 02 Jan 2010 06:30 PM PST
Check out the top picks from MakeUseOf Geeky Fun during the last week.
If you would like to keep up with all latest Geeky Fun additions, please subscribe to the Geeky Fun feed here. You can also subscribe and get the latest additions via email.
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| 6 iPhone Internet Radio Apps For Every Type Of Listener Posted: 02 Jan 2010 05:31 PM PST
iPhone and Internet Radio – Want Variety?If you’re looking for a big variety of radio stations to choose from, then CBS Radio will meet your needs. Almost identical to the Yahoo! Music App, the CBS Radio app features the widest variety of genres and radio stations, from both AOL Radio, Yahoo! Music as well as local stations from almost 30 cities across the US. The CBS Radio app allows you to add stations to favourites as you are listening to them, by clicking on the star icon. When a song is playing, the title, singer, and album artwork are displayed. You can skip up to 6 songs per hour while listening to any given radio station.
Other features include sharing the radio station you are listening to by sending your friends form emails with a link to the radio station, or buying the currently playing song on iTunes. Your listening is interrupted every now and then by several audio adverts in a row. Want To Discover New Music?If you want to discover new music based on your taste, or listen to user-generated playlists, you should download FineTune. The app requires registration on FineTune’s website, but that certainly has its advantages. You can create your own playlists on the FineTune website, clunky as it may be, and then easily access them from your iPhone. You can also use FineTune to discover new music by listening to Artist Radio stations. Choose one specific singer or band, and FineTune will play similar music for you. You can add artists to your favourites on the FineTune website but that feature is lacking on the iPhone app. The variety of pre-set radio stations on FineTune is limited to the standard genres, but they are listed under some pretty cheesy names. If you’re not sure what to listen to, FineTune has a list of Featured Artists, from mainstream to obscure, from the 50s to present day, along with a list of the popular artists on FineTune.
The Now Playing window displays the names of the song and singer, the album title and album artwork. While listening to any given radio station you can skip up to 5 songs per hour. Want A Specific Station?Do you have a specific radio station that you want to listen to? Then use FStream. As long as you have the URL used to access the online radio station using an external desktop app like Winamp or iTunes, FStream can play that station for you on your iPhone. Adding radio stations can be done directly through the app, but is easier done using their web management tool. No registration is required, as the app makes use of your iPhone’s IP address. Web management can be accessed by clicking on the ‘More’ tab, where FStream will give you the the link to go to for managing your favourite stations, and the choice to use password protection.
When adding a station to your favourites, there is a space to fill in the format and bitrate, but it is not necessary to fill that information in. The now playing tab displays the song title and singer. A unique feature that sets FStream apart from the rest is the ability to record the audio in either WAV or AIFF format. You can play recordings on your iPhone or download them through your FStream web management page.
FStream is the only app in this list that will not work on your 3G network. Want Podcasts?Want to listen to podcasts on the fly? Use Stitcher Radio. Stitcher allows you to tune into the latest podcasts from around the web, from news and business to science and technology, as well as live public radio stations from around the US. You can add podcast episodes to your favourites or bookmark podcast episodes while they are playing. The latter seems to be a little bit redundant taking into consideration the favourites feature. Using the favourites feature is more beneficial, as you can receive email alerts once a new episode has been added.
Each category consists of a playlist of the latest episodes from various popular podcasts. Once a podcast episode has finished, Stitcher will automatically start playing the next episode on the list, which means, for example, you can listen to the latest news podcasts from NPR, CNN, Fox, and Slate, to name a few, all in one playlist. You can also pause podcasts or skip to the next episode in the playlist, as well as rewind and fast forward within a podcast, but you have to use the seeker, so it’s not entirely accurate. If you close Stitcher while listening to a podcast, opening it up again will take you back to the exact spot where you left off in the episode.
You can also sync your mobile listening with your desktop experience, listening to podcasts both on the go, or at your computer on their website. Stitcher also features social integration, where you can share the name and link to the podcast episode you are listening to on Twitter, Facebook or by email, and users don’t need to be registered members to tune in. A good way to familiarise yourself with the many features that Stitcher has to offer is to listen to their very own Tips podcast, which can be found under the Featured Podcasts. Stitcher requires registration, and has unobtrusive ads at the bottom of the screen. Want To Multi-Task?Want to multitask on your phone while listening to the radio? Download iRadioSuite iRadioSuite has many features you wouldn’t expect to find in a free app. The list of genres consists of 80s music, Alternative, Rock, Country, Christmas tunes, Soft Rock and office friendly music, and Top 40 songs. While a song is playing, iRadioSuite allows you to pause the music, and rewind up to 10 minutes on any station. While a song is playing, you can add the station to your favourites, visit the station’s website in an integrated browser, and buy the song on iTunes, tag it, or send the track info by email. Emailing track information opens up the mail app, with the singer and song title filled into the body of the email. The Now Playing window displays the song title, singer, and the station’s logo.
What makes iRadioSuite an exceptional app is its ability to play radio stations in the background. While listening to a station, click on the button marked ‘background play,’ and when prompted it will open a window in Safari. The music will fade out, and back in again, and once you’ve hit the home button, you can multitask on your iphone, while the music plays, to your hearts content. If you want to stop the music, simply open up the app again. For all of its features, iRadioSuite is surprisingly and blissfully ad-free. Want To Create A Playlist?Want to listen to a specific song on the go? Download Boombox. Boombox’s interface is designed like, well a boombox, and is built on the framework of social music website, Blip.fm. Using the free version of Boombox allows you to search for and listen to songs on your iPhone, as well as, create playlists, unlike FineTune which only allows you to create playlists at your computer. You can create local playlists to listen to on your iPhone, but if you want direct integration with your Blip.fm account, you will have to purchase the paid app.
Searching for a song gives you the option to buy it on iTunes, add it to your playlist, or listen to it immediately. You can only create one playlist at a time. The playlist can be edited by clicking on the list icon in the top right hand corner of the screen. Do you have a favourite iPhone radio app? If so, let us know about it in the comments. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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| How To Find Your Favorite Movie Scenes In Seconds With MovieClips Posted: 02 Jan 2010 02:31 PM PST
While there are plenty of places online to find the full movie downloads, going through the process of getting the whole film and editing the scene you want down into a short clip is a time-consuming process. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a place online that already did that for you? Enter MovieClips (a service only available in the US & Canada). When you visit the site, it has a minimalistic UI that puts the search, front and center. The ability to search for just about any of your favorite movie scenes in an instant is nice, but the myriad ways that you can focus your search is nothing short of a movie miracle. Want an actor? Type it in. How about a line of dialogue? No problem. Genres, actions, moods, characters, themes, settings, props – there's simply nothing left behind when it comes to finding the exact scene you want from a multitude of angles. What you get as your result is a well-designed grid of thumbnails of each matching clip that can instantly be previewed with a simple mouseover – a great way to quickly find the scene you want.
Not only can you search and view these select movie moments, but you can also save any clip as a favorite, buy related stuff for each movie the clips belong to, grab an embed code to drop any clip onto your own website, or hook into your social network to share around on Twitter, Facebook, Stumbleupon, Delicious, Digg, Reddit, or email it to a friend. Another fun element to the clips’ pages are short trivia games associated with each clip – often pulling from a related actor, the movie itself, or some other related metadata that accompanies it.
The only drawback of the site thus far is that all of the clips are from only 6 movie studios – 20th Century Fox, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., Paramount, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal and Warner Bros – but these six represent the largest studios in Hollywood. With 12,000 clips and the promise of thousands more, it seems that MovieClips is cementing itself as the premiere place online to find those hard-to-find movie moments – that is unless their upcoming competitor, AnyClip, has anything to say about it. If you’re looking for more ways to find favorite movie scenes and information about movies online, check out these related articles here on MakeUseOf:
Does this sound like a better way to find your favorite film scenes online? Let us know what you think about MovieClips with your 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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| The Best 9 Fantasy Sports Online Resources Posted: 02 Jan 2010 11:31 AM PST
Fear not! There is always a new season looming and you still have time to get in on the college bowl game action as well as the NFL playoffs, March Madness, and baseball season coming up. Playing fantasy sports online is a great way to follow your favorite sports throughout the season. You can compete against your friends, family members, coworkers, or even strangers in a fun, point-based statistical environment. Because of its popularity, there is no shortage of fantasy sports-related websites. In this article, we are going to explore some of the best free websites for participating in fantasy sports online. These resources are all you will need to get in the game and dominate your competition. Getting In The Game – Places To PlayLet's start off with the best places to play fantasy sports online. There are a lot of options out there, but if you're just starting out you can't beat these free options. These are in no particular order.
ESPN
When doing anything sports-related, it is hard to pass on the self-proclaimed 'worldwide leader in sports'. The juggernaut that is ESPN offers a wide array of fantasy games, including football, baseball, basketball, hockey, stock car, uber (whatever that is), soccer, and even fishing. The site has everything you could think of and league settings are very customizable. It is a great place to start your league and should only get better as the years pass. CBS Sports
CBS Sports, which is my personal favorite, is another great place to play fantasy sports. They carry all of the major sports and the site is very easy to navigate. Its simplistic design and rich set of features are what sets it apart and make it one of the best places to host your league(s) on the web. Yahoo!
Yahoo! presents a lot of options and is perhaps the most customizable of the bunch. They offer a multitude of sports as well and their website is a very easy way to set up all of your teams/leagues. Stay Up To Date With Fantasy NewsOkay, so you finally have your league set up. Now what? Well, during the season you are going to have a lot to keep track of in the form of trades, injuries, records, and statistics. This can be a bit daunting at first, especially if you are in multiple leagues. The above sites all offer news on your players and teams, but there are a lot of websites that specialize in bringing you the best fantasy information. Here are a few of the best: Fanhouse
Fanhouse is one of the top sports blogs and they carry lots of great fantasy-relevant information. They keep their fantasy page up-to-date with all of the latest news and are a partner with Sports Illustrated. Roto World
Roto World is another great place to find news. They claim to be 'America's #1 source for Fantasy Sports News', and they have a LOT of information available for you. They have pages for player news, headlines, injuries, transactions, etc. You can even read stories from your teams' local newspapers. Blogtalkradio – The Fantasy Sports Channel
If you prefer to listen to your fantasy news you might want to try Blogtalkradio. The site offers podcasts that run throughout the week and has more than 50 shows in all. Do I Need Anything Else?So by now you should have your fantasy leagues up and running. After you have the bare essentials, it is key to find resources you can utilize to dominate your competition and win a few championships. Out of the broad collection of cool fantasy websites out there I have come across a few resources/apps that will help you if you are still looking for something more. Dmoz – Fantasy Sports
Aside from being useful for other purposes, dmoz has a huge amount of fantasy sports resources, 506 as of the writing of this post. All of that information WILL keep you busy. Pick Em First
Pick Em First is a really neat Firefox extension that acts as your personal 'Fantasy Sports Assistant'. It allows you to input information about your fantasy teams and it will check the availability of players in such leagues while you browse the web. If players become available, Pick em first will direct you to your fantasy site (CBS, ESPN, or Yahoo!) so you can add them to your team. This is very useful if you are in multiple leagues on multiple sites. LeagueSafe
If you are playing fantasy sports with your friends and have decided you want to play for money then LeagueSafe is for you. Fantasy commissioners and owners can sign up for free and manage league finances with LeagueSafe. It eliminates the hassle of managing league entry fees and payouts by automating the entire process. League funds are held safely in an FDIC-insured account. You should now possess all of the knowledge and power necessary to become a fantasy sports guru. Do you already play fantasy sports online? If so, what are some of your favorite resources? Please leave your comments, ideas, and opinions below. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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| 7 Historical Websites That Let Us Go Back & Take Another Peek At History Posted: 02 Jan 2010 09:31 AM PST
The internet speeds forward with the speed of thought, but it is the same internet that also archives what has passed. Information is never dated in the true sense and isn't the internet all about capturing those bits of data and presenting them as bytes? This post attempts to cover seven such historical sites that are made around timelines. Timelines which take us back into history and show what happened at some point in time. These sites are not only educational but also help us to put our present tense in the perspective of the past. Even as you go through these sites, rest assured that there are many whose sole purpose is filing away facts of historical data for later use. So let's try to turn the clock back….
Timelines
History is not only about historians but about the common man and the events around him. Timelines let you record, share and discover history through the site. It is about the collective experience i.e. crowd sourcing history – events are connected across timelines to other happenings around the globe by users and described using notes, quotes, links, videos and images. Events are created by users then the community takes over and adds to the event thus creating a timeline of events. You can browse by year, by date or by specific timelines too. Anyone can view timelines and learn about the sequence of events that shaped the history behind it. Thus, it's a great multimedia enriched learning tool. Timeline Index
Timeline Index is, as the name suggests, a recording of momentous events in history, all arranged in a chronological order. It is less interactive and more direct in the way it records the events. Search through the index using keywords or select the timeline directly arranged in categories. Each timeline comes with a historical note and additional links. User interaction is limited to adding extra links to the timelines. Histografica
History in pictures – that's how most of us like to catch what has happened in the past. Those faded old snapshots detail a lot and Histografica is an archive of historical pictures. The historical website Histografica aims to be an expansive source (but not expensive as it's free) of geo- and time tagged historical pictures from around the world. Put in a search by keyword and filter by date. The results get displayed as thumbnails and on a Google Map mashup. History Commons
History Commons is a historical website that takes an open and participatory approach towards documenting events at the local, regional, or global level. So what one gets are dynamic timelines which lean more towards journalistic readings of events that have taken place. It is an issue by issue recording of opinions and viewpoints. So it is a site that's more for the serious student of history rather than the multimedia based ones we looked at earlier. The site is a storehouse of 15,449 archived events and 5,000 entities which are made up of individuals, organizations, businesses etc. The purpose of the site as is mentioned is to be a source for open information and act as a people's intelligence agency. Timelines TV
This multimedia site brings history alive through television documentaries spread out by period on an interactive historical timeline. Though you won't find the entire history of the world, but its documentary coverage on the American Wild West and different periods of the British Period make for fascinating stuff. If you have a good web connection, catch the show. NASA PlanetQuest
I have included this not for the breadth this NASA-developed site covers, but for the way it covers it. The timeline is restricted to a multimedia display of the search for extra solar planets, from ancient philosophical speculation to modern discoveries. The presentation is short, slick and specific. The timeline also has an insert on the effect of Star Trek on space exploration and popular culture. Smithsonian American Art Museum
If NASA is about space, Smithsonian is about the arts. Another micro-view of an art timeline during the 1930's…the historical site is a Flash presentation of eight exhibitions that take the viewer through the artwork of that decade. The viewer is taken through the virtual museum where art objects and settings are clickable for further information. The seven websites that cover parts of our global history are not the only ones of course, but they offer an introduction of the ways that history can broaden our contemporary knowledge. They certainly prove that with enough sprinkling of history and lots of accuracy, learning history isn't as bad as it is made out to be. Is history among your favorite topics of interest? Do you have a bookmarked site? Let us know. Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons 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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When it comes to combining the iPhone and Internet radio, it can be a daunting task, considering how many apps there are to choose from. We’ve put together a list for you, that might make the choice a bit easier, depending on what kind of listener you are.
If you’ve ever tried to find your favorite movie scenes on YouTube or other video networks, you’ve probably noticed it’s not always the easiest thing to find the direct quotes you’re looking for. Not only are these classic scenes hard to hunt down, but more often than not, when you do finally come across them they’re low quality – with questionable video resolution and rough sounding audio.
Did you miss out on the fantasy season yet again this year? With football's regular season nearing its end and basketball and hockey in midseason right now, there is probably a lot that you have missed.
Another calendar gets consigned to the trashcan. 365 days of memories and events from here on will gather dust either in minds or in our journals. But history is enriched by what that passes. And sometimes in our present, we too are tempted to look back at what has passed and relive the moments. It is these collective experiences that offers us a chance to imbibe and learn.
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