MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [February 28th]” plus 5 more |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [February 28th]
- MakeUseOf Poll: Do you Backup your Files? How?
- 2 Great Thunderbird 3 Notes Addons To Increase Your Productivity
- All You Need To Know About Repositories and Package Management In Ubuntu
- 4 Ways To Explore The Voice Mail Features In Google Voice
- Prezi – Turning Dull Slideshows into Revolutionary Dynamic Presentations
| Cool Websites and Tools [February 28th] Posted: 28 Feb 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. em>Got Tech Questions? Ask Them on MakeUseOf Answers! Related posts
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| MakeUseOf Poll: Do you Backup your Files? How? Posted: 28 Feb 2010 06:00 PM PST
So last week’s Make Use Of poll covered what your favorite office suite was. We offered up either Open Office of Microsoft Office. Open Office came out ahead and some other interesting answers popped up in the comments. Check them out and if you haven't voted, feel free to chime in now! So far there are 1,084 votes. 568 for Open Office and 459 for Microsoft Office.
This week we will be asking you – our loyal MakeUseOf readers if you backup your files and how? We want to know how and if you backup your computer. What software and hardware do you use, if any? You can choose multiple options to facilitate your answer. And if any clarification is needed, that is what the comments are for. Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll. 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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| 2 Great Thunderbird 3 Notes Addons To Increase Your Productivity Posted: 28 Feb 2010 05:30 PM PST
Notes are a quick and easy way to keep track of random, but significant thoughts and ideas. They can also help you to remember important phone number, things you need to get done or appointments. The difficult part is to keep your notes organized and not forget about them. If Thunderbird is your eMail client, you will find the following Thunderbird notes addons very handy for organizing your thoughts and ideas. In addition, they may help you to increase your eMail productivity.
XNoteWith XNote, you can attach sticky notes to individual eMails. To take full advantage of XNote, you should first add the XNote button to your Thunderbird toolbar. For this > right-click onto an empty spot in your toolbar and select > Customize… This will bring up the “Customize Toolbar” window. Locate the XNote button and drag it into a convenient spot within your toolbar. Then hit > Done in the customization window. You can also create a sticky through the right-click menu. Simply > right-click anywhere into an eMail and you’ll find the > XNote option at the very top of the menu. In this Thunderbird notes addon, sticky notes are attached to a single eMail and will appear only when that eMail is selected. You can re-size the sticky and move it to any location on your screen. It will disappear as soon as you select another eMail and reappear when you select that eMail again.
To see which eMails contain notes, you have to manually add a new column to your folder display. To do this, > left-click the right-most icon on the bar that lets you sort eMails by subject, date, etc. and select > Notes from the list.
For more tips a tricks, visit the XNote port to Thunderbird 3. ThunderNoteThunderNote is a Thunderbird notes addon that allows you to keep track of multiple notes within different categories. It works much like a standalone tool, only that it is integrated into Thunderbird with a separate toolbar button. You can add the button to your toolbar as described for the XNote button above. When you click the button, ThunderNote launches within a separate window.
You can now add categories and notes. This extension features only the bare necessities, i.e. writing notes, organizing them within categories, printing individual notes, syncing, as well as import/export through CSV files.
For more information about ThunderNote, visit its Google Code site. Are you looking for Thunderbird-independent note taking apps? Jeffry covered Four Free Quick Note Taking Apps For The Mac. I compiled 3 Dead-simple Apps For Note Taking & List Making (Windows and online) and I introduced the online tool Springnote. Saikat recently wrote about OrangeNote – A Smart Note Taker & Clipboard Manager. Finally, Shankar introduced Everntote. If you haven’t done so yet, I recommend you to extend Thunderbird with Google Calendar to handle your appointments. I have described the procedure in my post How To Integrate Google Calendar Into Thunderbird and even though the versions have changed, it essentially still works the same. Have you adjusted Thunderbird to increase your productivity? Please share what works best for you! Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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| All You Need To Know About Repositories and Package Management In Ubuntu Posted: 28 Feb 2010 02:30 PM PST
Most Linux distributions that are aimed at average users have a package management tool. RedHat and Fedora have RPM, Debian/Ubuntu/Mint has APT, Arch has Pacman and so on. Each of them essentially do the same thing — keep track of what is installed, lets you install and remove software as well as prompt you to update the installed software whenever necessary. Choosing one to have a detailed look at, it would be APT package management in Ubuntu. So here we go:
RepositoriesThere are tons of software application and tools available in Linux. There has to be a way to organise them somehow. Repositories do that. Repositories are like archives of software that runs on your computer. In Ubuntu world, repositories are classified into 4 categories – Main, Restricted, Universe and Multiverse. This categorization is based different levels of support. Main – contains software that is officially supported, Restricted – has software that is supported but is not available under a free (doesn’t refer to cost, but the license) license, Universe – contains software that is not officially supported but is maintained by the Linux Community, Multiverse – houses software that is not free. Configure Software SourcesNow, all of the repositories are not enabled by default on every Ubuntu installation. There are a number of reasons why it is this way, reasons like the ones that don’t allow Ubuntu to ship with codecs and drivers out of the box. Anyhow, enabling repositories is very easy. Go to System > Administration > Software Sources and then you can simply check/uncheck to enable/disable repositories.
Install/Remove Software and Package Management in UbuntuThe recent versions of Ubuntu include what is called the “Ubuntu Software Center” that lets you install and remove software as easy as installing applications from your iPhone App Store. The choices however, are limited. If you can find what you want in the Ubuntu Software Center, by all means go ahead and install if from there. It is the easiest way to do so. For a little more control, and what used to be the easiest way 6 months back, you can look up the Synaptic Package Manager.
It can be accessed via System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager. The default view will list categories on the left side and clicking on any one of them shows you the packages on the right hand side. You can also use the search functionality to find what you need. Once you have the required package in sight, just check it and Synaptic will take care of the dependencies for you. Then click Apply and you will be shown an overview of what all will be changed on your computer. Accept or Cancel as the case may be. Configuring “Other Software” or PPAsIt takes some time and backing up before a software can make into the repositories. This however is the age of the Internet and we don’t want to wait all that time. So how can you install software that is not in the repositories? Keep in mind that Google Picasa, Google Earth, Chrome are not available via repositories. Likes of Banshee and Gwibber were not in the repositories till some time back. In that case, you need to use what’s called Personal Package Archives. There is nothing new or scary about these puppies. We have used them a number of times in the past when we installed latest software that was not available via the repositories. Once you add the PPA for your favorite software, you will get automatic updates and bug fixes for the software just like you would get for any software in the repositories. To add a PPA: Visit the PPA page of the software (An example). It houses the important details that you would need in the following steps.
Go to System > Administration > Software Sources, then onto the Other Software tab.
Click on the Add button and then paste in the line that starts with deb and corresponds to your Ubuntu version. Karmic users would enter in a line that looks like :
Click Add source and you are done. Click Close and Ubuntu will reload package information. Importing keysPPAs generally list a OpenPGP key that is used by Package management tools to confirm the authenticity of the packages that are being installed. So once you have added the PPA, you also import the corresponding keys before you can install and use the software. Open up the terminal and issue the following command: sudo apt-key adv –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com –recv-keys <A number>
Where “A number” is a hexadecimal number that is listed on the PPA’s page. See the screen above. You can now install, update and remove the software just as easily as you do with any other package from the repositories. Did you find that brief explanation helpful? Related posts
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| 4 Ways To Explore The Voice Mail Features In Google Voice Posted: 28 Feb 2010 11:30 AM PST
With the old answering machines, there really wasn’t much flexibility. You could listen to your messages and then go on to the next one. Interesting, huh? Sure, there are still answering machines around but most people don’t use them anymore.
Google Voice, and specifically Google voicemail, seems to be changing things again. They’re beginning to change what we should be expecting from our phone services and voice mail is definitely not excluded! Let’s go through some of the features the Google Voice voicemail system affords our voice mail needs.
First of all, you can get email notifications when you receive a message.That means that those of us who practically live in the confines of our email in-box will know exactly when a new message is left! Apparently “more than 30 percent of voice mail messages remain unheard for three days or longer” which tells me that the current way of being notified may be out dated. Why not bring the notifications to where we are? Google Voice comes through here!
Second, you can listen to the message online!When you get the email notification, you can click through and immediately listen to the message. This means that rewinding and fast-forwarding is a cinch. In fact, you can jump straight to the needed part of the message!
Third, Google voicemail will transcribe the message for you into the email message!That means that Google will use their powers to automatically figure out what the message is saying and type out the words for you (in case you can’t listen to it audibly at that moment). Please note that this feature is not yet perfected (as you can see by the transcriptions at the bottom of my review post) but perhaps through time it will improve.
Forth, Google voicemail allows sharing the message with othersEver get a a really funny message from one of your buds and you have to pass it on to all your friends? Emailing it to your group is a snap! Or you can embed it in a post on your blog or social network for the world to hear! OR there’s the download option. You can download the message to an MP3 for playing back or archiving on a CD with the rest of the hundreds of hilarious messages you receive.
Google Voice has brought many features to the telephony table and these new voice mail features are only a portion of what they have to offer. With Google Voice you can also accomplish such feats as call-forwarding, conference calling, changing phones in the middle of a call, listening in on your Google voicemail, and even calling out while leaving your Google number on caller IDs (use the call out feature to save money on your cell phone bill WITHOUT a data plan). There’s so much more, you’d just have to check it out yourself. Which features of Google Voice are you most enthralled with? em>Got Tech Questions? Ask Them on MakeUseOf Answers! Related posts
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| Prezi – Turning Dull Slideshows into Revolutionary Dynamic Presentations Posted: 28 Feb 2010 09:30 AM PST
There’s a reason for Powerpoint presentations being awful (often) and, lets face it, outdated. They’re based on the old paper model. Slide after slide of static, carefully listed content. Every time you press that button, you’re basically telling your audience, “And here’s something else I want you to look at.” It produces a heavily outdated performance, and one that’s straining your audience with too many lists, and too few connections. Arrows work, but are hardly a satisfying solution.
PreziZooming and spinning, overview and relations. Those are the words I’d use to describe Prezi. Contrary to your default presentation, Prezi doesn’t work with slides. Instead, you’ve got one big canvas to explore with your audience and offer dynamic presentations. Use scale and location of objects to define relations and importance. Move and change your previous perspective when introducing new ideas, instead of wiping the canvas blank again. Using the Prezi tools, you can navigate the canvas, and focus on different objects by moving, zooming and even rotating the proverbial ‘camera’. Your dynamic Prezi presentations can be used in an online environment, embedded on your blog or via the Prezi website. To eliminate your online dependance, download the presentation as a portable Windows or Mac application, which can be used on any Win/Mac computer you’re facing at the office or school. For people with slower computers and internet connections, this also makes the presentation more fluent and responsive. Imagine the possibilities for these dynamic presentations, not only to enjoy in the office, but for educational purposes. Having a hard time imagining this? Here are a few examples. Public vs Premium vs Educational Licenses – And Their PricesIf you don’t want to pay USD 59 or USD 159 per year for the educational and premium licenses respectively, you’re going to have to stick with the public licence. Don’t be fooled by the sound of that, there are plenty of features to be had.
You’ll need to edit your Prezi’s in your web browser. All editing functionality is available, and you can still download and enjoy the presentations offline with a small watermark. There are just a few responsive hiccups in Mac Chrome, but Safari works like a charm.
It’s called a public license for a reason. You won’t be able to exclude it from the Prezi website, or make it private. Bad luck if you were planning a presentation on your most efficient mistress, or (serious, now) would otherwise include confidential business information. Free educational licenses do enjoy this feature, but more on that in a sec.
Be sure not to cross this, or you will have a private presentation. Meaning that you can’t actually make it. Note that this is storage space we’re speaking about (size of presentations), unrelated to bandwidth (multiplied by number of views).
Are you either a student or teacher at an educational facility? Great! You’ll be able to literally enjoy the, wait for it, license for free — giving you an extra 400 MB bandwidth, removing the watermark, and allowing you to make your presentations private. The Pro version will also be discounted to USD 59 per year, gaining you the offline editor. All you need is your school-supplied email address.
What do you think of Prezi? Do you have any dynamic and interesting presentations you want to share? You can reach us and the other MakeUseOf readers in the comments section below! em>Got Tech Questions? Ask Them on MakeUseOf Answers! Related posts
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How do you keep your 
One of the amazing thing about the Linux world that other operating systems lack is the software and package management. Everything is taken care of for you. The updates, the dependencies, the missing files, you need not think about anything everything is done for you. That being said, there are things that are not completely obvious to starters. Here is a quick rundown of commands, files and tools that should get you up to speed with package management.
Through the years, the way we handle our telephone messages has gone through some dramatic changes. Remember the days of needing tape cassettes to record answering machine messages? I suppose it hasn’t really been that long has it?
There are two very common reactions to someone taking out his Powerpoint presentation. “Good, something visual to keep my eyes up front,” and “No more, please! Please stop, I’ll tell you everything you need to know!”
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