MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [March 11th]” plus 11 more |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [March 11th]
- How To Install Windows 7 On Your Netbook From A USB Flash Drive
- 6 Scary Emails To Send To Friends As A Practical Joke
- 5 Websites To Help You Manage Your Grocery List
- 3 Free Online Self-Help Social Media Tools
- VirtualBox’s Seamless Mode: Combine Two Operating Systems Into One Desktop
- Placing An Ad For Free – Affiliate Programs Don’t Always Work
- MakeUseOf Must-Have Mac Apps Giveaway Day #10 – Pixelmator
- What Is the Definition of a Virtual Private Network [Technology Explained]
- Mac Giveaway Omnifocus Winners!
- How to Create Custom Bookmarklets in Quix
- The Best Sites For Free MySpace Templates
| Cool Websites and Tools [March 11th] Posted: 11 Mar 2010 07:31 PM PST
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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| How To Install Windows 7 On Your Netbook From A USB Flash Drive Posted: 11 Mar 2010 05:31 PM PST
In this guide, we’re going to show you how to create a bootable USB flash drive using either Windows XP or Windows Vista, and then install the files onto the USB and then install Windows 7 onto your Netbook from USB. You will need one USB flash drive, with a capacity of at least 4GB, a copy of Windows 7, a program to extract the contents of your Windows 7 image file, such as 7-Zip, and a computer running either Windows XP or Vista. Windows XP users will need to download an additional program, MBRWizard.
Once you are in the BIOS settings, go to the Boot tab, and ensure that ‘USB HDD’ is included in the Boot priority order list. If it is, you should be able to boot from your USB flash drive. Format The USB Flash DriveFirst, we need to format the USB to get it ready for use. Right click the USB drive in your Explorer window and click on ‘Format.’ The file system you will be using is NTFS.
Windows XP users, if you do not see that choice in the drop down menu, follow this guide, to enable formatting your USB flash drive, using NTFS. Activate The USB Partition At this point, Windows XP users will put the program, MBRWizard to use. After you have downloaded the zip file, extract its contents to the C drive, then open the Windows Command Prompt. (Click the Start button, hit ‘run‘, type ‘cmd‘ and press enter.) Using MBRWizard and the command prompt, you are going to be able to activate the partition, by typing the following commands: cd\ cd mbrwiz2.0 mbrwiz list You should now see, as in the screenshot below, your USB listed as one of the disks, in my case, Disk 1.
You will then type the following command: mbrwiz /disk=X /active=1 (Where X is the number of your Disk) When prompted with “Are you sure you want to set the partition(s) Active?“, answer Yes.
Windows Vista users will not need to download MBRWizard, but rather can go straight into the command prompt and type the following: Diskpart list disk You will then need to identify your USB flash drive, again in my case, it is Disk 1, and type the following Select Disk X (Where X is the number of your Disk) List partition Select partition 1 Active You should then see the message: Diskpart marked the current partition as active.
Extract Windows 7Navigate to your Windows 7 image file, and extract its contents to a folder named Windows7 in the C Drive. These files can be deleted once you are done.
Return to your command prompt window and type the following: cd Windows7\boot bootsect /nt60 X: (Where X is the letter of your USB drive – in my case G:) You should then see the following:
The final step in getting your USB ready is putting Windows 7 on it, which is where unetbootin comes in. Once you have the program installed, select Diskimage, and browse to your Windows 7 image file, and select the USB that you have prepared for the install, and click OK.
Unetbootin should take about 15 to 30 minutes to copy the files onto your USB.
Installing Windows 7All that’s left to do is install your new OS. Plug the USB into your netbook, and start it up. When starting your netbook, you can select to boot from the USB by entering the Boot Menu. In my case, on the ACER Aspire One, I had to hit F12, but with some other netbooks, this can be done by hitting the ESC button. Once you are in the Boot Menu, you can choose to boot from your USB flash drive, and will then enter the Windows 7 set up menu. If you are upgrading from Vista, you should be able to preserve your program files and settings, but upgrading from XP is not possible. A clean install is necessary, but all of your files and folders will be preserved in a folder in the C drive, labeled Windows.Old. If you’re not sure where to start once you have Windows 7 installed, check out the 15 Best WIndows 7 Tips and Hacks and 12 More Windows 7 Tips and Hacks. Did you manage to install Windows 7 on your netbook? Let us know how it goes in the comments. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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| 6 Scary Emails To Send To Friends As A Practical Joke Posted: 11 Mar 2010 03:31 PM PST
If you have friends that live too far away to literally play a practical joke on them, you could send them an email instead. Here is a list of 6 scary emails to send to friends.
Scary StoriesDo you know someone who is scared easily? Then you don’t have to come up with anything smart, you can simply send them a scary story just in time for bedtime. Maybe spice it up by adding some pictures or by sending it anonymously. Scary For Kids has a neat collection of scary stories.
Dead FakeDead Fake is a service that lets you send anonymous emails. That alone is not a prank. The thing with this site is that you can make your email appear to come from anyone you choose. Do I need to say more?
You could pretend to be your friend’s boss or a government official and I’m sure you can come up with content that will scare your friend. After all, you know them best! If you’re short of ideas, check out this Prank Ideas site. Fright GaugeDo you have a friend who is very proud of their “visual acuity”? Send them this “Find the Fiend” gauge to reveal how well their eyesight is. It will show them just how much higher-than-average their perception skills really are.
A similar page better suited for a younger audience is Where’s Waldo. Online Hearing TestFor this one to work, you have to embed the code on a website or one of your social network profiles and then send your friend the link. Unfortunately, the source website gives quite a few clues to this being a fake test. However, if you manage to set this up somewhere, it’s one of the most scary tests to email a friend. Fortunately, the code to embed the test is included.
A similar test is Color Vision Deficiency. Driver’s License SearchThis is a website prank. The site claims that the National Motor Vehicle License Organization is now required by law to provide public access to all US driver’s licenses online. It’s the perfect prank to play on someone who has been refusing to show you their passport or driver’s license with the claim that their picture was so ugly. You can now tell them how shocked you were by how ugly their photo really was.
WOT warns that this page has a poor reputation. Well, does it really surprise you? The Dexter Hit ListIf you want to scare someone in the UK, take advantage of this ingenious video generator. Be sure to enter your victim’s full name, their real age range, an actual occupation, and a real characteristic of them into the form. Your friend will receive a link to icetruck.tv, a video webpage. The video is that of a press conference in which a serial murder is described with hints to potential future victims. At the end of the video the prank is revealed, so no reasons to worry.
The preview for the video did not work for me, the link that is emailed, however, worked perfectly. Do you want to remain anonymous when sending scary emails to friends?
Are you looking for more scary stuff? Here is some material for you:
If, however, you’re looking for more pranks to play, check out these articles:
What is the best prank you ever played on someone? Image credits: svilen001 em>Got Tech Questions? Ask Them on MakeUseOf Answers! Related posts
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| 5 Websites To Help You Manage Your Grocery List Posted: 11 Mar 2010 01:31 PM PST
An issue we often run into is keeping an up to date list of the items we are out of. Sometimes we are all ready to go and realize we haven’t made a list yet and we need to drop everything and check the cupboards and refrigerator for missing items. If there was a tool that would make keeping a list easier, our shopping day would go that much smoother. Here’s 5 printable grocery list apps you can try out.
ZipList
ZipList is an online service that makes managing your grocery list a lot easier. It has many features such as:
Check them out. You don’t even have to register (but registering will open up many of the useful features such as accessing the list from anywhere, sharing, and various accessing options). Kitchen Monki
Kitchen Monki seems to have taken the grocery shopping list manager to a social level. With Kitchen Monki you can share recipes with friends via tools such as Twitter and Facebook. There is also a section where you can search other user-generated recipes. Very cool and hip, right? Features? Check them out :
While using the quick add feature, a popup shows similar items helping you to add items even quicker. Then the items are automatically organized in categories which will aid shopping. And then there’s the fun design! Who doesn’t like monkeys? GroceryWiz
GroceryWiz is another grocery list manager. The check list-style list manager makes finding and adding items quite simple. It has a coupons section and it has items listed out by category making finding items simple and fast. GroceryListMaker
GroceryListMaker is a bit of an older site but the simplicity could actually be inviting! The design is a simple check list. All of the grocery categories are there, you just need to check which items you want added to your list. There are also blank boxes for items that aren’t on the lists. Then, just click the “Create Grocery List” button. You’re then taken to a page containing everything you’ve added. You can then manually highlight what you want displayed on your printable grocery list.
The only thing I didn’t like was that categories that you don’t have any items in still show on the page. Oh well, still a simple solution. Grocery List by the Aisle (By BetterBudgeting)
By far the least techie of the choices, this is basically just a printable grocery list page you can print in order to manually write your grocery items down. It does make keeping the items in categories easy. If you’d rather stay away from the list managers and write things down “old school”, this print out will be a help. Otherwise, refer to the other sites on this list:)
That’s the lot of printable grocery list sites for your ease of shopping. Some of them are easier to use than others. And I’m sure there are more tools out there. What tools do you use to help manage your grocery shopping list? Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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| 3 Free Online Self-Help Social Media Tools Posted: 11 Mar 2010 12:31 PM PST
In the U.S. alone the self-improvement market was estimated at $9.6 billion in 2005. Self-help materials generally come in the form of infomercials, audiobooks, books, seminars and personal coaches. Since 2005, many online self-help resources have emerged, seeking to take advantage of the Internet as another vehicle to distribute their materials. In addition, a new group of self-help websites have shifted the entire learning mechanism to the Internet utilizing features common to Web 2.0 web sites.
43ThingsThis site focuses on goal-setting, utilizing a simple approach that starts with your answer to the question: "What do you want to do with your life?" If you are having trouble answering this question, there is a tag cloud on their homepage that shows what others in the 43Things.com community are wanting to do with their lives. You can find further inspiration in their Zeitgeist section, where you can search and filter results.
Let us say one of your goals is to Read more books. Here is how you would use 43Things.com to help achieve that goal:
ToolsToLifeIf you prefer a more direct approach, ToolsToLife.com offers free online self-help "programs" where a virtual coach guides you step-by-step each day of the program. There are five programs currently available: Body Makeover, Get a Job, Optimal Health, Start Living Green and the flagship ToolsToLife program.
I would recommend that you start with the flagship ToolsToLife program which is designed to help you improve your life in general over a period of 90 days. Here is a step-by-step to get you started:
Once you get comfortable with participating in a program, you may want to check out the Challenges and Commitments sections. The Challenges section allows you to work towards a goal/challenge with a group of people, while the Commitments section allows you to work on specific goals alone, but with support from the community. PeopleJamWhen you want advice about what products and resources can best help you achieve the results required to improve your life, PeopleJam.com is the solution. They have put together a collaborative directory that attempts to help identify the best resources to achieve specific results.
Let's say you wanted some help with Stress Management. Here is how you would use PeopleJam.com to help you:
Once you are comfortable using the site as a resource and you want to give back to the community, consider creating your own profile and add your own ratings and comments. Have you used one of these sites to improve your life? Is there another online self-help tool that you would like to recommend? What is the most important area of your life that needs improvement? Please join the conversation in the comments. Image Credit: Oddsock Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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| VirtualBox’s Seamless Mode: Combine Two Operating Systems Into One Desktop Posted: 11 Mar 2010 11:31 AM PST
What most people don’t know, however, is that this same program allows you to seamlessly combine your native and guest operating systems, allowing you to work with windows from both systems side-by-side. Heck, you can even copy and past text between any two platforms. Combine OSX and Windows, or Windows and Ubuntu, or Ubuntu and Fedora: the possibilities are endless.
Installing Two Operating Systems With VirtualBoxIf you’ve never used VirtualBox before, or any sort of virtualization software at all, some preliminary reading may be in order. If you want to create a virtual Windows environment, check out Jorge’s article on installing Windows 7 on a virtual machine in Virtualbox. These instructions are quite specific to Windows 7, but can be easily applied to any version of Windows. Alternatively, you could make a VirtualBox-ready clone of your existing Windows operating system, courtesy of an article by Varun. If testing various Linux distributions is more your thing, Jorge also has you covered: he wrote all about test driving Linux operating systems with VirtualBox. This is actually a great deal simpler than running Windows, as you can download pre-built packages. Want a virtual OSX? I’m sorry to say that Apple’s licensing forbids this, though if OSX is your native platform you can easily install VirtualBox to test other operating systems. It’s also possible, in theory, that some legally-questionable BitTorrent trackers have VirtualBox images you can use to boot OSX. But these are illegal, and VirtualBox’s seamless mode won’t work with these anyway. Don’t check them out, and don’t share links to them in the comments below. Installing Guest AdditionsSo you’ve got your guest operating system of choice up and running, but notice that it’s anything but seamless at this point? It’s time to install the Guest Additions. These operating system tweaks make it possible to move your mouse from the guest OS to your native OS without missing a beat. Installing these additions is simple: on the window of the VirtualBox instance containing you Guest OS click “Devices,” followed by “Install Guest Additions.” Then follow the on-screen instructions within your Guest OS to complete the installation.
For those running a guest Linux Operating System: if you downloaded a pre-built VirtualBox image, it’s likely you already have the Guest Additions installed. If you suspect this isn’t the case, however, the above method should work wonderfully for you as well. Seamless Mode!Now that you’ve got the Guest Additions up and running it’s time for the real fun: trying out seamless mode. Click “Machine,” then “Seamless Mode.”
After you do this your host operating system and your virtual operating system should seem to combine. You’ll have a taskbar from each and programs from each will be visible over your native operating system’s desktop. If this hasn’t worked, try pressing “Seamless Mode” again – this will usually do the trick.
As you can see above, this is a great way to play Ubuntu and Window’s versions of solitaire at the same time. If you’re looking for more practical ideas, however there are a few. Using Ubuntu’s version of Firefox is a great way to ensure your native Windows system is completely secure. If you’re a Linux user, seamless mode is a great way to use your Windows-only applications whilst still feeling at home within Ubuntu. Any application supported by your guest OS can be installed on a virtual machine, provided you’ve allowed for enough hard drive space to support them all.
ConclusionSeamless mode is a slick, underexplored feature of VirtualBox. It’s fit into my workflow on a regular basis, and can work wonders for anyone who needs to run two systems at once for any reason. What do you guys think? Is this a cool and useful feature, or merely a gimmick? Do you have any advice for using it and getting it all set up? Can you think of any specific use you’d have for this functionality? Let us know in the comments below! Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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| Placing An Ad For Free – Affiliate Programs Don’t Always Work Posted: 11 Mar 2010 10:31 AM PST
Just like every other industry, Internet marketing has its share of marketing schemes and scams. Countless websites out there promise that if you purchase their e-book for $39.95, you’ll become an Internet millionaire in less than two to three years. And just like every other industry, those who get sucked into the scam quickly learn the basic truth of life that Thomas Edison left us many years ago – Success is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration. That, my friends, is the gods-honest truth.
Putting Up an Ad for Free – Affiliate Program MistakesBefore I get to a system that does work, I’m going to cover my own early online advertising mistakes so that others can avoid them. I’m not too proud to admit to these – it’s important to fall before you can run when you’re starting out with your blog or website, as you know you will not have hundreds of thousands of clicks every month. Mistake #1 – Ads Unrelated to Content. Making money with affiliate advertising when you have a high-volume website (like MakeUseOf) requires far less work and creativity than making money from a small blog. Does that mean that it’s not possible? Not necessarily. But the one biggest mistake many new bloggers make after signing up for numerous affiliate programs is just to publish the advertisements along the side of their blog and call it good.
Sometimes blogs will include ads that are relevant to the content in the blog, but other times the ads really make no sense. For example, what’s a National Geographic ad doing on a blog about SEO and web content? Mistake #2 – Unfocused Affiliate Campaign. Another common mistake beginning bloggers make is that they’ll head out and try to sign up for as many affiliate programs as possible, and then place those ads on every single website across the net that they are affiliated with. Unfortunately, most visitors to a blog or website are already inclined to ignore sidebar or banner advertising, so using ads that run the entire gamut, and for the most part are unrelated to the content, simply increases the odds that the ads will be ignored. Mistake #3 – Ignoring the Advertising Potential of Your Content. If you travel through the amateur blogosphere, you’ll see countless blogs with ads plastered across the top, bottom and sidebar of the blog, and not a single advertisement within the content itself. Ironically, it’s actually the inverse that serves as a more effective method to get people to click on the ads. Most website owners across the net have recognized this truth in terms of the dramatically higher click-through rates with Google ads that are situated within the content itself.
This one subtle change in your website advertising tactics can easily increase your clickthrough rates by 10 to 20% or more. It doesn’t only work with Google Adsense – it will work just as well with your affiliate advertisements. So, keep your header and footer banners if you must, but remove those gaudy sidebar advertisements and start carefully and tactfully inserting your affiliate ads into your content itself. After all, this is where your readers are focused on when they visit your site, so it’s exactly where your advertising should go. Focusing On A Niche & Showing Me The MoneyNow, for the secret weapon that will take your carefully placed affiliate ads and send the click-through rates into the stratosphere. The secret to “winning” the traffic game as a little guy on a newer blog with lower pagerank is by identifying online niche areas that have little competition but very high demand. Yes, there are tools that the big boys have which provide targeted insight and SEO analysis, but quite honestly anyone can perform a similar analysis for free – it just takes a little bit more effort. Just remember the two principles – high demand (search engine searches) and low competition (other high-ranked websites offering content). If you think that every popular topic already has something written about it online – think again. To find high volume keywords, we will once again turn to Google Adwords.
Here, I’ve conducted a search for “dog” – a very generic and popular term. As you can see, if you sort by “Search Volume,” you will have the terms with the highest monthly search rate. While the competition numbers in here may not look too promising, don’t worry. Just scroll down the list and look for high volume keywords with at least less than 3/4 bar of competition. Once you have a good list, the next step is to really examine the actual competition that’s out there. To do this, I recommend a great free tool called Niche Watch.
To show what you’re looking for, I’ve conducted a search for a highly popular and highly competitive term – “ghost hunting.” Niche Watch gives you the top 20 ranked competitors for that search term. As you can see here, the Anchor, Title and Text columns are filled in pretty well. This means that not only are the top competitors ranked highly for the term – but Google likely ranks the site highly, and your little blog will have a lot of difficulty “beating out” those sites to the top of Google results for that term. On the other hand, you will eventually discover that one of your high-volume keywords have Niche Watch results that look like the following.
Here, you’ll notice a lot of empty spaces under Anchor, Title and Text. These are the terms where you can easily skate up to the top of Google results on a very popular term, so long as you use the SEO techniques that we’ve discussed earlier. If you perform your optimizing better than those competitors (who are, for the most part, already not valued very highly by Google) – you will get the majority of that traffic. How High Traffic Benefits Your Affiliate BusinessForget about the $39.95 book about how to get rich quick with an affiliate business. You can get rich, but by working smart, not quick. The recipe for success is no secret – these are the only steps you need. 1. Simply identify those niche search terms that so many people are searching for, yet there’s barely any useful content online for. 2. Register a domain name that capitalizes on that specific keyword phrase. 3. Create optimized (and valuable) content on the website, with your content-relevant affiliate advertisements embedded tastefully throughout. Obviously, there’s much more to developing a successful website from scratch – but if you don’t already have a highly popular website, then focusing on an underserved niche is the only path to success for an entrepreneur like yourself. Please share your experiences with your own affiliate business efforts and any tips that you would offer anyone who is new to the business in the comments section below. 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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| MakeUseOf Must-Have Mac Apps Giveaway Day #10 – Pixelmator Posted: 11 Mar 2010 10:00 AM PST
Its gorgeous UI and incredible ease-of-use makes it just amazing to work with. It’s loads quickly, does exactly what you need and goes out of your way. Oh, did I mention that it’s perfect? We’ve managed to “heist” 10 copies of Pixelmator worth $600 to give away for free to 10 lucky MakeUseOf readers.
It greets me with a simple Welcome window.
Then here’s the gorgeous (yet very usable) UI I spoke of earlier. All of the tools you need are laid out on the screen. Like Photoshop, it supports layers, advanced image correction, retouching tools, cool filters and effects. And before you ask — yes, Pixelmator is compatible with PSD files. In fact, take a look at the full list of features it has to offer.
If you’re harbouring some doubt as to whether Pixelmator is as powerful as Photoshop, don’t. Pixelmator has a very creatively driven community which share and help each other bring out the best from Pixelmator. Here are some web-based tutorials to demonstrate that Pixelmator won’t cripple your creative mojo.
And what about exporting images? Pixelmator saves to a native “pixelmator” image format but it will also allow you to export your images to any image format you desire. I mean any. In the screenshot below, notice that the common image formats have their own quick-to-reach tabs but within the Other tab lies a whole bunch of other image formats I’ve never even heard of.
Pixelmator is the perfect, cheaper alternative to Photoshop on a Mac. If you don’t believe me, download the 30-day trial and check it out for yourself. How do I win a copy?It’s simple. Just follow the steps.
This giveaway ends tomorrow, just the final one starts. You may participate in as many giveaways as you want, even if you’ve previously won! Let the giveaway begin! Have fun! Want to know what else we gave away? Check out this post 15 Must-Have Free Apps For Your Mac & Giveaway. MakeUseOf would like to thank Simonas and the Pixelmator team for their generosity while participating in this giveaway. Interesting in sponsoring? We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with us via email. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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| What Is the Definition of a Virtual Private Network [Technology Explained] Posted: 11 Mar 2010 09:31 AM PST
As organizations started spanning multiple sites, they started using WANs. What about the situations where organizations have offices spanning a number of countries? Surely connecting them with dedicated wires is no longer a cheap solution. An alternative solution that addresses most of the needs and is much more secure and reliable is that of Virtual Private Networks.
The Definition of a Virtual Private Network (VPN)?There are a number of definitions of a Virtual Private Network depending upon which purpose it serves. The bits that are common and essential to every one of these definitions is that you use an existing network (generally a public network like the Internet) and then create a virtual network atop of that to serve some other purpose. To allow you to understand this better, let me give you an example.
The other option is that of VPN. It is a common practice these days to give employees access to VPN’s. With VPN you are essentially on the same office network although you may be at a different physical location. In this case the VPN would be configured to work over the Internet to give you access to the internal organization network. You can thus exchange and share data as if on the internal organizational network although you are not directly connected to it. A VPN thus let you use the public network (the Internet in this case) to transmit private data. How VPN’s Work?There are two main technologies that facilitate the creation of VPN’s to allow you to transmit data safely and reliably over a public network. These are encryption and tunneling. Encryption in simple words, as you may know, is the act of scrambling data so that only the intended recipient can view or understand what you have sent and that it looks worthless and gibberish to other parties who may happen to view it.
The result of putting these two together is that you can now transmit your data without having to worry about security and reliability issues over the public network. Advantages Of Using VPN’sAs would be clear by now, one can easily use VPN’s to connect multiple sites (think branch offices) onto the main corporate network and to gain remote access to internal organizational networks (or even your home network for that matter). It is also the cheaper solution in most of the cases when compared with traditional WANs. VPN’s are secure and offer reasonably good performance with high reliability. Have you ever configured a VPN? What software did you use? Image Credits: Cisco Inc, Microsoft Technet Related posts
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| Mac Giveaway Omnifocus Winners! Posted: 11 Mar 2010 09:00 AM PST
License information will be sent via email. Thank you for participating. Catch out next giveaway in an hour’s time! MakeUseOf would like to thank The Omni Group for their generosity while participating in this giveaway. Interested in sponsoring? We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with us via email. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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| How to Create Custom Bookmarklets in Quix Posted: 11 Mar 2010 08:31 AM PST
The better solution to plugins would be bookmarklets, which use little to no system resources and will also work with every browser and OS.
One Quix Solution To BookmarkletsTo work more efficiently with bookmarklets, you can use a little help from Quix – a bookmarklet which serves as a container for other bookmarklets. You can have all the functionalities of many bookmarklets using only this one, but how do you create bookmarklets within Quix?
Quix comes with tons of commands that can replace your existing bookmarklets. But as extensive as it may be, Quix still left many custom bookmarklets out of its list. Even though Quix provides you with the way to add your own sets of commands, there’s no clear explanation on how to do it that I could find. There’s no point of having the powerful all in one bookmarklet container if there are still many bookmarklets that can’t be contained. So I sat back and tried to make sense of all the resources that I could find, and then experimented on adding custom bookmarklets into Quix. Building The Chain Of CommandsBasically, to add your own custom bookmarklet commands to Quix, you have to create a text file with the lines of commands inside, and load it after Quix’ own script. Here are the steps to do it: First: The Text File Create a text file and fill it with command lines. There are three components to these lines:
More detailed explanation could be found at the syntax page. Don’t forget to also look at the real example for comparison. The hardest part is figuring out the “executable” part of the command. In some cases, you could just copy and paste the command used in the real bookmarklet. I compared the Evernote command from its own bookmarklet and the one I found on Quix, they are exactly the same. But you need to experiment here as this method is not always working. To know what command is used by your bookmarklet, open the bookmark library (“Bookmarks > Organize Bookmarks” menu in Firefox or “Bookmarks > Show All Bookmarks” menu in Safari)
Then select the bookmarklet to get the “executable command”.
Second: The Upload After you are ready with the text file, you have to make it available online. The easiest way is to use Dropbox. Just save the text file inside your Dropbox folder.
Move it to the “Public” folder, right click on it and choose “Copy Public Link” from the Dropbox menu.
Then go to the Extend Quix page, paste the public link into the “Command file URL” field, and install the customized Quix bookmarklet by dragging and dropping the bookmarklet icon to your bookmark bar.
Congratulations! You’ve just upgraded your Quix with the commands that you need. Everytime you come across a new bookmarklet that isn’t supported by Quix, just add the command line in the text file, and you are good to go. Have you tried Quix? Share your thoughts and opinions in the comments below. em>Got Tech Questions? Ask Them on MakeUseOf Answers! Related posts
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| The Best Sites For Free MySpace Templates Posted: 11 Mar 2010 07:31 AM PST
We will start off with FreeLayouts. When you arrive at their site you will see templates for normal websites, blogs, as well as MySpace. Click on MySpace Layouts in the main navigation menu and then you will see more specific sections.
Here are some of the free MySpace templates that were displayed on the homepage while I was checking it out. Notice a lot of themes surrounding holidays. Valentines Day that just passed and St. Patrick’s Day which is coming up.
You can click on preview to see a close up view of what the template really looks like. That will bring up this window:
You can click on the Get Code button to retrieve the code you will need to integrate the template like so:
Simply highlight the code and paste it into your About Me section of your MySpace profile to get started. I clicked on the box, hit control A to select all of it, and then control C to copy it and finally control V to paste it where it needs to go. You also have the option of setting up an account and creating favorites that you can refer back to. The next website for free MySpace templates we will be looking at is called MySpaceLibrary.
I scrolled down and chose layouts and started browsing around what they had to offer.
Looking around they have a little something for everyone. I found sports templates, music templates, geeky templates…seriously if you use MySpace you will be able to find something here! After finding the template that you like, click on the link below it that says Click to view large and get MySpace codes. That will take you to this page:
Just like before, if you want to use it copy the code and paste it into your About Us page on MySpace. To view the template click on the preview button below the picture of the image. That will show it to you like this:
The last site we will be checking out is called MySpaceSkins.
Scroll down when you get to the site and you will see the templates. The first section is called Girly MySpace Layouts followed by grunge, fashion and beach layouts as you can see below:
Click on one of the layouts or on a More [Category] MySpace Layouts button to see more related layouts. After selecting a layout you will see something that looks like this:
You can grab the layout code as we have before for the other sites but here we have some other choices like customizing the layout with their online MySpace profile editor.
or adding a custom Google search box on the page.
If you have other sites and resources hook us up and leave the URLs in the comments! Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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