MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [March 12th]” plus 13 more |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [March 12th]
- Latest Hilarious Picks [MakeUseOf Geeky Fun]
- The 5 Best Questions From You [MakeUseOf Answers]
- Top 5 Wii Fitness Games To Get Into Shape Without Leaving Home
- 6 Effective Tools To Avoid Police Radar Speed Traps
- The Best Websites For Dieting On A Budget
- 9 Greasemonkey Scripts To Get More Productive While Searching Google
- Creating Essential Smart Albums For Your iPhoto Library [Mac]
- 5 Sources For Free Photoshop Addon Downloads
- MakeUseOf Must-Have Mac Apps Giveaway Day #11 – Paragon NTFS
- How To Create Outlines & Organize Your Document In MS Word 2007
- Mac Giveaway Pixelmator Winners!
- 5 Steps To Understanding Basic HTML Code
- How To Set Up A Wireless Home Network With Just a Mobile Phone
| Cool Websites and Tools [March 12th] Posted: 12 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. 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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| Latest Hilarious Picks [MakeUseOf Geeky Fun] Posted: 12 Mar 2010 07:01 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. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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| The 5 Best Questions From You [MakeUseOf Answers] Posted: 12 Mar 2010 06:31 PM PST
All questions are moderated and the titles are optimized. Questions are sometimes rejected because they are lacking details. In those cases we explain what information is needed to answer the question. Once a question is published, we do our best to quickly provide an answer. And with the help of the entire MakeUseOf team, I think this has been working quite magnificently! So here are five of the most popular questions from the past two weeks. Do you agree with the answers?
Would you like to browse other popular questions or see which questions we weren’t able to answer? You can switch back and forth between latest, unanswered, and most popular questions using the respective buttons at MakeUseOf Answers. You can also follow Answers via RSS. And if you have a question of your own, don’t hesitate to ask! No sign up or registration is required. Related posts
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| Top 5 Wii Fitness Games To Get Into Shape Without Leaving Home Posted: 12 Mar 2010 05:31 PM PST
All you need to accomplish your fitness goals is your Nintendo Wii Fit. 22.5 million copies have sold since December, so now's the time to put it to good use. In this article I am going to cover the top Wii Fitness games you can use to get in shape without leaving your house. Again, I know what you're thinking – MakeUseOf only covers free software and tech. Well, we've decided that when it comes to your health, it doesn't hurt to explore all of your options, so we'll let it slide this one time.
Recommended Wii Fitness GamesWhen you buy a Wii Fit, it comes stocked with a balance board and various strength training, aerobics, yoga, and balance games. While these exercises can be effective, they aren't all that fun to do, at least in comparison to some of the games that have come out since. If you're going to go all out to get into shape you might as well have a little fun, right? The following games are a few of the more popular Wii fitness titles out right now. They aren't in any particular order. Wii Fit Plus
If you liked the games that came with Wii Fit but wanted a little extra, Wii Fit Plus might be for you. The Wii Fit Plus has over 20 new games for you to play, and includes a calorie burning counter, ability to create custom workouts, profile creation, and quicker navigation than its counterpart. If you already own a Wii Fit, you can purchase the Wii Fit Plus game by itself to serve as an upgrade. If you don’t, you can buy the Wii Fit Plus bundled with a balance board. The Biggest Loser
Whether you are familiar with the TV show or not (one of my favorites), The Biggest Loser video game is a fun way for players to get in shape and maintain their ideal fitness. Like the TV show, the game is set at The Biggest Loser ranch. Settings allow you to compete in 4, 8, or 12 week programs against former contestants from the show. Your progress and schedule is kept on a calendar for you. If you want to see who can lose the most weight between you and your friends, you can compete that way as well.
The game allows you to keep track of in-game achievements and even allows you to receive credit for progress made outside of the game, like walking, running, cycling, etc. You do have to enter in outside progress on your own, however, so remember to write down your achievements during your daily workouts. The Biggest Loser also features a lot of suggestions and tips from former contestants and trainers in the game. These healthy tips include 50 recipes straight out of The Biggest Loser book that you can follow. EA Sports Active: More Workouts
The successor to EA Sports Active, EA Sports Active: More Workouts has, like the title implies, more workouts for you to follow (35 to be exact). These exercises allow you to customize your routines to target different areas of your body, like upper body, lower body, and cardio. If you don’t want to focus in on one area of your body, you can try one of the full body circuit routines. It also has warm-weather activities for you to try like water-skiing and paddle surfing.
The game features a 6 week challenge of core exercises, including abs, curl ups, and crunch and punches. It has a warm up/cool down feature as well as an in-game journal for you to record your progress. Jillian Michaels' Fitness Ultimatum 2010
Jillian Michaels, trainer from The Biggest Loser (see above game), is one of the more intense trainers out there. Her fitness game, which is a sequel to the 2009 title, is pretty intense too. In the game, Jillian coaches and trains you for up to six months, giving you custom routines to work on in a one-on-one style session.
When playing this game, you will participate in a boot camp setting that is packed with energetic workout modes and 16 core exercises for you to follow. Included are cardio training, strength training, and balance training superset routines.
You can tailor your workouts to your specific abilities by adjusting the difficulty settings. Jillian gives you feedback while you’re working out so you can see if you are doing the workouts correctly or not. If you want to (I don’t know why you wouldn’t), you can work out on tropical beaches or in exotic jungles. Don’t want to train with Jillian alone? Challenge family and friends in multi-player competitions. My Fitness Coach
In My Fitness Coach, you get to work out with a virtual personal trainer named Maya. The game is designed to fit your personal goals. It tests your fitness level, sets your goals in the form of a calendar, and takes you through workouts that allow you to build routines.
There are over 500 unique exercises in this game, including yoga, pilates, kickboxing, cardio fitness, strength training, flexibility, and weight loss routines. You can choose which areas you want to work on if you have a particular need.
If you don’t know how to do one of the workouts in the game you can pause it and view a tutorial. You can workout in 9 different environments and customize the game’s music to your liking. You have 4 types to choose from: hip hop, 80’s, Latin, and dance. ConclusionThe number one thing you need to get in shape is determination and focus. OK, that's two things, but you need to set goals for yourself and stick to them if you want to reach your ideal fitness level. Be committed! Get motivated! Perhaps making a game out of it will help you get going. Put your Nintendo Wii to some good use, and above all, have fun! Did you find this article useful? Is your favorite game not on the list? Let me hear it in the comment section below! Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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| 6 Effective Tools To Avoid Police Radar Speed Traps Posted: 12 Mar 2010 03:31 PM PST
On these roads, patrol officers enjoy sitting at several spots that maximize the likelihood they will clock someone speeding who has just passed the drop in speed, without realizing it. The road doesn’t change, but the speed does. It is the perfect definition of an unjust police radar speed trap. It was on this road, on a bright and sunny day, that an especially arrogant officer decided to pull me over and charge me with criminal speeding. A charge that, in the U.S, could carry a fine of up to $500, a suspended license and possible jail time.
Tools To Combat Unfair Police Radar Speed TrapsOne of the first things I did when I upgraded from my Windows Mobile phone to a GPS-enabled Motorola Droid was to check what applications are available that might help protect me from such unscrupulous speed traps by local cops like the officer that pulled me over. The first online system that I discovered is also the one that I consider the absolute best one out there – Trapster. There’s an entire online system on the website that shows you all of the active speed traps. The map is constantly updating and changing as new reports come in from all across the world.
Of course, the best part of the community-driven Trapster system is that there are mobile apps for just about any mobile device out there, including Blackberry, iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile and even certain GPS systems. You can set these apps to alert you any time you come within range of a known speed trap, or a recently reported police stake-out location.
You can set the alert distance from the speed trap so that you have plenty of time to look for the sudden change in speed limit and slow down to the posted speed. Most importantly, when you spot a speed trap that wasn’t recognized or alerted by Trapster – do your part to make the system more effective by adding that speed trap into Trapster’s database.
Here, I’ve added the famous Morrell’s Mill Rd, North Berwick, Maine speed traps to Trapster’s database. Hopefully that will save a driver or two from the horrible fate of having their wallet drained into the town coffers.
For the sake of variety, I’m going to cover the top sites out there that can give you additional insight into the police radar speed traps in your area. Unfortunately, most of the remaining online services are focused primarily within the U.S. Or course, maybe that’s because the U.S. is most plagued by such unreasonable speed traps? CopSpy is one of these useful websites. This is more of a log of historical speed traps, with comments about particular speed trap areas that date back to 2003 and go up to today. You can really get to know the habits of local police by reading through these citizen logs.
The Bear Traps website, shown above, provides a very basic and general overview of the police trap “hot spots” along any major Interstate in the United States. The site lists all reported red light cameras as police radar speed traps that were reported by citizens for major highways and exits.
Njection, a popular automotive website and forum, offers this awesome mashup that provides a satellite overview with a layer for crashes or speed traps. This particular system doesn’t feature a whole lot of speed traps (nowhere near the number Trapster offers), but as far as crash history, the system is remarkable. You can view all crashes reported throughout the history of the system – which really offers a great oversight as to what areas are dangerous. The speed trap feature is also useful and is still getting updated, but the user base needs to grow a bit more for it to be very effective as a real-time reporting tool.
SpeedTrap labels itself as the National Speed Trap Exchange, and this is exactly the public service that the site provides for U.S. citizens. No matter what town you check, you’ll likely discover well written speed trap reports from local residents who are fed up with the unfair and unjust tactics of local police departments.
Police Traps is an excellent International resource that covers police trap sightings, red light cameras and traffic incidents all throughout the world. In the map above you can see the mashup for reports throughout Europe. This resource does have a fair user base and could rival Trapster in its usefulness. Have you had your own experience getting caught in an unfair speed trap? Do you have any of your own favorite resources that you use to find which towns have such areas with inappropriate posted speed limits? Share your insight in the comments section below. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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| The Best Websites For Dieting On A Budget Posted: 12 Mar 2010 01:31 PM PST
The Internet is good at helping us to save money. We used to have to buy books (and other information sources) in order to learn about dieting and cooking healthy food. Now we can now hit up the ol’ Internet and find stuff for free! We can also find free online diets and diet tips to keep our costs low. You will find four different categories of links in this article that should get you well on your way to dieting on a budget: nutritional guides, recipe sites, counters and calculators, and journaling.
Nutritional Guides
In order to begin eating healthy, you’ll need to figure out what foods are good and what foods are bad. Some of these guides will help you see what is in some restaurant foods while others will offer some overall good nutritional information on many different foods.
Recipe Sites
Cooking at home can be a great way to control your diet. This way you don’t have all of that junk that restaurants put into their food. True, you could hit up one of those bookstores and find some good healthy recipe books but isn’t it easier to find recipes for free online? There are sites that will help you avoid eating out, sites that will help you cook on a budget, and sites containing healthy recipes. Any of these sites will help you eat healthier and keep your costs low.
Counters & Calculators
While on your journey to dieting, you’ll want to make use of some tools that will help you “see the numbers.” Use some of these tools in order to find your target weight, count calories, and even map an exercise route.
Journaling
What better way to keep an eye on how you’re doing and to get back on track than to keep a journal? This list of links will give you instructions on how to keep a journal and one even has a free online journaling tool for you to make use of.
Sure, you can go out and buy books, pay money for those diet tips and plans, and even spend money on tools to help you diet. The purpose of this list of resources is to help you get it done on a budget. The tools here are free and many of the recipes are inexpensive to make (avoiding restaurants alone will help your diet and your pocketbook). What tools and sites can you suggest to help someone dieting on a budget? Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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| 9 Greasemonkey Scripts To Get More Productive While Searching Google Posted: 12 Mar 2010 12:31 PM PST
However you can’t please everyone and Google search results pages can hardly be customized to fit everyone’s needs and tastes. Luckily, with help of the following Greasemonkey scripts, you can try to adjust Google’s interface to your own preferences (Note: I don’t recommend installing them all, just pick the ones that seem to be most useful for you).
1. SearchJump: Switch To Other Search EnginesSearchJump is a Greasemonkey script that adds a a search sidebar to redirect to the same search in other engines. Enhances productivity: faster switching between search engines (between: Google, Yahoo!, Bing, Ask, etc)
A similar one: Try This Search On 2. Google Anonymizer: No Link RedirectsGoogle Anonymizer (or a similar Greasemonkey script: Disable Google Search Result Redirect) removes tracking from a Google results page. Enhances productivity: faster copy destination URLs right from the Google search results page: Before:
After:
3. Google Speed Dial: Keyboard ShortcutsGoogle Speed Dial: allows you to navigate Google search results using keyboard shortcuts. Enhances productivity: press 1 on the keyboard to go to the first result, press 2 to go the 2nd etc…Use 0 to go to the 10th (works only for top 10 results). 4. Shortcuts To Navigate Results PagesKeyboard Shortcuts for Google Search: allows to navigate Google search results pages using keyboard shortcuts. Enhances productivity: faster navigate results pages and faster edit the search query:
5. No Clutter From AdsEnhances productivity: don’t get distracted by Google advertisements that appear above the search results: less scrolling as well. Before:
After:
OR: just remove Google sponsored links all over. 6. Google Results In Two ColumnsGoogle Two Columns is a Greasmonkey script that shows the search results in two columns Enhances productivity: more information available at a glance which means less scrolling:
7. Google Bump: Multi-SearchGoogle Bump: multi-search and inline player (customized) Enhances productivity:
8. Google MonkeyR: previews and faviconsGoogleMonkeyR: Page previews and favicons Enhance productivity: faster recognize familiar pages from within Google search results. Additional options (all can be customized):
9. Google Search Sidebar: More Information At A GlanceGoogle Search Sidebar: adds a sidebar with search results from Dictionary.com, Wikipedia, Flickr, and Youtube. Enhances productivity: more information is available at a glance, less time searching the web and doing research.
Now your turn: do you use any other Greasemonkey script to increase your Google searching productivity? Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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| Creating Essential Smart Albums For Your iPhoto Library [Mac] Posted: 12 Mar 2010 11:31 AM PST
Apple's iPhoto is one of the best applications for using smart albums, especially if you import image files into your iPhoto library on a regular basis. Using smart albums in iPhoto also makes it easy to quickly put together slide shows, web galleries, or photo books because they keep you from having to shift through hundreds or thousands of files to locate the ones you need.
Rating & TaggingThere are various purposes for rating and tagging your images in iPhoto, but essentially you want to make the task less time consuming as possible. My iPhoto library consists mainly of family related photos, so I rate images as 1, 3, or 5, with an emphasis on 5. I always trash the images that have no redeeming value, e.g. too blurred, subjects eyes are closed, multiple shots of almost the exact same picture. My keywords are based on how I and my family typically view and use photos. I use keywords for individual family members, holidays, vacations, and school. In the professional photography work I do, the keywords of course have different purposes and are more elaborate.
As we begin to explore the kinds of smart albums that can be created in iPhoto, you will see how and why tagging and rating photos can help keep your iPhoto library in tip top shape. Creating Smart FoldersCreating smart folders is easy. In iPhoto, simply click on File>New Smart Folder. In the resulting dialog box, you are presented with options for creating rules for a smart album. Let's create perhaps the top essential smart folder: Favorites
The favorites smart folder is based on all the images you have given a five star rating to. To create the rule, select "My Rating" in the first drop-down menu, "is" in the second menu, and then select all five stars in the ratings field. Lastly, give it a title.
Recent FavoritesAnother version of the favorites smart album in iPhoto is recent favorites. When your iPhoto library is packed with hundreds or thousands of images, sometimes you want a quick a way to get at your recent favorite photos to show off, print, or post online. For this album, create another smart album like the one described above. Then click the + button and add a second rule: "Date" "is in the last" and "2 weeks," or whatever time you would like to use.
Okay, now that we know how to create smart albums, here are some essential others that you will want to consider using. Not Rated Or TaggedThis smart album is a great way to track which images have not been rated or assigned a keyword.
Smart Albums in iPhoto For Your Kids PhotosYou will want to keep smart albums for each of your family members and friends. These of course can only be kept up to date if you assign keywords. Using the Faces feature in iPhoto '09 is another way to keep track of family member photos.
Flagged ImagesWhen you want to print images, assemble a photo book, or post selected images to a web gallery, you might first go through albums and flag the ones you want to use. Creating a smart album for flagged images will be a great one for automatically capturing those images into one album.
Not Edited PhotosIf you're keen on editing your photos, use this smart album for keeping track of photos that have not been edited.
Camera Model PhotosIf you shoot with more than one camera, you might want to create smart albums for each particular camera you shoot with.
Holiday AlbumsCreate smart albums in iPhoto for each of your favorite holidays. They come in handy for creating slideshows of current and past holiday photos.
MoviesMany digital cameras can now shoot movies. If you're importing them into iPhoto, this smart album will collect them.
With these and other essential smart albums, you will have little need to manually drag and move images to regular iPhoto albums. Smart albums will do all the work for you once you create them. The above are some of my essential smart albums. Please share the rules for smart albums that you use in your iPhoto library. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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| 5 Sources For Free Photoshop Addon Downloads Posted: 12 Mar 2010 10:31 AM PST
Here are a few of the choicest freeware Photoshop addons, to get your creative juices flowing, and hopefully to enhance your experience with Photoshop!
ActionsNormally, when you alter an image in Photoshop, you take a series of steps to get your image from its raw, unadulterated form, to the final, polished masterpiece. If you manipulate your images often, you’ll find yourself taking the same steps for different images, over and over. This is where actions come in – steps are recorded in sequence, and when an action is played, all the steps are carried out on your image of choice – reducing repetitive tasks like framing pictures or changing skin tone to one click. 50 Photoshop Postwork Actions
This is a great pack of actions that alters the tone of your image. The effects that it produces replicates many of the popular tones seen in magazine photo shoots and professional images, and allows the recreational photographer to achieve better results when post processing. Photographer’s Toolkit
Another task that photographers have to carry out constantly is digitally framing their pictures. While the process itself is simple, it gets tedious and repetitive when there are dozens of pictures to go through. Luckily, Photographer’s Toolkit produces a myriad of frames for your choosing, and applicable at the click of your mouse. BrushesJust about any brush you can think of can be found on the internet. Whatever you need- whether it is a blood splatter, a pair of wings, or even eyelashes- is just a Google search away. Here, I’m going to pinpoint a few brush sets that I like, but keep in mind that there are literally thousands more brush sets out there. Urban Scrawl Photoshop Brushes
This brush set is perfect for adding a bit of that hand-drawn feel to your projects. I personally adore this set because, while vector or splatter packs are a dime a dozen, this set is truly unique. Real Smoke
This gorgeous brush set is another example of how anything you can think of has probably been made into a brush. The sample brushes pictured above are just a small selection of the ones in the actual set (there are actually about three times as many). Perfect for adding a bit of mystery and allure to photo manipulations, the variety of brushes in this set makes it useful in many situations, and definitely a set worth adding to your arsenal of Photoshop tools. Plug-InsPlug-ins are a bit like actions in that they simplify the process of manipulating pictures, but they’re a bit more customizable than actions, which produce the same results every time. Think of, for example, how the Gaussian Blur filter allows you to adjust the extent of the blur you want. Plug-ins are like that – they’re essentially filters that change the way your pictures look. Unfortunately, most plug-ins are not free, but the effects they produce can be replicated by hand through a much longer process. Xero Plug-in Pack
This plugin pack includes about twenty different plug-ins that allow you to do everything from make a picture foggy, to produce a lithograph effect on your picture. All of the plug-ins are adjustable, so you can play with the extent of the transformation. The image above demonstrates the effects of a few of my favorite plug-ins; clockwise from the top, they are: Titanium, Artworkx, Artifax, and Seasons. Now that I’ve introduced you to just a few of the Photoshop resources on the internet, I hope you’re feeling a bit more artistically inspired by the extent of Photoshop’s adaptability. If you feel like you need to browse a few more brush sets or action packs, websites like deviantArt and Photoshop Tutorials house hundreds, even thousands more resources for you to peruse. Do you have any trusted sources for Photoshop addons? What are your favorite brushes/actions/plug-ins? Let us know in the comments! Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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| MakeUseOf Must-Have Mac Apps Giveaway Day #11 – Paragon NTFS Posted: 12 Mar 2010 10:00 AM PST
Paragon NTFS for Mac 7.0 provides instant gratification by pulling all the strings in the background, supplying you with instant NTFS support; and puts you and your Mac back in the game. Today, we’ve got a whopping 20 licences worth $800 to hand out as the grand finale to our 11-day must-have Mac apps giveaway.
Plug in any NTFS external hard disk and Finder will automatically mount it without hesitation. Notice the read and write permissions?
There’s nothing more to it. Install it and leave it be. You’ll be accessing Windows partitions on your Mac so naturally that you’ll forget that Paragon NTFS is actually running the show. It has a preference pane in System Preferences where it will list attached NTFS partitions.
Paragon NTFS is also bundled with MacBrowser — a Windows file-browser which is capable of reading Mac HFS formatted hard disks; closing the gap between the two operating systems in a mixed environment. Read a complete list of its features here. When it comes to must-have apps, Paragon NTFS is definitely a worthy contender. Download the 10-day trial (MacBrowser not included) to let it impress you. If you’re sold, grab yourself a free copy now! How do I win a copy?It’s simple. Just follow the steps.
As the final app in our 11-day must-have Mac apps giveaway, this ends tomorrow. 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 Koka and the Paragon Software Group 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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| How To Create Outlines & Organize Your Document In MS Word 2007 Posted: 12 Mar 2010 09:31 AM PST
Call an outline a brief sketch or a schema of the main points and you won't be off the mark. A rough idea of where you are going to go is important for every kind of project, from organizing your life to organizing your next writing assignment.
When you create outlines, it also helps to shape web writing, as web content ideally is about scannable content with bulleted points and headlined sections. To create outlines is actually easy. It starts with a bit of brainstorming and then you can reach for some paper or MS Word. MS Word is the processor of choice for documents and creating effective outlines is just one of its more mundane jobs. So here's one more MS Word How-to… Open A New Word Document & Create Outlines In 5 Easy Steps
Similarly, you can take a subheading one level up by clicking the Promote button on the Outlining toolbar.
Want To Improve The Look Of Your Outline?Click on the Home tab and then the Styles panel. For instance, if you want to change the appearance of the main headings, right click on Heading 1 and click Modify to set your own formatting style.
Main topics are formatted in Heading 1, subtopics in Heading 2, and so it continues. You can choose to keep the style by adding it to the Quick Style list. To change the look of the entire outline, click on Change Styles and pick one from the available Style Sets. Take A PrintoutWhile brainstorming, it often helps to stand back and look at the ideas from a distance. A printout helps to keep the outlines close at hand. In MS Word, printing outlines works just like a normal print job, but with one tiny difference. You can collapse or expand the headings and subheadings to set the print view you want. After that, it's all the same. Or Use It In PowerPoint TooOutlines can be easily exported to PowerPoint. Each main heading level goes as the heading of a separate slide. The easier way is to save the outline document and then open it from PowerPoint's New Slide – Slides from Outline.
The second way is to use the Send to PowerPoint command which can be accessed from Word Options – Customize – All Commands and placed in the Quick Access Toolbar. Well, now that I have outlined and elaborated the steps, here's a resource that can come in handy – Microsoft's 18 Outline templates as free downloads. How often do you use the outlining habit for your documents and presentations? Do you think 'prefabrication' of your work is a quicker way from brainstorming to the finished project? 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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| Mac Giveaway Pixelmator Winners! Posted: 12 Mar 2010 09:00 AM PST
License information will be sent via email. Thank you for participating. Catch our last giveaway in an hour’s time! 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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| 5 Steps To Understanding Basic HTML Code Posted: 12 Mar 2010 08:31 AM PST
The teachings of basic HTML code can (almost) be broken down in two all-ruling disciplines: style a.k.a manipulating the appearance, and referring, a.k.a marking and pointing to locations of, and within documents. HTML can’t do anything more complicated than drawing a table, or creating frames, and we’re not going to cut into PHP or Java. Yet HTML is still far off the beaten path for your average Joe. It’s wizardry, and none of your business. My goal today is to give you some of the HTML building blocks in the course of a few minutes. You won’t be a programmer just yet, but you’ll be able to skim the source of a webpage, understand it, and grab that image that Flickr is trying so hard to keep from you.
Step One – The Concept Of TagsAs said previously, basic HTML code manipulates a plain text document to apply style and reference. It does so by applying ‘tags’. A tag does nothing more than indicating a position or selection of the document, and specifying the kind of wizardry that needs to be done.
Example 1 shows a sentence that’s encapsulated by two tags, a begin- and end tag. Everything in between is affected. Very common examples are making text bold, cursive, or creating a link. The end tag is identical to the begin tag, but is preceded in angle brackets by a forward slash ( / ). Example 2 shows a tag that works alone and (arguably) doesn’t need to be closed. Although not required, it’s occasionally also written as <tag /> to emphasize this very attribute. Loner tags don’t affect ‘part’ of the document, but signify local wizardry, things that happen ‘in between’. Common examples are line breaks and paragraph breaks. Note: for loner tags, <tag>, <tag />, and <tag></tag> all mean the same thing.
Sometimes tags allow for additional attributes to be supplied. Common examples are text font and color, or image width, height and source. In those cases, the tag name is followed by a space, and a number of attribute with a value, again separated by spaces. The value is the variable part of this formula. Note that the end tag remains the same, regardless of the attributes. We’ll review some common tags in the next few steps. Step Two – The Parceling of HTML, HEAD & BODYThe HTML, HEAD and BODY tags are to an HTML document what a bedroom, kitchen and living room are to a house. These encapsulating tags parcel out the big parts of a document.
Step Three – Because <P>, <BR> & <FONT> Make You Feel PrettyWe’ve already said HTML was a markup language. This means as much as making text feel pretty. Remember, HTML dates back to when the web was a very text-y experience. Besides, the internet would’ve been far too slow to support YouTube. Here are some of the most common pretty-making tags.
You’ll be delighted to know that these also work in the comments section. Don’t overuse them, though.
These allow you to structure the document, because an actual break doesn’t mean anything in an HTML document. <FONT></FONT> allows you to manipulate a bunch of other stuff with text, by using attributes like size, face and color. An ideal example would be <FONT color=”blue”>smurfs</FONT>.
Nowadays, markup is often kept in a separate CSS file. The exact style figures are explained externally, and one only needs to ‘mark’ part of the document to apply them. This is done by using div tags. For example, <div class=”headermakeuseof”>sometext</div> will look for a headermakeuseof class in the CSS file. We won’t discuss this in detail. Step Four – Embedded Images with <IMG>Images have become customary on HTML pages, and yet there’s a piece of code behind it. The <IMG> is one of two tags we’re going to discuss in detail, because it’s something you’ll be able to use. Just think of those annoying web sites that don’t allow you to download some pictures to your desktop (I’m looking at you, Flickr). Next time, just go into the source and grab the source yourself. Here are some of the attributes used in conjunction with the IMG tab.
Very important. The source attribute specifies the location of a picture. That’s right, a picture is never really rendered in a web page, but gets pulled in from an external source. Once you’ve got that address, you’ve got the picture. Sometimes, only part of the URL is displayed. The actual URL will depend on the location of the HTML file. This is called a relative address, contrasting with an absolute address. An exemplary http://site.com/dir1/dir2/dir3/page.html may show a value of “image.jpg” when the picture is located in the same directory as the webpage. In this example, the full address would be http://site.com/dir1/dir2/dir3/image.jpg. If you encounter a relative address of “dir4/image.jpg”, the image will be located in http://site.com/dir1/dir2/dir3/dir4/image.jpg Similarly, “../image.jpg” will have you go back one directory, “../../image.jpg” two directories, and so on.
These tags define how large the image is displayed. It doesn’t say anything about the actual size of the image. Sizes can be added in pixels (where 200 and 200px are one and the same) or percent. With only height or width specified, the other one changes accordingly. Using both tags allows you to ’stretch’.
The alt tag specifies the text shown on mouse-over, or when an image fails to load. More specifically, these are what XKCD uses for those funny afterthoughts. Proper usage would be, e.g. <IMG src=”image.jpg” height=”20px” alt=”example”> Step Five – Links Are Made With A TagThis one could be even more important than the IMG tag. An <a></a> tag allows you to mark a spot in a document, and link to documents, pictures, files, and even anchors in other HTML sites. Here are the most common attributes.
One of the most common attribute, written <a href=”address”>text</a>. You can create links by defining the web address and encapsulating said ‘anchor text’. Links can also be used in the comments section, provided you don’t link to spam or inappropriate content.
Used in conjunction with the name attribute, the tag will create an anchor. You can use this anchor to link back to from within the same page, or even over the web. One can link to an anchor by using a relative or absolute URL, respectively <a href=”#name”> or <a href=”http://site.com/page.html#name”>. In ConclusionThis is the part where I admit we’ve only brushed the surface of basic HTML code. What we’ve seen today will allow you to skim through and understand a big part of simple websites. Go ahead, try it. You’ll definitely find some tags you don’t know, but that’s where Google comes in handy. If you’re willing there’s a lot more information where that come from, and you can all find it online. If you’re looking for something very specific, like an image, an audio file, or a link, there’s no need to read the entire HTML page. Press Ctrl+F and search for those files or the relevant tags. You know what you’re looking for now, and especially when you’ve found it. What do you think? Your first or last encounter with HTML? Let us know what you think in the comments section below, and don’t be afraid to try out some of the markup code! Related posts
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| How To Set Up A Wireless Home Network With Just a Mobile Phone Posted: 12 Mar 2010 07:31 AM PST
Now what if you want to use your mobile phone's internet connection to power your network? And what if, instead of using a physical wireless router, you decided a freeware application called Mobile Wi-Fi Router would do just fine. Now remember if you and your phone leave the house you will not be able to remotely connect to your home computers. You are essentially taking the connection out with you.
I am sure you can do this from any mobile platform but today we will be using a Windows Mobile 6.5 device to connect. I have also tested this on Windows Mobile 6.1. If you try it on other versions please let us know in the comments. First, to setup a wireless home network we will need to download the Wi-Fi Router application. You can grab it from here. Once you have it downloaded and installed on your Windows Mobile Device, you can launch it. Go ahead and start up the application by simply clicking on the desktop logo. Set up from there is just as easy. The main interface of Wi-Fi Router looks like this:
The options are ready to go right out of the box with a WEP password of 1234567890 and a generic network name. These will be fine for testing but when you decide to put this to use please do everyone a favor and change the network name and the WEP key. Once you have your settings as you want them, you have the option to check the box next to Use these settings next time without asking. I only have my 3G connection active so that is the only option that appears under Internet Connection. When you have another connection active like Wi-Fi or Bluetooth those will appear there as well for you to choose from. When you are ready to test, go ahead and hit the Start soft key button. You will then see a screen that looks like this:
As you can see it clearly spits the network information back at you so you can look at your device to reference the WEP or network name. Hitting OK will allow you to use your device again keeping the Wi-Fi network active. Now walk on over to each computer you want to join your new wireless home network and connect to it. Remember to enter your WEP key in the correct field on your computer. Before the first computer connects the status screen will say Ready to accept connections as you can see below:
When the first computer connects that status message will change to Connection Established. Go ahead and test out your connection – we will wait right here! If your connection to your phone is flaky you might want to position the device better. Maybe move it closer to the window or somewhere it gets the most bars / best reception.
To disable your wireless home network you can hit the Stop button on the Wi-Fi Router's main page like so:
If you know how to do this on the iPhone or on Android please hit us up in the comments. Do you have a better way to setup a wireless home network like this? Put us on and let us know! Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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