Tuesday, March 30, 2010

MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [March 29th]” plus 10 more

MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [March 29th]” plus 10 more

Link to MakeUseOf.com

Cool Websites and Tools [March 29th]

Posted: 29 Mar 2010 08:31 PM PDT


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.

List Your Website Here!

 

MoodTurn – We all get in a bad, gloomy or unpleasant mood once in a while. We try to do all sorts of crazy things to turn our mood around but it is not an easy task. MoodTurn is an online tool that make a serious effort to adjust your mood using relaxing images slideshowswith cool sounds. Read more: MoodTurn: Relaxing Images Slideshows With Cool Sounds.

 

Sleep Calculator – Lack of appropriate sleep is the root cause of many illnesses and disorders. It is such a basic thing that people usually ignore it and don't even realize if they have a sleep problem. SleepCalculator helps you find out if you are getting the sleep you need. Read more: SleepCalculator: Check if You are Getting the Sleep You Need.

 

 

Unshortn – Due to the popularity of Twitter's 140 character limit, we are used to URL shorteners and people use them everywhere. Unshortn is a web app that expands shortlinks to their full URL and displays the link's webpage title. Read more: Unshortn: Easily Unshorten Links.

 

 

LunchWalla – Planning lunches or any other group events can be very messy due to a lack of coordination. LunchWalla makes it easy for you to plan lunch, dinner or a simple meetup by planning the whole event online. Read more: LunchWalla: Planning Lunches Made Easy.

 

 

CSS Grid Builder – is a simple online tool that lets you add rounded corners and bevel effects to your pics. Simply upload an image from your computer and click 'Round it now'. You can also give your image a new width and height. Read more: CSSGridBuilder: Quickly Create CSS Grids Online.

 

List Your Website Here!

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.

We NEED Your Comments! Please do share your thoughts in article comments!

Similar MakeUseOf Articles

Top 10 Most Downloaded RSS Reader Apps [Movers & Shakers]

Posted: 29 Mar 2010 07:30 PM PDT


It's time once again for our featured Movers and Shakers post. Each week, we take one software category and list the top ten most downloaded apps. This week, we are looking at RSS and newsreaders. These are the apps that can be used to read really simple syndication and news feeds from your computer.

1. Xnews

Weighing in at first place, raking in 1,756,385 downloads of all time and 1,875 downloads this week is Xnews news reader. Xnews is a very easy to use and super simple to install news reader. It allows you to add, remove and read your feeds. It also allows for multiple identities, advanced filtering, option headers and article caching.

2. Snarfer

Snarfer is popular for its ease of use and simplicity. It allows for dragging and dropping to its saved folder and is recommended as a first feed reader for users. As you get familiar with it you might start looking for more features but it is a great place to start!

3. GrabIt

Another Usenet news reader that allows for speedy downloads without grabbing the new headers.

4. FeedDemon

This one is my favorite news reader on my office PC. It has all the bells and whistles you might need or want in addition to being very easy to use. It now syncs with Google Reader!

5. RSS Bandit

The RSS Bandit allows for you to group multiple news headlines across multiple feeds on the same page for easy reading. You can also search for new feeds from the application which is a very welcome feature.

  1. ESPN BottomLine
  2. A feed reader just for sports and all the posts originate from ESPN. It has a great collection of posts for sports fans.

  3. BottomFeeder
  4. A solid RSS reader that looks like it was from 1999. But it works well and uses almost no memory at all. I like that it comes with feeds pre-installed.

  5. Tristana RSS Reader
  6. Another lightweight feed reader but this one features forward and back buttons to move through your feeds. It syncs with your iPod and also claims to be "Spam Proof". Version 5.0.0.45 updates feeds with dynamic URLs and lets you permanently change feed names.

  7. Omea Reader
  8. This is a feed reader that embraces the multi-paned and multi-tabbed way of life. If you love your tabs, you will love Omea Reader. This is an application I tried out years ago and it worked well. Today, it seems that it has been greatly improved and uses little system resources. The publisher describes Omea Reader as a free all-in-one RSS reader, NNTP news reader, desktop search, web bookmark manager, and information organizer. If you’re serious about staying up to date, then Omea Reader is for you. 

  9. Binjet Downloading Engine
  10. If you are a Usenet reader and fan then you know that there is a ton of content to download there. If it is out there on Usenet then Binjet can download it! 

Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf fan page on Facebook. Over 15,000 fans already!

Similar MakeUseOf Articles

5 Free Websites Where You Can Really Learn To Invest Money

Posted: 29 Mar 2010 06:30 PM PDT


With the new economy, many people have found themselves looking for more information to learn to invest money. Be it because they have lost money that was badly invested and decided to take the matters into their own hands, or because they want to fully understand what others are doing to their money.

Some have also become more interested because they see the moment as an opportunity to make some money on stocks that are down now but which can grow in value rapidly if the economy continues to recover. But how can you learn to invest money if you have no intention of going to school now and have no real information on how to go about it?


Well, the magnitude of the World Wide Web has once again come to the rescue. There are some sites that can help you learn the ins and outs of the stock market and some that can be a fun place to practice your newly acquired skills to find out if you have what it takes to start investing with real money.

Investopedia

With a nice collection of free tutorials that can take you from the most basic skills to advanced information, this site can be considered one of the best beginner’s resource online to learn to invest money. There are even real exercises and mock tests to help you if you are taking CFA professional exams.

learn to invest money

To help even more, it also has a stock market emulator, so you can deal in real stocks without having to cash some money to test the waters. The one aggravating thing is that because you are dealing with real stock names, when you do really well, there is that sense of loss that feels like: " I should have played those winning lottery numbers last week"

The Motley Fool

One of the biggest and oldest investment sites around, The Motley Fool is a great source of information that has been giving out stock recommendations to millions since 1994. It is especially useful after you've learned the basics. It is also a great resource of expert opinions and a very large community to exchange ideas with, but because it is used by a lot of professionals, there is a slight intolerance to very newbie questions, so brush up on some basics from tutorials before you start engaging in conversations in the forums.

learn to invest money

Investing For Dummies

Another great resource of tutorials, investment terms and articles to answer most of your questions. Written in the typical style of the “For Dummies” books, the material is simple and instructive. Not as comprehensive as some of the other sites, but a solid source of information divided into very clear topics and written in a very approachable manner and  friendly manner, so it's certainly worth checking it out.

learn to invest money

HSX.com (Hollywood Stock Exchange)

So you think you understand the entertainment business? How about testing those skills while practicing your investment instincts at the same time? HSX is a pretend stock market where the stocks sold are the artists and their movies. You can buy stock on most celebrities and invest on movies. Grow your portfolio and sell when the time seems propitious. It’s a great way to see if all those hours spent in front of a movie screen could finally pay off and if you can trust your instincts. Even if the money is fake…

learn how to invest in the stock market

Virtual Stock Exchange (VSE)

Created by Market Watch, VSE is a simulator, much like the ones above, to help you learn to invest money by measuring how well you would do in a real market. What differentiates it from the other simulators is that they are set up as games. You can join existing games, where you will compete against other players to see who makes the most money.  You can even create your own game, open to anyone or you can choose to  play only against your friends and family. Some of the most popular public games include: StockMarket4Dummies, Obamanomic, MakeEndsMeet or even FlounderingFools.

learn how to invest in the stock market

So if you think you have what it takes to start investing, or would at least like to understand what everyone else is talking about, check out some of the sites above and let me know what you've learned.

Do you have any other sites worth checking out?

Do you like MakeUseOf articles! Please do share our articles with others! It’s really important to us.

Similar MakeUseOf Articles

How To Read Your Camera’s Histogram And Take Perfectly Balanced Images

Posted: 29 Mar 2010 04:30 PM PDT


Digital photography provides us with a variety of tools to help make better photos. Unlike the old film days, we now have ways to review how well exposed or metered our shots are before actually printing them.

Most photographers contend with reviewing images on the back of the LCD screen to assess how well exposed they are. But because the LCD screens can be rather small and well illuminated, they can make photos appear better than what they actually look like on much larger computer screens.

Furthermore, sometimes viewing photos on the camera's LCD screen might not show a loss of detail in the shadows or dark areas of an image, nor in the white or bright areas. When we're really concerned about getting the best exposure for our photos, we might use the camera's zoom-in feature to assess exposure and sharpness of our images. Additionally, we could use the Histogram tool of both our digital camera and image editor to see how well exposed our images are.


To some novice shooters, the Histogram may look like something a technician would use to see if your camera's functioning properly. While the Histogram feature can be found in all 35mm digital cameras, the tool might not be easily visible; with some cameras you may have to push a button or two to bring it up. But that's okay, once you learn how to interpret the Histogram, you might find it worth accessing and using a regular basis.

For this tutorial we're going to primarily in Photoshop to understand how it works. The Histogram in a digital camera works nearly the same way it does in an image editor like Photoshop, so this tutorial also details how to read camera histogram.

What is the Histogram?

The Histogram is basically a graph showing the brightness distribution of an image with pure black on one end, pure white on the other and grey in the middle. Because measuring light is what photography is about, the Histogram works pretty well in a digital camera, but it also may be a little confusing, so I'll try to clarify with a few image examples.

Over-exposed Images

Many images we capture might tend to be over or under-exposed. It's easy to tell when a shot is way overexposed because most of the detail in the image in blown out. In scenic images, a loss of detail often occurs with clouds and the sky in the background, such as with photo below. If you expose for the buildings, the background sky gets overexposed.

how to read camera histogram

In the Histogram, the graph shows a bias to the right end. When the graph is bunched up against the right side (pure white), it indicates the areas of the image that are overexposed, or clipped—a technical term meaning a loss of detail or information in an image.

Underexposed Images

When the Histogram is bunched up toward the left (pure black), it indicates that areas of the photo are underexposed, and that details are clipped in dark and shadow areas.

how to read camera histogram

Balanced Image

A more balance Histogram depicts a graph with the pixel representations spread across the graph and tapering off on both ends, such as in this image.

how to read camera histogram

However, it's often difficult to achieve a balanced graph for most photos. Significant contrast in the light, dark, and mid-tones in the foreground and background areas of a photo typically makes it difficult to get a balanced exposure.

In the first photo example above, it's nearly impossible to expose for both the background and the foreground of the image. So one solution is to meter for the sky, which means under-exposing the photo to capture the details of the sky, and then open up the shadow areas of the foreground in an image editor.

Sometimes the Histogram may show exposure clippings that are not a particular problem in the photo. In the image below, the graphs depicts a bright spot in the corner of the photo and some loss of detail in the dark areas of the flowers. But these are not major problems for this image. The details in the foreground are pretty much where you want them to be.

By the same token, in this photo below,  the light on the subjects was even, and the Histogram depicts an exposure with no clippings. And because the graph is spread out and not bunched up in the middle, it indicates that the photo also includes a nice contrast.

Again, the Histogram results don't have to be perfect, but when you see clippings on either side of the graph, you will want to review your images to see if there's a loss of detail in important areas of the image. The Histogram is also useful when it's difficult to review your photos such as in bright sunlight on the LCD screen. The Histogram can give you pretty good indication about the accuracy of your exposure.

Reading the Histogram is not as difficult as it might first seem but let us know what you experience has been with using this tool. Do you us it often or is the first time you have heard of it?

Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too. Includes cool extras.

Similar MakeUseOf Articles

7 Sites To Help Vent Your Anger & Recover From A Bad Day

Posted: 29 Mar 2010 02:30 PM PDT


How do you deal with a boss who wants today's work yesterday or heated words that don’t do anything for your cool or a flame war on the home front?

The best way I know how to recover from a bad day is to vent it out somewhere. Getting it off my chest is what I try to do, so that I can have some space for my thoughts and some for peace. It's no wonder that a stirred up mind and a volcano on the boil share a common word – vent.

So here are 7 websites to help you recover from a bad day by offloading every gripe, groan and bellyache. One website for each day of the coming week.


In today's fast paced world, finding a patient ear for our problems is difficult, a shoulder to cry on is nigh impossible. That's when we can head for the net and the varied websites where you can rave and rant to your heart's content. Their purpose is two-fold. First, as a platform for all the deadweight you are carrying around… and second, as a viewfinder that tells you that you aren't the only one with problems, buddy.

1. BadHap

BadHap is all about bad, unfortunate happenings that strike you any day, any time. On BadHap, you can post your own and read about others too. As BadHap puts it – have you ever noticed the only thing that eases the pain is hearing someone else has been there too? Or better yet, has ended up worse?

2. Mega Gripe

Open up and let rip all your frustrations. The site lets you submit detailed records like attached photos and documents to justify your anger. Mega Gripe also allows for complaints via SMS and telephone.

3. PostSecret

PostSecret is probably the cathartic fuse in the keg that started it all. It's actually a community-powered project where people mail in their deepest, darkest secrets and wishes on a self made postcard. The selected ones make it on the site or are kept for PostSecret's books and exhibits. More important than the secrets that get posted on the site are, the attention grabbing homemade postcards.

4. Fruster

Fruster is inspired from the 140 character microblogging of Twitter. The difference is that while Twitter is about everything, Fruster concentrates on things you find frustrating in day-to-day life. Similarly, you can also subscribe to text notices of your friends and other people who post their woes on Fruster. Fruster also has the OpenMicroBlogging protocol that lets people on different social networks follow each other. Some of the Open features are expected soon.

5. I Love To Complain

The site has one word for what they are all about – B*SH. You can sound off on life, work or school. The way is simple…press the Add Your B*SH button, put in your name (preferably anonymous) and send it forth in one of the three categories that's in the dropdown. You can just as easily read what others have B*SH-ed and give the good ones a few stars.

6. No-Fun

You might have difficulty in understanding what this all yellow site is about in the first place. But take a look at some of the sticky note like entries and you can see that people aren't having any fun and are carping about it. No login is required, just enter your message in the text box at the top and let it loose in the sea of whine.

7. He Did What

This one is for women’s lib. He Did What as the name suggests, is the public forum for women where they don't have to complain…they can combat all that's been done wrong to them. And hey guys! It ain't one sided – the counterpunch can be ours from the site that's right across the street. It's called She Did What.

The world is a troubled place. These seven are just one tiny corner of the world where people are posting their complaints (but hopefully relieving their hearts). You can eavesdrop on Twitter, Facebook or any other social site; everybody has a beef with anybody. These seven sites are not alone.

Last year, we featured three excellent sites on our post on – 3 Websites to Complain About Life and Let Off Steam. Then there was the more focused How To Safely Complain About Your Boss or Job Online. But all of us can take comfort from one fact that the number of such complaint communicating websites prove. We definitely are not the only ones whose day started on the wrong foot.

What about yours? Grind your axe in the comments.

Image: hartboy

Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers!

Similar MakeUseOf Articles

What Is A CPU and What Does It Do? [Technology Explained]

Posted: 29 Mar 2010 01:30 PM PDT


Although most moderately tech-savvy people today know that a CPU is one of the components in their computers, not many people know what a CPU actually does. In fact, if asked, most people probably would not know what CPU stands for.

But when searching for a new desktop or laptop, and typical CPU-related terms such as "quad-core" or " i7 core"  pop out from advertisements, each proclaiming their superiority over the other — what is a person to do, especially if he or she has no idea what either of those terms mean?


First of all, what is a CPU?  CPU (also commonly called a microprocessor) stands for "central processing unit". It's a very suitable name, because it describes exactly what the CPU does: it processes instructions that it gathers from decoding the code in programs and other such files. A CPU has four primary functions: fetch, decode, execute, and writeback.

what is a cpu

Fetch

In the first step, the CPU retrieves the instruction that it needs to run from program memory. Each instruction in a program (which contains millions of instructions) is stored at a specific address. The CPU has a program counter, which keeps track of the CPU's position in the program – more specifically, the address of the instruction that the CPU is accessing.

Decode

For this step, it's important to know that no matter what code a program is written in, the compiler for that specific language breaks the code down to Assembly Language. Assembly language is a language that the CPU understands, but may vary between different CPUs. From there on, an 'assembler' translates Assembly Language into binary code, which the CPU can manipulate to execute the instructions it is given.

what is a cpu

Execute

Based on the instructions it is given, the CPU can then do one of three things:

1) Using its Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU), the CPU can calculate extremely complicated mathematical functions;

2) Move data from one memory location to another;

3) Jump to different addresses in the program based on decisions made by the CPU itself.

The diagram above shows the setup of an extremely simple microprocessor capable of performing these actions.

Writeback

Typically, each of the actions taken by the CPU produces some sort of output. The CPU takes this output and writes it into the computer's memory. For example, if a program wanted to execute the first item of the list above on two operands, 3 and 5, the output, 8, would be written back into a specific address. However, for the 3rd bullet, the program counter (which, as stated above, is used to keep track of the CPU's progress through a program) simply changes to reflect the start of the next set of instructions.

When these four steps have been completed, the Program Counter moves onto the next instruction and repeats the entire process again, until the termination of the program.

what is a cpu

Another important component of a CPU is called the "clock." The clock produces a signal that acts to synchronize the logic units within the CPU as they execute the instructions given in a program. In the diagram above, the purple line represents the signal of a clock as it is being inputted into a logic unit. For every time the line goes from low to high, and back to low (one cycle), an instruction is carried out.

Thus, the CPU Clock speed refers to the number of times that a CPU's clock cycles per second. Typical computers have a clock speed around 2.8 GHz (Gigahertz), which means that the clock cycles two thousand eight hundred times a second, and executes an equivalent number of instructions!

Now, even though this seems like an incredible amount of information processed, a CPU operating solely on the technology explained above would still be slow, if it were not for parallelism, and multi-core technology. But I'll leave that for later, as I've just given you a great deal of information to digest. Now, you're a little closer to learning how processors work, and to to gauging which processor is best for your needs.

In Part 2, I'll explain more in depth about the technology that goes into dual- and quad-core technology, and what claims such as "Hyper-threading" mean. I'll also  introduce the concept of overclocking a CPU (the practice of increasing the clock rate of a CPU to increase its performance and speed).

What CPU does your computer have? Have you ever thought about overclocking your computer? Let us know in the comments!

We NEED Your Comments! Please do share your thoughts in article comments!

Similar MakeUseOf Articles

Display Virtual Animated Weather Anywhere With YoWindow

Posted: 29 Mar 2010 12:30 PM PDT


I have to admit, I love weather applications. I thought the 5 blog weather widgets that John covered were very cool, and Tim’s review of checking out weather radar using Google Earth was great. Today, I’d like to cover an innovative application that lets you view a real-time animated virtual weather “window” display. Sounds strange right? Once you start using it, you won’t be able to stop.

If you’re like me, you have the latest weather displayed on your phone, on your computer’s desktop and maybe even on the sidebar of your blog. You check the weather before heading out to work and before heading back home, and you check it before heading out for the weekend camping trip. Usually, weather apps consist of little more than text featuring the latest temperature, barometric pressure readings and maybe a forecast. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a virtual weather display that also gives you a graphical representation of what the weather outside looks like? This is exactly what YoWindow does.

Get a Glimpse of the Virtual World Outside Yo’ Window

Whether you’re in an office somewhere where there are no windows near you, or if you’d like to take a look at what the weather looks like somewhere else in the world – YoWindow transforms weather data into a visually rich experience. Installing YoWindow is quick and easy, and once you do you’ll be able to see a virtual weather display – a virtual representation of the world outside. The weather is animated over a virtual default background image, or you can use a picture of your own house (or snap a photo outside your real window!)

When you first install and run the app, you can immediately set up your location. Once you select your country and city, the virtual weather window displays a scene that represents the weather in your part of the world.

In my case I’m using New York City. The YR.no servers were tricky when I attempted to change my location from here, so if you have problems you may need to go into Location -> Properties and manually enter the information or click to use your own weather station.

The scene itself is pretty cool – the plants sway in the wind and for the most part the creators tried to build an actual virtual world right outside your “window.” When it snows in your real world, it snows outside. When it rains in your real world, you’ll see it raining outside this virtual window. No more running over to your office window to see what the weather looks like – the creators of this software try to present a virtual display that’s as close to reality as possible.

What’s very cool is that you can also see what the weather looked like in the past, as well as what it’s going to look like in the future. For example, when I click on Time -> Next Day, I get a glimpse of the sort of weather I can expect.

You can open up the calendar and click on any date that you’d like, and if there’s a forecast available for that date – you’ll see it graphically represented in your YoWindow virtual weather display. The YoWindow folks have every season and most weather events covered, including rain, snow, hail, fog and even a thunderstorm. You’ll also see the various cloud patterns as well. The best feature of all is the fact that if you really don’t want an image of the standard farm – just upload your own picture which will be used as the backdrop!

Just go into Location -> Landscape pictures and “Add…” and then you can select from any of your images. In my case, I recently took a great picture of the coast, so I selected one of those photos as my backdrop.

As you can see, the animated rain gets overlaid on top of the image of the ocean coast. It’s very cool – and you can take a photo of any location that you like and use it as your backdrop. Best of all, you can also use YoWindow as your screensaver, on your Facebook account or on your blog. Anywhere you go – whether you’re at home, at work, or online, now you can actually “see” the weather near you. So go ahead, add a virtual window to your online experience, so you can peek out the window and see what the weather looks like outside, no matter where you are.

Have you ever used YoWindow? What do you think? Do you know of any other cool weather applications like this? Share your opinions in the comments section below!

Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf fan page on Facebook. Over 15,000 fans already!

Similar MakeUseOf Articles

Stickybits – Using Barcode Messages To Connect Real Life and Social Media

Posted: 29 Mar 2010 11:30 AM PDT


Today I’ll introduce you to one of the best new ideas in social networking, Stickybits. It’s a great concept, linking social media with the real world by using barcode messages.

Stickybits have created smartphone apps (for both iPhone and Android) which allow users to scan barcodes, read and watch media related to that barcode, plus upload their own messages. These barcode messages can be the ones you see on everyday supermarket items (like a can of Coke or the new jeans you just got) or it can be a unique barcode generated by the Stickybits site for your use.

Printing Barcode Messages

Generating your own barcode is free and quick. You can take the PNG file and embed it online somewhere, email it to someone or print it out and stick it to something. A paid service Stickybits offers is for you to have special vinyl barcodes printed and sent to you. This way you can stick them to objects in public places and they will hopefully stay there a while.

They’ve also made it easy for you to use Zazzle to print the barcode message on to anything Zazzle sell – like T-shirts and mugs!

Starting Conversations

Just think of all the object-oriented conversations this will start!

  • Movie tickets.
  • Tourist destinations.
  • Tracking dollar bills.
  • Adding extra info to business cards.
  • Add a barcode to your pet’s collar.
  • Wine Bottles (in your wine cellar).
  • DVDs/Books/CDs.
  • Stick barcodes in Bookcrossing books.
  • Geocaching.
  • Leave a barcode on a beautiful poem and introduce yourself to whoever likes the poem.

And don’t fret if you haven’t had any brainwaves of your own. Just check out the StickyWiki for ideas. Anyone with a great idea is encouraged to share it and vote on the best ideas.

What Can You Do?

Users can leave messages in all sorts of formats. Leave a short video, a note, an audio clip or a photo of you using the object! All the barcode messages are there to be viewed by anyone who scans that barcode. So, for more popular items you’d expect to find more buzz, whereas for more obscure items you might meet someone like yourself. The messages are geotagged so you can see where objects have been and where they go after you have used them.

Sociability is also linked in. Connect with your friends on Stickybits and keep track of what they’re leaving messages on. And as well as collecting the messages and linking them to a barcode, Stickybits lets you connect to other social networks and send your messages to your Facebook, Twitter or Foursquare accounts. This means you can let your other friends elsewhere know what you’re up to.

Some of you might be wondering where you’ve seen something like this before. If so, the answer is Semapedia. Unfortunately for Semapedia, Stickybits were the first to think of a way to make it really easy for users to access the barcodes. Maybe they can combine forces down the track.

Have A Go!

Here’s what the app looks like on the iPhone (there’s an Android app as well). Once it’s scanned, you can choose what sort of barcode message you’d like to leave for the world.

The second step in the process lets you upload that message to Stickybits and set additional information for the barcode. It’s also where you can easily submit your message to your other social networks.

Here’s a unique barcode just for this article. Why not get the app and have a play with this barcode? Leave us a message!

Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers!

Similar MakeUseOf Articles

Top 4 Photo Sharing Websites To Share One Photo Everyday

Posted: 29 Mar 2010 10:30 AM PDT


As a photographer, making a commitment to take at least one photograph a day can be a daunting task, but when you have somewhere to share these photos, it becomes a little easier. Being a part of community that is trying to do exactly the same thing – take at least one photograph a day for a year – is a great motivator to stick to your plan.

There are groups on Flickr dedicated to exactly this sort of thing, but if you’re looking for a more structured outlet, this list of four photo sharing websites will help you decide where to share your photographs.

365Project

365Project is the most straightforward photo sharing website out of the four. You can upload one photo per calendar date, and can upload multiple photos simultaneously. 365Project also allows users to email photos to a member-specific email address.

photo sharing websites

There are many different ways to browse images uploaded to 365Project. You can browse the latest uploads, browse images uploaded on a specific date, popular images, or browse images by specific tags.

photo sharing websites

Member pages automatically display the latest photo. Browsing member photos can be done in one of two ways – either in chronological order starting with the most recent, or in a calendar format, with thumbnails displayed on each date.

photo sharing websites

One disappointing feature is that non-paying members can only access their last 365 pictures, so for those of you who want to challenge yourself to keep this up for longer than a year, then 365Project may not be the best choice for you. On the other hand, if you’re aiming to do this for just one year, 365 is perfect because it shows you how much progress you’ve made.

You can follow other members, and add photos uploaded by others to your favourites.

Social media integration on 365Project is limited to Facebook, allowing you to automatically update your Facebook profile as you upload pictures.

Blipfoto

Blipfoto is possibly the most elegant, but strictest option of all. Free membership allows you to upload a picture a day, from the day you sign up.

Blipfoto not only restricts members from uploading one photo per day, but also restricts members to assigning uploaded photos on the exact date they were taken. That said, you don’t have to physically upload them on that exact day.

You can choose to display the photograph’s EXIF data, the number of times an image has been viewed, image ratings from other members and tags; amongst other things.

Member journal pages display the latest entry that has been uploaded, and there are two ways to navigate through the photos. Either using the small calendar beneath the photo, you can jump to the photo uploaded on any given date, or you can simply browse through the pictures in chronological order.

One of Blipfoto’s strengths is the fact that all uploaded photos are displayed as thumbnails on the front page, giving all members a chance to get noticed. And because of the strong community built around the site, members are constantly giving feedback.

You can subscribe to other members’ journals, but adding photos to your favourites is a feature only available to paying members.

Blipfoto has great social media integration, allowing users to automatically update their Twitter and Facebook feeds, and Blipfoto has an open API so that users can develop new ways to interact with the site.

iPhone and iPod Touch users can also benefit from the free app [iTunes link] available in the App Store. The application is a stripped down version of the site – allowing you to browse a small selection of the latest photographs, upload photos to your journal and read your latest comments.

Photoblog

Photoblog sets itself apart by allowing users to upload up to 5 photos per day, but they are uploaded as a single entry. You can add a caption and tags to each entry.

Browsing other members’ photos can be filtered in a variety of ways – either by the latest uploads, the most popular, by specific tags or even by location.

User profiles can be browsed in one of two ways – either in chronological order starting with the most recent, or in a calendar format, with thumbnails displayed on each date. Users can also customize their profiles – changing the background and text colour.

Photoblog has some extra features not seen on other sites including watermarking, extensive control over your privacy settings, and the availability of several languages.

Photoblog is possibly the most clunky out of all the sites, and takes some getting used to, as the navigation around the site itself could be a little bit better.

That said, there is a strong community built around the photo sharing website, and that added with the site’s ‘Theme of the Week’ found on the home page, makes for an interesting online experience.

Momentile

Momentile allows members to upload one photo per day to their account. This can be done directly on the website, emailing it to a member specific email address, or through their iPhone app [iTunes link].

Unlike all of the other sites listed here, if you miss a day, there is no way to upload a photo against that date, so Momentile really keeps you on your toes. If you know there are days you won’t be able to upload the photo, then Momentile is not the site for you.

Browsing other members photos can be filtered by the latest uploads, by new users, most viewed, and most ’stashed’, amongst others.

Profile pages feature the most recent photograph, and you can work your way through a member’s photo stream chronologically. Past photographs can be seen in small thumbnails or ’tiles’ overlaying the latest image, when you click on the tab. You can also view a tiled archive of a member’s entire year’s worth of photographs.

You can comment on (or ‘caption’) other users photos, follow (or ’stalk’) other members, and add their photographs to your favourites (or your ’stash.’) Momentile is the only website listed here that allows you to send private messages to other users.

Users can automatically update their Twitter and Facebook profiles with their latest photos.

A unique feature that Momentile offers is SMS updates. This option is limited to certain carriers in the US, UK, Japan, Italy, Germany, Canada and Brazil.

Momentile’s iPhone app [iTunes link] offers a comprehensive experience. You can upload photos from your phone, browse your and other members profiles, including your stalkers and stalkees, change your profile picture, and browse through your favourites.

All features of the website are available to all members and there are no paid upgrades.

If the community experience isn’t necessary for you, you could always use this guide to starting your own personal photoblog using Posterous and update it on a daily basis.

Which of these photo sharing websites do you prefer? Let us know in the comments.

Image credit: Miguel Ugalde

Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers!

Similar MakeUseOf Articles

AnyConnect – Incredibly Easy To Set Up Multi-Protocol Client Software

Posted: 29 Mar 2010 09:30 AM PDT


Long before the days of one click solutions like TeamViewer; FTP, TELNET and SSH were the preferred means to transfer files to and from remote computers or perform administrative tasks. Although a little less user friendly, these are still very much prevalent and to some extent, a geek’s preferred choices as well.

The thing is however, that you need to be proficient at the command line or install a number of file transfer software clients to deal with the different protocols out there. AnyConnect is a versatile client that supports multiple protocols that offers to do that all for you in one program.

The download process is a little different as compared to the usual “download the setup file and install” approach, and is more reminiscent of Google Chrome. You download the installer, it checks the computer for compatibility and downloads the application afterwards. The application’s file size is about 17MB. After the download completes, the installation starts and the software installs on its own.

Once installed, you can start working straightaway. Head over to the connections tab, right click and choose Add connections. You can now select from the multitude of protocols that the file transfer software supports. You can use AnyConnect to set up FTP connections, FTP with SSL, with SSL/TLS, SFTP, SSH and Telnet connections. Enter a name for the connection and a server address. Next, head to the security tab. Here, you can enter the username and password details or use server’s public key for authentication.

file transfer software

You can set up logging, proxy and terminal emulation if you so prefer by visiting the remaining tabs. Click OK and the newly-created connection should appear within the Connections tab in the left pane of the main window. Right-click on the newly created connection and this time choose “Connect”. AnyConnect goes ahead and establishes the connection.

file transfer software

AnyConnect now automatically switches to a more familiar dual pane view. You can now simply drag and drop files to and from either pane to transfer files between local and remote computer. That being said, if you are familiar with other FTP clients you might miss the buttons that split the two panes and let you transfer files to an fro.

file transfer software

One of the greatest features of AnyConnect is that it supports a number of protocols which I enumerated above. What’s even better is the fact that multiple connections can be open at any instant and they would show up as different tabs in the right pane. You could for example be connected via FTP to your web server and at the same time you can SSH into your work or home computer, perhaps get some files from there and then transfer them onto the web server.

On the whole AnyConnect is a great file transfer software to have if you often transfer files between computers using the likes of FTP, SFTP or for remote access via SSH. The greatest benefit is the fact that you don’t need to have a special software for each of the protocol. AnyConnect takes care of everything. Connections are saved by default, making it easy to use them the next time you want to connect. A concern however, is the fact the passwords are stored by default too. This may not be such a big problem especially if you are using it on your own computer but it poses a potential risk nonetheless. Having the option of storing or entering the password each time would be great.

Do you use different software for different protocols, or would you prefer a all-in-one solution? Be heard in the comments!

Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers!

Similar MakeUseOf Articles

10 Copies of Photoshop CS4: The Missing Manual [MakeUseOf Giveaway]

Posted: 29 Mar 2010 08:30 AM PDT


In this week’s giveaway, we’re featuring O’Reilly’s Photoshop CS4: The Missing Manual by Lesa Snider in electronic format. In this ebook, Lesa starts at the very beginning and introduces the basic and core functions of Photoshop; then moves on to photo manipulation and other advanced techniques. It is, indeed, the missing Photoshop manual.

We’re giving away 10 electronic copies worth $400 which you will be able to download directly from O'Reilly.com to enjoy on your PC, Kindle, Android or iPhone.

About the author

Lesa Snider is a photographer and founder of GraphicsReporter, a creative tutorial site. She also writes regularly for Photoshop User magazine, Elements Technique and MacWorld Magazine.

Lesa did a great job on the book, and in my mind, it is the new Photoshop Bible — Scott Kelby, Photoshop Insider

Whether you’re a sprouting creative individual or a seasoned pro, this book has something to offer you.

We have 10 copies to distribute to ten very fortunate MakeUseOf readers. Let’s find out how.

How do I become a winner?

It’s simple. Just follow the steps.


STEP 1
Join our Facebook page by clicking on the Become a Fan button on the left. If you can’t see the fanbox, click on this link.

If you’re already a fan, skip this step.


STEP 2
Share this post with your friends by clicking on the Share button on the left.

STEP 3
In the comments section below, fill in your name, email address, paste the link to your Facebook profile in the URL field and tell us why you’d like to win.

Make sure to enter your real email address so that we can contact you if you win!


This giveaway begins now and will end on Friday at 2100hrs PST. The winners will be selected at random and announced the following day.

Spread the word to your friends and have fun!

MakeUseOf would like to thank O’Reilly Media 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.

Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers!

Similar MakeUseOf Articles

1 comment:

  1. Create a beautiful clouds text using Photoshop
    http://www.psd-dude.com/tutorials/clouds-text-in-photoshop.aspx

    ReplyDelete