MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [April 1st]” plus 8 more |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [April 1st]
- How To Develop A Simple iPhone App & Submit It To iTunes
- Newsmap – Free Online News Reader that Adds New Dimension To Your News
- 7 Things That Are Easier To Do In Ubuntu Than In Windows
- How To Edit Your Photos Easily With iPhoto [Mac]
- Build A Remote Control Internet TV & Drop Your Cable Company
- Manage Your Tasks Online Using GTD Methodology With PlanCake
- How To Share Links On Facebook With Previews With Sendible + Giveaway
- Use Crayola To Entertain Your Children
| Cool Websites and Tools [April 1st] Posted: 01 Apr 2010 08:31 PM PDT
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. Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too. Includes cool extras. Similar MakeUseOf Articles | |||||||||||||||||||||
| How To Develop A Simple iPhone App & Submit It To iTunes Posted: 01 Apr 2010 06:31 PM PDT
Like cooking, there is a bit of a process involved in “cooking” up an app. This article isn’t about your style of cooking, per se (i.e programming), but just the general steps necessary to get it from your head and into iTunes. Creating an app isn’t entirely free, so it is important to know up front that, at some point in this process, you will be shelling out $99 (USD). Also, it is important to know up front that you will need to use a Mac at some point, and will need to use specific Mac-happy code to create your app.
Step 1: Craft A Brainy Idea
Be sure to check that there aren’t other apps that do the same thing that you are proposing. Or if you want to create something better than an app that already exists, think about how your idea will be better. Draw it out on paper or on the computer. Step 2: Get A MacThe iPhone is an Apple product and uses a variation of the Mac OS. Currently, the iPhone development tools are only available for Mac users (even though there is evidence of designing in jail break mode on a PC), but in order to get it up in the App Store, you will eventually need a Mac to get it there. You can buy a Mac mini relatively cheaply if you don’t have a Mac at your disposal.
Step 3: Register As An Apple DeveloperTo work with the Mac tools, you will need to become an official Apple Developer. Registration is free so you simply have to give them your information and agree to their terms. You only need to register once, and you are able to use the same username and password used for your iTunes account. Once you are an Apple Developer, you can develop iPhone apps for any of the Mac products. Step 4: Download The Software Development Kit For iPhone (SDK)Once you are an official developer, you can download the SDK for iPhone. The version you need depends on the OS you are currently running. This download is HUGE because it comes with all sorts of documentation, sample codes, and all sorts of things you will be glad to have later on. It could take a few hours, so you might want to start the download, put in a good movie, and wait. ManiacDev is a really great site with TONS of information geared to both uber-newbies like me and tech gurus. Just start with the first video, watch and take notes as you go. Really and truly, these are the best tutorials I have found! Step 5: Download XCodeIf you don’t already have it, download XCode. According to Apple, “Xcode is a complete, full-featured IDE built around a smooth workflow that integrates the editing of source code, with the build and compile steps, through to a graphical debugging experience – all without leaving the view of your source code.” This is another huge download, so you might want to rent a second movie.
Step 6: Develop Your iPhone App With The Templates In The SDKOnce you have your app drawn out on paper or in Photoshop, you can start designing it with the templates provided in the SDK. This is where that HUGE amount of download time will be a huge benefit. You will have lots of templates to choose from, and there are a lot of great YouTube clip tutorials on how to use the templates effectively. Step 7: Learn Objective-C For CocoaIf you love programming languages, you will love Objective-C. If you don’t know how to program, this is the part that can get pretty sticky, so you might want to find a programmer friend or hire someone. It really does help to get a book, too, for reference.
Step 8: Program Your App In Objective-COnce you at least understand the basics of Objective-C (or at least know how to find answers to programming questions), you are ready to program your app. It helps to take screenshots as you go along so you can remember what you tried. Some apps can take just a few hours to program while other Apps can take months. Only you know how much detail you want out there for its maiden voyage in the App Store! Step 9: Test The App In The iPhone SimulatorThe SDK comes with a lovely iPhone Simulator. You will need to load up your app and do your own testing. You should try to work out as many bugs as possible and think about all the ways someone might use your app.
Step 10: Host A Bake SaleRemember when I told you in the fine print that you would have to raise some cash? This is that moment. Sadly, loading an app into iTunes costs a one time member fee of $99 (USD). There is no way out of this fee, but you might earn it back in triplicate if your app is worthy! Truly though, you DO get a lot for your $99. For one, you get access to some of the coolest people on this side of Pluto! Step 11: Have Others Test Your App
Once you pay your fee, you will be able to have others in the app community test your app and help you work out final bugs. This is a great community, and testing new stuff is lots of fun. If you are a newbie like me, you will be in awe of the kings and queens of geeky stardom. Depending on the nature and complexity of your app, this process can take some time. Step 12: Submit Your App For ApprovalAfter testing your app in the community and working out all the bumps, you can submit the app to iTunes for approval. You will be able to upload it right from the community. The process of approval can take some time, so be patient! Step 13: Watch The Dough & Traffic Roll In!If you created a paid app, just wait for the money to roll in to shore. If you created a free app, watch the traffic! Do you have any tips to share with app developers? Leave them in the comments section below. Images Credits: Erik K. Veland, stopnlook, davidgsteadman, Leo Reynolds, helpei, Cedric Chee, dianagavrilita Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers! Similar MakeUseOf Articles | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Newsmap – Free Online News Reader that Adds New Dimension To Your News Posted: 01 Apr 2010 04:31 PM PDT
While Google News does a really good job of aggregating news from all over the world, from multitudes of sources, the presentation of that news leaves a lot to be desired. After all, information is only useful if it is consumed and assimilated quickly. Newsmap, a free online news reader, hopes to make that process easy for the masses. It uses an innovative interface to deliver the freshest news from across the planet.
Next, head over to the Newsmap website. Don’t get intimidated. There is a lot of information within this page. Essentially, it is organized chaos. You will only get to understand it better once you’ve used it for a few days. The first thing that you’d want to do is set up an account, so that Newsmap remembers your preferences. Click “Register” at the top left corner of the page and fill out a simple two-field form to become a member. You’ll need to confirm your email address before you can continue.
After verification of your email address, you can start using Newsmap. Make sure you set Newsmap to remember your password to skip signing in every time you access the site. After you have logged in, click on “Customize” at the top of the Newsmap interface to customize your reading experience. You will be greeted by a gray box with various customization options.
The first thing you’d want to do is set up your news sources. So click on the ‘News Sources” tab in the Customize screen. You will be presented with a long list of countries, from where you can procure news updates. Select the ones that catch your fancy. Do note that Newsmap presently gathers news from Google News only. We can hope more sources will be added in the future (although has Google left out any sources?)
Next up, you’d want to change the look and feel of your Newsmap. Go to the “Main” section of the Customize screen to do so. You will reach four sub-sections, one each for “Start Up”, “Fonts & Colors”, “Articles”, and “Preview Popups”. You will also get a list of latest announcements from the Newsmap team to the right hand side of your screen. Next up, check (or uncheck) the Hide Clicked Articles option. As the name says, this will hide articles as and when you click on them. Finally, configure whether or not you want previews of news items when you mouseover on them. If you do want previews, check Display Previews. However, if you don’t want the associated images (which sometimes makes the site appear slow), uncheck Display Images in Preview. Finally click OK to save your settings and return to Newsmap. Now, at the bottom of the page, you will see various news categories, such as World, National, Business, Technology, Sports, Entertainment, and Health. Each of these categories are color-coded and these colors help you jump to news items from a particular category very quickly. After a bit of time using Newsmap, your eyes will become accustomed to hunting for your favorite colors on the map. The color of a news item determines what category it belongs to. The intensity of that color determines when that news item was published. Brighter colors mean fresher items. The size of the news items give you an idea about how popular the item is on the Internet. Depending on your settings, hovering over a news item will provide you with a small popup with a preview and an image. Clicking on the news item will take you to the source website.
At the top right side of the page, you can always use the search box to search for particular keywords and get news results for those keywords only. So there you have it! An entirely new news reading experience. Once you get used to Newsmap, you may never want to return to more conventional methods of news hunting. My only grudge with Newsmap is that it doesn’t let you customize the feeds from which it is pulling the news (but that might just be the point). If you’ve got any other radical ways in which you juggle news, share it in the comments. In the meantime, you can also check out 5 Great Multi-Source News Websites. Image Credit : stock:xchng. We NEED Your Comments! Please do share your thoughts in article comments! Similar MakeUseOf Articles | |||||||||||||||||||||
| 7 Things That Are Easier To Do In Ubuntu Than In Windows Posted: 01 Apr 2010 02:31 PM PDT
This doesn’t mean you’ll experience it that way if you’ve used Windows for a long time: at a certain your habits begin to feel like conventional wisdom, and any system that doesn't match your current habits will seem difficult.
Don't believe me? Here are some examples. Finding & Installing SoftwareThere’s a misconception out there that installing software on Ubuntu, or any Linux platform, requires a PhD in Computer Science. Nothing could be further than the truth; in fact, I’d argue installing software on Ubuntu is a great deal easier than installing software on Windows. Let’s examine the typical installation scenario for Windows users. Pretend there’s a person named Sally, and that Sally wants to install VLC Media Player. Sally Googles the name of the program, finds a webpage related to it, browses that page until she finds a download for Windows before finally downloading an executable file. Assuming Sally is pretty tech-savvy, she verifies that the site she downloaded from is a proper place; if not, it could come from anywhere and be infected with any number of spyware, trojans and/or AOL toolbars. Once the file has finished downloading, Sally double-clicks the executable she just downloaded, tells Windows it’s okay to install the program, then follows the series of prompts and clicks “next” several times. Now let’s pretend Sally is an Ubuntu user. To install VLC, all she needs to do is click “Applications,” then “Ubuntu Software Center” then search for “VLC“, double-click VLC and click the “Install” button at the bottom of the description. She’ll enter her password and then Ubuntu will download and install VLC for you, letting Sally know when it’s done.
Best of all: because the software is all coming from one place, and not some random website, you know with complete certainty that the file doesn’t include any spyware or trojans. In my opinion, Ubuntu’s method of installing software is far simpler than Windows when compared side by side. The main reason people new to Ubuntu have trouble installing software is because they try to apply the Windows method to Ubuntu, searching the web for programs to download instead of consulting the Ubuntu Software Center first. Packages found online could indeed be very hard to install, but considering the Ubuntu Software Center gives you access to thousands of programs there’s very little reason to ever bother with it. Initial SetupWhen I first install a computer, there are certain things I want installed right away: codecs for all my music and movies, Flash for my web browser, Java, and something capable of opening RAR files. On Windows, ensuring I have all of these things means going through the process above for all software mentioned individually. On Ubuntu, all I need to do is install a single package: Ubuntu Restricted Extras. To install Ubuntu Restricted Extras I simply open up the Ubuntu Software Center, search for “Restricted” and find the package.
Click the install button, and with that simple step my computer is pretty much ready to go. It should be added that on Windows systems I usually have to install a PDF Reader and a photo editor before I can really use the system, but Ubuntu comes with a PDF called Evince Reader and a photo editor called The Gimp by default. Installing DriversThis point is perhaps less relevant for users of Windows 7, which offers pretty good driver management through Windows Update, but it needs to be said that managing drivers on Ubuntu is a breeze. Since Ubuntu is upgraded every 6 months, if you use the latest version you probably won’t need to install a single driver to use your computer. If you do, it will be because the drivers you need are proprietary and as such cannot be included with Ubuntu for legal reasons. Don’t worry, though: Ubuntu comes with a built-in program for downloading such proprietary drivers for your system. The first time your computer boots Ubuntu, it will inform you of any drivers you need, and install them for you with the click of a button. I fix Windows PCs professionally, and wish XP had a similar feature. If my client has his or her driver CD it’s not too bad, but if not I’ve little recourse but to download the drivers the annoying Windows way, as described in the “Installing Software” section. Using The MenuWhile we're talking about installing software on Windows compared to Ubuntu I'd be remiss if I didn't point out my Windows pet peeve. When I install a program on Windows, it is added to the Start Menu. Where is the program added? In a folder named for the company that made the software.
This is infuriating to me, because knowing which program made the software doesn't tell me what the program in question does. There are so many sub-menus that I frequently don't know where to begin. Compare this mess to Ubuntu's menu, which arranges programs by what they do:
Only five sub-menus, and all with a certain logic to them. To be fair, the Start menu in Vista/Windows 7 is a little better than this in that I can search for a program. This means I can avoid ever looking at the terrible menu ever again. But this seems more like working around the issue instead of repairing it. Changing Your ThemeChanging your color scheme on Windows is easy, but if you want to customize beyond changing the palette some work is in order. I use a custom theme on my Windows XP system, but installing it was anything but easy. I needed to hack a certain DLL to achieve this, something I should probably highlight in a future tutorial.
I'll never need to write a tutorial explaining how to do this on Ubuntu, however, because it's dead simple. Just click "System," then "Preferences," then "Appearance." You'll be shown a number of quality themes, and switching to any one is as easy as clicking it. If these themes aren't enough for you, head over to Gnome-Look and find something that suits you. Installing the theme is as simple as dragging the downloaded package to your "Appearance" window. I should make a confession here: I've never attempted to do this in Windows 7. By the looks of Karl's article about the top 5 Windows 7 themes, customization is now Ubuntu-like in Windows 7. Good to hear! Getting UpdatesWhen it comes to updates, Windows is a jungle. Adobe, Apple, Google and many more companies will all install their own update managers to your computer, most of which will bother you every time you boot your computer asking you to update various products. On Ubuntu, there is only one update manager. This means keeping all your software up to date is simple, and that you don't have 30,000 programs bothering you every time you boot your machine. Sharing Your Wireless Connection Via EthernetRecently I wrote an article about sharing your wireless connection in Ubuntu. Since then I've switched the computer on my desk to Windows, and I cannot for the life of me figure out a way to achieve the same thing. Maybe you commenters can help me out, but every configuration I've used to share my wireless Internet connection via Ethernet in Windows resulted in my wireless not working anymore. So I'm going to go ahead and say this is easier to do in Ubuntu, half because it's true and half because I think this will cause one of you guys to recommend a Windows method that works for me. ConclusionIn many ways, Ubuntu is easier to use than Windows. Does this mean Ubuntu is superior to Windows? Of course not, and I wouldn't suggest so. You should use whatever operating system works best for you. All I wanted to do was challenge the conception that Windows is easier to use in every aspect. Ubuntu has become easier to use every year, and I think even inspired a few of the changes in Windows 7 (I'd love to see a Windows 7 ad in which a Linux developer claims Windows 7 was his idea, because unlike the people in those silly advertisements the Linux developer would probably be right.) This isn't a bad thing: competition makes everything better. Whenever new improvements are introduced to the operating system market, eventually everyone wins. Please also note that most of the things described here are true of other Linux distributions as well, and the only reason I left these distributions out is that saying "before you install Linux you must choose from the thousands of distributions out there" hardly helps the argument that Linux is easy to use. For the vast majority of new Linux users Ubuntu is an excellent starting point, and that's why I'm highlighting it here. What do you guys think? Do these things sound easier to do on Ubuntu than Windows to you? Can you think of anything else easier in one operating system than another? We have a comments section, so comment! Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf fan page on Facebook. Over 15,000 fans already!
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| How To Edit Your Photos Easily With iPhoto [Mac] Posted: 01 Apr 2010 12:31 PM PDT
Mac users need to look no further for such tools. Aside from Preview, Apple’s own photo management app – iPhoto – is more than enough to fix small imperfections that you will find all over your everyday photos. Let’s look at the available tools in iPhoto that you can use to make your photos better.
Mac iPhoto Tips: Enter The Edit ModeTo start the editing process, click the edit button on the lower bar of the iPhoto window.
iPhoto will switch to “Edit mode“. There will be three main edit panes on the screen:
There are three sets of tools available. The first set deals with the position of the photo:
The second set deals with photo quality:
And the last set consists of more advanced tools:
A Thousand WordsEven though the cost of taking pictures these days is virtually zero, each and every one of those captured memories is priceless. Here’s the most important Mac iPhoto tip – you should always back up everything before doing the modifications. The least that you can do is duplicate the images and modify the duplicates instead and keep the original intact.
And after being edited, your photos could be treasured in many ways, such as using the photos to build your own photo gallery or photo blog. The combination of good photo management, easy editing and other cool features makes iPhoto one of the indispensable tools in Mac. What about you? Do you use iPhoto to manage and edit your photos in Mac and have your own Mac iPhoto tips? Or do you use other alternative applications? Share your thoughts and opinions using the comments below. Similar MakeUseOf Articles | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Build A Remote Control Internet TV & Drop Your Cable Company Posted: 01 Apr 2010 11:31 AM PDT
For example, in my family we only really ever watch a few of the major networks, such as CBS, NBC, A&E, Discovery and of course the kids love Nickelodeon. In this case, all I’d really need to do to replace our cable TV needs is install a system that lets us watch episodes of our favorite shows when we feel like it. There are still a few major drawbacks to getting your TV entertainment from the Internet. It’s a given that you have to wait for the latest episodes, so don’t expect to be able to follow the conversations around the water cooler about last night’s episode of Dancing With the Stars.
In this article, I’m going to propose a setup that makes use of an Internet TV app Aibek mentioned briefly before called Miro. The setup has Miro installed onto a PC or laptop connected to a large flatscreen monitor (which will be our new “television”), and then I will transform my Android phone into the remote control with an app I reviewed before here at MUO called Gmote. If you don’t have an Android phone, check out Karl’s article on configuring a PC remote control for Windows Mobile or install an app for your own mobile device that provides remote control over the PC via your home network. Setting Up Free Remote Control TV Watching on the InternetThere are two major worries people have when they consider switching over to free TV watching on the internet. The first is that the video streams for all of your favorite shows are scattered throughout the Internet. Yes, there are full episodes available, but you have to go to the website for the show in order to watch it. The second potential problem people worry about is resolution. Most streaming video doesn’t have the rich clarity and definition of digital cable television. However, if you’ve ever downloaded a television episode over high speed Internet, you know that while the image isn’t perfect, it is usually good enough – especially when you watch the screen from a little bit of a distance away from the screen. Once you finish this setup and test it, you’ll find that both of these worries are pretty much resolved – especially considering that your television entertainment will be free. The first step is to place your television up with the laptop or desktop tucked away in an obscure spot. You won’t need to access the “media server” because your remote control will do everything. Then, download and set up Miro onto that PC.
When you first install Miro, you’ll see that there is already a decent mix of content for free TV watching on the Internet, video feeds and even a torrent search. Now, the point of using Miro is because it functions very well as a central collection point for all of the video sites and video feeds that you want to have access to. Miro will remove the necessity to go digging all over the net for your favorite TV shows – just find them once and add them into Miro as a new video website or feed. In my case, I love the show Paranormal State, so the first thing I do is go over to the video section of A&E to get the site URL.
The A&E video page has links to full episodes of just about all of its major shows. Many people simply don’t realize how much video content is available out there on the Internet for absolutely free. Honestly, there’s so much content that once you get rid of your cable company, you’ll find that you haven’t really lost much, but you’ve gained a great deal (like money, for starters).
When you find the network’s video page, just copy the URL and then go to Miro and go to Sidebar -> Add Website. Once you add the URL for the video page, you’ll see the site page show up right inside the Miro application.
Here, you can see where I’m watching an episode of Paranormal State from within the Miro app. Even though you’re inside Miro, the “maximize” button still works, so you can still watch the video in full screen mode.
Along the left menu bar, you can see that I’ve added all of my favorite station websites, from ABC and CBS down through Nickelodeon. In the video window, you can see where I have the selection of full episodes of the popular show Mythbusters. On this screen alone, there are almost four hours of great entertainment for free – why pay for cable?
My favorite part of Miro is the ability to add video feeds. Doing so sets up Miro as a “feed-reader” for the latest video content on your favorite video sites like YouTube or Hulu. To get a feed, just go to the site (like Hulu above) and choose the feed link that you want. Want to keep an eye on the newest movies added to Hulu, the most popular YouTube videos or Google videos? Just copy the feed link and in Miro go to Sidebar -> Add Feed. Now, once you have all of your video websites and video feeds configured in Miro, the final step to enjoy free TV watching on the Internet is to install your local remote control software. In my case I’m using Gmote, so I’ll install the desktop client software and the mobile app to my Android phone. Now, whenever I have my entertainment system booted up I just have to launch my mobile Gmote app and I have a touchpad I can use to control the mouse on the “television” screen.
And don’t worry, if you tend to watch a lot of television and run out of full episodes to watch of your favorite shows, why not “channel surf” the Web 2.0 way – click on the Miro Guide and just start searching or browsing for the videos that are available there.
While taking that major step of turning off cable television can be a difficult decision, in the long run the cost savings combined with the enormous volume of video content available on the web, makes that decision a lot easier. Why not set up your own Internet TV system and try it out for a while? Maybe, after a week or two, you’ll find that you don’t even miss cable at all! Do you have your own method of organizing shows and watching free Internet TV? Share your insight and experiences in the comments section below. Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too. Includes cool extras. Similar MakeUseOf Articles | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Manage Your Tasks Online Using GTD Methodology With PlanCake Posted: 01 Apr 2010 10:31 AM PDT
David Allen, author of Getting Things Done mentions that the best way to manage tasks is that one needs to move the tasks out of one’s mind onto some external source where they can be filed to be accessed later and appropriate actions can then be taken according to the tasks. This external source could be anything that works for you. From files to trays to Excel sheets – anything.
As PlanCake strongly favors the GTD methodology as the best way to manage tasks, it focuses on getting things off your mind and into the system. Your account’s homepage shows you a list of overdue tasks, and the tasks that are due today and tomorrow. You can quickly add new tasks using the “New Task” button.
So far so good but the real power of PlanCake lies in the fact that you can quickly dump in tasks (in other words get them off your mind) and then categorize or prioritize them later. The PlanCake inbox serves as the holding place for everything you need to do. PlanCake gives you a special email address, unique to your email account (find it under settings) and any email sent to this address will be stacked as a task in your PlanCake inbox. So as soon as you get an idea, an invite or remember a task, shoot off an email to PlanCake with the idea/invite/task as the subject line and an optional description as the message body. The next time you are on a computer or can access PlanCake, you can take time and quickly prioritize and assign deadlines and contexts to all the tasks in your PlanCake inbox.
PlanCake also incorporates GTD’s other mainstay - the contexts. Contexts let you categorize your tasks based on where you are most likely to complete them. Making a call can have a “phone” context, shooting off an email can have a “phone” or a “computer” context and so on. You can assign contexts to your tasks easily with PlanCake simply by placing a check against the required context.
PlanCake also offers the magical %% operator. “%% computer” in the task name would add it to the “computer” context. “%% next monday” will set the task due date to the following Monday. You can find other useful shortcuts in the PlanCake user guide. You can also download and install PlanCake on your personal server if you so please. PlanCake requires PHP5 with MySQL. Other details can be found on the download page. If you have read David Allen’s book and tried to cook up a system based on his ideas on your computer then PlanCake is a Godsend for you as one of the best ways to manage tasks. It does everything you could have dreamt of. If on the other hand you don’t know a lot about GTD, then we suggest you have a look at PlanCake’s excellent user guide. PlanCake is great, works nice, has plenty of shortcuts to keep the nerds interested and makes managing your work and tasks even easier. The only downside I can think of is that the name reminds you of pancakes and you might feel hungry as a side effect of prolonged use! Are you a big GTD fan? What software tools do you use for managing your tasks? Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers! Similar MakeUseOf Articles | |||||||||||||||||||||
| How To Share Links On Facebook With Previews With Sendible + Giveaway Posted: 01 Apr 2010 09:30 AM PDT
It has been a while since we last had a look at Sendible, so I’ll give you the rundown on some of our favorite new features. Plus, we will be starting a new giveaway today. Find out more details after the jump.
Connecting Accounts is EasyWith Sendible, you can manage and use all of your social networking accounts from one central location. It’s much nicer to only load one web site instead of five or ten tabs. This will save you a lot of time, because you can read and send all of your messages at one time and place.
It couldn’t be much easier to add all of your accounts to your Sendible profile. All you need to do is click on the "Add/Edit Services" tab at the top and a page full of services will load for you to add to your account. Sendible supports all of the major networks.
The networks are listed in different categories, like "Status Updates and Microblogging", "Photo Sharing" (think Flickr or Facebook photo albums) and "Link Sharing" (Facebook, Typepad, Wordpress, Blogger, and more).
Sendible also adds nice little features that aren’t built-in to the native web applications. For example, Twitter messages are limited to 140 characters, but Sendible’s message box is able to split them up into multiple tweets. For those times when you can’t just keep it short, this feature comes to the rescue. Just type your full message as normal and Sendible takes care of the rest. How to Share Links with Live Automatic Preview on FacebookOne feature I particularly like about Sendible that is useful for me is the ability to post links that automatically grab a text preview of an article and post it on Facebook. This is a feature that many other services don’t provide or they do it in a limited fashion. Using Sendible’s message box to compose is intuitive and fast. You can quickly type up your message, create short links and schedule your posts all from the same page.
I can’t stress enough how being able to do it all from one box saves a lot of time. You could write an article for your blog (including images), post it, make a short link for it, then quickly mention it to your friends on Facebook and Twitter with ease, all from the same message box. And as I said before, when you post your link on Facebook, Sendible knows to grab the data from the link too:
Your Own BlogBesides being able to post to your own blog if you have one, you could also create a blog using Sendible’s own internal blog service. Your blog will be available at http://your-name.sendible.com. Although the styling choices are limited for free users, it does come with a nice minimalistic theme. You are given many settings to customize your blog, like the standard fields of blog name, blog tagline, author name, bio, and an image of yourself.
Writing a post is as easy as typing in any other blogging software. You can even schedule blog posts, just like you can schedule your status updates. Once your blog has been posted, you and everyone else can view what you write and leave comments.
Reminding & SchedulingI’m the type of guy who likes a clear mind. If I can write down something and have a machine remind me of it later, then that’s perfect. My brain needs all of the free space and energy it can get. So this is why I’m glad Sendible has a nice scheduling service built-in. It’s good to be able to jot down something in the moment, schedule a time and let it fly. Not only can you use it to schedule status updates or blog posts at a certain time, you could even use it as a personal reminder service. You can also setup recurring reminders. Another popular idea is to schedule blog posts while you’re on vacation so your readers are not left without you for the whole time.
ConclusionIf you haven’t looked at Sendible in a while, give it another try. It’s a fast and useful all-in-one service that is definitely worth your time. For power users, they offer even more features at a monthly price. Giveaway introduction
Sendible is MakeUseOf’s recommended link-sharing service on Facebook and we’d like to celebrate this review with a giveaway. Head on over to our Special Giveaway page and be in the running to win five Sendible Marketeer 1-year subscriptions worth $180 each. You can also get a 25% discount code for all subscriptions! Do you use Sendible? Do you have any tips or tricks for getting the most out of the service? Please share your knowledge in the comments below! We NEED Your Comments! Please do share your thoughts in article comments! Similar MakeUseOf Articles | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Use Crayola To Entertain Your Children Posted: 01 Apr 2010 08:31 AM PDT
Today we are going to be looking at the Crayola website and checking what they have to offer for free. To tell the truth, I came upon this website by following an ad on the back of my daughter's happy meal. They had a free offer to let you upload your photographs to their website and create coloring pages out of them. I learned that this is a premium service and it costs money. But I also discovered lots of free content!
I started by looking at the coloring pages and saw that they have well over a thousand free coloring pages to print. They even have some Disney coloring pages! Check out the categories below.
They display the featured printable at the top center of the page. But by clicking on a specific category you can narrow down what you are looking for like so:
You can then select a sub-category and eventually an image like so:
Simply click the print button to print this on a full 8 1/2 x 11 page. Then we will move on to Crayola's crafts by clicking on the craft's button on the homepage. That will take us to this screen:
There is a selection or search tool at the top of the page. This will let you narrow your search by activity, theme or product.Some Most of the items use Crayola products but you can try and substitute what you need for what you have. As an example I choose Passover from the list and returned this list:
Selecting the Passover Seder Plate took me to this page:
They show you how to explain what the significance is of the Seder plate and how to make it using Crayola Brand Model Magic – which can be substituted by another kind of modeling clay if you have it. They go on to show you how to make it with your child and how to be safe about it. So you not only get an arts & craft lesson you also get a history lesson. This is very cool. You can also just as easily find crafts for Easter. And finally we will be looking at the Games and Fun section by clicking its link on the homepage.
We will see a greeting card maker, a certificate maker and a handful of games. Let's take a look at them below. The first thing I chose from here was the card creator. Then I selected Easter as the holiday I wanted to print a card for. Then I was brought to this page:
Then simply clicking on the link to print will allow you to print a foldable Easter card! Then I moved on to the printable certificates. These are things you can print out for your little one for a job well done.
You can customize them, use pre-filled in text and more. You can then print them in color or black & white. Finally we will look at Crayola's games. They have a bunch of them that vary in difficultness for young and younger children.
Go ahead and click on one and start playing! Enjoy and favorite this page for the next rainy day. Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf fan page on Facebook. Over 15,000 fans already!
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