MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [April 11th]” plus 14 more |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [April 11th]
- Thank You To MakeUseOf Friends!
- Do You Use Google Wave? [MakeUseOf Poll]
- Muzic – The Best Place To Discover New Music Online
- Bannersketch – Free Web App to Create Online Banner Ads
- How to Improve SEO with 2 Simple Google Chrome Extensions
- Top Deals of the Day [April 11th]
- Dolphin Browser – Simply Better Surfing Experience on the Android
- How To Put Google Analytics to Work for You With Email Reports
- How To Optimize Your Windows Trackpad With Scrybe
- 3 Easy Ways to Integrate Quick Reference Addons into Firefox
- The iPad – The Best Device For Photographers [Mac]
- Top Deals of the Day [April 7th]
- 10 Websites That Make Browsing Wikipedia More Fun
- 6 Linux Music Players To Replace Songbird
| Cool Websites and Tools [April 11th] Posted: 11 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. Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers! Similar MakeUseOf Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Thank You To MakeUseOf Friends! Posted: 11 Apr 2010 07:31 PM PDT
It's time to say thanks to MakeUseOf’s friends who, once in a while, tip us great story ideas, help out on different projects and in some cases offer their services at discounted prices. Thank you, guys! ShrinkTheWeb – Website Screenshot Thumbnail Service
Walyou – Cool Gadgets for Geeks
PXLEyes – Photoshop Contests and Tutorials
Pair – Reliable Web Hosting
Thank you, guys! We NEED Your Comments! Please do share your thoughts in article comments! Similar MakeUseOf Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Do You Use Google Wave? [MakeUseOf Poll] Posted: 11 Apr 2010 07:00 PM PDT
 Last week, we asked you if you downloaded movies. Some of you might have been a little worried in answering. Don’t worry we are not working with the entertainment industry! Your responses were completely confidential! I know a lot of people who just download everything they want with no regards for copyright law. We learned that the majority of you feel the same way. 58% or 566 votes for “Hell yeah! I download any movie I want to watch”. In second place was “Sometimes I will but not usually” with 24% or 239 votes. Third place was held by “Nope, I will never download a copyrighted movie” with 9% or 91 votes. You can view the full vote count after the jump.
We learned that downloading movies is not illegal in Spain (that can't be right!). We also learned that some people feel very strongly about piracy, like these two users:
and
That sure is two different views! Now this week we are asking you if you use Google Wave? When Google Wave first came out everyone was scrambling to get an invite and now it has settled down to a light buzz. I have to admit I was one of the first ones using it. We used it here at MakeUseOf.com for a little while and then interest started to drop off. People did not want to check another place for messages. But isn't Google Wave supposed to replace email? What do you think? Well we want to hear from you! Your responses are important but your comments are invaluable and they give us an insight into what our readers are thinking. So please share your insights with the rest of the class. Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf fan page on Facebook. Over 15,000 fans already!
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| Muzic – The Best Place To Discover New Music Online Posted: 11 Apr 2010 06:30 PM PDT
The best way to keep up with the latest single or album releases, tour dates, and the hottest new bands are social music networks. Here is a website that focuses entirely on what’s hot right now and where to get cool new tunes for free.
Muzic
Sound good? Let’s have a look at how Muzic works. Browsing for music…When you’re not logged in the start page shows a tag cloud of “artists happening now”, i.e. artists that have a lot of free stuff out now. You can zoom over to “songs happening now” and “bloggers on our radar” by clicking the small buttons at the bottom of the tag cloud.
Muzic lets you search for artists, songs, or bloggers. But to discover new bands, “popular tags” or “songs by genre” are a better starting point.
The results page is a list of posts that match your query. Posts are created by the bloggers that provide the free MP3 downloads. Each post contains details about the song and a link back to the the site where it was posted originally.
Click on the song name to launch the song’s card, which contains some more information, as well as lists of more songs from the same blog and all songs from that artist below the card. Downloading mp3s…Once you found an interesting song, click > Get Song in its bottom left. You will be redirected to the original source. Muzic will stay with you though, as it is minimized to a small bar at the top of the page.
Now you can either download the song from the respective blog or from Muzic’s top navigation bar. If you decide for Muzic, > right-click the green > Download MP3 button and select > Save Link As… from the menu. Now select a destination and you’re ready to save the song. To return to Muzic, click the << back link in its navigation bar at the top. In case an artist uploaded a song to Muzic, you can directly download the MP3 from the respective song card. Uploaded songs can also be “previewed”, i.e. listened to in full through the Muzic player, which launches in a separate frame at the bottom of the page.
The community…When you’re logged in you can add songs to your faves, follow other listeners or artists that have uploaded songs, and update your profile.
In all honesty, the profile features and community aspects are a little underdeveloped. Unless I missed out on something important, there is no real exchange between users. You can see what others added as their faves and follow them, but that’s about it. On the other hand that isn’t too bad. After all, you’re in for the latest free music and not for even more distractions. Hungry for more free music?
What are you listening to these days? Image credits: CMSeter Do you like MakeUseOf articles! Please do share our articles with others! It’s really important to us. Similar MakeUseOf Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bannersketch – Free Web App to Create Online Banner Ads Posted: 11 Apr 2010 03:30 PM PDT
The free tool allows you to quickly and easily create online banner ads for your product, service, or whatever you’d like to promote. Everything is highly customizable and best of all, it doesn’t have to cost you a dime! Let’s get started and find out how to create your own banner ad with Bannersketch.
First off, you’ll need to choose a banner size or template. All of the standard advertising sizes are there as presets, so you can either select from those or feel free to come up with your own height and width for the banner.
In step two, a preview will be displayed above as you pick a background color or gradient. Don’t worry about the watermark. It’s just temporary and the final product will be completely branding-free, a big plus compared to other free banner generators. Select a color for the top and bottom of the banner by typing in a value or using the color picker. Be sure to hit the little green refresh icon to update the preview.
If you want more than just colors in the background, you can also use a custom background by uploading an image file of your choice. Next up are frames and text. If you want a static (not moving) banner, choose just one frame. Otherwise, more than one is a GIF animation (check out AnimationOnline: Instant Ad Banner Generator). Then select the number of lines of text you’d like.
The rest of the page is dedicated to editing the text. Start out by typing the text into the appropriate lines. On the right side, you can edit the text size and configure your shadow or outline settings. Clicking the “A” icon on the left-hand side of the entry boxes opens up the fonts window, which has a wide selection to choose from.
Next, you can edit the text colors for each line, along with adjusting the position. Just move the sliders left or right to move the text either side to side or up and down to your liking. You can then adjust the rotation of the text lines as well. Be sure to hit the “Save current settings” button at the bottom, right-hand corner when you’re finished.
Now you can move on and add a solid color border around your banner if you wish. Edit the border width, color, and save changes.
Once you’re pleased with everything, head over to the Generate tab and type in your name and email address. Bannersketch will promptly send you the banner you just generated without the watermark to download for free. Included in the email will also be a link to the banner’s HTML, forum/BB, and MySpace codes. How do you create your own online banner ads? Do you know of any other good free generators? Let us know in the comments. Image Credit: Jolante Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too. Includes cool extras. Similar MakeUseOf Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| How to Improve SEO with 2 Simple Google Chrome Extensions Posted: 11 Apr 2010 12:30 PM PDT
The best way to use these tools is to… well… use them! Then, as you are examining the data points, question the data and do your own research into their meaning. But even before that, make sure to have some clear objectives in mind that lead to a specific result. You will also want to check out the 10 common SEO mistakes that can destroy your website.
SEO Site ToolsThe first thing you may notice as you navigate to various web sites with this Google Chrome extension installed is a small green box with a number inside, this is the current Google PageRank of the website you are viewing. When you click the plugin’s icon in the toolbar you get a drop down with the following categories: External Page Data, Page Elements, Social Media, Page Terms / Tools, Server / Domain Info and Suggestions. Let's go through each in turn. External Page Data
In this section, you can get a quick overview of a web site's overall performance. Google, Bing, Yahoo Site Explorer, Alexa Data, Quantcast, SeoMoz Linkscape, DMOZ Directory, Majestic SEO and SEM Rush information is at your fingertips. Clicking on any of the data elements takes you to the source web page for that data. Page Elements
If you need technical information regarding a particular web page, this section delivers. Using the information here, you can determine how to modify the HTML and content to better optimize your page for targeted keywords. If you are new to on-site SEO, you will want to review this resource (PDF link) to best understand how to use this wealth of information to your advantage. Then keep this cheat sheet handy for the web development aspect. The Page Elements section is also useful for determining whether you should pursue the web site for a link back to your web site by examining the no-follow information. For HTML and CSS purists, there is built-in HTML and CSS validation. Social Media
The data provided here does not go too deep, but nonetheless you can get a quick snapshot that provides the basic social media exposure of a website. If you are analyzing your own web pages with this Google Chrome extension, do not take the advice the program gives you when you are not found in a particular network such as Reddit. In general, you don't want to submit your own site to a social media web site yourself. Instead, make it easy for your readers to do so by creating great content. Page Terms / Tools
This section is still in development and you will want to check out the developers website to monitor changes. In short, this section helps you with keyword research functions. There are also a few miscellaneous tools in this section that I suspect will end up in their own category over time. For example, you can test the loading time and examine the ramifications of your web site’s page size in terms of number of viewers able to view your web site correctly. Server/Domain Info
DNS, WhoIS, server type, IP address, XML sitemap and robots.txt information can be viewed here along with the information on record for the domain's owner. Suggestions
The author of the plugin has some SEO enhancement suggestions in this section that are useful for some quick web site changes you may have overlooked. Chrome SEOThe approach with this plugin is to display all of the data on one simple page for a quick understanding of the overall SEO status of a particular web page. The data is split into the following sections: Pages Indexed, Backlinks, Traffic and Rank, Bookmarks, Cached, On Site and Domain Details. Following is a quick rundown of each section. Pages Indexed
At a glance, you can view how many web pages these search engines indexed: Google, Bing, Yahoo, Ask and MajesticSEO. If you click show more you get a few more options, but as of this writing they are not active. Clicking on any of the links takes you to the source data. BacklinksHere is a list of sources that show how many web sites are linking into the web page. You can view the source of the data by clicking on the links and if you click show more you will find a few more data sources. Traffic and RankHere is a list of sites that rank web pages by some algorithm that is normally proprietary. These data points are useful to get a quick overview of the general popularity of a web site and its trend. For Alexa and Quancast, a graph is also available for a quick visual interpretation. Bookmarks
Only Delicious and Digg are integrated at the time of this writing, DMOZ and StumbleUpon are coming soon. CachedThese links are useful if you need to find an older version of the web site. On SiteHere is where you find the robots.txt and sitemap.xml files. Domain DetailsDomain and server details are here along with a link to the web site’s Whois information. KeywordsThe tab with the key symbol integrates with Google's keyword tool to help you with keyword research; however, the service is still in alpha so you may want to cross check your results.
MiscThere is also a check mark at the bottom of the plugin window, that when clicked, shows you the do-follow status of the links on the web page. ConclusionSome of the data you will find in Chrome SEO is also found in SEO Site Tools and vice versa; however, they differ enough that you will find value in using both of these tools in tandem. I personally prefer to use Chrome SEO for quick overviews of a site, and SEO Site Tools if I need to go deeper. Do you have any experience with these tools? What tools to you use to monitor SEO in Google Chrome? Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too. Includes cool extras. Similar MakeUseOf Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top Deals of the Day [April 11th] Posted: 11 Apr 2010 11:00 AM PDT
Today, you may have noticed that the list has shrunk. That’s because we launched our very own Tech Deals page! Visit it anytime to get the best deals online.
For more hot deals, visit our Tech Deals page. Image credit: Modified from Svengraph’s icon set We NEED Your Comments! Please do share your thoughts in article comments! Similar MakeUseOf Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Dolphin Browser – Simply Better Surfing Experience on the Android Posted: 11 Apr 2010 10:30 AM PDT
This is also true for your Android phone. Sure, the default browser is pretty good, but it’s still a far fetch from perfect. Overall, it’s almost too simple and has little advanced features. There are a handful of alternative mobile web browsers for the Android, but there’s only one that really stands out. Until Mozilla’s Fennec makes a leap for the Android market, the victor in features and customizability is obvious.
Dolphin BrowserFor those attached to the default Android browser, there’s a measure of reassurance. Dolphin boosts most of those features you hold dear. It’s accessible and lightning fast. Besides the most obvious, Dolphin also kept the share feature, allowing you to take something to Twitter or Delicious with a flick of a thumb. But where the default browser thinks you satisfied, Dolphin is only just getting started. Most remarkable are the seamless integration of numerous online services, multi-touch controls and the interflow website comments. Indeed, similar to StumbleUpon, you can leave or read comments on a specific website.
The very downside of the Dolphin mobile web browser is that it’s just getting started. The user interface still shows a few minor visual glitches, and doesn’t always look as professional. Though there’s nothing there to hamper with your browsing experience, or can’t be fixed by future updates. Gesture ControlsGesture controls, as seen in a number of Firefox add-ons and Chrome extensions, allows you to navigate your browser by drawing shapes symbols on the screen. There’s a list of possible actions included, for which you can choose your own gestures. Although this feature is of course optional, it can allow you to navigate smarter, and faster.
To use a gesture, click on the arrow overlay at the bottom corner of your browser to pop open the gesture screen. There, you draw one of said symbols in a long continuous gesture. And that’s it. You’ve just opened up your bookmarks, refreshed the page, or started sharing the website. Bookmarks and Social IntegrationThe start screen, typical to the Dolphin Browser, shows a number of bookmarks and bookmark-related tabs. Besides the obvious favorites, you can view a constantly refreshing overview of the most popular pages, a list of Google services, your read-it-later pages, or your Delicious bookmarks.
These last two are quite remarkable as default browser features. Read-it-later, also available by third-party for Firefox and Chrome, allows you to earmark interesting pages, and read them (again) at a later point in time. Delicious, on the other hand, is an online repository for your bookmarks. By using Delicious instead of standard bookmarks, you can keep your bookmarks constant over a number of different platform. ThemesCustomizability is a must for a lot of nerds. And not just by means of add-ons or extensions, but in a visual measure as well. Since recently, Dolphin sports different themes, and even allowing the tech-savvy folk to design their own.
What mobile web browser are you currently using on your Android, and why? Let us know in the comments section below! Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf fan page on Facebook. Over 15,000 fans already!
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| How To Put Google Analytics to Work for You With Email Reports Posted: 07 Apr 2010 04:31 PM PDT
Google Analytics remains the most popular and most powerful tool for site traffic and keyword analysis. It provides statistics about your top performing keywords, your most popular landing pages, and of course the upward or downward swing of your daily unique visitor count. Unless you keep a close eye on your site statistics, you’re going to miss out on opportunities to capitalize on any sudden changes in visitor behavior.
Today, I’d like to show how you can generate scheduled Google Analytics email reports and alerts for your statistics. Furthermore, if you generate these reports for a client or for your boss, I’ll also show you how to integrate that report into an automated Gmail template that will take you a fraction of the time to create than it would if you did it by hand, sifting through Google Analytics yourself. Setting Up Google Analytics Email ReportsIn this example, we’re going to look at two metrics – the number of daily unique visitors you receive and your top performing keywords. In this hypothetical situation, you want to receive a report every week that details historic data up to today. To get started, you’ll need to create a custom report, which you can do from your Google Analytics dashboard, clicking on Custom Reports.
Once you have a few going, you’ll see your custom reports listed in the right pane. I have a few already, but I’m going to step through the process of creating a new one below. In the upper right part of this window, click on “Create new custom report.”
In the report editor, you can pick and choose which dimensions and metrics you want to report on. For unique visitors and top performing articles, just move Page Title into the first dimension area and then Unique Visitors for a metric. If you would like to add other metrics about each page that you’d like to see included in the report, this is the place to add them. Just click “Save Report” and your custom report is ready to go! Configuring Email Notifications In Google AnalyticsOnce you’ve got your report set up, it’s time to configure the email notifications and how often you’d like the report to be generated.
Once you’re done configuring your report display, go back to the report view and then click on the “Email” button at the top of the chart display.
Now, every week (or whatever interval you’ve set for the report), Google Analytics will run the report and send it off to your email in whatever format you set (PDF, XML, CSV or TSV).
Depending on the format you select, your data will look different. If you want to have the closest representation of the Analytics report (which most managers will like to see), then select the PDF format. The attachment will look like this.
In these cases, you can just configure your email filters to route the reports to your manager (see below). In other cases where you need to sift through and manipulate the numbers, it’s best to stick with other formats like CSV. Setting Up Email AlertsAnother useful feature in Analytics that can be very helpful with automating your statistical analysis is the Email Alerting feature. This feature will email you any time your traffic (or other metric you specify) changes significantly. To set them up, from your dashboard, click on “Intelligence” under the Customizations section.
These alerts are extremely flexible, letting you monitor the most important metrics for your site – the flexibility of this feature is really only limited by how you want to use it. Monitoring traffic is one thing, but consider monitoring things like the average time a visitor spends on the site, revenue levels or the number of visitors from a particular city or region of the world.
Alerts for sudden increases in traffic can also help you identify particular articles or webpages on your site that triggered some buzz, which you can try to capitalize on to get visitors to visit other areas of your site, or turn that increased visitor rate into higher conversions. Whatever your goal, email notifications will help you avoid missing the boat. Set Up A Gmail Filter To Re-Route Your Google Analytics Email ReportsWant to save even more time and completely automate the process? Just configure your email client filter to route the reports to your manager or clients. In Gmail, the process is easy enough. Your Analytics reports all have a subject that starts with “Analytics” and then your Google Analytics profile name. So in my case, FreeWriterCenter has a subject line of “Analytics freewritingcenter.com.” The first step is to go into Gmail and click on “create filter” to set up your new filter to handle these incoming Analytics reports.
If you don’t already know, you can specify only the first section of the subject line for these emails by making use of the “*” wildcard character.
Finally, configure the incoming report emails to go directly to the email address (or addresses) for your clients or your boss. Also, set the incoming reports to immediately archive so they don’t clog up your inbox. If you want to configure the report emails to include comments – you would do so when you set up the scheduled emails, where there is a field for “Description” which will form the body of the forwarded emails. By automating the distribution of your Google Analytics data, you’ll be sure never to forget to examine your site statistics again, and you’ll always remember to submit your weekly or monthly analysis about site traffic and other stats. The information won’t do anyone any good just sitting in Google Analytics, so configure your email notifications today and start making use of that information! Do you use Analytics email notifications to automate your reporting or for any other perpose? Share your own ideas in the comments section below. Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf fan page on Facebook. Over 15,000 fans already!
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| How To Optimize Your Windows Trackpad With Scrybe Posted: 07 Apr 2010 02:31 PM PDT
For laptop users, the Windows trackpad is one of the vital components that will determine the quality of your computer using experience. That’s why Apple put so much attention in improving their trackpad’s usability. But the story is a little bit different in the land of Windows. Most non-Apple notebooks don’t come with multi-touch gestures feature. You need third-party applications to enable it (and the applications might not work with every hardware).
Starting Out With ScrybeScrybe is the application that will enable two-finger scroll – and more – in most non-Apple notebooks. Before you can download this app, you have to register first. The installation is also not straight to the point; you will be asked to upgrade the recent Synaptic driver on your computer with the latest version before Scrybe can be installed (and to avoid conflict, you might want to disable other Windows trackpad modification apps before installing Scrybe.) Then after all the hoops, you will find your installations sitting quietly in the taskbar.
Installing this app will give you the ability to do two finger scrolling – up and down and also left and right the pages. To adjust the speed of the scrolling, right-click the trackpad icon on the Taskbar and choose “Pointing Device Properties“.
Go to the “Wheel” tab and set “The following number of lines at a time” to your preferences. For me, the most comfortable setting is the lowest number available: 1.
Scribbling With ScrybeBut two finger scrolling is not the only thing that you will get from Scrybe. This app allows you to quickly open applications or go to an URL just by doing the “Three-finger tap” and then scribbling on the trackpad. Scrybe comes with a great number of pre-set gestures, but you can add more according to your needs. Right-click the Scrybe icon on the Taskbar and choose “Scrybe Control Panel“.
The Control Panel window will open. Click on the green “Plus” sign (+).
This time, the “New Gesture” window will open. Give a name to this new gesture that you are about to create, choose what type of gesture it is (“Visit Website” or “Launch Application“), and set the action. If you choose “Visit Website“, you have to write down the address of the site, but if you choose “Launch Application“, you have to tell Scrybe the location of the app.
Before clicking the “OK” button to create the new gesture, you have to select one symbol to represent the action. Click on the small arrow below the blue “Symbol” box and choose one from the many available symbols.
There are enough symbols available to represent any action that a normal people could think of, but it would be better if users are allowed to create their own symbols. After you create the new gesture, it will appear on the “Favorites” tab. Rinse and repeat the process to create more actions.
The default search engine used by Scrybe is Google. If you want to change this into something else, click the “Preferences” button. The Scrybe Preferences window is the place to customize the search engine – and a few other little things.
Now is the time to see Scrybe in action. Tap three of your fingers on the trackpad and the input display will appear along with hints to several popular gestures.
Draw the gestures on the trackpad, and the action will be performed the moment you pull your finger off the trackpad. If the action is successful, you will see a confirmation window popping out from the Taskbar.
For the list of available gestures, you can click the “Gesture List” button from the “Scrybe Control Panel” window. The list will be opened in the default browser.
Several AfterthoughtsAfter playing around with Scrybe for a while with the Windows trackpad, I personally think that this app could boost productivity in using a non-Apple notebook. Please note that this app might not work for some models. And being the product of Synaptic, I guess Scrybe would work best using Synaptic hardware (but I can’t confirm that since I tried the app using only one notebook). If you are using a notebook yourself, why don’t you try the app and share your findings using the comments below. Image credit: Scrybe Similar MakeUseOf Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 3 Easy Ways to Integrate Quick Reference Addons into Firefox Posted: 07 Apr 2010 12:31 PM PDT
We are unable to store all the information we process daily in our minds. Or even if we can actually store it, it is impossible to retrieve it quickly. Therefore quick (online) reference sources are such frequent destinations for people of all professions and areas of expertise. This post looks at three ways to quicker access some popular online reference sources in Firefox:
1. LookItUpLookItUp is a feature-rich Greasemonkey script that allows you to access multiple reference sources with one click of a mouse:
Here are a few most useful shortcuts available:
Naturally, you can add any reference sources or change the shortcuts from the script option accessed by going to : Tools -> Greasemonkey -> User Script Commands -> LookItUp settings: There you can:
Similar FireFox addon: Wikilook is a Wikipedia and Wiktionary look-up tool that defines words for you without the need to open new tabs or windows. 2. Google Search SidebarThis Greasemonkey script shows Wikipedia search results each time you search for something on Google. Wikipedia entries are displayed in the right-hand panel.
There are other FireFox addons that do pretty much the same:
3. Inline Google DefinitionsGoogle definitions aggregate information from multiple reference sources and glossaries, therefore it is so useful to have them to hand. Luckily there’s a FireFox addon that integrates Google definitions in Firefox and does it without adding any clutter. Inline Google Definitions: with it, you can access Google definitions via the right-click context menu. Just select any term, right-click and select “Inline Definitions“, a tiny window appears listing all the definitions (I wish there was an option to open links to the definition sources in a new tab):
A similar addon: Define FireFox addon allows you to search the definition of the highlighted text at Google (but opens the search results in the new tab). Do you use any hacks to quickly access your favorite reference sources? Please share them with us! Image Credits: storyvillegirl Similar MakeUseOf Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The iPad – The Best Device For Photographers [Mac] Posted: 07 Apr 2010 11:31 AM PDT
So here are some ways I'm thinking we photographers can use the iPad.
iPad Photography – Slideshow ProductionsFor both personal and professional photography, the iPad is stunning. Most of us have no doubt seen the commercials featuring the Photos app on the iPad, but what I didn't realize until I bought it is that, unlike with the iPhone and iPod touch, you can add background music to the slideshows created on the iPad. When you select a folder of images for your show, simply click the Slideshow button and then choose Music, where you can select a song from your music library.
As with the iPhone and iPod touch, you can also go into Settings and change the default settings for your slideshows. You can set how long you want each slide to play, the order photos are presented, and if you want the slideshow to repeat.
Picture FrameAnother surprise for me is that you can start a slideshow without unlocking the iPad. Click the Picture Frame button at the button of the screen and a slide begins.
Open Settings, and you can select options for the type of transition you want to use for the slideshow (Dissolve or Origami), which sets of photos you want to display (All, Albums, or Events), and how you want photos presented (shuffled or non-shuffled). To take full advantage of these settings, you will need to have some preparation in your iPhoto application. I'll go into more detail about that in an upcoming article.
With the great high quality screen resolution of the iPad, you can easily show photos to friends and clients. While there’s no background music when using the Picture Frame, the slides do repeat until you stop it. Upload & ShowWhile the iPad doesn't have a camera, you can purchase Apple's Camera Connector or SD Card Reader to transfer images from your camera to the iPad. From there you can use one or more iPhone or iPad image editing applications to enhance your photos and prepare them for showing. The iPad will accept both RAW and JPEG images. Customize Wallpaper & Lock Screen ImageThe iPad comes with some really great wallpaper images, but shutterbugs and professional photographers will surely want to use their own images. There are a couple of ways to set your custom images. Open Settings, click on Brightness & Wallpaper, and then click Wallpaper. In the next screen, select an image in your library of saved photos. From there, you can select to add the image as your Wallpaper or Lock Screen image or for both. You can also select a photo in the Photos app, click the top-right arrow button and then select Use as Wallpaper from the pop-up menu.
You'll probably want to select an image that looks great in both vertical and horizontal view. Scrapbook & Graphic DesignersYou scrapbookers and graphic designers will no doubt want to design your own wallpaper and lock screen images. The pixel resolution size of the display is 1024×768, and a roughly 4:3 aspect ratio. Keynote PresentationsFor more advanced slide show features, you'll want to download Apple's Keynote application, optimized for the iPad. After installing the program, you can import your existing Keynote presentations to the iPad and run them using the mobile version.
Photo & VideoI'm pretty sure that the next update of Apple's iLife program will feature options for optimizing video productions specifically for the iPad, but there's no reason why you can’t use iMovie and iDVD or similar programs to create a mix of moving and still image productions to display on the iPad.
Instructional VideosSpeaking of videos, the iPad, like the iPhone and iPod touch, is the best device for helping us photographers learn our craft. Use the iPad to store instructional videos, ebooks, and notes about photography techniques. Check out my MUO article 6 Digital Photography Websites With Free Tutorials, and a similar MUO article by Jim Henderson, 5 Websites to Learn a LOT More About Photography & DigiCams. If you're a photographer, let us know your plans for using the iPad. Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too. Includes cool extras. Similar MakeUseOf Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top Deals of the Day [April 7th] Posted: 07 Apr 2010 11:10 AM PDT
Today, more netbooks and laptops, LCDs, TVs, refurbished iPods, BlackBerry deals and free iPhone apps.
Freebies
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| 10 Websites That Make Browsing Wikipedia More Fun Posted: 07 Apr 2010 10:31 AM PDT
Wikipedia is social web at its finest and freest. As Wikipedia co-founder and promoter Jimmy Wales had said long back – “Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That’s what we’re doing.” Wikipedia is also being increasingly used and cited by schools, colleges and scholars. So, let me also ask you here – how do you use Wikipedia? Not for what, but how exactly do you browse through it?
Wikipedia at 15,000,000 articles in more than 270 languages is an ocean of information. Just like there are different ways to catch a fish, there are also different ways to angle for the information that's there. Throw a line in Wikipedia with these ten websites and see if they make browsing Wikipedia more fun, easy or just different. WikiMindMap
If you are familiar with mindmaps, you will know that they are useful for getting a helicopter view of any topic, especially if it's a complex one. Some articles in Wikipedia are just that intensive. WikiMindMap brings the diagrammatic relationship of mindmap to Wiki content. The central topic is in the center and directly related topics linked around it on the first level. Clicking on the text takes you to the Wikipedia entry. Clicking on the green arrows brings you to the next level. There are also links which take you to external resources. VisWiki
We have covered it earlier when it went by the name of VisualEncyclopedia. Since then, they have added more categories. But the same visually intuitive way to browse and read Wikipedia information has remained. It also has the Wikipedia content followed by a 'related to' mindmap diagram. What you might like about VisWiki are the direct links to relevant YouTube, Flickr, Google Maps etc straight from the Wikipedia content you are reading. Video on Wikipedia
Getting video on Wikipedia can only make it more complete. Wikipedia based Navify was about video links and comments. When I checked, the site seemed to be down. So, that's why I went on to Video on Wikipedia which is trying to advance the cause of getting videos on Wikipedia. The submissions are forwarded to Wikipedia. All this goes to show that as promised, we will see a lot more articles loaded with videos. Qwika
Qwika is a Wikipedia search engine straight up. But it not only searches Wikipedia but also other wikis. The homepage says that it searches 21,964,380 articles in 1,158 wikis. Qwika also searches wikis across 12 languages which you can select from the dropdown. The search results from other language wikis are translated to the language chosen in the dropdown. There's also a Qwika toolbar for Firefox and IE. Clusty Wikipedia
Clusty is a Wikipedia search engine that groups search results into clusters after it does its meta-search. Clusters helps to organize thousands of search results into more organized groups or topics. Clusty also searches through Wikipedia. You can check out the clusters on the left side of the page. You can expand the clusters by clicking on the little red icon. Clicking on Remix reveals the other submerges topics. Searching for more search engines? Read 4 Search Engines to Search Wikipedia the Pro Way Simple English Wikipedia
Simple English Wikipedia is a good resource for less intensive searches. Children, non-English speakers, adults with learning difficulties, and first timers to Wikipedia can give this simpler version of Wikipedia a read. Though the total number of content (59,566) is less than the standard version, the easier uncomplicated usage of words makes it a great introductory tool. Ten Word Wiki
If you are searching for a Wikipedia app that's even simpler, go to Tenwordwiki.com. This site helps you to find our facts and meanings in scraps that aren't lengthier than ten words. You can think of it as the Twitter equivalent of Wikipedia. Tenwordwiki.com shows you that sometimes briefness can also be the soul of information. Sometimes with a pinch of humor. Here's a brief description that's a bit longer than ten words. Okawix
We have covered this previously, but just to remind you – Okawix is a great starting point to download the whole content of Wikipedia, with or without images, so that you can browse it offline. You can download it for Windows, Mac and Linux. You can also choose to go the torrent way. Okawix lets you choose the language among the 253 it supports. The great thing is that you can not only download the 6GB of Wikipedia but also bundle it with its sister sites like Wikisource, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikibooks etc. There are four other ways to take Wikipedia offline. Wikipedia Game
Wikipedia is not only about barrages of hyperlinked information. It can give you a bit of a break in between all your Wikipedia research. You are given a random word at the beginning (e.g. Portmanteau) and a final article as an end goal (e.g. Tokyo). Your job is to go from the first article to the last, clicking as few links as possible. That sounds like it could do something to our fun quotient as well as our intelligence one. Wikipaths is a similar game based on Wikipedia but as a Greasemonkey Firefox add-on.
Clicking on this Wikipedia link takes you to a list of all public mailing lists that you can subscribe to. The most useful mailing list you can subscribe to lets you get the Wikipedia article of the day, every day in your inbox. You also get mentions of a few selected anniversaries as well as the word of the day from Wiktionary and the Quote Of The Day from Wikiquote. Think of these ten addresses as different kinds of agents who go about gathering Wikipedia information differently. Dive into our past archives of posts on Wikipedia and you will get a few more. They all show one thing – the ocean of information that's Wikipedia is constant, but the way we navigate through it can change in many ways. Tell us if you depart from the beaten track while trawling through Wikipedia. We NEED Your Comments! Please do share your thoughts in article comments! Similar MakeUseOf Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 6 Linux Music Players To Replace Songbird Posted: 07 Apr 2010 09:31 AM PDT
I mean, come on: this news is about as ridiculous as VLC claiming to be bought out by Real Networks, isn’t it? But then Songbird users saw the date on the post in question: April 2, 2010. This is no joke. As you can imagine, Linux Songbird users aren’t happy. Judging by the hundreds of baffled, angry and just plain confused comments beneath the aforementioned blog post, many of them are now looking for alternative Linux music players to switch to.
Rhythmbox
If you’re a Gnome user, you’ve seen Rhythmbox before. It’s the default player on all Gnome systems, including Ubuntu and if you used to be a Songbird user, you’ve probably gave up on Rhythmbox to start using it. That was a mistake. Rhythmbox is a no-nonsense Linux music players that indexes your music and gives you fast access to it. It comes with two built-in music stores, and with Ubuntu 10.04 later this month it will also give you access to the Ubuntu One music store. It can access iTunes shares over a network (although it sometimes needs to play catch-up with iTunes to support the latest version) and comes with a built-in Last.fm tracker and player. All this and it supports podcasts. Now’s a good time to give Rhythmbox a second chance. This lightweight music player, modeled on iTunes, comes with a very familiar interface for Songbird users, albeit without the skin. You might like it. Heck, it even works with the iPod—that’s something that hasn’t been true of Songbird for a while. Odds are you already have Rhythmbox; if not, find it in your package manager or read more at Rhythmbox’s website. Amarok
Some consider Amarok the best music player on the planet. While that may be a stretch, this QT4-based player is certainly worth checking out. The default player on most KDE systems, Amarok does come with its share of bells and whistles: Last.fm integration, a couple of music stores, Wikipedia and lyric viewer built in and more. Add your music to the library and Amarok will quickly create a database for you. You can also browse by file, if that’s more your cup of tea. Anything you can do with Rhythmbox can be done here, so far as I can tell; this is the go-to KDE music player. Installing Amarok on Linux is as simple as finding it in your package manager, or you can read more about/download Amarok here. ClementineMost KDE applications underwent significant changes when KDE 4 came out, and Amarok is no exception. Anyone who used Amarok 3 or 4 years ago no doubt hardly recognizes the above screenshot, but they might find this one familiar:
But this isn’t Amarok; it’s Clementine. You see, a lot of people didn’t like what Amarok turned into for KDE 4, so they found the source code for the old Amarok. They made Clementine, which is basically Amarok 1.4 ported to work with modern KDE systems. If you remember using Amarok 4 years ago and loved it, this is the music player you’re looking for. Clementine’s an amazingly efficient QT4 music player. The interface can take some getting used to if you never used Amarok 1.4, but once you do, you may never want to use another music player. There’s a reason people worked to bring back the old Amarok after the new one came out, and it’s not that the new one is terrible: it’s that the old one was really, really good. If enough people were passionate enough about it to bring it back, it’s worth you giving it a shot if you don’t find the current Amarok to your tastes. You won't find Clementine in your package manager, but you will find plenty of packages for the program over at Clementine's webpage. MPD (and various clients)There’s a good chance that, after the bloat and many features of Songbird, you’re looking for a music player that’ll just play music. This is that player. It’ll take some time to set up, but once you get MPD and its various clients operational you’ll never want to use anything else. It uses the same client-server model I described in an article about Bittorrent client Deluge. Explaining how to get started with MPD could be an entire article in itself, but if you want a quick idea of what’s required why not check out this page on the MPD Wiki. Banshee
Banshee’s a lot like Rhythmbox, but prettier. A pretty interface isn’t all you can expect from Banshee, however: it features a video library in addition to its music library and the ability to transfer those videos to your iPod (the only Linux player that can do this). You’ll find all the Linux standards here, including Last.fm capability and podcast management. The differences between Rhythmbox and Banshee are subtle and don't lend themselves well to explanation; it's best to just try both out. Install Banshee using your package manager or read more about it here. Gudyadequ
A lot of people mentioned this project in the comments section of the Songbird post, so I thought I’d mention it. Gudyadequ is a relatively new music player being developed by the good folks at UbuntuForums. It’s pretty basic right now, but it’s also pretty fast because of this. The interface takes some getting used to, but you'll probably like it if you're a fan of tabbed layouts. You won’t find Gudyadequ in your package manager, but you can download it at SourceForge pretty easily. Check it out. OthersIf this isn’t enough choice, check out Damien's article about 5 great alternative Linux music players. You'll be annoyed when you see it includes Songbird, but there are some great programs there that I've left out, including the excellent Audacious. ConclusionThe news about Songbird sucks, but there are plenty of alternatives to Songbird on the Linux platform. What you decide to use is up to you, but I hope this article gives you a starting point to finding an alternative. It’s also worth noting that if Clementine started using the old source code for Amarok, a community might well take the existing Songbird code and start their own player based on it. So don’t give up hope. Linux Songbird faithful: this phoenix may yet rise from the ashes, and MakeUseOf will let you know if it does. What do you guys think? Is the Songbird news terrible to you, or are you excited to try out some different Linux music players? Would you be interested in a third-party Linux version of Songbird? What’s your music player of choice? As always, the comments below belong to you, so make use of them! Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf fan page on Facebook. Over 15,000 fans already!
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