MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [May 30th]” plus 6 more |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [May 30th]
- Thank You To MakeUseOf Friends!
- Are you going to quit Facebook due to privacy concerns? [Poll]
- Conquer the ‘Find and Replace’ Text Tasks with wReplace
- Hot Tech Deals [May 30th]
- 10 Free MP3 Downloads of Albums EPs and Samplers [Sound Sunday]
- The 5 Best Free Benchmark Programs for Windows
| Cool Websites and Tools [May 30th] Posted: 30 May 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. MakeUseOf has teamed up with zozi to provide you (and a friend) a FREE 7-day, trip to New Zealand. Sign up now!
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| Thank You To MakeUseOf Friends! Posted: 30 May 2010 07:31 PM PDT
Thank you, guys! MakeUseOf has teamed up with zozi to provide you (and a friend) a FREE 7-day, trip to New Zealand. Sign up now!
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| Are you going to quit Facebook due to privacy concerns? [Poll] Posted: 30 May 2010 06:30 PM PDT
The poll options: On a TV held 38.1%. Next up, with 19.8% is: Download torrents to watch on a computer. Coming in third place with 11.6% was: Download torrents to watch on a TV (includes set-top DVD and DIVX players) — this is how I watch most of my TV shows. Fourth place was: I do not watch TV with 10.7% –- wow. I was not expecting such a high number of non-TV watchers! How many people do you know who do not watch TV? You can view the results after the jump, and on to today’s poll!
This week, we are asking you if you would quit Facebook due to security/privacy concerns. There has been a lot of hub bub lately surrounding some controversial moves that Facebook has made. A lot of users are planning on quitting Facebook on May 31st, 2010. Are you one of them? Do you care about Facebook's security policies? We would love to hear from you in the comments. Answer the poll below and be sure to leave a comment to have your voice heard! Our latest mega giveaway: zozi is sponsoring a FREE 7-day, wine-tasting trip in New Zealand for two. Here’s how you can sign up. Contest ends June 25th.
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| Conquer the ‘Find and Replace’ Text Tasks with wReplace Posted: 30 May 2010 03:30 PM PDT
Replacing these manually, even using a standard search-replace feature, can be tedious business. It’s doable, but a real chore. To take care of said situations where one or two substitutions aren’t enough to improve a text, mass substitution rule sets might be an option.
wReplaceAt first glance, wReplace looks and works just as a simple text editor. As such, you can also use it to write simple notes in plain text. There’s one feature that makes wReplace stand out, though; Replace Many. Many applications support some sort of find-replace functionality. Intended for heavier usage, Replace Menu allows you to substitute parts of your text using a set of find-replace rules. With the click of a mouse, you can adjust pages by pages of text. Using it to replace names, notations, or (partly) substitute alphabets.
wReplace allows you to save these rules, so you can quickly call upon them in future sessions, and also comes with a variety of rule-sets installed. Looking past those standard find-replace scenarios, we’ll take a look at just some of the things you can achieve out of the box using the default replacement rules. 1. Avoiding ‘Corrupt’ or Missing CharactersMany languages embrace so-called ‘local characters’; diacritical variations, or even additional alphabets. Although these are practically always supported on the computer of origin, by installing special language packs, the same is not always true for the recipients of that writing.
As such, you might encounter a case where some of these characters are missing. Think foreign documents, or movie subtitles. If you’ve ever seen a blank square, as depicted in the screenshot above, you should know what I’m talking about. Substituting all these special characters with plain ASCII counterparts might not be grammatically correct, but allows everyone to see what’s written. 2. Adjusting Scripts and Jumping Between Character NotationsApart from local alphabets, different script languages are known to use different character notations. For example, because in some special characters hold a special meaning in HTML, they’re usually written down as a ‘character entity’.
Some web-addresses also use special notations to replace certain characters. For instance, whitespace is automatically replaced with %20. Substitutions can save you from a tedious task of checking a document and making sure the correct notations are being used – or, in reverse, from having to ‘decipher’ said notations manually. 3. Using Morse Code and Simple Substitution CiphersAnother usage of mass character replacement allows you to convert your text to morse code or simple substitution ciphers. Mono-alphabetic substitution cipher, a form of encryption where every character is replaced with a cryptic counterpart.
Admittedly, this borders more on ‘fun’ than on ‘national security’. Mono-alphabetic ciphers have long been outdated and are easily decrypted. But it should be enough to keep a secret from a snooping co-worker. Know that you can also use the application to reverse said encryption. If you know the substitution rules, you can easily decrypt a message using mass find-replace. Of course, the possibilities of mass text replacement are close the endless, and you can create any set of rules, for any purpose. Do you know any other applications that will do this? Or any other clever uses for such a software? Let us know in the comments section below! Got Questions? Ask Them Now for FREE on MakeUseOf Answers! Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| Posted: 30 May 2010 01:30 PM PDT
For more fresh hot deals, visit our Hot Tech Deals page, which is constantly updated.
Image credit: Modified from Svengraph’s icon set Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf fan page on Facebook. Over 20,000 fans already!
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| 10 Free MP3 Downloads of Albums EPs and Samplers [Sound Sunday] Posted: 30 May 2010 12:30 PM PDT
Since the rise of the internet, making money in the music industry has become an even tougher business. Providing a free album for download is a great risk, especially for not-so-famous artists. Hence, signing up to a newsletter is only a small thank you in return for a great commitment. I hope you agree!
Spin Magazine – Campfire Jams Bonnaroo 2010Genre: sampler
Here are the MySpace links for all artists featured on the above album: The Gaslight Anthem, The National, Manchester Orchestra, Kings of Leon, Local Natives, Blitzen Trapper, Phoenix, Samantha Crain, Bomba Estéreo, Tinariwen, Mumford & Sons, Jamey Johnson, The Young Veins, Dawes, Gossip, Chromeo. Mikey Wax – The TravelerGenres: acoustic, pop, rock
Glen Phillips – Free SamplerGenres: acoustic, folk rock, pop
Chris Singleton – Twisted CityGenres: indie, rock
Chris Singleton MySpace and Homepage. Jovanos – HumanGenres: hip hop, pop
Download the album in return for your name and eMail address from Jovanos’ website. Kasha – Retro LuvGenre: rap, hip hop, lyrical
Angels and Airwaves – LoveGenre: alternative, rock
Angels and Airwaves MySpace and Homepage. Omar Rodriguez López & John Frusciante – UntitledGenres: alternative, instrumental
Omar Rodriquez López MySpace and Homepage. John Frusciante MySpace and Homepage. Smashing Pumpkins – Teargarden By Kaleidyscope 1: Songs for a SailorGenres: rock, alternative
The Smashing Pumpkins MySpace and Homepage. Bad Religion – 30 Years LiveGenres: indie, punk, rock
Request a download and receive the details in return for signing up to the Bad Religion mailing list. Bad Religion MySpace and Homepage. In the meantime, don’t hesitate to share your music with me. MakeUseOf would love to promote your work! The condition is that you offer at least one free and no strings attached MP3 download. Please eMail me the link to tina at makeuseof dot com or post it in the comments. What is your favorite style of music? NEW: Download MakeUseOf iPhone App. FREE! Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| The 5 Best Free Benchmark Programs for Windows Posted: 30 May 2010 09:17 AM PDT
That is where free benchmark testing software comes in. Downloading a free benchmark will give you a firm, objective way of judging the perform of your computer. As you make adjustments to your computer you can see just how much, or how little, your computer’s performance has changed.
SuperPi
While your computer may pack more computing power than the rocket which sent men to the moon, it is still possible to choke a computer processor using simple math, and that is what SuperPi does. SuperPi is capable of calculating Pi up to 32 million digits after the decimal point. This complex math significantly tasks your computer’s processor, and SuperPi keeps track of how quickly it takes for your computer to complete the calculation. SuperPi is focused on your processor’s speed, not the speed of other components, so it only useful when judging changes to your computer’s processors. For example, overclockers consider SuperPi to be one of the best free benchmarks around because it provides a processor-focused test which can help them judge how much extra performance their overclocking has gained them. 3DMark 06 / PCMark 05
Futuremark is a software company which offers a wide variety of computer benchmarks which are considered among the best in the world. Chances are that any review of a desktop or laptop computer you’ve ever read has, at some point, quoted 3DMark or PCMark figures in the performance section of the review. The latest versions of 3DMark and PCMark aren’t free, but older versions with limited options can be used an unlimited number of times without charge. While these benchmarks are over four years old, they are still among the best free benchmarks available. Futuremark’s benchmarks are very demanding, and there are many modern computers which will achieve very low scores when running these benchmarks. 3DMark focuses on gamers, has it only tests the power of your video card. PCMark is for more general use and tests numerous computer components. Both can be downloaded directly from the Futuremark website. Novabench
Novabench is a free benchmark testing software suite. Unlike many benchmark suites, Novabench isn’t a trial version or an older version released for free. The free version is the only version available, and it gauges multiple aspects of your computer’s performance. The Novabench benchmark tests processing speed, 2D graphics performance and hard drive read/write performance, making this a very well-rounded benchmark. It is particularly well suited for computers which are meant for a home office, as the hard drive read/write speed benchmark can help you find out if your productivity is being hurt by a hard drive which takes a long time to spin up and transfer data. Novabench does not include any 3D or video benchmarks, so multimedia users and gamers will want to try a different free benchmark. SiSoft Sandra
Sandra stands for System Analyzer, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant. It is a fully-featured benchmark suite which is aimed at users who are very well informed about the inner workings of their computers and for businesses which need to perform a detailed analysis on multiple computers. SiSoft Sandra kindly offers a free version of the software. The benchmark tests available in SiSoft Sandra are jaw-dropping. Want to test your computer’s memory bandwidth? No problem. Want to benchmark network performance? Sure. Want to benchmark your computer’s power efficiency? Yes, SiSoft Sandra does that as well. Chances are that you’ll come across one or two benchmarks in SiSoft Sandra which benchmark hardware you didn’t even know existed. Another useful feature of SiSoft Sandra is the inclusion of references. Let’s say, for example, that you decide to benchmark your processor. SiSoft Sandra will benchmark your processor and then compare your performance to five other similar processors to give you a better idea of how an upgrade may or may not help you. This is something that only SiSoft Sandra offers, and it is incredibly useful. FRAPS
One of the most popular free gaming benchmarks in existence, FRAPS is different from all of the other free benchmark software on this list because it is the only non-synthetic benchmark. Rather than putting your computer through a series of tests which are designed to judge its overall performance, FRAPS records how your computer actually performs. FRAPS does this by capturing information about how many frames per second your computer is producing while in games. A higher number of frames per second is always preferable and results in smoother gameplay. FRAPS will work with any game, from World of Warcraft to Call of Duty 4, and it is capable of both displaying your current frame rates in real-time on your screen and recording the frame rate data to a log file. FRAPS’s benchmarking functionality is completely free. FRAPS does have a paid version, but the features unlocked in the paid version of FRAPS have nothing to do with benchmarking your computer. Which to choose?The benchmark you use will depend on what you want to benchmark. FRAPS and 3D Mark06 are certainly the ones to use if you’re interested in gaming performance. NovaBench and Sandra focus more on general performance, such as processor and hard drive speed. SuperPi taxes only your processor, and is a good choice if you want to isolate your processor’s performance from all other factors. However, if you intend to benchmark everything in your computer, from processor to video card to hard drives and more, you’ll want to use all of these programs. They all provide different data which is useful in determining your computer’s overall performance. Do you benchmark your computer? Voice our your tips to keep a computer running healthily. MakeUseOf has teamed up with zozi to provide you (and a friend) a FREE 7-day, trip to New Zealand. Sign up now!
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Last week, we asked you 
The world is effectively riddled with different kinds of notations. Most countries have a score of special characters in store, and different scripts deploy different tags and notations – even if a certain bijection is existent.
If you’re in the market for a new computer, laptop, mobile phone, games and other accessories; don’t waste your time searching online. We’ve taken the liberty of locating the best tech deals and unifying them into a single post for your convenience.
This week on Sound Sunday, I searched the web for high quality, free MP3 albums, EPs, and samplers. Today’s mix includes music from some of the most influential bands still around, such as the Smashing Pumpkins and Bad Religion. But you will also discover some new voices.
One problem which occurs whenever you try to 
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