MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [April 30th]” plus 9 more |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [April 30th]
- The 5 Toughest Tech Questions [MakeUseOf Answers]
- How Do Social Networks Make Money? [In Case You Were Wondering]
- Morguefile Makes Finding & Cropping Images For Your Blog Posts Easy
- Hot Tech Deals [April 30th]
- 3 Free Doodling Apps For The iPad [Mac]
- 10 Web Tools To Try Out Sentiment Search & Feel the Pulse
- How To Use No-CD Cracks To Play Your Games Easier
- Post To Wordpress From Anywhere With WpToGo [Android]
- How To Automate Bookmark Syncing With Delicious, RSS & Firefox
| Cool Websites and Tools [April 30th] Posted: 30 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. Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Do share our articles with others! It’s really important to us. Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| The 5 Toughest Tech Questions [MakeUseOf Answers] Posted: 30 Apr 2010 06:31 PM PDT
Before I present you the toughest questions however, it’s time to announce the winner of our Best Answer of the Week contest. This week we picked 0ron for his answer to “Why do I need RAW if I can open JPEG in Photoshop Camera RAW?“, which was also a best question last week. Congratulations 0ron and thank you so much to everyone else for your efforts and great answers!
Here is your chance to get started by providing a great answer to one of our toughest questions:
You can browse questions by Latest Questions, Unanswered Questions or Most Popular Questions. For regular updates, subscribe to the Answers RSS Feed. Need help? Ask us at MakeUseOf Answers! It’s free and anyone can use it without having to sign up. Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras. Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| How Do Social Networks Make Money? [In Case You Were Wondering] Posted: 30 Apr 2010 04:31 PM PDT
The short answer is that they don’t, not on their own at least – at first. There are a few different ways social networking sites earn money, with more on the horizon. This article aims at uncovering a few of these methods and answering the questions that many of us are asking.
Venture Capital
Facebook is a great example of this. We already know how Facebook originated and how it works, but how does it make money? It all started with venture capital (VC). The same goes with Twitter. Twitter and Facebook have each raised several million dollars in venture capital. The goal is to either monetize the company or sell it to a large corporation for an even bigger profit. Monetizing can prove difficult, which leads me to my next revenue stream. Advertising & E-CommerceAdvertising is what most people would consider the number one way that social networks make money. After all, they have millions of users. That’s millions of eyeballs wandering around their website. Why wouldn’t advertisers want to get in on those views?
It’s true. The most common way for websites to generate revenue is to allow companies to advertise on the site. Web advertising is still an emerging market. Because of the millions of users on a social networking site, advertisers might be willing to pay more for an ad on a social network.
Twitter recently had their developer conference called Chirp. At the conference, they discussed various ways to monetize the website, most notably by harnessing advertising power. Their thinking is that since users already use the site to get product recommendations and companies already use it to promote their products, customers may want to buy products directly from Twitter through e-commerce. We’ll see how their plans pan out in the upcoming months. Offering Premium Options
While some social networks are completely free, others might offer a premium option to its users in an attempt to earn some money. LinkedIn, for example, has a premium package for job seekers. All of your networking options are free with LinkedIn, but if you want special privileges you have to sign up for one of their premium options.
For sites that incorporate applications and services into the community, a developer fee can help generate revenue as well. Creative Products & PromotionsBecause of the difficulty of monetizing a social network, websites are forced to come up with creative ways to earn revenue. The best example of this is Facebook Gifts.
Facebook Gifts allows users to send virtual (as in not real) gifts to their friends that appear on the recipient’s profile. The cost of a gift is $1.00 and you can add a personalized message to it. Genius. What’s In Store For The Future?So aside from the common ways of earning money, I thought I would get into what I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot of in the near future. Since no one (even me) can predict the future, we do not know what creative and ingenious ideas/technologies will come to fruition regarding social networks. What I can tell you is that a lot of what is created will come from an invaluable resource that social networks possess: our data. Monetizing Our Data
“Data is just as likely to be as big a piece of the business equation as advertising. Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and Twitter already possess billions of pieces of useful data that can infer so much about what’s happening – and what’s going to happen – in consumer society.” ~ Forbes The data that social networks have accumulated is potentially very valuable. By aggregating this relationship data and making it anonymous, communities can find third-parties willing to pay for it. It will be important that the sold information doesn’t invade anyone’s privacy, but that’s an entirely different issue. So long as the data contains our wants, needs, likes, dislikes, and interests, its value cannot yet be measured. The sky is the limit! ConclusionI hope this gives you a sense of where social networks are and where they’re going. There is no doubt in my mind that with the adoption of upcoming technologies (like geo-location) social networks are going to be even more attached to our daily activities and routines. There is a lot of money to be made, which I think venture capitalists and entrepreneurs realize. What is your take on all this? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below! Image Credit: kwod, lusi, Lucretious Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers! Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| Morguefile Makes Finding & Cropping Images For Your Blog Posts Easy Posted: 30 Apr 2010 02:31 PM PDT
The photographers may enjoy some recognition but the creative license does not require it. So basically you can search the database of free images, modify them how you want, and use them in any way you want. The only thing you can’t do is resell them in their current form.
Morguefile makes finding the proper photo for the job very simple because of the search bar in the upper right corner of the page.
This way you can narrow down the type of photo you are looking for. Once you find the photo you want, and you click on it, you are brought to the photo’s page. All of the normal options are still there, like downloading the photo, reading information about the photo, and commenting on the photo. The area we are concerned about that makes the blogger’s life so much easier is the “Crop and post” link.
Clicking that link will make a selection box appear over the photo.
This is where the magic happens. You can re-size the selection box to crop any portion of the photo that you want. You can also move the scale back and forth changing the size of the finished picture. If you know the exact size you want the picture to be, you can check the “lock size” box and then re-size the selection box and the finished picture will still remain the size you locked it at. When you get it to where you want it, it is time to click “Finish.” You will then be brought to a page with several options for sharing the cropped image.
Notice that you have the option to share the direct link to the image using the shortened URL they give you. You can also grab the HTML for embedding the image and let them host the actual file for you. The third option, which is not as obvious but is the one I choose, is to save the photo and upload it manually. This can be a good option because you have control of the file and if Morguefile ever goes out of business (heaven forbid), the photo doesn’t disappear from your blog. To save the image, simply right-click on it and choose to “Save image as…“or whatever your browser says that is similar.
Before I always had to either download the whole image and do my own formatting or use a screen capture tool and capture the part of the photo that I wanted. Both of those methods are more of a hassle than Morguefile’s “Crop and post” feature. They basically do it all for you. How do you find imagesimages for blogs for your blog (try these 5 Free Websites for Quality Copyright Free Photographs)? When you find them, what method do you use for formatting them so they can be used? We NEED Your Comments!!! Please do share your thoughts in article comments. Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| Posted: 30 Apr 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 17,000 fans already!
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| 3 Free Doodling Apps For The iPad [Mac] Posted: 30 Apr 2010 12:31 PM PDT
Here are the ones I've discovered. I examined them based on ease of use, included features, and the smoothness of their brushes and other tools.
Draw For iPad [iTunes link]Draw is simple and aptly named, and is among the best free doodling software I have tested. The one single and unique feature that Draw has are undo and redo buttons as part of its menu bar. I examined both free and paid sketch iPad apps and most of them don't have these simple editing buttons. In some other apps, if you make a mistake, you have to clear the entire slate and start again.
The other features of Draw include simple little game templates for Tic-tac-toe, an ABC word game, and dots. The simple drawing feature includes nine different color pencils. The line brushes are smooth and the collection of pencils remain in the menu bar for easy accessibility.
You can save drawings to your Saved Images folder in the iPad's Photo app. You can also email or share sketches through Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. One other unique feature is the ability to tweet your sketches to your Twitter account. You can't change the stroke size of the pencils and there is no vector art included, but for a simple free sketch pad, Draw serves its purpose pretty well. Draw it! FREE [iTunes link]If you're wanting an app that is about as simple and straight forward as Draw, then Draw It might fit your needs. It doesn't have the advanced features that Draw has, but you can change the size and colors of the brush strokes. You can also change the background color or add a photo from your Photos collection.
The export options for Draw it include emailing and saving sketches to your Saved Images folder. There is no undo button. It says to shake your device in order to erase, but that didn't work for me. Plus, shaking the iPad is not like shaking the iPhone or iPod touch. Comparatively, it's like lifting weights. So the “shake to undo” option is not a good one for the iPad. That's pretty much it for Draw It. It's not a robust app, but it's simple and direct to use. Adobe Ideas 1.0 [iTunes link]When Adobe produces an app for the iPad and it's free, there's little reason not to download it. Adobe Ideas also contains the similar tools described above, but the strokes of its varied colored brushes ends up much smoother than the other two apps. When you're drawing and writing with the brush, the lines appear jagged but after you lift your finger the lines and strokes smooth out.
Adobe Ideas also contains a move tool, but instead of moving around individual paintings, it moves the entire canvass, creating more room. Its other menu features include the ability to layer drawings, similar to how you use layers in Photoshop, and to import a photo as a background layer onto the canvas. It includes an eraser tool but no delete or clear all tool. And like the other apps you can save projects within the app or email them. There's no option to post projects to your Twitter or Facebook account.
This is the initial version of this app, and no doubt Adobe will be adding more features in the near future. For now, it's a useful free drawing tool for the paper-plus size screen of the iPad. That's it for free sketch pad apps for the iPad. There are several other paid apps ranging from .99 cents to $7.99. For free, the above apps are adequate for most general users' needs. They're great for quick simple handwritten notes, doodling, and letting your children sketch and paint on your iPad. As with many iPad apps in the App Store, apps are being updated to deal with bugs and other issues, but overall I found these free apps pretty stable. None of them of crashed on me. Let us know in the comments which app you prefer. NEW: Download MakeUseOf iPhone App. FREE! Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| 10 Web Tools To Try Out Sentiment Search & Feel the Pulse Posted: 30 Apr 2010 11:31 AM PDT
Sentiment analysis or opinion mining has long been a part of data analysis. Surveys and polls are the old world tools for measuring the pulse of the crowd. Web 2.0 brought in the flood. Those little thumbs up or thumbs down icons you see next to a web entry are sentiment capturing tools. Recommendation websites where you get to catch the review of a latest movie or a restaurant are spread right across the internet.
Because sentiment search can flesh out a general idea of what's good or bad about something. It can give us a springboard to dive deeper into the reasons behind those emotions. It also gives us another tool to make sense of the informational chaos that's around us. So, let's try out some sentiment search tools and see if we can catch the moods. Rankspeed
We kick off our list with Rankspeed. Rankspeed collects results from the blogosphere and Twittersphere based on keywords and sentiments. Sentiments are also keywords such as 'Good', 'Excellent', 'Useful'…or any other emotional indicator you can think of. Negative keywords like 'Worse', 'Sucks', 'Problem', can also be entered to filter out the bottom of the barrel results. Results are expressed as percentages matching the sentiments. After the results are displayed, you can further refine it by each keyword (i.e. sentiment), by a time period, or by relevance. SocialMention
SocialMention searches social media outlets like blogs, Digg, Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook, YouTube, Google and a lot more. It allows you to track and collect the real time buzz on your topic of interest. SocialMention searches through blogs, comments, social bookmarks, videos, audios, Q&A sites. You can choose the kind of search to conduct and even select the social media source to target. The results can be broken down by sentiments, strength, passion, and reach. Sentiments are also indicated by little colored circles next to the results. Other tracking filters include – Sources, Top Users, Top Hashtags, and Top Keywords. Power users can set up email alerts and also download the results in a CSV/Excel file. CrowdEye
CrowdEye (Beta) is a real time social search engine that's based on Twitter. As it has access to Twitter's own Firehose of data feeds, results are accurate and real time. What's of interest to sentiment searchers is the Sentiment filter tucked on the sidebar. Though, it does not show the share of the positive or negative sentiment, you can filter it with a click on either Positive Boost or Negative Boost. You can also filter the tweets according to location and then see it as a whole with the sentiment boosters. Twitter Sentiment
Twitter Sentiment started its life as a Natural Language Processing project at Stanford University. The site's About page goes into the details of the science behind the engine. Twitter Sentiment takes a keyword and returns the sentiment analysis in the form of positive-negative graphs and real time tweets colored in green, red, and white for positive, negative and neutral sentiments. One really useful feature is that you can save the result using your Google account and track it over time. Tweetsentiments
Tweetsentiments probably gives you the most comprehensive chart based look at the sentiments that flow with tweets. Tweetsentiments uses Natural Language Processing and works it around a lot of visualization tools like a maps, Google Earth, and graphs. The Analyze page of Tweetsentiments lets you examine the emotional health of a user or a topic. You can also allow it access to your Twitter account and see how you are doing on the positive-negative scale . WhatDoesTheInternetThink
WhatDoesTheInternetThink.net is like one of those flash Gallup polls that tap into public opinion. The web tool searches the internet for the global opinion on what the world thinks. It takes your search term and returns results as Positive, Negative or Indifferent. The tool searches the web using Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Twitter. How exactly the whole thing works is not clear, so do take the results with a pinch of salt. TweetFeel
TweetFeel is probably the best looking of all the sentiment analysis search engines on this list. And it's slick too. TweetFeel says that the whole point of the web app is to simplify sentiment search and present it in a fun and engaging way. That's why it's not meant for rigorous search. Do a search on the site and you might like their fun sentiment. RaveRants
RaveRants also takes a simple approach with Twitter sentiments. Your search results are separated by how many rave about it and how many rants it gets. You can also pour in your sentiment to the stream. Jodange
Jodange is not a search engine. But it has tools which catch opinions that are flying about in our social media. I would have loved to review one of its gadgets called Top of Mind that does sentiment analysis. Unfortunately, it's not free, so I will briefly mention their free bookmarklet – Opinion Lens. Opinion Lens resides as a bookmarklet in the browser and when activated on a webpage, it searches out relevant opinions based on the context. So, without any active effort, you can see what others are thinking on the topic. Opfine
Opfine is a nice example of sentiment analysis going to work on market data. One day, maybe our traditional media will also work on the same lines. In their own words – OPFINE is an automatic generator of financial sentiment, markets sentiment and companies sentiment news from internet. What's really useful for even a layman like me is that OPFINE also brings country specific sentiment filtered financial news. Most of us will hardly use these tools for studious research. A more common day use could revolve around finding out general opinions on a movie, a star or a product. For instance, searching sentiments on the iPad and digging deeper into the user opinions can tell me if the product is really for me. Although sentiment search is still far from a perfect algorithm, it does help to catch what the world is talking about. That's my sentiment. What's yours? Do let us know. Image Credit: wstera2 Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Do share our articles with others! It’s really important to us. Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| How To Use No-CD Cracks To Play Your Games Easier Posted: 30 Apr 2010 10:31 AM PDT
Instead of fighting crime, the good guys, those who actually purchase their stuff, have to site through unskippable anti-piracy adds and legal warnings. It’s a bitch slap in the face of the honest consumer.
Here’s how you can fight back, smite down those loops, and enjoy your game without having to wrestle copy protection. Different Kinds Of Copy ProtectionIn their fight against piracy, game publishers have come up with ever more irritating ways to enforce copy protection. The most common, as you all know, is the disk requirement. Without the ‘original’ CD or DVD inserted, your game will refuse to launch. Even though you don’t really need that disk.
A wave of outrage followed Ubisoft’s latest ’security’ advancements. Some of their latest releases insist on an internet connection to start the game. Of course, if Ubisoft’s servers are down, or if you simply aren’t connected to the internet at the moment, you won’t be able to play. Why Honest Consumers Will Want to Use No CD CracksWhatever your opinion on piracy, the facts are simple. Copy protection isn’t hurting them. It takes less than a minute to work around it. It’s the honest consumer that’s affected. Then, instead of simply recognizing it as a necessary evil, it’s your every right to do something about it. With your legal install, you can install the same no-CD cracks that pirates use, and enjoy your games with less of a hassle. You’re not pirating a game, but getting rid of a very unnecessary evil. This is also 100% legal if you own the game. Note: as always, the online cracking environment is still riddled with spyware. Use semi-trusted sources, like those mentioned below, to minimalise the risk, and get yourself an anti-spyware program or firewall to get ever safer. Using Cracks Is Ridiculously EasyThis article mostly focuses on no-CD cracks, i.e. tools that allow you to start your games without inserting the disk, because this kind of copy protection is the most common – and has long been smitten down. Other cracks exist as well, to circumvent different kinds of copy protection. Those can often be obtained and used in the exact same way. Be aware, though, that there are still a number of games that simply haven’t been cracked. In those situations, you’ll have to play by their rules, and jump all the hoops. Please note that you cannot use a crack without first having the game installed. So don’t try starting games you haven’t bought and installed first. It just won’t work. Installing cracks is often very simple, and always explained in the readme, but there are some common patterns. 95% of all cracks can be installed in one of three ways.
These are original game files, but cracked so they no longer require (e.g.) a disk to launch. They will bear the same names as some of your own game files. Copy them to the game’s folder in Program Files and replace the original. That’s it.
This application (also called a ‘patch’) will crack your game files on the spot. Launch it, guide it to the game’s folder in Program Files and hit crack.
These will add strings to your registry when you try to open them. In a nutshell, the registry is a big database where all your computer’s important data is kept. These aren’t as common as back in the day, but still show up once in a while.
Finding a Crack For Your GameFinding the right crack isn’t very hard. With pirated games, they’re often included in the download. For your legal copy, you’ll have to take a peek in one of the so-called gray zones of the internet. As said before, there is always the possibility of a fake crack, so firewalls can be nifty. Sometimes, though, valid cracks are recognized as spyware, because they try to ‘patch’, or alter your game installation. Below are some of the best sources for finding game cracks. Possibly the single most trustworthy cracking site on the internet. This site tries to focus on legal copying, and offers a wide array of cracks and game trainers. This is the best place to start out. Very similar to GameCopyWorld, and not merely in name. Sadly, it’s focusing ever more on trainers, and less on CD cracks. Keep your fingers crossed, though, because this is about the last ‘pretty safe’ crack site you can consult. The other sites offer a lot more cracks, but they’re also a lot more dangerous.
Access this site on your own risk! Expect to be met with a considerate number of pop-ups, and sometimes very obscene ads (18+). This is the time to buy yourself a strong and resilient firewall and install an ad-blocker. I would tell you to stay away from this site, apart from the fact that its got absolutely everything. The fake virus cracks, sure, but also pretty much every real crack that’s out there. Do you have any other tips that can make gaming easier? Let us know in the comments section below! Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers! Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| Post To Wordpress From Anywhere With WpToGo [Android] Posted: 30 Apr 2010 09:31 AM PDT
Karl recently covered how to mobile blog with your Windows Mobile phone using Windows Live Writer Mobile, and Daniel covered how to post to your Wordpress blog with your iPhone, but Android users need solutions that are just as useful and functional.
An Android Mobile Blog App That Does It All…AlmostOne thing I’ve noticed with almost every mobile app that I use is that they rarely have the extensive functionality that you would hope they have. You can’t really blame developers, because they’re limited by the device resources, compatibility issues and of course screen size limitations. With that said, there are sometimes those applications that come pretty close. For me, Wordpress for Android is one of those apps. It does just enough so that I can post high-quality blog updates without wasting time, and using the application is intuitive enough that you’ll be blogging within ten minutes of installing it on your phone.
As you can see, WpToGo can handle multiple Wordpress blogs. To post to or manage any one of the blogs, just select it from the main screen and you have immediate access to your live blog posts, your local “drafts” stored on the phone, and all of the new comments that are on that blog and not yet managed. Each of these three functions are featured on their own tab.
When you add a new blog – setting it up takes this one, single screen – that’s it. Type in your ID and password, and my favorite part – configure how the image that you upload from your phone will be displayed in your post. While I prefer aligning my image first image to the left and wrapping text around it, the option to center and place the image above your article isn’t a bad format either. By the way, before you’ll be able to post updates from your phone using WpToGo, you’ll need to go into your blog settings, under the “Writing” section, and enable XML-RPC.
Once that’s done, and you’ve configured your blog login settings into WpToGo, you’re ready to start viewing, editing, posting and responding to comments on all of your blogs, straight from your mobile phone.
On the first tab, you can view all of your live posts. If you’d like to review or edit the post, just long-click on it and choose from the options that come up. I’d advise against doing much online editing of the live articles, because the process of saving edits before you’re done takes a bit longer. Ideally, this app should be used for creating new blog entries locally on the phone.
As you’re typing, you can quickly save and the local copy will be updated and stored on your phone. This takes just seconds. You can close the app or turn off your phone and your local saved drafts will be ready for you the next time you turn on your phone and you’re ready to finish up your blog entry.
At the bottom of the edit page, you’ll find the features that make this Android mobile blog app so much more feature-filled than most other mobile blogging programs. Bold, italics, block quote and add links to your post to add variety to your update. Best of all, this is where you can add a picture to your post, and it’ll be inserted in the format that you defined when you set up the blog on your phone. Choose your tags and category and you’re ready to roll. The publish option is what you’ll select when you’ve finished your final draft and you actually want to flag the post to be published the next time your phone syncs up with the blogs. You can also force it to publish before then by long-clicking on the title in your local drafts list and selecting to upload the post draft to the blog. If “publish” is selected, it’ll get posted live.
The most important feature of this app, for me, is the third tab for Comments. In this area, you can scroll through the most recent visitor updates and manage all of them. Just long-click on each individual comment and either mark as approved, unapproved or as spam. Now you don’t have to get on a computer or even try to track down Internet access, just open up your phone and manage your comments for the day while you’re riding the bus or waiting in the dentist’s office. You will never have another unproductive moment in your life, now that you have constant access to your blog with your Android phone – wherever and whenever you want. Do you post to Wordpress from your phone? What app do you use? If you use Wordpress for Android, what’s your feedback? Share your thoughts in the comments section below. Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf fan page on Facebook. Over 17,000 fans already!
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| How To Automate Bookmark Syncing With Delicious, RSS & Firefox Posted: 30 Apr 2010 08:31 AM PDT
Here’s a little guide to some advanced Delicious usage – using RSS feeds to access your bookmarks on the Firefox toolbar. This is a neat way to make your bookmarks an incredibly useful resource to you.
I would say to use Firefox, but that’s only because Firefox has the lovely toolbar that makes this look great. It’s just as easy to do this trick with any other browser – it just might not look as good. To start with, you need to be using Delicious to bookmark useful sites you want to refer to regularly. If you haven’t done so already, you can easily sign up and import all your current bookmarks from your browser. Once all your useful everyday bookmarks are in Delicious, make sure they’re tagged appropriately. I like to use a special tag (or combination of tags) for things I want to refer to easily. For instance, the tags “Fun + Faves + Daily” mixed together lead me to comics and other fun things (which I really shouldn’t have such easy access to – but that’s not the point).
Now, to get hold of your Delicious RSS feed, take a look at the bottom of the page for your chosen tag or combination of tags. Note, there is also an RSS feed for your Delicious tag bundles. Grab the private feed if you have private bookmarks in the list which you will want to access. Or, just get the public feed. Your choice.
If Firefox doesn’t already have other instructions for RSS feeds (like using Google Reader) you can just click on the RSS link and choose to bookmark in your Firefox toolbar. If you usually read feeds in Google Reader, you will have to switch the settings back temporarily. Go in to Preferences -> Applications -> Web Feed. Change “Google Reader” back to “Add live bookmarks in Firefox“. Change it back when you’re done setting up your Delicious feeds.
After clicking on the RSS feed link in Delicious (shown above) the following window will be shown. Rename your feed to something short, but memorable.
Now you should be able to see your feed in your toolbar. If you click on it, you can see all your bookmarks in a nice drop-down list. So, it’s just like having them all bookmarked in your browser, only you can change what appears on it by changing what your bookmarks are tagged with on Delicious.
Some of you may have just had a lightbulb moment. If not, you soon will. Set up a few more of your favourite Delicious tags, tag combinations and bundles as feeds. Try to cover all the things you would normally access at home or at work, ensuring they’re bundled together. You might even want to do this with tags used for organising your study. Once you have every feed you think you’ll need, save your bookmarks. Back them up to USB or the cloud. You might tweak them occasionally from now on, but essentially this will be all you need bookmarked in a browser for a long time. If you use multiple computers, import your new bookmark file to your other machines. For instance, bookmark sync your work computer, laptop and your profile on a family computer. Now, try a little experiment. Save something new in Delicious and tag it with one of the tags you chose to try in an RSS feed.
After a little while (RSS can take time), go to any of your computers now using Delicious RSS feeds in your browser. Take a look at the feed. Voila! Your new bookmark appears along with the others.
Hopefully, you now have a sense of how powerful this can be. This method saves countless headaches and means you can set up a new browser how you like in seconds. What else will you use it for? Finally, if you’ve now decided you love Delicious, also take a look at using Packrati to collect tweeted URLs in Delicious, using Delicious for study and Faviki for Delicious Auto-tagging. NEW: Download MakeUseOf iPhone App. FREE! Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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Your questions at 
Social networking is a daily activity for most of us. Anyone paying attention knows that sites like Facebook and Twitter have hundreds of millions of users and are extremely popular. But one thing I think we all forget from time to time is that these social networking sites are businesses. They do have employees and they do have costs. So I ask again, how do social networks make money?
First things first, most (if not all) social networks start with funding from venture capitalists. Investors are willing to take a risk on a company if they think it can be profitable in the future, so they invest early and hope for a huge payoff down the road.
An interesting example that took place recently was 
I have long been a fan of 
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 deals tech deals and unifying them into a single post for your convenience.
As with e-reader apps like 
Sentiment search is at the cutting edge of web search. Emotions or sentiments get expressed through ideas, opinions, criticisms, and sarcasm. The web is its melting pot. It gets expressed en masse in blogs and forums. Now Twitter has deepened the ocean of sentiment.
Pirating is a serious problem, I don’t deny that. But the countermeasures aren’t helping. As it is now, it’s simply easier and more user-friendly to pirate your music, games and movies.
The very first week I bought a new Motorola Droid, one of the first apps that I looked for was an effective blogging app that I could use to update my Wordpress blogs while I’m on the go (which is most of the time). Sitting at the doctor’s office, riding the subway or waiting at your daughter’s piano lessons – there are opportunities throughout every day when you can post if you have the tool and the Android mobile blog application that will make it happen for you.
Do you hate syncing your bookmarks between computers? Don’t you just wish it could be automatic? Well, after some initial set-up you can have automated bookmark sync. If you move regularly between computers you’ll love this trick. In fact, it’s such an easy trick that you’ll wonder why you never thought of it before.
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