MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [May 7th]” plus 9 more |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [May 7th]
- The 5 Best Questions From You [MakeUseOf Answers]
- Super Mario: The 10 Best Free Online Games
- 3 Sites to Download YouTube Videos as MP3 Files
- Hot Tech Deals [May 7th]
- 2 Useful Bookmarklets To Make Your Web Reading Easier
- Map, Measure & Socially Share Your Fitness Activities At FriendFit.com
- The Humble Indie Games Bundle: Pay What You Want!
- Nemexia – An Awesome Free Online Space Simulation Game
- Use QuotePad To Take Quick Notes & Set Reminders [Windows]
| Cool Websites and Tools [May 7th] Posted: 07 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. NEW: Download MakeUseOf iPhone App. FREE! Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| The 5 Best Questions From You [MakeUseOf Answers] Posted: 07 May 2010 06:31 PM PDT
Best of all, with a great answer you’re automatically entering our weekly Best Answer of the Week contest with a chance to win US$50. This week’s winner is anshuldixit for his answer to “How can I get quick approval from Google Adsense?“. Congratulations mate! You can enter the Best Answer of the Week contest anytime to win US$50 via PayPal credit or Amazon voucher. Please remember that your answer will only qualify, if you provide a valid email address! Now here are the 5 best questions from the past two weeks:
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 straight forward and you’re not signing up for anything. Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Do share our articles with others! It’s really important to us. Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| Super Mario: The 10 Best Free Online Games Posted: 07 May 2010 04:31 PM PDT
Because of Mario's popularity, a lot of games get made in his image. If you search for them online, you can find some fun Super Mario titles as free games. Justin recently covered one such game in his article entitled Super Mario War: Multiplayer Chaos That’s A Ton of Fun. In this article, I'm going to discuss some more of the best Super Mario free games around.
Super Mario Bros. In Pipe Panic
Pipe Panic is a Pac-Man type game that features Mario and creatures from his world. Play as either Mario or Luigi in this game. The goal is to collect coins without getting eaten. If you run into trouble, grab a star and you can destroy your enemies. Super Mario Mushroom Game
In this game, you have to collect mushrooms to beat each level. Mushrooms are hidden in blocks all over the board. As the levels get more difficult, you will need to collect more mushrooms and bring them to the castle without dying. No easy task. Hungry Mario
In Hungry Mario, the goal is to get all of the little green balls on the board. You are timed for this game, which can prove challenging once you get into the upper levels where there are orbs in hard to reach places. Super Mario Rampage
This game is Super Mario meets Grand Theft Auto. You play as Mario, and you go through each board firing a gun on your enemies. You can't control the speed at which you walk, but you can aim and shoot your targets before they get to you. Super Mario Rush Arena
In Rush Arena, enemies are dropped into the board for you to kill. Jump on them to kill them just like in other Mario games. Once you kill them all, you advance. You can see how many of each enemy there is at the top of the screen. Mario Lost in Space
Fly around the board as Mario in this game. The goal is to land on the platform without crashing into it or any other obstacles you come across. This becomes more challenging, of course, as the game goes on. Super Mario World Hardcore
Similar to Mario Rampage, this game allows you to walk around with a gun. Blast all the bad guys in Super Mario World Hardcore while doing ninja somersaults. It’s pretty entertaining, not gonna lie. Pixel Ninja In Mario World
Pixel Ninja is a lot like Where's Waldo. You are given several pictures of Mario and the gang and your goal is to find the little pixel ninja hidden within the picture and click on him. If you're not in the mood for an adventure game and just want something to appease the mind, this game is for you. Mario Miner
In this game, your goal is to grab as much loot as you can before your time runs out. Getting coins as Mario has never been easier. Reach the number of points you need to advance. It’s not as easy as it looks. New Super Mario World 3
For the most part, I tried to stay away from the games that were very similar to the original Mario Bros. games, but this one is worth mentioning. It’s graphics are pretty familiar to the old Super Mario World games you and I are accustomed to. Getting to play a familiar game with updated levels/boards is always fun. What do you think of playing Super Mario free games on the internet? Did I forget to mention your favorite game? Leave your thoughts and links in the comments! Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras. Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| 3 Sites to Download YouTube Videos as MP3 Files Posted: 07 May 2010 02:31 PM PDT
That part was fun. The interesting part of this task was to figure out how to use a camp song in the background of the presentation. I found a YouTube video of one of the song services containing the song I wanted in the background but I had to figure out how to take the music from the video so I could insert it into the presentation.
Video2mp3Services like Video2mp3 make downloading YouTube videos as MP3 files a simple 3 step process. It simply allows you to enter the URL, click “convert”, and finally download the MP3 from the provided link. Grab the YouTube URL:
Head over to video2mp3, enter the YouTube URL there and click “convert“:
Wait a bit for the conversion and then just download the mp3 from the link. Could this service get any simpler? Yes, with a Firefox add-on that adds a link to YouTube video pages to directly convert the video. DirpyDirpy is not just yet another YouTube MP3 converter. This site has quite a few features that set it apart. First of all, they have integrated a bookmarklet into the mix making getting a video into the studio as easy as clicking a bookmarklet while on the YouTube video page.
Other features include the ability to set the file name and the start and end time of the MP3. Basically, take what VideotoMp3 does (an easy 3 step process) and add a few very cool features, and a fun-to-say name, and you have Dirpy. Vid2MP3This happens to be the site I stumbled upon when I was doing my presentation and it did the job in a good amount of time. The site looks a bit weird but, like I said, it worked out great. As it turns out, this site offers the choice between standard and high quality. Using it is as easy as using Video2mp3 and only requires entering the URL:
And downloading the MP3:
And then you’ll actually have to click another link to download it (why?):
Two cool features that VidToMP3 offers are the ability to preview the MP3 in an online player before downloading and the ability to email a friend a link to download the MP3. You will have to excuse quite a few ads on this site but the results are good and timely. Having this new power to download YouTube videos as MP3 files is helpful. Grab music for presentations or listening to that has not been copyrighted or even grab the audio from instructional or informational videos to listen to while on the go. What other uses can you think of? What YouTube to mp3 service do you prefer? Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers! Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| Posted: 07 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 We NEED Your Comments!!! Please do share your thoughts in article comments. Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| 2 Useful Bookmarklets To Make Your Web Reading Easier Posted: 07 May 2010 12:31 PM PDT  While Web 2.0 is all about interactivity and a very dynamic user experience, sometimes all you want to do is read an article like the good old days of static HTML. However, it’s almost impossible to get a website that serves up content in archaic but readable HTML anymore. In such cases, the following two bookmarklet readability tools that can go a long way in helping you read content just the way you want to.
PrintliminatorThe Printliminator bookmarklet was originally intended to help you print out webpages just the way you want, so that you can save precious printer ink and paper and cut out the nonsense from websites before you send them to print. However, it’s also a readability tool that can make your life so much easier on the internet, especially when you want to have a distraction-free session of reading articles. All you need to do is head over to the Printliminator website and drag their bookmarklet to your Bookmarks toolbar. Once you have done that, you are good to go.
The next time you are on a website that distracts the living daylights out of you, all you need to do is click the Printliminator bookmarklet on your toolbar and you’ll be presented with the following graphic on the top right hand corner of your current webpage.
You have the following four options to work with: Remove All Graphics: As the name suggests, this option will filter out all the images from your webpage, so that you can simply get on with reading what you want to. Send To Printer: There’s no need to explain this, I guess. Undo Last Action: This goes back one step through the history of actions that you’ve performed with the Printliminator. Apply Print Stylesheet: This readability tool applies a custom print stylesheet to the webpage to give it a very slick, non-distracting appearance. Apart from these four buttons, you can simply point your mouse pointer to a section on the webpage that you don’t like. This would bring up a red border around that section and clicking the left mouse button would remove that section from the page. Let’s see the bookmarklet in action on one of my colleague’s articles. You can get the original article here. The first image below shows the top of the page in its original form, and the second image shows it with some distracting elements (like the navigation at the top, and the logo) removed.
Power User Tip:Use previously featured PDFCreator to create an archive of your favorite articles on your hard drive. All you need to do is use Printliminator to make the article look just the way you want it to and then print it out using PDFCreator. Read the whole post on PDFCreator here. ReadabilityIf Printliminator seems to be a lot of effort, then you can always turn to a one-click solution called Readability. Take a little time to set it up and you’ll forget the web as you know it in its present state. Head over to their website and set it up. On the left side, select the Style, Size and Margin according to your preferences. Once you are done with that, drag the bookmarklet from the the right side and to your Bookmarks toolbar. And that’s all there is to it! The next time you need a clean reading experience, all you need to do is click the bookmarklet and you’ll get a refreshing, distraction-free reading experience. Below, you can see what the same article from above looks like using Readability.
If you know of similar alternatives for a cleaner, lighter reading experience on the internet, please discuss them in the comments section below. Image Credit : stock:xchng Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf fan page on Facebook. Over 17,000 fans already!
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| Map, Measure & Socially Share Your Fitness Activities At FriendFit.com Posted: 07 May 2010 11:31 AM PDT  FriendFit is about forging social bonds over exercise and fitness. Think about it – we have social networking sites on everything from our breakfast meals to relationship heartbreaks. But just how many pop over to a site and do some social bonding over sports and fitness? Ironic, isn't it. Especially, when physical activity is one of the strongest social glues known to us. Consider the New York City marathon where millions of people spill over on to the streets to watch it. That's not counting the many more who watch it on television. These kinds of mass sporting events show that there's nothing wrong with sports.
In the fitness of things, FriendFit is a social network for runners and cyclists. It seeks to add the power of the community to your flagging motivation. It's not the only one of course. There are also community fitness websites like MapMyRun and Skimble which have a host of help and community support. FriendFit (formerly known as RunThere.com) is first and foremost about recording and mapping your physical activity (by the way, lawn-mowing is not a fitness regimen). Second, it's about sharing it with the friends you pick up on the way. Thirdly, it's highlighting your health improvements and showcasing it across the social sphere. So let's jog lightly towards FriendFit and see if it can serve as an online fitness mentor.
There are a couple of ways to log in – with your Facebook account or with a new sign up. You have a choice between the free personal account and the subscription based trainer account. The latter is for the fitness instructors who would like to keep tabs on those sweating it out under his watchful eyes. I am not a jock but an average Joe, so it's the free personal account type for me. Log & Blog Your ActivityFriendFit covers a lot of fitness pursuits, from running to even Wii exercises. All activities are categorized according to where they take place (land, water, gym, water sports etc). There's even a place to enter your treadmill data if you hit that more often than you hit the jogging tracks.
So how did it go? Upload a photo of yours running yourself ragged or just put it down in words. You can even note that you just went for a stroll with your dog.
Data like Total Distance, Total Time, Date (with start time), and the Motivation Slider are the important stuff that helps you to keep score of how you are faring on the fitness trail. Okay, I haven't mapped out my route yet. That's what I would be doing next. You can do it right at the beginning too. That's important because it also lets you note down the distances you are covering. You can also enter an approximate distance or pedometer data if you have it. For the more hi-tech among us, it could be GPS data too (as shown in the above screen). As soon as you save your first day's activity, your fitness page gets updated with the relevant information. For my day run, I can see that I covered 5km at an average speed of 4km per hour. Collecting all this data will tell me at a glance if my hard work is really paying dividends for improved health.
Mapping Out Your RouteFor aerobic activities like running or walking, FriendFit lets you really work it out to the level of the route you take. A detailed tutorial takes you through the nitty gritty. But the gist is that you can create a new route by just entering an address, landmark, park name in any location in the search box.
Mapping out a route is as simple as clicking points on a map. Points can also serve as mile markers. It's all on Google Maps. Several map controls (like zoom and pan) give you the tools to view and construct your daily run paths.
You can give the route a unique name, save it, tag it, and add a comment to it. Your saved routes can be bookmarked by others if you allow it via the privacy settings of your profile.
Reciprocally, you can also bookmark map routes of your fellow community members. To make things easier, there's also a search function which lets you search for saved routes around locations. A user friendly feature is the one which lets you compare two saved routes. You can compare it for distances or use the Pace Calculator to find your average speed over two different terrains.
Fit TogetherIt's a community site after all. You can set about inviting friends and also plan a group run. Post your FriendFit info on Facebook and you are sure to get some new sporting friends. FriendFit also has a leaderboard which tells you who's the leader of the pack. Take it either way – as a motivational kick or as a signal that you just aren't loving your body enough. In the end, either of these two factors should spur you towards the gym or towards the great outdoors. If you hit the fitness path, with a few friends in tow, FriendFit would justifiably feel that it has done its bit for a healthier world. Do you think community fitness websites helps to socially motivate and pace your fitness training? Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| The Humble Indie Games Bundle: Pay What You Want! Posted: 07 May 2010 10:31 AM PDT  There are a handful of really great free games, but in general, if you want quality, you’ll have to pay. People who don’t want to spend any money on games often don’t know what they’re missing. Wolfire has announced an incredible limited time deal – five of the best indie games, normally retailing for a combined price around $80, can be purchased for any price you want, and the proceeds will go to charity! There’s no middle-man, no DRM protection, and the games are available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
1. World Of GooWorld of Goo, first released on the Wii, was developed by 2D Boy, an indie developer headed by two former EA Games employees. This simple puzzle-platformer was well received by critics all over the globe, and has received an aggregated score of 91%! World of Goo is both a fun game and a figurehead of the indie gaming world.
In the game, you’re using balls of Goo. The goal is to overcome all obstacles and get a predefined number of balls to the exit. The only way to reach the exit pipe is by building large structures, like bridges and towers, with your Goo balls. Normal retail: $20 | Official Website | YouTube Trailer 2. AquariaAquaria was developed by Bit Blot and released late 2007. Like World of Goo, Aquaria was critically acclaimed, and also won the Grand Prize in the 2007 Independent Games Festival. In the game, you play with Naija, a mermaid with memory issues. Along the way, you uncover those murky details of her past, and the world itself.
This indie game can be best defined as an ambient action adventure game. Naija swims around in two dimensions, and interacts with her world by song. These songs allow her to manipulate the environment, or even toggle appearances and abilities. Normal retail: $16.55 | Official Website | YouTube Trailer 3. GishGish was released mid-2004, and has received (wait for it…) a number of prizes, including the Grand Prize of the 2005 Independent Games Festival. Gish, a oftentimes-friendly ball of tar, is our main protagonist. His friend Bea has been kidnapped and taken into the sewers of Dross. You’re going after her.
As a ball of tar, Gish has some nifty abilities. Besides normal movement, he can make himself sticky, slick and heavy. This can help you seize almost any terrain to your advantage, by climbing walls, sliding down aqueducts, or simply crushing your enemies. Normal retail: $19.95 | Official Website | YouTube Trailer 4. Lugaru HDLuguru HD has been developed by Wolfire, the same guys who are hosting this limited time deal, and is a cross-platform third-person action game. The protagonist goes by the name of Turner, a violently fast combat bunny. His quest is to find the monsters who slaughtered his village, but he soon stumbles onto matters far more horrible. A conspiracy involving the leaders of the rabbit republic.
Most remarkable about Lugaru HD is its innovative combat system. The moves are not standard button-bashing, like in most games, but intuitive move combinations. Furthermore, Lugaru HD employs constant ragdoll physics, so your enemies actually react to your fighting instead of simply loosing a few hit points. Normal retail: $19.95 | Official Website | YouTube Trailer 5. Penumbra OverturePenumbra Overture is the first game in the Penumbra trilogy, a series of survival-horror physics-puzzle games. Having played other games in the series, this is the game I was personally most excited about.
Penumbra hangs around with some of the most realistic and interesting game concepts. Instead of giving you a gun and a horde of zombies, Penumbra works in stealthy, and ever more creepy ways. You can use a melee weapon or throw objects, but largely you’re “simply” sneaking around and solving problems. Normal retail: $20 $5 | Official Website | YouTube Trailer What do you think of the ‘pay what you want’ system? Do you know any other great indie deals? Speak your mind in the comments section below! Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Do share our articles with others! It’s really important to us. Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| Nemexia – An Awesome Free Online Space Simulation Game Posted: 07 May 2010 09:31 AM PDT  I must admit that of all free online simulation games, I love strategic multiplayer ones the most. Here at MakeUseOf, we love simulations, like the car simulations Karl covered, or the Google Earth flight simulator that Leon wrote about. While these are fun, it’s the multiplayer space battle games that I really love – like the Ogame Universe that I recently reviewed. After pulling myself out of the Ogame addiction, I went through quite some time where I was able to avoid online games altogether.
Play A Free Online Space Simulation GameNemexia has much of the same look and feel of Ogame. In fact, much of the set up and strategy is almost identical. What sets Nemexia apart are the graphics – I love the large, in-your-face images and fonts that pull you in and immediately make you feel like you’re a part of this virtual galactic world. Immediately, from the moment you sign up and start playing, you enter the drama by choosing to join forces with one of three races – the Confederation, the Union or the Noxls. The color and design of each insignia is usually a fairly good indication of the temperament of those particular players.
Once you sign up, you’re immediately presented with the main view of your planet. Many games are difficult to get into, with somewhat of a learning curve to get up to speed. However, Nemexia really has no learning curve. Thanks to pop-up tooltips whenever your place your mouse over any icon, navigating through your control panel is a breeze. You’ll notice the icons on your planet will take you to those areas you need to develop – the first of which is your resource zone.
If you’re already lost and not sure what to do, all you have to do is follow the outline provided by your “Quests.” To review these, click on the image of your “Adviser” in the upper right part of your menu.
This guy will tell you what you need to do next to improve and expand your empire. Consider this as your personal tour guide through this virtual space world. Every leader needs a good adviser!
Once you get to the Resource Zone, you’ll discover nothing but an empty area with some cliffs, volcanoes and crystal/minerals. This is the part of your planet that you’re going to exploit so that you can build up your energy and supplies, and start creating the foundation of your colony with buildings and fleets of ships. The game is real-time, so once you expend all of your resources building up new mines, buildings or ships, you’re going to have to wait (sometimes for several hours or more) for your resources to replenish.
At the top of the screen, you’ll find your resources and how much you have. These include (from left to right) metals, minerals, gas, energy and your hangar. Your hangar displays how many ships you’ve built and are at your disposal. At the very start, you’ll only accumulate metals and minerals until you’re able to build your first gas refinery.
Once you’ve developed the resources and buildings to produce a substantial fleet, you’re ready to go on missions. These include anything from spy/espionage to attack strikes and even simple recycle or exploration missions. What you can do depends upon what ships you’ve built and your current technical capabilities, but almost immediately upon building your first attack ships, you’ll have the opportunity to go on raids.
You choose your targets for exploration or attack on the Galaxy screen. Keep in mind that you have the option to attack, or you can join up with fellow players and join powerful alliances – an approach that lies at the heart of success for many of the highest level players. Alone, you may do well, but aligned with stronger players, you will advance quickly through the ranks.
What are the “ranks”? Good question. When you click on the “Ranking” button on your menu, you’ll see a listing of all players and their associated position. When you start out, you’ll find that you have a long way to go – but don’t worry, at the beginning, rising through the ranks is fairly rapid. It’s once you get toward the higher ranks that it takes much more time and effort. In the rankings view, you’ll find the player’s position, their resource points and battle points – all of which comes in handy when you’re trying to decide who to attack and who you’d better just leave alone.
If you want to be more confident before heading into battle, on the Fleet Screen, click on the bottom left menu option called the “Simulator.” When I played Ogame, you had to go out onto the web and find an Ogame simulator that would simulate the battle, given your fleet and rank and your opponent’s fleet and rank, and you would see the calculated end result of the battle. Nemexia was built with one of those simulators built right into the game. Just type in the number of ships in your fleet and your race, and the ships in your opponent’s fleet and race, and preview a prediction of the outcome even before you launch your fleet for battle. Have you ever played Nemexia and if so, what’s your opinion of the game? Do you have any other favorite space simulation games? Share your insights and opinions in the comments section below. Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers! Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| Use QuotePad To Take Quick Notes & Set Reminders [Windows] Posted: 07 May 2010 08:31 AM PDT  We have spoken a lot about the best ways to take notes on a laptop during classes, lectures or meetings. I always found specific applications either too feature rich (bulky) or not enough features. I wanted something super simple to use but it also needed to record the time I was writing the notes. A little, free note-taking software app called QuotePad seemed to do the trick for me. They have filtering options, backups, reminders and checklists. I downloaded the portable application from here. That's right, I said portable!
You can see the installation options below:
After installation you get to choose your preferred language. They have an impressive list of languages installed as you can see below:
I chose English, clicked the check box to not show it again, and clicked OK. You will see a new system tray icon and a bubble Windows tip over it showing you how to use QuotePad. We need to left click on the icon to show the main window:
I left clicked on the icon and it brought up the main QuotePad window as you can see below:
I double clicked on the note and entered some basic information such as the name of my meeting, some basic notes, a phone number and a to-do item. You can see this below:
You need to click on the blue check mark (ok) to save your item. After you click ok you will be brought back to the main screen, where you can see your notes and add reminders.
By clicking on the alarm bell next to your note you can add a reminder to it. So my action item in the note, to schedule my database administrator to perform some client work, can set off a reminder on my computer to help me remember. The application does not come with audio files so you can either use your Windows system sounds by pointing it to your C:\WINDOWS\Media folder or use any MP3 file you have lying around.
Now after entering some notes let's see how to filter our notes. Without any notes selected start typing the words you want to find. QuotePad will eliminate any notes that do not meet your criteria. You can see I typed in Round Room and it filtered out everything except what I was looking for.
When I delete my filter by hitting backspace until the filter is black, all my messages will return.
We can also right click on our system tray icon and choose find to search through our notes. This is very helpful after you have been using the application for a while. Reminders can also be entered directly from the system tray by choosing new reminder. This will skip creating a note and just add a reminder. Do you have a favourite small, portable note taking software? If so we would love to hear about it in the comments! Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf fan page on Facebook. Over 17,000 fans already!
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When you think of Super Mario, you think of a little plumber in red suspenders. Nintendo is responsible for making one of the most recognizable game franchises in modern history. Millions of people have played a Super Mario game in their lives at some point. With a Mario game, you know you're getting a fun, entertaining experience.
Last year, as we do every year, my wife and I took a bunch of teens to camp for a week in the summer. When we got home, one of my jobs was to create a slide presentation of the week. Basically I had to weed through hundreds of photos to find the ones that described the week in a nutshell (in under 4-5 minutes).
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.
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