MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites And Tools [May 12th]” plus 8 more |  |
- Cool Websites And Tools [May 12th]
- How To Take Multiple Screenshots In Bulk With Firefox
- How To Sync Your Songs With Any Media Player Using Instinctiv [Mac]
- Hot Tech Deals [May 12th]
- 6 Google Earth Games For Some Fun & Frolic Around The Globe
- Top 5 Sites To Find The Best Microsoft Word Templates
- Special MakeUseOf 20% Discount For Eltima Software
- 4 Ways To Ditch The New Google Search Sidebar
- Create Your Own Ringtones For Your Mobile With Wolfram Tones
| Cool Websites And Tools [May 12th] Posted: 12 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. Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers! Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| How To Take Multiple Screenshots In Bulk With Firefox Posted: 12 May 2010 04:31 PM PDT
Screen capture tools are so plenty that you may easily get lost which one to choose and why. I listed quite a few tools to make screenshots in my post last year and I am still using those listed there. However I recently came across a new Firefox addon that I found awesome and unique enough to share and add to my previously published collection.
In fact, there are plenty of feature requests and possible ways to improve the tool usability but it may be fun to use even with the current set of features and options. Try The ToolHave the addon installed and restart your browser. Now follow these steps: 1. Create a new .txt file and list as many URLs there as you want (I tested the tool with up to 200 URLs in the list). Tip : You can use some third-party crawler to extract all (or many) URLs from any site (like Xenu for example), export the list to a .txt file and you are done. 2. (Optionally) Create a separate folder where all the screenshots will be stored. 3. In Firefox, navigate to Tools –> Grab Them All. Alternatively, you can install the tool icon in the address bar (in case you plan to use the tool often and need to always have it to hand). Navigate to View->Toolbars->Customize. From there, find the GrabThemAll button and drag it to the toolbar. 4. In the tool dialog, specify the the .txt file with the list of URLs to grab and the destination folder:
5. Now just run the tool, sit back and wait. I had the job done in the matter of seconds:
The folder will also include a tiny Excel document listing:
Configure The ToolThe addon also has quite a few really great options that you may want to check out. To access the settings, navigate: Tools –> Addons –> Grab Them All –> Options. From there you can set:
This post provides further guidelines, screencast and reviews. Are you aware of any other bulk screenshot maker? Please share them in the comments! Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf fan page on Facebook. Over 17,000 fans already!
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| How To Sync Your Songs With Any Media Player Using Instinctiv [Mac] Posted: 12 May 2010 02:31 PM PDT
This might be a dream come true to all Mac users who also use other non-Apple gadgets and want a free and convenient way to put their music on those MP3 players and gadgets. All other alternatives so far are either deceased, too difficult, or not free. So is it OK to set our hopes high on this one? We shall see.
Creating The PlaylistInstinctiv allows users to do music synchronization from one or more iTunes playlists to virtually any mountable device – from a USB thumb drive to any mobile phone, as long as your Mac can read them as storage. Since Instinctiv is only making use of your existing iTunes playlist – and not creating their own, the first thing that you would want to do is to create a specific iTunes playlist for your devices. To create the playlist, open iTunes and click the plus button below the Cover Art display at the bottom left of iTunes window or use “File – New Playlist” menu (Command + N).
Then select all the songs you want to put into the playlist then drag them all in.
Instinctiv does not support Smart Playlists (yet), so if you want to sync songs from those smarties, you have to copy their content to ordinary playlists and sync from there. You can create as many playlists as you want for your devices. But please note that if you create your playlists in iTunes while Instinctiv is opened, you have to restart the app before the new playlists appear in the sync list. Just Sync AlongAfter the playlists are ready, you can plug in the device, and fire up Instinctiv. Click on the “Sync” icon and you can see the list of the device(s).
Click on the device to explore the available playlists. There’s a storage indicator bar above to visually show you the estimated remaining space for your music.
To add any of these playlists to the synchronization list, all you have to do is to check the boxes next to the playlists. The storage bar will adjust itself based on what you check. Pay attention to the number of songs inside each playlist to estimate how many more playlists you can add. The last step of the process is clicking the Sync button at the bottom right of Instinctiv’s window. Then the sync process will be displayed on a progress bar.
Another thing worth noting is, since Instinctiv syncs by playlist, be sure to keep your playlists small enough. You can’t sync only part of a big playlist, but you can choose which ones of the several smaller playlists to be synced. The result of the synchronization process is one folder called “Instinctiv” inside your device. There are two sub folders inside it: “playlists” and “songs“. If you want to play the songs on the device, be sure to point your media player to the “songs” folder.
You could change the content of the playlists on iTunes, add more playlists or delete some. The next time you sync your music with your media player device(s) using Instinctiv, the content of those playlists will be adjusted accordingly. The Fat Lady Hasn’t SyncedBy the look of the version number (v 0.9.3 at the time of writing), Instinctiv still has a very long way to go. For example, the developer has already planned Windows and Linux versions, while fixing bugs on the Mac version along the way. Other than the shuffle problems discussed in the previous article, I think Instinctiv is an OK application. In general, things seems to fall into their places. But if I may suggest one thing to the developer, it would be fixing the color problem. In some parts of the interface (like in the progress bar), the display is hard to read. All that’s left to do is to wait and see whether this baby will grow into a beauty or a beast (or both). Have you tried Instinctiv? What’s your opinion on this app? Do you know other alternatives? Please share using the comments below. NEW: Download MakeUseOf iPhone App. FREE! Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| Posted: 12 May 2010 01:30 PM PDT
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| 6 Google Earth Games For Some Fun & Frolic Around The Globe Posted: 12 May 2010 12:31 PM PDT
You can spin the virtual globe with your mouse and have a lot of globetrotting fun from the comfort of your armchair. With air travel not being so much fun anymore, it's quite a good idea to do some ticketless treks now and again. Google Earth gives us a bird's eye view on lots of things which we wouldn't have seen in our entire lifetimes. Like the Nevada crop circles or the fantastic news of the mythic Loch Ness sighting.
Google Earth games are hardly launched with the kind of fanfare and media blitz that typify the genre. So, where do you go hunting for free Google Earth games? The Google Lat Long Blog is kind of the official voice for Google Geo products, but there's hardly any Google Earth games related information there. But there's the unofficial Google Earth Blog which is a treasure trove of tidbits on the subject. My first steps into the Earth's gaming zone were through the links laid down here. Take a look. Multi-player games like GEMMO or GE Football are always worth a round. If you are a fan of the fun side of Google Earth, park yourself at the Google Earth Community. You might want to check out the discussion threads on Fun and Games. Everyone knows about the Flight Simulator on Google Earth. If you don't, read Leon's post on it here. Then there are others that you might not have played yet. Here are six of them - Earth ContestEarth Contest is a free travel game you can play with your friends. The site itself calls it an armchair travel game. You play against The GameMaster in this virtual world. You can choose to play the mystery game (Who Killed Gary Egerson?) or click on the trivia game (Entertainment & Gossip Trivia).
In the first, you start off with a fixed amount of Earth Contest dollars. The game gets played inside the Google Earth application. The idea is to go from one location to another with the help of clues. Along the way, you can help others with clues or even mislead them. And you get an airplane to hop from one location to the next.
The Trivia game is also about solving the quiz on celebrities and travelling from location to the next depending on the answer. Tina also mentioned it in her post on Google Earth: Cool Resources and Plugins. PlanetInActionPlanetInAction has two games – one takes you to the heights of space and the other brings you to the sea level. Both can be played inside the browser with the Google Earth plug-in installed. Moon Lander lets you experience the adrenalin rush of Apollo 11's moon landing. You get to take manual control and land the Eagle spacecraft just as Neil Armstrong had done all those years back. He had limited fuel, you have unlimited supply. Are you a better pilot?
Ships puts you on the helm of your own cruise liner or tanker, or even a river barge. You get to be the captain and navigate the ship across many of the scenic seaboard locations around the world.
Virtual Submarine DiveSea-seek.com has a submarine simulator (among other choices) which gives you the choice between doing some coastline surveillance off the coasts of California, Gibraltar, or Greece. Or you can take the sub and dive deep into the Mariana Trench, Milwaukee Deep, or Romanche Trench.
You get to monitor a control panel and set things like speed and piloting controls. You can opt for a Cessna or a helicopter to do some simulated fly-bys over the oceans. Google Earth WarGEWAR is a massive multi-player online game that you can play in your browser with the Google Earth plug-in installed. The game comes with lots of rules and laws that need to be followed. GEWAR is about building your own armies with the resources you have. The objective – to capture cities around the world. Each city has a value and the total value with each player decides his position on the leaderboard.
The currency for this online world is called Geos and there are a lot of activities you can do to earn them and fund your armies. You can even purchase a nuke and obliterate a city in one blast. Armies are pitted against each other and it can be literally, a scrap. Where On Google EarthWhere On Google Earth is an online geography game. Pictures taken from locations around the world are posted and you can leave your guesses in the comments section.
Each contest lasts one week and you can refer any source to get to the answer. Get them right and place yourself on the leaderboard. Google Earthing is a similar Google Earth based 'guess the right answer from the photo' game. Google Earth games might not put you into the same kind of Avatar style immersive experience that many high end games give. But if you want to combine education with fun, then Google Earth remains a great tool. All net chatter on Google Earth signals the fact that these are very early days for the mashup of Google Earth and games apps. These games are also about the potential that remains to be tapped. That's for later, right now let's fire up the blue globe and go around the world and try them all out at least once. Which is your favorite Google Earth game? Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras. Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| Top 5 Sites To Find The Best Microsoft Word Templates Posted: 12 May 2010 11:31 AM PDT
Maybe, every few months, you send out party invitations, plan out your budget or create a flyer for some event. Sometimes you may not even realize how often you repeat the same repetitive document design tasks in the course of a month or a year, and how much using a Microsoft Word template could free up much of that wasted time.
I wanted to offer readers even more awesome resources for free Word templates. In fact, if you’re looking for free templates for other Microsoft Office products like Excel or Powerpoint, you may want to check these out because many of these websites offer entire collections of those templates as well. The Extensive Microsoft CollectionConsidering that they created these software packages, it should come as no surprise that Microsoft is king of the hill when it comes to offering free templates for Word, Excel and more. What may come as a surprise is that Microsoft offers these free templates for absolutely free. You can find these at the Free Templates section of Microsoft Office Online.
At first I was searching for the pricing information, because just based on experience, anything offered by Microsoft usually comes with a price tag. I was very surprised and pleased to discover that this particular area is more of an online community where people who develop some of the most innovative and useful Word documents (and other types of templates) offer their document template for absolutely free. In fact, if you’re a good designer, you could even offer your own.
If you search by category and then list Microsoft Word as the product, you’ll discover a whole assortment of amazing free Microsoft Word templates, including invitations (as shown above), budgets, calendars, an assortment of letters and much more. If you find yourself writing the same letters or creating the same sort of documents each week – you would benefit greatly from this collection. The Paper MillNow, many Word users just stop at Office Online for their free template needs. But there are a few other websites there you’ll find some high-quality, creative designs that are worth mentioning. While you won’t find the extensive database of free templates that you’ll find at Office Online, you will find very high quality ones that could serve your needs better than any other. The free template area of The Paper Mill Store is one of those sites that I would recommend to anyone who may need a free Microsoft Word template.
The site lays claim to hundreds of free templates, and they aren’t exaggerating. Here you’ll find newsletter templates, postcards, brochures and even bookmarkers.
Just choose the style you want, and then click on the download for your system. Formats are available for PC or Mac, and not only for Word. You’ll also find identical templates in PDF, Illustrator CS or InDesign. There aren’t many places online where you’ll find this many free templates compared to Office Online, so this site is a must stop if you’re on the hunt for good templates. Microsoft’s MactopiaAn interesting clash of two worlds is the site called Mactopia – a site for Mac users of Windows products. The fact is, there is a significant base of Mac users who use Office products, but the irony surely isn’t lost on MakeUseOf readers. Mactopia is actually a useful resource for Mac users who are looking for additional high quality Word documents. I should note that while the quality is high, the selection is somewhat limited. However, in addition to Word templates, you’ll find templates for Excel, Powerpoint and other MS products.
I place Mactopia at the top of the pile, not so much because of the volume of templates available, but because of the quality of those templates and how easy it is to navigate through and use the website. You just click on the product you want templates for, and then scroll right or left through the options, just like an image gallery.
For example, the newsletter template above would take a fair amount of time to design and put together in Word from scratch. You have to get the fonts and sizing right, the images, colors and shades all correct. Download this template, and you’re off and running. Just change the imagery and add the content and you have a high quality newsletter ready to roll. Now that’s called saving time. Final Two Free Template SitesI almost made this a top 3 article, because most other sites are out to sell professionally made templates rather than offering free ones, but there are two more that do have free areas, so I thought they were worthy of mention. Stock Layouts is one of those sites that offers templates for sale, but you’ll also find a Free Template area.
While you’ll find only about a dozen or so free templates here, they are fairly high quality and could come in handy if you can’t find the template you’re looking for elsewhere. You’ll find postcards, a flier and even a restaurant menu here. Another site of free templates is Wordtemplates. The site is drowning in ads, but the list of free templates is fairly extensive. Unfortunately it appears that a majority of the templates are identical to Microsoft’s free ones at Office Online. With that said, after sifting through I did notice that the site is essentially a blog, with each template category a blog category – and I did discover a few amusing and unique Word templates available, such as this Halloween mask word template.
It comes complete with a template to punch out string holes on the sides. Just pop heavy stock paper into your printer and you’ve got a funny Halloween mask for your little one. There are plenty of other interesting MS Word templates throughout this site, so it makes the list. Do you use Word templates to increase your productivity and save time? What are your favorite resources for free templates? Do you stick with Microsoft or have you discovered your own treasure trove? Share your insight in the comments section below. Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers! Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| Special MakeUseOf 20% Discount For Eltima Software Posted: 12 May 2010 10:30 AM PDT
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| 4 Ways To Ditch The New Google Search Sidebar Posted: 12 May 2010 09:31 AM PDT
Now they have changed it. Last week I heard various people exclaim, out loud, “What did they do to my Google?” The sentence not only shows how personally people feel their connection to Google is, but also how disappointed they were with the change. However they feel, they can’t change the fact that Google’s formally clean search results now includes a sidebar that makes my netbook feel quite cluttered indeed. Many people are trying to find out how to remove the Google sidebar.
Myself, I’m a loyal Google user. In 2001 I decided to make Google my homepage and never looked back. I’ve tried the likes of Bing, but find Google’s search results much better. Perhaps I’ll adjust to the sidebar in time, but if you don’t think you can, there are a few ways to avoid the changes. 1. Secret Google URLIt would seem that Google’s own forums aren’t immune to hatred towards the interface change. This conversation includes some terse language about the change, but if you read long enough you’ll find this gem of information from one drchinni:
Full credit to him; he’s how I found out about this. Use this page as your entry point to Google and it will remove the Google sidebar from your browsing.
Doesn’t that look better? This, of course, doesn’t help you if you primarily use Google from your browser’s built-in search bar. That’s where extensions come in. 2. Greasemonkey ScriptGreasemonkey is the go-to Firefox extension for scripts that make quick changes to sites around the web. Google’s no exception; Ann recently wrote up 9 Greasemonkey scripts for more productive Google search. There’s also a Greasemonkey script that’ll make the Google sidebar go away: REMOVE Google Sidebar, brought to you by Vin. Using this extension for less than a second before it’s pleasantly removed from view.
3. Chrome PluginChrome users can try installing the above Greasemonkey script, but if you’re looking for a native plugin look no further than Aaron Landerkin’s Hide Google Options Script. This plugin will work much like you expect it to, removing the sidebar from Google. Sure, it adds an unnecessary button to your toolbar, but I’m sure this will be removed in upcoming releases. 4. IE Custom Search Provider
If you’re amongst those who have not yet dumped Internet Explorer for Chrome or Firefox, don’t worry: there’s a workaround for you too. If Google’s your homepage you can always switch to the URL above, of course, but you may also want a search provider built into your toolbar for using the clean Google. No problem, just head over to Microsoft’s own custom search provider tool and create a new toolbar. Just be sure to use
as your URL. Much thanks to Koderic, who explained this process in the previously referred to Google conversation. ConclusionSometimes companies make interface choices end-users find annoying. I’m glad the web provides so many options for us to switch things back – no other medium in human history is this customizable. What do you guys know that I don’t? Is there an amazing method to remove the Google sidebar that I’m missing? Or am I just really, really stubborn for wanting to hold on to my old-fashioned search page? Commenting will make all your friends think you’re cool, so you’d better do that. Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf fan page on Facebook. Over 17,000 fans already!
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| Create Your Own Ringtones For Your Mobile With Wolfram Tones Posted: 12 May 2010 08:31 AM PDT
Stephen Wolfram published a book in 2002 that generated awesome new uses of technology and this one is creating awesome, ear pleasing music by using popular music as a guideline. I am pretty sure you don't care about the nitty gritty about the algorithms but if you are, check out Wolfram Tone’s about page here.
You will see a page that looks like the one above. The graphics on the right are actually ringtones. You can mouse over them to hear them. Everything generated on the website is using the Wolfram Tone Algorithm. Click on start now to begin.
You will see a page like the one above. You have lots of options but why don't you start with playing the tone at the top of the page? Pretty cool huh? Maybe that wasn't your kind of music but we can choose. Now I'm pretty sure that if you are still reading this you would like to create your own ringtones. Let's start! I choose hip-hop to begin and played the sample track as you can see below:
That was OK but not something I would use as a ringtone. So I started playing around with the composition controls at the bottom of the page.
Now I have no idea what any of these options actually do but I started messing around with each of them and then each different tab like so:
I changed my order of instrument roles and the actual instruments as well. Then I moved on to Pitch Mapping:
I just kept messing around with it until I had something that sounded like it could be a soundtrack from a horror movie. I laughed a little and shared it with my friends using the URL at the bottom of my screen. Then I moved on to the Time Controls which severely changed the sound of my ringtone.
Wow, OK now I needed to start over. But after about an hour of messing with this I had a very original and unique (to say the least) soundtrack. Best of all when someone asks me what kind of ringtone that is, I can smugly say “oh I created it myself using the Wolfram Algorithm” and smile. Then when you have something that you like you can save, email or download it to use the track as your ringtone.
So go on, create your own ringtones and impress your friends! Do share your favorites with us in the comments (that is if you don't mind other people using them as well!) And for some other ringtone action you can check out this older post. Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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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.
Google Earth is a fantastic simulation of our planet. You really can do without playing games on it. But games based on Google Earth do up the fun quotient.
I’ve always been interested in saving time. Cutting a few minutes from my projects or other tasks throughout the day can save a lot of time by the end of the day. One of the things that people take for granted is the time that they spend writing up the same documents over and over – and these are the places where Microsoft Word templates can really save the day.
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For over a decade Google featured the same, clean user interface. This clean user interface was no small part of Google becoming the commercial and cultural juggernaut that it is today.
Are you sick and tired of your played out ringtones? Does everyone sigh when your phone starts ringing? Either way I am about to introduce you to some slick, cool and unique ringtones.
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