Tuesday, May 25, 2010

MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [May 24th]” plus 9 more

MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [May 24th]” plus 9 more

Link to MakeUseOf.com

Cool Websites and Tools [May 24th]

Posted: 24 May 2010 08:31 PM PDT

Check out some of the latest MakeUseOf discoveries. All listed websites are FREE (or come with a decent free account option). No trials or buy-to-use craplets. For more cool websites and web app reviews subscribe to MakeUseOf Directory.

List Your Website Here!

 

Zesty Facebook Privacy Checker – Recent Facebook privacy settings changes have caused an outrage among users. The level of exposure it brought to Facebook accounts made many people unhappy. If you are unsure what this update has done to your profile and want to find out which of your Facebook pages are visible publicly, head to Zesty Facebook Privacy Checker. Read more: Zesty Facebook Privacy Checker: See How Exposed Your Facebook Profile Is.

 

The Resumator – Hiring can be a tougher task than one would normally think. This is primarily because of the huge number of resumes received by the hiring company. There are a number of good sources available which help companies better manage the resumes they receive – one such good resume management tool is TheResumator. Read more: TheResumator: Resume Management Tool Online.

 

 

FutureMessage – Normally when we send out online greeting cards, we can choose the date they will be sent. Now the same type of scheduling can be done for any kind of message; all thanks to FutureMessage. FutureMessage is a free to use website with a great interface and a great purpose. Read more: FutureMessage: Send Future Email, SMS & Tweets.

 

 

Sync.in – There are a lot of collaborations tools on the web, but if you need a way to quickly hack out a document with a group of people, Sync.in is your best bet. With this instant collaboration tool there's no need for registration: all you need to do to work on a document with someone else is send them a link Read more: Sync.in: Instant Collaboration On Documents Online.

 

 

Pixamba – Online digital asset management service that helps microstock photography users to manage their portfolio of stock photos effectively. Users can store purchased images from stock photography websites, or upload their own photos. Users can index, search, and tag them as well as view various drafts and file versions of the images. Read more: Pixamba: Manage Your Collection of Stock Images.

 

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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.

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Top 10 Most Downloaded Apps for Video [Movers & Shakers]

Posted: 24 May 2010 06:31 PM PDT

It's time once again for our featured Movers and Shakers post. Each week, we take one software category and list the top ten most downloaded free apps. This week we will be looking at Video Software.

These are the applications that allow you to watch, convert or make videos on your Windows machine. Let's see who the top ten players are in CNet's most popular downloaded video applications.

1. FreeZ Online TV

1 With over 11 million downloads Freez TV was pretty disappointing when I downloaded it. The channels are mediocre and some of them often freeze up. While we all would love free television on our computers over the Internet it probably will not appear any time soon.

The application offers a bunch of channels with most of them not in English and there are no settings so you cannot tweak anything!

2. VLC Media Player

2 Now second place this week is VLC Media Player which has over 22 million downloads of all time. I personally love VLC and we have covered it before on MakeUseOf here and here.

It can stream music and supports almost every file format you can think of. I also learned that it can play media files that are in zipped files! Thanks CNet!

3. GOM Media Player

3 GOM player is very similar to other media players with the addition of a awesome feature. It can play partially downloaded or corrupted video files without any user intervention. You start it up and it will play the video when it is finished working its magic. We have covered GOM before.

4. FLV Player

4 Even though Steve Jobs does not like it, Flash is a huge part of the internet as we know it. If you want to be able to download FLV files (Flash files) and play them locally then FLV Player is for you. Check it out for the low price of free.

5. Windows Movie Maker (Windows XP)

5 Using this free application for Windows XP you can edit, manipulate and share your own home movies. Using a drag and drop interface you can import your own videos.

If you have large video files you want to manipulate, make sure your computer is up to snuff. There are options to add special effects and voice over’s or music to your videos easily.

  1. Media Player Codec Pack After installation of this codec pack your computer will now be able to play VCDs, SVCDs and DVDs for free. You will also be able to encode in Xvid, Divx, X264 and other popular formats. This is a dead simple way to make sure a video file will play on your parent's computer!
  2. Any Video Converter Any Video can convert almost any video type to any other type. It has presets for outputting to an iPod or PSP.
  3. Free YouTube to MP3 Converter Have you ever wanted to save the audio from a YouTube video as a MP3?  Well, using this simple free application you can.
  4. SopCast Using this application, you can broadcast your own media or you can view media that is out there. This is very popular in Japan, China and Korea currently.
  5. KMPlayer This is the only free media player I know of that can capture a single frame or advance by a single frame. You can skin and customize this application to your heart’s content if you don't mind an application without a manual!

Do you have a favorite application that you use to edit, convert, play or in any way touch media with? We would love to hear about your free solutions in the comments!

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Filterstorm: An Awesome, Free Photography Companion For The iPad

Posted: 24 May 2010 04:31 PM PDT

photography ipadEven though the iPad lacks a built-in camera, you can import images from your camera using Apple’s camera connection kit, as well as from your computer via iTunes.

When you get images on your iPad, you might want to use an image editor with similar Photoshop features to edit your photos right on the device itself. Well, Filterstorm, a free image editor does just that. Filterstorm is a clean, pretty straightforward image editor that includes basic and advanced features for cropping and scaling photos, and various tools for adjusting or fixing exposure issues and enhancing images.


The menu bar for accessing Filterstorm's editing tools remain visible at the top of the iPad. If you have experience with say Photoshop CS or Photoshop Elements you will have no problem using Filterstorm. If you are a digital photo novice, the developer of Filterstorm has created a great six minute video tutorial for how to use the program.

Similar to Photoshop, Filterstorm contains Curve controls, Hue/Saturation filters, Black & White conversion, a Color Range Selection and brush setting, and even a History tool in which you can selectively undo your applied edits. The list of other filters include: Vignette, Reduce Noise, Sharpen, Posterize, Tone Map, Box Blur.

photography ipad

Each of these tools are fairly easy to use, although you may find the Vignette tool a little tricky. At first when you move the sliders it might apply too much vignetting, but just keep pulling the sliders to the left and right to get your preferred amount. Also be sure to wait for the app to process and apply the filter before you conclude it doesn't work.

photography ipad

Filterstorm works well with the touch and tab-based navigation of the iPad. When you import a photo into the program, you can of course pinch with two fingers to zoom the selected image in and out, which is great to make detailed edits to your images.

The Luminance/Curve filter may seem a little tricky to use, so you might want to start off using the Brightness and Contrast sliders to enrich an image, and then try Curves in the RGB setting for additional enhancements. Like all advanced image editors, the adjustments you make in Filterstorm are not applied until you tap the Apply button. You can get a preview of the changes that will be made before they are applied.

ipad photos

When you first pull up the Color Range tool and brush, you might wonder what its purpose is, since Filterstorm is not a design application. Well, the color tool comes in handy, as the video tutorial shows, for say painting a light sky darker blue. If you make a mistake with brushing in color, you can use the Eraser tools which appears after you apply color strokes.

ipad photos

The last great thing about Filterstorm is that the edits you make are non-destructive of the original image. All the edits are applied to a duplicate of the original.

I would say the biggest missing feature in Filterstorm is the ability to copy edits made to one image and to paste them to other similar images. This could easily be a pro feature for the application.

Much appreciation goes to the developer of Filterstorm for making this application free, for it could easily be sold for at least $9.99.

Let us know if you have tried any image editing tools on your iPad. Tell us what you features would be a help to you as a photographer.

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Discover Movies You Should Watch with HelloMovies

Posted: 24 May 2010 02:30 PM PDT

discover moviesCalling all film and movie fanatics – which is your online home for movie information and its sharing? Please don't say IMDB or RottenTomatoes. I agree these two and a few others are almost encyclopedic movie sites and first stops for things that are cinematic. But there are some movie and film sites that have grown up in the shadow of these biggies.

HelloMovies is one such Web 2.0 app that helps to narrow down on which movie to watch next. HelloMovies is very similar to Jinni in the way that it can search and recommend movies. That’s not surprising because both dig deep into the Movie Genome project for its search power. You can read a lot about the Movie Genome project in Wikipedia, but here's a gist.


The Movie Genome is a way to tag all movies based on genre, mood, tone, plot, tastes etc. The index is generated from the words people use to describe a movie in internet discussions and reviews. All that web shoveling has resulted in a database that's 22,000 movies strong and is swelling up with every release.

That's the source of HelloMovies power. Now, let's see how it benefits us, the film fan.

With HelloMovies you can…

  • Find out which movie to watch.
  • Find out where to watch it online.
  • Find out what others are watching and share notes with them.

discover movies

Finding out which movies to watch is the core job of the search feature on the site. There are many ways you can reach into its database and get the right movie for your taste or mood. You can search by Genres, Tastes, Release Year, Language, or Awards. You can use them one at a time or in combination like filters. You can further sort the results by release, recommended, popularity, or rating.

discover movies

Or you can directly use the search bar (with auto-suggest) on top. I don't, because I hate missing out on the cover flows of the related movies. The search box also leads to an Attic search, that is a listing of movies with the keywords in the title.

All of the information on one neat page

That's one of the most organized aspects about HelloMovies. You get a brief synopsis with a mouseover on the poster. Click on your choice of movie and you get the full info about the movie. I won't be able to put down everything here as you can see for yourself. But there are a few things you can focus on immediately.

HelloMovies describes the movie with a few adjectives under Tastes. The attributes along with the Genre frame the type of movie perfectly. These attributes are linkable and with a click, they will take you to other movies with the same qualities. The Trailer gives you a preview. Some movie pages though do not display trailers for lack of availability. Clicking on the white buttons helps you with recommendations to your friend list or adding it to your personal watch list for later viewing.

discover new movies

As you scroll down, you can roam your eyes over the ratings from IMDB and Critics Choice (from BFCA). If you are a film buff, these scores are instant indicators of movie worthiness. Then, further below, you get to read first-hand user reviews and those from sites like IMDB.

discover new movies

From the Recent Activity lookup, you can directly connect to others interested in the movie. What's the world saying about the flick? Get the news from Twitter and Google News with a click.

discover new movies

Watching some movies online

find new movies

Though not all movies are available for online viewing, you can source the ones which are available from the single click functions available under Where to Get It. The sources range from Hulu, YouTube, Veoh to subscription based sources (Netflix) and other DVD on-demand sources like Amazon. You can use the Where to Get It choices along with the other filters ranged above and below it.

The nerve center lies in the profile page

The user profile page is the starting point for building your own community of friends. It is almost Facebook-ish, with a Wall that displays what others post on your profile. You get to follow your friends' movie liking-hating activities. Then there is the playlist which is your own watch list of movies that you are planning to see.

find new movies

There's a fun user activity monitoring feature that awards you points for rating movies, uploading movies, inviting users, uploading posters and trailers, reviewing movies, etc. You get to move through levels — starting from Newbie, through Movie Star and end up at the apex as a Godfather. For all that, you get rewarded with free gifts like HelloMovies Bumper Stickers, T-shirts, and even free tickets.

find new movies

That will certainly keep me interested. I have seen my share of movie sites but I still like a slick way to get the scoop on a movie of my choice. HelloMovies makes it uncomplicated and right from the moment you land on the homepage, it's a matter of 2-3 clicks.

Right now, I am happily clicking away on the movies I plan to watch. What about you?

If you’re a late-comer, do check out our freely downloadable The Internet Guide to the Movie Addict.

Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras.

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Hot Tech Deals [May 24th]

Posted: 24 May 2010 01:30 PM PDT

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.

For more fresh hot deals, visit our Hot Tech Deals page, which is constantly updated.

  1. Refurb Lenovo IdeaPad Atom 1.6GHz 10″ LED Netbook for $165
  2. 10 refurbished Apple iMac Desktops: 20″ for $849
  3. Sharp 32″ 120Hz 1080p LED-Backlit LCD HDTV for $599
  4. Samsung 25″ 1080p Widescreen LCD HDTV Display for $267
  5. App Store Freebies: Light Writer, World Cup Air Hockey, Project 365, more
  6. iPod / iPhone 1000mAh External Battery for $8 with coupon code “VIP17″
  7. Refurbished Sony 1,000W 5.1-Ch Home Theater System for $175
  8. ASUS 24″ 1080p Widescreen LCD Display for $180 after rebate

Image credit: Modified from Svengraph’s icon set

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10 More Websites To Show You The Hottest Twitter Topics Now

Posted: 24 May 2010 12:30 PM PDT

hottest twitter topicsTwitter is huge! With millions of users sharing their opinions, links to articles that are of interest to them, and tidbits and facts about the areas they live, there is no limit to how that information can be used.

A couple of days ago, we showed you how to find the most popular stories linked on Twitter, the tweets with the most favourites, as well as how to find listings and popular music on Twitter. Today, we’re going to continue with a few more ways to dig deeper into the wealth of information on Twitter, with location-based searching, finding the hottest Twitter topics like lists and a few other goodies.

1 – Location Based

GeoMeme

There are a few location-based sites that show you what topics are popular in a specific area. GeoMeme takes a novel approach by pitting two sentiments or topics against each other, such as Love and Hate, and sees which one is mentioned more on Twitter in any given area. You can choose to include updates found on MySpace, Buzz and Facebook as well if you like. Navigating to a certain area of the world is a little bit inconvenient as there is no way to just easily input any given area – you have to find it manually on their map. On the other hand, the site does prompt you to share your location, which means that each time you open it, it will automatically navigate straight to your part of the world.

GeoChirp

GeoChirp is a much more straightforward but feature rich location-based website. On first loading, it will automatically detect your location, and will list the latest tweets coming from people nearby. You can also conduct a search on specific topics within your area, and can adjust the results to include anywhere between 5 and 25 tweets and can also adjust the radius anywhere up to 50 miles. Logging in with your Twitter account allows you to update your status, reply and retweet directly within GeoChirp. Other features include creating groups to keep your tweeps organised, translation of tweets to any language of your choice and url shortening using bit.ly.

hottest twitter topics

TwitDir

TwitDir is a great resource if you simply want to find other Tweeters in a specific city or area. Search results are displayed by popularity, so the members with the highest number of followers and posting the hottest Twitter topics will be at the top of the list. TwitDir also allows you to search by username, real name, and descriptions. The site also has a few lists that are worth taking a look at including the users with the most followers and the users with the most updates.

2 – Twitter Lists

Listorious

Listorious, a site that features Twitter lists of all sorts, allows users to add their profiles and lists to their directory, so you have a chance to be a direct part of the action. But where the site really comes in handy is that it puts the popular, information-rich lists on the front page, with categories including News, Sports and Politics, amongst others. Listorious also features the top 140 lists on Twitter, which has been determined by the number of followers the list has received.

3 – Movie Reviews

TwitCritics

There is no shortage of opinion on Twitter, so a few websites have put that to good use, creating review sites based on user-opinion featured on Twitter. TwitCritics scours Twitter for tweets about new movies, and then classifies each tweet as positive or negative. If you want your review to appear instantly on TwitCritics, simply add the hashtag #TwitCritics. The home page features the latest movies, accompanied by their rating. Further details on each film include the number of positive and negative tweets about the film, along with links to the film’s page on IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes and other sites. The site also relies on user feedback, to make sure that the reviews have been correctly identified as positive or negative, but this is in fact the site’s main weakness, as irrelevant results are included far too often. TwitCritics’ features include a mobile-version of the site and a search function.

MovieCritter

MovieCritter takes a different approach that ensures accuracy, but also probably makes it a little quieter than TwitCritic. In order for a tweet review to be included on MovieCritter, it has to be directed to the MovieCritter Twitter account. Users can direct their tweets to the  MovieCritter account, including a rating and comment. So while the abundance of reviews is nowhere near the volume found on TwitCritics, you can at least be sure that they are accurate. Each film is accompanied by it’s overall rating, links to its IMDB and Wikipedia pages amongst others and embedded trailer videos.

Thu.mbsUp

Thu.mbsUp makes use of both hashtags and simply trawling Twitter for the names of the latest movies that are showing. Clicking on any given film, results are divided into positive and negative reviews, that scroll down the screen. Unfortunately, there is no way to stop the scrolling which can be a bit annoying. Thu.mbsUp also includes reviews about celebrities, mobile apps, cars and tech related gadgets and software. If you want to be sure that your tweets appear in the Thu.mbsUp stream, accompany your tweet with #thumbsup or #thumbsdown, and also be sure to hashtag whatever it is you’re reviewing.

Flixup!

Flixup! is another website which requires direct interaction with the website in order for your reviews to be counted in their ratings. Each film is accompanied by a rating meter that is judged by two factors – actual ratings given by users, as well as whether or not people want to see the film. Rating a film will automatically populate your tweet for you, which you can edit and post from within their website. Each film is accompanied by it’s poster, trailer, it’s Rotten Tomatoes rating, and tweets mentioning the film from around the Tweetosphere. Flixup also has a free iPhone app [iTunes link] available in the iTunes store.

There are other kinds of reviews that can be found on Twitter, and Saikat’s list of 10 web tools for searching for sentiment-based reviews shows just how extensive Twitter’s power of opinion is.

4 – Journalism

There is an abundance of official news sources on Twitter, from CNN to BBC to Al Jazeera. But aside from their official Twitter accounts, there is also an abundance of journalists who are using Twitter to connect directly with their audience. Two websites in particular aggregate all the journalists’ tweets – the aptly named JournalistTweets and Muck Rack.

JournalistTweets

JournalistTweets allow you to narrow down the feed by the journalists’ locations, but are limited to areas within the US and Europe. You can also use the site to monitor what journalists are saying about a specific topic with either email alerts or a custom RSS feed.

Muck Rack

Muck Rack, which is brought to you by the people behind Listorious, is a little bit more elaborate. Each tweet is accompanied by the journalist’s specialisation and publication they work for. The feed can be narrowed down by journalists working for a specific publication or media outlet, or by topic such as World, US, Technology or Sports. Using Muck Rack, you can also browse the popular news links on Twitter and pictures tweeted by the listed journalists.

In the third and final part of this article, we’ll take a look at using Twitter to help you when you’re travelling, how to find the authoritative voices on Twitter and how to search for anything at all further back than the 10 days that Twitter Search allows.

How do you filter through the noise and find the hottest Twitter topics? Let us know in the comments.

We NEED Your Comments!!! Please do share your thoughts in article comments.

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How To Overclock An ATI Video Card With ATI Overdrive

Posted: 24 May 2010 11:31 AM PDT

overclock video cardOverclocking is the art of increasing the speed of computer hardware beyond stock settings and is a popular way of improving computer performance. Video cards, like many other components, can be overclocked in order to increase performance in games.

If you ever wanted to overclock your video card, it used to be difficult, but competition between Nvidia and ATI has forced both companies into offering proprietary overclocking software as a means of providing better value for customers. ATI’s solution is called Overdrive, and it comes bundled in the ATI Radeon software suite which is installed when you install the drivers for your ATI video card. ATI Overdrive is quite simple to use and allows you to extract maximum performance from your existing video card.


Before going any further, be warned – the fact that ATI provides the Overdrive software doesn’t mean that ATI takes any responsibility for damage which might occur when you overclock your video card. Most warranties are invalidated by overclocking, as well. Overclocking your video card doesn’t pose a significant risk of damage, but there is always a slim chance of hardware failure when overclocking computer hardware. Please be warned.

Launching ATI Overdrive to Overclock a Video Card

In order to use Overdrive you’ll need to have the ATI Catalyst Control Center software installed. In most cases you’ll already have this installed if you have an ATI video card, but it is possible to install the driver without the Catalyst Control Center. The Catalyst Control Center can be downloaded from ATI’s website.

overclock video card

Once installed, right click on your desktop and then click on the Catalyst Control Center option on the menu. The Catalyst Control Center will load – if this is the first time you’ve used it, it might take a few seconds. Once it is loaded, look for the Graphics menu option at the top right of the screen. Click on it to display a menu of options. The option we want, ATI Overdrive, is the last option on the list.

Understanding The Options

Before overclocking your ATI card, take a look at the options in ATI Overdrive. There are three sliders in ATI Overdrive which are important. The first two, which are grouped together, control the speed of your video card. These sliders are labeled High Performance GPU Clock Settings and High Performance Memory Clock Settings. Generally speaking, the adjustments you make to the GPU clock slider will result in a greater improvement in performance than adjustments to the memory clock, but both sliders are important.

Below, separated by a Test Custom Clocks button, is the Manual Fan Control slider. This allows you to adjust the speed of your system fan. We aren’t going to mess with this at any point doing this tutorial because the fan is already set to automatically spin faster as more heat is produced by the video card.

To the right of the sliders are three gauges. The Temperature gauge shows you the current temperature of your video card’s GPU in degrees Celsius. Right now, at idle, this will probably be in the high 30s or low 40s. Once we start changing clock speeds it could go as high as 90 degrees Celsius.

Below the Temperature gauge is the Activity gauge. This shows how close the GPU is to 100% utilization. Last, but not least, is the Fan Speed gauge. This will show you how fast the fan is spinning relative to its maximum speed.

Overclocking Your ATI Video Card

Overclocking your ATI video card with Overdrive first requires that you click on the Enable ATI Overdrive checkbox. Do that now.

The base clock speeds of your GPU and memory will depend on the ATI video card you have, but no matter what card you have you’ll want to adjust both the GPU and memory clock sliders in small increments. Adjust both sliders up by 10Mhz and then click the Test Custom Clocks button. A test pattern will appear. This test strains the GPU to make sure it can function at the new settings. If the test passes you can adjust the the sliders up by another 10Mhz. Rinse and repeat.

Eventually the test will crash or will display some strange graphics errors (known as artifacts) which are a sign that the GPU has been pushed too far. When this happens, reduce the clock speed of the GPU and the memory by 10Mhz.

Once you have reached the maximum overclock which passes the test you’ll need to verify that the overclock is stable by putting the video card through some demanding tests. A common, highly recommended free program for testing a GPU’s overclock is Furmark. Furmark puts a huge demand on the video card and will reveal any weakness. If running Furmark for ten minutes doesn’t appear to have caused any crashes your overclock is stable. If Furmark crashes, however, you’ll need to reduce the GPU and memory overclock further and try to pass Furmark again.

Overclocking The Quick Way

Using ATI Overdrive to overclock your ATI video card is easy to do, but it can take time to find your maximum overclock. Carefully adjusting GPU and memory clock settings and then testing them with Furmark can take anywhere from thirty minutes to several hours.

If you’d like a small overclock, but you don’t want to have to take the time to manually adjust the GPU and memory clock settings, you can use the Auto Tune feature. This button, found above the Temperature gauge in ATI Overdrive, runs a series of GPU load tests on your video card. It adjusts the clock speed upwards by 5Mhz each time until the load test fails or the Auto Tuner detects graphical oddities.

overclock video card

This won’t result in the maximum overclock for your system, but it is much quicker to perform this overclock than a manual one. You can simply begin Auto-Tune, walk away for half an hour to do something else, and come back to enjoy your video card’s improved, overclocked performance.

Getting The Most From Your Overclock

Once you overclock your video card be sure to play your favorite games to see how the overclock has improved performance. If you have a game with a built-in benchmark utility, use it to compare your system before and after your overclock.

Overclocking your ATI video card won’t make a night-and-day different, but it is possible to increase frame rates by as much as twenty percent with some video cards.

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5 Best Sites to Help Students Prepare for the SATs

Posted: 24 May 2010 10:30 AM PDT

where can i prepare for the sat testThrough the years, I have tutored many kids for the SATs. Many were students whose parents couldn't afford to pay for tutoring lessons; others were just looking for resources to be able to study on their own.

Every year, thousands of students with dreams of going to a good college, try to prepare themselves for the SATs and find that there are tons of paid resources, but not many free ways to study. Parents search for ways to help their kids but find themselves having to spend hundreds of dollars on study material.

Well, with a belief that everyone should have the same opportunities, I have prepared a list of sites where any student can prepare for the SAT test for free. Study along…

Math TV

where can i prepare for the sat test

Math TV is a site that has a full list of tutorial videos on topics that range from basic math to Calculus. Videos are broken into short but very useful lessons that vary between 5 and 10 minutes in length and are very clear. It is almost like watching your teacher explain the material, since they make use of a white board to develop the problems. They also have several online books on the topics you are studying that you can access for free.

The only problem is that you can't raise your hand if you have a question.

Major Tests

where can i prepare for the sat test

Major Tests is one of the cleanest test prep sites I've encountered and it's incredibly easy to navigate. It has a large collection of prep tests for the SATs, GRE, GMAT as well as a nice word list with over 1500 words. The tests are short and divided into several segments. You get graded after doing each one. The wrong answers have explanations so it's easy to keep track of how you are doing, and correct whatever you've been having problems with.

Purple Math

how to prepare for sat

Purple Math is a great resource of tutorials from all topics you might need for the SATs and more. The explanations are helpful, the exercises are a good way to practice your new skills and their step by step explanations make following the topics a very simple process. Tutorials go from decimals and fractions to trigonometry. The best way to access the lessons is by using the right hand side menu and selecting "Lessons Index".

Want to have all this material to study on the go?  You can also download all the lessons or order a CD for a very affordable $10 to $18, but you'd get the same material that is readily available for free on the site.

VocabTest

how to prepare for sat

VocabTest has a series of English tests for all levels and it's great practice for any student. Levels are divided by grade, from Middle School to AP Senior. Select a level and take a test. It will tell you whether you are right or wrong and in the end, provide you with an explanation of the words and your average score compared to other students. A great tool to improve your vocabulary.

Math.com

how to prepare for sat

With several explanations in various topics, Math.com can be a valuable resource for those who just want to review a topic and clear up issues with particular problems. The site is slightly confusing, with a lot of ads and not the best navigation, but the material is well written. They do not provide very extensive tutorials, but serve as a quick overview of materials you are already acquainted with. It's a good general review site.

So now that you have access to the information, no more excuses. All it takes is some determination and willingness to get a good SAT score. Have you helped someone study for a major test? Do you have a kid trying to make sense of these tests? Share your thoughts and ideas with us by posting a comment below.

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3 x Sewell MiniDecks Up For Grabs [Special Giveaway]

Posted: 24 May 2010 10:00 AM PDT

Fed up with your dual monitor setup? Looking for a way to more than 1 external display to complement your laptop? The Sewell Minideck uses available USB ports to allow you to natively connect displays up to 24″ in size and even high definition 1080p displays to your laptop.

Usually retailing for $99.95, we are giving away 3 Sewell Minidecks absolutely free to readers around the world! Find out more on our Special Giveaway page.

Also, don’t forget about the current giveaway: Win an Exciting Trip for 2 to New Zealand!

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3 Tips and Tricks To Avoid FarmVille on Facebook

Posted: 24 May 2010 09:30 AM PDT

farmville on facebookIt’s true that FarmVille, on Facebook, has often be featured on technology blogs – MakeUseOf hosts reviews and how-to guides as well. A lot of people enjoy the game. The opposite is also true — that a lot of people don’t.

I’ll go even farther than that. A lot of people can’t stand the sight of it. This is no criticism on the game itself – in all honesty, I’ve never even played it myself. And if you could simply choose ‘not to play it’ and be done with it, that’d be fine with me.

The real problem is its spamming – or, if you want, the spamming of FarmVille users. It’s hard to find a Facebook news feed that isn’t drowning in Farmville, Mafia, and recently Café World notifications. For whatever reason, if you don’t enjoy FarmVille on Facebook, here are a few tips and tricks you might find helpful to avoid it.

1. Hiding All FarmVille Notifications From Your News Feed

The ability to hide certain notifications has been around for a while, and is the main tip given to FarmVille-non-enthusiasts. Although fairly simple, a lot of people still don’t know they can do this. In your news feed, hover your mouse between two notifications, and a Hide button will appear. Clicking it allows you to hide all FarmVille notifications, or all updates from that person. Choose wisely.

farmville on facebook

On the plus side, hiding notifications this way is both incredibly easy and is remembered on your Facebook profile. This means you can use another browser, or sign in from a different computer, and the notifications will stay hidden. On the downside, there is no Hide all app notifications button, and you’ll have to repeat the process for every existing app, and whenever a new one goes viral.

A Tip For FarmVille Users
Let’s say you like FarmVille. Discounting the unlikelihood of you reading this article, here’s a way you can be part of the solution.

When you’re about to publish a story – by all means, achievements are fun – you’ll notice that you can customize who to notify. Clicking the little padlock will pop up some privacy options. If you choose Customize, you can create a list of fellow FarmVille brethren.

farmville on facebook

It’s a bit of extra trouble, but might be worth it if you don’t want to discredit a game you love. Help in keeping Facebook clean, and I assure you, a lot of people will (unknowingly) love you for it.

2. Hiding All App Notifications From Your Browser

This will work for Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera and Safari browsers. We’ve wrote about it before when we showed you 5 More Greasemonkey Scripts To Make Browsing Easier.

FB Purity, aka Fluff Busting Purity, is a browser extension that helps you clean up Facebook. Its multiple browser-compatibility and configurability makes it stands out from other, similar applications.

Apart from hiding Facebook App notifications, you can also strip your news feed bare of other (unwanted) notifications. These include Became friends with, Joined a group, Attended an event, and a score of similar stories. Because some of these features are enabled by default, it’s highly advised to check out the settings pane yourself.

If there are certain applications you do want to hear about, simply find their application IDs, and add them to the Application Whitelist.

farmville game on facebook

Fluff Busting Purity will automatically take care of those game and application notifications. Even when a new one hits the market. On the other hand, because it’s a browser plug-in, it’ll won’t work if you access Facebook from somewhere else.

3. Take A Stand With FarmVillain

There’s only so much you can do to voice your displeasure. Most people don’t. And in the end, I vote against fruitlessly complaining as well. Instead, let’s battle with history’s most-valued weapon: satire.

FarmVillain allows you to add FarmVille notifications to your wall as well. Only, they aren’t really from FarmVille. These stories mimic its ‘real’ counterparts, but in a highly humoristic, and often slightly disturbing manner. Shock your FarmVille friends on Facebook with tales of Mad Cow epidemics, Wookiee meat, illegal immigrant workers and red neck apprentices.

farmville game on facebook

Try not to overdo it, though. FarmVillain also offers a number of rather inappropriate and sometimes distasteful stories. Take a good measure of your Facebook contacts list before you decide what to post.

It’s getting harder and harder to live under the proverbial rock on Facebook. Do you have any other tips and tricks for FarmVillains? Speak your thoughts in the comments section below!

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