MakeUseOf.com: “Latest Hilarious Picks [MakeUseOf Geeky Fun]” plus 7 more |  |
- Latest Hilarious Picks [MakeUseOf Geeky Fun]
- Cool Websites and Tools [June 27th]
- Thank You To MakeUseOf Friends!
- How Many Monitors Do You Have In Your Setup? [Poll]
- JulNoWriMo – Write A Novel In 30 Days With The July Novel Writing Month
- Hot Tech Deals [June 27th]
- 10 Free MP3 Albums To Download [Sound Sunday]
- Slide Screen Redefines The Android Home Interface
| Latest Hilarious Picks [MakeUseOf Geeky Fun] Posted: 28 Jun 2010 02:49 AM PDT
If you would like to keep up with all latest Geeky Fun additions, please subscribe to the Geeky Fun feed here. You can also subscribe and get the latest additions via email.
Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras. Similar MakeUseOf Articles
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cool Websites and Tools [June 27th] Posted: 27 Jun 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
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Thank You To MakeUseOf Friends! Posted: 27 Jun 2010 07:30 PM PDT
Thank you, guys! MakeUseOf has teamed up with zozi to provide you (and a friend) a FREE 7-day, trip to New Zealand. Sign up now!
Similar MakeUseOf Articles
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| How Many Monitors Do You Have In Your Setup? [Poll] Posted: 27 Jun 2010 06:30 PM PDT
You can see the full results after the jump.
This week we are asking you how many monitors you have in your computer setup. Personally, I have three monitors connected to my PC. Some people think that I should be a stock trader but I say that three monitors gives me three times more room to work and I can differentiate different projects by which screen they are on. Please vote below and leave us a comment! Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf fan page on Facebook. Over 20,000 fans already!
Similar MakeUseOf Articles
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| JulNoWriMo – Write A Novel In 30 Days With The July Novel Writing Month Posted: 27 Jun 2010 03:30 PM PDT
The challenge is to write a 50,000-word novel in just one month, with no real reward other than your own personal satisfaction of completing it. But whereas NaNoWriMo takes place in November, JulNoWriMo takes place in July. If July happens to be a less busy month for you, JulNoWriMo is an alternative that you might want to consider. After all, attempting to write a whole novel in a month is a pretty big commitment.
All you have to do to sign up is head over to the JulNoWriMo forums and register a username. Then you might want to start planning your novel, because July’s going to hit sooner than you know it. Tips and ResourcesOne of the advantages that JulNoWriMo has over NaNoWriMo is that July has one more day in it than November. That means you have just a little bit more time to accomplish the challenge. Take a look at the numbers: NaNoWriMo writers have to write 1666 words per day, but JulNoWriMo writers have to write slightly less, just 1613 words per day. If you want to follow a strict schedule of 1613 words per day, check out this page, which tells you the cumulative total words you have to have written each day to keep up.
Another advantage to JulNoWriMo is that, unlike during NaNoWriMo, you’re not required to start a new novel. If you've got some writing in progress, you can pick it up again for JulNoWriMo. You just have to write 50,000 new words during the month of July. When you start writing, you'll probably want to show off how much you've written by updating your word count on the JulNoWriMo site. The word count system isn’t activated yet, but you’ll need to know how to update it when July comes. First, go to the forums and make sure you’re logged in. Then go to your User Control Panel.
In your user control panel, select Edit Profile.
You’ll see where you can edit your word count on the Edit Profile page come July. JulNoWriMo’s forums, while not nearly as active as NaNoWriMo's, are a great place to socialize with others who have also committed to this crazy challenge. You can just have some fun discussion there to take a break from writing, and you can ask your fellow writers for help. I also highly recommend checking out JulNoWriMo's collection of links. There's a huge variety of links to helpful writing resources, and there are also links to all of the different writing challenges throughout the year if you don't think you're up for this in July. Helpful ProgramsOne of the biggest challenges to getting 50,000 words down is suppressing the desire to go back and edit your work. It just isn't possible to go back and fix all of your grammatical mistakes now, when you should instead be focusing on writing as much as possible as quickly as possible. Typewriter is a program that will make it impossible to edit yourself. This unique minimalist text editor is meant to emulate a typewriter. To that end, it offers none of the features common to word processors and really doesn't let you do much besides write, save, and print. Most importantly for our purposes, it doesn't let you use backspace.
Just as if you were using a typewriter, any mistakes you make you're stuck with, which will require you to just keep on writing and not look back. If you want a program suited more to creative writing, yWriter might be your best bet. It can help you organize your writing and perhaps make your 50,000 words a little less chaotic.
To get more details on yWriter, check out this article. ConclusionIf you think you’re up for the challenge, be sure to try out JulNoWriMo. Don’t worry if you don’t make 50,000 words this year. I’ve been doing JulNoWriMo for three years and haven’t quite made it once. But it’s worth coming back each year regardless because it’s a good way to encourage yourself to write. And, who knows, you might find out you’re a creative genius and manage to churn out 50,000 words. What do you think? Will you participate this year? NEW: Download MakeUseOf iPhone App. FREE! Similar MakeUseOf Articles
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 27 Jun 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 Similar MakeUseOf Articles
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 10 Free MP3 Albums To Download [Sound Sunday] Posted: 27 Jun 2010 12:30 PM PDT
Feedback and suggestions will always find room in the comments, but you can also eMail me (tina at makeuseof dot com). If you are an artist who would like to be featured on Sound Sunday, please get in touch with me. This week we’re mixing it up a little with free MP3s, mixed albums, and full albums from all over the place.
10 Free MP3 Downloads
NME – Glastonbury 2010 AlbumGenre: mixed
PS: RCRDLBL has its own Glastonbury Playlist with 24 songs. Spinner – Siren Festival 2010 MixGenre: mixed
The Blumpkins – mixedGenres: metal, grindcore, hardcore
The Blumpkins MySpace and Facebook. JustDave – Well I Never…. (album preview)Genres: powerpop, pop, rock
Just Dave MySpace and Homepage. DJ Fresh & Mr.Tower – Hella SongsGenres: hip hop, rap, soul
DJ Fresh MySpace. Mr.Tower Homepage. Futures – The HolidayGenres: alternative, rock, pop punk
Futures MySpace. Provizion – Extorting EnglishGenres: hip hop, rap
Provizion MySpace and Homepage. Cousin Junebug – 1623 Allesandro Funk ClassicsGenre: funk
Cousin Junebug MySpace and Homepage. Jon J – The Power StruggleGenres: gospop, r&b, hip hop, soul
Ralph Hinkley Syndrome – selftitledGenres: alternative, indie, rock
Ralph Hinkley Syndrome MySpace and Facebook. Are you saturated, yet? Please share your thought in the comments. Our latest mega giveaway: zozi is sponsoring a FREE 7-day, wine-tasting trip in New Zealand for two. Here’s how you can sign up. Contest ends June 25th.
Similar MakeUseOf Articles
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Slide Screen Redefines The Android Home Interface Posted: 27 Jun 2010 09:30 AM PDT
Most interfaces now try to solve that by neglecting the problem. They just give you a blank slate that you can litter any way you like. Although the freedom of a sandbox interface is enticing, that doesn’t seem to be the way to do it. Some companies (and home programmers) have been redefining the way we think about content placement, and redesigning the main interface of popular devices and applications. Slide Screen is most prominent, in the way it revamps the face of the Android, an already hot smartphone.
Slide ScreenDifferent Android phones (e.g. HTC versus Motorolla) tend to pack a different home screen — basically the desktop of your phone. Slide Screen, although it certainly has the feel of a custom ROM, is simply another home screen replacement. It redefines the face of your phone, and does so intelligently and beautifully.
With an eye on these heavy (Android) phone users, those people swimming in emails and RSS feeds, Slide Screen tries to facilitate a better overview of the data pool. The application shows you a clean and simplistic overview, packed with as much information possible, without creating a clutter.
The general overview consists of an upper and a lower part, divided by a center bar that supplies you with the most rudimentary information; date, time, weather and available data connections. Personal data is placed on the top of the screen. This includes phone calls, messages, emails and the calendar. Currently, Slide Screen only syncs with the Gmail application, though. At the bottom of the screen are your RSS news feeds, stock quotes and Tweets. Facebook support is due to be added in a later version of the application. All these 'applications' are color-coded to allow for easy distinction. And besides, it looks pretty.
This center bar can be slid up- or downwards to prioritize one branch of information, and reallocate the available space on your screen. You can also filter the information flow by hitting one of the icons on the righthand side of the screen. For example, tapping the Twitter icon will open that application, momentarily showing only Tweets, as can be seen in the screenshot above. Integrated RSS ReaderAs can be expected, if you instead hit one of the items in the list, it will open the post, email or stock information in full screen. This feature works incredible with your RSS news feeds. And don't expect it to fire up your browser, or a third-party RSS reader. Slide Screen will show you your articles without you having to leave the slick, black interface.
Instead of having to switch between interfaces tenfold, you can keep yourself focused on the data at hand. Currently these applications only extend to the aforementioned. However, Slide Screen appears to be working on an API that will make it possible for other developers to create compatible applications. Revamped Application OverviewSlide Screen also made work of the application overview, a part of the Android user interface that stands separate from the 'real' home screen. Redesigning the application overview, Slide Screen closes the GUI loop.
As can be expected, there weren't any radical reforms here. The application overview has already proven its usability. It was redesigned to fit in with the rest of Slide Screen, and now allows you to pin a number of favorite applications – those that otherwise would've ended up on your home screen. What do you think of Slide Screen? Is this the direction you want future mobile interfaces to go? It certainly shares some qualities with the new Windows Mobile OS. Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below. Got Questions? Ask Them Now for FREE on MakeUseOf Answers! Similar MakeUseOf Articles
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Check out the top picks from MakeUseOf 
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 
Last week we asked you 
If you’re in the market for a new computer, laptop, mobile phone, games and other accessories; don’t waste your time searching online. We’ve taken the liberty of locating the best tech deals and unifying them into a single post for your convenience.
Sound Sunday has been a MakeUseOf feature for over a month and of course, we would like to know how you like it so far. Has the series been helpful in keeping your music collection fresh, have you discovered new favorites, and what would you improve?
With an incredible amount of data sources – email, SMS, RSS, and more arriving every single day, it's sometimes hard to create a structure of sorts out of all that information.
| You are subscribed to email updates from MakeUseOf.com To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment