MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [July 12th]” plus 9 more |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [July 12th]
- Easily Backup Home Video and Create DVDs with WinX DVD Author [Giveaway]
- Three Useful Free Photography Apps For The iPad [Mac]
- 7 Ways To Use Wikipedia As A Search Tool For Movies & Movie Tidbits
- Hot Tech Deals [July 12th]
- Test Run: First Impressions of Firefox 4 Beta
- 15 Useful Excel Templates for Project Management & Tracking
- Pixo 2.5 Giveaway Winners
- How To Quickly See Available Keyboard Shortcuts On Windows Desktop
- Celebrating TriDefense’s 1st Birthday [MakeUseOf Giveaway]
| Cool Websites and Tools [July 12th] Posted: 12 Jul 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. Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf page on Facebook. Over 24,000 fans already!
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| Easily Backup Home Video and Create DVDs with WinX DVD Author [Giveaway] Posted: 12 Jul 2010 06:30 PM PDT
Now to burn discs, you’ll want to use some good DVD authoring software. Lucky for you, we’re giving away 50 copies of WinX DVD Author worth $1500 to MakeUseOf readers!
WinX DVD Author
WinX DVD Author is a popular application that lets you easily create and burn your own discs. It can burn a full 4.3 GB DVD within an hour, and can handle many formats like AVI, MP4, WMV, DivX, Xvid, and RM. This means that no matter how you backed up your media, you can easily burn it to a disc to enjoy anywhere. After you’ve installed WinX DVD Author, you can get started by clicking the Video DVD Author button.
You will be presented with an easy to use compilation window where you can assemble video clips and configure the DVD you’d like to burn. To add clips, click the large + (plus) button.
If you’re including multiple clips (like episodes of a TV show), WinX DVD Author has a useful progress bar that shows how much space on the disc you have used.
WinX DVD Author also includes the ability to create custom DVD menus, which is very cool if you’re assembling a compilation of clips or creating a disc as a gift. You can add custom backgrounds, text, and even an audio track. You can also let the application create a DVD menu automatically for you.
For those who like to get their hands dirty, WinX DVD Author gives you the ability to customize all attributes of your project. You can change image ratio, video format, disc type, and even add custom subtitles.
WinX DVD Author is a powerful but easy-to-use application that lets you easily create custom discs to enjoy whenever you like. With support for all major formats, a built-in menu editor, and incredibly fast converting and burning, WinX DVD Author is all you need to manage your digital media collection. How do I win a copy?It’s simple, just follow the instructions.
This giveaway begins now and ends Friday, 16th July at 2100hrs PST. The winners will be selected at random and announced via email. Spread the word to your friends and have fun! Digiarty Software has also recently launched a sweepstakes of their own. 1 of every 20 customers who have purchased WinX DVD Video Converter Pack for Windows or WinX DVD Video Converter Pack for Mac will get one iPhone 4 for free. Promotion ends July 31st. Visit their Special Offers page for more details. MakeUseOf would like to thank Sophia from Digiarty Software for her generosity while participating in this giveaway. Interesting in sponsoring? We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with us via email. Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf page on Facebook. Over 24,000 fans already!
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| Three Useful Free Photography Apps For The iPad [Mac] Posted: 12 Jul 2010 04:31 PM PDT
So without further ado, here a few free and practical photography apps for the iPad.
Portfolio To Go LiteI've written before about how useful the iPad is for displaying photos. Well, one app that does it well is the aptly named, Portfolio To Go Lite (iTunes Store link). This app allows you to showcase photos from your Flickr.com account.
After syncing to your account, you can select galleries to display photos full screen. The app also includes an easy to use slideshow feature. Now, you may be wondering, how is this app different from the photo application that comes with the iPad and iPhone? Well, with a Flickr.com account you can connect to your images wirelessly from your mobile device instead of having to export them through a wired connection from your computer, which also results in taking up more space on the hard drive of your iPad.
The pro version of this app has some other goodies, but the lite version is a very good start. The developer is open to suggestions for enhancing his application in upcoming updates. PhotoPad By ZaggAlthough the iPad doesn't take photos, it still can be used for editing and enhancing them. Another very useful app in this regard is PhotoPad. This free app has a variety of capabilities for cropping photos, scaling them, adding color saturation, and applying various filters and brush effects.
One of the essential editing tools for all digital images fresh out of the camera is the contrast tool. It is simple to use with just two sliders to adjust the contrast and brightness of a selected photo. In my experience with it, the tool works really well and can definitely enhance digital images.
PhotoPad also includes image editing tools for tinting photos, making greyscale conversions, and adjusting for color levels. Tapping a button on the top-left of the application allows you to undo any edits you make, and there is also a history tool which, when tapped, will display the individual edits you have made.
This app, as with the other two, makes a copy of the original, which means that all the edits you make to an imported photo are copied and saved to your photo library of your iPad. The developer's website provides no how-to support for the application, but you can learn a lot just by exploring the tools and letting your creativity run wild. Colors Pro FreeIf you have ever wanted to try your hand at selective desaturation effects, the app, Colors Pro, makes it easy to do so. This tool, which can be found in advanced images editors like Photoshop, allows you, for example, to turn a photo into black and white and then paint back in the original color of any part of the image.
It includes a zoom and move tool for doing very detailed selections and fine tuning.
Other features include unlimited undos, emailing of photos, and four different selection tools (circle, rectangle, lasso, and finger brush) for painting back in selections. This ad-supported app is a powerful tool that traditionally could only be achieved in expensive editing applications like Photoshop. With these type of free mobile photography apps for the iPad, you can do a lot of editing and enhancing of your photos absolutely for free. If you have used one of these or a similar photography apps on your iPad or iPhone, let us know about it. If you try out one of these applications, let us know what you think of it. Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers! Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| 7 Ways To Use Wikipedia As A Search Tool For Movies & Movie Tidbits Posted: 12 Jul 2010 02:31 PM PDT
Wikipedia as a film guide got a brief mention in on the Internet Guide to The Movie Addict. For day to day movie information lookups, it deserves a lot more. Do a Google search for a film and Wikipedia crops up just below IMDB.com in the top tier of results. It's not only an encyclopedic reference point for films and movies but also a launching pad for a lot more.
Search For A MovieStart with a Google search for a movie. Let's say, I want everything a search can give me for 'The Lord of The Rings', one of my absolute favorites. Clicking on the Wikipedia link in the search results, I land up on the Lord of The Rings page. Being a trilogy, there is one for that and then there are separate entries for the three parts. If I really didn't understand the film (Sean Connery didn't understand the story and Patrick Stewart disliked the script), the Plot is a refresher. Though, if you haven't seen the film, this section could be a spoiler.
In the case of a film like LOTR and fantasy films of its ilk, you would find out where those beautiful panoramic scenes were shot. Wikipedia usually mentions the filming locations too.
If there's a book behind the movie like there is for a lot of movies these days, you can check out sections like Comparison with the source material. Search For The Cast & Other Movies They Have DoneHere's where I start discovering new movies. Following the cast links, I can see their complete body of work (Filmography) and the ones that are in production. For instance, Viggo Mortensen went unnoticed in a small but powerful role in ‘Carlito’s Way’ with Al Pacino.
I might check it out at the rental store or on the net again. Similarly, you can tell from a work that the director is good or great. The links to his other works are just a click away. Search For Soundtracks
Searching for the score that you liked? Check it under the Soundtrack heading. Some of the tracks have their own Wikipedia pages with more details. Search For Celebrity Chit Chat
The information on Wikipedia is supported by external references and links. You can get the complete dope on those from the References and External Links sections at the end. Some of the good ones are the interview links or their personal star pages. Search In The CategoriesFor all Wikipedia entries you will find the Categories under which the page is included mentioned near the foot. The ones for the films are a treasure trove for information. Here's the Categories snapshot taken from Wikipedia's page on 'The Dark Knight'.
For instance, clicking on American action films takes me to an alphabetical list of movies and other sub categories. The list may not be complete, but you can find a lot of good stuff there. You can keep on following the links endlesslesly. Search Through The Lists
Are you a fan of sci-fi films? Follow the list of science fiction films arranged by decade. Then there are the related lists you can jump to from their like the list of films considered to be the greatest ever. There are all sorts of lists on Wikipedia. Search Through The Wikipedia Portal On Films
Featured content on Wikipedia comes in various forms, from articles, lists, topics, and portals. Films and movies have a portal for themselves. The Wikipedia film portal is an umbrella page for articles, biographies, news, lists, and sundry other content. Some of the best showtime content on Wikipedia can be got to from here. Then as you scroll down, you can check out the sub -portals too that are specific pages built around a topic.
The above seven points are just a steering guide on how you can conduct a movie Wikipedia search. It's a jungle of links, so the trick is to take a single thread (like the actor you are a fan of) and follow it instead of getting sidetracked by any link that comes up. Right now I have a notepad full of film titles that I have yet to see. Make your own wishlist of films from Wikipedia and let us know how useful you find your Wikipedia search for that movie. Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Don’t forget to share our articles with others! It’s really important to us. Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| Posted: 12 Jul 2010 01:33 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 Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras. Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| Test Run: First Impressions of Firefox 4 Beta Posted: 12 Jul 2010 12:30 PM PDT
You’ll find that the address bar and tabs have a more compact feel to them, taking up less space than they did before, and the navigation buttons are smaller. The changes in Firefox 4's appearance are subtle, but definitely pleasing. The functionality seems to have improved in comparison to previous versions, but some of the results in Firefox 4 Beta still disappoint in comparison to other browsers.
Tabs on TopProbably following in the footsteps of Chrome, the tabs are now on top.
This is the default appearance in the Windows version, but in OS X and Linux you have to change it yourself, in the View menu, under toolbars.
Firefox Button (Windows Vista & 7 only)In Windows Vista and 7, the menu has been replaced with one button at the top of the page, from where you can access all of the previous Firefox menu items. The use of the button complements the more compact redesign, but the appearance of the button itself leaves something to desired.
BookmarksProvided you’ve disabled the Bookmarks Toolbar, a new button is featured next to the address and search bars. From there you can access all of your bookmarks.
If you choose to enable the Bookmarks Toolbar, the button will disappear. Another small change, making it more similar in appearance to Chrome is the merging of the stop and reload buttons.
Add-Ons ManagerThe Add-ons Manager has been slightly revamped and opens in a new tab rather than in the previously smaller window. The UI itself is also due more changes, and it is of course, not actually functioning. It should be interesting seeing what they are going to do with it once it's ready to ship. Most of your add-ons probably won't work with Firefox 4, but you can contribute to the testing process by installing the Add-On Compatibility Reporter.
Switch to Tab (Windows only)An interesting feature available for the time being only for Windows users is the Switch to Tab feature. If you’re the kind of person who has several tabs open at a time, you will appreciate this new change. By typing part of the name of the site in the URL, an option will appear to switch to that tab.
HTML5 SupportFirefox 4 boasts native support for HTML5 video. There isn’t much in the way of HTML5 content out there just yet – but with time – that is bound to change.
Crash ProtectionCrash Protection is listed as one of Firefox 4’s features, but in fact, this has been around since the release of 3.6.4. When using plugins like Adobe Flash, Apple Quicktime and Microsoft Silverlight, in the event that any of these plugins crashes, you will no longer be forced to restart Firefox entirely – losing any progress in other tabs. Instead, you are able to reload the page to restart the plugin.
Speed & EfficiencyIn comparison to Firefox 3.6, there is a distinct difference in the speed. Running various Javascript benchmark tests, Firefox 4 was far ahead of 3.6, but still lagged behind Safari, and there was simply no comparison with Chrome. Running the Acid 3 test, Firefox 4 still fails, unlike Chrome and Safari.
As far as memory usage was concerned, Firefox 4 seemed to be using more memory than 3.6 and of course more than double Chrome’s usage. There have been other reports that Firefox 4 was more efficient in terms of memory usage than 3.6, but that wasn’t the case in our experience. PrivacyA significant change in Firefox’s privacy and security settings is in its changes to the CSS Web standard. In layman's terms, the CSS flaw that exposed your browser history to websites has been remedied. The fix is not 100 per cent foolproof, but is a step in the right direction.
Developers will be interested to see other changes to Firefox 4 including Websocket support allowing development of real-time gaming and chatting, support for new CSS3 features allowing for faster display of webpages, a Web Console that allows for analysis of websites, and the JetPack SDK making Add-On development easier, and allowing you to install and use add-ons without restarting the browser. Coming SoonOne much-needed feature in the works is the native syncing of settings, passwords, bookmarks, history and even open tabs, across multiple devices. According to Mozilla we can also look forward to faster browsing, new privacy controls and OS X and Linux specific themes. Have you tried out Firefox 4 Beta? Let us know what you think of it in the comments. Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers! Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| 15 Useful Excel Templates for Project Management & Tracking Posted: 12 Jul 2010 11:31 AM PDT
There are many useful tools out there for project management. One such program you can utilize to keep track of your projects is Microsoft Excel. With Excel’s free templates, you can turn your simple spreadsheets into project management charts and forms.
Microsoft TemplatesFirst, it would be wise to see what templates you already have installed in Excel. For the purposes of this article, I will be using Excel 2007, although this procedure should be pretty similar in the Office 2003 and 2010 suites.
When you start up Excel, click on the Office Button in the top left and go to New. A New Workbook box should have popped up where you can select from different templates. Under Installed Templates, you can view the templates that came with your version of Office. If you don’t have any project management templates installed (I didn’t), you can view the online templates by clicking on the various categories below. When you find one you like, just click on it and click the Download button. Here are some of the useful Excel project management tracking templates I found: Plans (Business)
If you go down to Plans and select Business, you will find a lot of helpful templates. I especially liked these templates:
Planners
If you select Planners from the list, you will see about 35 planning and scheduling templates that could be used for your project management needs. Some of the better templates in this category include:
Search For Online TemplatesIf you would like to search for your desired templates by name instead, you can do so at the top of the New Workbook box. You can try running searches for the terms project, gantt, time, and schedule.
Since I have already done this for you (you can thank me later), you only need to search for the templates I’ve provided. Here are some of the keepers:
You can also find all of these templates online here. Vertex42 Templates
This website has a few great project management templates of its own. As the site states, these templates are mostly related to project scheduling and that anything more complicated would probably require Microsoft Project or other project management software. For the purposes of Excel, here are the free templates they offer: ConclusionWe’ve covered a lot of great project management apps in the past. If you would like to find more free templates online, simply run a Google search for ‘free Excel project management tracking templates’. There are many sites that offer both free and paid templates, so you want to make sure you’re in a site’s free section. What do you think of the templates I’ve provided? Will you be using them for your project management needs? What other apps besides Excel do you like to use for managing your projects? Please leave your thoughts, ideas, and comments below. Image Credit: tome213 Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf page on Facebook. Over 24,000 fans already!
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| Posted: 12 Jul 2010 10:30 AM PDT
Image manipulation is made super easy in Pixo, take a look at our review for a short walkthrough. Here are the 15 lucky winners how will each receive a free copy of Pixo 2.5.
MakeUseOf would like to thank Sean from Bendigo Design for her generosity while participating in this giveaway. Interesting in sponsoring? We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with us via email. NEW: Download MakeUseOf iPhone App. FREE! Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| How To Quickly See Available Keyboard Shortcuts On Windows Desktop Posted: 12 Jul 2010 09:30 AM PDT
In fact, one of our readers in the MakeUseOf Answers community pondered whether the dream of a centralized shortcut manager existed. ActiveHotkeys and Qliner both aim to provide interfaces to view enabled shortcuts, but may not contain information about the shortcut actions or native keyboard combinations from all programs.
Creating Your List of Shortcuts
First, in Windows Explorer, make a folder (right-click, select New, then Folder) named something along the lines of keyboardshortcuts – I try to make things easier for myself and save time by not worrying about capital letters or spaces unless they’re totally necessary. Then right-click on the folder and select Create Shortcuts.
You may wish to make a few more if you have more items in mind. Now select all of the shortcuts you created and moved them to the keyboardshortcuts (or whatever your named your) folder.
Double-click on the folder to see your shortcuts. Click on the first one, hit F2, rename your shortcut as you see fit (e.g. “ctrl+shft+k for wikipedia“) and when you’re done renaming your first item and want to go to the next item, just press Tab instead of Enter. This will save you from having to click each one to rename it or even using the Up and Down keys.
Making Your List Part of Your DesktopWhen you’re done, head to the previous folder so you can see keyboardshortcuts. Now click on keyboardshortcuts and drag it to the edge of your desktop screen.
When you drop it, a toolbar will magically form. Here, I’m showing you to do it in the top portion of the screen, but if you use your browser’s bookmarks toolbar or navigational toolbar a lot, I would drop keyboardshortcuts somewhere else, like to the left of the screen, unless you have your taskbar there like I do. Now that you have a starter informational toolbar, right-click on it and check both Always on Top and Auto-Hide. This enables the toolbar to be summoned into focus only when you need it and hover over it.
Organizing Your ListIf you wish to organize your information and create separators, you can always repeat the steps to create separate folders. Instead of drag and dropping them onto the edge, this time you can include them by just right-clicking on your starter toolbar, selecting Toolbar and then New Toolbar.
You can right-click on the toolbar, select View and then Small Icons to fit more items. You can also drag the resizers on the left of the toolbars to reorder them. You can’t lock the toolbars, but you can extend the toolbar to at least half of your screen if you have a monster list with numerous shortcuts.
Other uses
If your folder only has a few shortcuts, you could always include it in the Taskbar with the same right-click > Toolbar > New Toolbar. In fact, you could make a quick to-do or goals list in the Taskbar, or in a separate toolbar if you find the first option too obstrusive. To change the icons for the shortcuts, simply head into the shortcuts Properties by right-click, and find Change Icon in the Shortcut tab (Windows XP users may need different directions). I wouldn’t advise spending too much time with customizing icons but sometimes, a little eye candy may just boost your enthusiasm to want to look at your goals. FindIcons is a great search engine packed with glossy icons. If you create the folders in your My Dropbox folder, you can even look at your goals in your mobile with Dropbox’s iPhone or Android app.
You could also drop your Downloads folder so you could quickly see your downloaded items and not have to worry about closing up Firefox’s Downloads window. Don’t forget that MakeUseOf has already compiled several cheat sheets with the most popular and useful keyboard shortcuts. Do download them! What are your thoughts on this method to quickly refer to a list? If you have implemented something similar, or even totally different, please do share it with us in the comments! Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Don’t forget to share our articles with others! It’s really important to us. Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| Celebrating TriDefense’s 1st Birthday [MakeUseOf Giveaway] Posted: 12 Jul 2010 08:30 AM PDT
This week, we will be handing out 25 App Store promo codes for TriDefense to celebrate this significant milestone in mobile gaming. If you’ve played the free version [iTunes link], you’ll definitely want to get your hands on the full version.
Tridefense is not your regular, run-of-the-mill tower defence game. Its high quality graphics, 3D positional audio, exceptional gameplay makes it one of the best strategy games on the iPhone and iPod Touch platform. And gamers have noticed it too — the game has been downloaded over 200,000 times in the last 12 months. In my original review of TriDefense (way back in December 2009), I acknowledged its challenging gameplay scenario — it really does takes a lot of skill, strategy and dedication to beat the game. The reason why it’s called TriDefense is because there are three different types of creeps that attack by air, land and water. This is what pulls TriDefense ahead of its competitors. In addition to that, the various weaponry (and their awesome graphics) which are available to you also adds loads more fun.
Despite the challenge, TriDefense is still a pleasure to play. It’s beautiful graphics and sensational soundtrack makes every gaming minute a pleasure.
You may also be interested to know that TriDefense 2 is in the works. Ciro Mondueri from TriDefense mentioned:
I hope you’re as excited as I am to get my hands on TriDefense 2. But for now, why don’t you get your hands on a free copy of TriDefense? How do I win a copy?It’s simple, just follow the instructions.
This giveaway begins now and ends Friday, 16th July at 2100hrs PST. The winners will be selected at random and announced via email. Spread the word to your friends and have fun! MakeUseOf would like to thank Ciro from TriDefense for his generosity while participating in this giveaway. Interesting in sponsoring? We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with us via email. Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras. Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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