MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [August 26th]” plus 10 more |
- Cool Websites and Tools [August 26th]
- Latest Hilarious Picks [MakeUseOf Geeky Fun]
- 3 Handy Sites To Check Out Before You Buy A Car
- Awesome Desktop Backgrounds For A Movie Fan
- The Easiest Way To Send Secret Messages Within Images
- Hot Tech Deals [Aug 26th]
- How To Use Apple’s AirTunes in Ubuntu/Linux
- Sonogram Visible Voice – Powerful Voice Spectrogram Software
- How To Appear Offline (Invisible Mode) In Facebook Chat
- 3 Free Ways To Download YouTube Movies To Your iPhone (And Other Mobile Phones)
- TimeComX – Runs Selected Actions or Programs on Set Time [Windows]
Cool Websites and Tools [August 26th] Posted: 26 Aug 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. Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras.
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Latest Hilarious Picks [MakeUseOf Geeky Fun] Posted: 26 Aug 2010 07:31 PM 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. Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers!
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3 Handy Sites To Check Out Before You Buy A Car Posted: 26 Aug 2010 06:31 PM PDT Yes, the car buying experience can be a little overwhelming sometimes, but it doesn't have to be. With the Web, it's easy to simplify everything to avoid some of the hassle and frustration altogether. Here's 3 handy sites to check out before you buy a car. CarZenFirst, perhaps the most important thing to do is to research a new car and figure out what kind of car is right for you. With so many makes and models out there to choose from, how do you make that process easier? That's where CarZen comes into play. The site allows you to quickly select a vehicle that fits your specific needs. All it takes is just a few simple steps. First, just pick any of the body styles you are interesting in along with your price range. A list of possible cars for you is shown below and from there, you can go on and select your personal preferences, including your specific needs, wants, and style, to narrow down the list further. Once completed, just review your results to check out the cars that are perfect for you. Displayed for every match in your results is the percent match based on your needs, along with basic information about the car, including MSRP, invoice, and MPG. Below that, you can review the report card of how the vehicle was scored followed by a helpful overview of the model, basic stats, styles, and features. MotorMouthsNext, now that you have an idea of exactly what car you want, head on over to MotorMouths. The Web is chock full of various car reviews and ratings from different providers, and that's where this website can come in handy. Just type in the make or model of the car in the search box at the top. If you have yet to decide on a car, you can also browse for vehicles. Once on the car's page, you'll find the unique overall score, which is based on the scores critics awarded the vehicle in published online reviews. The site also displays the individual scores and the gist of the review, along with who reviewed the car, the critic's credibility, and the style reviewed. Simply hit the link for the full review or the video review if there is one. TrueCarIf the reviews check out and you're all set, be sure to check out TrueCar before you take the plunge. The site features the real prices of new cars and trucks so that you can be certain you're not overpaying. Once you find your vehicle's price report page, the interactive chart pretty much says it all. The comprehensive curve includes the dealer cost, sticker price, and factory invoice. What we're really interesting in though is the average paid, which gives you at least an idea of what a good price for the car is. Karl has also shown you three websites that can help you buy a car and when you finally have a vehicle, you will want to keep a perfect car maintenance schedule won’t you? What websites do you visit before you buy a car? Have any of these helped you? Let us know in the comments. Image Credit : emilio labrador Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers!
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Awesome Desktop Backgrounds For A Movie Fan Posted: 26 Aug 2010 04:31 PM PDT Anyways, if you love movies and are in the market for some new wallpapers, look no further. To save you the hassle, I went out to find a selection of awesome desktop backgrounds from the movies for you. You can navigate directly to the source and download the wallpaper or browse the respective page for more. Enjoy! Up In The Air @ Movie WallpapersLet’s start with something pretty. Movie Wallpapers is one of the few pages that has a very pleasing design and is also easy to navigate. Unfortunately, it doesn’t feature the latest movies. Can’t have it all, right? Left: 1600 x 1200 – 1280 x 960 – 1152 x 864 – 1024 x 768 – 800 x 600 Middle: 1600 x 1200 – 1280 x 960 – 1152 x 864 – 1024 x 768 – 800 x 600 Right: 1600 x 1200 – 1280 x 960 – 1152 x 864 – 1024 x 768 – 800 x 600 The Expendables @ FM-TWGreat selection of genres, but sadly only ‘one size fits all’ wallpapers. Please adjust to your screen size if required. You will find five more desktop backgrounds for The Expendables and many more for recently released and older movies. Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D @ Celebrity WonderCelebrity Wonder has a good selection of wallpapers from the latest movies, including Piranha 3D, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, or Predators. You’ll also find several other options for Resident Evil, via the link above. So have a look if you dare. 1280 x 1024 – 1024 x 768 – 800 x 600 Kites @ Now Running (Hindi)Few sites feature foreign movies. Hasn’t Bollywood gone mainstream, yet? At Now Running you can select from Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, or Kannada movies. These are all languages spoken in India by the way. There is an English section, too, but it’s empty. Twilight @ Twilight GuideVampires will never go out of fashion. So I guess we will have to put up with Twilight for a little longer. This site has some stunning wallpapers from the series and the movies. Please forgive me if I didn’t pick the most recent one. Avatar @ deviantARTdeviantART is always a great resources for fantastic images. This collage was created by the artist PixelAngel and is available in a high resolution. Please scale it down to your screen resolution before making it your desktop background. The Other Guy @ MovieWallpaper.netThis site has a pretty neat feature on its start page. It lists movies in three different categories: ‘Box Office’, ‘In Theaters’, and ‘Coming Soon’. This way you always know what’s hot without a lot of guessing. The site offers 12 more wallpapers of The Other Guy. 1280 x 1024 – 1024 x 768 – 800 x 600 Inception @ Joblo’s Movie WallpapersJoblo’s Movie Wallpapers has a good selection of up to date movies. There are usually several wallpapers for each movie. You will find 12 more for Inception, available through the link above. Also visit the site if you’re looking for material from Cats & Dogs, Grown Ups, or Toy Story 3. Joan Crawford @ Classic Movie FavoritesAre you looking for something more timeless? Classic Movie Favorites has dozens of wallpapers from those movie legends of the past century. Greta Garbo, Barbara Stanwyck, Katherine Hepburn, Clark Gable, and Marlene Dietrich are just a few of them. TRON: Legacy @ MovieWallpapers.netThis site features wallpapers of movies that won’t be released for quite some time. It also provides some great Vintage and James Bond desktop background that are worth reviewing. In addition to offering a nice variety, MovieWallpapers.net also serves the best selection of formats, including widescreen, fullscreen, HDTV, and formats for various devices. Please visit the page for a full list of options. Widescreen (16:10): 1680 x 1050 – 1440 x 900 – 1280 x 800 Widescreen (16:9): 1600 x 900 Fullscreen (4:3): 1400 x 1050 – 1280 x 960 – 1024 x 768 – 800 x 600 Fullscreen (5:4): 1280 x 1024 HDTV (16:9): 720p Also check out the following articles on MakeUseOf:
What is your favorite wallpaper ever and where can we download it? Image credits: Auroqueiro NEW: Download MakeUseOf iPhone App. FREE!
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The Easiest Way To Send Secret Messages Within Images Posted: 26 Aug 2010 02:30 PM PDT One method of putting this art to use is to hide a message within an image. You can send messages to anyone you’d like to without anyone else being the wiser. This could also be used to put together games and puzzles for website visitors or blog readers by hiding messages in specific images allowing people to hunt for the messages. This isn’t the first time the art of steganography has debuted on MakeUseOf – Tina showcased a desktop client for Windows and Jackson wrote about iSteg for Mac; both of these apps can be used for the exact same purpose. Whatever your reason for hiding secret messages in pictures, you can now do so regardless of your operating system — thanks to a web-based tool offered to us by mozaiq. While being a site dedicating to helping people turn images into mosaics, if you head to a subdirectory on the site you will see they offer the ability to encrypt messages in images also. The process is simple: upload an image, type a message, enter a password, click a button and download the image with the message encrypted in it. Sounds easy enough but let’s take a closer look. Go to mozaiq.org/encrypt. When you do, you are immediately given the fields to begin the process. Off to the left there is an introduction to the art/science of steganography and mozaiq’s encrypting tool. To the left is where all of the action takes. Choose a picture to upload. Make sure it us under 128KB or it won’t work. Once you have chosen the image, enter the message you would like to share. Before you go and hit the “Hide Your Message!” button, you can enter a password to further protect the privacy of the message. This is optional and totally up to you. Once you hit the magic button, you are able to download the image file. Notice that the image will only be available for download for 5 minutes making it imperative that you download it immediately. Also realize that you can’t change the file in any way other than renaming it. This includes cropping, resizing or even converting it to another file extension. Once you download it, you are able to send it or post it anywhere you please. When you do, make sure the recipient knows to go to mozaiq.org/decrypt in order to see the message. Try out this image for size: Right-click and save the image of the cell phone and go to the decryption page. I gave it the password “hello” so you can see how it works. See if you can find out the encrypted message. I think you will find it to be both incredibly enlightening and not that surprising (seeing as though it’s also in one of the screenshots above). So now that we have a way to hide secret messages in pictures, in a way that will not provoke attention, what ways can you think of to put it to use?
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Posted: 26 Aug 2010 01:30 PM PDT For more fresh hot deals, visit our Hot Tech Deals page, which is constantly updated. Keep reading to find out today’s Hot Tech Deals.
Image credit: Modified from Svengraph’s icon set Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Don’t forget to share our articles with others! It’s really important to us.
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How To Use Apple’s AirTunes in Ubuntu/Linux Posted: 26 Aug 2010 12:30 PM PDT First, I grumbled about the typical Apple naming scheme, then I wondered if it was possible to use such a thing from Ubuntu, then I heard my fellow Linux user ask the same question out loud.
Step 1: Install Necessary SoftwareTo begin, you need to install two packages: “pulseaudio-module-raop paprefs” and “paprefs”. The first package allows Ubuntu to use the remote audio output protocol (raop); the second, configure Ubuntu to enable it. To install the packages, simply open the command line and type this command:
If the command line scares you simply click here to install the packages. Non-Ubuntu people, your mileage may vary here in terms of the package names. Sorry about that! Step 2: Enable AirTunes DetectionNow that you’ve installed what needs installing, you need to open the program “paprefs”. Do this from the command line, or click “Alt” and “F2″ and type “paprefs” there. Don’t worry; you’re most of the way, and everything will be GUI-full from here on out. Here’s what the window should look like: Simply click the “Make Discoverable Apple AirTunes sound devices available locally” checkbox and you’ve enabled it. Step 3: Switch to AirTunesNow that AirTunes detection is enabled all you need to do is switch your speakers from your local computer to your remote one. Click the “Volume” icon in your tray, then click “Preferences”, as seen here: Click the “Output” tab and you should see your Apple AirTunes device listed here, like this: If you don’t see such an option, don’t panic. Simply restart Pulseaudio (if you know how) or reboot your computer. It should show up for sure now. QuirksOf course, this entire process being a little bit of a hack, there are a few quirks to be noted. For example, I noticed a six-second delay. This isn’t a big deal if you’re listening to music, but don’t plan on using this from watching movies. The second problem I’ve noted is that, while switching back to my computer’s speakers is as easy as re-opening the output selection, this apparently doesn’t log me off on the server-side. This means that, if one of my Apple-using collegues decides to reconnect to AirTunes after I’m done using it, they see a message about someone already being logged onto the device. This is frustrating, but nothing that a reboot of the Airport Express can’t fix. If I find a fix to either of these problems you can expect to find it in the comments below, but please also feel free to share if you have any of your own. ConclusionI was happy to find a way to stream my music to the AirTunes device at work, and hope this guide is useful to at least a few other people. If it does, please leave me a note in the comments below. Also leave me a note if you’ve found a way to decrease lag or log off without restarting the AirPort. Finally, as I cannot use every Linux distribution simultaniously, please let me know how these steps work on other systems such as Fedora or SUSE. It’s always good to know! Photo credit: Jared C. Benedict Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras.
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Sonogram Visible Voice – Powerful Voice Spectrogram Software Posted: 26 Aug 2010 11:30 AM PDT With the recorded voice from the phone call and a clip of the person denying the accusation, I set to work trying to find a way to prove that the voices were one and the same.
To be honest, once I discovered Sonogram Visible Speech, I realized that spectrogram voice technology actually is currently a viable way to solidly identify a person by their voice alone. Understanding SpectrogramIf you know about chemical isotopes, then you know that with isotopes, chemists can identify the chemical makeup of compounds by isolating the basic elements and using the breakdown to identify the individual components of any mixture. In much the same way, an audio spectrogram breaks down audio sound into basic frequencies. The interesting thing about the human voice is that no one speaks in one frequency. Your mouth, nasal passages and the structure of your voice box determines the mixture of frequencies that make up your somewhat unique voice. Sonogram Visible Speech is a free spectrogram software application that will take video or audio files and break down the audio track into the entire spectrum – all of its frequencies throughout the entire time frame of the track. A completed spectrogram looks like the image below. As you can see, the bottom track looks like the basic sound wave that you’d see in a program like Audacity, however the center pane displays each segment of the sound file in its entire frequency layout. The amazing thing about this software is that there are many other waveforms you can use to examine your sound file. These are especially for advanced users. You can configure how each of those wave forms displays by going into the the “Options” menu, and selecting “General Adjustment.” Here you can define how the logarithmic graphs calculate output and the general display setup of all available charts. If the sound is fairly quiet, or the voice you’re analyzing is a whisper, you may want to consider using the logarithmic frequency display. You enable it from the “Options” menu and select “Logarithmic Frequency.” This will somewhat “magnify” the significant areas of frequency in the spectrogram. This can really help to identify clear frequency patterns that identify someone from the sound of their voice. If you’re completely lost, and you don’t know where to start, clicking on “Help” and going to “Online Help” will open up the very well written Sonogram Online Help manual. This is a great place to start if you’re new to spectrogram audio analysis. An Experiment With Spectrograms Using Ghost HuntingThe beauty of this software is that it is good for many different uses. One of the artifacts that comes up often in ghost hunting, a personal interest of mine, is “electronic voice phenomenon” – where the voice of an apparition or ghost allegedly shows up on audio recordings. These recordings are scattered throughout the web, so I decided to pull a few off of the ghost hunter websites and do a spectrogram analysis. The spectrogram shows that the frequencies of the voice are generally low, but to get a better picture of the voices in the recording, you need to open up the additional waveforms. The Autocorrelation View calculates “pitch” in the time frame where you hover the mouse. The “ghost” has an average pitch frequency of about 129.0 hz. Scrolling to the end of the recording where you hear the investigator’s voice, the calculated pitch frequency is about 208.0 hz (which makes sense because it’s a female voice and the ghost recording sounds male.) Opening up the Fast Fourier display reveals even more detail about the voices. This chart quickly breaks down the primary frequencies and displays them in a color code. In this case, the breakdown of frequencies is spread apart, with some high, but a good number of low frequencies in the mix as well. However, the investigator in the room is clearly speaking in a voice that is clustered in frequency more toward the high end of the range, as shown here. This quick analysis proved that the two voices are quite different, but this is only a basic example of the capabilities of this powerful software. Basically, any situation where a breakdown of frequencies of a sound wave can help – this is the software for you. It’s easy to learn, quick to set up and configure, and it performs as well or better than any paid spectrogram software on the market. Do you have any projects that could use a spectrogram? Have you ever tried Sonogram Visible Speech? Share your insight in the comments section below. Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers!
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How To Appear Offline (Invisible Mode) In Facebook Chat Posted: 26 Aug 2010 10:30 AM PDT Once you are online, you can view which of your friends are online and they will be able to see you online as well. Generally, Facebook only provides the options to go offline or online. Apart from this, the only other status available is ‘Idle’ which appears next to your name after a prolonged period of inactivity. But how can you be invisible on Facebook to certain users? This is how.
For this purpose, we need at least one list in your chat window. Follow the steps detailed above to create a list, you can name your list anything that you want. I have named one of my lists as "invisible". As soon as the list is created, you will notice a "toggle button" next to the list name in your chat window. This button lets you appear online or offline to a list of friends depending upon its state. Coupled with the fact that you can easily drag and drop contacts in and out of a list, this is a good trick to appear online to a select list of friends and appear offline to others. Just drag the contacts you want to appear offline to into the "invisible" list and then click on the toggle button/switch next to "invisible" so that it switches to gray. You will now appear offline to contacts in the "invisible" list, while everyone else can see you online. Caveats You Should Be Aware Of
Other than these minor caveats, you can edit the lists to your liking and delete them altogether if you don’t feel the need to use them anymore. The lists you create in chat are also visible in the Account > Edit Friends section, just like any other lists you create. Go ahead, give this a try and let us know it works for you. Do you use the invisible functionality on other IM networks? Would you like Facebook to provide this functionality directly? Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Don’t forget to share our articles with others! It’s really important to us.
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3 Free Ways To Download YouTube Movies To Your iPhone (And Other Mobile Phones) Posted: 26 Aug 2010 09:30 AM PDT Despite the delivery method – glass tube or YouTube, movie lovers are always trying to find a way to make the movies available “off tube”. There’s the VCR in the old days, and there are countless way to download YouTube videos. Because there are more and more modern mobile phones – like the iPhone – that play a role as entertainment gadgets, it’s only logical that this video downloading movement finds its way to the mobile world. Here are three free ways to download YouTube movies to your iPhone (and other mobile phones). Prologue: Mobile YouTube (On Most Mobile Phones)But before we go further, please note that YouTube has a mobile version of their service. Even though this “M” version will not allow you to download the content, it is a good alternative for mobile users who don’t mind watching streaming videos. So if you think that you are not geeky enough to go through the trouble of downloading videos to your mobile phone, just point your browser to Mobile YouTube. Chapter One: The Good Old-Fashioned Way (On Most OSes To Most Mobile Phones)This method is the standard procedure that you can find in every internet user manual (if one exists). It involves a online file converting service like Zamzar to help us download YouTube movies (and convert them to a format compatible with your mobile phone). The steps require for Zamzar are: type in the video URL, choose what format you want the video to be converted into, provide your email address and click “Convert“. You will then receive an email with the link to download the converted video. Send the downloaded video to your mobile phone. There are many other online services that can help you download YouTube videos. And because all you need is a browser and internet connection, you can do the method from any computer under any OS and transfer the resulting videos to any mobile phone. You can also try this method entirely on your mobile phone without using computer. I tried using Mobile Safari but failed to access the download link. But this might work using other mobile browsers and/or different online YouTube downloader services. Chapter Two: The Tooble Way (On Mac and Windows To iPhone)You can also download YouTube videos with the help of desktop softwares like MacTubes. One of the free and complete alternatives to do that is Tooble. This is an application that was built to help users download YouTube videos, then convert and transfer them to iPod, iPad and/or iPhone. The interface is very simple. You can browse around for videos using the categories on the left pane, or you can use the search feature. To download video(s), just check the box(es) next to the item(s) that you want and click “Download“. Then the video will be downloaded to your hard drive and automatically imported to iTunes. You can set the synchronization process between iTunes and your iDevices to add these converted videos. Just make sure that you choose the right video format in the Preferences. Tooble is freeware and available for Windows and Mac. Chapter Three: The MxTube Way (on Jailbroken iPhone)Looking at the two previous methods, I began to wonder: Are there any free and practical ways to download YouTube videos directly on the phone? Well, maybe I wasn’t looking hard enough (or didn’t know where to look), but I could only find one way to achieve that: using MxTube on a jailbroken iPhone. MxTube is a simple YouTube downloader app that you can find in the Cydia repository. Just perform a search and you will find it (there was an official AppStore version called MiTube, but the app lasted less than a week on the store before it was pulled out). Downloading YouTube movies using MxTube is very easy: you search for videos, tap on it to access the information page, then tap on one of the download options. Close the search feature to monitor the download process. And after it finishes, tap on the video to play it. Tapping on the “Edit” button will allow you to delete the video(s). Epilogue: Looking For More WaysI have only one mobile phone. It’s possible that my mind focused only on that phone when I did the research. I’m sure there are many other free methods to download YouTube videos directly on mobile phones. So if you know any, why not share the knowledge with others using the comment below? Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf page on Facebook. Over 24,000 fans already!
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TimeComX – Runs Selected Actions or Programs on Set Time [Windows] Posted: 26 Aug 2010 08:30 AM PDT Enter TimeComX. This nifty, light-weight piece of software lets you set up timers which count down to certain tasks. Let’s take a look at the things this program will let you do. Let’s Make a DateThere are only two tabs in the small TimeComX window. One is the Event tab and the other is the Task tab. Let’s talk about the Event tab first, as it is what controls the activation of tasks. There are four “modes” available. The first two, simple counter and advanced counter, are simply countdown timers. Simple counter users a slider to adjust time, while advanced counter lets you make precise changes to number of hours, minutes and seconds you’d like to have before a task executes. Time of day, as you’d expect, lets you pick a specific time and date at which the task will execute. The most interesting event, however, is usage/activity. This allows TimeComX to execute a task based on processor usage, network usage, or idle time. It can serve as a more precise substitute for Windows power manager, or manage your computer after a large file has just been downloaded. Once you have decided on the proper event you must activate it by clicking the play button. The countdown will commence. One interesting touch I noticed is that the progress bar will appear on the Windows 7 Taskbar icon so you know at-a-glance how much time you have left. Picking a TaskOf course, an event is no good without giving your computer something to do. The first few selections are fairly obvious and are shared other programs that are similar, such as Shutdown Timer. These tasks include restart, shutdown, sleep, hibernate , lock computer and log off. All of these tasks are pretty self explanatory, but that isn’t to say they’re not interesting or useful. The final two task selections are more unique. The first is Run File. As the name suggests, this task will run any file that you’d like. There are a lot of interesting ways this can be used. If absolutely must be reminded of something, for example, you can write it in a text file and then make an event that runs the file at a certain time. If you want to begin downloading a torrent at a certain time you can tell TimeComX to run the torrent file or program. Your own creativity is the only real limit here. The second task selection is Play Audio File. This is most useful as an alarm clock feature. You can play a certain song at a specified time to make you wake up from whatever task you’re concentrated on. Or, if you keep your laptop in your bedroom (college students, I’m looking at you) this can simply be used as an alarm clock, period. ConclusionTimeComX is a basic but very good automation program. In addition to be very functional, it is very user-friendly. The program takes up very few system resources and can be minimized into the Windows task tray so that the program is no longer in your face. But if you want it to be in your face it can do that too, as you can set it to always appear on top of other windows. Do you automate tasks? What programs do you use? Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf page on Facebook. Over 24,000 fans already!
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