MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [August 27th]” plus 8 more |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [August 27th]
- The 10 Best Questions From You [MakeUseOf Answers]
- Use Diigo To Help Write Your Next College Essay or Term Paper
- Automatically Find Greasemonkey Scripts on Firefox with Greasefire
- Hot Tech Deals [Aug 27th]
- 5 Free Browser-Based P2P File Sharing Sites With No File-Size Limits
- 10 Package Tracking Websites for Alternative Ways to Track Your Shipments
- Shuffler – A Free Internet Radio Powered By Music Blogs
- Rigs of Rods – A Free Online Simulation Game To Test Drive Vehicles
| Cool Websites and Tools [August 27th] Posted: 27 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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| The 10 Best Questions From You [MakeUseOf Answers] Posted: 27 Aug 2010 06:31 PM PDT
The experts among you should listen up. For a smart answer you can win cash in the Best Answer of the Week contest, provided we can get in touch with you to transmit the good news. This week’s winner is Ukohara for the answer to this question: Why does my HP laptop shut down when I try to play games? Congratulations! And here they are, the 10 best questions:
Want to learn something new each day and share your knowledge? Browse MakeUseOf Answers by Latest Questions, Unanswered Questions or Most Popular Questions. For regular updates subscribe to the Answers RSS Feed. Need help? Ask us at MakeUseOf Answers! Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers!
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| Use Diigo To Help Write Your Next College Essay or Term Paper Posted: 27 Aug 2010 04:31 PM PDT
Since the Internet is a tool that most students use to do research, and since most research papers are based on quotes used from various sources, Diigo provides a way to not only bookmark your sources, but also to manage and access your quotes, notes, and analysis. The following are some suggested guidelines for using Diigo. Step 1: Determine Your ThesisThe best way to do research is know what your thesis is for a given topic. So if you're writing a controversial issue paper on gun laws or gun control in the U.S., you will want to develop your opinion about a particular aspect of the issue. Having a thesis in mind can help you narrow research, even if you change your thesis during the process. Step 2: Using Diigo ToolsBefore the Internet and Google, research papers were done using reading material in the library and note cards for recording and managing quotes and analysis. The content of the note cards were in turn used to write the paper. Diigo’s highlighting tools and your Diigo library can serve as your note cards.
Before you start doing research using Internet resources, open your Diigo account/library and create a list for your topic. This list will be used to manage all your bookmarks and highlights. This management tool will save you lots of time and provide you with a way to access your research from any computer.
If you have never used Diigo before, you will want to open a free account and install the Diigo bookmarklet, or diigolet, in your favorite web browser (click on the Tools icon on the Diigo homepage to get instructions for setting up a bookmarklet for the browser you use).
Using the Diigo toolbar, you can easily bookmark and annotate sources just as you do with paper documents.
You might consider color coding your highlights, e.g., yellow for quotes that support your thesis, and green for quotes that are against your thesis. Step 3: Using Your Highlights & NotesAs you do your research using Diigo, you will of course find all your bookmarks, highlights, and notes saved to your Diigo library and list page. Your list page even has a permanent URL, which means you can access it directly.
With your page open, you can simply copy and paste your quotes as you write your paper. Since the URLs for your sources are also saved, they can be easily put into the bibliography in your research paper. If you're working on a group research project, Diigo can be used for the same purpose. Simply create a group for which everyone can bookmark sources to.
If you are a student, let us know if this is a good idea for doing Internet-based research. Also please share other online tools that you use to get papers written. Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf page on Facebook. Over 24,000 fans already!
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| Automatically Find Greasemonkey Scripts on Firefox with Greasefire Posted: 27 Aug 2010 02:30 PM PDT
The downside is that not all scripts will work on every website you visit. Couple that with the amount of greasemonkey scripts there are and finding one that works can be pretty difficult at times. Greasefire eliminates this problem. It works in conjunction with Greasemonkey and tells you what scripts work on the current page you’re on. In this article, I am going to show you where to get Greasefire, how to install the add-on, and how to use its basic functions. GreasemonkeyIn order to use Greasefire, you first need to install Greasemonkey.
Greasemonkey allows you to install scripts from userscripts.org, which can be extremely useful. There are scripts that will help improve your search, enhance your calendar, add features to Facebook, and more.
To install Greasemonkey, you just click the green Add to Firefox button and hit Install Now on the pop-up box. You should now see a little icon of a monkey in the lower right-hand part of your browser. Firefox’s add-ons–and particularly Greasemonkey–provide one of the primary arguments against using Google Chrome as a browser. However, did you know that Chrome is compatible with a lot of Greasemonkey scripts? Greasefire
Now that we enhanced your browser a bit with Greasemonkey, let’s enhance Greasemonkey itself. First, you’ll want to go to the Greasefire add-on page. Similar to installing Greasemonkey above, just click the Add to Firefox button and Install Now. The add-on will download really quickly and you will be asked to restart Firefox.
Once you restart Firefox you’ll notice that down on the bottom-right part of the screen our little monkey icon now has a red and yellow background. This means that Greasefire has found available greasemonkey scripts for the site that you’re on.
[Note]: If you don’t see the background colors don’t worry. You might just be on a page that doesn’t have any compatible scripts. Accessing GreasefireNow that everything’s installed, let’s see how it works. When you visit a web page that has compatible user scripts from userscripts.org, the extension will highlight your Greasemonkey icon (like I mentioned above) in the status bar.
Simply right-click the monkey icon and choose the “x scripts available” item at the top of the menu to see and install the scripts available for the current page. Of course, the number of scripts available will vary depending on the page that you’re on.
Clicking that menu item will bring up a window with each of the scripts listed on a panel on the left with their corresponding descriptions on the right.
When you find a script you want to try out, just click the Install button at the bottom of the screen. [Note]: Greasefire uses a local index to look up scripts that apply to the page you are on. It does not send any browsing data to a server. The index is updated periodically (See Add-ons->Greasefire->Preferences for details). ConclusionSo if you want to expand your Greasemonkey skills without spending your time searching through all of the scripts available, try Greasefire. Some pages–like Google–will still have hundreds of results, but when you’re browsing around the Interweb you’ll see that the script-counts are pretty reasonable. It’s a good way to discover lost treasures in the script vault, that’s for sure. Did you find this article useful? Are you going to be using this add-on? Leave your thoughts, ideas, and comments below, and click on some of our fancy share buttons to help others discover this information.
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| Posted: 27 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.
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| 5 Free Browser-Based P2P File Sharing Sites With No File-Size Limits Posted: 27 Aug 2010 12:30 PM PDT
For instance, the other day I wanted to send a 25MB video file to a friend. Most email programs only allow for up to 10MB at a time so email was not an option. Who wants to put it on a USB drive and drive over to their friend’s house? I wanted to be able to just send it to them. No hassles. No installing funky programs. No waiting to upload to some server in cyberspace and have them wait for it to download again. So what to do?
When I began to search the Internet for file sharing sites, I wasn’t sure what the easiest solution would be. What I found out was that there are quite a few file-sending options, but I had criteria. We all have standards, don’t we? Check out these five choices which meet the criteria shared above. FilesOverMilesFilesOverMiles does what it sounds like it does: it helps you send files over miles.
Their subtitle “Browser-to-browser Filesharing” tells us that it fits our criteria. When someone sets up a file to send, a URL is created. Just share the URL and stay online for the actual sending. JetBytesI like the name “JetBytes” because it speaks to the speed in which peer-to-peer transferring actually affords.
This file sharing site makes it easy referring to “on-the-fly” transfers and all that. Be careful, just as in any of these peer-to-peer tools, don’t try to open the created link yourself. Doing that will only be letting you download the file back to yourself and blocking your friend from downloading it. No too smart. PipeBytesFrom the site: “Instantly send music, movies, presentations or any other files to anybody!” Thanks, for telling us what any of these peer-to-peer tools do for us. OK, I’m just kidding around.
You’ll notice that PipeBytes actually gives some sharing options. You can either send the recipient the URL or a pick-up code which they’ll enter at the home page. Easy-peasy either way. xFilesOh, you have to love the name for this one. Some weird television show is creeping around in my mind now.
All sci-fi weirdness put aside, this file sharing site puts peer-to-peer into easy to understand words: “Exchange big files directly without uploading to a server.” If you are transferring peer-to-peer, the uploading and downloading all happens at once making everything quick and easy. DushareDushare is a tool not recently mentioned here on MakeUseOf. You can share a file peer-to-peer, password protect it, and even chat while the transfer takes place because who wants to pick up a phone?
Seriously though, out of all of the rest of the file sharing sites mentioned here, I think Dushare has the prettiest looking website design. Oh, and in case you are wondering what sequence things will happen in, you have some nifty icons showing you. You can’t beat that. You’ll notice that there wasn’t much to say about each of these tools. That’s because they all pretty much do the same thing: send any sized files, directly to another person quickly, easily and for no charge. And that’s about all they do. Test them out and see which performs the best and which is the easiest to use. Then come and tell us in the comments which is best. How do you send large files over the Internet and why do you use that method? Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras.
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| 10 Package Tracking Websites for Alternative Ways to Track Your Shipments Posted: 27 Aug 2010 11:30 AM PDT
For these worst of times, knowing the exact location of your package helps you shout at the customer support desk with some authority. Or let them be. The tracking/shipment code is like the unique fingerprint for your package. All these parcel services also have a little tracking ID box on their website which let you know about the whereabouts of the package.
So, keep these ten web services bookmarked for the times when delivery schedules go haywire. Boxoh
Boxoh presents a single tracking number box to track your parcels from USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL/Airborne. Typing in the number leads to a Google Map which shows the location of the package and the status. The delivery time is also mentioned and you can subscribe to the tracking information via a RSS feed. FollowMyStuff
You can follow your parcels and packages using the email alerts from FollowMyStuff.com. You don't have to register on the site; just enter your tracking number and your email address where you want to want to receive the tracking alerts. Alerts are immediately sent out when the package status changes. The web app supports DHL, UPS, and USPS. Tracking info updates via SMS and Twitter are soon expected. PackageTrackr
PackageTrackr.com covers the regulars like UPS, FedEx, and DHL. It also supports 21 other worldwide operators like EMS and more. You can let the web app match the tracking number to the service or pick the service yourself. The results display the route of the package as well as the transit points along the way. You can also connect to the parcel service from the results page. You can track your shipments from your browser, iGoogle homepage, RSS reader, Windows sidebar gadget, or your iPhone or iPod Touch. Creating a user account on the site helps you use services like email forwarding, email notifications, SMS alerts, and Twitter notifications. TrackMyShipments
TrackMyShipments.com works on emails. It supports FedEx, UPS, USPS, and DHL. You can create an account here and forward all your shipment confirmation emails to the online tracking service. TrackMyShipments automatically extracts the tracking number and start tracking your package. The email can be in any format and any layout. You get status alerts via email or by manually logging into your account. Using this online package tracker, you can keep tabs on 10 shipments at a time. SimpleTracking
SimpleTracking.com gives you a browser based tracking tool, a Firefox extension and a small HTML widget to track deliveries. The site supports FedEx, DHL and USPS package tracking. You can also subscribe to the info with RSS. TrackThis
Check up on the status of your packages via Facebook and Twitter. Email, SMS messaging, and RSS feeds are also there. You can also download its iPhone app. All you have to do give them the tracking number and a nickname for the package. The web service supports 13 carriers. Track-Trace
Track-Trace is basically a frontend for 10 parcel delivery services. Entering a tracking number in the carrier's text box takes you to the package tracking info page of the respective carrier. Apart from the 10 services listed with field boxes against them, Track-Trace has a large alphabetically arranged links for numerous carrier services worldwide. Package Mapping
This one is another simple package tracking website that covers deliveries from UPS, USPS, DHL, FedEx, and a few more like Canada Post and Spee-Dee. The tracking info is represented on a Google map (or Google Earth). You can create an account and save all your packaging info on the site. TrackThePack
TrackThePack.com lets you manage and track all of your packages from UPS, FedEx, DHL, USPS, SmartPost, Global Mail, Canada Post and OnTrac. It gives you the status report on a timeline and a Google Map. Just like TrackMyShipments.com, it can also take in forwarded shipment mails and extract the tracking number. The web service gives you many-sided approached to tracking with a Firefox extension, a bookmarklet, and an iPhone app.
If you forget all URLs, it's a good bet you will remember this one. Use Google's search box to type in the tracking number and get the status report. If the number is error free, the parcel service will be the first result and all you have to do is click the link for the delivery report. The services supported are UPS, FedEx, and USPS. All these websites use the respective package and courier services' API to bring you the status results. What they help to do is extend the service to other presentations like Google Maps and Tweets. If you are a chronic eBay or Amazon shopper, having more than one way to track your shipments would be the way to go. Let us know about your preferred shipment tracking service. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers!
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| Shuffler – A Free Internet Radio Powered By Music Blogs Posted: 27 Aug 2010 10:30 AM PDT
Personal internet radios – like Last.fm, Pandora and Spotify – haven’t been around for all that long. And contrary to the blogs, they don’t often tend to surprise you. They give you what you think you want – similar artists, similar songs, and similar everything. Shuffler, an interesting lightweight web service, takes a rather unexpected approach. It combines the interesting and informative character of blogs with the instant-play of free internet radio. ShufflerShuffler has built a dynamic free internet radio, by stringing together music blogs, and streaming their content. With no effort, and an appealing GUI, you can automatically jump to and fro these blogs. It’s an fascinating experience, and one that could deliver you some new musical favorites. Although some blogs publish songs by established artists, a lot of them are from smaller, largely unknown bands. Using it is incredibly simple. You don’t even need to sign up for a free account! On the homepage, you see a grid with music Channels. Start off by selecting one to your liking, or press the arrow to prompt for yet other categories.
Shuffler will then find out a music blog that fits the channel, and immediately start playing. The blog is embedded below, so you can read the article, or roam the blog and linked pages while the music continues in the background. When the song ends, Shuffler jumps to the next song and blog post.
Using the Shuffler bar at the top, you can jump back and forth between songs. Unlike Last.fm, you can pause or revisit past songs, and have no strict listening schedule to attend to. At any time, select the dropdown menu to switch gengres. How it WorksShuffler keeps a close eye on a list of known music blogs, so there’s little to danger of encountering random profanity. If you host an interesting music blog yourself, you can submit it to Shuffler for approval via email.
Whenever these blogs publish a new post, Shuffler is alerted via RSS, and starts looking for embedded songs. These songs are then run through Last.fm to retrieve the music genre(s), after which they’re added to the appropriate channel. Note that the songs are streamed via the blogs, and Last.fm is only used for additional meta-data. (Tip!) Manipulating the URL for More MusicShuffler currently only show the 50 most popular (that is to say, the most frequently blogged about) music genres. Even some relatively popular genres, like metal, can have a weak blogging footprint. However, with a little URL-manipulation, you can listen to these channels as well. There are a lot less songs, though, and some of them might simply not belong.
You can either go to the Channel overview and rightclick->copy the link of one of the popular genres, or snag it from here: “ Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf page on Facebook. Over 24,000 fans already!
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| Rigs of Rods – A Free Online Simulation Game To Test Drive Vehicles Posted: 27 Aug 2010 09:30 AM PDT
As I was searching for software to review, I went through about five free online simulation games before stumbling upon the one that I’d like to share with you today called Rigs of Rods.
Rigs of Rods Takes Physics Into AccountThe fact that the creators of this free online simulation game took actual physics into account for every little detail is remarkable. According to the website, the makers planned vehicle behavior based on “weight distribution, construction, and/or suspension.” The way planes or boats handle depends upon the physical dimensions, structure and the environment. When you first install the program, make sure to include the “content stream” with the vehicles that you want. Just keep in mind that some of them take a lot of space, and downloading the module can take a very long time during installation.
When you first launch the game, you can choose from different landscapes. In every case you will start out standing in front of a vehicle garage. If you’re more interested in a plane or boat, make sure to walk around and check to see whether there are any in the vicinity.
When you walk through the garage door, you enter the vehicle menu screen. This is where you can pick from a very wide range of vehicles, including sports cars, trucks, buses, and all-terrain vehicles. For my first vehicles, I chose a huge city bus.
The view when you are inside a vehicle is 3rd person, but you have the dashboard at the base of your window, so you can see current speed, RPMs and more. Driving these vehicles definitely has a lot of realism. Hit the curb and the whole bus bounces just as it would in real life. Drive on a slope that’s too steep, and the whole thing will roll right over.
Changing landscapes, I decided to cruise for a bit. I chose a nice, large mountainous region and then selected the coolest looking sports car I could find. I have to say, the sound effects are awesome – every time you hit the gas you’ll hear the engine rev. The only problem I found was that the steering was super touchy and I could barely keep the car on the road.
Switching to a huge 2 ton pick-up truck with double rear tires was a whole different story. Steering wasn’t quite as difficult, and this thing really has some power. Another cool touch to the simulation is that if your vehicle has large exhaust pipes, you’re going to actually see the smoke every time you hit the gas hard.
And if you have a bit too much fun peeling out and strike a dip in the road, you may end up exactly like I did.
I wanted to see if handling and behavior changed significantly between vehicles, and sure enough when I chose this monster (literally a monster truck), I found that the vehicle acted exactly as you’d expect a truck like this to behave. It bounced over small hills, climbed slowly up one side and raced down the other. The great thing about the monster truck is that when you flip over, all you have to do is hit the gas hard and it’ll spin and bounce upright again!
Exploring the simulation a bit further, I changed landscapes to an island and came across this beauty just parked in the middle of a runway. So what did I do?
I got in and flew it of course! You may find that the airplane controls take a little getting used to. It took three crashes, two of which the wings actually disintegrated in the air, until I realized that I had to ease off the throttle once I was in the air. You can switch between external and internal views by pressing “C”.
I have to say that exploring the virtual landscapes with these vehicles is a real blast. Seeing how objects interact and how the vehicles respond to different things is really fun – I could see easily burning several hours some Saturday afternoon playing around with this simulation – and I bet you could too! Have you ever tried Rigs of Rods? What did you think? Do you know of any other cool, high quality simulator apps? Share your opinion and insight in the comments section below. NEW: Download MakeUseOf iPhone App. FREE!
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If you’re in the market for a new computer, laptop, mobile phone, games and other accessories; don’t waste your time searching online. We’ve taken the liberty of locating the best tech deals and unifying them into a single post for your convenience.
Having the ability to share large files is very important to a lot of people.
Tom Hanks playing a FedEx employee, ditches into the sea with a plane load of packages. Though reliable at the best of times, parcel services like FedEx, UPS, USPS, DHL, etc. also hit bottlenecks once in a while.
On one side, the internet is inhabited by a fair amount of music blogs. They’re audiophile magazines turned digital, and often pioneers in music. When something interesting is aired, they’re the first to know.
When it comes to 
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