MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [October 17th]” plus 7 more |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [October 17th]
- Thank You To MakeUseOf Friends!
- 10 Free MP3 Albums To Download [Sound Sunday]
- How often do you shop online? [MakeUseOf Poll]
- WinX DVD Ripper Platinum Giveaway Winners
- Sprred – Easy Blogging Platform For Technologically Challenged
- Hot Tech Deals [Oct 17th]
- 3 Sites to Make Funny Video Greeting Cards
| Cool Websites and Tools [October 17th] Posted: 17 Oct 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!
    
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| Thank You To MakeUseOf Friends! Posted: 17 Oct 2010 07:31 PM PDT
Thank you, guys! Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras.
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| 10 Free MP3 Albums To Download [Sound Sunday] Posted: 17 Oct 2010 07:00 PM PDT
In this edition the focus once again is on rock, but not lacking ambient, electronic, folk, hip hop, and metal elements. To sway the mix into the direction of your taste you can make suggestions or requests in the comments. In the meantime, please share your favorites from Sound Sunday with your friends. Ramuk69 – Monster Pyjama PartyGenre: compilation, rock, pop
Ramuk69 Blog. Sibling – Not Looking for ParadiseGenre: indie, rock
[adult swim] – Ghostly SwimGenre: compilation, indie, electronic
[adult swim] Facebook and Homepage. Debmaster – GrossmutterGenre: electro, hip hop, punk
Debmaster MySpace and Facebook. Alan Black – Cripple Crab CrutchGenre: mash-up, electronic, spoken
Alan Black Facebook and Homepage. John Vanderslice – Green Grow The RushesGenre: alternative, indie, rock, pop
John Vanderslice MySpace and Homepage. Girlfriend Records – Memory ChordGenre: electro, new wave
Girlfriend Records MySpace and Homepage. Paper Tiger – Everyone HereGenre: indie, folk, rock
Paper Tiger MySpace and Homepage. Ford Corl – Green EyesGenre: acoustic, pop, rock, psychedelic, electronic
Ford Corl MySpace and ReverbNation. Cloudkicker – BeaconsGenre: ambient, metal, progressive, rock, shoegaze, instrumental
Cloudkicker MySpace and Facebook. Past editions of Sound Sunday are listed here. Feel free to send me links to (your) free music downloads. Mail: tina at makeuseof dot com How can we improve future editions of Sound Sunday? Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras.
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| How often do you shop online? [MakeUseOf Poll] Posted: 17 Oct 2010 06:30 PM PDT
A total of 433 votes were counted for the poll: Amazon received 58% of the votes; eBay followed with 20% votes; Walmart had 8% of the votes; Target received 5% of votes; both Play.com and Borders received 2% votes; the rest of the options made up the remaining 5% votes. Full results and this week's poll after the jump.
This week's poll question is: How often do you shop online? If you have any strong opinions for or against shopping online, let us know why in the comments!
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| WinX DVD Ripper Platinum Giveaway Winners Posted: 17 Oct 2010 04:30 PM PDT
Here are the 10 lucky winners who will each be receiving a free license for WinX DVD Ripper Platinum.
Congratulations! The license has been sent to the email address used when participating. Please note that in case you didn’t enter the email address correctly, we will not be able to issue a replacement license. Enjoy! MakeUseOf would like to thank the team at Digiarty Software for their generosity while participating in this giveaway. Interesting in sponsoring? We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with us via email. Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Don’t forget to share our articles with others! It’s really important to us.
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| Sprred – Easy Blogging Platform For Technologically Challenged Posted: 17 Oct 2010 03:30 PM PDT
What Sprred offers is another option to share your thoughts, photos, videos and links. It could be used as a great accompaniment to your main blog, or could be another blogging platform for major online services and products to get messages out to their users. And because of its very simple, easy-to-use interface, it's the ideal option for the more technologically challenged users amongst us.
Sprred takes a similar approach to Tumblr. Posts are divided into Text, Photos, Videos and Links, but are displayed in a slightly different way. On your home page, all the posts appear in one single feed, but they are separated on the page by category.
Your blog is also tabbed, with each category appearing under it's own individual tab, allowing visitors to browse each category individually if they so wish. Photos and videos are displayed in a grid, while blog posts and links appear in a list.
When writing new posts, you can publish them immediately, save them as drafts, or publish them privately. Each post can be accompanied by any tags of your choice. When writing new text posts, enter a title for your post, and the text. Text formatting is available for these entries.
When adding new photos, they are uploaded directly from your hard drive and posted on your blog. There is currently no way to link photos that are saved elsewhere on the web, a feature which would probably come in handy.
When adding new videos, the process is exactly the same as photos – uploaded directly from your hard drive. And like photos, you cannot link to videos that are saved elsewhere, which would not only be handy but is pretty much necessary. With both photos and videos, you can’t add captions; so if that’s a dealbreaker, Sprred won’t suit your needs, but the name of the file serves as the title. There doesn’t seem to be any limit on file size that we can tell.
Adding new links is exactly the same as Tumblr – adding the actual link, while the title is automatically generated from the website. You can, of course, change it if you choose to.
Using the Sprred web interface is not the only way you can update your blog. According to the site, you can also update your blog by emailing post@sprred.com from the email you used to sign up, but the emailed post hasn't showed up on our Sprred blog so it looks like there are still a few kinks to work out. For the time being, there are only 3 themes to choose from, the Default baby blue theme, a minimalist white theme, and brown and yellow theme.
Like Tumblr, when it originally launched, there is no way to integrate or accept comments on your blog. Opening up any given post, regardless of category, visitors will have a quick and easy way to share your content through Facebook and Twitter. That, however, is the only form of interaction available on Sprred at the moment.
If you're also active on Facebook and Twitter, you'll be happy to know that you can auto-post from your Sprred blog and broadcast all of your latest updates to your followers and friends.
Your Sprred profile is divided into two separate pages. The first page consists of your personal information, your interests, birthday, gender, and an 'about' section, amongst other things. The second page consists of your 'professional' information, namely your education and work. Sprred is definitely a step in the right direction, but with a few minor tweaks here and there, it looks like it will be a real contender for bloggers looking for an alternative to Posterous or Tumblr. Have you given Sprred a try? Let us know what you think of it in the comments. Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras.
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| Posted: 17 Oct 2010 01:15 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 Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras.
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| 3 Sites to Make Funny Video Greeting Cards Posted: 17 Oct 2010 10:30 AM PDT
A recorded video card will bring a more personal message and show the subject that you're willing to put effort into the occasion; more than a doodle on a store-bought card. On the practical side, you'll even be able to save the money from purchasing the card and postage stamps.
BubbleJoyBubbleJoy is my personal favorite to send video greeting cards. The service is easy to use, and hosts some of the most impressive card designs. In general, your video will be embedded in a cutout holiday-themed background. Because the BubbleJoy website can grab the video straight from your webcam, the process of making a card requires no messing around and no additional uploading.
Only recently, BubbleJoy added a Twitter sync feature. This allows you to log in with your Twitter credentials and easily share your greeting card. If you wanted to send out an original holiday greeting to your Twitter followers, this is a great way to do it. Sharenik.comSharenik video cards look a lot like the traditional holiday cards, but juiced up with much technology goodness. You pick a basic card theme and template; then personalize it with pictures, a greeting text, and of course, videos. Yes, plural; you can embed up to 12 different photos or videos on a card.
The website itself does not record webcam input, but you can easily record a video on your computer using Windows Movie Maker or Photo Booth (on Mac OS X) and upload it to the website. Once you've changed the card fit to your liking, you can send it to its destination. Good news if you're a particularly social being, Sharenik allows you to share your greeting with up to 500 friends! eVCards.comeVCards is a very plain service to create video cards, missing some of the more fancy graphics featured above. Depending on the occasion and the subject, this can actually be a good thing. The cutout holiday designs are fun and relate more to the original holiday greetings, with bright colors and simple graphics. Young children, especially, will love these cards.
One of the most impressing features of eVCards is the ability to choose between uploading a file from your computer like Sharenik does, or recording it on the spot like BubbleJoy does. Once finished, you can not only send, but also embed the video on your own website. When did you last record or send a video greeting card to your friends and family? Let us know what you think about these websites in the comments below! Picture Credit: Shutterstock Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers!
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Check out some of the latest MakeUseOf discoveries. All listed websites are FREE or come with a decent free account option. You can make use of them without spending a dime. If you want to have similar cool websites round-ups delivered to your email daily email subscribe 
As we venture further into the dark season, Sound Sunday keeps the beats rolling.
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Postage stamps and letters made out of dead trees are getting out of fashion, but (holiday) greeting cards aren't. If you're going to make the switch to digitalism, you'd better do it in style. A picture is said to convey a thousand words; a video all the more. Welcome to the future.
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