MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [November 14th]” plus 7 more |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [November 14th]
- Thank You To MakeUseOf Friends!
- 10 Free MP3 Albums To Download [Sound Sunday]
- Three Amazing Apps From Rails Rumble Contest 2010
- Which Is The Best Free Hosted Blog Service? [MakeUseOf Poll]
- 6 Free Simulation Games for the iPad
- Introducing Our New Staff Writer, James Bruce
- Wibiya Adds New and Improved Like Button and Design Features [News]
| Cool Websites and Tools [November 14th] Posted: 14 Nov 2010 07:31 PM PST
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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| Thank You To MakeUseOf Friends! Posted: 14 Nov 2010 07:00 PM PST
Thank you, guys! Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Don’t forget to share our articles with others! It’s really important to us.
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| 10 Free MP3 Albums To Download [Sound Sunday] Posted: 14 Nov 2010 06:30 PM PST
Each edition provides a musical flavor for the following week; a delicate mix of styles and genres. A single bad piece gives the entire composition a funny taste. Or does it? Do you download the entire Sound Sunday collection each week or do you prefer to pick your favorites? What do you base your selection on? Do you go by genre or do you preview the songs? Please post your feedback in the comments. Thank you! As We Draw – Lines Breaking CirclesGenre: metal, post-hardcore
As We Draw MySpace and Homepage. Red Letter – selftitledGenre: christian, rock
Red Letter Homepage. Bannerman – The Dusty Dream HoleGenre: folk rock, progressive
Bannerman MySpace. World Versus Me – DuelGenre: alternative, rock, electronic, industrial
World Versus Me Facebook. Shaolin Temple of BooM MySpace. Avalanche City – Our New Life Above The GroundGenre: folk, pop
Avalanche City MySpace and Homepage. Anyô – BreatheGenre: alternative, rock, power pop
The Scaramanga Six – An Introduction To The Scaramanga SixGenre: alternative, rock, pop
The Scaramanga Six MySpace and Homepage. Liminal – UnhingedGenre: soundtrack
Liminal MySpace and SoundCloud. Michal Menert – Dreaming of a Bigger LifeGenre: electronica, ambient, instrumental, down-tempo
Michal Menert MySpace and Homepage. Rocom – Nights Like ThisGenre: indie, rap, hip hop
AnyôPast editions of Sound Sunday are available here. Feel free to get in touch with me [tina@makeuseof.com] to share material, suggestions, and feedback that you don't want to post in the comments below. Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf page on Facebook. Over 24,000 fans already!
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| Three Amazing Apps From Rails Rumble Contest 2010 Posted: 14 Nov 2010 06:00 PM PST
The objective is to create the best online tool in under 48 hours using Ruby and Rails. This sounds like an insane objective, and it is, but it begets some amazing gems every year. The winners have been made known, but we compiled our own list of three extremely useful tools that we would advise to every MakeUseOf reader. UnpackUsing a smartphone, there’s little more frustrating than receiving a ZIP archive of files. Given third-party archiving software, it’s altogether possible, but you’re left with an almost inconceivable mess to clean up.
Luckily, it’s not the only way. Unpack is a very straightforward online service that’ll take care of these archives. Forward the mail with the attachment, to jimmy@unpack.r10.railsrumble.com, and you’ll receive the unarchived files back in your inbox! Unpack works with RAR, ZIP, tar.gz, tar.bz2, CAB, ACE, 7zip, dep, rpm, lha, lzop, rzip, and more! ScrapplerScrappler is an online tool that allows you to easily scrape any part of any web page. This can be the current top 10 movies on IMDb, the airplanes flying to and from Washington, or even the latest article here, on MakeUseOf. Scrappler makes the process of scraping a page accessible to anyone without prior technical knowledge, and it hardly takes a minute.
First, enter a URL on the Scrappler homepage. This is the URL you want to scrape, e.g. the top 100 movies on IMDb. After you click Scrape!, you’ll be shown the page in question and are able to select parts of its content, e.g. the top 10 movies. Scrappler will then eliminate all the extra, superfluous information from the webpage and give you clean, simple results.
You’ll be able to view the static results of your query in HTML, XML and JSON. On that same page, you’ll also find a Scrappler URL, which will always give you a fresh result of the scrape. Scrolling down to the bottom of the page, you can optionally enter your email address and subscribe to an hourly, daily, or weekly scrape result. NewspaperlyI’ve often been scared away by the all-or-nothing requirement of RSS readers. When I tried to check on these sites manually, I often forgot; not to mention the time it took. RSS readers gave me a constant stream of all those interesting articles – never to miss one again. The sheer flood of content however, made that I scarcely even dared to open the application.
Newspaperly is designed to take care of your RSS subscriptions, and only show the news that actually matters. We’ve seen services like this before, but they usually aren’t free. Newspaperly gives you one comprehensive stream and trims it down so only the important news remains. Of course it’s not perfect, but it’s a big step in the right direction. Have you checked out the contestants of the Rails Rumble contest? There are some real gems there. Let us know your personal favorites in the comments! NEW: Download MakeUseOf iPhone App. FREE!
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| Which Is The Best Free Hosted Blog Service? [MakeUseOf Poll] Posted: 14 Nov 2010 05:30 PM PST
GoDaddy won by a very small margin on 23%; Blue Host got 22% of the votes; HostGator was third on 15%; iPage 6%; Web Hosting Pad 6%; Just Host 5%; IX Web Hosting 4%. The rest received under 4% each. Full results and this week's poll after the jump.
This week's poll question is: Blogger Vs WordPress — Which Is The Best Free Hosted Blog Service? So, Blogger or WordPress — which do you prefer? Tell us in the comments! Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Don’t forget to share our articles with others! It’s really important to us.
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| 6 Free Simulation Games for the iPad Posted: 14 Nov 2010 02:30 PM PST
Whether you’re interested in breeding frogs, starting your own ancient kingdom, or even just creating a modern city, there’s bound to be a game that appeals to you. And if nothing else, you could always just stick to playing Farmville on your iPad. Godfinger for iPadGodfinger [iTunes link] is a simulation game with a twist. Rather than build your own city, you are starting from scratch and get to play God, building your own world.
Turn people into believers, give them sun, rain, and set them to work in your new world building farms, and as the game progresses you can cause floods, move mountains and more. As you achieve your goals, you unlock more features and move up from one level to the next.
Godfinger is part of the Plus+ network which makes it easy to connect with friends through Facebook, Yahoo, Google, or even the contacts on your iPad or iPhone. You can also invite friend’s directly from the app. While the game is iPhone compatible, it just isn’t the same as playing it on the large iPad screen. We City for iPadFor those of you who don’t have a God complex, We City [iTunes link] allows you to create your own city. Build homes, factories, put your citizens to work manufacturing all sorts of goods from video games to boats, and collect rent.
Aside from expanding your city, you can also go to college, starting out with some business classes. A cool feature that We City has incorporated is the ability to redesign your city even after you’ve constructed buildings, and sell buildings, roads and more, incase you’re not happy with your initial layout. We City is another game that is part of the Plus+ network, bringing more social features to the game with your friends.
Pocket FrogsPocket Frogs [iTunes link] is a great iPad game for kids and adults alike. The pet simulation game will have you breeding and selling frogs, expanding your habitats and trying to level up and accumulate as many awards as possible.
Buy flowers, leaves and backgrounds from the Supply Shop to decorate your habitats, and increase your frogs’ happiness. Take your frogs to the pond to tame them, and find extra gifts, coins and other frogs to breed with.
Like all of the other games listed here, Pocket Frogs is compatible with the iPhone as well, but it just doesn’t come to life unless it’s played on the iPad. If you’re online, make use of the social aspect of the game through the Plus+ network, trading frogs with your friends and more. We Rule Quests for iPadPrefer an ancient take on simulation games? Give We Rule Quests [iTunes link] a try. Create your own kingdom in an ancient world, building cottages, starting farms, and harvesting crops such as corn, wheat and onions.
As your kingdom expands, you collect taxes from the peasants, and achieve goals to get to the next level.
Like We City, if you don’t like the layout you’ve initially chosen for your city, you can always redesign it whenever you want to. MiniTycoon CasinoIf you’re not into the building a city or kingdom scene, why not run a business instead with MiniTycoon Casino [iTunes link]. Running your own casino involves adding new slot machines, blackjack and roulette tables, adding to the decor of the casino, all to bring in more gamblers in through your doors.
As you progress in the levels, unlock more options, games and new ways to spruce up your casino, to make sure those chips keep rolling in.
FarmvilleAs mentioned, there is a dedicated app for the Zynga game that needs no introduction, Farmville [iTunes link]. The iPad app syncs directly with your Facebook account, allowing you to keep up with your Farmville addiction on the go if need be. Of course the game on the iPad is no different from playing on your computer, allowing you to maintain your farm and interact with your friends in exactly the same manner.
The iPad Farmville app includes neighbour, harvest and gift push notifications. What is your favourite simulation game on the iPad? Let us know in the comments. Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras.
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| Introducing Our New Staff Writer, James Bruce Posted: 14 Nov 2010 08:31 AM PST
Beginning from December, Simon’s replacement will be James Bruce, a university graduate in Artificial Intelligence, a former English teacher in Japan, former data-centre engineer, and who is now working in his own web development company in England. I asked James to introduce himself and here is some of what he said:
Since MakeUseOf schedules a week in advance, expect to see James’ articles hit the MakeUseOf front page from the second week in December onwards. In the meantime, why not check out his tech tutorial website and his iPad Games review website, as well as welcoming him to the MakeUseOf family? I for one am really looking forward to seeing what he comes up with for us. Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras.
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| Wibiya Adds New and Improved Like Button and Design Features [News] Posted: 14 Nov 2010 08:00 AM PST
If you’ve been around for a while you will know that we used to use the Wibiya bar on MakeUseOf. Well, Wibiya has come a long way since then and has been continually adding new features to their toolbar. Let’s take a look at the recent happenings as described on the company’s blog. New Facebook Like Button
Until now, the Facebook Like button application was attached solely to the content page. Whenever a visitor clicked Like they were 'liking' the content on that page, not the page itself. Get it? You can still keep the regular settings if you like (pun intended), but now you can choose how you want to promote your site on Facebook. This short video shows you how you can install this new feature: You can see the added benefits of using this new Like button in a follow-up article on Wibiya’s blog. In Other News…Wibiya has also added dozens of new icon designs for each of its apps, allowing you to choose the image and size you want alongside your application. You can upload icons and even combine them if you so choose. Lastly, they’ve added a new Style Editor, but that will only be available to premium users. What do you think of these additions by Wibiya? Will you be installing this on your site? Source: Wibiya Blog Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers!
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Teams from all over the world go all-out against each other in 
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It seems, with the advent of the 
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