MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [January 22nd]” plus 4 more |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [January 22nd]
- How To Quickly Find Your Email Attachments In Gmail
- Hot Tech Deals [Jan 22nd]
- Magic Scroll – A Beautiful Online HTML5 EPUB Book Reader
- Create Virtual Pinboards Of Your Favourite Images With Pinterest [100 Invites]
| Cool Websites and Tools [January 22nd] Posted: 22 Jan 2011 07:31 PM PST
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| How To Quickly Find Your Email Attachments In Gmail Posted: 22 Jan 2011 05:31 PM PST
As the search geek, there’s one thing I really appreciate: the ability to use very flexible (advanced) search features to go through thousands of email messages stored for years in one place. I am not geeky (and probably organized) enough to synchronize my email efficiently when moving from computer to computer or to make and update my backup, and (I realize that might be my mistake) I have been used to relying on Gmail for years. This post looks at one of Gmail life-saving features: the option to store and search through tons of email with attachments for you to be able to:
Search For Email With AttachmentsThere are several ways to search for attachments in Gmail using Gmail advanced search operators:
See What’s Attached From Search ResultsNow that we know how to locate our email attachments, let’s learn to cope with one inconvenience: you have no idea what is attached until you enter the actual message scroll down and see the attached file names. Pimp My Gmail is an awesome Greasemonkey script that lets you quickly see what is attached without the need to click away from Gmail search results. The script is compatible with Firefox, Google Chrome and Opera. Note: The script has a lot more features to customize your Gmail but I am only using it for the sake of the attachment feature. With the script installed, you will be able to see:
Locate Your Largest Email Attachments: Find Big MailFind Big Mail is a free service that lets you sort your email by size. It does require access to your Gmail account (using Gmail OAuth, so as far as I understand, it doesn’t store your Gmail password and you can make sure the access is removed immediately after you use it in your Gmail account). After you grant access to your Gmail account, the tool will immediately start scanning your messages. It may take some time. Once it’s done, you’ll receive an email notification which brings you to the stats page:
What you can do now is log into your Gmail interface, click through your full label list and find some new labels created by FindBigMail app. The labels will organize your largest emails by size:
Click on each label to view the large messages. Then follow these Gmail instructions to remove the mail you no longer want. Be sure to empty the Trash using “Delete Forever” if you need to free up the space immediately. Otherwise it will automatically be removed in 30 days time. Otherwise, consider using this smart way to locate your largest messages (be sure to use the has:attachment filter if you have too many emails stored in your account to make it work). Any other Gmail attachment tips to add to the mix? Please share them in the comments! Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers!
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| Posted: 22 Jan 2011 12:15 PM PST
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| Magic Scroll – A Beautiful Online HTML5 EPUB Book Reader Posted: 22 Jan 2011 11:31 AM PST
We’ve profiled similar applications in the past. BookWorm is a great personal online library, for example. But it’s hard to match the simplicity and elegance of MagicScroll’s ePub reader, an example of HTML5 at its best. It’s as good as the eBook reader in Google’s online book store, but you can upload any book you want. Sure, it doesn’t work with DRM-protected books, but if you’re looking for an elegant way to read books online you’re not going to find a better one. Heck, I can’t even think of a desktop eBook reader this nice. Uploading BooksHead over to MagicScroll to get started. Here you’ll find a simple box from which you can upload EPUB files:
You don’t need to register to upload a file; you can simply upload it. If you don’t have any EPUBs you feel like uploading you can try reading a provided sample book to see how you like the feel of the app. If you want to find some free EPUBs, I highly recommend trying out Project Gutenburg. Once you upload a book you’ll receive a permanent URL for your book. Be sure to save this URL somewhere if you want to read your book on various devices. Reading BooksOnce you’ve uploaded a book you can start reading. The site will process the book for quick reading, then you’ll see its cover. Your book won’t take up the entire window by default:
I find this width perfect, because I don’t like reading at long widths. If you disagree, however, you can easily set the display to take up your full browser window by pressing the fullscreen button in the lefthand toolbar. Use the arrows keys to turn the page. Simple, right? You can also pull out the table of contents to jump to a particular chapter:
Don’t want to bother with the arrow keys? There’s a magic scrolling function built-in, which makes reading effortless. Click the “Play” button in the bottom-right corner to active this. Text at the top will slowly be replaced with text from the next page, and this transition will work its way down. It’s oddly intuitive, and you can adjust the speed to your preference. Myself, I prefer the good old arrow keys, but this is a really nice option to have. You can disable this feature, and change the look for your eBooks, in the settings menu:
Shortcut SyncingThere being no user account for this service, you cannot sync your books across multiple devices natively. If you use Xmarks or a similar service, however, syncing is as easy as bookmarking the books you’re reading. If you don’t want to mess around with bookmark syncing, you could also try a URL shortener. This will at least make your URLs a bit less cumbersome. Web StoreDo you like Chrome’s new web store? Why not install Magic Scroll as a Chrome App? It’s free and gives you an attractive bookmark. Don’t like Chrome’s new web store? Complain about it in the comments. That ought to show Google it’s stupid to offer such a thing. ConclusionThis is a web app done right. Not only is it just as (if not more) functional than its desktop rivals; it’s really easy to get started with. I’ll be using this to do some at-work reading for sure. I’m looking forward to future versions, because having a library and bookmarks in the cloud would be awesome. What do you think? Is Magic Scroll a cool online ePub reader, or do you prefer your reading to be offline? Share in the comments below, and also feel free to point out alternative apps for this. Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers!
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| Create Virtual Pinboards Of Your Favourite Images With Pinterest [100 Invites] Posted: 22 Jan 2011 09:31 AM PST
The site – set up as a series of virtual pinboards – will appeal to more than just Tumblr fans because of the different ways it can be used. Part bookmark sharing service, part photo sharing site, part personal online catalog, Pinterest makes it easy to create collections and share them with your friends. While Pinterest is still in private beta, they’ve been kind enough to share 100 invites with MakeUseOf readers. Jump to the end of the article to find out how to get in on the private beta.
The next step is finding people to follow. Pinterest makes some suggestions for you, and also gives you the opportunity to invite 5 friends to sign up.
The last step before you get to pinning is saving the convenient bookmarklet to your bookmark bar, making it easy to share photos and links on your account. If you would rather upload an image yourself, this can be done directly on the website, which will come in handy if you want to share an interesting piece of writing or a song and there aren’t any large images featured with the link.
It’s possible to add new boards whenever you choose, from the menu at the top of the page. Choose a name, a category and decide if you want to allow other users to add images to the collection as well. The collaborative touch of allowing anyone to add images to a board gives teams an interesting method to share links or images.
Once you find an image online that you want to share on Pinterest, use your bookmarklet, or copy and paste the link and add it directly on the site. The image, or pin, is accompanied by a description and tags. You can choose which board you want to include it in, as well as add a price when sharing products. The link is automatically included with the pin, unless you upload the image from your computer. In fact, you can only add the link after you’ve uploaded and shared the image, by editing the pin.
Like Tumblr, you can ‘repin’ someone else’s post, comment on and like images.
You can also email images to your account by using the address provided in your profile. When editing your profile, you can choose which specific board the pin will be added to. Pinterest is brand new, but we can always hope for a mobile app to enhance the on-the-go experience of the site. Connecting your account to Twitter or Facebook makes it easy to find friends from your social networks and follow their Pinterests, although it seems that the site automatically follows your Twitter or Facebook friends without giving you the option to choose at first. When it comes to following other people you can choose to follow everything they share, or just certain boards. If your friends have varied interests, not all of which appeal to you, this is a great way to get only the content that matters to you. When browsing images on Pinterest, you can browse the images shared by people you follow, those shared by everyone, and the most popular pins. You can also choose to narrow it down, and browse popular images by category – with almost 20 categories to choose from.
Profile pages consist of a sidebar with a bio, links to your site, your Twitter or Facebook accounts, and to your Pinterest RSS feed, as well as displaying your latest activity.
Your boards are displayed in a grid.
Opening the board, the images or pins, in turn are displayed in a grid.
Opening up any given image from the site allows you to easily share it on Facebook, Twitter, via email or on your blog.
There’s no end to the kinds of collections you can create – from product wishlists to your own personal stylebook. If you’re redecorating your home or revamping your wardrobe, Pinterest is a great place to collect images, find inspiration and get yourself organised. It’s also a great place to find ideas for gifts, with an entire section of images dedicated to precisely that, all shared in the category, ‘Gift Guides.’ Or it can just be a great place to share interesting images from around the web. The first 100 people to sign up using this link will get access to Pinterest right away. How are you going to use Pinterest? Let us know in the comments. 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 
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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.
Read any EPUB file online, with a simple interface. MagicScroll is an elegant service that does one thing very well: it lets you read eBooks in your browser. No registration is required: just upload a file and start reading. Magic Scroll is not only a great way to read EPUB books; it’s a great way to share them. Upload a book and you’ll be given a permanent URL for the book, which you can easily share with your friends.
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