MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [March 1st]” plus 8 more |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [March 1st]
- The 9 Toughest Tech Questions [MakeUseOf Answers]
- The Top 5 Best Search Engines To Find Photos On Flickr
- Sched Makes Event Scheduling Simple, Free & Social
- Hot Tech Deals [Mar 1st]
- 5 Websites For Catching Movie Goofs & Bloopers
- The Easiest Way To Move Your iTunes Library To An External Drive
- The 5 Best Ways To Relax Using Online Tools
- The 3 Best Free Bulletin Boards To Set Up Your Own Forum
| Cool Websites and Tools [March 1st] Posted: 01 Mar 2011 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. Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers!
    
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| The 9 Toughest Tech Questions [MakeUseOf Answers] Posted: 01 Mar 2011 05:31 PM PST
This is why from now on we will reward three prizes in our Best Answer of the Week contest. In addition to the $50 prize for the best answer, we will reward two runners-up with $30 and $20, respectively. Your chances to win have just tripled! All answers enter the contest. If you’re looking for a challenge, however, look no further! The toughest questions are listed right here.
MakeUseOf Answers comes in three different flavors: Latest Questions, Most Popular Questions, or Unanswered Questions. For regular updates subscribe to the Answers RSS Feed. Need help? Ask A Question at MakeUseOf Answers. Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf page on Facebook. Over 24,000 fans already!
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| The Top 5 Best Search Engines To Find Photos On Flickr Posted: 01 Mar 2011 03:31 PM PST
So what if you want to look at or locate some of that photographic treasure? There are some great Flickr search engines out there. Ann pointed out 16 of them a few years back, and now I’m here to show you the best of the best. If you’re looking for a high quality photo for a project, article, website, or you’re just bored, these websites can help you find what you want. 1. CompfightCompfight is a personal favorite among MUO writers. It’s a simple website both in form and function, and it works very well. With Compfight, type in your search query and you can select whether you want to search for that word in the tags of photos or their text descriptions.
You can also opt to look through Creative Commons images, which is important if you’re looking to use a photo for a project. Thumbnails of images will populate after you search and all you have to do is click on one to open up its corresponding Flickr page. 2. Tag Galaxy
Tag Galaxy probably could’ve been the worst Flickr search engine in existence and I still would’ve included it on this list simply because of how cool it is. Just type in your tag on the homepage and click Go to be taken to a search page showing what appear to be planets.
Clicking on the different planets will allow you to drill down your search to a specific tag. For example, I originally searched for the word ‘technology’ and planets named ‘computer’, ‘phone’, ‘laptop’, and ‘ipod’ showed up. Click the tag that most describes what you’re looking for and you will be taken to a 3D spherical image displaying all of the photos associated with that tag. You can spin the sphere by dragging it and click on individual photos to see them zoomed in. Very cool. 3. Flickriver
Flickriver is another simple Flickr search engine. You can search photos, groups, users, tags, and even places, and photos are displayed vertically on the page according to relevance, most recent, or most interesting. You can also set the size at which photos are displayed on the page. 4. PictureSandbox
PictureSandbox isn’t one of the prettier sites on this list, but it is still very effective. Just type in your search on the homepage and click the Submit button to view photos on not only Flickr, but Stockxpert, Fotolia, Dreamstime, SmugMug, and Webshots as well. If you can’t find the photo you’re looking for on this site, chances are it doesn’t exist. 5. FlickrStormFlickrStorm is a very minimalistic photo search site. Like the others on this list, you simply type your search query into the box on the homepage to begin your search. There’s an “advanced” link that you can click if you would like to search for Creative Commons photos that you can use commercially.
With FlickrStorm, you can also view your history of the photos you’ve clicked on, as well as a tray that you can add photos to and download them from. Honorable Mention: Flickr Flipper
I decided to give an honorable mention to Adobe’s Flickr Flipper application. It’s an application that runs on Adobe Air and it’s pretty lightweight. If you’re looking to flip through random Flickr photos because you’re either bored or not sure exactly what you’re looking for, you should give Flickr Flipper a try. If you’re looking for more photos, you should also check out Saikat’s article on 5 Good Image Search Engines Apart From Google Image Search. What’s your favorite way to view Flickr photos? Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras.
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| Sched Makes Event Scheduling Simple, Free & Social Posted: 01 Mar 2011 01:31 PM PST
Whether your events are large-scale or small-scale, this web application is a life-saver for all types of event co-ordinators. Any event which needs to co-ordinate a schedule for rooms, equipment or different types of forums within the event will find the Sched event scheduling software invaluable.
Sched is free for events with fewer than 100 sessions and the free account is capable of handling an unlimited number of attendees. With this flexibility, and a reasonable pricing system for more features, most events can easily use the free service to co-ordinate their schedules.
Sign-up requires that you enter the name and dates of your event. They say that it may take 24 hours to create your account and I suspect this is to combat spam events. However, if you need immediate access it’s possible to email them and explain the situation.
Check Out Some Other EventsBefore you get stuck into organising your schedule with Sched, it’s a good idea to take a look at other people’s events to get a feel for how people are using Sched to their advantage. For instance, there’s a session tag called “Event Type“. Some people use this to define whether it’s a workshop, a lecture, music etc. Other people have used it to quickly pinpoint the location-based zone of the session. This works well for events that have several themed zones and many smaller venues within each zone.
PersonalisationYour attendees can create their own personal schedule from your event schedule, making it easy for them to navigate your timetable and co-ordinate their plans.
Social IntegrationUsers create a login from the event they wish to attend, then link their login with Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter, making it easy to import photos, identity and friends details. The login is reused for other Sched events to keep things simple for attendees.
Once an attendee has decided which sessions they’ll be attending at your event and others, they can share this information with friends via their favourite social networks, like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. They can also combine their schedule with their friends’ schedules in order to co-ordinate where they might see each other at the event. Users can even co-ordinate one-on-one meetings with each other scheduled around your event sessions. This could be a very powerful networking tool at conferences. Rich MediaAll Sched event calendars can integrate picture, audio and video into the calendar, which is great if you want to give your attendees a preview of the speaker/performer’s work, photos of the venue or other useful background information.
HighlightingYou can make specific sessions easier to spot with different colours, bold text, starring or adding a highlighted border. TaggingAs the event manager, you can tag the sessions with multiple tags to make searching for specific sessions easier for your attendees. Calendar and Maps IntegrationUsers can automatically export an iCal feed for use in Outlook or Google Calendar. Google maps are automatically generated to create your event map.
Music IntegrationAttendees can link their Grooveshark, Last.fm or HypeMachine accounts to generate a music playlist based on their personal schedule within your event. Mobile Access & PrintingAll Sched’s packages include a mobile formatted version of the schedule. This allows your attendees to socially schedule their sessions within your events. All Sched events have an easy-to-print view also, which makes life easy for the participants.
Listen to Your BuzzSched also makes it easy for event managers to track conversations on social media about their events, sessions and acts. Easy Schedule EditingEven if you make changes to your schedule at the last minute, Sched’s system will allow you to put those changes into effect straight away. Attendees with mobile access will be able to see the changes immediately. Similar ProductsThere is plenty of event scheduling software designed to make room and calendar scheduling easier, but this is the only free, online software I have found. It also has some fantastic social features, so it’s bound to generate a lot of buzz and become more popular with time. If you’re managing events, you might like to also check out these posts:
If you’ve just started using Sched as an event manager or as an attendee, let us know what you think of it in the comments. Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras.
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| Posted: 01 Mar 2011 12:30 PM PST
For more fresh hot deals, visit our Hot Tech Deals page, which is constantly updated.
Image credit: Modified from Svengraph’s icon set Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras.
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| 5 Websites For Catching Movie Goofs & Bloopers Posted: 01 Mar 2011 11:31 AM PST
The makers of 'Gladiator' certainly made a lot of money while we made jokes. It wasn't also the only embarrassing blooper in the movie. Now, you might think that I wasn't enjoying the movie but was sitting eagle eyed to catch a scene gone wrong. I didn't need to; because being a fan of the movies and a complete web junkie, I know the places to go and read up on all the movie goofs and bloopers that get made every year with each movie.
IMDB
A sample blooper: During the fight with the tigers, Maximus falls and rolls over, revealing Lycra shorts. (from Gladiator) If it's anything to do with movies then this premier site has to be head of the class. Each movie has a Did You Know section and one part of it is devoted to movie bloopers or goofs. Some movies (like Gladiator) have pretty long lists. Entries are labeled as Revealing mistakes, Continuity, Factual errors, Anachronisms, Incorrectly regarded as goofs, Crew or equipment visible, and a few more. Be warned that if you read up on the goofs before you watch the movie, you just might get hit by a few spoilers too. Movie Mistakes
This is a website devoted to spotting, collecting, and discussing goofs. It is also regularly updated, so you can catch the latest movie bloopers. The notable feature is that you can get to spy a lot of the scene mistakes in pictures instead of reading about them and then waiting for the movie to turn up on cable. The site doesn't spare TV shows either. If there's a page devoted to the Titanic, you will find one on Friends too (there are 980 mistakes in the entire show). Slip Ups
The goof catching site has categories for movies, TV shows, books, and quotes. There are 14,000+ movie bloopers. You can contribute your own and even discuss it on the discussion board. Goof-also get rated by readers. The discussion board is a bit dormant now, but the goof-ups get updated by contributors. You can use the search bar on the top or go by the alphabetical listing. There's a new section which has caught the gaffes in pictures. Star Wars Blooper Guide
I am a bit of a Star Wars fan and so are many out there. The site is a bit dormant now, but when the goofs and bloopers have been documented, I guess it makes the collection of 200 bloopers from four (out of the total six) Star Wars movies timeless. The goofs are well organized with pictures and mixed up with loads of trivia. Unfortunately, the PDF blooper guides are no longer available on the site. Bad Biology
Inspite of presenting futuristic sc-fi flicks, Hollywood gets it wrong when it comes to science. Bad Biology catches these goofs and presents them using an alphabetical index so that you don't get your scientific facts all mixed up. The list is not absolutely current, but again, you can enjoy reading about the howlers that you probably missed when you saw these movies the first time around. What these websites show is that even blockbusters aren't perfect. In fact, the bigger movies have a lion's share of goofs to their names. But let's not look them as mistakes. Instead, these flaws also have a hand in giving us lots more to talk about and enjoy when it comes to movies and films. Is your eye good enough to catch movie goofs and bloopers? Which ones have you caught lately? Image Credit: Shutterstock Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras.
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| The Easiest Way To Move Your iTunes Library To An External Drive Posted: 01 Mar 2011 09:31 AM PST
A quick look at the folder sizes inside my MacBook hard drive shows that the iTunes folder occupies a large area on that near-full storage space. To regain some room to breathe, I decided to move my collections to an external drive.
Do It The iTunes WayAfter asking around and browsing the net, I found several ways to achieve this goal; from the easiest – almost automatic – way, to the script-compiling complicated way. In the end, I picked the easiest and most obvious way: the iTunes way. Aside from the simplicity, the reason I chose it is because it’s applicable for both Windows and Mac. The following process was done using the Mac version of iTunes, but the steps are similar under the Windows version.
Another point to remember: Even though the multimedia files are in the external drive, iTunes stores the information about them in the iTunes Library file in your local hard drive. So don’t delete the iTunes Library file. What Will Happen Now?With a larger empty space in your laptop’s internal hard drive, you are convinced that moving your multimedia collection out was a good idea. But you also realize that bringing an external hard drive everywhere you go is a bit impractical. The question is, what will happen if you open iTunes on your laptop while the external drive is unplugged? You will get this error message every time you want to play a file that doesn’t exist in the local hard drive. Then an exclamation mark will appear next to the item.
If you still keep the items that you want to play inside the local drive, click “Locate“, browse to the location, and you can play them without any problem. If not, click “Cancel“. You don’t have to do anything because this issue will be automatically resolved the next time you plug in the hard drive. If you add new music or movies during the unplugged period, you can always consolidate those files to the external storage later. Another possible path to take is to create another iTunes library for your local multimedia files. You can do this by holding the “Alt” button when you open iTunes, You will have the option to create a new library.
If you have a different solution that works better for you, please share them using the comments below! Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras.
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| The 5 Best Ways To Relax Using Online Tools Posted: 01 Mar 2011 08:31 AM PST
The Internet not only provides information on how to relax, there are also many great tools to help you loosen up and reduce your stress levels. Below you will find the five best ways to relax online as well as a wealth of resources to choose from. Listen To Relaxing Sounds & Take A NapA natural relaxing bodily function that hopefully everyone of us enjoys for at least a couple of hours each night is sleep. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to fall asleep or take a nap when we feel stressed out or anxious. Along with a hot shower before bedtime or hot milk with honey, relaxing sounds have a calming effect and can be a remedy for those who have trouble falling asleep. My favorite tool in this category is Rainy Mood. The website provides a 30-minute high-quality loop with sounds of heavy rain, thunder, and chirping birds.
Another great page is Sounds of Nature. You can select high quality audio loops from four different categories: Birds & Forest, Water & Waves, Rain, and Night.
You can find similar sites in the following articles:
Listen To Calming MusicDid you know that music can not only support a mood, but also change your mood? Upbeat music can make you happy, so why shouldn’t relaxing music be able to calm you down? If you just want to relax, maybe while completing routine tasks, calming music can be a great tool. GetRelaxed combines soft relaxing soundscapes with visually appealing images to help you reduce your stress levels.
If the music on this website is not appealing to you, there are many other online resources to download or stream music. Fortunately, we have covered many of them on MakeUseOf:
Smile & LaughLaughter is the best and cheapest medicine for reducing stress and there is not the least bit of bitterness involved. In fact, research has shown that laughter not only decreases stress, it can also “help relieve pain, bring greater happiness, and even increase immunity.” You’d better prescribe yourself a high dose. With over 283 million views on YouTube, this must be the funniest video ever. Hm, maybe not? For a selection of resources that will really stimulate your funny bone, browse these articles:
Play A GameNothing takes your mind off a nagging thought than being busy with something else, and nothing is more engaging than a fun game. Combine the two and you will literally forget your stress. The game that had me captivated in a state of flow for days and weeks of my childhood was Tetris. It has come a long way since its release with the 1989 Game Boy and to this day, there is nothing more relaxing than a mindless, yet mentally challenging game of Tetris.
We have covered literally hundreds of online games on MakeUseOf. Here is a small selection:
Try To Do Nothing For 2 MinutesThis website challenges you to do nothing, i.e. not touch your mouse or keyboard for two long minutes. And the reward when you make it? Well done and you can like the site on Facebook! And yes, not doing anything actually helps you to relax.
If you are seriously overworked, stressed out, or anxious you should seek professional help. For a temporary immediate relief, try the Stress Analyst. According to Matthew Leitch, the guy who created this test, “80% of people who use Stress Analyst really do feel calmer as a result.” At least it doesn’t hurt, I tried it. So what are your favorite techniques to relax? Do you need the Internet at all? Image credits: Valua Vitaly Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras.
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| The 3 Best Free Bulletin Boards To Set Up Your Own Forum Posted: 01 Mar 2011 07:31 AM PST
Let’s take a look at three of the best free bulletin boards you can find today. phpBB
Now over a decade old, phpBB has long been considered the premier free bulletin board for users across the globe. It’s a shining example of the quality of product open-source development can lead to, and it is in many ways competitive with paid bulletin boards. In many cases, the main advantage of a paid bulletin board when compared to phpBB is not general ease of use, or even features, but rather the availability of customer support (phpBB, being free and open-source, of course has nothing more than a community help forum). Even that difference may not matter, however, because phpBB is extremely easy to use. The installation process requires only a passing familiarity with FTP software and a web server capable of database hosting (and virtually all web hosting services are). In fact, if you’ve ever installed WordPress, you’ll know exactly what to do. The whole process takes about 10 minutes and steps are detailed on the phpBB website. Perhaps the biggest advantage of phpBB, however – and the reason why many people flock to it – is sheer force of numbers. The popularity of phpBB makes it more likely that someone has already tried to do whatever you’re thinking of doing with your forum, which means it will be easier for you to attempt. Plus, there is a very large database of “Styles” that can be used to further customize your forum. MyBB
MyBB is free and licensed under General Public License. Unlike phpBB, however, MyBB is not an open-source project. It is instead written by a group of developers simply known as the MyBB Group. In terms of installation and ease-of-use, MyBB is just one step behind phpBB. The installation process is virtually identical, but the administrators panel isn’t as slick or as well laid out as the one that comes with phpBB. This isn’t to say that the admin panel of MyBB is hard by any measure, but the arrangement of options requires just a bit more digging than the layout of phpBB. So why use MyBB instead? There are a few reasons, many of which are tied to features. MyBB has a built-in user reputation support, excellent calender features, multi-quote and quick reply. These sort of features are not unavailable to phpBB, per say, but they require some customization on the part of the user. For this reason, MyBB is often times a better choice than phpBB. Just be aware that the smaller user base may make it harder to find answers to your questions, and while there are pre-packaged styles and mods available, they are fewer in number. Simple Machines Forum
If you’re looking for a free bulletin board with an excellent interface, Simple Machines Forum is likely your best choice. Although both phpBB and MyBB are not bad looking pieces of software, they have room for improvement. MyBB in particular has an admin panel that is by no means pretty. Simple Machines Forum, however, has an excellent default style and easy to navigate admin panel that provides a lot of information in minimal space. The admin panel is also accessed from a tab on the forum when you log into an admin account, unlike the other two free bulletin boards, which keeps admin functions tucked away in their own space. SMF also has a “modification database” which includes a wide variety of add-ons that can be used to change the bulletin board. This includes everything from added smileys to search engine optimization to social networking features. The mods aren’t excessively difficult to install, either – although MyBB’s plugins are easier. The biggest problem with SMF is support. Although this bulletin board is true to its name when it comes to installation and admin management, finding help on the SMF website is a chore. Even navigating the website is difficult due to an usual layout that often requires visitors to navigate through multiple areas to find even the most basic information. ConclusionSo, which free bulletin board should you choose? Honestly, there isn’t a clear-cut answer. Some users prefer SMF because it requires little modification to look professional, but others like phpBB because of its huge community. Personally, I decided to go with MyBB when I installed a forum on one of my blogs because it has some out-of-the-box features that I wanted. Which one do you prefer and why? What features stood out for you? Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras.
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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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