MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [May 6th]” plus 8 more

Cool Websites and Tools [May 6th]
The 9 Best Questions From You [MakeUseOf Answers]
The Top 5 YouTube Video Game Reviewers
View Your Facebook Feed In Real-Time On Your Desktop With FlipToast
Get Group Video Chat For Your Smartphone Using Fring [Android & iPhone]
10 Educational History Podcasts To Subscribe & Listen To
Automate Your WordPress Backup With Simple Shell Scripting & CRON
5 Free Android Games To Help You Lower Your Stress Levels At Work
The 10 Best Extensions For Chrome Tab Management

Posted: 06 May 2011 08:31 PM PDT

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 here.

Add Your Website Here!

PDF To Flash Page Flip – Do you like reading ebooks but still miss the feel of a real book where you can flip through the pages with your fingers? Now you can experience it with the help of a handy tool called PDF-To-Flash Page Flip provided by Codebox. It lets you convert any PDF file (ebooks, documents, presentations) into a flippable flash book format. Read more: PDF-To-Flash Page Flip: Convert PDF To Flash Flip Book

		WWWizer – Do you have a website with a naked domain problem? This happens your website doesn't work, unless the user adds the "www" prefix to the domain name. This can be quite a cause for concern since most web users are used to the conventional domain names that do not require the "www" prefix. WWWizer is a web service that allows you to solve this naked domain name problem easily. With the WWWizer, you can automatically redirect your non-www domain to its corresponding www domain for free Read more: WWWizer: Free Non-WWW to WWW Redirect

		Video Customizer – Content is shifting from static text based pages to dynamic flash and video segments. To help you fully utilize the power of video, Video Customizer lets you create video ads as well as video emails online without any hassle. You can upload your own video to customize or choose from thousands of existing templates. Read more: Video Customizer: Create Video Emails & Video Ads Online

		Instant Blueprint – If you are a web designer, you will know how inconvenient it can get to create and manage template frameworks again and again. Instant Blueprint is a new tool that creates a web project framework for your new project with all the valid HTML and CSS standards so you can be up and running within seconds. Read more: Instant Blueprint: Create A Web Project Framework In Seconds

		LikeFM – Imagine a website that tracks the music you play and makes it playable from anywhere. Additionally the site gathers music suggestions from friends and lets you share your favorite songs on social networks. LikeFM tracks the music you play through a desktop application and a browser add-on. Read more: LikeFM: Track The Music You Like & Play It Anywhere

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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.

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X-Play's Channel

Part of the G4TV's Channel network, hosts Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb, of the X-Play Channel, claim to cover the entire gaming industry. Their reviews include hands-on demos, breaking news, game previews, behind-the-scenes developer interviews and much more.

X-Play started on YouTube back in 2006, and it now has over 400,000 channel reviews, with nearly 50,000 subscribers. Their recent uploads include reviews of Thor: God of Thunder, Sonic Generations First-Look, and Uncharted 3: Drakes Deception.

IGN Channel

IGN Entertainment's YouTube channel includes over 6,700 uploads, which is a small taste of their larger collection over at IGN. IGN joined YouTube back in 2006, and it now has 918,603 subscribers.

Among its current reviews are Prince of Persia Trilogy HD Video, Fast Five: Top 5 Things to Know, and Game of Thornes: Season 1: Episode 2.

Gamesweasel

My son's favorite and most humorous reviewer is Matt Cuttie, who hosts Gamesweasel. His YouTube videos are a part of the Mevio Networks. Cuttie’s reviews also include news and reviews of the latest console and handheld games. His reviews are for young and old, casual gamers and hardcore enthusiasts.

His channel has over 28,000 subscribers, with over 318 uploaded videos. Recent reviews include Shift 2 Unleashed, Homefront, and Crysis 2.

Gamespot

Gamespot has well over 100,000 subscribers, and its recent uploads include an interview with Daniel Erickson, lead writer for Star Wars: the Old Republic, a critical review of Cargo: The Quest for Gravity, and a news update about Sony PSN, Xbox Live Phishing, Call of Duty: Black Ops-Escalation, and more.

Machinima's Channel

Machinima seems to have the largest subscriber YouTube following, with over two million subscribers. It describes itself as the “online entertainment network showing trailers, game plays, montages and original series created in video games“.

Its recent uploads include exclusive episodes 1-3 of Mortal Kombat Legacy series, a review of Call of Duty Black Ops Trailer, and an IGDaily news segment about the recent PSN outage/hacker attack and a walkthrough of Shogun 2: Multiplayer.

These are only a taste, of course, of YouTube video game reviewers. Let us know some of your favorites and what makes them unique.

For some other articles about video gaming, check out our, 4 Sites To Watch & Download Video Game Cutscenes Online, 6+ Nostalgic Emulators For Vintage Video Gaming Enthusiasts, Top 5 Sites For Video Game Deals & Bargains.

Image credit: Shutterstock

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More articles about: game reviews, Youtube

What Is FlipToast?

FlipToast is a dynamic Facebook desktop client for Windows and Mac that offers a quick and easy way to stay connected with your Facebook friends. Unlike other clients that are out there, FlipToast provides essential Facebook user interface elements, like live notifications and chat functionality.

facebook client

It is designed to notify you about everything related to or going on with your Facebook profile, and it gives you updates in real-time. Whether a friend comments on your Facebook status, tags you in a photo, or adds you to an album, you’ll be updated.

FlipToast is also designed to be distraction-free. You can keep the sidebar and corresponding chat window in any corner of the screen to have for reference while completing other tasks. With the chat functionality, you have the option of going offline at anytime.

facebook desktop client applications

The photo sharing and uploading feature is also really cool. All you have to do to share a photo on Facebook with FlipToast is drag and drop it onto the application, then you can specify what album information you would like to input and begin uploading.

Also, FlipToast presents an easy way to view your news feed, as all of your recent updates are displayed just as they would be from Facebook itself.

The short video below will further illustrate the usefulness of FlipToast as a desktop client:

How To Use FlipToast

After you install FlipToast, it will sit in your system tray, allowing you to bring up the sidebar, stop and start the display of desktop notifications, and do things like update your status, post photos, and more.

facebook client

The sidebar, which I said you could move around, will be on the right side of the screen by default. You can change its position in the settings, however. The Facebook Chat option will also be disabled by default, but you can simply click it to enable chat functionality and view your online friends.

If you’ve got something important that you’re working on, like, say, an article for your blog (wink, wink), you can turn live notifications off to temporarily stop getting messages. You can also shorten the notification fade out time to make messages distraction free.

Conclusion

FlipToast is definitely the best desktop Facebook client that I’ve seen. You can do a lot with it that other clients don’t allow and being able to access your Facebook chat alone is a great feature. If you spend a lot of time on Facebook and would like to take those interactions away from your browser for a while, I recommend you check out FlipToast. What do you think of it?

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More articles about: desktop client, Facebook, feeds, notifications, social networks

What’s Fring?

For any Fring friend you wish to contact, Fring lets you chat via text, voice or video call wherever there is an Internet connection available, WiFi, 3G or 4G. You don’t even need a SIM card for it to work. If you want to contact someone who doesn’t use Fring, you can make calls at 1c/minute. There’s no restrictions worldwide regarding who can use Fring and who you can call. Neat, huh?

mobile group chat

Fring’s video chat service uses their own proprietary technology to enable all video chat users to experience the best possible video quality possible.

Here’s a demo video on how Fring works.

Get Fring

You can get your own copy of Fring for Android, iPhone and Nokia Ovi from the respective stores or by visiting m.fring.com.

mobile chat video

Fring automatically finds some of your friends via your address book, but you can navigate to Menu > Add-Ons to manually link your account to other chat services and find more contacts to chat to this way. Fring actually started out as a multi-client chat service, so it’s nice to see that this feature still exists within Fring.

mobile chat video

How To Use Fring Group Video

Group video chat is just as simple as any other chat via Fring. Just find the first person you want to call, click group chat and keep adding friends. Easy!

mobile group chat

Here’s a groovy video showing roughly how Fring mobile group chat works in action.

Considering that alternatives like Skype group video chat on the desktop are not yet available to all users, having group video chat available on smartphones is a massive step forward. Most video chat enthusiasts have been waiting for free group video chat facilities for the desktop or mobile phones. Fring have jumped right to the top of the game by offering mobile group video chat so quickly. Now everyone can enjoy group video chat from wherever they can get Internet access on their phone.

best free history podcasts

We had gone back in history and taken a look at websites that tell us what happened in history on this day (or on a particular date). Matt's website is an audio version of that. Each podcast is 5-10 minutes long and is narrated in a pleasant voice and casual story style by Matt Dattilo. The site seems to be dormant so it's not actually 'today in history'. But you can still listen to the podcasts because history is hardly current.

Binge Thinking History Podcast

best free history podcasts

I loved the podcasts on The Battle of Britain on this blog which has a much smaller selection of podcasts. The only thing about Tony Cocks' small site is that the history podcasts are infrequent and spaced out over months.

BackStory with the American History Guys

best free history podcasts

Subscribe free to this radio program which uses the trio of U.S. historians Ed Ayers, Peter Onuf, and Brian Balogh to look at events that shaped our world. The podcasts are professionally produced and fun to listen to. For students of history, the links provided for further reading are a treasure trove of knowledge.

A History of The World In Hundred Objects

Another cool program from BBC which takes a look at the world with the help of 100 objects from the British Museum and hundreds more from museums and people across the UK. Use the beautifully designed timeline to explore the objects in the list and take a look at the history around it. The program has ended, but the MP3 are a 'historical' treasure.

How Stuff Works

This top notch website does a great job explaining how our world functions. They have a dedicated podcast page sub-divided into a few more "official" pages like the one on – Official Stuff of Genius Podcast Page which looks at inventions past and present. But the one history buffs should fall for is the page on – Official Stuff You Missed in History Class Podcast Page. The page is well supported by entertaining quizzes and puzzles.

Laughing Historically

history podcasts

Okay, we have had enough of serious history. Take a lighter look at it with these five podcasts on The Modern Day Pirates, a geek lifestyle magazine with a well developed funny bone.

These ten websites show that podcasts aren't only about easy listening pleasures. When it comes to things like educating on history, they are a very important tool. Do contribute any other cool history podcasts that I might have missed here.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

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More articles about: education, history, Interesting, listen, Podcast

Recap: Backup everything

We covered this last time, but a quick recap on the two commands needed to backup your database and and files, assuming you’ve already logged in and moved yourself to the website directory (read the first tutorial if you don’t understand). Make sure you do them in this order, so that your file backup includes the database file you output in the first command:

mysqldump --add-drop-table -u username -p databasename > databasebackup.sql tar -cf backupfile.tar .

Replace the username and databasename items with your database and username details.

Automation Step One: Scripting

For now, we’re going to make a new script that simply runs the commands you learnt for backup, with a few alterations to include the password too (since this will be automated, you won’t be able to type in the password everytime). When we’re finished, you should be left with just one command to run that will perform two commands for you!

It’s also about time you learnt how to edit text files through the command line as well, as you can’t rely on FTP and GUI’s all the time. You can use a simple text-based editor called vi to do this.

To start the app and create your first script, type:

vi mybackupscript.sh

If the file doesnt exist already, it will be created and you’ll be shown a rather daunting screen similar to this:

wordpress site backup

vi has two modes – edit and command mode. To get into edit mode, press i. Then you can begin typing. You’ll know it worked, because the bottom left will turn to –INSERT–

Start by typing out the following:

#!/bin/sh mysqldump --add-drop-table -u<em>username</em> -p<em>password</em> <em>tablename</em> &gt; dbbackup.sql tar -cf backup.tar .

Notice that this time, we are including the password in the command. Also notice that when we use the -p switch to specify the password, we then put the password immediately after it with no space between them. If you’d prefer, you can write the command like this instead, but functionally there is no difference:

#!/bin/sh mysqldump --add-drop-table --user=<em>username</em> --password=<em>password</em> <em>tablename</em> &gt; dbbackup.sql tar -cf backup.tar .

Now we need to save it. Press ESC once to get out of edit mode and into command mode of the text editor. Type:

:write

and press enter, then

:quit

and enter again.

So by now you will have figured out that any commands you give must be preceded by a colon. That’s all with vi for now.

Back on the command line, go ahead and make your new script executable by typing in the following:

chmod 744 mybackupscript.sh

And finally, test it out with:

./mybackupscript.sh

Obviously, depending on the size of your site and speed of your server, it may take a while. At the end of it, you can list the files and should find a backup.tar. On my virtual private server it took about 5 seconds to create the 100MB WordPress site backup.

Automation Step Two: CRON

CRON is a task scheduler for Linux. We won’t be covering it in-depth here, but I’ll give you what you need to run your backup script every week. We’ve also covered how to run CRON jobs from your GUI based website control panel. To add a task to the CRON scheduler, you simply add a line to the “crontab”. Edit this by typing:

crontab -e

This will open up the CRON file in your text editor, most likely vi again. If you’ve never added anything before, it’s also likely to be blank. No worries. Add these lines:

00 4 * * 0 /httpdocs/mybackupscript.sh

The format this command follows is a little difficult, but goes like this:

minute hour day-of-the-month month day-of-the-week

A * in the pattern ignores that item. So in the example above, we are going to run our backup script at 00 minutes 4 hours, every 0 (Sunday) of the week.

Here are some other examples to help you understand:

01 * * * * echo "This command is run at one min past every hour" 17 8 * * * echo "This command is run daily at 8:17 am" 17 20 * * * echo "This command is run daily at 8:17 pm" 00 4 * * 0 echo "This command is run at 4 am every Sunday" * 4 * * Sun echo "So is this" 42 4 1 * * echo "This command is run 4:42 am every 1st of the month" 01 * 19 07 * echo "This command is run hourly on the 19th of July"

Once you’ve entered that, save the file by pressing ESC, then typing :write followed by :quit. A shortcut version of this is to just type :wq , which will both write the file and quit. It’s handy, but if you’re anything like me you forget these little shortcuts.

That’s it! You’ll now have an up to date copy of your database and entire site in the root, called backup.tar (or whatever you chose to name it). You might want to learn a little more scripting to add the date on the end of the filename and avoid overwriting the same one each time, but that’s up to you to discover. I hope you can see how powerful the command line actually is now!

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More articles about: automate, backup, blogging, blogging tips, blogging tools, productivity, scripts, wordpress

Take A Break & Fire Up An Android Game

The most addictive Android games I’ve played are those that demand your focus. Of course, I should warn you that these games aren’t only good at demanding your focus, they’re also excellent at keeping it and making you lose track of time!

Air Control

Air Control is probably one of the most appropriate right now considering that the US air traffic control system seems to have a staff that’s falling apart at the moment – sleeping on the job and such. Maybe they need to try this game?

free android games

The point of Air Traffic is to help various aircraft navigate through the skies over your airport and land safely without crashing into each other. Controlling each aircraft is as simple as placing your finger over the plane or helicopter, and tracing out the route that you want it to follow.

best free android games

Choose wisely, because after a while, the skies become filled with a whole assortment of aircraft. If you so much as blink, you’ll cause a crash!

Tank Hero

Another addictive game that also tends to show up often on various gaming platforms like Wii is Tank Hero. If you’ve played video games, you’ve very likely played this one before. The concept is simple, but the competition is pretty fierce.

best free android games

You’ve got to navigate near and around the various barriers, and take out the enemy tanks before they take you out. Navigation and firing is extremely simple. Just touch the arrow pad at the lower left corner of the display to move your tank around, and then tap the screen in the direction you want to shoot.

best free android games

The trick of course is to use the wall to ricochet your shot around the end of a wall and into the approaching tanks. But watch out – they can pull the same exact stunt against you! Of all of these games, I think this is probably the most addictive by far.

Drag Racing

If you’re into cars, there’s another stress-busting game called Drag Racing. In this game, it’s basically all about going as fast as you can. Sounds simple – but it’s really all about shifting gears at exactly the right time. If you’ve ever played video games like Need for Speed, then you’ll know exactly what to do in this game.

free games for android

During a race, you’ll see your car in the lower lane and your opponent in the upper. At the start of the race, press the gas pedal, after that, you only need to focus on timing your shifts perfectly. Tap the plus lever to shift up, and minus to shift down.

free games for android

Sounds easy enough, but until you get the hang of it, trust me, you’re going to lose the first few races. Your timing has to be absolutely perfect, or the competition will get the lead on you.

Paper Toss

Now, for those of you who prefer much simpler games, the next couple are ones I use when I just want a way to enter into sort of a meditative state with very little effort. Paper Toss is my absolute favorite. Have you ever found yourself sitting at your desk and just shooting crumpled up paper balls into the wastebasket? Well Paper Toss simulates that age-old office pastime.

free games for android

The goal of the game? Flick your finger in the direction that you want to launch the paper ball, carefully taking into consideration the fan and other obstacles, and hopefully landing the paper into the wastebasket with a satisfying “thud.” Try it out – you’ll be hooked on this game for life.

Glow Hockey

Last, but certainly not least, if you were ever addicted to the Atari game “Pong,” then you’ll want to install Glow Hockey. This is almost identical to the version of pong you can play on the Wii, complete with the same glow theme and sound effects.

free android games

Control is easy. Just slide your ring around with your finger, and outsmart the computer opponent with your superior finger-flicking techniques.

So, if you’re ever stuck in the middle of an especially stressful day, why not run to the restroom for 5 minutes of one of these mind-calming games? You’ll come out chilled out and ready to take on the rest of your day.

Which of these free Android games do you like best? Do you have any other favorites you use to de-stress? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

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More articles about: android games, google android, mobile gaming, office worker, relax, stress

TooManyTabs

chrome tab extensions

Excessive tabs are troublesome because it overwhelm Chrome's ability to display tabs in a meaningful way. TooManyTabs solves this using a pop-out that provides a thumbnail preview of the tabs that you have open. To top that off, TooManyTabs also includes a search field so you can quickly find what you're looking for.

TooManyTabs is also available for Firefox.

Quick Tab

chrome tab extension manager

Similar in purpose to TooManyTabs, Quick Tab conquers extreme tab usage through a drop-down menu that presents all currently open tabs. A search function is also available. While TooManyTabs is likely the better choice for users who routinely open 20+ tabs, lighter tabaholics may prefer Quick Tab.

Close Tabs

chrome tab extension manager

Opening multiple tabs can mean sometimes needing to close multiple tabs. Close Tabs lets you do this quickly by right-clicking anywhere on a page and then selecting an action from the Close Tabs menu. You can close tabs by domain, close all tabs to the right or left of the current tab, and perform a few other useful actions.

Sexy Undo Close Tab

chrome tab extension manager

Once you've shut those tabs down with Close Tabs you can revive them with Sexy Undo Close Tab. This extension creates an icon that opens a pop-up list of closed tabs. You can reopen tabs by clicking on the page name or you can search through your history of closed tabs to find a specific option.

Session Manager

manage chrome tabs

Managing multiple tabs is a real pain in the butt if you need to, for some reason, close your browser before you're actually done with all of those tabs you've so carefully opened. Session Manager has the solution to this problem. It saves your browser state and lets you re-open the session at a later time.

Recent History

manage chrome tabs

Yet another way of re-opening tabs past, Recent History keeps track of all the pages you've recently visited and provides easy access to them via a new icon that is installed alongside the bookmark icon. You can open history pages in a new tab with a right-click, and there is a search function included as well.

TabJump

manage chrome tabs

Created by the same folks that made TooManyTabs, TabJump is a contextual tab navigator that pops when you click on a new icon installed beside the bookmark icon.

Rather than listing all tabs in a lump, TabJump has three columns – Undo, Related and Jump. Undo lists recently closed tabs, Related lists other open tabs from the same site you're currently using, and Jump lists all other open tabs. It's quite a brilliant way to organize tabs, packing maximum information into limited space.

TabCloud

Tab lovers are going to fall head over heels with this extension. No longer are you restricted to bringing a single computer to its knees with tens or hundreds of open tabs. Oh, no – now you can save the tabs you have open and then open them on an entirely different computer.

While powerful, the extension is simple. Your browser's state can be saved by clicking on the disk icon in the pop-up, and then restored on any PC. You do need to log in with your Google account to enable this functionality.

TabsPlus

This extension doesn't add much to the Chrome interface. It's instead a simple behavior modification extension that forces Chrome to the last selected tab whenever you close a tab. You can also make slight modifications to the default behavior of new tabs, forcing them to open in the background or changing their position on the tab list.

TabCounter

chrome tab extensions

Ever wonder just how much of a tabaholic you are? Now you can find out! TabCounter provides you with several fun statistics including the number of tabs you've opened today, the number of tabs you currently have opened, and the number of tabs you've opened since you installed the extension. There's not a lot of practical use, but it's fun to geek out about.

Conclusion

Now you can go tab-crazy without losing yourself under the weight of a thousand webpages. Alright, perhaps a thousand is an exaggeration – but you get the point.

As usual, I encourage readers to share their own favorite Chrome tab extensions. There a lot of them available, and I'm sure some that are not listed here are in active use by our readers. So let’s hear all about your favorites.

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More articles about: browsers, browsing tools, chrome, chrome extensions, Google Chrome, tabs

Saturday, May 7, 2011