MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [February 20th]” plus 6 more |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [February 20th]
- Thank You To MakeUseOf Friends!
- Do You Think Google Search Results Suck? [MakeUseOf Poll]
- 3 Free and Easy Ways to Watermark Your Images Offline
- Hot Tech Deals [Feb 20th]
- 10 Free MP3 Albums To Download [Sound Sunday]
- What Is A Static IP Address, How Do I Get One & Its Advantages / Disadvantages
| Cool Websites and Tools [February 20th] Posted: 20 Feb 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. Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf page on Facebook. Over 24,000 fans already!
    
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| Thank You To MakeUseOf Friends! Posted: 20 Feb 2011 06:31 PM PST
Thank you, guys! Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers!
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| Do You Think Google Search Results Suck? [MakeUseOf Poll] Posted: 20 Feb 2011 05:30 PM PST
Out of 674 votes, we had this breakdown: 34% use LastPass/Xmarks; 16% use KeePass or KeePass X; 11% use the same password for everything; 10% use Notepad or some other text-based record; 10% simply remember them; 7% use Roboform; 7% use some other tool (the comments are full of great suggestions); 6% use 1Password and 1% use Sticky. Full results and this week's poll after the jump.
This week's poll question is: Do You Think Google Search Results Suck? There’s been a lot of talk lately about the quantity of sites who use SEO to rank highly in Google search results. There’s also been plenty of debate as to whether Google should or shouldn’t try to remove them from the top slots in order to make the results better for the searchers. What’s your take? If you have a strong opinion about good or bad search results based on something you searched for recently, give us some comparison links 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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| 3 Free and Easy Ways to Watermark Your Images Offline Posted: 20 Feb 2011 02:30 PM PST
There are free apps to watermark your images on the go using your iOS device, as well as more robust apps that allow you to batch watermark your images using your Windows or Mac computers, one of which includes many other features aside from just watermarking. WatermarQueThe free Mac/Windows app WatermarQue, allows you to select the font, size, angle, colour and formatting of the watermark that you will use. Once you have settled on the appearance of your watermark, which you can see previewed in the program, you can select a target folder on your computer where the watermarked images will be saved. Supported formats include BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, PSD and TIFF. Exported images can be saved as one of four formats, JPEG, PNG, BMP or PICT. Drag and drop the images you want to watermark onto the blue box labeled, ‘Drop here’, if you want to preview the image with the watermark before applying it. Dragging and dropping is also used to add images to the list of files to be watermarked. Select the folder that you want the watermarked images to be saved in, and once you’re ready, click the “MarQue it” button. WatermarQue is convenient to use because of its user friendly interface and because it makes it easy to batch watermark images. The distinct disadvantage to using WatermarQue is there seems to be no way to alter the opacity of the watermark, so if you’re looking to create a subtle watermark, this app is not for you. ImpressioniPhone, iPad and iPod Touch users can benefit from the free app, Impression [iTunes link], which allows you to watermark images saved on your device. Select the image you want to watermark from your saved photos or photo library. Enter the text you want to use as your watermark. Determine the opacity and increase or decrease the size of the watermark using the pinch and pull method, after which you can drag the watermark to your chosen position. Unfortunately, watermarking using Impression is done one by one, with no batch feature, and watermarked images are saved as a new file in your photos. Impression is also available for iPhoto and Aperture, but unlike the iOS app, they are not free. JetPhoto StudioJetPhoto Studio is a great free Mac/Windows app that allows you to do more than just watermark your images. It allows you to create albums, publish your images to the web, offers some image editing options and much more. As far as watermarking is concerned, it offers a slightly different method to the other programs listed here. Rather than use text to watermark your images, JetPhoto Studio allows you to use a PNG, TIF or BMP file to watermark your images. The first step is to create a new album, determining the album’s physical location on your computer. Go to the Thumbnail tab and drag and drop the images you want included in the album into the window. Next, go to the Actions tab and select Web Ready. This will open a window in which you can determine your watermark and its position, and then batch watermark images, as well as resize them if need be. The watermarked images will be exported to the location you selected when you first created the album. If you’re looking for more free methods to watermark your images, whether online or offline, take a look at these articles: How do you watermark your images? Let us know in the comments. Image credit: Shutterstock Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers!
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| Posted: 20 Feb 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 Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers!
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| 10 Free MP3 Albums To Download [Sound Sunday] Posted: 20 Feb 2011 11:30 AM PST
This week is full of gems. We have guests from Singapore, the UK, Ireland, and the USA. The featured albums cover styles from alternative rock and folk, disco, and melodramatic pop, via reggae, ambient, electronica, to beats, rap, and trip hop. Want more of the same or something different? Your feedback and input can shape next week’s edition! Just leave a comment or eMail me [tina at makeuseof dot com]. Prefer mainstream music? Turn the page to see where you can listen to full length commercial albums right now for free!
Caracal – Bear. Shark. Wolf.Genre: alternative, rock Bear. Shark. Wolf. is the first full length album of Singapore’s alternative rock band Caracal. They have been invited play at the Canadian Music Festival in Toronto. To make that trip happen, Caracal is currently raising funds through their Caracal Goes Canada blog. If you appreciate their music, please help them come to Canada! Bear. Shark. Wolf. is a free download from Bandcamp. Sophie Madeleine – Sidetrack SessionsGenre: folk, pop, acoustic This album is an excellent example of how wonderful procrastination can be. While supposed to be doing more productive things, she recorded cover songs, hence the name Sidetrack Sessions with the subtitle ‘or the things I did when I should have been doing something else’. Sidetrack Sessions is a free download from Bandcamp. Sophie Madeleine MySpace and Facebook. Thy Wolven Magick – ΩGenre: ambient, drone, soundscape This album was released through the dutch DomaData Netlabel. It’s a three track spooky soundscape that stretches over 50 minutes. Perfect soundtrack for ghost stories or other scary tales told on a cold winter night. Omega is a free download from Bandcamp. DomaData Netlabel Twitter. Chris Dooks – Minimal 48Genre: avant-garde, electronica, folk, folctronica Chris Dooks is a polymash audio artist from the UK. As the title suggests, Minimal 48 was created in a mere 48 hours, in response to Glasgow’s Minimal Festival, which was held in November 2010. The album was produced entirely on an iPod uing live DSP processing software, while Chris was wandering around the locations. Minimal 48 is a free download from Bandcamp. Chris Dooks Homepage. Lamp – SagittariusGenre: progressive, rock From their MySpace page: “Lamp is a two piece progadelic band based in Cork [Republic of Ireland]. This two headed, four armed procrastinating monster is made up of two young men with sickeningly Irish surnames; Ted Murphy and Shane O’ Leary. These two boyoz have been playing in bands together since the age of 15. They started Lamp around January 2007 as a side project (…).” Sagittarius is a free download from Bandcamp. Lamp MySpace. Mr.Fari – The Free AlbumGenre: alternative, reggae, pop, jam, roots From his Bio on ReverbNation: “Mr.Fari says that his work is "like growing a little farm in a very urban city." He feels it is simple, organic, minimalist yet concrete and streetsy. He is heavily influenced by old school reggae, which is in his lyrics and is something he says he picked up in Puerto Rico. His love for satire and irony comes from his upbringing in Kuwait and reading Sufi style poetry.” The Free Album is available from Bandcamp. Graham O’Brien – Live DrumsGenre: drums, down tempo, instrumental, hip hop, trip hop Graham O’Brien is a drummer and music producer based in Saint Paul, Minnesota. In 2010 he debuted with his solo project Live Drums, for which he sampled synthetic sounds and live performed drums to create a unique and engaging sound experience. Although Live Drums has surpassed the numbers and costs $2 on Bandcamp, it is licensed under a Creative Commons license and can be downloaded for free from Clear Bits or NOECHO Records. Graham O’Brien MySpace and Facebook. Q.Dub – Lost In Piff CloudsGenre: hip hop, beats, rap, mixtape Album intro: “Take a stroll through Jerz with the talented artist/writer Q.Dub a.k.a “Clutch Game” VP of Presidential Block Development Group(PBDG) one of Brick City’s hottest up and coming record labels!” Lost In Piff Clouds can be downloaded for free from DatPiff.com. Q.Dub Facebook. Graveola e o Lixo Polifônico – selftitledGenre: pop, melodramatic, k-pop, jam
Download Graveola e o Lixo Polifônico free from Graveola’s Homepage. Graveola MySpace and Homepage. Ro Danishei – End Of The RainbowGenre: club, disco, pop
End Of The Rainbow is a free download from Ro Danishei’s Homepage. Ro Danishei MySpace and Homepage. This is the end. For more entertainment, browse Past Editions of Sound Sunday. Feel free to get in touch with me [tina at makeuseof dot com] or use the comments to voice your questions, feedback, and suggestions. See you next week! Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers!
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| What Is A Static IP Address, How Do I Get One & Its Advantages / Disadvantages Posted: 20 Feb 2011 09:31 AM PST
A static IP address however, is one that doesn’t change. Your computer decides upon the address it wants, and it tells the router. Why would you want to set up something like this though, and what are the advantages and disadvantages of doing so? Is there a better solution? What Is A Static IP?When we talk about IP addresses of home computers, we are usually referring to two types of address. One is your external IP address – the one that the world sees as your Internet connection. Then you have your private IP addresses internally on your home network. Even if you only have one computer on your home network, it will have a private IP given to it by the router. Private IP addresses cannot be routed over the Internet and are strictly for private use. There are a few possible ranges of private IP address, but for most home users this will be 192.168.*.* (where * can be anything). Your router interface, for instance, is likely accessible through 192.168.0.1 – this is a private address. Your home computers might then be anything from 192.168.0.2 to 192.168.0.254. Most routers will just assign internal addresses on a first come first served basis. The first computer you plug into the router will send out a network request saying “I need an IP address, my hardware address is x.x.x.x.x.x” and will be assigned 192.168.0.2, then the next will get 192.168.0.3. Your external IP address is not something you can change – it will be given to you automatically by your Internet provider. You can purchase a static external IP address, but they are incredibly expensive. If you do need to access your home network from a remote location, consider getting a dynamic address that will update itself when your IP changes. For a home network though, you are free to assign static, non-changing IP addresses to whatever computers you want, so let’s a take a look at when you would do this. Why Would I Need A Static Private IP Address & What Are The Advantages?Essentially, you need a static IP anytime you are trying to forward certain packets from the Internet to certain computers or devices on your home network. For example: A Local Web ServerIn order to set up a web server on your home network that is accessible by anyone in the world, you need to forward incoming requests on port 80 to your web server machine. If the web server was to restart and get a new IP from the router, the special rule that you created to forward requests on port 80 to the old server IP address wouldn’t work anymore, and your server would break. Remote Torrent ManagementA few weeks ago I showed you how to manage your torrent client from a remote computer or mobile phone, but it involved forwarding requests on port 9091 to the machine running the torrent client. We found out the address of the machine and created a rule based on that, but again, if the address was to change, the remote management wouldn’t work. GamingFor some older routers and gaming setups, you needed to forward certain ports to your xBox or PC to play online multiplayer games. More recent routers include an automated setup procedure called uPNP which eliminates the need to set up rules by hand. Disadvantages Of A Static IPStatic IPs need to be configured manually, and often you will need to make a few changes to your router configuration too. In this respect, they are said to have an “administration overhead”, because you need to keep track of the settings yourself. For home networks, this usually isn’t an issue with only a few machines to worry about – but for corporations and companies this is quite a problem. Without correct router configuration, you are also likely to see more IP address conflict errors. For example, if you set one of your machines to the IP address 192.168.0.10, and your router continues to hand out IP automatically, then at some point, another machine will be given the same IP! Basically, static IPs can be quite problematic. The Solution: Reserved AddressesInstead of having to manually configure the settings on every PC we want to give a static IP address to, we will simply “reserve” the address we want to give them in the router’s automatic IP address system. By doing this, we ensure our machines have an IP address that will never change, without actually assigning a “static” IP address as such, which would complicate things. To do this, open up your router configuration page and look for a section on DHCP or LAN IP. Look at the section labelled Static Leases or Reserved Lease Info. There are two or more fields that need to be filled in. First is the hardware address (6 pairs of alphanumeric characters), which is unique to every network device in the world, and second is the IP you wish to assign it. You should be able to see your hardware address in the list of current “leases” (a lease refers to the address that the router has automatically lent to your device) next the IP it is currently assigned. If not, type IPCONFIG /ALL (from Windows command prompt) or IFCONFIG (from an OS X Terminal) and look for either the Ethernet or Physical Address. In this case, I want the device with the hardware address E0:CB:4E:A5:7C:9D, currently with IP 192.168.0.10, to stay that way forever. Enter this information to create a new reserved address. You can also change the IP address from here if you’d like the reserved one to be different to what it is currently, but you will need to restart the device in order to get the new address. You are basically “tying” a particular local IP address to a particular piece of hardware. That’s it – now your address won’t change after a restart and you can keep your special routing rules the same. Confused? Problems? Feel free to ask in the comments, and I will endeavor to answer as best as I can – but remember that every router model is slightly different. Image credit: Shutterstock 1, Shutterstock 2
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We’ve already explained several different ways that users can protect and 
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.
Sound Sunday provides you with an eclectic blend of free music.
In home networks, IP addresses aren’t usually fixed, but they do fall within specific ranges. Your router will assign a new IP address automatically if another computer joins the network, or if your configuration changes. For the most part, this works out just fine – you shouldn’t notice a difference to your Internet performance or application functionality if your IP changes.
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