Cool Websites and Tools [December 30th 2011]
Check out some of the latest MakeUseOf discoveries. Most of the listed websites are FREE or come with a decent free account option. If you want to have similar cool website round-ups delivered to your daily email, subscribe here.
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AnyMeeting – Are you looking for a simple way to organize meetings or host seminars online? If yes, you should give AnyMeeting a try, a free web conferencing service which allows users to schedule and organize online meetings and conferences with their colleagues and group members. Read more: AnyMeeting: A Simple Online Web Conferencing Service |
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Tweet Speaker – If you are a Twitter addict and for some reason, you are unable to keep up with your Twitter timeline, you can listen to your tweets while working on your iPhone, thanks to an application known as Tweet Speaker, a simple and effective Twitter client for iOS devices which reads your Twitter timeline. Read more: Tweet Speaker: Listen To Your Twitter Feed On iPhone |
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Yiip – is a voice messaging service, meaning, you communicate with your friends and other people through the medium of voice, not the same old text bubbles. Not only that, but you have the convenience of sharing those clips with your friends in a private group chat, publicly on Facebook or Twitter, or any other social networking site. Read more: Yiip: Record & Share Short Voice Clips [iOS] |
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Projectial – A project leader has to juggle numerous resources to achieve that project’s tasks. All this needs to be done through an organized process that keep things clear and in perspective. Such an organized interface for project leaders is precisely what a web service called Projectial offers. Read more: Projectial: A Web App For Managing Projects Effectively |
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Gttext – Suppose you have a digital image of a document. To begin editing the text contained within the document, you first need to transfer the document’s text into a text editor. But manually typing all that text is highly inconvenient. Here to offer an easier way is a tool called Gttext. Read more: Gttext: Free Image Text Extraction Software [Windows] |
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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The 11 Best Questions From You [MakeUseOf Answers]
Every Friday MakeUseOf Answers honors the Best Answer of the Week to reward the skill and time investment made to solve tough questions. Every single comment made on Answers is reviewed for the contest and your feedback helps us decide the winners. Please support us by solving tough questions or acknowledging great answers. This week the winners are:
Best Answer of the Week – Richard Carpenter
1st Runner Up – Brian Beardsall
2nd Runner Up – Blake Chesney
Congratulations and thank you for your contribution! Curious to learn something new? Browse these questions for some insights:
- Where can I find sites that have international giveaways?
- How can I delete my Facebook account if I forgot my email and password?
- How can I password protect Firefox?
- How can I format and clean a laptop before selling it?
- How can I recover files from my formatted external hard drive?
- How do I turn a standard installation of Windows 7 into a server?
- How can I easily organize all the files on my PC?
- What is a good picture manager and slide show viewer for Mac Lion OSX?
- Why can’t I access files on my external hard drive now that I use a Mac?
- How do I move my iTunes library from my Mac to my PC?
- How do I know what the numbers mean in a bandwidth test?
For regular updates subscribe to the Answers RSS Feed. Need help? Ask A Question at MakeUseOf Answers.
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Improve Your Skyrim Experience With Dragon Shout [iPhone]
Skyrim is, without question, one of the best video games ever released. I just finished the main story a few days ago, and I am around seventy hours in. There is so much to do. Between the main quest, all the guild stuff, and the hundreds of side quests, it is easy to lose a large portion of your life playing Skyrim. The bottom line is this; if you call yourself a gamer, you need to play Skyrim. If you want a game that has a ton of content, pick your platform, and get the game.
As you begin to play Skyrim, you might come to realize that the volume of content is hard to manage. It can be hard to remember where you had that epic dragon fight, or where you found that amazing new armor you are wearing with pride. This is where Dragon Shout comes in. It is your Skyrim travel companion, and it is available right on your iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Dragon Shout will help you keep track of all your memories in the world of Skyrim.
Set up
The obvious first step is to head to the iTunes App Store and download the free application. You can do this by clicking here, or searching for Dragon Shout in the app store.
Next, you will need to make a free account. This takes just a few seconds, and only requires you to choose a user name, password and provide an email address. Creating an account allows the application to synchronize your markers so you can access them anytime from any device.
Features
The main feature of Dragon Shout is the ability to place markers on the map for all kinds of occurrences in Skyrim. You can set markers for pretty much anything great that happens while you are playing, so you can find it again later. Maybe you want to remember which town has two blacksmiths so you can create some more dragon armor. Perhaps there is an area you need for a quest. All of these things and more can be logged on the map.
To log something on the map, simply tap the location one time, and the new journal screen will pop up. You can type in notes about the marker, and choose what kind of marker it is. You can also choose whether to share the marker publicly. The public sharing feature will be available with the next update. For now, you can select the option for the future.
Once you have created a marker it will appear on the map, and you can click it at any time to see what information it contains. The icon on the map is different depending on what type of journal entry you choose. If you choose a quest marker, it will appear as a dotted line with an “X,” if you choose a battle, it will show the hilt of a sword, and so on. This way, you will be able to tell what kind of entry it is quickly and easily.
The application has two types of maps. They can be accessed via the settings button on the top right of the screen (it looks like two gears). The first map is emptier, and allows you to put more emphasis on your markers. The second map is pre-populated with much more of the icons from the actual in game map. This way, you can see all the locations at a glance.
Future Updates
The developer actually issued an update that added chat and sharing of markers with friends, but there was an error, so at this point you can only use the app solo. The update will add an in-application purchase that allows you to view other users icons. This will help if you need some tips from the Skyrim community. The application is great, but with this update, it will be spectacular.
Conclusion
This is an incredibly useful application for someone who wants to make the most of their Skyrim experience without resorting to the use of guides and FAQs. You would not go on a real life adventure without a compass and a map, and Dragon Shout is like that, but for the game. It is a free application that is certainly worth checking out.
Have you tried this app? Did it help you make the most of Skyrim? Let us know in the comments.
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Reading Personal Documents On Your Kindle App
Since I first reviewed the Amazon Kindle for the iPad and other iOS devices, some pretty useful features have been added in recent updates. From basic annotation tools, an e-book library, and its Whispersync capabilities, the Kindle app now allows users to import magazines and newspapers, as well as personal documents—each of which can be synced between iOS devices.
While the Kindle app still falls short in many areas, the recent updates do provide better functionality for e-book reading.
Personal Documents
Perhaps the best update for Kindle 2.9 app is a feature that allows Amazon members to e-mail personal documents to their Kindle app-supported device using a new Send-to-Kindle email address ([assigned name]@kindle.com.)
You can attach documents and other files, including PDFs, Word files, JPEGs and PNGs, on your computer or in your mobile device to the address associated with your Amazon account. Amazon says that “A subject is not necessary in the e-mail, unless you’d prefer to have the document converted to the Kindle format. To have a document converted to Kindle format (.azw), the subject line should be ‘convert’ when e-mailing the personal document to a Send-to-Kindle address.”
In order to use the Kindle annotation features, text documents must be converted to the Kindle format. However, in my tests some parts of say a PDF document—the table of contents for example—may not format correctly in the .azw conversion.
Other people can also send documents to your device after you approve their e-mail address. You will need to log into your Manage Your Kindle account, and select Personal Document Settings to add and improve e-mail addresses. This authorization, of course, keeps your account from being spammed.
There are some restrictions to this personal documents feature, such as submitted e-mails to your Amazon account cannot contain more than 25 attached personal documents, and it must target less than 15 distinct Send-to-Kindle addresses.
This personal documents feature enables users to do less printing, and it is also convenient for keeping your documents archived in the cloud.
Magazines and Newspapers
This Kindle update version for the iPad now also allows Amazon customers to select from over 400 magazines and newspapers in the Kindle Store. You can buy single issues or subscribe to magazines like, Martha Stewart Living, Cosmopolitan, The New York Times, and Popular Science.
Some Kindle customers however have commented that the digital versions of publications may not be as good production wise as the printed versions, so be sure to check the customer feedback section before making a purchase.
The User Interface
The Kindle app also includes an updated user interface, so that now downloaded content is categorized by All Items, Books, Newsstand, Docs. Kindle books and personal documents can also be archived to your account in order to reduce the amount of space taken up on your mobile device.
It would be great, however, if there were a section for purchased Kindle books separate from sample copies of Kindle e-books.
Social Network Sharing
The prior update to the Kindle app includes a feature for sharing selected texts to your Twitter or Facebook timeline, via a link to the highlighted passage which appears on your Kindle profile page.
I’m not sure how useful this feature is for sharing with online contacts, but I find it handy for my own reading and review purposes. You can actually access and read your highlights and notes in your Kindle account. You can also follow and network with other Kindle readers .
As an avid Kindle book reader, I welcome the new app updates, but I still long for improvements with the annotation tools. Accessing and reviewing notes, highlights, and bookmarks is not a productive experience, especially for students and scholars, in the Kindle e-reader.
Let us know what you think of the new updates. Have you started reading more ebooks on your Kindle? And what additional features would you like to see.
For other articles about the Kindle app, start with these:
- How To Use The Amazon Kindle Reader For The iPhone & iPod Touch
- iBooks Vs. Kindle – Which Is Better? [iPad]
- Reading Ebooks on The iPad with iBooks & Amazon Kindle
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Two Fun, Free, Relaxing Android Games For Word Lovers
I know I’m not the only one around here who loves word games. Well, today I’d like to share two free, fun Android word games. One involves a bit of fast action, while the other mainly involves looking and hunting around. Ready? Here we go!
Letter Rip
The first game I’d like to share, Letter Rip, supports Android 1.6 and up. It has a 4.0 rating with 813 reviews, which isn’t bad at all, and you’ll soon see why. Here’s what the board looks like early on in a game:
The board starts out empty, and the tiles fill in gradually, about one per second. Your job is to drag tiles around to make words. Much like Scrabble, every letter has a point value, shown as a small number on the bottom-right corner. If you don’t make words fast enough, pretty soon the board looks like this:
Meaning, it is now completely full. In the screenshot above, this happened because I simply didn’t play – I wanted to let it fill up. The game is far from over: You can still make plenty of words, and they don’t even have to be in a single line. Take this, for example:
As long as the letters are somehow next to each other, the resulting word is acceptable. Personally, I really like this – it allows for a great deal of flexibility. Gameplay is very calm, and there are no stressful timeouts. Once I found “JET” above, I cleared those spaces on the board and got my 50 points:
Now, I can drag any letter from the top row into the empty space, and I can also move other letters around. Let’s do this in two steps: First, let’s use the free space to shuffle things around a bit.
With this shuffle, I just made a new word, “WISH”, without using any of the letters above. With a quick swipe through those letters, I can claim it, earn my points, and clear those tiles.
Now I’d like to use the letters from the top bank, to make a new word:
Can you guess what word I made? I would not usually do this so early, but it shows what the top tray is for. Note that after I empty it out, it does not magically refill – you’d best save those letters for when you really need them.
After a while, it looks like all of your options are out:
Not much to do without vowels. Now, you can either surrender, or buy new letters:
Buying letters looks like this:
Again, this is another very relaxing part of the game. You don’t buy random letters in hope you’ll get something good. You actually get to pick and choose the letters you want, and pay their price with the points you’ve accumulated so far. Of course, not all letters cost the same (just as not all letters are worth the same amount of points when used in a word).
Last but not least, I’d like to show you the generous options screen:
As you can see, you get to control the board size, game speed, and even the minimum amount of letters that count as a word.
I really like Letter Rip! because I feel the designers went out of their way to create a calming game. Where in other games I would expect to have a timer, Letter Rip! just lets me keep on playing to my heart’s content. And where other games only let me create words from top to bottom or left to right, Letter Rip! doesn’t care about directions. Very enjoyable, and captures the feel of a crossword puzzle while providing something you can’t do with paper (move letters around).
Word Search
The second game I’d like to share with you is called Word Search, and it also runs on Android 1.6 and above. It’s a much simpler game, really:
What you see is what you get; it’s a large grid of letters, in which you have to hunt for the words listed. Once you find a word, just draw a line through it, and it becomes highlighted. It’s an extremely simple game, but is also nice and relaxed. I only wish there was a way to hide the list of words. As it is, the game doesn’t involve much thought, but mainly looking and hunting around for those words. That’s also a mental skill, however.
My other feature request would be a way to make the board dark. This could be a great game to play at night right before I fall asleep, but the bright white board makes that impossible.
Every time you start a new Word Search game, you get a different grid with different words. You can swipe the list of words left to right – you don’t have to stick to the order they are listed, of course.
There’s not much else to say about this extremely simple Android word game, but that doesn’t mean it’s not fun. If you like words, take it for a spin!
Your Turn
As usual, this is the spot where I ask you if I missed your favorite Android word game. I don’t mean Words with Friends; can you surprise me with an awesome free word game that not many people know yet? Tell me below!
Image Credit: ShutterStock
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5 Ways To Kick Your Moleskine Notebook Up A Notch
Over the years, the Moleskine notebook has become a trademark staple for anyone dabbling in creative endeavors – especially writers and artists. In fact, the Moleskine is almost as iconic as the Apple laptop, the hipster glasses, and the daily visits to Starbucks.
But simply having one of these notebooks won’t be enough to spark your productivity and get your steam pumping towards optimal efficiency. Here are a few ways you can elevate your Moleskine from “just another notebook” to “I can’t live without this anymore.”
1. Stay Productive With Circle To-Do Lists
The most basic to-do list is often no more than a list of shoddy descriptions of tasks that are crossed out when completed. While this simplicity may be enough for simple tasks that are either “done” or “not done,” you may need a more elegant system for longer-term tasks.
In steps the Circle Method. Basically, this method starts each list item with an empty circle beside it and gradually fills those circles with marks depending on the tasks’ completion levels.
- New Item: To start a new item in the list, draw an empty circle.
- Next Item: To distinguish the next task you want to tackle, place a dot in the center.
- Item Started: To mark a task that you’ve started, cross the circle with a diagonal slash.
- Item Cancelled: To mark a task as trashed, cross the circle with an opposite slash.
- Halfway Complete: When you’re halfway through a task, fill in half of the circle.
- Fully Complete: When a task is completely finished, fill it in all the way.
The method is smart and extremely versatile, allowing you to change the status of a task if necessary.
2. Organize Using The Quadrant Technique
If your notes require a lot of internal referencing, then the Quadrant Technique will be a lifesaver for you. The only downside is that it requires an initial time investment to set up the notebook.
Set up your notebook by dividing each page in half – draw a line through the center, separating the top from the bottom. This will create four quadrants: the top-left quadrant is A, the bottom-left quadrant is B, the top-right quadrant is C, and the bottom-right quadrant is D.
Each group of four quadrants is called a block. Now go through and number each block, starting with 1. I like to place the number in quadrant A, but feel free to put it wherever you like.
That’s it for set up. Now, if you’re writing notes in quadrant 38C (block 38, quadrant C) and need to reference something in block 12, quadrant A, just insert a parenthesis: (12A). Done.
3. Create An Index In The Back
Set aside the last 10 pages of your Moleskine notebook and use them to create a system of indexing. This is extremely useful if you have notes on various topics and intend to reference them over and over again.
In order to use an index, you’ll need to number your pages from start to end. If you’re using the Quadrant Technique, you can use that as your reference instead.
Indexing itself is simple. If you have a page of notes comparing different laptops, flip back to the index and write on a new line, Laptop Comparison, page 38. Now, if you need to reference that comparison, you can find it easily. Instead of flipping through the entire notebook, you only need to flip through the 10 or so pages in the index.
The indexing system grows more useful as your notebook grows more packed with information.
4. Divide The Notebook With Plastic Tabs
Bump up your notebook’s organization by using plastic divider tabs, especially if you use your Moleskine for more than one purpose.
If you’re using the previously mentioned quadrant technique and indexing system, you might feel tempted to just fill out your notebook as you go. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it certainly isn’t optimal. Wouldn’t it be easier on your mind to split up the notebook in chunks and assign each chunk to a topic?
The plastic tabs, then, are a great way to visualize the different sections. Combine this with the other organizational techniques, and you’ll soon find your Moleskine becoming an integral part of your life.
5. Choose the Right Pen
Believe it or not, you can boost your Moleskine notebook to the next level simply by switching to a different pen. Which pen should you switch to? That’s entirely up to you. However, there are a few guidelines for which pens work well with the Moleskine.
- Choose a pen that doesn’t bleed. Using a pen that bleeds through the pages can be disastrous. At best, you’ll render clean pages unusable. At worst, you’ll render past work illegible. Mostly, you’ll just turn your notebook into a mess of ink spots, and that might keep you from wanting to use it anymore.
- Choose a pen that doesn’t smear. Similar to the bleeding problem, a wet pen that smears easily will result in notes that can no longer be read. Even if you’re careful as you write, the ink will smear as soon as you close the notebook. Avoid smearing pens unless you want to wait for the ink to dry every time you jot down a note.
- Choose a pen that feels comfortable in your hand. It’s amazing how holding the right pen can make you want to write more. Pen comfort is individual, so you’ll need to find one that fits your hand well. It doesn’t matter if you need a thin pen, fat pen, long pen, short pen, or one with rubber grips – get one that you enjoy writing with.
If you need a recommendation, try using the Pilot G2 pen. It won’t break the bank, it doesn’t smear or bleed, and it writes smoothly.
Conclusion
If you don’t use your Moleskine all that often, then you probably won’t gain much benefit from applying these tricks to your routine. However, if you use your Moleskine enough that you carry it around with you everywhere, then these tricks can heighten your notebook to the next level. Let us know in the comments what tricks you use.
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The Secret To Disabling Mobile Phone Localization
So you’re going about your business, getting on with life, when suddenly something strange happens. You bump into somebody who you know from way back. They might be old friends, work colleague or perhaps even a former lover… and they have been waiting for you. In the next few moments your confusion over the situation leads you to make several mistakes; despite your better judgment, you agree to meet up with the one-time friend. In the most extreme circumstances, the former acquaintance might have less-than-pure intentions towards you, particularly if they were a jilted lover.
The increased connectivity that is afforded by mobile phones and tablets has a distinct dark side – many of the apps and games that we use can reveal our location, one way or another. This is done explicitly – think of the “check in” function on Facebook – or done in a more underhand manner, and if used unchecked can cause serious personal safety and privacy issues.
How does this happen? It’s all thanks to localization, the name given to the way in which mobile phones collect and share data about your location to the apps that you have installed.
Localization – Friend Or Foe?
Included as a feature on all of the currently used mobile phone and tablet platforms, localization doesn’t just rely on GPS to provide your location to an inquisitive app.
Along with GPS, localization can determine your location by triangulating your position from mobile phone towers and even wireless hotspots that you might be connected to. During 2011 we saw how this information can be used by the mobile phone operating system to record your position, and similarly apps use the data to provide a richer mobile experience.
Only apps that have previously been assigned permission can utilize the data. That’s right, the apps have permission. Assuming you are downloading apps from the official store for your mobile device, they will be enjoying your consent to share details of your current location to services such as FourSquare or Google Maps. Permission is generally granted when installing the app, but it might also be given when the software is run for the first time.
The Effects of Disabling Localization
You can of course disable localization, particularly if you have concerns about the way in which the information is being used or shared. Twitter in particular can prove troublesome if you have it configured to share your current location with every Tweet that you send.
The most important thing is to be aware of the risks and advantages that localization can bring to the day-to-day use of your chosen mobile device. For instance, using the Facebook check-in feature can help you to meet up with friends, family or colleagues at a particular location just as easily as it can reveal your whereabouts to stalkers (obviously this can only occur if your Facebook profile isn’t private). On the other hand a game or map tool is unlikely to share your location with just anyone (although Google Latitude will divulge your whereabouts).
Control the Information Your Cell Phone Shares
Taking control of the data that is shared by apps means spending a few moments with your mobile phone and checking the current localization settings. You can use the guides below to help – notice how they are all quite similar.
Android
Altering your Android’s settings so that localization information is not collected is relatively easy. Open Menu > Settings > Location & security and clear the Use wireless networks and Use GPS satellites options under My Location.
BlackBerry
The process can differ between BlackBerry OS versions, but this is generally made possible by opening Options > Advanced Options > GPS and altering the Location Aiding setting to Disabled.
iOS
On iPhone, open the Home screen and find Settings. From here, select Location Services and switch to Off. For disabling localization for specific apps, these are listed on the same screen and can be configured as required.
Windows Phone
On Windows Phone, open Settings > Location to disable all localization data sharing; alternatively if you only wish to disable a specific app from sharing data collected from GPS or cellular triangulation, go to Settings > Applications and find the app in question, flicking the Use my location switch to disable. If the app you’re looking for is not listed, open it as normal and use the app’s own settings menu.
Conclusion
There are many reasons why you might wish to keep your whereabouts under wraps, depending on who you are, where you live, what your career is, etc. The tips above work for each of the mobile platforms listed and can be used to your advantage, but remember that localization services are provided to make life easier for you.
Thankfully, disabling localization isn’t irreversible, so if you decide at a later date that you would like to take advantage of this functionality simply reverse the steps!
Image Credit: Nachoman-au, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Telstra_Mobile_Phone_Tower.jpg
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