The biggest advantage in my view in using the Kindle reader is that you can download sample chapters of a books from the site for free. Being able to preview the first few chapters of a downloaded e-book will helps with making decisions about possible purchases. It’s like sampling songs on iTunes or other music sites.

Kindle App vs. Kindle

Downloading sample copies of course requires that you set up a free account on Amazon. After downloading the Kindle Reader for iPhone from the iTunes Store you will find that the free e-reader does pretty much everything the the $259.00 Kindle version does. In fact, there are a few advantages of using the free Kindle app over the hardware Kindle.

First off, the Kindle app is more portable, because it is on your iPhone or Touch (I’m pretty sure there will soon be a Kindle for the Android.) The Kindle app is illuminated by the well lit screen of the iPhone, which makes it perfect for reading in low light settings. Lastly, I would say that the Kindle app is a little easier and faster to navigate. Its only shortcoming is that the screen size of the iPhone may be too small for reading at long stretches of time.

Downloading Free Samples

To get access to e-books on Amazon.com, you can visit the site’s Kindle Store, which of course is categorized by book genre and other other media, such as newspapers, magazines, and blogs. With your account set up , you click the “Send sample now” button to have your selected e-book sent to your registered mobile device. Books typically download in less than a minute.

Downloaded E-books

Downloaded e-books to the Kindle app can be listed and viewed in three ways: by author, by title or by recently read or opened. If you’re an avid reader, the list can get pretty long, but you can always put e-books on your Amazon wishlist, for later review. You can click the Edit button to delete any books from your list. However, when you “delete” purchased e-books from from the reader, they get archived on a second page of the reader.  All your books are maintained and can be re-downloaded from your Amazon account. So basically all your purchased books remain “in the cloud,” on Amazon’s server, which means you can re-download them anytime.

Reading E-books On The Kindle App

Clicking on an e-book in the list opens it up. You tap on the right side of the iPhone screen to move to the next page, and tap the left side to move to the previous page. “Page turning” on the iPhone Kindle is much smoother than the hardware Kindle.

You can set the font type and size of the text by clicking the bottom of the screen. The font settings are a part of a menu of three other items. The plus icon is used for bookmarking a page. When it’s clicked, the page will be dog-eared on the upper-right of the page. The book icon in the menu presents links to the book’s cover, table of content, the first page, and a tab for locating a particular page of a book.

You will also find in this area a list of the bookmarks, highlights and notes that you made while reading. The fourth item of the menu is a button that uses Whispersync technology for syncing data (last page read and annotations) to the hardware Kindle 2, if you use one. This feature will also be available for desktop versions of the Kindle e-reader.

If you read books for information rather than just for pleasure, the Kindle app provides a fairly easy to use highlighting and note-taking tools. In fact, because of the touch screen technology of the iPhone and touch, I find these annotations of the application more efficient to use than with the hardware Kindle.

Pressing down and holding your finger on a word in a page will give you two options, either to highlight a passage or make a note. You drag the blue pointers over the content that you want to highlight. If you drag the pointers too far, simply click outside of the blue area and start over. When you click the resulting highlight button, it will highlight your passage in yellow. Adding a note is done the same way as highlighting, except that when you click the note button, you will be presented with a text window for typing in your notes. Both your notes and your highlights can reviewed by clicking and bringing up the small menu described above.

Finally, with the last update of the Kindle app, you can now lock pages of your book into portrait or landscape position, which helps makes for reading e-books from different angles.

While there are some drawbacks to purchasing e-books, such as not being able to share your books with others, building an e-book library is more environmentally efficient than traditional paper books. The Kindle app can hold several hundred books, which makes archiving and accessing them a hundred times easier than managing bookshelves of hardback and paperbacks.

Are you a Kindle reader for iPhone user? What’s been your experience? Do you think e-books will eventually replace paper books?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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From the makers of MotivationLOL comes an application which can help (or mock) you by tracking your cash flow and improve your (non-existent) money management. Yes, as you would have guessed — the app was developed as a joke. Even Bravobug (the developer) admitted it. But wait, don’t look away just yet. Ignore the Joe Pesci remarks or disable the mockery altogether; Pocket Lint can actually be a pretty useful application especially for poor folks.

When I say poor, I don’t mean it in a bad way. In all honesty, who really uses those fancy calculation tools in other money management apps? Come on, who can actually be committed enough to track each and every expenditure?

Pocket Lint breaks it all down to the fundamental elements — monthly expenditure and income. And it works.

Download and launch the app; and you’ll be greeted with a pretty long welcome message. Read it through and you’ll roughly get the hang of using the app in general (at the end, notice that it does admit to being a joke, hah).

Then you’ll be staring at the main interface. Ignore the mockery like the Joe Pesci Proximity Alert, don’t press on “Win The Lottery” no matter how strong the urge, and forget about the Graph button. Yes, the output Graph is a joke too. Hey, I told you not to press it!

The rest of the stuff is legit. To add a monthly expenditure, click on the Expense button and fill in the details, click OK then watch the Monthly Total refresh to indicate how much money you will eventually spend. Go on listing every one of your darn monthly expenditures and try not to get too frustrated at the amount of cash that’s slipping through your fingers.

Make yourself feel better by adding any sources of income you have. Go ahead and click on the Income button. The amount earned can either be calculated as a monthly or hourly wage. There’s even a field for tax deduction (yeah, like I need a reminder for that).

OK, so I’ll admit — being a student and a poor person, things do look pretty bleak after listing it all down. I’ll add a fake source of income just for more “green-coloured” entries.

Here’s hoping that your Monthly Total is now in the clear. If not, well, that’s why this app is a joke. Want to win the lottery?

Or perhaps you are willing to sell your kidney? There’s a quick entry for that, believe it or not. Again, Pocket Lint wasn’t developed for the hardcore finance geeks who are obsessed with how much cash there is in their wallet (including coins) or in the bank at this very moment (plus interest). No, Pocket Lint was intended to help the light-hearted students in pauperdom manage our monthly spendings quickly and easily.

Who cares if we dip into our savings this month? So what if we only can afford to buy groceries when they’re on sale? We’re students and we’re living the student life. This is probably the one time you’re missing out if you’re a rich kid.

Pocket Lint works great as a pick-me-up and a basic money management tool. It’s fully compatible with Snow Leopard. But if you’re too poor to upgrade, it works fine on OS X 10.4+. Phew.

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But what if you want to access all of those tweets days later? The more Twitter followers you have the more quickly these tweets get lost in the shuffle, and unless you’re looking for them specifically they are unlikely to ever find you.

Luckily there are web apps for just that. In this article, we will be discussing two of the best options for Twitter commenting that are available right now in the form of Twitter addons for your browser, as well as how they allow you to add to the conversation and create your own Twitter comments.

Kutano

Kutano is one of the better Twitter addons for “weaving” Twitter discussions into your browsing. We mentioned Kutano briefly in our article 10 Firefox Add-ons To Find Friends On Social Networks. It is available as a browser extension for Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Google Chrome (Beta builds) and works on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Kutano is a sidebar Twitter addon and docks to the side of your browser. When you surf the web, it updates with all of the tweets that took place about that particular page. You can see who tweeted about the page, what they said, and how popular it is on Twitter. If there are tweets that are similar (like re-tweets) you can see that too!

By switching to the ‘website’ tab, you can see what other pages are being tweeted about on the website you are viewing. This is a good way to find other articles you might be interested in from the same website.

While viewing the tweets of a particular page, the Kutano Twitter addon allows you to view the person’s Twitter profile, follow them, reply to their tweet, and re-tweet their tweet, all from within the application.

Need more than 140 characters to comment on a webpage? No problem. Kutano has a ‘discussions’ tab where you can write your comments and engage multiple people simultaneously in a discussion about the webpage.

If you sign up for a Kutano account you can login with your Twitter credentials and see your timeline, along with your @mentions, direct messages, and followers. If you don’t want to keep the sidebar visible you can minimize it and view tweet and discussion counts down in your browser’s status bar.

AddATweet

AddATweet is another good Twitter addon for viewing/creating Twitter comments on a page. Although it is strictly featured as an extension for Firefox at the moment, its simplicity and integration with Twitter is what sets it apart from other commenting and web annotation apps.

Like Kutano, AddATweet is a sidebar that allows you to see all of the tweets that were made about a specific webpage. There is a box at the top that allows you to add comments and tweet them out to your followers. Clicking the ‘tweet this’ box adds your comments to the webpage as well as your public timeline on Twitter.

You can reply to tweets, re-tweet them, @ mention the person, and even mark them as spam. When you re-tweet or reply from within AddATweet, your comments are posted right under those that you were responding to, making it a threaded conversation.

You can sort comments by ‘everyone’, those who you are ‘following’, and those based on ‘authority’. Authority means that only comments made by people who have the most followers will be seen first. This sorting ability is useful if a page has a lot of comments and you want to see those made by popular Twitterers or if you simply want to see what your followers have written.

Like Leaving Comments Yet?

Reading and leaving comments directly on the pages you find interesting is yet another great way to utilize the power of Twitter. Even those that don’t understand Twitter all that well can find Twitter addons like Kutano and AddATweet useful because they allow you to find like-minded people and converse with them about popular topics on the web.

If you’re in the commenting mood, why not leave a comment on this page? Let’s start a discussion!

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But it gets a little more complicated when we throw dynamic IP addresses into the mix. Most of the time when you sign up for Internet service you are give a single “external IP” address. This external IP address can be split up so multiple computers or devices can get online.

You have probably see an IP address on this screen before:

The above example shows an external IP address set up. If this machine was using a dynamic IP address the check box would be checked for Obtain an IP address automatically.

When you take a external IP address and divide it up, you will use dynamic or Natted IP addresses. NAT stands for Network Address translation – translating one external address into multiple internal addresses. You can use a service called DHCP to assign computers dynamic IP addresses automatically when they start up.

Below you can see a basic diagram showing how a network is set up and operates. You will see the cable modem gets a Internet Address and the router assigns internal addresses, yet all the equipment on this home network can connect to the Internet. If you open up a browser and go to WhatIsMyIP all the machines will tell you they have the same external IP address.

In most homes we have a router connected to our internet modems. Some Internet Service Providers will give you a modem with a built in router. If this is your case you can imagine that the modem and the router is one unit. We will still refer to it as a router or as a modem. Just know that we are talking about the same thing in your situation. Here is an example of what a modem looks like:

This router is what does your Network address translation and assigns your computer or computer’s dynamic IP addresses. Without the router in place you would not be able to use your Dynamic IP address on the Internet. That is because these groups of dynamic IP addresses like 192.168.0.1 are reserved for internal networks.

You can see an example of what a router looks like here:

Chances are if you are reading this post you are not getting your dynamic IP address assigned to you. The first thing to do is make sure all your network equipment is turned on. This includes your Internet modem provided by your ISP, your router and if you are using a laptop and a built in Network Interface Adapter you will need to have your power cord connected as well.

If everything is plugged in the next thing to do would be to check your status lights on your modem. Are they all green? Do they say you are connected? They should look like the example of the modem two pictures up. If they do, this part is good and you can continue on to the next piece of your network. That is probably going to be your router. Are the lights blinking? Is there a connected or internet Led? Does it say you are connected? If not or you cannot determine this, you should reboot it. Simply pull the power cord and wait 5 seconds and then re-plug it in.

If this fixed the issue, your computer will tell you that it is obtaining an IP address and then it will tell you that it is connected.

We can think about an internal IP address as a extension on a company phone network. If you just dialed that number from your home you would not get connected. But if you dial the main company number and then the extension you will get connected. Just as a dynamic IP address could only be referred to on that network.

We have done quite a few router articles in the past including the following :

How To Secure Your D-Link Wireless Router – Susan
8 Tips To Effectively Boost Your Wireless Router Signal – Leon
Technology Explained: How Does a Router Work? – Guy
How To Turn An Old Router Into A Wireless Bridge – Jorge

I would love to field questions so if you have any please feel free to leave them in the comments!

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(1) Goo.gl – There are a lot of URL shorteners out there, and MakeUseOf writers have profiled most of them. Well, Google is now providing it’s own URL shortening tool: Goo.gl. The tool does exactly what you’d expect – take a long URL and output a small one ready for sharing on sites with restrictive character limits such as Twitter. Read more: Shrink Your URL’s With Google’s Goo.gl

(2) GoFISHn – There is a social network for everything nowadays, so why leave fishing behind? GoFISHn is a social network to exchange fishing stories, find fishing guides, share pictures, exchange angling tips and everything else related to fishing. Read more: GoFISHn: A Social Network For Fishing Enthusiasts

(3) MyFoodapedia – If you’re looking for nutritional information, you should check out the food pyramid’s new website: MyFoodapedia. The site not only tells you the information missing from the new pyramid – recommended servings within the famous five food groups – but also allows you to research the nutritional breakdown of almost any food you can think of. Read more: Find Helpful Food Nutritional Information With MyFoodapedia

(4) ShinySearch – Google is the most popular search engine on the Internet and using the power of Google Custom Search anyone can embed their search engine into their site. That is exactly what the guys at ShinySearch have done. If you’ve ever secretly desired to have a search engine as famous and awesome as Google named after you, ShinySearch is here to grant you your wish. Read more: ShinySearch: Create Your Own Themed Custom Search Engine

(5) Digg 365 – is a new visualization tool under Digg Labs that was launched recently on the occasion of Digg’s fifth anniversary. It shows the most dugg stories (top ten) by date and highlights the ones that are hot favorites for that day. It displays a nice circular calendar in the middle which helps you select the year, month and the specific date for which you want to check out the top ten popular stories. Read more: Digg 365: Visualize Digg Front Page Stories

Submit Your Web App

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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But now the Google Chrome Extensions Page has lots of browser extensions you can try out. As with everything else, it is populated with a lot of junk but the gems are there if you do a bit of searching.

To use them though, you need to change your version of Chrome to the beta version. You can find it here and updating is very easy. And it goes without saying that you need to open up the Extensions website in the Chrome browser (just covering all bases here!)

Here are 5 good Chrome extensions which are seriously tempting me away from Firefox.

XMarks (Previously Known As Foxmarks)

This is the one that has really got me excited.  One of the biggest problems I previously encountered with having two browsers was being unable to synchronize everything.   As well as two browsers, I also use two computers so being able to have my large set of bookmarks wherever I go was an essential must-have.

As long as I stayed with Firefox, I was safe with using XMarks but what about Chrome?  I briefly looked at Saikat’s suggestion of Transmute but it still didn’t feel right.   But now I don’t have to worry because Xmarks now works on Chrome too!   Just make an XMarks web account, keep it synchronized whenever you close your browser and you will always have an up-to-date set of bookmarks wherever you go and whatever browser you happen to be using – Firefox or Chrome.

Google Mail Checker

I have always been keen to have a decent Gmail Notifier but I didn’t want to install the Google Toolbar or the Google Talk client just to have an email notifier.  So this easy basic no-frills notifier extension is just the trick for me.

Once you have installed it, just open a new tab in Chrome, log into the desired Gmail account and then the notifier remembers the details.   It will also start monitoring the account and will notify you when you have new mail (as well as tell you how many new emails you have).

Since I use Google Apps instead of a regular Gmail account, I had to do some changing about but it’s very easy.  Just go to the Chrome options (that little wrench at the top right of the browser), choose Extensions and then choose Google Mail Checker –>Options.  Then enter your domain details and save it all.

Stumbleupon

I use Stumbleupon a lot on a daily basis and not having a Stumbleupon toolbar for Chrome was a tad annoying.  This meant I was constantly having to use Firefox for my stumbling when I would much rather have been using Chrome.  True, you can go to the Stumbleupon website and start up a web toolbar from there but being the lazy person that I am, even that was a bit too much effort for me when all I had to do in Firefox was click a toolbar button.

And now clicking a button is all you have to do in Chrome too.   This is still the web version of the Stumbleupon toolbar but going to it is made a lot easier now.  Just click the SU logo now on your browser and it will instantly open a web toolbar so you can go stumbling.  When you are finished, press the button again and the web toolbar goes away. Much faster and more convenient for those impulse moments when you want to have a quick stumble or two.

Evernote Web Clipper

I am starting to use Evernote a lot more now, especially for keeping records of URL’s, screenshots, general notes, as well as synchronizing my web account with my Android phone.  The company has now introduced an extension for Chrome that has the same functionalities as the Firefox extension, including being able to clip the whole page to your Evernote web account.

RSS Subscription Extension

One of the really big things lacking in Chrome was the fact that webpage RSS feeds were not being “auto-discovered”.  I was so used to the orange RSS box in the Firefox address bar that when I started using Chrome, I instantly found it really annoying that this feature, which I took for granted in Firefox, was gone.

But now RSS Subscription Extension addresses that issue by putting the “auto-discover” box back into the address bar (but really this should be a default feature).

With these five extensions, a lot of the main tasks I do in Firefox are now covered – email, RSS feeds, stumbling, synchronizing bookmarks and clipping material to Evernote.    It would be even better if I had small search boxes like Firefox but I can’t complain – Chrome is definately heading in the right direction.

Are there any Chrome extensions which you are finding invaluable and which are tugging you away from the clutches of Firefox?   If so, let us know what they are in the comments.

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So, what exactly is crowdsourcing? Simply put, it’s the concept of outsourcing a task to a group of people to come up with solutions.  For example, let’s say the client is a website and needs a new logo. Through one of these online crowdsourcing design websites, the client becomes the contest holder and posts the requirements of the project, such as a description of what kind of logo he needs and a deadline. The client also decides on the amount of money that is to be awarded.

Designers participate in the contest by designing logos based on what the client wants and submitting their entries for review. Then, the client looks for the best logo to use, chooses a winner, and that designer is awarded the prize money.

Remember, with all these crowdsourcing models, it’s a contest and the competition is usually fierce, especially for the top-dollar projects. While no professional experience is needed, you should at least know your way around Photoshop or another graphics editing program in order to produce appealing and competitive designs to the clients. Check out An Idiot’s Guide to Photoshop for some help.

Here’s 3 crowdsourcing design contest websites to make money with crowdsourcing.

99designs

99designs is one of the most popular design competition marketplaces on the Web. As one of its designers, there’s always hundreds of available projects for you to choose from. Some of the design categories include logos, webpages, print, WordPress themes, Twitter backgrounds, stationery, t-shirts, and more.

Once you’ve decided on a contest to participate in, just read the design brief. It has everything you need to know about what the client is looking for, including an overview, the brand name, target audience, requirements, and payment methods of the cash prize for the winner.

After you’ve created your design, hit the submit a design button to upload a screenshot or thumbnail for the client to review.

crowdSPRING

With pretty much the same concept as 99designs, crowdSPRING is another design marketplace. Project categories are divided into four categories: graphic design (logo, clothing, stationery, etc.), web design, industrial design (packaging, product design), and photography (custom photos, retouching).

As a creator, simply find a project you can take on, read the brief for all the details, and you’ll be awarded the contest’s cash prize if your design is chosen.

DesignCrowd

DesignCrowd is yet another marketplace that offers various contests for designers to take a stab at. Design jobs include logos, web, brochures, posters, flyers, illustrations, stationery, business cards, and t-shirts.

Same rules apply here. Read the open brief and submit your designs for review. Some clients do offer a base payment for just participating in the contest. This guarantees designers at least some money for their work even if they don’t win. However, participation payments are usually very limited and are not even offered at all.

As for what it takes to win any of these crowdsourcing contests? First and foremost, always listen to what the client wants. After all, he does make the final decision. Pay close attention to his design description and feedback to your work. It’s also a good idea to submit different designs to get a feel of which ones the client really likes and revise the best ones to his liking. Other than that, be creative, persistent, and your hard work may pay off.

What do you think about crowdsourcing design contests? Business owners, have you given any of these marketplaces a try? Designers, have you made any money working with these sites? Let us know in the comments.

Image Credit : Anirudh Koul

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So here’s a little thank you to those innumerable photographers who charitably upload photos for free and fair use. The ‘free’ bit is grabbed with the fervor of a kid going for a popsicle but the ‘fair’ part gets waylaid on the side. That’s where a little effort on our part to properly credit the source for the photo should always come in.

All photo-sharing websites publish licensing information. But the site we are reviewing here makes it difficult to ignore and dead easy to use the photo with the due attribution. Head over to Sprixi.

Sprixi is a free image search engine. Once you land on the site, using Sprixi is just a three step process – Search, Choose and Use. Sprixi sorts all images into topics. You can browse the topics in graphics or text using the Browse link placed right at the foot of the page.

The search box is where it starts. Put in your search query and Sprixi takes over. What you get is a double framed window with the images on one scrollable pane. Choose any image from the results and view it in larger dimensions on the View pane.

The View pane straightaway gives a lot of information on the image with a rollover of the mouse.

Usefulness – Sprixi learns and tries to sort all images by usefulness i.e. relevancy. How fitting an image is it for a particular query comes from the users themselves. Images are rated according to use, downloads, the ratings added from the yes/maybe/no buttons etc. Images are weighted more by the ratings given by registered users. Images can also be flagged for inappropriateness.

Image Size – Touch the bar chart like colored indicators and you can choose a specific size.

Image Information – Head slightly below and the About this image section gives the complete dope on the creator and the license.

The last step is to select your choice image and click on the corner placed Use tab. Sprixi gives you two options for fair use -

The Image with credit option comes with the attribution inked in fine print while the Image without credit asks you to manually provide that link. A Copy button makes it easy to copy-paste the image attribution link.

Look at the same images below to note the difference between the two options.

The image with the assigned license (the first option) is useful for cases where the image credit source is not explicitly mentioned. Images which are smaller in size may need an explicit credit link.

How Does Sprixi Source The Images?

Sprixi uses the Flickr API (but the service is not officially endorsed by Flickr). According to the FAQ, Sprixi is presently sourcing images from its own collection, Flickr and OpenClipArt. It also has a leaning towards public domain and commercial-friendly Creative Commons licenses.

We have covered quite a few web services for free image search. Image search is no longer about Google and Bing. For that check out 5 Good Image Search Engines Apart From Google Image Search. Services like Sprixi are re-working the usual with their unusual take. As I mentioned before, getting an image online is easy – what’s overlooked is giving the guy who put it there in the first place, his rightful reward. Sprixi makes it a more deliberate affair.

Let us know how you find the responsibility of the license and the way Sprixi goes about it.

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To clarify, with code-writing applications, I mean (free) text editors that are willing to highlight your code – compilation and validation optional, but often included.

I discovered two things during that search. Firstly, Mac OS X has far less software alternatives than Windows, but second, nearly all of them are decent applications. Not having to sift through all that junk, I was quickly set up with a number of excellent coding text editor alternatives.

Komodo Edit

We’ll start out with a rather advanced application. If you want something lighter, check the application below, or scroll down to the bottom of the article for some additional recommendations.

Komodo Edit (based on Komodo IDE) is built on the Mozilla code base, and offers the same extendability. That’s right – you can download extensions for this one. Whatever the flavor, you’ll be able to fit Komodo Edit to your personal taste. Oh, and did I mention that it’s also available for Windows and Linux?

Komodo Edit offers syntax coloring and syntax validation, but the application also adds multi-language file support, autocomplete and Vi emulation to the package. If you’re a sucker for extra functionality, you’re right at home with Komodo Edit.

Smultron

The coding text editor I ended up using is Smultron. Now mind, there’s a reason why I didn’t start the article with it. The developer, Peter Borg, has discontinued the work on the application. For now, you are still greeted by a near-blank page with a short explanation and the download links, but there is no guarantee of how long the application will remain available, or supported.

For now though, Smultron remains a great coding application. Comprehensive and accessible for beginners (like me), but also housing a number of tools for the more advanced user. Included are HTML, plist and XML validators, Java compilers, and several converters. Syntax highlighting is of course included for most popular (and unpopular) programming languages.

MacVim

Vim is one of the older, and also more popular coding text editors in Linux. It’s open source and famous for being text-controllable. In other words, it hasn’t got a Graphical User Interface by default.

MacVim is a port of Vim to the Mac OS X platform. And yes, it does have a GUI (phew).

Since all the work on MacVim is done by ‘fans’, the application is usually a little behind on the official application. Just a little, though – MacVim tends to be quick on the ball, and is a rock solid text/coding application.

At the core, MacVim is very similar to the official application, save that it comes with OS X support, and a few added bonuses. It’s loaded with incredible features, but often needs a bit of trickery to get the most out of it. Learning to work with the application isn’t too hard, but its audience consists for the biggest part out of advanced users.

Also noteworthy is the license; MacVim is released as charity-ware. In other words, if you like the application, they encourage you to support needy children in Uganda.

Other mentionworthy coding text editor alternatives are jEdit and Aquamacs. What do you use to write your code? Let us know your preferred applications in the comments!

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Audiobooks are my perfect companions while I’m driving to and from work. Without even realizing it, I’ve finished tons of books on the road – from suspense sci-fi novels to self-help masterpieces. I would never have found the time to read those literature pieces had I done it the traditional way.

The Need To Convert

There are downloadable audiobooks all over the net, both free and paid. Sometimes you can find free audiobooks from famous authors as part of their book promotion campaigns. You can use search engines to start your treasure hunting, and you can also use this article as a starting point.

The Internet is not the only place to find audiobooks. You could buy them in the physical form of CD’s. But nobody carries around portable CD players anymore. To enjoy your audiobook CDs on the road, you have to convert them to digital files format such as MP3. You can use iTunes to convert these CDs to MP3’s.

The problem is, ordinary MP3’s are not audiobooks. Due to their nature, audiobook files have certain traits different from ordinary MP3’s. For example: aside from having its own library, audiobooks are automatically bookmarked. So if you stop an audiobook in the middle and play something else, then go back to the audiobook, it will start playing where you left off. Audiobooks can also be played faster or slower than the normal speed in iPods.

The Importing Process

There are several steps needed to convert CDs to itunes audiobook files. The first one is the usual iTunes’ audio CD import.

Just put the CD into your Mac’s optical drive, and iTunes will ask you whether or not you want to import the CD.

After clicking “Yes“, iTunes will try to get the CD data from Gracenotes. This process can be triggered manually via the “Advanced > Get CD Track Names” menu.

Then iTunes will show the process of “Querying Database” in its screen.

And the importing process will begin.

The Audiobook Conversion Process

After successfully turning the CD tracks into MP3’s, you need to convert those tracks into audiobook files. This process can be done easily in iTunes.

First, select the tracks that you want to convert. And choose “Get Info” from the File menu (or use Command + I).

Choose the “Options” tab and change the “Media Kind” from Music into Audiobook.

You can also adjust other settings to make the files more “audiobooky” .

• Set the “Equalizer Preset” to Vocal Booster if your files consist of spoken words only.
• Set the “Remember position” to Yes
• Set the other settings according to your preferences.

Click “OK” and those files will be moved from Music into the Audiobooks library.

Combining The Files

For those who prefer one audiobook file instead of several MP3 tracks, you can join the converted files using Join Together – available as a free basic version and $7 shareware Plus version.

This application will combine audio files into one AAC music of audiobook files. There’s the option to “chapterize” the file with pointers to the individually joined tracks.

The usage is pretty straightforward: you choose the files (by dragging and dropping or by selecting it in iTunes), adjust the settings, and click “Proceed”

Do you listen to audiobooks? Do you know other alternative ways to convert them from a CD into digital files?  If so, please share using the comments below!

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Well, let’s hope they have internet access because that could save your rear end. You can still prepare a lovely surprise and send it to them in time. After all, a virtual delivery is instant.

Best of all, the following last minute gift ideas are all free, at least for the moment. Gifts don’t have to be expensive, it’s the thought that counts.

Greeting Card

The most obvious last minute gift idea would be to send an electronic greeting card. There are many sites out there that offer free templates. Hallmark and Yahoo! Greetings now charge for eCards. Free eCards can be sent with sites such as 123Greetings & eGreetings.

Care2

The mission of Care2 is to support people living a healthy and green lifestyle. Their free eCards are of a very high quality with unique designs and animations. You can personalize your card, have it sent on a specific date, and receive a notification when it was picked up.

As a member of Care2, you will collect butterfly credits for each greeting card and you can redeem the credits for meaningful gifts, such as safe drinking water or carbon offsets. What a great way to salve your conscience.

YouTube Holiday Cards

If you’re not a shy person and up for fun, why not produce a little video and surprise someone?  Saikat wrote an article on how to Send Video Greeting Cards with YouTube.

Virtual Flowers

Greeting cards are all the same. Flowers, however, express a different message, even if they are only virtual. Virtual Florist and eFlowerGrams provide a wonderful selection.

flowers2mail

By far the most original virtual flowers can be sent with flowers2mail. You can arrange an individual bouquet, select a vase, and fill in a little greeting card. Et voilà, your flowers are ready to be mailed, up to 15 days in advance.

Calendar

It’s not difficult to make a calendar. All you need is a free online tool, some unique motifs, and Adobe Acrobat Reader to open and print your calendar.

My Calendar Maker

To create a free personalized calendar, you have to register with the site. You can choose between different calendar layouts (full-size, half-size, tear-off), pick the start month/year and end month/year, upload your images, add captions of up to 100 characters, add or remove special occasions, for example birthdays and anniversaries, add a cover and a title, and finally save and print your calendar. Quick and very easy.

The creators also offer My Free Calendar Maker, which creates non-personalized calendars. With the Yearly Calendar Maker, you can create a personalized yearly calendar. The advantage of both tools is that you don’t have to sign up.

Gift Certificate

Using a gift certificate you can give one of the most precious gifts of all: time.

Invite your friend for a home cooked dinner and spend an entire evening with them; offer your grandma to stock up her supplies, so that she doesn’t need to go shopping as often or carry heavy items; volunteer to mow the lawn of your parents’ house once a month; or help your friends with babysitting the kids and/or pets, so they can spend some time alone.

To make your job easier, you can use ready-made templates and fill them in with your details.

Ivy’s Gift Certificate Maker

The beauty of this gift certificate maker is that it provides you with a list of ideas of what you can possibly give. So simply tick an option in one of the gift giving categories (kids to parents, parents to kids, friends to friends etc.), add the recipient’s and your name, and preview the result.

This tool also suggests to make a coupon book, i.e. printing multiple certificates and stapling them together. This can make a lovely gift.

Regiftable Personalized Gift Certificate

Need it custom and chic, but very simple and most of all fast? On this site you can choose from five seasonal templates and create up to three certificates at once. They will look like the example below. Quick and easy.

You can either print each certificate or save and mail them.

Music Playlist

If you want to make a very personal and instant gift, think of the music that connects you and your friend or relative. Every life, friendship, and relationship has its own soundtrack. Or maybe you know someone who loves to discover new music.

You can sit down and record a CD or tape. There are some simpler options though. You can create an online playlist on several different sites.

Actionext

This site provides a simple way to produce playlists without having to sign in. Simply search for songs, from the results list click the plus next to a song to add it and continue to search. Once down click Save and share the URL.

I reviewed this tool in my article Create Online Music Playlists with Actionext.

MixTape.me

To create and share a permanent playlist with MixTape.me you have to get an account and sign in. But once you have passed that point you’re set to create something awesome. You could make several playlists with different purposes. For example one to cheer up a friend, another to let your family drown in happy memories, and a third to show everyone which music you love best.

David has written a thorough review on how to Build The Perfect Music Playlist With MixTapeMe.

Have you completed your gift shopping yet? What are some last minute gifts you still need to pick up? Did you come up with a great last minute gift idea that would fit in this list? Please share!

Image credits: zerobug

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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A lot of people would say that they use something like TV Guide channel listings or even TV.com. But one – they probably do not watch international television and two they always have a data connection up and ready. I do find myself watching TV via many methods from other countries and parts of the world. And I often find myself in a rural location with no internet when I am on vacation.

Even when I can’t watch TV, I want to know what is on so I can grab the torrent at a later time. Or maybe your TV is up and running but your internet is not.

So by using TVBrowser I can download my TV guide channel listings for the week and have the data already in my laptop so when the internet outage hits, we are already prepared.

I downloaded a 2.63MB file from this link over here. Install it with the normal next, next next and a finish.

If you use a proxy server to get to the internet you will need to check the check box below in step 1 of 4. See the screen shot below if you have any doubts.

When everything is completed the application will test your connection. You’ll want to see this screen:

Click next and continue on and you will see a progress meter like so:

Then it will show you what it found and is trying to download:

Awesome – there are our channels. And here they come.

From the grid above, add channels that you want to the right hand side. You use the green arrows in the middle to actually transfer them to the right or left side. Hit next when you are finished adding channels. I added 4 for this example to speed up the download process.

You will then see this screen:

Now we can close the set up assistant and download our channel’s TV guide channel listings

Hit update now and let us configure what we want to download and how. Drop down the box for Update program for: to download more than one day of shows. This is great for downloading a week or more at a time to take away with you. When you are done configuring your options hit update now. You can also allow for automatic updates when the program is opened or even when it is not.

That’s it! Let’s see what we have accomplished. You should now see a TV grid like in my screenshot below:

Awesome. You can move left and right to see the different channels and programs. You can click on an individual listing for a TV show and display its properties or associated information like so:

You will find genre, description as well as actor and actress listings. There are hyperlinks which will take you to Wikipedia pages. I clicked on Kevin James and was taken to his Wikipedia page. Very very cool!

We have previously covered some other websites and apps for finding out television programme schedules -

Two Ways To Never Miss A Television Episode – David
Socialize Your Television Experience With TIOTI – Tina
The Best Sites For TV Show Episode Guides & More – Tina
Fancast – Get TV Listings & Watch TV Shows Online Legally – Jimmy

Do you have another favorite application that does all this? We would love to hear about it – share it with us in the comments!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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(1) Themeleon – is a free service provided by ColourLovers.com, which offers an easy way to make your Twitter page look good without adding clutter. You can chose from amongst 690,603 patterns and 1,049,085 color palettes all designed to make aesthetically pleasing backdrops for your microblogging. Read more: Get A Slick Well Designed Twitter Wallpaper From Themeleon

(2) a2z Wordfinder – is a useful site for players of games like Scrabble, Literati, Jamble and WordOx. The site has different wordfinder boxes according to the game you are playing. Enter the combination of letters and click on find words to look up various words that are ranked according to the points they’ll earn you in the game. Read more: a2z WordFinder: Online Scrabble Dictionary & Word Generator

(3) BillPDF – BillPDF is a free online invoice generator that allows you to create professional-looking PDF invoices quickly. To create an invoice with BillPDF, enter the sender information, recipient, invoice details, and invoice items. The invoice information applies common invoicing standards such as a document number, payment status, etc. Read more: BillPDF: Create PDF Invoices Online

(4) CheapRiver – is a nice service for international customers who regularly buy books from Amazon. The site searches Amazon stores across the US, Canada, UK, France and Germany to get you the best offer on books. Not only does it compare the book prices at the current exchange rates, it also calculates and compares the total shipping cost from each store to the destination. Read more: CheapRiver – Compare Book Prices At Amazon Stores

(5) Dishpointer Augmented Reality – is an iPhone/Android phone application that allows you to locate television satellites nearest to your area with your phone. This useful application can help you find the most optimal setup in installing your own satellite dish. Read more: Dishpointer Augmented Reality: A Satellite Finder For Your Phone

Submit Your Web App

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.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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The iPhoto and Aperture Way
The way Apple has set up for you to add images to your iPhone is by syncing it with iPhoto, Aperture 2.0 (Mac users only) or with a folder of images on your computer.

When you connect your iPhone to your computer and access it through iTunes ’09 (for Mac user; read the next section if you’re a PC user) you’ll see the Photos section of the iTunes interface where you can select to “Sync photos from” iPhoto or Aperture. You get various options for selecting an album(s) or groups of photos you want to sync to your phone. By using this option your iPhone will be synced and updated with photos that you add (or delete) from your selected image editor.

The benefit of this option is that you can take care of syncing your photos to your iPhone while also managing other data, including audio and video files and applications.

The Finder Way
If you don’t use iPhoto or Aperture, you can set up a folder on your computer (both PC and Mac) to use for syncing photos to your iPhone. In the same way described above, you access your iPhone through iTunes and open the Photo section. From where it says “Sync photos from”, select “Choose folder“ from the drop-down menu. Locate the folder(s) of photos you have set up to be synced to the device. If you’re doing this on a regular basis, you will want to set up a special folder or folders that you can easily access and manage for syncing.

The Web Gallery Way
Another and possibly better option to add images to your iPhone is to use a photo sharing website that you can access on your iPhone. Here’s a couple of suggestions for Mac and PC users.

MobileMe Gallery
Apple users with a .Mac account can access their web-based MobileMe Gallery. Strangely, however, Apple has not created an iPhone application to connect directly to MobileMe Galleries. You can export photos from your iPhone Photo Library, but there’s no dedicated MobileMe application for viewing your uploaded photos and videos. You have to do it through a regular web browser.

Photoshop.com
One option that I like but have not used enough is Photoshop.com. Adobe has created a free online photo gallery and web-based editor for uploading, editing, and sharing photos, for both PC and Mac users. See MUO’s PhotoshopExpress: Web-based Photoshop + Photo Sharing for more information.

To view posted photos on your Photoshop.com gallery, download the free iPhone application of the same name (iTunes Store link), and sign onto your account through the application.

The benefit of using this photo sharing gallery is that you don’t have have to add images directly to your iPhone, and thus you avoid using sometimes precious hard drive space. Of course, if you find yourself in places where you can’t get Wi-fi or 3G Internet access, then this method is not the best option.

Flickr And Shutterfly.com
Similar to Photoshop.com’s photo gallery, two other photo sharing sites, Flickr.com (iTunes Store link) and Shutterfly.com (iTunes Store link) also have iPhone applications that connect to respective member accounts. Uploading your photos to one of these accounts is both a great way to archive your image files beyond your computer, and it is also an easy way of  viewing images on your iPhone without connecting the device to your computer.

Unfortunately, as for as I know, there is no way to get photos directly from your camera’s media card onto your iPhone. An accessory for such a process exist for the 5th generation iPod but not for the iPhone. There is, though, a special wireless SD memory card called  Eye-Fi that will transfer photos from your camera to a selected photo sharing site. Photos thus could be downloaded from the selected site and viewed on the iPhone.

If you have any other suggestions for getting photos on your iPhone, please let me and MUO readers know about it.

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If eBooks are gaining ground can web comics be far behind, especially when today’s kids come toting iPhones and netbooks? Like the others, comics too are hugging the freedom and freeness of the web. After all, it’s the best publishing platform that’s going around. My fellow comic book lover Jeffry showed us something on web comics with his post on How to Find and Read Comic E-Books Online.

Following his recommendation, I tried out ComicRack – a free eComic book reader. By the looks of it on its website, it promised smooth and silky page turning. Perfect for the Buck Jones eComic I had lying around.

Buck Jones on ComicRack

Buck Jones is packaged in an ebr file. Most web comics come in any one of the following formats – cbz, zip, cbr, rar, cbt, tar, cb7, 7z or pdf. ComicRack supports all these and can also export in the cbz, cbt, cb7 or pdf formats.

Here’s how my eComic looks, all opened up on the cover page.

Turning the pages of my web comic

An eComic reader might not give you the glossy feel or the dog eared feel of an actual comic. And you have to give pillow reading a miss, but the ComicRack tries to compensate by offering flexible ways to read the adventures. You have different page layout options and the choice of viewing the pages in full screen mode (my choice) or in a separate window altogether. To simulate a real world comic, you can also opt to view two pages side by side. Auto-rotation modes for fitting it on other devices like tablet PCs are available with a click. And like all things these days, ComicRack too has a multi-tabbed interface.

Navigation is easy with the page arrow keys. A scrollable thumbnail preview helps us to jump to any page of the web comic. With Bookmarks you don’t have to remember where you left off.

Another useful little tool is the Magnifier which like its name helps to blow up any part of the image you like. Could be especially useful for those who like artwork.

Delve into the Preferences, if you want more hands on control with settings like contrast, brightness and saturation. A lot of other viewing features are configurable of course.

Managing my web comic collection

Bundled alongside the reader features are a few more which make ComicRack a one stop solution for all your eComics. ComicRack captures all the details of an eComic like page details. You can set Page Filters to include or exclude parts like the covers or the advertisements. The filters thus help to leave out the parts you don’t want to read.

The Library is very similar to iTunes with Smart Lists for quick access to your collection of web comics. You can scan entire folders which have readable content and bring them into lists using your own custom lists. Just like playlists, these lists can be managed and exported. Thumbnail previews and advanced sorting help out with managing your collection.

Try out the advanced Search Browser if you have a large collection.

ComicRack handles most of the formats that eComics come in. Add to that its ability to convert between formats and you get another tool to handle those pdf to cbr jobs.

ComicRack – does it deserve graphic praise?

ComicRack does all that you would expect a full featured collection manager to do. But quite surprisingly, it does not provide a help file. In my opinion, a reader could do without one, but a collection manager should have a guide behind it. I would have loved if it could have doubled as a PDF reader straight out of the box, but it can only handle those ones which have scanned images as part of the PDF. A separate 12MB sized Ghostscript install makes it a fully compliant PDF reader. That is the only chink I could find.

Not quite on the pillow, but ComicRack does allow me some of those childhood pleasures on the desk.

ComicRack (ver. 0.9) runs on Windows XP/Vista/Windows 7.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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With the holidays on the horizon, the shopping hysteria has kicked in. The result? Retailers telling you what to buy and malls filled to bursting. It’s Disney World all over again.

We’re proud to be able to present The MakeUseOf Shopping Guide, a free PDF manual for all your shopping needs!

In this guide, MakeUseOf’s very own Tina achieves three things; to improve your shopping experience, improve your shopping success, and save you money.

Learn how to hunt down bargain sales online, and how to implement the internet in your offline shopping experience. This guide is filled to bursting with incredible tips and an array of cool, useful sites.

Download the free MakeUseOf Shopping Guide now in PDF, no strings attached, or read it online on Scribd! No reason to wait, there’s shopping to do!

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Now, when you have to make a living doing this, the only way to survive is by learning what actually creates positive traffic growth. When many people think about search engine optimization, they don’t consider the possibility that by attempting to optimize, you could actually be doing more damage than if you’d done nothing at all. This is because Google has had to deal with unscrupulous characters attempting to “outsmart” the Google algorithm, so now that algorithm is arranged to penalize anyone attempting to use those tactics – whether it’s intentional or not. If you happen to make one of those top SEO mistakes, your website rank will actually drop and you’ll see much less search engine traffic than normal. So how do you avoid those pitfalls?

The following tips will guide you through the process.

SEO Mistake #6 – The Cardinal Sin – Keyword Spamming

There is nothing that Google hates more than a website that attempts to hijack the crawler with an overabundance of particular keyword phrases. You can be certain that if you are targeting the phrase “make money online,” and plaster the phrase all over your article a dozen times (this is known as keyword “stuffing”), you may actually see an immediate short term spike in traffic to that page. However, you can also be certain that in time, not only will that traffic drop off quickly, but your entire domain will struggle to rank very highly (if at all) in Google search results under every keyword phrase you write about. An example of keyword spamming is shown here, from Team-Schuman.

On this single page, I counted the occurrence of the keyword phrase “make money” a whopping total of 30 times. This approach may achieve temporary success, but don’t be fooled. Before long you’ll be wondering what happened when your site is nowhere to be found on Google. Don’t get me wrong, distributing high-value keyword phrases is essential to quality SEO, but it needs to be done in a measured and careful way.

SEO Mistake #7 – Spamming for Backlinks

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve always preached that you should post on forums and blogs in order to generate quality backlinks to your own site. This is what I described in my recent article on increasing blog traffic when I mentioned engaging the blogosphere every single day. However, simply posting for the sake of achieving a link back to your site is a major social networking no-no. A somewhat humorous example I saw take place was on a MakeUseOf article on how to remove false information about yourself online. It appeared that one of the folks posted repeated comments was trying to hijack the comment area into an area for self-advertising.

Some folks even “stage” conversations within the comment areas of blogs to generate interest. If your only purpose for posting comments to a blog or forum is to generate a link to your site, don’t bother. It won’t win you any fans within the industry or niche that you’re trying to target, and secondly, the transparency of the effort will make most readers skim right past your comment, or even worse you could get banned.

SEO Mistake #8 – Not Optimizing Images

In 2007, on the Google Webmaster Central blog, Google’s own Ríona MacNamara provided a very important clue to SEO enthusiasts with the statement, “As the Googlebot does not see the images directly, we generally concentrate on the information provided in the ‘alt’ attribute.” So, what does this mean for your SEO efforts? It means that you better start taking advantage of your image alt-text tags if you want to have some advantage over your competition.

In the example above, this is an upcoming article I’m writing for my blog, FreeWritingCenter. As you can see, the entire phrase that I’m targeting is “writing a research paper,” so I’ve inserted that as the alt-text for my first image. However, you’ll notice that the title is simply a description of the picture itself. You only need to target the alt-text picture tags for your keywords, and only add them to a few pictures, otherwise you’ll run the risk of getting labeled as a spammer. As always – distribute the keywords carefully and sparingly.

SEO Mistake #9 – Producing Stupid, Poorly-Written Content

One of the worst symptoms of black-hat SEO scammers trying to outsmart Googlebot’s crawl algorithm is the evolution of “content-mills.” Now, given just about every blog out there is a content mill to some extent, at least when there’s a certain level of investment and quality checks in place, you know that the articles you read are going to be written using proper grammar, offer a decent style of writing and provide useful content. However, there are countless blogs and writers out there who simply churn out 500 word blocks of text as fast as they can with the hopes of capturing search engine traffic. If you want to see an example, just review any of the major free article directories, such as EzineArticles.

Now, I’m not knocking EzineArticles. I’m a registered author there, and whenever I need to publish something online quickly and there’s no other place to do it, I’ll publish it there. However, there are countless authors who just publish the first draft of whatever mindless drivel comes out of their heads. There’s no editing, no spell checking and in most cases I’m pretty sure there’s no writing background to speak of. This phenomenon is leading to an Internet that’s cluttered with some of the most atrocious writing imaginable.

What does this have to do with SEO? The SEO lesson to learn here is this: Yes, Google prefers websites and blogs that are fresh and constantly updated with new content, but that doesn’t mean you should ever overlook quality just to get your content published quickly. Focus on producing high-quality, valuable content that people will want to link to and return to again and again.

SEO Mistake #10 – Submitting Your Website

Do you remember the days when trying to get your website noticed online meant submitting your URL to as many search engines as possible? The fact is, these submission forms still exist on many of the major search engines even though they are completely outdated and unnecessary.

In fact, if you look at Yahoo’s own submission page and read the text carefully, you’ll find that Yahoo makes the case that you’re really wasting your time. The page reads, “The Yahoo! Search index, which contains several billion web pages, is more than 99% populated through the free crawl process.” Now, with 99% chances that the Yahoo crawl process will discover your website (especially if you’ve properly optimized it), do you really think you need to fill out these silly submission forms?

SEO experts unite! What lessons have you learned during your own optimization efforts? Do you have any of your own tips for MUO readers? Share them in the comments section below!

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World-renowned photographer Chase Jarvis acknowledges that the best camera you can have is the one that’s with you. It doesn’t matter if it’s a 20- or 2-megapixel camera as long as you’re able to capture that moment. One of the many reasons why the iPhone has gotten so popular since its birth wasn’t because it has a really great camera. Definitely not. On the contrary, the iPhone’s camera has really disappointing performance.

Slowly but surely, photography apps started trickling into the iTunes App Store. These jewels gave the iPhone a little a bit of a nudge in the imagery department. Now, you are able to snap a picture, edit it colour-wise, add effects, crop the image, build a frame around the photo and send it out to various social networks like Twitter and Facebook; all from your iPhone. Absolutely staggering.

Most of these photography apps are commercial. However, hidden away in the nooks and crannies, I’ve found a few free apps that pack quite a punch. How much “punch”? Let’s find out. Here’s our starting point: a dreary photo of the crossroad outside my window, taken with the iPhone’s built-in camera. Let’s see what we can do to make it better.

Giveaway: We have 10 promo codes for every commercial app listed here to be given away to our readers. Find out how to win one after the jump.

Shooting Utilities

Shooting utilities provide you with the tools you need to actually take a better picture.

Commercial: Camera Genius

There were several challengers in this department but Camera Genius lulled me towards it. Actually a pretty simple to use application, it supplies you with digital zoom, the ability to snap a picture by yelling, “Cheese!”; it helps everyday folks cope with the iPhone camera’s innate flaws. It also has an anti-shake function that’s quite useful when taking night shots.

Free: Gorillacam

When I first started this app (after testing Camera Genius) I was amazed at the numerous tools that it had. Gorillacam felt so refined, it was hard to believe that I didn’t need to pay for it. Having almost the same features as Camera Genius, it sports a self-timer, time-lapse and burst modes, a bubble level, grid view and a larger capture button. The only thing missing was the voice-activated capture function, which may sound like a gimmick but I think could be useful in some situations.

Post-Processing

These apps add effects and allow you to edit the photo once it’s taken. They can turn a boring image into something spectacular. Take a look.

Commercial: Best Camera

With a name like that, what else is left for me to say? Best Camera is endorsed by Chase Jarvis himself and there’s good reason for it too. The interface is totally out of the ordinary. At the bottom of the screen, there is a Mac-like Dock holstering “filters” with predefined image effects. Just tap on any one of them for a preview and tap on Apply to set the effect.

There are 4 image effects and 8 colour editing tools: lighten, darken, fade, contrast, warm, cool, desaturate and vignette; followed by the crop and frame tools. After you’ve applied the filters, you can re-arrange them by tapping on the filters button at the top right. By re-ordering the filters you can achieve several different varieties of effects.

Best Camera allows you to save your processed images in their original size or a smaller if you wish. After all that, you can select where you’d like to share your photo: Facebook, Twitter, via email or thebestcamera.com, a website dedicated to featuring photos taken and edited with Best Camera.

Commercial: Camerabag

Camerabag is another application that comes with a set of predefined image effects, 11 to be exact. You can preview these effects by taking a snapshot with the app or by loading an existing photo. Camerabag takes a while to render the previews but the effects are jaw-droppingly awesome. This could be one of the easiest ways to quickly add a beautiful colour filter to an otherwise bland photo.

Commercial: Hipstamatic

The new kid on the block, Hipstamatic isn’t shy to flaunt its uber cool app. The interface is a joy to play around with and will make your friends go, “Waaa.”

Hipstamatic comes with 2 types of film and 2 different lenses. The film determines the type of frame the output picture gets and the lens controls the colour.

Altogether, you only get 4 different combinations of effects with the set of film and lenses it comes bundled with. Purchase the expansion “Hipstapak” and you’ll get 2 more types of film and an additional 2 lenses.

After you’ve shot your photo, it appears in the prints library. Tap on the image once and you’ll be able to find out the combination of film and lens used. Hipstamatic takes a different approach to image effects — instead of post-processing the image, it allows you to be creative and manipulate the variables to come up with your own, original image effects.

Compare this with the starting right at the beginning of the article. Notice any changes?

Commercial: Retro Camera

Retro Camera, as the name implies, adds a retro look to your images. By selecting the type of film, grain, textures and frame; it can actually create a surrealistic photo as though it was taken back in yesteryear.

The only problem I have with this application is while the selection menu is active, the photo’s view is blocked. So choosing the right effect is like taking a shot in the dark.

Retro Camera does have a free version but it adds a pretty large banner at the bottom of the image, which you can easily crop out.

Free: Mill Colour

This application gives Camerabag a run for its money. Mill Colour has a selection of 10 predefined image effects that is absolutely stunning for a free application. It also renders the image previews much quicker than Camerabag.

Once you’re done choosing your preferred effect, you can tweak the image further by adjusting the gain, lift gamma and saturation. If you’re not sure what each setting does, tap on the info button at the top of the screen. It’s pretty well documented.

Free: Morelomo

There’s not much to say about this simple app. Point, shoot and save. I’ll let the picture below do the talking.

Free: Photoshop Mobile

I won’t go into detail about Photoshop Mobile since Bakari has always written about it not too long ago. What PS Mobile does offer which Mill Colour doesn’t are the crop and frame tools. I suppose both of these apps work really well with one another, one provides stunning effects, the other wraps it up.

Zooming

These apps offer the ability to digitally zoom in on distant objects. I’ve found Camera Zoom 2 to be a really great tool and I know just the free app to challenge it: Zoom Photo. The major difference between these two apps (besides one of them being free) is the output size. Camera Zoom 2 saves the images at 600×800 pixels whereas Zoom Camera only saves them at 300×400. Initially, you will think that Zoom Camera’s images look smoother and more refined compared to the jagged photos from Camera Zoom 2.

It’s only when you put them side by side will you see the difference. Camera Zoom 2 actually has a lot more detail albeit a bit more noise as well. Nevertheless, Zoom Camera is a worthy contender.

What are your nominations for the best iPhone photography apps? Did I miss any of your favourites? Voice out in the comments. And oh…

Giveaway: We have 10 promo codes for each commercial app listed here to be given away! Valid for US iTunes Store accounts only. To get your hands on any one of these great photography apps, either:

1. Share this post on Facebook by clicking on the Share button below or;
2. Click on the retweet button to share on Twitter or;
3. Do both!

Then tell us where you’ve shared it and which app you would prefer. You’re only allowed to choose one but you may list another as your second choice. Don’t forget to enter your email address so that we can get in touch with you. The giveaway ends on Christmas day. Winners will be chosen randomly. Enjoy!

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There might be times when we have stubbornly distracting noises or overwhelming thoughts that keep us rolling around in bed, or we do things that make us go unaware of time passing and we are more interested in keeping the activity going than disrupting it. In this state of mind, it’s hard to regain the awareness of our bodily needs, but with the right mindset, a few small changes, and practice, you might be closer to achieving a better sleep routine.

To Improve Sleep Patterns – Prepare mentally

For this routine to work, you should convince yourself of all the benefits you will gain by converting and how much of your body you are damaging by staying in your irregular sleeping pattern (perhaps you can stick a reminder list of these somewhere you can constantly see it). This works the same with exercise: To want to do it, you have to be convinced psychologically of the purposes behind your goals. Now think about a time that you want to shut all electronic devices by and go to bed. Does this time allow reasonable amount of sleep hours till the time you will wake up? If so, seriously commit to these bed times and waking times by setting them as priorities in your head.

Avoid

Now that you have a set time to sleep by, you should also remember to do a pre-sleep ritual that will help you be ready to sleep at that time every day. This includes minimizing and slowly cutting contact with all kinds of electronic devices and stimulants that keep your attention running wild, which instead should be winding down at this phase.

Try avoiding (for best results) or reducing these activities and foods (including fluids which may keep waking you up in the middle of the night to attend to your bathroom needs) within three hours of the new sleeping time:

• Exercise
• Napping in the evening, though there’s extensive research advocating the benefits of power naps during the day, especially to boost your energy and memory up when you are sleep-deprived or you work the night shift. See Aibek’s post on a tool to enrich your naps.
• Smoking (nicotine is a stimulant.)
• Eating fashionably late (a Swiss research study shows that individuals who dined at 6PM had stomach acid 20% lower throughout the night and experimented less discomfort at bedtime than people who dined at 9PM.)
• Big meals
• Sugar
• Alcohol (which may make you drowsy but will definitely awaken more easily later on.
• Caffeine (which lures you in soft and energy drinks, painkillers, and desserts such as chocolate and coffee ice cream and should be avoided within six hours of bedtime).

Adjust

For those who do try to stick to a bed time but end up lying in bed and rolling around for what seems a lengthy amount of time. A number of additional factors may be stopping you from being able to improve your sleep patterns:

• Distracting noises (ear plugs or cotton balls may help.)
• Temperatures (WebMD, a very accessible and good health resource, recommends temperatures between 75° F (24° C) and 54° F (12° C) to ensure a comfortable sleep.)
• Lights/colors (dimming lights of your screen can help you nod off and sleep better)
• Smells
• Thoughts (finances, relationships and a multitude of worries can be dealt with more efficiently at another time, when you can actively think about them.)
• Comfort of the bed (your bed should be comfortable, durable and provide good support. SpineHealth recommends mattresses that support alignment of the spine to prevent muscle soreness and that medium-firm mattresses that allow shoulder and hips to sink a bit may provide more back pain relief. Another MD at the blog suggests which sleeping positions alleviate different back pains.)

Practice

• Associate your bed with sleeping. If you sit on your bed to watch TV, use your laptop or read, you may want to switch places.
• Take a warm bath
• Do some light reading, nothing like a suspense book that will keep your attention up.
• Listen to relaxing music or equally relaxing non-musical sounds from Jackson’s article, and Kaly’s article on SimplyNoise. If you prefer to use your iPhone to present you with soothing sounds while you lie in your bed, take advantage of our promo here!
• Turn off the TV and computer, and dim lights an hour before bed.
• Do some light yoga or tai chi which can help you fall asleep faster (there are some wonderful videos at Prevention), but not right before bed. Studies have shown that people with sleeping problems were able to sleep without waking up for almost an hour when they practiced tai chi. Working out in the late afternoon, is also thought to contribute to better sleep. When you can’t go to the gym, you can try some easy exercises (WebMD has a section on 60-s aerobics and Mayo Clinic’s website has an exercise video collection for desk jockeys) at your desk.
• Try some mental relaxation techniques by a sleep medication website: Sometimes, instead of thinking that must sleep (which can cause you to worry more and stay awake), try thinking that must stay awake for as long as possible. You can also try breathing deeply and thinking that tension in your body leaves as you exhale, counting backwards slowly in different scenarios with your eyes closed, or thinking about floating down and feeling calmer.

Help fellow readers improve sleep patterns by telling us your suggestions in the comments.

Image credits: star5112, herval, SashaW

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Photoshop has the excellent “Extract” filter built especially for such tasks. Photoshop CS4 however, no longer features the Extract filter. So we will first look at how to use the extract tool to pull off the maneuver, then briefly see how you can enable the extract filter in CS4 or use an alternative to the Extract filter. Let’s get working straight away, shall we?

Change the Background of a Photo with The Extract Filter

If you have pre-CS4 version of Photoshop, you can find the Extract filter under the Filter menu. The Extract filter is very useful to cut out or extract a person/object from the photo and then use it on another photo to change the background of the original photo. The tool is very simple to use. Although it opens a giant dialog box there is really no need to be intimidated by it.

First off, go ahead and check the Smart highlighter box right away. Now choose the highlighter tool and draw around the object you want to extract. Make sure you cover the edges, this means that the highlight stroke should roughly lie half on the object you want to extract and half on the background. You don’t have to be precise or want a Wacom tablet. Photoshop will help you along. Somewhat like this:

You can change the brush size of the highlighter for greater precision in corners and smaller areas. Then choose the fill tool from the extract filter toolbar and click once inside the area you want to keep. Hit the preview button and you will be shown what the final image will look like once extract finishes its work. Click OK if the results seem close to what you are looking for, or else you can start over once again.

Expert Tip:

Duplicate the layer before starting the extract filter. That way, you still have the original image when extract finishes. Now Ctrl + Click on the extracted layer’s thumbnail to load it as a selection. You can now use Select > Refine Edges to improve the selection and hence the extract. Once done hit Ctrl + C and then Ctrl + V to get the extracted-refined object on its own layer.

The Extract Filter in CS4

As I mentioned earlier, the extract filter is no longer present in Photoshop CS4, the latest offering from Adobe. You can simply copy and paste the ExtractPlus.8BF file from your CS3 installation’s Plug-ins/Filters/ folder to the corresponding folder in CS4 install directory. Oh, you can also download it from Adobe’s site if you don’t have a CS3 installation handy. My Bad!

When you fire up Photoshop the next time, you will see the extract command under the Filter menu. You can now use it as detailed above.

Alternatives to Extract Filter

There are always more than one way to achieve similar results in Photoshop. So if you would like to ditch the extract filter altogether you can use the improved quick selection tool. It does a pretty good job of detecting edges. In case it goes wrong, you can always add to (Shift) and subtract from (Alt) the selection. As an added advantage, it gives you a selection you can easily refine, so you wouldn’t have to work extra to get the selection as we did in the expert tip above.

You can also use the freeware InstantMask to mask out a person or object from any photo. It uses a slightly different approach that reminds one of the commercial plug-in Mask Pro from OnOne software but the results vary hugely.

Here is the finished result using the extract tool. Just added a background and some text!

Keep in mind that there is an algorithm doing the processing behind what seems like magic. The application has no idea who or what the object is in the photograph. You get best results when there is good contrast between the object and the background. That is one of the reason people shoot against a green or blue screen because then you can get excellent contrast in the green/blue channel and creating a mask to extract an object is super easy.

Have you attempted the task of changing the background of a photo before? How did you do it?

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Urbanspoon lets you browse local restaurants, review them, and you can even let the restaurant iPhone app pick a place for you to visit through the amusing random restaurant “slot machine” function. Urbanspoon first lets you pick a city (it supports most major cities in the US) and then allows you to select a neighborhood or suburb to search in detail. From there, you can shake the phone and, after playing a fun slot machine noise, it’ll pick a random type of restaurant and cost for you along with a restaurant that meets that criteria. You can lock each category column as you please, which can help if you’re only looking for a really cheap restaurant, for example. The search tool that Urbanspoon uses also lets you filter out restaurants by things like hours open, chain availability, distance from your current location and popularity among other users.

Urbanspoon also allows you to rate and review the restaurants you visit so that other iPhone/iPod Touch users can see what you think. You can write a short review or just select weather you like or don’t like the location. In addition to reviews, you can call and map the restaurants you find as well as add photos of them, see reviews from “critics” online, set them as a favorite for later review and even look at blog posts about the restaurant on the internet.

Urbanspoon also has a browse tool which lets you simply browse for restaurants by food type, features the restaurant has or popularity of the restaurants in your area. Food types that you can browse for include everything from bagels to smoothies and barbecue to buffet and the features that you can browse through include things like weather a restaurant has free wifi, live music, happy hour or delivery. Another handy part of the browsing feature in Urbanspoon is the ability to see what restaurants in your area local blogs and newspapers are talking about most. The app also has a “scope” tab where you can look at a map of nearby restaurants.

Urbanspoon requires that you create an account to review restaurants, add information to existing ones, save your favorite restaurants or other common tasks. Creating an account is free though, and you’re able to connect to Facebook to register. Also, because the application is free, small ads are placed on some of the pages to cover the costs but they aren’t very obtrusive or annoying while browsing. Finally, Urbanspoon isn’t limited to just restaurants- it also features cafés, bars and more and ties into the Urbanspoon website at urbanspoon.com.

Do you use the Urbanspoon restaurant iPhone app or a similar application when looking for a restaurant on-the-go? What other favorite iPhone or iPod Touch apps do you use? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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(1) Kosher Maps – Finding a kosher restaurant in the city that fits your taste can be very difficult. Fortunately, Kosher Restaurant Maps is a website that shows you where all the kosher establishments are in any metropolitan area in the United States. Read more: Kosher Maps: Find A Kosher Restaurant In Your Area

(2) TartanMaker – is a simple tartan pattern maker that allows you to create and customize instant tartan patterns for your website design. For the unaware, a tartan is a pattern made up of crisscrossed bands in multiple colors usually found woven in clothes. These color patterns are perfect for website template backgrounds. Read more: TartanMaker: Online Tartan Pattern Maker

(3) TweetCall – is a Twitter-based application that lets you update twitter via phone voice calls. Dubbed by its makers as “Twitter by Voice”, you only need to dial a toll-free number (1-877-TWEET-CALL) and leave a voice message. Your message will then be transcribed by the app and posted to your Twitter stream immediately. Read more: TweetCall: Post Updates On Twitter by Voice Calls

(4) HTML-Ipsum – If you are a designer and your life revolves around HTML and CSS, then you would know the importance of various time-saving tools that make your life easier. HTML Ipsum is one such tool. It has got a collection of HTML codes along with dummy Latin text in it (or what we call “Lorem Ipsum” text). Just click on the title of any of the code boxes and the corresponding code gets copied to the clipboard. Read more: HTML-Ipsum: Collection Of HTML Tags With Lorem Ipsum Text

(5) eBooksRead – With fancy eBook readers like Kindle and Nook, the popularity for eBooks is constantly increasing. However, there are very few resources on the web where you can find eBooks easily. eBooksRead is an online library where you can read and download over 240,000 ebooks for free. Read more: eBooksRead: Read Over 200,000 Free eBooks

Submit Your Web App

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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Check out the top picks from MakeUseOf Geeky Fun during the last week.

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If you would like to keep up with all latest Geeky Fun additions, please subscribe to the Geeky Fun feed here. You can also subscribe and get the latest additions via email.

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What is largely overlooked is 3D entertainment online. Why shouldn’t we be able to enjoy the thrills of free 3D video entertainment from the comfort of our homes? Hell, it’s almost 2010!

For those of you who don’t know exactly how 3D works, I’ll explain it briefly so you’ll understand what I’m talking about in the later parts of this article.
Basically, it all starts off with two lenses positioned beside one another a small distance apart. Both of the films taken from these lenses are combined into one with the difference being superimposed alongside one another in distinct colours, which depends on what viewing glasses will be used. An example is the classic Red and Cyan.

The world’s largest provider of user-generated content, YouTube currently operates a great service for 3D videographers and their viewers. You can see a screenshot of a 3D video as it would look without viewing glasses; after the jump.

Below the video screen, there is a drop down menu which lets you choose from several viewing options. Firstly, we have those specialized for whatever type of viewing glasses you have. So if you have Red and Cyan glasses, choose that option. You can also choose whether or not you want to view the video in full colour with 3D or black and white with 3D. The other option allows you to make use of the less popular uses for 3D video such as parallel viewing (I.e. watching both videos at once) and a mirror-split version of the former. Similarly, you can also view either of the film streams at once; left or right.

If you don’t have viewing glasses, you can select the ‘cross-eyed’ option which will display the left and right video streams alongside one another. Simply cross your eyes (if you can) and thus the two videos will overlap. Not the most comfortable viewing method but it’ll get the job done. Not recommended for full length films however!

Obviously, the best way to view 3D videos is to have your own viewing glasses. You can pick them up at basically any cinema or buy them online. A five pack of cheap, paper viewing glasses will set you back around $3 including P&P from eBay.

Alternatively, you can make your own. Various guides suggest different methods. The most basic is to simply recycle an old pair of sunglasses (or make your own cardboard frames) and colour clear plastic in with felt-tip markers. You can read more about doing that here.

If you publish videos on YouTube and would like to include a 3D video in your library, simply add the following tag to it: ‘yt3d:enable=true’. This will enable the drop-down menu we discussed above and index the better video for search results. To look for a free 3D video on YouTube, simply put ‘3D’ before your search term. As of the time of writing, YouTube currently doesn’t have a dedicated category for 3D videos.

Well, have you got your 3D specs ready? Just be prepared to jump away from your laptop every time something flies at you!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Wouldn’t you love to know what else Europe has in store? You can discover great music from European artists all over. Knowing they are European and trying to find free MP3 downloads specifically from a certain continent, however, can be quite difficult.

I went the extra kilometer for you and dug out some sites that offer mostly European music or categorized free MP3 downloads by country.

3. TONSPION

This German site reviews artists and regularly provides fans with free tracks. Tonspion translates to sound spy.

The artists featured here are not exclusively European. There have been and will be free downloads from all over the world, including US artists like Madonna, Eminem, and Kings of Leon. However, the list of the site’s most popular artists includes predominantly European musicians, for example Coldplay, Radiohead, Dúné, The Kooks, and Mando Diao.

The site is German, but fortunately for you, German language is full of anglicisms. Just follow the “Free MP3:” or “Review und Download” links for each post in the MP3 category. On the following page “Free MP3 Download” is an unmistakable hint that an MP3 is hidden behind the respective link.

When browsing by artist, you’ll notice the option “Exklusive MP3″. Some mp3 downloads are exclusively offered through TONSPION and you will not find them anywhere else. Those are the gems!

2. New Melodies

New Melodies is a community that wishes to eradicate music piracy by providing legal and free MP3 downloads.

The site can be browsed by product, genre, region, time, rating, and music style. The regions of course include Europe. The site’s search engine also lets you browse songs by country and combine that criterion with various genres. Unfortunately, the nationality is only noted on the artist’s full profile, not on the mini preview for each song.

To download songs from New Melodies you must first sign up. Also, since the site supports UNICEF, the download only starts after a short for a nonprofit organization. In this very special case, it’s worth the hassle for the good cause. At least the zip download comes with album art.

1. Jamendo

Here we have a social music site that provides a large download catalog of Creative Commons licensed music.

Within the 10,000 songs containing archive, you will discover music from around the world. European artists and bands include Silence from Belgium, Bass from France, and sion from the UK.

To browse artists by country, go through the categories > Music > Creative Commons. You’ll see a list of all free albums and various CC attributions and a little flag displayed in the bottom left with each artist. When you hover the mouse cursor over the flag, it will show you which country these colors belongs to. Next, click any European flag and finally you’ll see an option to browse artists by country in the top left, below “Browsing … albums”.

Which European artists do you love most?

Image credits: Gastonmag

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CompareMyDocs comes to our rescue in such situations. You can check out their demo video in our coverage of CompareMyDocs in the MakeUseOf Directory. It might sound unbelievable, but you don’t need to sign up or even register to use this incredible web app that lets you compare documents online – just use it for free! In this article, let us consider a life-like scenario and see how it works in detail.

A Collaboration Example

Our loyal readers have been helping us test the new MakeUseOf theme. Suppose we had an internal status report being passed around on the various tasks involved. Such a status report is a good example of real-life document collaboration. In this case, we would have Mark, our Managing Editor, send out a blank template and ask everyone to update the document with details of the status of their tasks. Earlier, there were two possible scenarios:

Scenario #1: Mark sends the document to one team member, gets an updated version back, then sends it to the next team member to get her update, and so on. Needless to say, Aibek, our Editor-In-Chief, would be fuming by the time Mark had consolidated the distributed MakeUseOf team’s inputs.

Scenario #2: Marks sends out the document to all of us, and we all update it as soon as it’s convenient for us and send it back. Mark then opens two documents at a time in MS Word, consolidates the changes, then opens the third one. As you can imagine, with a team of over 30, Mark would spend hours in preparing a consolidated status update.

I am sure you must have encountered both these situations very often. Enter CompareMyDocs.

In Scenario #2, Mark has multiple versions of the same document. Let’s say he has received 3 updated versions, aside from his original:

Uploading Documents

Mark goes to CompareMyDocs and uploads the documents. You can upload any .doc, .docx, or .rtf documents up to 7 at a time.

After clicking Compare, CompareMyDocs scans all document versions for changes. After a few seconds depending upon the size of the document and number of changes, the changes by each team member are shown in a different color like this:

Reviewing Changes

Shown on the right are all the differences in each version by different authors. Roll-over of the mouse lets you Accept, Scrap, Hide, or Reject each change. Scrapping a change turns it into a Comment or Note.

So if Mark accepts this change as shown above, the document is updated after merging that change:

Merging and Saving

Once Mark has finished reviewing all the changes by accepting, or rejecting them, he clicks Save on the toolbar to download the final consolidated version.

Additional Goodies

• CompareMyDocs supports basic editing and formatting of documents right within the browser interface.
• An Adobe AIR based desktop version called TextFlow will be released soon, so that you can even work on multiple document versions offline.
• The company has also launched an API for this collaborative editing functionality. It would be interesting if cloud storage services like DropBox, who support versioning, integrate with the TextFlow API.

Whether the collaboration is between students for a thesis, teachers for a curriculum, team members for a status report, or anything else you can imagine, CompareMyDocs can become an indispensable tool anywhere people collaborate on documents. You can also check out our other articles on collaboration or the free collaboration tools listed in our directory.

Will CompareMyDocs optimize your collaboration workflow? Do you think this is a unique service? Let us hear from you in the comments!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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But life doesn’t have to be that hard. There are many multiple-platform chat application designed to help these people. Among those names, I personally think chatting with Nimbuzz is the best.

Overdelivers but Overlooked

It’s amazing how a good application could be so overlooked. I’ve chatted using Nimbuzz for years and there are so many things that you can do with it. Strangely, many of my friends have never even heard the name. If you are in the same boat with my friends, you could get familiar with Nimbuzz by checking out our older articles about it.

Nimbuzz is a free service that allows its users to access several instant messaging platforms simultaneously, make free calls to some internet voice services (Skype, GTalk, MSN), make conference calls, send messages, and much more. Nimbuzz is available as web based chat service, and as downloadable clients for mobile, Windows and Mac.

Simply put, you just need to register with Nimbuzz, set all of your IM accounts once, and access all of them anytime, anywhere and from any platform or device using only your Nimbuzz account.

The Many Personalities of Nimbuzz

Nimbuzz has just released the Mac version of its client as an addition to its several existing ‘personalities’. Here is the complete list of ways you can access Nimbuzz.

1. Web: The most basic way to use Nimbuzz is by accessing the service via its web interface. Regardless of what device you use, as long as you are able to connect to the internet and have a browser, you can use Nimbuzz. This method is also perfect for Linux users because there’s no Linux client available for now.Go to Nimbuzz’s main page and log in.

   

   And you’re ready to blab.

   

2. Mobile: However, it would be more convenient if you can use the Nimbuzz client built specifically for your device. There are three ways that you can use to get Nimbuzz client for your mobile:

   

   • Get the download link via SMS: This method is very convenient. You will receive a text message with the download link. However, it’s a waiting game for some and not all cellular service providers are supported.
   • Download it via your mobile’s browser: This is a more straightforward way. Just make sure that your mobile connection to the net is available.
   • Download the client using your computer and install it to your mobile: Use this method if the other two methods failed. You need to know the brand and type of your phone.

     

3. Windows: To download the client for your PC, choose the PC/Mac tab and click the “Download” button.



This version of the client will work in Windows XP, Vista and 7.



4. Mac: Previously, the only way to access Nimbuzz in Mac was using the web client. Now Mac users can access their Nimbuzz chat environment via the native Mac client.

   

Chat and beyond

Upon installing, you’ll see your contacts in the main window. Those who are offline will be greyed out.

You can start chatting with any one of your online friends by hovering your mouse over the name and click “Chat” from the pop-up window.

You also can send files and contacts to your friends by clicking the “Send” button at the top right corner of the chat window.

To enrich your chatting experience, you could add smileys to your message. They are available on the right side of the message input field.

One feature that I found very useful is the ability to “Buzz” your offline friends.

If they registered their account with their mobile number, they will receive a “call” from Nimbuzz.

Nimbuzz has always been my chosen chat client on my mobile devices. Even though I’m not a chatty person, I prefer chatting via Nimbuzz instead of sending SMS because it’s cheaper. And now I love it more because of the availability of the Mac client.

Do you use Nimbuzz? Do you know other alternatives? Share using the comments below.

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Even though MakeUseOf is famous for running with ‘what’s cool’ instead of ‘what’s new’, I guess we’re really late breaking this news, because Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy went adware mid-2008. Nevertheless, the coming holidays seemed a good enough reason to throw it (back) in the ring.

You can get the Psi Ops download for free if you live in the U.S or Europe.

Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy (US, EU)

Psi-Ops is a secret American government project, an organization intended to keep world peace with an exciting cocktail of arms and psychic powers. ‘The Order’ is an international terrorism group that has other plans ‘in mind’. With a brain wipe and change of appearance, Nick Scryer is set out to infiltrate the group.

After being freed from imprisonment by the mysterious Sara, Nick slowly regains his psychic powers. Not a day too late, because the whole world is going haywire and someone needed to pwn those antagonists.

Psi-Ops, although not winning Oscars for the story-line, is an incredible game. Despite earning several great reviews, with scores hoovering around 80 to 90 per cent, the game has gone largely unnoticed. Some of the bigger guys didn’t deem it worth a review, and the gaming public has scarcely heard the name. All in all, the game has hardly lived up to its potential. Those who have played it have nothing but praise and are still hoping on a sequel.

Four years after the initial release, Psi-Ops was released again as an ad-supported title for the United States and Europe.

Gameplay

Psi-Ops is a third-person shooter with a psychic powers. You can carry up to two guns, and the game offers a wealthy arsenal of weapons. However, the physical weapons become close to obsolete as the game progresses. To complete the later levels in the game, you will heavily need to rely on your psychic abilities.

This could hardly be brought up as a bother, though. As the story unfolds, you’ll learn telekinesis (moving objects with your mind), mind control, pyrokinesis (hint: it’s got to do with fire) and several other shows of awesomeness.

These psychic powers are very well integrated in the gameplay. The controls are intuitive enough, and the levels are designed to offer several ways of physics manipulation and achieving your objectives.

As you slowly regain your psychic abilities, you’ll be facing a number of rogue Psi operatives – each mastering a specific psychic domain. These ‘bosses’ are lined up one after another, and although the progression tends to get pretty linear, the game stays fun and interesting.

Although this might in fact be a point of cheer for the more hardcore gamer, the game gets much more difficult near the end. Combined with the check-point saves, this is a recipe that’ll have you playing some levels ‘just a few more tries times’.

Concluding, Psi-Ops is a very enjoyable game, even 5 years after its release. Its well implemented psychic storyline and physics make it one of the better ‘freebies’ that the gaming world has to offer. If not because it’s new, you should be playing it because you failed to recognize a great title in 2004. Live in the U.S. or Europe? Download it here, for free!

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Here on MakeUseOf, we like to write about ways to save money.  In fact, most of the tools and programs we write about are free!  I know we have covered sites such as TipJar and SaveEveryWay and that Guy has already shared his list of 3 Great Sites To Help You Achieve A Lower Cost Of Living.  Let this be an addition to a wonderful category of helpful sites making saving a buck that much easier!  Please notice that I tried HARD to exclude sites who’s sole purpose is to share deals and coupons.  These are about how to learn how to be frugal!

Without further delay, here are five frugal blogs you should add to your feed reader!

Frugal Village

Frugal Village is one of the only blogs on this list with a very professional design (IMHO).  Not only is it aesthetically appealing, but present posts are easy to find.  There’s a forum to learn from and share with others so there’s community here!  A few posts caught my eye.  In the article titled “Products Tightwads Don’t Buy“, you are given a list of products that you won’t ever find someone who is truly  frugal buying and simple alternatives.  Catchy title and great content!  Also check out “Give Low-Cost Gifts” (includes a cool idea: a home-made marshmallow gun!) and “Going From Two Incomes to One.”

My Year Without Spending

This is a blog by an adventurous soul who joined “The Compact“, a Yahoo group whose goals, for one calendar year, are to go beyond recycling, reduce clutter and waste in their homes, and to simplify their lives.  I like the blog, and added it to this list, because of the many personal tips it shares that end up saving money.  I really enjoyed reading about her gift wrapping ideas and the article about toilet paper!

The Buck List

Mr. Buck here says that he has been making and saving money for quite some time and that he’d like to share the ideas he’s “discovered and/or tried.”  I like this blog because it doesn’t just stop at saving but also shares tips on making money.  His wit is unmistakable in articles such as the ones where he takes “wimpy” tips and “beefs” them up a bit!  I also like the articles that take a problem and list several solutions that should have been obvious but brings them back to the light in a concise manner (How To Find Free Firewood).

The Frugal Life News

The Frugal Life News happens to be a neat community that helps you “Live well with what you have.”  Contentment, is that still “in”?  This site is run by a husband and wife and is appearently a companion site to a forum and a newsletter.  One post that really caught my eye was the one about several ways to use those deactivated credit cards that come in the mail!  I still remember the days when AOL would send endless disks in the mail and we’d find all kinds of cool things to do with them!  Um… I digress.  Also check out the article about Citizen Shipper, an unorthodox system that offers strategies to save money on shipping.

Pat Veretto’s Frugal Living Blog

I like the motto of this blog: “Living frugally is a daily hands-on affair.”  Pat Veretto is the author and she obviously also writes for AssociatedContent.com because a list of her frugal-type articles lines the sidebar.  Nothing wrong with that!  Anyway, her article about neat tricks to help with heating costs is the one article that drew me in and is probably why her blog ended up on my list!  Also check out her article on the origins of “cheapskate” and tightwad.”

There you have your five frugal blogs you should be following if you want to learn how to save money!  Hey, do you know of more that you think should be on this list?  What about other forums or communities that also share money-saving tips?  Share away!

Image credits: MorgueFile.com

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(1) OrderPizza – is a very simple yet highly useful online pizza ordering app for the iPhone. It eliminates the need to remember or search information about pizza parlors. Once you launch the app on your iPhone, it would show you a list of nearby locations that you can deliver/pick-up pizza from. Read more: OrderPizza: Cool iPhone App For Online Pizza Ordering

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(3) ReKindleIT – Sometimes you may come across webpages that are worth reading on your Kindle. RekindleIT is a javascript bookmark that allows you to send webpages from your browser for quick reading on your Kindle. Read more: ReKindleIT: Easily Send Webpages To Your Kindle

(4) Templatr – Do you need a quick way to create custom wordpress template? Then you should bookmark Templatr. This website allows you to generate simple, ready to use templates on the fly. Read more: Templatr: Create Custom Wordpress Templates

(5) TeuxDeux – There are tons of to-do apps and task managers around but none of them have a greater focus on design than TeuxDeux. TeuxDeux is a simple and free web-based to-do list application that is visually compelling and highly intuitive. Read more: TeuxDeux: Minimalist Web-Based To-Do List Tool

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