Thursday, March 4, 2010
February Roundup – MakeUseOf Authors
As always, MakeUseOf was buzzing during the month of February with the launch of MakeUseOf Answers, the publication of two manuals, two free product giveaways, and the re-starting of our Polls. Add to that the publication of over 200 articles and we’ve got ourselves a busy site!
We could really use your help on MakeUseOf Answers though. Answers is where you can ask your tech questions for free, and maybe someone else can help you out with an answer. Why not subscribe to the Answers RSS feed or check out the Unanswered Questions to see if you can help anywhere? Online fame awaits those with the most correct answers!
And now, without further ado, are the posts published in February (with the exception of Cool Tools and Geeky Fun). Why not see if you missed something?Saikat
How to Bookmark Movies To Resume Where You Left Off
Pencil Project – Turn Firefox into A Diagramming and Prototyping Tool
How To Compress Videos To Send Them By Email
Check Your URL’s With The Free Document Hyperlink Checker
ReadPal Reader – A Tool That Helps You Focus While Reading [Windows]
3 Free Color Picking Tools To Choose Colors From Your Desktop
7 Cool Google Chrome Extensions For The Guy Who Likes His Photos
OrangeNote – A Smart Note Taker & Clipboard Manager
Search For Images by Camera Type On Flickr & Picasa
How To Add Private Messages To Group Emails & On Twitter
TinyPad – Replace Notepad With Automatic Syncing & Sharing Built In
Ribbon Hero – Boost Your Microsoft Office Skills With This Fun Add-on
How To Do Simple Calculations In Microsoft Word 2003 & 2007
BetterMe – Self Improvement With the Help of Anonymous Feedback
gleeBox– Browse The Web Faster & Save Lots of Mouse Clicks
Nuance – Free PDF Reader To View Convert Your PDF Docs
How To Build a Mind Map In Microsoft Word
Headmagnet – Free Online Flash Cards That Stop Memory Decay
Fotobabble – Be Picture Perfect By Adding Voice to Your PhotosKarl
How To Make A Printer Wireless
How To Set Up USB Wireless Headphones
The Top 5 Free Online Resources For Collectors
Windows 7 Reviews: The Only Ones You Need To Read
How To Check The Top 10 Search Keywords On Google
2 Sites For Teachers To Download Teaching Resources
Make Learning To Type Online More Fun By Defeating Ninjas!
3 Websites To Help You Research or Buy A Car
Create Your Own Free High School Reunion Websites
2 Cool Free Car Driving Simulation Programs
The Coolest Windows Media Visuals For Your Music Experience
Learn How to File Bankruptcy In The United States Online
Three Windows 7 Upgrade Issues & How To Avoid Them
Cool Windows 7 Wallpapers That You Have To Check Out
How To Upgrade To Windows Mobile 6 Without Destroying Your Phone
What Is The Difference Between 32-bit & 64-bit Windows?
4 Common Windows 7 Problems And Fixes
How To Trigger Wake On LAN Using The MAC Address
Top 5 Windows 7 Themes You Might Want To Try
Raft Wars – A Fun Pirate Turn-Based Shooter Time-WasterTina
How to Change the Color of the Windows XP Start Button
6 Free White Noise Sites To Relax Or Set Yourself To Sleep
How To Monitor What Is Being Said About You Online
Upgrade To Windows 7: Requirements & Installation Tips
Plurk Vs Twitter – 5 Features That Will Make You Want To Switch
5 Extensions For Tabbed Email Browsing In Thunderbird 3
Do You Know What The Internet Knows About You?
5 Websites To Play Music Matching Your Mood
How To Create A Good Password That You Will Not Forget
Play and Re-Discover Music You Like with Mufin Player
7 Simple Steps To An Awesome Minimalist Desktop
2 Great Thunderbird 3 Notes Addons To Increase Your ProductivityRyan
Autobahn Accelerator – Faster Streaming Video and Downloads for Free?
Top 5 World News Websites Guaranteed Free From Censorship
4 Sites That Will Send New Proxy Server Lists To Your Email
Get Organized On Your Android Phone With Astrid
How Does Ask Peter Work? The Code Behind The Prank
5 Mobile Social Networks That Know When Your Friend Is Near
Find Top Internet Searches In Your Niche with Google Insights
Traffic Travis – A Free SEO Management Tool To Check Your SEO Rank
How To Set Up & Use Spam Assassin For Windows
5 Bizarre Underground Websites That’ll Make You Go Hmmm
Test Landscaping Ideas For Your House With Showoff The Visualizer
5 Cool Things You Can Do With Google VoiceJeffry
How To Add A Cool 3D Tag Cloud To Your Wordpress Blog
Add More Power To Your Bookmarklets With Quix
BumpTop – Gives Your Mac Desktop A Real 3D Look
How To Safely Experiment With Customizing Wordpress Themes
How To Download Files From RapidShare The Easier Way
Readefine – Newspaper-ize Web Content With Newspaper Formatting
How To Add Quizzes To Wordpress Blog
Reconnect With Your Family Members Using FamilyLink & Facebook
Add Quizzes To Your Facebook Profile Page & Other Places
How To Quickly Improve The Quality of MP3s With GarageBand [Mac]
Design Your Own Wordpress Theme Easily With Constructor
Notational Velocity – Creating Notes At The Speed Of Light [Mac]Varun
Pauker – An Easy-To-Use Freeware Java Flash Card Program
How To Create An Awesome Soft Focus Effect In Photoshop
Keep Your System Secure, Updated & Backed Up Easily With ProShield [Linux]
5 Apps To Optimize Images For Use On The Web
DHCP Explained: Installing & Configuring A Free DHCP Server [Linux]
What Is A Meta Search Engine & How It Works? [Technology Explained]
LookInMyPC – Free System Profiler & Computer Diagnostic Software
Combine Multiple ISO Files To Burn A Single Bootable ISO Image
How To Access Your Facebook Profile on My Yahoo
What is Digital Photography? [Technology Explained]
Hiren’s Boot CD – The All-In-One Boot CD For Every Need
All You Need To Know About Repositories and Package Management In UbuntuSimon
3 Free Cocktail Recipes Sites To Help You Make The Perfect Drink
How to Learn How to Draw Online With DrawSpace
3 Cool Tetris Spin-Off Online Games
3 Sites To Watch PC Game Demos
How To Create Custom Search Engines In Google Chrome
The 3 Best Subtitle Sites For Your Movies & TV Series
4 Reasons Why Google Translate Beats The Other Services
How To Move Your Contacts From Windows Mobile To Android
5 Awesome Tips To Improve Your Google Buzz Experience
Sublight – Finally A Hassle-Free Subtitle Retrieval and Playback Solution
Prezi – Turning Dull Slideshows into Revolutionary Dynamic PresentationsTim
Twitter Clients – Web Apps or Desktops Apps? Which is Better?
A Thorough Look At CamStudio As An Effective Screencasting Tool
Create a Custom Logon Screen for Windows with LogonStudio
3 Firefox Plugins To Test Your Website In Different Resolutions
4 Reasons Facebook’s New Navigation Design Is An Improvement
3 Programs That Help You Snap Windows Like a Win 7 User
Track Your Life With 1DayLater
Access All Your Online Photos In One Place With Showzey
How To View Live Weather Radar On Google Earth
How To Create Your Own Lifestream On A Wordpress Blog In 3 Easy Steps
4 Ways To Explore The Voice Mail Features In Google VoiceBakari
How To Get Started With Macro Photography
3 Easy-To-Create Simple Automator Workflows For Everyday Use
How To Properly Use The Image Playback Feature On Your Digital Camera
Compare & Contrast The iPhone Versus The iPod Touch
The Best Free iPhone Flickr App: Darkslide vs. Flickr
Photoshop Tips For Black & White Photography
Dragon: Two Free Voice Recognition Software For The iPhone
Get Your IRS Tax Questions Answered at H&R Block For Free
iFlipr: A Free Tool to Make Flash Cards Online
The Basics of How to Properly Resize Images in PhotoshopDean
3 Popular Teenager Websites That Are In Fact Useful
Two Sites To Earn Easy Money With Your Creative Designs
How to Create Your Own Software License Agreement
Four Best Inspiring Blogs Every Life Hacker Should Subscribe To
How Often Is Google Earth Updated?
How Does Google Maps Work? [Technology Explained]
The Best Sites To Find Cheap Mac Computers For SaleJustin
How To Use The Playstation EyeToy On Windows, Ubuntu And Mac
Deluge – An Awesome But Unappreciated Cross-Platform BitTorrent Client
Connect To Your Home PCs From Anywhere With DynDNS
ViGlance & 3 Other Tweaks To Make XP Or Vista Look Like Windows 7
5 Awesome Greasemonkey Scripts That Work In Chrome
Jolicloud: The Operating System Download for Netbook You’ve Been Looking For
Why I Decided To Make Google My Home Page and Never Looked Back
Times Reader – The Perfect NYT News Desktop ReaderSteven
6 Sites To Watch Super Bowl TV Commercials Online
5 Websites To Learn GIMP Online
Blu-Ray Technology History and The DVD [Technology Explained]
Mafia Wars On Facebook – Tips & Cheats
4 Effective Tips To Ask a Girl Out On Facebook
Technology Explained: How Does Facebook Work? The Nuts and BoltsAbhigyan
6 Tips To Optimize Your PC For Playing Movies
Top 5 Free Ways To Get a Guestbook For Your Website
5 Tips To Create The Perfect How-To Guide On Your Site
Xoom – An Alternative Method To Withdraw Funds From PayPal To A Local BankAnn
3 Great Examples of Using Gmail Filters for Productivity
2 Alternative Ways To Click Through Links In Firefox
7 Ways To Become More Productive With Firefox TabsJessica
Build An Impressive Free Resume Online In 15 Minutes With JobSpice
How To Email Photos To Your Free 25GB Windows Live SkyDrive
8 Online Guides To The Best And Worst Movies Of All TimeNancy
Top 7 Apple iPhone Complaints & Simple Solutions
Top 10 Free Ways To Discover New Music Online
The Best 4 Free Blackberry Apps To Stay Plugged Into Your Social NetworksJim
6 Online Time Clock Websites
How To Collaborate With Track Changes In Microsoft Word
A Quick Guide To Get Started With Microsoft Access 2007Taty
12 Video Sites That Are Better Than YouTube
10 Specialized Social Networks For You To JoinMahendra
Speeding Up Windows 7: Everything You Need to Know
3 Little Known Ways To Use Twitter Without Information OverloadEvan
How To Prevent & Remove Facebook Malware or Virus
3 Useful Firefox Add-ons To Help Save You MoneyJonathan
5 Free Game Development Software Tools To Make Your Own Games
The 6 Best Tools To Schedule Twitter UpdatesJohn
5 Sites To Quickly Order Food Online
6 Best Sites To Download Free Photoshop BrushesJackson
How To Download Google Books As A PDF File [Mac]
Never Forget To Pay Another Bill Again With Bills ~ On Your Table + GiveawayAngelina
5 MORE Free Microsoft Products & Why They Are The Best
Mike
How To Play Old Arcade Games On Your PC
Elmer
The 5 Best Free iPhone Apps I Can’t Live Without
Paul
5 Best Websites For Free Windows Mobile Software
Beth
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
How To Make Your Regular Mobile Phone Smarter With SMS/MMS (Part 1)
MUO has featured such an array of SMS-integrating services that you can basically deduce that a messaging plan for your mobile phone may render a data plan anywhere from accessory to unnecessary. Smartphones and high-tech mobile phones, mainly attractive for their data plan (think email or web browsing) and Office integration, don’t always prove a complete necessity for some of our readers.
On one of our more recent polls, a large portion of our readership base actually informed us that they own a plain cell phone, showing us that not everyone out there is in deep need of the features of high-tech mobile devices and smartphones.
The new truth is, any text-capable cell phone can now be just as reliable as a smartphone as long as you’re aware of which SMS-integrating services and cool SMS tricks are available. For instance, all of the following services (to which access is only a text message away) can simplify your usual web activities on-the-go. Thus, be forewarned that an unlimited messaging plan will come in very handy unless you want to pay extra fees.This first part focuses on how you can access your social networks without any special apps (like for the iPhone). The second part features ways to stay productive with SMS services.
Cool SMS Tricks to Stay Social
Update Your Status Across Social Networks
You may have your secret, individualized emails from Flickr, SkyDrive, Facebook, etc. to update your status, but the following services make cross-posting a breeze and will save you time!
- Posterous is a blogging platform that supports cross-posting your status updates and sharing your media files as multiple attachments in email (photos, videos, etc) to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Wordpress and 16 other sites.
Whether you have several social network accounts you want to update, you feel like updating your networks selectively, or just want somewhere to continue your longer-than-140-characters Twitter updates, Posterous will have you covered. To send a plain-text update (with no photos or other media), text “Post + your message” to 41411 or email/send a media message (MMS) your update and your multiple photos, videos, etc. to post@posterous.com (to post to all of your default-selected networks), flickr+facebook@posterous.com (only those two), posterous@posterous.com (only your Posterous blog), etc. You can send an email via SMS if you can add an "@" in the "To:" textbox. Learn how you can send an email via SMS.
Ping.fm will take in your updates to cross-post to 40+ social networks and also supports selective network update and multiple input methods (besides email, you can update by IM, Skype, iPhone web app, etc). but it will post your pictures on its Ping.fm site like Twitpic (so your photo will appear as a random piece and not in a unified personal site like Flickr’s photostream or Posterous’ custom blogs). You will have a number to send your text updates to and also a personalized email address for you to use if you want to update with a single photo at a time.
Hellotxt lets you update to more than 50 networks from email, just like Ping.fm, with the difference that Hellotxt allows you to schedule posts, and it also pulls tweets from people you’re following on Twitter for you to read right on the same page where you can post to Twitter and other networks.Hellotxt will accept custom tags for your networks so you can easily insert a hashtag (e.g. “#fb” to post to Facebook) at the beginning of the email body, in case you want to post to a specific service. Attach any media and it’ll be posted on the Hellotxt site in your lifestream page along with a link to it on your respective networks.
Pixelpipe specializes in posting your updates and media to 110+ outlets once you send them in a MMS to your personalized uploading email (in a similar fashion as Ping.fm or Twitpic so you won’t see your pictures in an unified set). Since you have so many networks you can choose from, there are two ways to selectively update: you can set any of the networks as a default place to update or choose by typing @“nameofservice” in the body of your message, which will promptly update that particular service.
In addition to containing great potential for alerts and productivity, the filters in Gmail work wonders (similar to those from the previous points) if you set up filters so that emails from your mobile to an address like gmailaddress+social@gmail.com get forwarded to your Facebook or Flickr’s personalized upload email.Each filter can only forward to one email so you’ll have to create several filters if you have many networks. Additionally, you can link some services so that they will automatically update to other places. For example, the pictures you post on Flickr can be sent to your Twitter stream if you link your two accounts here and use the Flickr2Twitter upload email. Of course, there are some shortcomings with this method: You may have to tweak the filters a bit in order to be able to upload to specific services and not others and consume part of your Gmail 7GB+ quota to store the photos in your inbox.
Get Updates From Your Social Networks
- Twitter: We showed you how to Twitter from a low-tech cell phone so let’s discuss how to keep up with other Twitter users (if you tweet heavily, you’ll find this familiar): By following someone on Twitter, you’ll have the option of receiving his/her updates by SMS (granted you have provided Twitter with your phone number). Thus, you can select which people you want to be up-to-date with. So for example, if you tend to forget going to Google Reader to update yourself with the latest news, have the news come to you by choosing to receive SMS updates from your preferred news sources’ Twitter account. Additionally, you can also avoid long-distance SMS charges while still keeping up with your friends from other countries by sending them a direct message on Twitter.
Facebook SMS subscriptions: Facebook sort of caught up to Twitter on the idea that SMS integration with a website does surprisingly well. Now you can receive your friends’ status updates by text message just by subscribing on Facebook.com.
You can also update your own status via text message, get notifications of messages and wall posts (you’ll be able to reply by text message too!) and so on. To do this, go on the Account tab > Account Settings > Notifications and select which notifications you wish to receive by SMS (for which you’ll need to register your phone on Facebook). You can also subscribe in fewer steps if you plan to follow a lot more people when you go to the Account tag > Edit Friends, then to the right of your friend, you can add to the SMS Subscriptions list.
Alternatively, after you hit the Account tag > Edit Friends, find SMS Subscriptions under Lists and then click Edit List. You’ll see all of your friends in a popup and then will be able to subscribe with one click to each friend.
We have also featured a number of places where you can send SMS to phones, as opposed to from your phone as we discussed here, but now we’d like to hear from you. Which SMS services do you prefer or recommend? And look out for part two of this article, coming soon!
