FBLook (for FaceBook)

One of the two new products (still in alpha) from Outlook extension developer TechHit. FBLook (Facebook + Outlook) is a simple toolbar add-on that integrates two key factors, (1) changing your “Status” and (2) notifications for friend requests, messages, pokes and more.

OutTwit (for Twitter)

OutTwit (Outlook + Twitter) is a little more robust than FBLook. With OutTwit you can update your Twitter status, receive friend updates, check messages, assign categories to messages, shorten URLs with TinyURL and archive/search your messages.

Next, let’s move onto the the little more robust and advanced Outlook add-ons.

LinkedIn – Outlook Toolbar

The first from LinkedIn is a toolbar, but it heavily integrates with Outlook. The simple and advanced features include; updating your Outlook contacts with LinkedIn profile information, receive notifications of profile changes, one click invites, mini-profiles in the emails, updates for your “network” and more. If you really use LinkedIn and have Outlook this is a must have.

Plaxo – Outlook Add-on

Similar Outlook add-on comes from Plaxo. Plaxo actually has slight integration with LinkedIn and you are easily able to add your LinkedIn friends to Plaxo, so it’s all a matter of which you prefer (or both). With Plaxo’s new Outlook add-on with Pulse, the new “social stream”, which integrates your “Connection’s” streams from Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Digg, etc., makes Outlook your ultimate source for following your friends and news. Like LinkedIn’s add-on, it keeps your address book up to date, but Plaxo’s also syncs your calendar, tasks and notes. This could come in handy to synchronize multiple Outlooks or even multiple calendars, like Yahoo or Google.

Xobni

Xobni, which is still in private beta, but has released plenty of more invites, is a social Outlook add-on without a social network behind it. I’ve been using Xobni for several months now and I love the integration and search functions. Any email I click on, Xobni will bring up:

• nr.of emails that were sent and received from the email address (which determines their rank)
• list of all email conversations (better than Gmail)
• a list of all the attachments for the person
• broken down timelines of when I usually send/receive emails to/from that person
• automatically pulls the phone number from an email
• and the best feature is the almost instantaneous search function.

You can sign up now for an invite here.

FreeConference

Finally, I have to schedule conference calls several times a week. FreeConference, is the simplest and quickest way to setup a free conference call. There are paid options, but I’ve never used them. Just recently they updated their offerings with an Outlook add-on that is literally 3 clicks away from within Outlook to setup a conference call. Clicking “Schedule a Conference” brings up a Calendar Appointment with all the details, select your invitees, and hit send. All the information is automatically included with the calendar appointment.

I love Outlook and I love integration, is there something else out there for free I should be using?

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Organise your Outlook emails with SNARF (4)
• Zenbe – All Your Emails In One Place (20)
• Stay Socially Connected Online With Yoono (18)
• Stay in Sync with your Significant Other using free Exchange Server (13)
• Open Two Different Instances Of Outlook With ExtraOutlook (57)

There have always been open source and free web applications, but within the past several years with the new Web 2.0 boom, the ability to create rich and powerful apps has increased. Thanks to AJAX, Ruby on Rails and even C++ coding, amongst the many others, developers are out there in hopes of developing free applications to make money without selling directly to their customer. There are 4 ways in which developers are making money from their applications these days.

The first way is to host advertising on the web app. This, because of the potential of over 1,000 daily users can turn a profit of $5k/month has been a popular route. However, the second way involves having a free version and charging a fee for the “professional” version. Thankfully, these days since there are so many free options out there, this is fading or the prices are around $19.99/year. We also have to thank the big powerhouse companies out there, like Google and Microsoft who have been on an acquisition spree. Many developers keep their products free in hopes of being acquired. The final method, which is more common for the open source applications, is donations. Many times, these people are creating superior products in their spare time to make the world a better place. All they ask is to support their efforts with a donation, which I fully support.

So Thank You to MakeUseOf! Thank You to the power house companies on an acquisition spree! Most importantly, Thank You to the developers of all these wonderful and free applications and software!

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Yo Frankie! – Free Open Source Platform Game (16)
• xVideoServiceThief – Ultimate Download Manager for Online Videos (25)
• WordPress vs. Drupal – Content Management Systems (38)
• Ultimate Open Source Always Free Applications (5)
• The 5 Best Open-Source Social Networking Software (75)

However, OOOP goes well beyond just the 3,400 graphic clip art gallery and templates… The developers have included over 90 text fonts, OOOWikipedia (an integrated Wikipedia Search Tools), ability to run Visual Basic for Applications from Calc (the OpenOffice alternative to “Excel”), ability to import Office Open XML (Microsoft Office 2007), and option to export (save as) documents to PDF, LaTex and MediWiki. To top it all off, OOOP has been able to integrate importing of Works and WordPerfect documents.

Completely open source, multi-lingual (11 languages in total) and multi-platform (Linux and Windows). You can find the download here. If you want to know more about the OpenOffice, I have previously covered OpenOffice here and Aseem covered it here.

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Use OfficeTab To Give Microsoft Office Firefox-Like Tabs (45)
• Top 3 FREE web-based Office Suites (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) (12)
• How To Make Microsoft Office 2007 Look Like Office 2003 (7)
• How To Get an Early Preview of Microsoft Office Web Apps (18)
• How to Fix Microsoft Office Problems with MS Office Diagnostics (6)

If you don’t know this by now, you should learn this immediately, keep your software up to date. Here are 5 methods to aid this task.

1. UpdateStar (Win)- Still in Beta, but highly functional, downloadable software that scans your computer, including your "Add or Remove Programs" area for all installed software. Not only does UpdateStar analyze all of the installed programs on your windows system, it also displays all available updates for the product. The information regarding the software and the information is very thorough. The only draw backs are that they "recommend" programs (that cost money) that they think "you would be interested in".

2. AppSnap (Win)- Gaining recent popularity with it’s latest update, AppSnap is configurable program that scans your computer for all installed applications. Appsnap then guides you through the software that needs updating (incl. size and version #). You can download and install several updates in just a few clicks. Only criticisms are that the database is not as large.

3. AppUpdate (Mac) – AppUpdate is a free Mac Dashboard Widget that combines Apple’s Software Directory, MacUpdate and Version Tracker. "It will present you with a tidy link list of all the updates found, enabling you to read release-notes and download the the updates quickly and painlessly."

4. Individual Feeds – Many software products, especially open source, will have their own feed/news section to subscribe to. This is always the best way to keep on top of your software without having to download any program to tell you what you need to download. In addition, the feeds usually offer explanations and the reason behind each new release.

5. Sourceforge Feed – Sourceforge feeds are a great way to keep on top of individual software projects/programs, and to learn about new software. Especially Open Source software, my favorite kind.

6. Filehippo Feed – Same as Sourceforge, but it is not limited to just open source software. Filehippo includes open source, freeware, shareware and commercial software. Once again, another great way to learn about other programs and software.

7. Version Tracker (Mac or Win) – Version Tracker tarcks updates for thousands of software products (Note: many programs are shareware (free trial) or commercial). Similarly to abov, you can subscribe to their feed and monitor updates for relevant programs. Version Tracker is very comprehensive, I’ve learned about some great programs through their feed.

Something I missed? Let us know in comments …

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• How to Stop Annoying “Restart” Prompt after Windows Updates (14)
• Send several GBs of data to Friends using Podmailing (17)
• Securing Third Party Software With Secunia PSI (7)
• Run Windows Applications on Linux (or Mac) with WINE (15)
• Music Sharing with Mojo (18)

Considering that I am in Real Estate I only figured it would be appropriate to share the knowledge that I’ve acquired over the past 4 years. I am in real estate in New York City, so a lot of the tools I use are very specified to New York, however these are the select greats from my vast collection of bookmarks of the real estate tools that are national (United States) and some International.

No Matter what you are looking for in Real Estate, these are the search tools to find them. I would also appreciate it if you had any other free helpful sites or web applications to please let me know in the comments. Enjoy…

Major Real Estate Sites

(1) Trulia

Trulia is by far my favorite pick for a real estate search, not only is it fully stocked with properties, it is also stocked on features that include: Google Map Layout (Satellite/Hybrid Option); Well done Search Results Layout; Property Preview Option in Search Results; Easily sort-able and customizable; Free Membership with abilities for saving, alerts, information; Large Web Community; Comparables on Screen and Similar Properties; Real Estate Guides; Community Information and Statistics; Trulia also provides an API.

(2) Zillow

Zillow is still in Beta (for some reason) and is less attractive than Trulia. However, if offers a lot of similar features including a Community and extensive Real Estate Guides. There are also way too many advertisements which divert your attention from the heart of the matter. Some of their positive features are well developed comparables, Neighborhood pages and what they like to call Zestimates or estimates based on comparable and other relevant information to provide an estimated price. Zillow also provides an API for properties and Zestimates. More on Zillow.

(3) Yahoo Real Estate

Yahoo’s real estate site is almost a mashup of several services, including Zillow’s Zestimates and features from Realtor.com, however, they definitely do not have the vast database of properties comparatively (probably because they charge to list properties). Surprisingly, Yahoo has done a unique job of integrating everything related to real estate including school research, mortgages, credit scores, foreclosure information and a recently updated neighborhood section.

(4) New York Times

I personally hate the New York Times Real Estate section, but New Yorker’s consider it the Bible of real estate properties. I was surprised to see many sales and rentals available in most of the United States. Obviously, the New York Times is a large part of the real estate article database, however, I think their features and options are relatively standard for the real estate industry.

(5) Propsmart

A simplistic map based real estate search engine for not only Sales and Rentals, but also includes commercial real estate. Propsmart not only integrates their properties with Google Maps but they also provide Google Earth feeds for major cities. The only additional feature to note is the ability to rate your properties.

(6) Terabitz

Recently launched real estate portal ingeniously linked several databases and used several APIs to create your own personal real estate dashboard. Highly customizable and drag and drop functionality. It seems there are still some bugs in the system and definitely some additional tweaking needed to the layout, but for now Terabitz is worth trying. It includes sales, rentals, foreclosures, craigslist feeds, for sale by owner listings and more. In addition, it includes functional drag and drop modules for local amenities, statistics and information in addition to a rich financial section.

(7) HotPads

Hotpads offers only Rentals. Simplistic mashup of rental properties. The best part of HotPads is the simple adjustments of your criteria on the map. The worst part is once you find the rental, it gets confusing. Although, to my big surprise, the comparable listings presented in a really well-organized manner. They should take a lesson from that page.

Mass Marketplace Sites with Real Estate Listings

(8) Craigslist

Craigslist, which is now thoroughly international, is by far the best place to get a deal and unfortunately the best place to get swindled. So browse carefully. The features are minimal; however, it is the best place to get a deal since it is for the most part directly from owners since it is a cheap/free place to advertise real estate properties. It is dangerous because it is cheap/free and it is popular, so people like to take advantage. NEVER go alone to any property.

(9) Housing Maps (Craigslist Mashup) – Housing Maps recently added filters for their search, which definitely makes searching a whole lot easier. There are sales and rental options all laid out on a Google Map. Only major cities.

(10) MapsKrieg (Craigslist Mashup) – Another Google Maps Craigslist mashup, however compared to Housing Maps, there are only points on a map with no real search features other than the main categories. Rather slow loading times as well.

(11) Google Base

Google Base is unfortunately a Craigslist with a Google Map and very little functionality. However, the database is very large since it is free to list and thankfully, the search functions are decent. Also offers RSS feeds for searches. The worst aspect is definitely the keyword search function, since the details are minimal who knows what to search for… Google Base is still in beta and Google has paid very little attention to it in the past year, so hopefully we can expect changes in the near future.

(12) Oodle

Oodle has grown a lot in the past few years. Their real estate database has also been heavily advertised throughout their sister/brother sites. Their database is large not only because it’s free, but they have several other databases feeding in as well as an API.

(13) Listpic (Oodle Mashup) – Listpic used to be a Craigslist mashup, but there was such a drain on Craigslist’s system that they had to cut them off since really the main focus of Listpic is the photos. So they switched to Oodle. The features are similar to Craigslist/Oodle but is slightly pleasant to look at since the main headings contain photos which are adjustable in size.

(14) Edgio

The smaller Oodle as I like to call it, is pretty pathetic. I especially love the ‘some results provided by eBay’ on the bottom of the results. It seems that they are most proud of their statistics and database, which is pretty impressive… “Access over 100 million listings in 1,417,876 cities and 141 countries and 9,863,736 listings from 1,159 edge-direct feeds and 3,319 listings from 143 Classified Boards”

(15) Backpage

The Backpage is a rather simple version of Craigslist from the Village Voice. The only feature on here that Craigslist does not have is the ability to view the results with full text and information. Pretty clever if you ask me.

(16) Vast

Simple search capabilities and a pleasant layout and detailed, well organized results makes Vast a notable competitor. Their database is also rather large and includes all major US cities and additionally London.

(17) Kijiji

Supposedly the failed attempt from eBay to replicate the massively popular Craigslist phenomenon, although it still has a major presence is many international countries. It’s considered failure because it never quite took off in the United States, however, there are a few listings for several major US cities and even larger outside of the United States.

Real Estate Feed Searches:

(19) Realty Feed Search – Search the “feed directory of residential properties, commercial properties and informational topics”. Basically it doesn’t search through feeds but FOR feeds, which can come in handy if you want to keep on top of certain Real Estate Topics…

(20) Realty Feeds – Same as above, but thousands time better. The look and feel and functionality of Realty Feeds is very well done, as well as being International.

Other Notable Real Estate Tools:

(21) vFlyer – “vFlyer is a classified ad creation, management and submission platform that enables online sellers to quickly and easily create attractive classified ads or ‘virtual flyers’ that can be posted on dozens of leading online marketplaces in a few simple clicks.” There are also many more options including 5 free active flyers for the free version. There are also premium options.

(22) Walkscore – “Walk Score shows you a map of what’s nearby and calculates a Walk Score for any property. Buying a house in a walkable neighborhood is good for your health and good for the environment.”

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• The 5 Most Significant Online Property Search Websites – Part 2 (4)
• The 5 Most Significant Online Property Search Websites – Part 1 (16)
• The 5 Most Significant Online Property Search Engines – Part 3,4, 5 (6)
• Top 5 U.S. Apartment Search Engines (10)
• Syndicate Your Property For Sale With Postlets (7)

Most descriptions are taken from the web page, since only an author can describe his tool the best, but I threw in some comments in parentheses. None of the options below are resource lists, they are pure applications or tools. Enjoy and I hope you learn and benefit from the following list…

Complete CSS Coding (Layout, Fonts, Colors, Tweaks)

(1) HTML PHP CSS Website Template Maker – CSS template generator creates a two column layout with both a header and a footer. This PHP / CSS Style Sheet template generator outputs full featured tableless code i.e. tables are NOT used for the template with the column layout.

(2) CSS Toolbox (Desktop – Windows) – Free CSS Toolbox includes a number of tools for fast-tracking and enhancing the development of style sheet code, such as an advanced CSS Formatter and CSS Validator.

(3) 1-3 Columned Page Maker – Broken down into sections with all the necessary variables).

(4) CSS Generator – make simple cascading style sheets (everything but columns and layout).

CSS Layouts

(5) Boxed CSS – Boxed CSS is a free website that offers you CSS grids : they are free to be downloaded and modified, without a linkback required.

(6) Blue Print CSS – Blueprint is a CSS framework, which aims to cut down on your CSS development time. It gives you a solid CSS foundation to build your project on top of, with an easy-to-use grid, sensible typography, and even a stylesheet for printing.

(7) CSS Layout Generator – This generator will create a fluid or fixed width floated column layout, with up to 3 columns and with header and footer. Values can be specified in either pixels, ems or percentages.

(8) Lay-out-a-matic – Simple layout options (few options in my opinion).

(9) YAML Building – A tool for layout development of YAML based CSS Layouts (YAML = Yet Another Muliti-Column Layout).

(10) CSS Grid Calculator – Use the CSS Grid Calculator to quickly visualize page layout and draw grids in a variety of ways.

Style Sheet Editors

(11) CSS Fly – CSSFly is a web 2.0 tool for easy editing websites direct and in real-time in your browser. Simply edit the (X)HTML-code and the external Style-Sheet files : what you code is what you get!

(12) CSS Vista (Desktop/Windows) – CSSVista is a free Windows application for web developers which lets you edit your CSS code live in both Internet Explorer and Firefox simultaneously.

Optimizer and Tweaking and Validators:

(13) CleanCSS – Powerful CSS optimizer and formatter. Basically, it takes your CSS code and makes it cleaner and more concise.

(14) CSS Tidy (Download/Open Source) – CSSTidy is an open source CSS parser and optimizer.

(15) CSS Tweak – Take your CSS and optimize it so that file sizes and download times are reduced. This tool is different from other optimizers as it gives you the option to stop it from altering your CSS code layout.

(16) W3’s CSS Validator – Check Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and (X)HTML documents with style sheets.

Additional Inputs and Options

(17) CSSTYPE – Web safe typography on screen for pixel perfectionists.

(18) List-u-Like CSS Generator – Create cross-browser list-based navigation bars with ease.

(19) Colly’s CSS rollover generator – With this CSS rollover generator, you can create two distinct styles of rollover button, using CSS and just one image.

(20) Rounded Cornr – Generate HTML/CSS code and images for rounded corners.

(21) Spiffy Corners – Offers a simple way to generate the CSS and HTML you need to create anti-aliased corners without using images or javascript.

(22) The Box Office – lets you wrap/float/contour text around freeform images using CSS for usage in (X)HTML pages.

(23) CSS Menu Maker – making professional CSS menus simple, for the average webmaster.

(24) CSS Scrollbar Color Changer – The CSS for the scrollbars that you create is displayed automatically below. Copy it into your HTML page to easily change the scrollbars for your web site.

(25) CSS Sprite Generator – Generate CSS Image Sprites.

That’s pretty much it. Got a favorite CSS tool that’s not in the list? Drop it in comments. Enjoy!

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Top 10 Professional Sample Code Websites For Programmers (28)
• “TEST EVERYTHING”… 100+ ‘Website Check’ Tools in-one! (3)
• Write & Develop HTML Offline with First Page (12)
• Web Developer Toolbar for Firefox (4)
• How To Install Firebug on IE, Safari, Chrome & Opera (22)

I don’t feel ashamed that I had paid for these programs since they did provide useful services to me until recently. Now I know better. Here are the results (please note I tried several other options before deciding on these applications):

(1) Office Software

Open Office replaced Microsoft Office – Microsoft Office’s replacement was the easy one to find since there is a lot of commotion these days regarding the alternatives. Open Office was a no contest option and with the recent update, I love it.

(2) Graphics and Image Manipulation

GIMP replaced Jasc Paint Shop Pro – Paint Shop Pro was the cheaper alternative to Adobe Photoshop. GIMP has more than fulfilled my needs and there are hundred of free tutorials available. Also make sure to check out GimpShop, a version of Gimp with a Photoshop-like look and functionalities.

(3) PDF

PrimoPDF and PDFedit replaced Adobe Acrobat Pro – The only key functions I ever used Adobe Acrobat Pro for was to save (aka print) files to PDF and to edit, type on or add graphics to the PDFs. With PrimoPDF I can print to PDF and the rest is accomplished with PDFedit.

(4) FTP

Filezilla replaced CuteFTP – I only assumed that the free versions of an FTP client were a bit sketchy. However, FileZilla is not only secure, it’s also widely used and highly featured.

(5) Bookmarks Sync. Tool

Zinkmo replaced Skymarks – Skymarks (IE bookmark synchronizer via the web) stopped working then disappeared and their site is down now only 3 months after I had paid for the program (all the other free ones created errors or did a poor job). Finally Zinkmo does a good job of syncing my Internet Explorer and Firefox bookmarks over the internet.

(6) FeedReader

RSS Bandit replaced NewsGator’s FeedDemon – FeedDemon was awesome, because it synced to NewsGator Online so no matter if I was at home, work or not one of my computers everything would be synced up. RSS Bandit accomplishes the exact same thing.

(7) Weather

Weather Watcher replaced Weather Channel Platinum – When Weather Channel’s desktop weather program failed to work on Vista, I asked support for help. They never solved the issue and I was stuck using an ad supported program at home. Weather Watcher has everything and more.

I hope you learned something and I hope I saved some people money out there, for more Free Tools be sure to check out:

• MakeUseOf Directory: Free WebServices and Mobile Apps
• Ultimate Open Source Always Free Applications

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Offer Your Readers A RSS To PDF Option With Feedbooks (3)
• Newsgator – The Most Complete RSS Solution (11)
• FeedDemon Can Now Sync Google Reader to the Desktop (13)
• Backup and Sync your Firefox User Data with Weave (7)
• 5 Excellent Firefox Extensions to Manage your Bookmarks (32)

Feed Demon was totally worth the money to me, because you could synchronize your feeds with NewsGator Online, so whether I was at Home, Work, PDA or the Web all my feeds were there with only items I hadn’t read yet.

Well, apparently RSS Bandit now does the exact same thing, with not only an option to sync to NewsGator Online, but also via WebDAV, FTP or a file share.

Why Desktop version as opposed to Web version? Many reasons, which I won’t get into now, but mainly you have significantly more options and features in a desktop version comparatively. The advantage of RSS Bandit to synchronize over the web (via NewsGator or otherwise) allows for full functionality on your computer, but the web abilities when you are away.

RSS Bandit Features:

• Multi-language support
• Newsgroup Support
• Newspaper View Styles
• View and Post Comments to News Items in an RSS feed
• Autodiscover webfeeds
• Feed errors reported in a special folder
• Comments Posted to blogs from RSS Bandit show up in “Sent Items” Special Folder
• Integrated Configurable Web Search Bar
• Rss Item Search
• Monitoring System Event Logs

Check out the Full RSS Bandit Feature List and screenshots.

In the meantime, am I upset I paid for FeedDemon, certainly not, it’s been a great companion of mine for several months, but RSS Bandit is free and open source, so it depends which route you want to go.

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• What is a FeedReader ? (19)
• Ways to Stay on Top of The News (13)
• Two Online Services To Clean Up Your RSS Feeds (10)
• The New RSS Feed Reader Wars! (41)
• Snackr – Fancy Feed Reader (Adobe Air App) (12)

1. It’s Scrabble, so that’s awesome
2. Play multiple games at the same time
3. Quick and easy multiple friend Invites
4. Easily view a list of current games and who’s turn it is
5. E-mail and/or Facebook notifications
6. Easily adjust settings
7. View My Stats for all games
8. View Global Stats – see who the “big” competitors are and how they are doing
9. View Completed Games
10. Onboard dictionary to check your options (just in case)

Luckily for us players and soon to be players, they are about to Upgrade their servers and the application, the new features will include:

1. Temporary score – No need to do the math before placing a word.
2. Tiles left – Tile tracking will be a lot easier for all players.
3. Improved interface – You will love it!
4. Dictionaries – We shall be offering more language options.
5. Type tiles option – Will be much faster to place the tiles on to the board.
6. Messaging system – New message notification icon.

So what are you waiting for?

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Five Places To Play Risk Online (39)
• Yo Frankie! – Free Open Source Platform Game (16)
• Yahoo! Games: WordRacer is my Boggle Game of Choice (6)
• Who Needs Photoshop When You Can Have Splashup? (21)
• WeGame.com – YouTube for Video Games (12)

“Word Racer is an exciting, fun, and fast word game where up to eight players compete by creating words from various grids made up of letters. Once a player finds a word, no other players can use that word.”

WordRacer is a fast paced, online multi-player Boggle type game, that is thoroughly addictive and I’d assume great for your brain. Also helps out with your Scrabble game. Always at least 300+ challengers ready, so what are you waiting for?

You may also check out Aibek’s post on Addictive Web Games

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Toribash Fighting Game – Design & Try Perfect Fighting Moves (17)
• Top Five Free Online Shooter Games – Must Read For Gamers (88)
• Top 5: Addictive and Challenging Web Games (15)
• The Best Online Flash Games (29)
• Sporcle – Cool Games That Make Learning Fun Again (4)

Below are some of my favorites which I use on a semi-daily basis. Of course, since MakeUseOf is a free applications directory there have been several projects already discussed. These will be linked accordingly.

• Azureus – Torrent application that is multi-platform that is light on memory and heavy on functionality. Frequent updates keep Azureus fast, secure and highly functional.
• GIMP Installers – Why pay the high price for Photoshop when you can just use GIMP, same features, none of the price (Windows only). To replicate Photoshop for GIMP see previously reviewed GIMPShop.
• 7-Zip – Similar to Universal Extractor that Mark reviewed earlier, but this is just as great and heavily supported file archiver with the high compression ratio. Supports 15 formats (despite the name 7-Zip)
• Audacity – Multi-format, multi-track and multi-platform audio editor and recorder with all the bells and whistles. Previous review by Mark…
• FileZilla – The best FTP client for Windows. Trust me, I’ve tried everything else, including paid versions, now this is the only FTP client to use. Once again, see Mark’s FileZilla review.
• PDFCreator – Another great example of “Why pay the high price…” application. Simple Windows print to PDF with a few extra functions. Simple and light-weight. Be sure to read Aibek’s Cool PDF Tools post.
• Pidgin – Windows and Unix instant-messaging unifying application that supports 15 instant messaging platforms.
• Notepad++ – Windows only application that is Notepad but with tens , if not hundreds more features (with plugins) and it integrates with your shell. Must use for generic editor editing any code (HTML, PHP, CSS, etc). Also, ever open up a README file and have it all jumbled and word-wrap doesn’t help… this is the answer.
• Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition – Firefox that’s portable, simple as that. If you like Portable Apps, also check out “How to Turn USB Device into Almost Full-Scale PC“.
• TightVNC – Bandwidth-friendly, multi-platform remote desktop application.
• PortableApps.com – While not a utility, it is SourceForge’s collection of Open Source Portable (smaller file-size versions that fits on a USB Drive) Applications. Aibek did an amazing post awhile back with a great Collection of 100 Portable Apps. So check that out too.

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Take and Manage Notes in Linux With BasKet (7)
• Store Your Thoughts, Ideas, Notes, ToDo’s etc. on WikiPad (9)
• Install An Open-Source Cloud Operating System On Your Server (14)
• Free Open Source Counterparts of Windows Software (84)
• 8 Better Alternatives To Common Windows Apps (68)

1. 8Hands
2. Ex.plode.us
3. Fuser
4. HypeIt
5. Minggl
6. MyLifeBrand
7. Naymz
8. OtherEgo
9. Profilactic
10. Profileomat
11. Profilefly
12. Profilelinker
13. Snag
14. Socialnetwork.in
15. Socialurl
16. Spokeo
17. Tabber
18. Upscoop
19. Zoolit

COMMENTERS! Please help choose the top 5 of the following Social Network Aggregator Sites by basing your votes on the following criteria:

• A) Actual Amount of Networks Supported - we’re looking for 1 of these to be the 1 we use, otherwise we’ll need a Social Network Aggregator Aggregator
• B) Actual Functionality of the Integrated Networks – I obviously just don’t want to see all my friends from all my networks and then that’s that, I want more!
• C) Ease of Use – Could the 12 year olds on Facebook and MySpace work it?
• D) Trustworthy Status -will the site accidentally lose all your usernames and passwords
• E) Aesthetics – Does it look sexy?

(By)This article was posted by Adam Hirsch from TheFattyTalks

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Retaggr Lets People Know Who You Are (10)
• Get your Social Networks in order with Friendfeed (8)
• Threadsy – Integrates Your Email and Social Networks (+Invites) (24)
• Manage your Online Social Life with SecondBrain (12)
• Legacy Locker – Life Insurance for Your Online Identity (4)

I have been using Microsoft’s Live Writer (Beta) for over 2 months now and I love it. My main reason that I probably use it for is that it’s not web-based. This allows me to work whenever I want on it, without browsing from one site to the other and fears of losing any information (WLW saves drafts just like MS Word). My other main reason for using it is that it allows me to publish to 2 blogs at the same time, with minimal steps.

My favorite aspects and features:

• So Easy to use and Setup
• Easily publish to any of my blogs from the same window
• Offline and on my Desktop
• Configures Automatically to your blogs settings (HTML and CSS)
• Plugins (like Insert Flickr pictures)
• Pinging services included

Features Requests (or what I would want in the non-Beta version):

• Sync Over Computers (between work and home, my Drafts and recently posted aren’t the same)
• Publish to 2 blogs at the same time (right now I just switch, change category and publish, but I’m lazy).

Resources:

• Download the Live Writer Beta, links to forums
• Live Writer Blog and Tips
• Live Gallery Plugins for Live Writer

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Take Advantage Of The New Windows Live Writer (21)
• Five Things To Do After Installing Windows Live Writer (37)
• Easy Blog Publishing with Microsoft Live Writer (13)
• 7 Reasons Why You Should Try Out Windows Live Writer 2009 (24)
• Windows Live Skydrive & 3 Alternative Online Storage Services (42)

1. SimpleSpark – Well maintained and informative lists, also lists competitor options for each app.
2. KillerStartups – Digg like features, thorough analysis, polls, screenshots and more.
3. Go2Web2.0 – Mass logo layout with brief descriptions, Search function and Tag Cloud.
4. All Things Web 2.0 – Sorted by user ratings with short descriptions, well categorized.
5. NeoBinaries – Massive lists with community ratings and reviews.
6. FeedMyApp – Categorized thumbnail screenshots, with only minimal description.
7. Listio’s Everything Web 2.0 – Sort by tags, votes, brief descriptions.
8. ReflexZ’s Applications – Small list, voting, medium descriptions.
9. The Web 2.0 Directory – Categorized, comprehensive, short descriptions.
10. Web 2.0 List – Sort by tags, brief descriptions.

That’s about… Are you aware of any other Web 2.0 website directories that didn’t make the list. Let us know in comments. Thanks in advance.

This article was posted by Adam Hirsch from TheFattyTalks

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• How To Find Unprotected Website Directories & Get “Interesting” Files (31)
• Bodega – A Centralized Mac App Store (11)

• Google Adsense widget – Pretty Self Explanatory, but it allows for a sidebar widget (and other places with configuration) for displaying your Google Adsense ads.
• All in One SEO Pack – enables certain modifications to your Wordpress Blog to provide Search Engine Optimization. (enable Search Engines to better pick up your site)
• AJAX Comments – this provides an easy and quick Comments interface in your comments section for your visitors which updates without a page reload.
• Akismet – So far this “SPAM” catcher has caught everything that is SPAM (and trust me, it’s odd, but you receive SPAM comments on Wordpress blogs.
• Blogroll Page – Easily create a new page that if you insert a snippet of code, it displays your Blogroll, as in http://www.thefattytalks.com/blog-roll/
• Enforce www. Preference – Important Search Engine Optimization fact is that Google and other search engines will pickup domain.com and www.domain.com if you do not have this plugin enforced. This helps because duplicates are bad for Search Engine Optimization.
• FeedBurner FeedSmith – Now that Google bought Feedburner (.com), Feedburner’s Pro features are now FREE. So, once again, Thank You Google! Feedburner FeedSmith alters your Wordpress feed to automatically switch to the Feedburner feed, in my case www.makeuseof.com/feed/ becomes http://feeds.feedburner.com/Makeuseof. Feedburner is awesome because you can customize your feed with extra social links, email this and you can monitor subscriptions, errors with your feed and even have your feed optimized.
• Google XML Sitemaps – Sitemaps are important for Search Engines to easily and speedily recognize your Blog and the pages it contains within. Keeping an up to date Sitemap with Google Webmaster Tools increases your visibility with Google.
• Google Analyticator – Enter in your Google Analytics “unique code” to monitor your web site traffic. Google Analytics is by far the most comprehensive FREE web site tracking and statistics web site.
• iWPhone – Simple Plugin that optimizes your blog for the IPhone. I tested this out recently and it works like a charm.
• MyBlogLog Widget – MyBlogLog is a great community of Blog authors who share their favorite blogs and their communities around them. This sidebar widget displays Recent Readers from MyBlogLog. (see it in action on MakeUseOf.com sidebar)
• Picasa Photos – I think the Picasa Photos look great compared to the Flickr Photos when they display on the sidebar, several options are available.
• ReCATPCHA – Akismet is great for catching Spam, but sometimes it just gets annoying to have to delete and look through (just in case) hundreds of comments, ReCAPTCHA is a comment CAPTCHA plugin for Wordpress that integrates well, helps ‘digitize books’ and more importantly works with IE, Firefox and Safari.
• Subscribe me – This plugin is a great sidebar widget to add to the top of your sidebar that adds a variety (which you can choose from) of “Subscribe to my feed” through…
• WordPress.com Stats – Note: You need a Wordpress.com API Key (I luckily first used adamhirsch.WordPress.com for my blog and now synchronize them), so I had this key (found in Options –> Users –> Your Profile). This plugin though, recently updated, allows you to view your Blog Statistics (most popular posts, visitors, referrals) on your Wordpress.org Blog Stats menu.
• Sociable – A great plugin with many options (you can choose which to use) of Social Bookmarking services to add to the bottom of posts in your pages, single posts or feeds.
• Share This – Similar to Sociable, but not as trustworthy I realized (has glitches in where the window opens in IE), provides Social Bookmarking in an easy pull down menu and a really simple “E-mail This” post, which is mainly why I use it, since you don’t have to leave the post area at anytime.
• wp-cache – Simple plugin that “Caches” your web site for optimal load times.
• WP Plugins Tracker – New Plugin that I love, checks all your plugins (activated or not) and determines if your version # is the same or outdated. Easily click the Plugin Name to go to the Plugin’s Web Site to download the updated version from there.
• WordPress Mobile Edition – Simple plugin that you upload also to the “Themes” directory that enables optimization for mobile phone viewing.

That’s it. Those are the plugins I installed, activated and use. Trust me, I’ve tried others, these, for the general purposes of a simple blog (no videos, pictures, directory or code explanations). You may also check out Aibek’s Top 20 Wordpress plugins for Power Users.

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• ScribeFire vs DeepestSender: One Blogging Addon to Rule Them All! (18)
• Another 10 Must-have Plugins for Your Wordpress Blog (3)
• 5 Must-have Plugins for Your Wordpress Blog (9)
• 4 Free Tools for Fool-Proof Wordpress Backup (13)
• Top 10 Blogger Hacks and Tips (123)

(1) Cameroid

Options are:

a) Color

b) Morph

c) Scenes

(2) SIGOST

Options are:

a) Colors

b) Effects

(3) Seenly

Options are:

a) Colors

b) Effects

(4) Phozi

Phozi is NOT really at all like Photobooth, mainly because it lacks the “effects” side of the application, however, there are THEMED backgrounds and “Stamps”:

That’s it, I’m sure there are more out there, but the first 2, Sigost and Cameroid seem to be the best FREE webcam applications like Photobooth. Anybody have any other suggestions?

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Manage your iPhoto with these plugins (11)
• 6 Quick Ways to JAZZ-UP your Photos (23)
• 5 Ways to Create Beautiful Slideshows of your Digital Pictures (15)
• 5 Cool Google Picasa Tips to Make Use Of your Photos (10)
• WriteOnIt – Funny Photo Captions, Magazine Covers & Other (8)

Anybody have any other similar sites to add? Feel free to comment, so we can compile a great Directory of Web 2.0 Directories…

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Your Turn to Join MakeUseOf on Twitter! (8)
• Your Turn To Join MakeUseOf On Twitter! (1)
• Welcome To The Improved Make Use Of Comments Area (23)
• Welcome Three New Writers to the MUO Team (10)
• Welcome our new Guest Writers (14)

• Adsense Notifier – Displays your Google Adsense Statistics with easily configurable displays
• AI Roboform Toolbar – I Love and use Roboform, saves my passwords and syncs between Firefox and IE, saving me some hassle (only complaint is it’s not easily sync-able over the Internet)
• All-in-One Sidebar – Simple, easy interface for everything Firefox in Sidebar form…
• FasterFox – Does it really work? Perhaps, either way, it’s always up and active. Supposedly, through several “one click” options, you can speed up Firefox
• FEBE (Firefox Environment Backup Extension) - Quick and Easy Firefox backup for your extensions, user preferences, passwords, etcetera. All configurable and easily schedule the backups.
• Firebug – Development Tool for monitoring, editing and debugging CSS, HTML and JavaScript LIVE on any web page.
• Forecast Fox (Enhanced) – I’m a weather dork and radar is the best way to check if precipitation is coming. This updated version has great large radar maps.
• Google Toolbar – Not really an “add-on”, but it’s an essential…
• Minimize To Tray – I Love the ability to minimize any program and keep it running into my system tray. Simple configurable options too.
• ScreenGrab! – This tool has come in handy countless times, right click the screen and you can Save OR Copy “Complete Page”, “Viewable Portion” or “Selection” in PNG or JPEG format
• StumbleUpon Toolbar – Love it, Stumble It, Enjoy It

So, That’s it, I don’t use AdBlockers or GreaseMonkey, I like to keep it simple. If there is something so amazing out there, please do feel free to let me know…

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Welcome to My Firefox: Extensions, Themes, Setup (14)
• Web Developer Toolbar for Firefox (4)
• Watch Videos In The Firefox Sidebar With YouPlayer (16)
• Ubiquity – Extend Firefox and Improve your Browsing Experience (9)
• Too Many Tabs? Firefox Add-ons to manage a TAB JAM (78)

Social Networking:

1. Friendster – My “original” Social Networking web site (although apparently classmates.com is debated as the first) Friendster was the first, best designed as we know it today. Still a classic.

2. MySpace – MySpace came after Friendster for me and this was the place for “Freaks”,”Geeks” and the horny people of the Internet. Now it’s EVERBODY expressing their individuality (which means lots of crappy/annoying pages). MySpace lost me a bit about 2 years ago when the SPAM started, that was/is really annoying.

3. Facebook – Oh Facebook, you were so clean and perfect before the applications, now you are an open sore like MySpace letting in everybody. However, oddly enough this is where EVERYBODY I know is. Plus it’s a lot more tame and friendly than anywhere else. So, this is my #1

4. MyBlogLog – The Social Network for Bloggers and it does a good job of it. Clean atmosphere, little Spam and very friendly people.

5. LinkedIn – Supposedly the Social Network for Business Professionals, it leaves much room to be desired. I can’t see many of my friends joining, because there is no real pull to it unless you are into Networking. I use it for Business Purposes and the Outlook Integration.

Social   Media Sharing:

6. Flickr – Pro version keeps my pictures nice and backed up (with easy upload tools), not sure why so many people are obsessed, but it’s nice to browse other pictures every once in awhile.

7. Google PicasaWeb – Not really a “social site” yet, but I liked the look and feel of this compared to Flickr for just storing and viewing my photos. I also liked the Wordpress and Website Integration.

8. YouTube – Definitely the original king of Video Sharing and the first place I discovered several years ago to upload videos. Now it’s Mecca of Videos. I still think Google should work on cleaning the YouTube interface into a Facebook feature like Social Network.

Social Bookmarking:

9. StumbleUpon – I love being able to approve or disapprove of a web page. Facebook integration is great. More importantly I have Stumbled Upon MANY (probably thousands of) Amazing web sites, media and games. I also love it for the IE and Firefox clean interface integration.

10. Digg – I can’t believe how Digg exploded into the Phenomena that it is today and I can’t believe Google hasn’t purchase it yet. The social aspects are also greatly missing and people probably spend too much time trying to “Digg” something, but THANK YOU to the people who Digg the truly great stuff.

That’s it. There were more that I was going to put on, but seriously this is pretty much what I use on a Daily and Weekly basis. I’m sure everyone will have comments regarding my choices and their choices, but I’m firm with what’s above… So Bring IT ON!!!

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Psst…Do You Plurk? (21)
• Manage your Online Social Life with SecondBrain (12)
• Is Socialbrowse The New Stumbleupon? (7)
• YouTube.com – Online Video Sharing Site (23)
• Wakoopa – Find Out What Software You (And Others) Use Most (10)

Webmaster Tools:

As a Webmaster, maintaining and observing my pages, is fundamental. My core web sites that I use on a Daily and Weekly basis are as follows…

Google Analytics – The free and ultimate Webmaster tool for all types of site analytics, including: visitor information, traffic sources, pages and everything in between

Feedburner – This is the ultimate user tool for Bloggers to optimize and analyze the blog’s feed. Feedburner Medic included free (thanks to Google’s Purchase) maintains a daily report of your feed’s status. Note: Should use a Feedburner plugin (Like Feedburner FeedSmith) to make sure the Feedburner Feed is the main feed

Wordpress.com Stats – Using this plugin in conjunction with a Wordpress.com API Key (you’ll need a Wordpress.com account), you will be able to monitor visitors and site statistics from within your WordPress installation.

Google Webmaster Tools – Includes diagnostics, abilities to include your feed and sitemap, monitors Google Page Rank and lists all external links

Yahoo Site Explorer – Not the best, but monitors your sitemap, Pages, Links and Subdomains

So, nothing tricky or complicated above, just the basics. Why use anything else? Is there some ultimate tool I should be using?

This post was posted by our guest writer Adam Hirsch from TheFattyTalks

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

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Web Metrics 101 – What DO all these Terms Mean? (17)
• 12 No-crap Tools to Make Your Blog Better (18)
• “TEST EVERYTHING”… 100+ ‘Website Check’ Tools in-one! (3)
• Wordpress Exploit Scanner Helps Administrators Scan Their Database For Malicious Files (10)
• Use Webslug To See How Fast Your Site Loads (3)