Latest Articles
3 Of The Best WordPress Forum Plugins
At some point, your WordPress blog gets popular, and then people start crying out for a community. I wrote before about BuddyPress, which is one approach to take that effectively turns your site into a social network; forums are another option. There are quite a few forum plugins out there, but I’ve distilled them down to the Top 3 to help you decide which will suit your as an admin and will be just right for your users.
4 Ways Technology is Enhancing (Not Replacing) Traditional Board Games
Despite some fears that digital board games are replacing the real thing, everything I can see points in the other direction. In fact, I’d go say so far as to say that board gaming in general is experiencing a profound resurgence and rise to fame, and that this in no small part due to the influence of technology. Here are four reasons why I think technology is in fact, enhancing the board gaming community.
5 Tech Projects For The Mini Farmer
With food prices at a record high, chaotic weather systems destroying crops the world over, and no signs of population growth slowing down anytime soon - never has growing your own produce been more important than it is right now. So as city dwellers turn to mini-farming, technology is playing an increasingly important role in maximising crop yields from a small place. Today I’d like to highlight some of those great projects.
8 Tips For Making Great Use Of The OS X Notification Center
With Mountain Lion came the introduction to the desktop of the familiar Notification Center, ported from its iOS origins. It’s brought even more unity between the desktop and mobile OS, and essentially replicates functionality that’s been available with third party applications for a few years now. It may not be to everyone’s taste, but it’s surprisingly customizable (for an Apple product).
Old-Time Fun: How To Make 3D Images For Viewing With No Glasses
Believe it or not, you don’t actually need 3D glasses to experience convincingly realistic 3D images (or movies). You just need to make yourself go “crosseyed”. Essentially, you look at two images, and by intentionally crossing your eyes to defocus your normal vision, the two images will converge into one central image that the brain will interpret as a 3-dimensional scene.
How To Install Mountain Lion On A PC [Hackintosh]
Are you not looking forward to Windows 8? Perhaps you're jaded by Microsoft’s decision to kill of Windows Home Server? Are you maybe tired of Windows Media Center being treated like a second class citizen? Have you got some extra PCs lying around and wish they were as awesome as your Mac? Welcome to the world of Hackintosh. Now let’s turn your PCs into Macs - Mountain Lion roaring Macs, no less.
Programming Your Arduino 4x4x4 LED Cube To Do Some More Awesome Stuff
Last week, I built an LED cube - 64 LEDs that you can program to make fantastic futuristic light shows - and I hope you did too, because it's a great project to motivate you and expand your Arduino skillset. I left you with a few basic apps to get you thinking, but today I'll be presenting a few more bits of software that I made for the cube, along with code explanations.
How To Swap Out Your Macbook's DVD Drive For An SSD
Is your old Apple laptop starting to struggle? Is the boot time so long that you can actually go out and buy a coffee? If so, perhaps it's time to think about upgrading your main system drive to a low cost SSD and getting rid of that useless old DVD drive. If it's an older Macbook, fret not. This tutorial will be perfect for you.
Make A Complete Community Site With Buddypress (& WordPress)
BuddyPress gives you complete user profiles, activity streams, and groups. If you’re considering a community site, this needs to be the first free project you check out. BuddyPress is completely free and open source. Just like WordPress, BuddyPress has a thriving community with themes and plugins.
Parrot AR Drone 2.0 Review and Giveaway
The Parrot AR Drone 2.0 is the most expensive remote control toy money can buy; it’s a smartphone controlled quadrocopter with a 720p HD camera, and it’s ridiculously fun, but quite temperamental. What follows is a review of the Parrot AR Drone 2.0 untainted. We purchased the review unit ourselves and will be giving it away to the MakeUseOf community. Read on to find out more about this $300 toy and how to be in the running to win it!
How To Make a Pulsating Arduino LED Cube That Looks Like It Came From The Future
If you’ve dabbled with some beginner Arduino projects, but are looking for something a little permanent and on a whole other level of awesome, then the humble 4 x 4 x 4 LED cube is a natural choice. Construction is far easier than you might think, and using a multiplexing we can control all the LEDs directly from just a single Arduino Uno board. It’s great soldering practice, and the total cost of components shouldn’t come to more than about $40.
Making A Legendary Movie Trailer With iMovie On The iPad
Movie Trailers are a great little creative project that makes putting together a professional looking video really easy. Today I'll be using my iPad to make a trailer featuring myself and the mischievous little ferret that wandered into my house last week and decided to stay. You'll need an iPad 2 or the newest generation one; an iPhone 4, or later can also be used,
Every Computer Dies In The End: Learn What Parts Can Fail, & What To Do About It
Most computers develop problems over time. Learning what they are and how you can deal with them is important if you don't want to be paying through the teeth for professional repairs. Don't worry though - that's exactly why we're here. Today I will present you with a list of things most likely to fail in a computer, how you might identify and fix the problem, and anything you can do to prevent it.
Create Stop Motion Animations With These 5 Fun Apps [iPhone & Android]
In terms of awesome creative things you can do with a lot of free time, stop motion animations rank right up there with the best. For kids and adults alike, being able to take inanimate objects and give them life through a motion picture is beyond words; but you insist on a word, how about magical? Here’s our round-up of the best stop motion apps for both iOS, and Android.
What's the Difference Between Windows 8 & Windows RT? [MakeUseOf Explains]
With the Surface tablet announcement a few weeks ago and the final release of Windows 8 looming ever closer, some people are understandably going to be confused about the various versions available. I'm here to set the record straight; at least, on the differences between Windows 8, and Windows RT. Read on to find out about the various differences, as well as the pros and cons of each system.
The Battle Of The iPhone Podcatchers
While we have many ways to consume blog content on any device, consuming podcasts is still woefully difficult. Thankfully, there are some apps that help to make things easier, so let's take a look at 4 "podcatcher apps" for the iPhone.
5 Cheap, Fun Hardware Kits You Can Use To Make Wonderful Machines
Like most kids, I had a electronics kit that taught the absolute basics; you could build something about as advanced as a radio or morse code device. Suffice to say, the fun didn't last long once you'd built all 5 projects. Nowadays though, advanced electronics hardware kits are affordable and the possibilities are infinite - all thanks to the wonder of microcontrollers.
10 Features You Can Expect To See In the Upcoming New iOS6
On Monday 11th June, Apple developers gathered in San Francisco for the start of a 4 day conference. The rest of the Apple world sat watching liveblogs, awaiting announcements of new products. Among those announcement was iOS6 - with some fairly major changes as well as the usual incremental upgrades.
Monetization Manual: Your No-Nonsense Guide To Making Money Blogging
Residual income streams from a website have motivated bloggers for years. I will share with you the knowledge and experience I've gained from years of making money blogging.
Use Tunlr to Enjoy Streaming Services Anywhere in the World
While American internet users can quite happily watch Hulu, the fact that I live in the UK means I can't. Likewise, BBC iPlayer is free for UK citizens; but if your physical location says America then you're out of luck buddy. It's a frustrating state of affairs, and we won't stand for it! Neither will Tunlr.net: a new free service that aims to remove region restrictions the world over by way of some magic DNS trickery.