January Roundup : Make Use Of Authors

January was a month in which we started to write stories based on MakeUseOf reader requests.   Do you have a story idea which you would like to see us write and publish on MakeUseOf?  If so, just send me an email at mark AT makeuseof.com and if the idea is a good one, I’ll pass it along to one of our writers and see if they are interested enough to start writing it.

Many of you have also been asking where the podcast is.   Don’t worry, the podcast is only on hiatus and will eventually return.  Jason is taking a well deserved extended holiday and we also decided to review the podcast and see what we could do to improve it, what new features we could add to it, what existing features should be tweaked or removed and so on.

And now, here are January’s stories, in case you missed any.   Onwards to February!

Jorge – GeekLad

Get A Free UK Phone Number & Make Free International Calls
Mount CD or DVD Image Files Virtually Using A Portable App
How To Create An Unattended Windows XP Disk
How To Reinstall Windows Without Losing Your Data
Make Microsoft Remote Desktop A Portable App
How To Allow Multiple Remote Desktop Connections on Vista
Encrypt Your Gmail Messages With FireGPG
How To Install Windows 7 on a Virtual Machine with VirtualBox

David – The 2.0 Life

8 Ways To Make Use Of Drop.io
5 Cool Windows Mobile Apps To Have On Your Phone
8 Easy Ways To Manage Tasks With Remember The Milk
3 Simple Ways To Send Big Files Over The Internet
6 Useful Last-Minute Booking Sites For Your Next Trip
5 Tools To Make Craigslist Even More Useful
6 Sites To Make Flying A Whole Lot Easier
3 Ways To Read The News A Little Differently
10 Websites To Make You A Photoshop Ninja

Simon

WeGame.com – YouTube for Video Games
The Best Sites To Download Free Music
3 Fun Games To Start The Year With A Bang
The Best Anime Sites On The Web
The Casual Collective – Fun Online Multiplayer Flash Games
VGRequirements – Find System Requirements For Video Games
Browse Safely & Avoid Viruses & Spyware With HHOTT
GotGame Rogue – A Full Featured In Game Internet Browser
Design Your Perfect Fighting Moves With Toribash

Tina

6 Cool Sites to Help You Keep New Year’s Resolutions In 2009
5 Ways To Clone & Copy Your Hard Drive
The 10 Most Stunning Photo Blogs
Express your Gratitude With Thanks-O-Meter
How to Set Up Message Filters In Thunderbird
Websites For Students: 10 Online Learning Tools
3 Cool Science Experiments You Can Do At Home
Travel The World With Hello Backpacker
3 Fun Avatar Creators To Represent You Online

Karl – Ask The Admin

Map Your FTP Drive As A Local Drive with NetDrive (Windows)
FileHippo Update Checker Keeps Your PC Software Updated
ToddlerKeys Makes Your Windows Computer Baby Friendly!
A Free Portable Alternative To Windows Task Scheduler
How To Repair Broken AVI Files That Won’t Play
How to Grab Only Files You Need from Online Zip File (Win)
Iconvert Converts Your Icon Files Across Multiple Platforms Online
Find A Lost Love Or Be A Part Time Detective With Pipl
Send A List Of Links As A Single URL With Link.In

Damien – Make Tech Easier

Snapter – Scan Your Documents Without A Scanner
SpeedCrunch – High Precision Freeware Desktop Calculator
Keep Your Passwords Secret On A Public Computer With KYPS
Ubuntu System Panel Gives Quick Access To Your Applications
How To Encrypt Files in Linux with eCryptfs
11 Useful Tools To Check, Clean & Optimize Your CSS File
Speed Up Your WordPress Blog With PHP Speedy
How To Easily Change Your Usplash Screen In Ubuntu
A Review Of The Internet Explorer 8 RC1 Browser

Saikat – The Things I Do

10 Quick Ways To Print Calendars Online
Check Your Spellings On The Fly With TinySpell (Windows)
How To Spell Check With The Firefox Dictionary
How To Create Your Own Fonts & Characters on Windows
5 Ways To Find Duplicate Image Files On Windows PC
Make Animated Characters Talk With Microsoft Agent Scripting Helper (Windows)
Make Your Own eBooks With eBook Hood
Watch YouTube Or Google Videos Inside Gmail Chat

Varun – Tech Crazy

How To Fix Missing DLL File Errors
How To Unlock Adobe PDF Files
How To Add Custom Functionality To Nautilus [Linux]
Map Online Service As a Network Drive with Gladinet (Windows)
Top Torrent Search Engines for All Torrent Downloaders
How To Make Your Own Windows Live CD
13 Plugins to Make Gedit a More Useful Text Editor [Linux]
5 How-To Videos Sites That Don’t Suck

Jackson

Focus On Quality By Doing Less On Your Mac
The Best Free Multi-Item Clipboard Managers for Mac
20 Websites Every Apple Fan Must Bookmark
Are Anti-Virus Programs Necessary For Mac?
Control iTunes Remotely with your Hands & Feet [Mac Only]
Add HTML, Random Quotes, iTunes Status & Images To Your Mail Signature [Mac Only]
4 Apps To Make Your Own Motivational Posters
Add Facebook Profile Pictures To Your Address Book [Mac Only]

T.J – The Windows Fix

Scuttle – Create Your Own Del.icio.us Site
Unfreeze Your Windows Computer With AntiFreeze
12 Great Ways of Spicing Up Your Windows Desktop
Securely Synchronize Your Browser Passwords With LastPass
Get Incredible Web & Image Suggestions With inSuggest
Two Very Useful Web Apps To Get The Most Out Of Netflix
4 Tools You Need To Predict The Death Of Your Hard Drive
Convert Your Old PC To Network Attached Storage With FreeNas

Ryan – Better Content

Let Your Geeky Kids Play Online With KidZui
How To Post To Blogger From Your Cell Phone
How To Keep Your Paypal Account Safe From Hackers
How to Remove False Information about Yourself on Internet
Go Ghost Hunting with Your Internet Browser
Convert Anything To PDF Format Using PDF995
3 Tools To Conduct Better Research On The Internet
15 Websites to Trace People Online

Jimmy – Mason Tech Beat

4 Torrenting Pitfalls To Avoid – And What To Do Instead
Let Vlingo Manage Your Major iPhone Tasks By Voice Control
Stop & Delete Spyware With Malwarebytes [Windows]
Safe Torrent Downloading with Vertor
SpywareBlaster Can Stop Spyware Before It Starts [Windows Only]

Joel – Grind Smart

ProgDVB – Watch FREE Satellite TV On Your PC
5 Super Easy Email Apps You Should Check
Improve Your Organizational Skills With To-Do DeskList
3 Firefox Add-Ons To Help You Blog More Easily
Instant Housecall Helps You Give Free Remote Support For A PC

Ann – Ann Smarty

The Most Fun Ways To Track Digg Stories
23 Sources Of User & Expert User Reviews
How To Safely Complain About Your Boss or Job Online
4 Extensions to Search & Organize Firefox Browsing History

James Withers – Associated Content

Use Your Cellphone To Send All Your Thoughts & Ideas To Jott
6 Reasons To Fire Your Event Planner & Use Google Instead
Assemble A No-Fuss Mailing List Using Zotero & Gmail
Turn Your Cellphone Into A Copy Machine

Kabir

5 Sites That Will Change The Way You Work With Digital Photos
13 Alternative Search Engines That Find What Google Can’t
How To Create Custom Themes For Firefox With Personas

Wendy – The Computer Lady

4 Online Calendars To Help You Get Organized
Create Cool Animated Avatars Using Your Webcam
Trade Books, CDs, & Video Games For Free With SwapTree

James Yeang – Friedbeef

7 Reasons Why You Should Try Out Windows Live Writer 2009
5 Ways To Reduce The Power Consumption Of Your Computer
How To Find The Best Hotel Deals Online

Matt – M4tt

Organize Your Party Online with Atomeet
Create Great Looking Excel & PowerPoint Charts With Chart Chooser

Tim – Twenty Ounce

Practice Your Vocabulary With VerbaLearn
How To Create Your Own IRC Chat Channel

Sam – SocialPost

4 Microblogging Platforms For Running Your Own Community
Combine and Synchronize Email Accounts with Fuser

Guy – Extreme IT In The Oil Patch

How To View Passwords Hidden Behind Asterisk Characters
Check Your IDE Transfer Mode To Make Your PC Faster

Milind – Smoking Apples

WEB DESIGN: 5 Sites To Get Inspiration and Ideas
7 Tools To Integrate Twitter With Your Wordpress Blog

Jason K – Third Error

Firefox Addons to Make Meebo (Online Chat) Even Better
How To Download Music From Deezer, Pandora And More

Jim – Different Perspective

How To Create Flickr Slideshows
Create Social Storylines With Capzles

Kyle – Lost In Technology

How To Create Privacy Policy & Disclaimer For Your Blog
Protect Your Privacy On P2P With Peer Guardian 2

Jeffry – Super Subconscious

How To Install Wordpress Blog Locally On Your PC
Cover Your Tracks & Be Anonymous On The Net With JAP

Moin – A New Morning

Split Big Files into Smaller Ones with GSplit

Ben – Tic Tech Toe

Top 4 Desktop Search Tools To Find That Elusive File

Grant – GrantBlog

Five Great Online To-Do Lists You Should Check Out

Sharninder – Geeky Ninja

Send & Receive Yahoo Email Using Your Desktop Email Client

Travis – TQuizzle

Stream High Quality Internet Radio Stations To Your Computer Or Mobile