For example let’s say I wanted my co-worker to work the late shift and I wanted to work the early shift everyday for a year. I know it sounds ridiculous but, to me it would be worth almost anything! So if I want it I would have to make it worth it for him.

Surely, I would get laughed at if I asked him to do it out of the kindness of his heart – now if I put $1000 behind my offer I think he would HAVE to take it – feel me?

So it is a pretty simple service that anyone can use. With or without a Paypal account.

Let’s take a look at it.

Point your browser to Paypal’s Do Stuff For Money site and watch the intro or hit the skip button to get right into it.

Now as you can see below, they are taking a play on money and letting you fill in the following fields:

• The Service You Want Done
• Your Name
• The Persons Name You Want To Do The Deed
• And Don’t Forget Your Offer!

After filling it out the form at the bottom of the note, you will see the note’s fields actually populate. It will look like this when you are done:

Then you hit “Send Offer” to actually send the request to your recipient. Remember that your offer may be posted to the site’s home page as an example of a “Past Offer” if PayPal sees it fit. So maybe, you shouldn’t use your significant other’s real full name when requesting sexual acts

After hitting “Send Offer” you will see this form:

Send the request either by email or Facebook. You will see this message when you have completed the steps:

The email will look like this:

Hey Yo’Mamma,

I just made you an offer at PayPal’s DoStuffForMoney to do a specific task for a specific price. Interested?
To view this offer, click here:  http://www.paypal-dostuffformoney.com/review/2710

Your industrious friend,
AskTheAdmin

PayPal’s DoStuffForMoney
“Because just asking isn’t always enough.”
Want to send your own offer? Visit www.paypal.com/dostuffformoney
Learn more about sending money with PayPal at www.paypal.com/sendmoney

Pretty neat eh? Got some crazy ideas about what you are going to do with this service? If so, leave them in the comments!

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• Students: Free Apps To Help You Excel at School [Mac only] (29)

Luckily, in this digital age, everybody can turn to their computer for help. There are many applications dedicated to improve your study skills, as well as the overall school experience.

And for those Mac-user students out there, here are five free tools to help you survive, and win.

1. Schoolhouse

The first thing to do to achieve a better academic grades is to organize everything into one easy-to-observe placeholder. Schoolhouse, which dubs itself as “The Homework Manager for The Mac“, is built to do just that. Developed by a student who still lives the life, you can expect this application to be as useful as it should be.

You start the application by creating a new term; give name to it and set the time range of the term.

Then you gradually add your assignments, tasks and notes to it. You could choose to view all the items by list, week or month, iCal style.

Schoolhouse also has the ability to link documents and media to the assignments for quick reference, preview all your grades during the term to help you monitor your performance, and automatically publish the assignments to the web so that anyone can subscribe to them.

If it sounds confusing, don’t worry — to help users getting started, this app come with a short PDF manual.

Schoolhouse is like a GTD tool for students, but that doesn’t mean that it couldn’t be useful for non-student users. I find that this app is very useful to manage my writing projects.

2. Genius

One of the biggest traumas of school that still carved in my memory was studying for tests. I was always a “math kind of guy”, so memorizing too many facts and dates always scared me.

I wish I’ve encountered Genius back then. This small app will help anybody with their study skills, particularly how to memorize things easier.

You start with a new blank window. Then, by clicking the ‘+’ button, you can add a question. Insert the answer next to the question.

After all of the questions and answers have been inserted into the Genius window, you can save the window and start the learning process. Click the green “Study” button, and Genius will pop up a window with a question and the answer while dimming out the other parts of the screen. It will ask you to memorize them.

Genius then will ask the question again and you have to write the answer. It will alternate between new facts and questions. Genius organizes your information and carefully chooses questions using an intelligent “spaced repetition” method that’s based on your past performance.

You can use Genius to study foreign language phrases, vocabulary words, historical events, legal definitions, formal speeches, marketing points, religious texts, or anything else you need to memorize.

3. ProVoc

It’s always nice to learn a new language. But there’s one obstacle that usually stops almost everybody from learning any language: memorizing the vocabularies.

ProVoc is a free vocabulary trainer that makes learning a language easy. Just download the application and the vocabulary pack(s), and you are ready to go. There is a mountain of vocabulary packs available ranging from German to Dutch to Polish to Russian to Arabic.

ProVoc has the ability to export to an iPod, so you can learn while on the road. You can also print flash cards, use the free Dashboard Widget, and listen to the audio pronunciation of the words.

4. Buddi

The word “student” is often being related to “starving”. This might be an indication that most students are not good in managing their finance.

To help with the monetary side, students (and everybody else) can rely on Buddi, a simple and free, open-source money management application. Buddi is Java-based so it can run on any operating system with Java environment installed.

With the financial problem tackled with the help of Buddi, students can focus more on the study.

5. Carbon Copy Cloner

“The dog ate my paper” is a classic excuse for not turning in your assignment. Of course, no teacher will buy it anymore. The modern alternative is “My hard drive crashed and ate everything inside, including my assignment.” But that is also not selling well anymore because we have backup utilities.

Carbon Copy Cloner is one free and powerful alternatives. You can “clone” everything to an external hard drive.

6. Bonus tool: G.ho.st

G.ho.st is one of the online alternatives for backing up your files. You will get 15 Gigabytes of free online storage on the system (and another additional 5GB for every friend who signs up from your invitation).

But G.ho.st is not just about file backup. It is a complete virtual, online operating system. So you will also get an office suite, games, browser and everything that you can expect from an operating system. Why will you need this? Simple — you can access your work and files from any place on earth with just a computer and an internet connection.

One of the new features that I like most is the ability to “side-load” files from web location directly to G.ho.st online storage, and the ability to share them with your friends.

The above link will direct you to the G.ho.st page with me as the referrer. If you don’t feel like donating an additional 5 Gigabytes to me, you can go directly to their site.

7. Everything else

There is still so many more applications that can help students to improve study skills and work better. MakeUseOf Directory profiled over 100 tools, covering everything from online dictionaries, chart makers and flash cards to sites for ordering food from take-aways located near the campus.

Don’t forget to check out articles about online tools for students such as:

- 10 Online Learning Tools
- 10 Web Tools To Save Your Butt In School
- Collaboration Suite For Teachers and Students

We’ve also discussed other free file hosts for free online storage services that can be used by students to keep and share their files.

If you could add more ideas to this short list, be sure to write it down using the comment below.

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Establish International Teenage Pen Pal Exchanges with ePaLs

While much of the Internet has advanced in terms of social networks and blogging communities, for some reason the world of international student dialog has fallen by the wayside. If you sift through the web for any advanced, high-quality resources for parents or teachers to connect their teen students with other teenage pen pals from around the world, you’ll quickly realize that the pickings are very slim. MakeUseOf has covered a number of great resources for adults to meet up with other adults, such as BuddyStumbler, or Simon’s review of 3 virtual worlds that are great for meeting friends. But when it comes to young students and teenagers, special privacy rules apply in order to protect the privacy and security of those students. Finally, a service has arrived that fills that important niche – and that service is ePals.

Connect with Teenage Pen Pals Through Blogs, Email and Other Means

Throughout the years, a number of amateur web designers attempted to create an online service where students in classrooms located anywhere in the world could establish a connection with students in other classrooms. Unfortunately, almost every site created had a major flaw. Most of them were horribly designed, others were lacking in functionality or features, and far too many of them allowed teenagers (even those under 16 years old) to post their contact information (such as their email address) directly onto the unprotected website. In this day and age, that kind of lack of privacy or security for under-aged kids is unacceptable. Thankfully, every classroom across the world can now turn to ePaLs for a pen pal communication portal that answers all of those concerns, and provides all of the features that students should have had access to long before now.

Unlike just about any other pen pal website out there, this website has a very clean design with advanced features everywhere you look. Students have access to forums, blogs, and teachers can initiate contact between students by searching for other classrooms that are participating in the ePaLs service. Finding a classroom is simple – all teachers have to do is click “Search by Map” under the “Connect” menu item. On the next page, the teacher is offered a world map, or a drop down box, to select what part of the world they would like to establish a line of communications with.

Clicking on any area of the world will allow you to drill down to a specific country. Once you click on a country or region, you’ll be able to view hundreds of listings created by teachers in other classrooms who are looking for an International exchange of ideas with other students. In many cases, classrooms are taking part in a collaborative project through ePaLs, and they’re seeking out additional classrooms to collaborate with. The listing profile below is one example of such a project.

In this case, students from many parts of the world are collaborating on a project related to global warming. If you believe that your student teenage pen pals would have something significant to add to any of the ongoing projects on ePaLs, then sign them up! In the process of collaborating with students who are from other cultures and hold, at times, very different belief systems – the students could end up learning far more valuable lessons than they could ever imagine.

The best feature of this service, by far, is the secure email system that it provides to all students who are part of the service. The email system is called “SchoolMail” and the features include monitoring and content control, privacy, free email accounts, virus protection – and best of all an instant 8-language translation feature, much like Gmail’s new translation feature that Varun reviewed recently.

Finally, a social network that not only encourages teenage pen pals to connect internationally, but it’s also a well designed portal that protects the safety and security of those students. Not only does this service allow students and schools to make full use of the power of social networking, but it also serves to move the global community one step further from border walls and conflict, and that much closer to a global community of online friends who respect each other.

Do you know of any other safe, high-quality pen pal websites for students? Did you ever have an International pen pal when you were in school? Share your opinion in the comments section below.

Image credits: Linda Cronin (away till Friday)

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You bet that anyone working on a large Microsoft Word document finds that irksome; especially when one needs to refer to a specific part of a document several times. So what do you do in this case? Open two instances of the same document?

MS Excel makes it easy with its longstanding feature to freeze rows and columns.

Could a similar idea be ‘imported’ into Word? I found the solution in Microsoft Word’s own team blog. And it was surprisingly… quite easy.

The requirement…

Let’s say there is a figure, a graph, a chart or just some text that needs to be referred to while plotting the remaining document. Instead of scrolling to and fro, we want to freeze that part while working on the remaining document.

The method…

1. Click on the View tab on MS Word 2007 ribbon menu.
2. Click on the Split Window icon and position the split bar where just below the part you want to keep static. The Split window feature allows you to view different sections of the same window at the same time.

   

3. With the document split into two panes, you can work on one pane while keeping the other pane static for reference. For instance, in the figure the top pane with the chart is kept static while the bottom pane becomes the work area.

   

4. Click on each pane and use the View commands to change the view or the layout. For instance, you can keep the top pane in the Print layout, while working on the Web layout in the bottom pane. We can pretty much treat the two panes as two separate windows.
5. The widow split can be changed back by clicking on the Remove Split icon or by double clicking on the split bar.

Simple needs sometimes beget simple solutions. It is the job of the View tab to make the job of screening a document easier. A feature used in the right place adds ‘very’ to the ‘easy’.

Did this tip help to solve a tiny little problem? If it did help to enhance your productivity, drop us a comment.

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Another factor is the hunger of people for information, knowledge and understanding. The faster, the better.

If you have ever been caught up in reading Wikipedia for hours on end, you’ll know what I mean. One page leads to the next, it never ends. For students, wikis can be an incrediby useful and compared to textbooks, they are a quick source of support and information.

Here is a list of three Wikis that may help boost your online studying:

DiRT – Digital Research Tools Wiki

DiRT contains a comprehensive collection of tools and resources that can be used by students or scholars in their research.

The focus is on humanities and social sciences. However, containing articles on brainstorming, how to communicate with colleagues, how to prepare screencasts or network with other researchers, this wiki covers tools and guidelines that may prove useful not only for researchers, but also for people with other career backgrounds and especially for students who are still exploring fields. Check it out and let us know what you think.

I’ve also written about other tools you can use for research besides wikis.

Medpedia

As the name suggests, Medpedia is a recently-launched wiki concerned with medical topics. The goal is to share “the advancing knowledge about health, medicine and the body among medical professionals and the general public.”

At this point, it contains hundreds of articles covering all types of human diseases and related medical background information. Nevertheless, the site states that you are not likely to find an article on the topic you are looking for. However, I did find everything I was looking for.

For med students, this Wiki can serve as a quick and easy way to research diseases and symptoms. Physicians and other experts are welcome to contribute to the site by editing pages or adding articles. Everyone else may suggest changes. All contributions will receive proper recognition.

If you’re a medical student and you are searching for the best websites to for medical information, check out Jackson’s article: The Best Reference Sites For Medical Students.

Textbook Revolution

Here we have a resource specifically for students or those who wish to learn new tricks.

Textbook Revolution features free educational materials on a wide variety of topics such as biology, earth sciences or world history.

The site is run by students and was founded in response to overpriced textbooks whose publishers only have profits in mind, rather than educational value.

If you know of high quality free textbooks, make an account with Textbook Revolution and share the resource. If you have used any of the listed books, provide your feedback and review them.

Aside from wikis, I’ve also listed 10 Tools For Online Learning in a previous article, check it out. Looking for a textbook? Check out TextBook Torrents: Torrent Directory for Text Books.

As a student, what is your favorite Wiki and how did you discover it? Share them with us!

Picture credits: xlucas

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A 10 Step Guide on How to Get Into Blocked Websites in School

It’s important every now and then to buck the system.  If you let these security admins have their way, you’ll be blocked from 50 percent of the most useful areas of the Internet. Social networks and email are now valuable and important communication tools. MakeUseOf has done an excellent job covering proxy servers, such as Mark’s article on some legitimate uses for proxies, Linda’s article on how to access blocked websites with proxies, or Ben’s article on 5 methods to bypass blocked sites.  However, in this simple guide, you’ll learn how to set up a simple proxy server on your own home PC that you can access from the school computer in order to use your home Internet access to browse the Internet from school.

Don’t worry, this isn’t some high-level installation guide. I am a Windows geek, but I’m writing this guide for those of you who are not computer scientists, but would still like to figure out the easiest way to get into blocked websites in school. So, let’s get started.

Step #1 – Determine Your IP Addresses

This guide assumes that you have a broadband Internet connection, and that you’re sitting behind a router. Your first order of business is to write down your computer’s local IP address within your home network, and then your router’s IP on the Internet (don’t worry, it’s ridiculously easy).

On the computer that you want to use as your home proxy server, open a command prompt (Start -> Run -> type cmd) and type in “ipconfig.”

In my case I have two Ethernet cards, but in your case you’ll likely just see one “IP Address.” Write it down. next, open up a web browser and connect to your router.

Step #2 – Configure Your Router For Port Forwarding

Go into your router admin panel (for Linksys you type the URL 192.168.1.1). You can check the IP address of your router by clicking on the “status” in the admin panel, or you can just visit a site like WhatIsMyIP.

Please note that to access your router you might need a username and password for it. If you don’t know user/pass details for your router chances are they are on default. You can lookup those on sites like CIRT or RouterPasswords.

Next, you’re going to “poke a hole” in your firewall by enabling port forwarding. For Linksys, this is typically found in the Gaming section under “Port Range Forward.” Just find “port forwarding” for your router and type in any nonstandard port number. In my case I just opened up ports 1085 to 1090 and forwarded it to the IP address that I just looked up using the “ipconfig” command. Save your changes and you’re halfway there!

Step #3: Turn Your Home PC Into a Proxy Server

Now that you’ve just told your router to tell all Internet requests on a specific port to go to your home PC, you’re going to configure your home PC to relay those HTTP requests out through your Internet account. You do this by installing a free proxy server. For your purposes here, FreeProxy by HandCraftedSoftware.org does the trick.  Download FreeProxy and install it to your home PC.

Open up the FreeProxy software and click on the “port.” Set the Protocol to HTTP Proxy, and make the port one that you specified in the router. When you click done, you are ready to start using your new proxy. However, every geek reading this is twitching and their faces are all turning red. Why? Well, you’ve just opened up a virtually unprotected (albeit non-standard) port to the open Internet, and you’re forwarding all HTTP requests through your own Internet connection.  That’s a major no-no.  While you might hate security weenies, when you’re talking about your home PC, a little security is a good thing. Enabling HTTP authentication is a good idea, as is the FreeProxy authentication option.

With these settings you can configure the proxy to authenticate with your Windows logon id/password, or you can set one within the FreeProxy software itself. Either option is definitely a good idea.

Step #4 – Start Your Proxy Service and Bypass Your School Filters

When you’re happy with all of the FreeProxy settings and security, all you have to do is start up the service and you’re good to go. However, in my case, to prove that the proxy is working properly, I enabled the logging feature.

Don’t enable logging normally, because it will consume disk space. However, it’s a great way to see how well the proxy is working (and whether or not your security is working properly).  When you’re ready, just click the “stop/start” option on the main screen.

Step #5 – Configure the Client Browser

To test out your new proxy server, go to a local library (tip: locate all nearby libraries with public library finder), open up a browser and select options and connections. Configure your LAN connection settings to use a proxy server.

Select manual proxy configuration, and make sure to put the IP address of your router into the “HTTP Proxy” field, and the port you configured into the “Port” field. Now when you use the Internet, you’ll notice that it’s slower. Images on pages will take a bit longer to load, as the data travels through your home PC, and then to your school PC where you’re browsing the net.

Having a slow connection is a small price to pay for being able to access any web page that you want through your own personal proxy that the school firewall won’t know to block. After browsing the net for a while through my own private proxy server, I went to the PC and checked the logs. Sure enough, it had logged every site that I’d visited while connected through the server.

FreeProxy works quickly and easily, and you’ll have access to a private Internet connection from school or work.

The Battle With Security Goons Rages On

Be aware that the security folks at your workplace or your school will not be content until you have lost all access to the outside Internet world. They will stop at nothing to prevent you from bypassing their firewall. Some corporations modify PC group policies so that users can’t even edit their connection settings. In other cases, they’ve blocked access to proxies that are identified by IP address by blocking all IP addresses in the URL field.  Regardless of their methods, while they continue to block you from checking your Facebook profile, or sending a shout-out to your friends on Twitter, they’ll have no choice but to eventually realize that there’s no harm in it.  IT departments across the world need to wake up and smell the coffee. The Internet is now a necessity – deal with it.

Do you have a favorite proxy server or free proxy software you use to bypass security filters? Share your opinions and tips in the comments section below.

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In these kinds of situations, sending a fax for free as quickly as possible would certainly be useful. In this article, we’re taking a look at 4 websites that let you send fax online and come with a free or trial version.

1. faxZERO

The first one on our list is faxZERO. faxZERO allows you to send two free faxes a day, to the United States or Canada, as long as they don’t contain more than three pages each. Plus there is an ad on the cover page. Out of all the services we tested, faxZERO is the easiest to use and the only one that didn’t require creating an account.

faxZERO also has a premium service that charges 1.99$ for each fax and limits the number of pages per fax at fifteen. If you need to send more than two faxes a day and you don’t want to pay for the premium service, you could consider deleting your browser cache and cookies and using another IP address, either through the TOR network, proxies or simply by resetting your router.

2. Qipit

Qipit is a more comprehensive service when compared to faxZERO. Instead of being just an online faxing service, Qipit helps you upload photos of documents, business cards or receipts from a mobile phone or digital camera, and improves the image quality through a patented technology called Realeyes3D. Next images can be emailed or faxed.

The images you upload are stored online on Qipit’s servers and are also accessible online via the website.

You can upload photos via MMS, email or directly from your computer using the web interface.

Once your document is on Qipit, you can choose to either view a PDF version of it, email the document or fax it. Qipit’s image optimization technology proved to be quite powerful. I never expected that a photo taken with a mobile phone camera could actually be put to use.

The great thing about Qipit is that it’s free:

Qipit is a free service; this includes sending domestic and international faxes. The costs that you have to bare are related to what your wireless carrier charges you if you are using Qipit with your mobile device. –Qipit FAQ.

3. ScanR

ScanR, a service similar to Qipit. The trial subscription gives you only one upload and fax, but the premium account is only 4,99$/month or 29,99$/year. ScanR features OCR (optical character recognition), a slightly better designed interface and sharing capability.

An interesting quote from their help pages suggest that some fax numbers are restricted:

scanR currently sends fax to most phone numbers in East Asia, North America and Western Europe. scanR may block certain premium phone numbers and countries[…] –ScanR Help

You get the same uploading capabilities, via email, MMS or web interface.

Another cool feature of Scanr is that you can use is to convert document pictures that were obtained using you cell phone camera to a properly formatted document. Very useful for things like page captures from library books and lecture notes.

eFax

Another faxing service is eFax. With eFax, you can also receive faxes, but unfortunately it requires you sign up for a 30 day trial using a credit card.

Know about other free tool to send fax online? Let us know in the comments.

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Unfortunately, there aren’t many decent paying jobs available for teens, especially in a rough economic climate. However, there are a number of websites that offer very easy money for teens online. For a teenager who is disciplined and responsible, online jobs are the easiest way to earn a significant wad of cash this summer.

Websites That Offer Easy Money for Teens

Teenagers today typically have an assortment of skills that are useful and valuable on the Internet. For teens who are skilled writers, earning money will be that much simpler. Additionally, there are also well paying jobs available for teenagers who know how to write web pages, write high-volume blogs or forum posts, or program in different Internet or desktop programming languages. However, finding those opportunities often involves wading through a mountain of garbage and scams. This article will provide teens with a guideline for the best opportunities on the web that offer easy money for teens.

1. Easy Income for Teens Who Can Write Articles

For any teen that has excellent writing skills, the Internet offers an abundance of cash just sitting there for the taking. Yes, it may take a full eight hours a day of good solid writing work – but what could be better than rolling out of bed at ten in the morning and going to work at home, in your pajamas? Sound too good to be true? Well put on your pajamas and check out these opportunities.

Associated Content

Associated Content is one of the most popular “user-generated content” sites that offers articles on just about every topic under the sun. 

At Associated Content, you can either “claim” topics from the assignment desk, or you can submit topics of your choosing. You can earn both upfront payments, as well as monthly payments based on traffic to your articles. Starting out, you might only earn $3 to $4 per article you write, plus $1 to $2 for traffic – but if you wrote 5 articles a day, that’s $400 a month, plus additional monthly royalty payments.

Not only does writing for a site like AC establish you as a writer, but if your writing is exceptional, AC will even consider you as a preferred content producer, and their clients may ofter you writing gigs that pay $20 and up for an article.

Helium

Helium is another user-generated content forum that pays you both upfront fees as well as traffic royalties.

Helium is unfortunately a bit cheaper with their payments, and they’ve established a bunch of loopholes you need to jump through. You can earn about $1 per article plus traffic payments. However, to earn those payments you have to spend time “rating” articles – a painful and tedious process of comparing two articles and picking the one that’s better. But with Helium, the real money is in the “marketplace” section, where you can compete on client writing gigs worth anywhere from $5 to $100 or more.

Triond

Triond is another content site that accepts your articles and pays you royalties for traffic.

Triond is one of the few sites known for actually sending authors the payouts they’ve earned, so it deserves mention here. However, if you want to use Triond to add an income stream to your summer writing, you’ll need to submit a very large quantity of articles that are well written with SEO in mind, and can attract a very large stream of readers from the search engines. If you can accomplish that, then yes – you can earn money from Triond.

2. Make Money Writing Reviews or Writing Letters

One of the most popular reasons many people use the Internet is to research products before buying them. This has turned “reviews” into one of the most popular types of content online. If you like writing up product reviews, then there are countless opportunities to earn income from your written opinions.

I’ve written for Shared Reviews (the image above) before, because they do legitimately pay their authors. However, I’ve also heard that Epinions is another great review site to earn money from.

Have your friends ever told you that you’re amazing at writing letters? Then consider spending your summer creating custom letters at Letter Rep. Yes, the website isn’t exactly the prettiest site in the world – but by submitting letters to custom letter requests that visitors submit to the site, you stand to earn $10 per letter. Not only that, future visitors to the site can also purchase your letters, making your pile of work a wonderful source of residual income, not only throughout the summer, but even throughout the school year.

3. Quick Money for Teen Programmers

If you are an ace programmer with any programming language, you could spend your summer doing programming freelance jobs for some real cash. However, when it comes to finding freelance work, you have to be very careful what websites you visit – as most of them are useless or flat out scams.

Scriptlance is about as far from a scam as you can get. At the beginning of my online writing career, I spent months sifting through the latest project postings there (there are dozens per hour), and bidding on the ones that matched my skill set. There’s writing work, but the bulk of Scriptlance is programming work. If you post a professionally written proposal to the person who posted the project, your chance of landing the gig will be excellent. Just working on scriptlance projects alone, you could easily earn several thousand dollars by the end of the summer.

Other legitimate freelancing sites (although none quite as big as Scriptlance), include Rent A Ghost Writer, Elance, and iFreelance. Be sure to watch for new updates often, and be the first to post a bid.

Work Hard, Be Persistent, and Rake in the Dough!

The key for teens to successfully earn a small fortune during summer break through online work is by staying persistent, even when it looks like you’ll never land that first gig. Keep posting your daily articles to the royalty paying websites, and bid on freelance projects constantly. Soon, you’ll find that you have more work than you know what to do with. If you can discipline yourself to work for at least eight hours straight for every weekday during the summer – you’ll save far more money than any of your friends could earn waiting tables or mowing lawns!

Have you ever earned money from any of the sites listed in this article? Are there any good opportunities missing? Share your opinion in the comments section below.W

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Here are ten amongst the many we can turn to for quick reading.

Thinkexist

I have met a lot of hardboiled eggs in my time, but you’re twenty minutes – Oscar Wilde

A compilation of 300,000 quotations by over 20,000 authors should be enough to last a lifetime. The quotations are arranged around tabbed Quotations (which give the top user rated quotations), Authors, Topics, Keywords (an alphabetical index) and a Contributors listing. Thinkexist has a search box which lets the user search by a word. Though a user needs to do a free registration to go beyond the first four pages.

You can suggest a revision, send a quote as an e-card, comment on a quotation or bookmark it. Thinkexist quotations can also be added to a website/blog through a copy-pasted HTML code. Get a daily quote in your email for free or get one printed on your T-shirt at a cost at the online store. Thinkexist takes the power of sayings quite seriously.

Quotes.net

I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse – from The Godfather

Could a website on quotations be named anything else? The site lists thousands of quotations which can be browsed, searched, heard and translated to several languages. A user can search quotes by Author, by Subject or from Movies.

A small pointer at the end of each quote takes it to its individual page where one can click the voice icon to hear it aloud, translate it through a dropdown, rate it or add it to your bibliography. Even though not all the translations are word perfect, this is a nice feature.

Quotations Book

Keep true to the dreams of your youth – Johann Friedrich Von Schiller

A very neat website with a community feel. Search for a quotation or pick it up by People or Tags. You can send it across to friends or discuss it at the website forum (quaintly called the Village Inn).

QOTD (Quotes of The Day) can be added at numerous places – websites, blogs, Facebook, Windows Vista Sidebar, Pageflakes, iGoogle, Netvibes and even as a plug-in on Skype. And of course, you can get it by daily email and feeds too.

Famous Quotes and Authors

The crisis of today is the joke of tomorrow – H. G. Wells

25,000 quotations from 6,700 sages is a large resource and all that is neatly arranged around the usual Topic, Author and Most Popular. If a website only has to be about the sayings of the wise and famous then this is it. But I wish they had a QOTD mailing list.

Litquotes

All things are ready, if our minds be so – William Shakespeare

Quotations gleaned from the great works of literature. Although Litquotes does not have a huge collection yet (about 1,900), its focus on literary quotations arranged around Topics, Book Titles and Authors gives us some gems.

The website also has a gift shop though for now it seems a bit limited in range.

Quotes Daddy

If you can’t convince them, confuse them – Harry S Truman

Another Web 2.0 site with a warm interface, it features over 1,000,000 quotations. It lets you add, share and even create your own quotes. The service is enhanced by customizable widgets and APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) which can be added to blogs and websites.

The one feature you might like to try out immediately is the random Gmail signature quote which inserts a quote as a Gmail signature using the Quotes Daddy feed.

Quotiki

Ah, beer. So many choices, and it makes so little difference – Bender Bending Rodriguez

Quotiki is a Wiki for quotations. And just like any Wiki you can submit, edit, rate and collate quotes.

As of date, the Wiki shows a collection of 1,300+ quotes and rising. The site is typically simplistic with a search box and tabs which allows you to find quotes by Sources, People, Tag and Users.

Quotes4all

When women go wrong, men go right after them – Mae West

Surprisingly, this site does not announce itself by its name on the landing page. There’s just a random quote and the author photo. Quotations can be narrowed down by Authors, Topics, Voting or a Random choice. There is an Animation section which simply are Java applets displaying scrolling quotes.

The one feature I find handy is in the Preferences section – I can filter the quotes by size (small, medium or large). You can opt for a mailing list to get a QOTD and also use the Tools section to integrate quotations with your site, iMac dashboard or the iGoogle page.

Quotegasm

Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead – Benjamin Franklin

A user-powered quotations site with a very simple but easygoing interface. Still at a nascent stage, it is advertised as the YouTube for quotes as it lets users put in new quote, edit existing quotes as well as rate, review, share, categorize, and bookmark quotes. That means you have to register which is a five second process.

Quotag

At Google, we have a saying: launch early and iterate – Google

This web service is not a straight out quotations site. It is in fact a service which allows us to ‘save, manage and share the most remarkable quotes people find while browsing the net.’ A simple bookmarklet allows us to mark the text in the browser, add tags and include it in our Quotag account for sharing. All user harvested quotes can be read by the tags. One can login to the site using a Google account. iPhone users have it good as they can import the quotations and read them on the device.

These 10 websites should be more than enough to give us a glut of great quotes.  Or do you know of any other good quotation websites? If so then speak out in the comments below.

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Some books are available in their entirety, some have limited previews and the others have no previews at all. It so happens that often one needs only a topic or two from a specific book. While the Internet is a good source and has plenty of free ebook sites, I have quite often seen people trying (unsuccessfully of course) to copy-paste, save images or take screen shots of Google Book search results. In this post I am going to show you how to download books from Google Books search.

So, if you have been in a similar situation where you badly wanted a page or two of the book, try the Google Books Downloader.

• Just download, extract and run the application (make sure you have .NET 3.5 on your system).



• Go to the Google Books page for the book you want to download.



• Copy and paste the book code of the book you want to download.
• Click the “check” button to check if GBD finds the required book and returns the available pages.
• Click the “download entire book” button. GBD will now download the book. The number of pages downloaded will depend on the number of pages that are available. If the entire book is available like those in the public domain then GBD will download the entire book.



• Once the download has completed, you can save the book as a PDF file by clicking on the “Save Book” button.

Now read the book! Of course you can use the application to download books that were not supposed to be downloaded. So you are advised to download the books with caution and at your own discretion. The download takes quite some time to complete so you may have to wait a little before you can reap the benefits of a downloaded book!

Do you like to read public domain books? Did you ever try download books from Google Books search result page previously? How did you do it? Share with us in the comments!

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Bookcrossing in this post refers to exchanging the books you have for books you want. However, there also is a website called BookCrossing that follows quite a different strategy. You sign up with BookCrossing, register the books you would like to give away, print the ID for each book, put it into the books and set them free in a public place. The lucky finder will eventually report your book using its ID and post a comment about how he liked it. Likewise, you may find a book that was registered at BookCrossing and share your feedback using its ID.

Now let’s look at the sites that allow you to swap items.

Title Trader

Through this website you can swap books, DVDs or CDs with people around the world.

To participate you sign up and create a list of the things you are offering. This procedure is quick and easy as the site supports ISBN numbers to identify items. Then you have to wait until someone is interested in one of your items.

Once someone has received an item you sent them, you receive a request credit which you can trade in for an item you want from somebody else. The service is free, but you cover the postage.

There are two more ways you can earn request points. First of all you can purchase them. Secondly, you receive points for referring new, active members.

BookMooch

BookMooch works very much like TitleTrader, but it’s limited to books. It’s a multilingual, community-driven site that works based on a point system.

The site supports English, Deutsch, Español, Français, Italiano, Japanese, and Português and is available to anyone around the world. Points are earned by providing someone with the book they want and these points can be spent by requesting and receiving a book you want. The only fee you pay is the postage to send books.

Using the MoochBar browser toolbar (IE, Firefox, Opera, Safari, OmnniWeb) you can search books on Amazon and then see if they are available for trade on BookMooch.

SwitchPlanet

This site allows to trade DVDs, CDs, video games and books. The mission is to reduce environmental waste, help those who need it most and support arts/culture and education.

Much like Title Trader and BookMooch, SwitchPlanet works based on a point or currency system and adds the community aspect. Users can create profiles, and join groups. Also, SwitchPlanet hopes to collect donations from its members. This money will be used to help needy families.

Textbook Revolt

Textbook Revolt is made for students around the world who cannot afford to buy new college textbooks all the time.

The limit is that you need a valid .edu address to register. However, if you are a student, would like to participate, but don’t have such an eMail address, you can contact the site owners and request to be added.

Other than that, Textbook Revolt works very similar to the sites described above. Through Twitter you can keep track of all new books listed or requested.

Read It Swap It & Swapz

This is a service for people from the UK to exchange books.

Books are swapped between two users, which eliminates the necessity of credits. If you find an item on someone’s list, you can ask them to swap with you. If there is nothing on your list they like, they can deny to swap with you and you’ll have to find somebody else to swap with.

Swapz is a similar page. It’s also limited to residents of the UK. However, you can exchange any item you have or want including collectibles, instruments, stamps or clothes.

Swaptree & PaperBack Swap

Recently, Wendy wrote about a site through which US residents can swap books, CDs, DVDs and video games for free.

Items are listed based on their ISBN numbers and users can add a short description. Like on Read It Swap It, users are matched for swapping an item.

PaperBack Swap is a club for swapping books that is also limited to US residents.

The cool thing about this site is that books are sent using a wrap that contains all essential information, like address and sender details. The book can simply be wrapped into this printed piece of paper, which simplifies the packing and labeling process.

The advantage of sites limited to residents of a specific country is that postage costs remain predictable for all members.

SwapAce

SwapAce allows you to swap, buy or sell items and meet members. The site supports any type of item, such as electronics, services and of course books.

Users can use the system to barter and negotiate for items or services. This makes the site extremely flexible.

Neighborrow

Finally, here is a page that makes anything possible.

Join neighBORROW hoods and trade items within these groups. They can be made up of strangers around the world or your personal neighbors, friends or students from your campus. You can borrow, lend, sell, buy or trade anything with whomever you like.

Are you familiar with any other good websites to swap books, movies and games? Remember the story of the guy that started swapping stuff online and ended up with a house? What was your best swap? Let us know in comments

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What Evernote actually does is offer you essentially a blank slate of information capture and management tools, that allows you to use their product for a huge number of interesting and different things.

Some people use it as their GTD system, some as a way of storing business cards, and any number of things you could think of.

Me? I’ve found seven great ways that Evernote can help my life, and make it simpler and more efficient. Here they are, in no particular order:

Bookmark Manager

One of the best features about Evernote is the Web clipper. Using the desktop version, or a Firefox extension, you can add selections of pages, or even entire Web pages, into Evernote with only a couple of clicks. This, for all intents and purposes, has completely replaced my need for a bookmarking service. Any page I want just gets clipped into my Evernote inbox, and then I can deal with it there.

Evernote actually has most of the features of a good bookmarking service: you can tag bookmarks, search them, and even send them to someone else. Also, you can edit the text of them, so your bookmark contains only the bit you want, along with the URL. Simple, easy, and one less application for me to install.

File Backup

This is the only use of Evernote that differs whether or not you pay for an Evernote Premium Account ($5/month or $40/year, and well worth it). If you’re using the free version, you can use Evernote as a place to store all your pictures, audio, and PDFs. In itself, that’s pretty great, and a nice way to back things up (especially if you’re a fan of backing up your Word Documents to the universally-recognized PDFs, which I am). If you upgrade to Premium, you’ll be able to sync literally any kind of file you can think of (up to 25MB per file, so no movies) to all your computers and desktops.

This is yet another application – online backup – that Evernote does really well. All your files are in sync at all times, and can be accessed from anywhere. Make a change to a file in Evernote, and the changes are automatically saved in the Evernote note. You can email files, view or edit them from anywhere, and always be sure that your precious files are safe.

Photo Library

This is one of the things Evernote did from the beginning that sold me. You can take a picture (cell phone, camera, whatever), and send or upload it to Evernote. Evernote then does a bunch of cool things with your photos: it displays them in an attractive and easy-to-see way, and even recognizes text in your images through its high-powered recognition technology. You can organize and tag your pictures, share them with friends, and have them accessible from anywhere.

This is perfect for family outings and office parties, when everyone wants a copy of that great picture you took. Just add it into Evernote, share the note with everyone, and let them go nuts!

Student Organizer

As a student myself, Evernote’s usefulness exploded when I figured out how to use it for my school work. Now, all my notes and handouts go into Evernote, where I can organize them, tag them, edit them, and view them any time I want. Now, wherever I am, I can be reading or studying my notes, or getting ahead on class reading.

Also, if I need a great quote or need to remember a name of some Aztec ruler, I can search easily through my notes to find exactly what I’m looking for, instead of flipping through a massive pile of papers to try and get what I’m looking for. I can even take pictures of whiteboards or drawings, and Evernote makes them searchable for me.

“Mind Like Water”

Evernote’s most basic use is this one: easily and quickly getting everything out of your head. Evernote has versions for the Web, Windows, Mac, iPhone, Windows Mobile, and even a portable version to go on a thumb drive. You can add voice notes, image notes, or text notes through any of these clients, and organize them as you wish. It’s about as ubiquitous as a capture tool can be, and makes getting things out of your head a lot easier.

If you want to, Evernote can become a full-blown productivity system (a quick Google search will give you ways other people do it). Personally, I use it in conjunction with Remember the Milk, and it’s a great way to get everything in my head out of it, and into my trusted productivity system.

Shopping Helper

Do you buy things? Evernote can help. Next time you’re out, and see something you want, snap a picture of it. Or, when you run out of orange juice, either add it to your Evernote grocery list, or take a picture. You’ll have a constantly-updated, easy to access list of things you want and need.

Evernote is perfect for keeping Birthday and Christmas lists, ideas for things to get, price lists, grocery lists, and any manner of other things. When you’re out, all you need is Evernote, and you’ll never forget anything you need. Ever.

Paperless Life

I’ve recently started taking pictures or scanning all of my receipts. It’s a great way to keep track of where my money goes. I’m also starting to put magazine clippings into Evernote, as well as personal notes, bills, and the like. They all become searchable and organized, and are much more useful in Evernote than just sitting around in piles in my room. My life is becoming increasingly paperless, and all the stuff I accumulate is increasingly easy to manage, thanks to Evernote.

How do you use Evernote? Share it with us!

Photo Credit: MattGrommes

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Skip the hassle, and archive information the easy way. Just flip out your cellphone and take a few snapshots. You can refer to them later, they’re easy to delete, & they will cost you next to nothing.

In a Rush

Imagine you’re at the local library scrambling to complete a research project at the last minute.  However, a voice over the intercom has just informed you that the library will be closing in 15 minutes. You’ve found some solid reference material, but you don’t have any change to use in the Xerox machine. Plus, you need to copy 20 or 30 pages of material. All you’ve got in your pocket is a cellphone. Don’t worry. Just find a good light source and use your phone’s camera!

Clarity of Photos

Clarity is a must whenever you reproduce a document. If you’ve ever made a copy on a machine that’s low on toner, then you know exactly how important clarity is to your reproductions.

Without clarity, your documents are rendered worthless.

Therefore, it is essential that you take photos from an optimal distance when using your cell phone as a copy machine. In my experience, I can safely take photos of half of a page of material without the words on the page looking blurred or unreadable.

Also, I recommend that you take a snapshot at an angle where no shadow will be cast over a page, espcially when words are difficult to read close to a spine of a book.  Additionally, pages will be easier to read later if you mark the divide of the page with your thumb or any other available marker, so that you will know where one photo’s information picks up from the last.

Space for Memory

Unless you use a state-of-the-art phone, memory space is something of a concern if you attempt to convert your cell phone into a copy machine. I recommend that you make a habit of regularly transferring your pictures to your P.C. (which I’ll discuss in a moment). This will free up space, so that you will always have room to take random photos, as well as to document more of your research.

Another option is to buy a digital memory card which can be slotted into your phone (but obviously your phone would need to be built to accept memory cards, which a lot of the new phones do these days).

You never know what will catch your eye next, so it’s best to be on the ready.

Transferring to Computer

Ideally, your cell is already able to connect to the internet, as an iPhone is able to do.

However, if you are a pauper, viable options are still available to enable you to transfer your pics.

While many cell phones give you the option to email files, using this feature may be more costly than a Xerox machine would have been in the first place.

Some phones are equipped with a USB port, and it is possible to upload files from your phone to your computer with the aid of a USB cable.  This is fine if you don’t mind keeping track of the cable.

However, a more satisfying option may be to invest in bluetooth software, which will permit you to link your cellphone up to your computer and to wirelessly transfer your files. This software may cost $25.00 or $30.00, but it will definitely be worth the investment when you consider its superiority alongside of the other alternatives I’ve mentioned.

Online Storage

Photobucket allows you to upload pics from your cellphone directly into an album in your Photobucket account.  Flickr offers a similar service.

If however, you’re only using your photos for reference purposes, you may want to place them in Skydrive, and delete them when you’re finished with your research.

As always, before uploading pics, be aware of any per-picture charges imposed by your cellphone provider.

Save Time & Money

While printing your images at home will still cost you the price of printer ink, you can take measures to defray these costs. For example, you can crop your pics, then copy & paste several cropped images onto a single page. Another easy way to save money when printing is to refill printer cartridges instead of buying new ones (periodically, Walgreens even offers to refill printer ink for free).

Nevertheless, even if you fail to save money on the ink, you’ll still be saving yourself time.

For an extra thrill, clip your pics into Evernote (in cahoots with Eye-Fi to create an instant photographic memory) and you can make text within your photos searchable.

Have Even Better Ideas?

How do you use your cell phone to save time or money? What other uses do you use your cellphone camera for? Which online application is most useful for handling your uploads?

Let us know what you think. We’re always eager to follow up on new trends, so don’t be afraid to be a new trendsetter!

Photo Credits : Mac Funamizu, lastyearsgirl, lincolnblues and JulianBleeker

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Of course not. OK, science is indeed complicated and not always easy to grasp. But that actually makes it exciting since it offers a challenge. And finally, you’re already taking advantage of many reactions based on scientific research at your home. There is soap (a.k.a shampoo, detergent, dish liquid), the vapor-compression cycle (a.k.a refrigerator or freezer), and electricity (a.k.a electrical light, internet, electronic devices).

Here are the resources for 3 fun DIY science experiments that you can easily do at home.

1. Frozen Bubbles

The sad thing about soap bubbles is that they don’t last very long. Here is an idea how you can preserve them for a bit, at least if it’s cold enough outside.

First you need to create a beautiful soap bubble and then you need to keep it alive long enough for it to freeze. That can be done out in the cold or – if you have access to it – with the help of dry ice. If you have space in your freezer that might work as well.

Bubbles

You’ll find everything about soap bubbles, how they work, why they shine in all colors of the rainbow, and the best recipes on this page.

Dry Ice Bubbles

At About.com you’ll learn how to best freeze your bubbles using liquid nitrogen.

Cold Bubbles

At HowStuffWorks they tell you how to do it with just cold weather.

2. Extract Your DNA

DNA is the hard drive of life. So much information is stored in such a simple structure and you have massive amounts of it in your body. Did you know that the total length of all the DNA in your body lined out to a single string would suffice to make 70 trips from the earth to the sun and back?

Instructions

This site has very simple instructions on how you can extract DNA from your cheeks. It doesn’t hurt – promise!

What this will not show you is a single string of DNA, not even several, at least you won’t be able to identify them as such. What you will see will be jelly like, maybe just a clump of it. But that is your precipitated DNA which was released from the nuclei of your own cells. As a control you can do the same procedure just with tap water that didn’t touch your mouth. The control should lack the jelly things.

If you find this experiment too simple with way too little details, check out the instructions for How to Extract DNA from Anything Living at the Genetic Science Learning Center of the University of Utah.

It’s the same principle of course, but the article provides more background information and requires more material.

3. Make Light with Fruit

Fruit is not only healthy, they can also be used to produce electricity and light. Don’t believe it? Well…

Fruit Battery

Again, About.com shows how it’s done. This requires a bit more than regular household articles. You’ll need not only some fruit, but also copper, zinc (e.g. nails) and a small light bulb.

If these experiments excite you, check out the following websites for more.

The Science Explorer

Science Toys

At Home Astronomy

So what is your favorite DIY science experiment? What do you find fascinating in or about science?

Image credits: rometree, Zanastardust, clix, sardinelly

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Thus I was rather irritated when I heard that my dad had to complete training for his job to learn new things. I remember I asked him when one would be done learning and the essence of what he said was of course never. Bummer!

Some 20 years later I’m still a student and I know I’ll never get done learning. So hang in there and enjoy it! Here are my favorite websites for students.

1. Chemistry

Dynamic Periodic Table

This periodic table helps in keeping elements apart. You can highlight them by their aggregate state (solid, liquid, gas, unknown) or group (nonmetals with subgroups and metals with subgroups). Clicking on an element or group will launch a separate window with the matching Wikipedia article.

Periodic Table of the Elements

This periodic table is more compact than the previous one and it’s great for a quick summary for each element. As can be seen in the screenshot below, all elements are represented by a matching image and clicking on it launches a small information window.

2. Biology

Foldit

Foldit is not really a tool you’ll need for your everyday biology class. BUT it can help you understand something about proteins AND help scientists at the same time. Basically it’s a game and it’s your task to build protein molecules based on previously described structures.

Simon has reviewed the tool in detail in his article Foldit – Solve Puzzles for Science.

3. Mathematics

Mathway

This is an online tool that will help solve your maths challenges. Just enter the “problem statement”, select a subject and hit solve for the solution including the steps taken to get there.

Varun previously wrote about Mathway – A Step By Step Mathematics Problems Solver.

SpeedCrunch (Windows, Mac, Linux)

Unlike Mathway, this is a very powerful desktop calculator that contains a ton of helpful libraries for various maths problems.

Damien just recently introduced this tool in all its depth, so check out his piece SpeedCrunch – High Precision Freeware Desktop Calculator.

4. Languages

LiveMocha

This is a social network for learning languages. While you are helping others to improve their skills in your native language, they may help you improve a foreign language you are struggling with. They may even help you with your French homework.

Saikat wrote a thorough review of LiveMocha – Small The Coffee & Learn The Lingo.

VerbaLearn

With VerbaLearn you can improve your English vocabulary with online study sessions. The tool learns with you, keeping a record of your progress and weaknesses. You can listen to your study list offline to better memorize the words and practice the pronunciation and online you can read examples of how the word is being used.

The tool was recently introduced by Tim: Practice Your Vocabulary With VerbaLearn.

Bullfighter (MS Word and Powerpoint plugin)

Similar To VerbaLearn, this tool is designed to improve your use of the English language. The tool will analyze your texts for jargon. The higher your Bull Composite score, the higher the chance people will actually understand what you are trying to say.

James has written about Bullfighter – Simplify Your Writing & Gain Results.

5. Literature

wePapers

On this website people can share and expand their knowledge for free. You can read the material others have provided and upload your own papers to contribute to the community.

Zotero (Firefox extension)

When composing an assignment or a thesis you have to reveal your sources. Zotero is a Firefox extension that can help you keep track of your references and organize a citation bibliography for Open Office or MS Word documents.

Mixed Literature Resources

Struggling to find cheap college text books? These resources collected by Nick may help: The Top 5 Sites To Find Your College Textbooks. Are you a medical student who’s looking for resources online? Have a look through Jackson’s list of The Best Reference Sites For Medical Students. Maybe you need to improve your writing and homework? I wrote about 7 Online Resources To Help You Improve Your Writing and Where To Research Material For Your Homework.

Finally, you may also find Ken’s article on 10+ Web Tools To Save Your Butt In School very helpful.

How do you use the internet to get through school?

Picture credits: amr_safey

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• SpeedCrunch – High Precision Freeware Desktop Calculator (16)
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SpeedCrunch is a high precision and powerful freeware desktop calculator for Windows, Mac and Linux. It is easy to use and is loaded with plenty of useful features and functions (as in mathematics functions).

Useful libraries

SpeedCrunch comes loaded with various libraries that you can use immediately:

Math book – A small library that contains the formula for 2D/3D objects and quadratic equations.

Constants library – If you have difficulties remembering the value for atomic mass or astronomical units, don’t worry, it is all documented in the constants library. This library contains most of the constant values you will ever need.

Functions – provides you with access to frequently used functions such as abs, acos, bin etc.

Ease of use

There are plenty of features that make SpeedCrunch very user-friendly and very easy to use. First, there is the evaluate-as-you-type feature that calculates the result when you are typing the expression. Even before you press Enter, the result may already appear in the status bar.

SpeedCrunch also supports smart correction and automatic completion so you can type and evaluate your mathematical expression quickly and accurately. In the event that you typed the wrong expression, there is the syntax highlighting that highlights the error and prompts you to make the correction.

Big memory bank

For advanced calculation, you will need to use variables to hold calculation results. SpeedCrunch allows you to define as many variables as you want. There are also pre-defined variables such as pi that you can use off- hand.

In term of precision, SpeedCrunch is able to hold up to 50 decimals of precision. When dealing with intense and complex calculation, this high precision ensures that you get less rounding errors in the end.

In addition, SpeedCrunch records all your calculations and place them in its history. Whenever you need to re-enter the same expression, simply load up the history panel and select the one that you entered previously. If you are doing a lot of intense calculations, this is going to be very helpful.

Other features

In access of the above features, SpeedCrunch allows you to save your session so that you can resume from where you stopped the last time. Your history and variables will be intact the next time you load up the session.

An extra feature that plays no part in the mathematical calculations, but is still useful, is the language localization. In fact, SpeedCrunch supports 22 languages and you can switch to your favorite language easily.

SpeedCrunch in Chinese

Conclusion

If you are looking for a desktop calculator to handle complex mathematical calculations, SpeedCrunch would make a good choice. One thing that it is missing is the lack of a graphing ability for people to plot graphs and perform graphical calculations. Other than that, I have no complaints about this app.

Do you know of a similar better app?

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For those of us who do not know excrement from a brand of shoe polish, especially students studying for the ACT, SAT, or GRE, VerbaLearn makes for an invaluable tool to practice your vocabulary.

Before you sign up, you may indicate which test you are studying for, if any, and then challenge yourself with a quick quiz on the meanings of certain words. VerbaLearn automatically starts building up your first word list based on incorrect answers or answers which you indicate were just guesses. Once you get about ten words in, you’re ready to sign up (it’s free) and continue your first course. The initial course is made up of 50 words however you will be dealing with 10-20 words at a time, depending on an account option you choose.

Once you have built a list, you can take vocabulary quiz with fill-in-the-blank questions as well as definitions. Many of these questions will be repeated until the system is sure that you have a particular word down correctly. Once you have mastered some words, you will be encouraged to build another study list. Whether or not you get a quiz question correct, you may review the correct answer anytime.

If you prefer to learn by listening, you may download a generated MP3 file with the study list on which you need to work. This can be a direct download or, for folks on the go, via a podcast feed.

As I’m sure you can see from the screenshot below, I still have plenty of words to work on. The basic VerbaLearn service is free for all. If I was a student, my parents or another sponsor could add money to my VerbaLearn2Earn account, giving me a “cash card” which could be loaded with a small amount for each word I successfully learn. There’s no better incentive than cash; I think I just may try this on my own son.

What are your favorite sites for free learning? What kind of incentives work for the kids in your life? Please let us know in the comments.

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To help you all with the next semester, I’ve decided to make a list of extremely helpful web tools that will make school easier for all the struggling students out there.

Enjoy, and good luck with the new semester.

1. PinkMonkey / Shmoop

Everyone already knows about Sparknotes and Cliffnotes, but there are very few who have used PinkMonkey. PinkMonkey is very much like Sparknotes and Cliffnotes, except it seems to me that it has slightly more detailed summaries which is always nice. Pinkmonkey is just another resource for book notes.

Another website you’ll like is Shmoop. It’s currently in Beta, and doesn’t have a large selection of books as the other websites. However, it does include a section that I absolutely love. Instead of just stating the theme and symbol of a book, Shmoop gives a list of quotes supporting the theme. Perfect for a thesis paper.

Similar Sites: Sparknotes, Cliffnotes, LitSum, GradeSaver, Bookrags

2. BibMe

One of the things I hate most about school is that for every paper you turn in, professors insist that you cite your sources. The problem I had was that it took too long to cite my sources. My essay would take about 40 minutes to write, and my bibliography would take two hours.

Luckily for you, there are a lot of websites that will put together a bibliography for you.

My favorite site for this is BibMe. It’s extremely easy to use, and supports books, magazines, websites, newspapers, and much more. Just input a little info about your source, and BibMe will cite it for you. After adding all your books, you can download the bibliography. Easy to use, and works wonderfully.

Similar Sites: EasyBib andOttobib.

3. FlashCardExchange

Known as the “worlds largest flashcard library”, FlashCardExchange is the best place to study for tests. You can create your own Flash Cards or study using the hundreds of pre-made flashcard sets. Hundreds of flash cards covering a variety of different subjects, it’s the first place you should go to when you need to study or review.

Similar Sites: Quizlet, StudyStack

4.TadaLists

A great way to make sure you do well in school is to make sure you do all your homework. For an unorganized person such as myself, it’s hard to remember all the things that are due, so I find it useful to use simple lists like TadaLists to keep track of what I need to do. I personally like TadaLists because it’s so simple, and I can use it on my iPhone.

Similar Sites: See the MakeUseOf list of To-Do lists.

5. LectureFox

All you need to get a head start in college is to get a good understanding of the subject you’re taking, or see what type of topics are covered in a course. It’s really great that many colleges provide free lectures for you to listen to/download as this helps tremendously with the understanding of the topic. LectureFox is a great place to go for these free university lectures. Choose a category and see a list of lectures from various colleges, including MIT and Yale.

Similar Sites: Check out iTunes U for more free lectures

6. RateMyProfessor

RateMyProfessor is a self explanatory website. Students can rate your professors, and help out new students by showing them the strengths and weaknesses of each professor. This may not be helpful this semester if you’re not transferring classes, but this website can seriously help you out when you’re choosing what courses to take. RateMyTeachers has a similar idea, although it’s for K-12 teachers.

7. PrintablePaper

You have a paper due. You’ve waited until the last day to get started. It has to be handwritten. You take a look into your backpack….no paper. You take a look at the clock on the wall…3:00am. Stores are closed. If you didn’t have access to PrintablePaper, you’d be pretty screwed. With PrintablePaper, you never have to worry about running out of “special” paper. As long as you have a printer, you can print graph paper, lined paper, and even Cornell paper. Download 400+ different papers, all for free. A must for all students.

Similar Sites: If PrintablePaper isn’t enough, go make your own in Photoshop.

8. BookFinder

Schools scam us out of too much money. You spend hundreds to get a new book each semester, and you only use it for a few weeks. With BookFinder, you’ll get to save hundreds on textbooks. Great website for the half starved students.

Also check out Nick’s article on where to find cheap textbooks.

Similar Sites: Half

9. Evernote

Notes, notes, notes. Teachers tell you to do it all the time. Students never listen. School is going to be a lot easier if you can take good notes. Takes notes about lectures, and keep track of everything you learn all year. The better your notes, the better you’ll do on the finals. Evernote is my favorite note taking application, and it’s even better now that it’s out of private beta. Get notes synced to the desktop, the web, and even your iPhone.

Check out Shankar’s review of Evernote for more information.

Similar Sites: Ubernote, NoteSake

10. Plagiarism Detection

Plagiarism is a huge issue in colleges and even in high school. While teachers get access to fee based sites like TurnItIn, students can still check their work with free tools to make sure they haven’t plagiarized too much. Plagiarism Detection is a free tool that you need to signup to use. Then you can browse or copy/paste your work into the box. It then checks with Google to see if there is anything else similar.

Of course, if you wrote the whole thing yourself then you have nothing to worry about right? Use this tool to double check that you did not copy too much from other places. (Also, if you’re a blogger, use this to track down those article stealers.)

Similar Sites: Plagiarism Checker, Copyscape (Need to pay to get full features)

Bonus: 11. File Destructor

File Destructor has been mentioned before by Aibek, and is a tool that should only be used for emergencies. Basically, it’s a tool that creates a fake file that you can send to your teachers. You can choose the extension as well as the size of the file, and when your professor can’t open the file up, you can just blame it on your computer. Of course, many teachers are starting to not accept these excuses, so be careful when using this. This web tool allows you to spend hours browsing MakeUseOf instead of working on that stupid project.

I hope you all got something out of this list of useful web tools for school. I know there are a lot of students out there, and I know I’ve missed a lot of great web tools. So, if you know any other great websites that you use to help you in school, be sure to leave a comment and tell me all about it. And again, good luck next semester.

Image Source : CCarlstead

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