Looking through the Android Market, I have come to the conclusion that there is a lot of crap in there (busty bikini girls washing your Android screen with soap and water, while grinning insanely at you?) but there are also a lot of gems.   Finding those gems can be really difficult, unless you know exactly what you are looking for.  I have found things simply by thinking to myself “what would be useful to me?   What do I need on a phone?”.   Busty bikini girls are definately not on that list but the following items are.

So let’s start once again at looking at some of the things you should consider installing on your Droid.

PicSay

I have an excellent camera on my phone but nevertheless, some photos just don’t come out the way I want them to.   In the absence of an official Photoshop app for the Android, PicSay is a suitable alternative in the meantime.

As well as being able to alter the photo in terms of contrast, brightness and many more (see the screenshot to the left for examples), you can also add fun special effects such as word balloons, titles, graphics, color correction and highlighting.  Just increase or decrease the desired special effect by running your finger over the bar at the bottom of the screen and see the photo being updated in real time.

PicSay then saves the altered photos in its own folder on your phone so if you ever need the original photo for whatever reason then it’s still there.

A great app and one that is definately needed if you use your phone camera a lot.

WikiMobile

OK, you could go to the mobile Wikipedia website but that is just a stripped down bare-bones version of the regular Wikipedia site.  WikiMobile on the other hand is another version of Wikipedia which has some extra features I like when I am looking for some obscure fact while out on the road.

Searching for a topic is as simple as inputting it into the search box.   Entries are laid out on the screen nice and compactly, and are easy to read.

If you don’t know what you are looking for, try clicking “Random Article” to see….yes, you guessed it….a random article!   Clicking it just now took me to the page for “naked imperialism” while clicking it again took me to the page about koala bears.   You can also click the popular button to…do you need me to spell it all out?   Nah, I guessed not.  You can work out all by yourself what the “popular” button does.

With “My Bookmarks“, you can easily save WikiMobile entries to a bookmarks section for later reading.   Just go to the entry you want to save, tap your menu and choose “add bookmark“.  Now article research is made much easier and those visits to the doctor’s waiting room need not be boring ever again.   Who needs to read a woman’s magazine when you can read about how to build a fractional rig on a boat?

Barcode Scanner

This one is limited in its usefulness but I included Barcode Scanner because I still like it and I love the looks I get in shops when I walk up to products and zap the bar code with my phone!

Starting the app, you will get the red laser-like line across the middle of your screen.   Just place the barcode completely within your screen with the red line through the middle.   Hold it steady for 30 seconds or so and the barcode scanner will then give you the option to open a product search or a web search.   Both options lead to Google so I recommend going with the web search.

The app is most successful with books as it takes you to the book on Google Books.   I particularly like this part as I am often in bookshops, trying to figure out whether to buy a particular book or not.  Now I can just get my phone out, scan the barcode and then quickly scan the relevant book reviews on Google Books.   No more buying total stinkers.

Nightwatch

Nightwatch turns your Android phone into a glowing alarm clock.   You will need to either lay the phone down on its side (the screen turns as you turn the phone) or you will need to buy/make a stand for it to sit on.   But either way, this allows you to see the time in the dark and set your alarms effectively.

The clock is very customisable :

• Choose from either an analog clock or a digital clock.
• Choose how you want the date to be shown.
• Choose 24 hour clock or am/pm.
• Choose how bright you want the screen.
• Choose how loud you want the volumes to be.
• Choose what colours you want the screen to be.

Process Monitor

This one is perhaps one of the most important ones of all and I don’t understand why Android doesn’t include this as a default function.   Process Monitor is basically an app to mimic Windows’s Task Manager.   You can see a list of all running apps with the ability to either kill the application (shut it down) or open it.  To choose, just press down on the desired app and wait for the pop-up menu to show.

One of the things you have to bear in mind about an Android phone is that the battery is not that great.   If you use the internet and apps on it quite a lot, the battery will drain in less than a day.   So you should always be looking for ways to decrease the pressure on the battery such as disabling needless taskbar notifications and killing unneeded apps.   Since Android doesn’t have a similar default app, Process Monitor is definately needed.   As well as showing all the currently running apps, PM also shows you the level of your battery and the amount of currently available memory.

So that concludes my ten recommended apps for the Google Android phone.   In the next few articles, I will be looking at the games you should be installing on your Droid as well as the best websites to view on a mobile phone.  While you are waiting for all that, let us know what you think about these 5 apps and whether you know of any better ones.   I am always open to suggestions about how to improve and refine my phone!

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

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

• 10 Free Android Apps For Your New Android Mobile (Part 1) (17)
• The Best Alternative Alarm Clocks (Windows/Mac/Mobile) (12)
• MakeUseOf Your iPhone: Wikipanion (Wikipedia App) (5)
• How to Install Wikipedia on Your iPod (82)
• How To Install Google Android On A Windows Mobile Phone (21)

Sometimes, developers choose to re-release their games as freeware, or sometimes they simply neglect to support their creations and let the support dwindle away. Whatever the reason, a lot of commercial games – which, admittedly, often work with a bigger team on a bigger budget – become free over time.

Today we’ll take a look at the best sites to download old PC games for free. These will include (abandonware) DOS games, but also newer releases that are thrown to the masses by publishers in a good mood.

Abandonia

Abandonia is an index of abandonware, “dedicated to classic DOS games”. Abandonware titles are games (or software) with expired copyright, or games which are no longer supported by the publisher.

The site was founded in 1999, when the concept of abandonware was merely two years old. After a few inactive years, it was and has continued to blossom, with new ‘abandoned’ games added nearly every day. At the time of writing, the Abandonia database hosts 1,063 downloadable games and counts a total of more than 100.000 members.

Most games get a thorough review, screenshots, an editor rating as well as a user rating. You can browse and download old pc games by name, year, rating and category. As the game’s focused on DOS games, you won’t find any of the ‘newer’ abandonware games here, but the vast DOS archive should satisfy most of your gaming needs — at least for a while.

DOS Museum

Another DOS focused site – the name gives it away – is DOS Museum. Their goal is to preserve old DOS games and make sure they won’t be lost over time. Through one of their other initiatives, they try to encourage other copyright into making their work available, “either for sale or as freeware”.

With over 1,600 resources (although this includes various patches and save-games), DOS Museum offers an even wider array of games. Through an easy, graphical interface, you can browse the games by name, rating, date or popularity. Although you won’t find excessive reviews like on Abandonware, basic information (usually in two or three sentences) is provided.

Wikipedia

One of the best sites to look for an ex-commercial video game is Wikipedia. That’s right – on one of their pages, they keep a pretty up-to-date list of abandonware (loose interpretation) titles.

The list shows less games than these other sites, but from a wider array. You’ll find games from 1988 to 2008, all of them with a short descripton, most of them worth a try. If you think there’s a game ‘missing’ from the list that should be there, you can add it yourself – after all, that’s what wikis are for.

Remain In Play

Another site that takes on a wider array of (also non-DOS) games is Remain In Play. This site refuses to take in abandonware and games that were free from the start. They only focus on commercial games that were deliberately released as freeware.

Even though site navigation is not optimal, they host plenty of great games – both new and old. If your search is superfluous, you might want to consider their ‘top 10 games’ in the sidebar, for it is the only way of sorting titles by rating. Otherwise, you can search their database by name, data (type), genre, or OS.

I hope you’ve found some great new sites today and will continue to discover cool free games to waste your precious time. If you’ve got any other “abandonware” recommendations, or have anything else to add in that direction, feel free to take advantage of the comments section below.

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

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

• The 2 Great Websites for Atari 2600 Enthusiasts (5)
• 5 Websites That Have a Permanent Home in My Browser (10)
• 3 Top Sites For Cool Games Using Your Hands (9)
• 3 Free Cross-Platform Multishooter Games That Resemble Worms 2 (15)
• Yahoo! Games: WordRacer is my Boggle Game of Choice (6)

Before we get started, you must activate Gmail Gadgets by navigating to Settings then Labs and enabling “Add any gadget by URL.”

Now navigate to Settings > Gadgets to add new gadgets to your Gmail account:

All of the Gadgets listed must be installed by URL. Simply copy the URLs below and paste into your Gmail Gadgets settings box and press “Add.”

1. TwitterGadget makes it easy to view and update your Twitter account without visiting the Twitter homepage.

The URL for the Twitter Gadget is: http://www.twittergadget.com/gadget_gmail.xml

2. Wikipedia Search helps you search Wikipedia directly from Gmail – whether it’s for research or just for fun.

The URL for Wikipedia Search is: http://www.google.com/ig/modules/wikipedia.xml

3. Use FriendFeed? Get the FriendFeed Gmail Gadget, so you can keep track of your friends on this popular Social networking/sharing service.

The URL for the FriendFeed Gadget is: http://friendfeed.com/embed/googlegadget/spec

4. A must-have gadget for those of us who communicate regularly with people around the world is the World Clock gadget. It has locations all around the world and continuously updates the time, so you know when it’s bedtime in Paris and not to expect a speedy response to your emails!

The URL for the World Clock Gadget is: http://gad.getpla.net/poly/clock.xml

5. Track the current trends on Digg with the Digg Gadget. Features include selecting stories by sub-section and access to your settings.

The URL for the Digg Gadget is: http://digg.com/goog/ig.xml

6. The Facebook Gadget can be added directly to Gmail by adding this handy gadget. Do a lot of things you’d normally do at Facebook.com directly from your sidebar. The URL for Facebook Gadget is: http://www.brianngo.net/ig/facebook.xml

7. Quickly shorten links with the Bit.ly URL Shortener Gadget. Whether you are emailing links or sending to friends via Google Chat, shorten long URLs with the Bit.ly URL shortener gadget.

The URL for the Bit.ly URL Shortener Gadget is: http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/107368512201818821991/bitly-shortener.xml

8. MySpace can also be accessed via Google Gadget. Install this gadget and log in to your MySpace account to access friends, notes and more.

The URL for the MySpace Gadget is: http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/100080069921643878012/myspace.xml

9. Use the Google Calculator to perform simple and complex math problems or convert weights from metric to English or vice versa right from Gmail.

The URL for the Google Calculator Gadget is: http://calebegg.com/calc.xml

10. And just for fun, add the Chuck Norris facts Gadget to Gmail. Get a couple of laughs a day and some funny facts to share with friends.

The URL for the Chuck Norris Facts Gadget is: http://marsupialmusic.net/stu/scripts/chucknorris.xml

Which Google gadgets sit on YOUR Gmail sidebar?   Let us know in the comments.

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

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

• Use Twitter From Gmail With TwitterGadget (4)
• Track Your Short URL Links With tr.im (10)
• The 4 Fabulous Gmail Labs Extensions You Should Try Out (8)
• Su.pr – An Extraordinary URL Shortener from StumbleUpon (13)
• Send Tweets & Make Video With The New & Improved Twhirl (12)

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

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

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

• Wikipedia – Biggest Online Encyclopedia (13)
• The Best Reference Sites For Medical Students (33)
• The 10 Best Websites To Swap Books, Movies, Games & CDs (18)
• Taking Search Back To Basics With Wikia Search (7)
• SpeedCrunch – High Precision Freeware Desktop Calculator (16)

On the font page, you’ll see an interesting comparison for the traffic that has taken place on pages over the course of the past month.  For instance, when I first visited Wikirank, they had a comparison to see who is the most popular on Wikipedia among John, Paul, George or Ringo.

You can also search for whatever topic you like.  As you begin to type into the search bar, you will see a list of article pages appear in a dropdown.  Just select the page you want from the dropdown when you see the page you’re looking for.

When you are viewing the visitor statistics for a particular Wikipedia article, you can easily add new topics to compare the traffic between multiple articles.  I found it interesting that the Linux Wikipedia page is more popular than the Windows and OS X pages.

What do you think of Wikirank?

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

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

• Taking Search Back To Basics With Wikia Search (7)
• Wikipedia – Biggest Online Encyclopedia (13)
• How to Install Wikipedia on Your iPod (82)
• How to Install a Wiki on your Website (17)
• Create Your Own Wiki Site Easily With WetPaint (7)

Perhaps that’s why the guys at Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit parent body have several other pet projects running. We often have given them a go by without realizing there niche value.

So, I would just like to pause here and take a look at the informational value of the eight sister wikis from Wikimedia.

1. Wikimedia Commons

   

If you are looking for public domain photos to use, then this is bookmark worthy. At last count it had a repository of ‘4,127,824 freely usable media files’. The term ‘freely usable’ implies files under public domain, Creative Commons Attribution Sharealike and GNU Free Documentation Licenses. The content (audio, music, image, and video files) is arranged by topic, location, type, author, by license and by source. There are some gems to be found – type Greg Williams in the search box and you will be taken to his Wikiworld Archive of illustrations and cartoons.

2. Wikinews

   

There’s a coterie of news hounds calling themselves as citizen journalists behind Wikinews. The news is not classified into channels but Wikinews taps into the distributed nature of the internet to break news from all parts of the globe. Sources are cited below the news article to give the piece authenticity. News can be also read by region or by language. Tickers on the Weather, Crude Oil Prices, Market Indices and Sports Scores give a rounded picture. One can also catch up with the latest on Wikinews on an IRC channel, on Twitter or through a RSS feed. There is an audio brief option too.

And if your sense of fun lies in current affairs why not try out the World News Quiz page through the link at the top of the page.

3. Wikibooks

   

Wikibooks is an accumulation of free e-book resources comprising of textbooks, language courses, manuals, and public domain books. The direct beneficiaries of Wikibooks are students, and teachers in high-schools and universities. It is an important resource for self learning and reference. The English version alone has nearly 28,000 modules from over 3,000 developing books. Subjects cover the gamut of Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, Computers and Humanities.

Within Wikibooks, there are two diverging links which point to Wikijunior, a wiki resource for children and Simple English, a wiki with simplified English books. Both are still developing works which focus on creating content for children upto age 12 and books for easy readability.

4. Wikisource

   

It’s an internet archive of free content totaling to about 123,965 texts in the English database. More tuned towards the serious reader, there are some literary gems to be found in Wikisource. You might like to try out ‘The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin’ or Abraham Lincoln’s speeches. Wikisource is arranged around an Index of Works and an Index of Authors which along with the search box helps us to drill down to any relevant text. Classics, speeches and translated text can be found here.

5. Wikiversity

   

Wikiversity serves like an education portal where teachers and students can collaborate in an open learning environment. It is a method of ‘experimental learning’ where teachers combine with students to create educational content from the ground up. ‘Learning by doing’ is the central theme around which Wikiversity hopes to evolve. For those interested, Wikiversity is a vital e-learning medium. Belying its name, Wikiversity has educational courses across all educational levels. For instance, I got interested in the Technical Writing course which was offered Level 1 and Level 2 courses on the subject with a workshop on writing system requirement specifications. The resource allows me to learn, contribute and even interact with an instructor.

6. Wiktionary

   

Wiktionary is now not only a dictionary but also a thesaurus and also includes etymologies, pronunciations, sample quotations, synonyms, antonyms and translations. It is building itself up to be a comprehensive word reference source. A Rhymes listing, Frequency listing and a Phrasebook are also part of Wiktionary. With 1,195,489 English words, it is a useful catalogue. A user can get to all the nuances of a word using the Define box on the page. An audio translation is also available to understand the typical pronunciation. One can also link to the other language Wiktionary pages to get the meaning of a foreign word.

7. Wikiquote

   

Wondering who said ‘Fools rush where Angels fear to tread’? It could be among the 16,508 citations in Wikiquote. A compendium of quotes from around the world, this wiki is browsable by People, Literary works, Films, TV shows, Special Themes and Miscellaneous entries.

Note: The quote was by Sir Richard Francis Burton

8. Wikispecies

It might not immediately goad our interest but this wiki lists 179,317 taxonomic entries sourced from species records in the natural world. This makes it an important resource for a life science student.

Wikipedia and its sister sites have offered us what no other information medium has so far – a comprehensive knowledge wealth and the power to share and edit it for free. So are you among the ones who go over to the other Wikis for information or do you remain rooted to the main Wikipedia? Let us know how you use Wikipedia’s knowledge for your own.

Also make sure to check out 12 Popular Wikis that actually ‘WORK’. While Wikipedia is the biggest wiki out there, there are a number of other niche wikis that are very popular in their medium.

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

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

• Wikipedia – Biggest Online Encyclopedia (13)
• Taking Search Back To Basics With Wikia Search (7)
• 4 Free Tools to Download and Take Wikipedia Offline (17)
• Wikia – A Wiki Community Portal With Any Topic You Care To Know About (7)
• Review & Discuss Unusual And Cool Gadgets with Gdgt (7)

With nearly 3 million articles in the English version alone Wikipedia along with its sister wikis is an Alibaba’s treasure trove of information. Now, Wikipedia gives us a chance to take this information and use it as one of the oldest forms we have known – the humble book.

It is just the Wikimedia Foundation’s attempt to make ‘human knowledge’ accessible to everyone…online and now also offline. It started off with the German Wikipedia last year and now since February 26th it has moved onto the English version too.

To capsulize the process, users can collate the article pages of their choice and create a book from this existing material through a simple link available in Wikipedia. The compilation of articles can be arranged into chapters, given a title and finally exported as a PDF or as an Open Document and even sent to be professionally printed (at a cost).

One essential caveat is that a user has to create an account and log-on to access the book features.

The Wikipedia Help page goes through a step by step process of the nitty gritty…but I will give it a spin here too.

Logging In / Create Account

On the extreme top-right of a Wikipedia page is the link to Log-in or Create Account. Creating a new account is a simple process of giving a user name and a password. No email verification is required.

The Create A Book Menu

Search, browse and navigate to the Wikipedia article of your choice. On the left hand side, near the bottom is the create a book menu. It includes two items – Add wiki page and Books help.

Start adding the pages to your book by clicking the Add wiki page link on the relevant Wikipedia pages you want to include. The number of pages in the book gets automatically updated in the menu on the left. Two additional menu items – Show book (with a page counter) and Clear book appear in the menu.

You can also add an entire category within which the relevant page falls with just a single click. You can find the category hierarchy at the end of the article page.

Add The Title Of Your Book

With all pages added, click the Show book button to review your book. Here it is possible to add a book title (and a subtitle) and change the ordering of the wiki pages of the book through drag and drop. Unwanted pages can be dumped by a simple click of the ‘dustbin’ icon. New chapters can be included using the Create chapter link.

Many advanced functions like adding a particular revision or saving a book and improving the layout can be achieved through a combination of advanced functions. The Help page details those steps.

Download Or Order A Printed Copy

Voila! You have just ‘written’ your first book with the help of Wikipedia. Now, the finished book can be downloaded in PDF or OpenDocument format or ordered as a bound book. To download in the format of your choice, select the format from the dropdown and click the Download button. To order the book as a bound book, click the Order book from PediaPress button.

Wikipedia’s built-in rendering engine assembles the pages, grabs the images and parses them before they are passed on to the user in the final downloadable format. In its final avatar, my seven page Wikipedia selection transformed into a 4.4MB file downloaded as a 64 page PDF book. The end result was good…with neat alignments of photos and text.

If you take the PediaPress option, be prepared to dole out a few dollars as the starting price is US$ 8.90. Of course, the typesetting and publishing is of better quality and it comes bound too. A sample of a finished book can be seen on their site here.

Not many of us would even begin to create a home grown version of shelf lined Encyclopedia Wikipedia. But for smaller data needs, this feature comes as a welcome addition. Instead of individually downloading article pages as PDF’s we can now systematically arrange it into a PDF book for offline perusal.

Have you taken to this feature yet? Give us a glimpse into your thoughts in the comments section.

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

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

• The Best 6 Sites to Get Free Ebooks (140)
• Mobipocket – An Awesome ebook Reader Which is Free (14)
• 7 Great Sites To Get Free Romance eBooks For The Hopeless Romantic (12)
• 4 Free Tools to Download and Take Wikipedia Offline (17)
• Who Needs The Amazon Kindle When You Have A Netbook? (26)

The first step is buying them a Windows Mobile cellphone. The next is loading it with the coolest downloads that any college kid would love.

1. Give Them Instant Access to Blogs With HubDog

In today’s academic world, students are gathering just as much information for research and homework help from blogs as they do from other “official” informational sites.  Blogs often provide valuable links and resources, but with added commentary that helps students understand concepts.  Bloggers are almost free tutors for college students, and blogs have become an invaluable resource.

One of the best mobile apps to stay connected with your favorite blogs is HubDog, which provides access to blogs and news, as well as an integrated music and video podcast player.

I mostly use Hubdog to stay on top of the latest gadgets and technology news, but if you click on “Discover,” there are countless topics you can choose from. As you can see on the right, the blog and news updates are displayed in an easy to read format on your mobile screen, with nice clear pictures and easy touch screen or keypad navigation.

2. Use vTap To Watch Videos Or Research On Wikipedia

Every time I find myself trapped in an airport terminal, or waiting in a doctor’s office, I find myself firing up vTap to pass the time.  Travis previously reviewed vTap here. Whether it’s passing an hour between classes or looking for the latest news, vTap offers students access to thousands of streaming video clips.

The video content students can access through vTap include categories such as news, sports, movies, music and more. Trust me, it’s impossible to get bored with this app on your mobile phone, and the feeds are constantly updated with new content all the time.

I’ve attempted to use mobile video streaming sites before, and I’ve always been disappointed by quality. To test vTap’s video streaming capabilities, I downloaded a clip of the trailer for the movie Twilight.  To my surprise, using a standard AT&T cellphone data network, the file downloaded in under two minutes and the video quality was surprisingly good.

The screenshot above doesn’t do it much justice, but considering the screen size and the fact that the video was streamed over a cellphone network, the quality was better than any I’d seen before. Although keep in mind that vTap serves an international audience, so read the titles carefully so that you know what language the videos are in before you download it.

And should students have the need to conduct instant research on Wikipedia in class?  vTap now offers instant, searchable access to all Wikipedia content. This fact alone makes vTap an extremely valuable mobile research tool.

3. Access to Instant 24 Hour Streaming Radio With Mundu Radio

At the very center of almost every student’s life is music. College students listen to music while walking to class in the morning, while waiting between classes, or while working out at the gym. One of the greatest benefits to having a Windows Mobile device is access to the Internet, where there are countless sources of streaming radio stations broadcasting 24 hours a day.

Mundu Radio gives students the ability to plug headphones into their mobile device and transform it into a music machine, no matter where they are. The application provides a long list of music genres to choose from, and a nice clean player interface with simple controls to play and stop the music or adjust the volume.

Let’s face it, most students don’t have the cash to keep buying MP3’s to download. And the last thing you want is your kid dumping their scholarship money (or your savings account money) into music downloads. Mundu radio lets a poor (or frugal) college student listen to great music 24 hours a day without spending a dime.

4. Find Wi-Fi Hotspots Anywhere With WeFi

Now here’s a secret for parents considering purchasing a Windows Mobile device for their kid, but unsure about the expensive monthly data charge. Another alternative is to do what many mobile laptop users do – go hunting for Wi-Fi hot spots.

WeFi lets you search for an active network within range, where you can run unlimited data transfers at no cost.  David mentioned WeFi in our article about WiFi hotspot finders, and Tehseen reviewed it as well. These days, there are free Wi-Fi networks everywhere, and most universities have Wi-Fi across an entire campus.

WeFi offers a useful Wi-Fi map tool on their website displaying free Wi-Fi networks near you.  Just have a look at the Boston area for example – no problem finding free Internet access there!

The application, installed on the mobile device, has a nice, simple interface and is easy to use. After installation, it includes a status display on the “desktop” that shows the current wi-fi network that’s connected as well as the connection status.

Launching the application (as shown on the right), displays all of the available hotspots in your area, and lets you choose which network to connect to, as well as entering any login details if required (like on a university network.)  With this app, a student can quickly connect to any free hotspot with just a few clicks.

5. A MiTo Doodle Pad for Those Boring Classes

Every student ends up taking one of those classes – the boring lecture or the terribly dull class where there’s any place else that you’d rather be. The solution for that boredom is the addictive MiTo Team Paint app. Pull out your mobile phone and launch this paint application, and get to work doodling your work of art.

The application lets you pick whether you’ll draw with a pen or a sprayer, and you choose from 7 basic colors, or use the RGB selector for more color options.

As you can see, some of us are a bit more gifted in the “art” department than others…

6. Always Stay Connected When You’re Mobile With Fring

As usual, I’ve saved the best for last. There are few mobile apps out there that have the functionality and capacity to keep you connected with all of your social networks in one easy to use application. Fring pulls it off in style. Aibek listed it as one of 20 apps that should be on your mobile and David listed it on his 5 cool mobile apps list.

This particular mobile app gets high reviews for good reason. These days, students have accounts on many social networks like Facebook, Skype and MSN. Having an application that gathers all of those contacts in one place where you can chat when you’re mobile is a very useful tool.

Adding your networks is as simple as clicking on the icon and entering your logon credentials. Even the Facebook display shows your current status, friends, and all of the details listed under your account.  The tabs on the bottom let you flip between chat sessions with your friends. This particular mobile app is a student’s dream come true. They’ll never need to spend another moment offline again.

Are you a college student with a Windows Mobile phone? What are your favorite mobile apps? Share your opinions in the comments section below.

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

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

• How to Set Up Laptop Wireless Internet Access Through Your Cellphone [Windows] (36)
• Using Yahoo Go to Stay Connected On Your Mobile (8)
• Total Media Domination – Your TV, Video and Audio on any Device (12)
• The Ultimate Guide To Your Windows Mobile Phone [PDF] (12)
• Newsgator – The Most Complete RSS Solution (11)

To explain it clearer, Google tries to guess what other type of information the surfer would also like see based on his or her search query. For example, for “Britney Spears” you’ll see images and videos blended within the search interface and for “downtown Los Angeles” you’ll get local search results (i.e. maps.google.com).

The idea of pulling more data by one-click searching can be expanded. You do not have to limit yourself to the Google search engine only. This time I am listing a few cool FireFox addons that show you more relevant information based on your search query and provides you with more opportunities to browse through.

Add Multiple Search Engines to Google Search Interface

WebMynd offers to search a wealth of search platforms simultaneously with your Google search, by default: Twitter Search, Amazon, YouTube; but you can also add numerous other search options (e.g. Flickr, Wikipedia, Digg, LinkedIn, CNN, etc). The search results will appear right on Google’s results page in the right sidebar:

Additional great features of the page:

• send Tweets directly from your search results asking your friends advice related to your search;
• user-friendly interface: add/hide engines with one click, drag-and-drop ordering of pages.

Integrate Amazon.com and eBay Search:

GoogAzon adds the first ten search results from Amazon and eBay in a collapsed orange bar to the top of your Google results page (works also for Yahoo or MSN / Live search). The results include the title, price, and a mouse-over thumbnail image.

You can also quickly share the results with friends and access the actual Amazon / eBay search results.

Add Reference Information

Google Search Sidebar for FF3 (Greasemonkey plugin) adds relevant results from Wikipedia and Dictionary.com (as well as Flickr, and YouTube) :

See Your Browsing History

Infoaxe is a browser addon (both FireFox and Internet Explorer versions available) that will show your browsing history results based on your Google search term.

Note: it requires registration and access to your private data, i.e. browsing history.

See What Your Facebook Friends Have to Say:

SideStripe offers a handy Google Gadget that integrates with the Google search results page and searches your friends list for your search query.

The tool offers some more functionality (e.g. it invites you to ask your friends’ opinion on what you are searching) but I didn’t invite my friends to use the application, so I can’t say if it works. The search functionality works pretty well though:

Would you like to add more searching functionality or do you think “plain” Google is all you need? Do you use any tools that make Google better? Share your thoughts!

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

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

• Track Facebook, Twitter, Flickr & Youtube Updates on iPhone (3)
• Shozu – The Mobile Social Networking Hub (12)
• Search Google, Yahoo, Bing & Twitter From Your IM Program (16)
• 3 Ways to See Most Favorited Google Search Result (6)
• Who Needs Photoshop When You Can Have Splashup? (21)

Wiktionary is a multilingual, Web-based project to create a continual free content dictionary. As of today, it is available in over 151 languages. Wikipedia (as most of you probably already know) is the free content encyclopedia and now a de facto information resource for most netizens. Both Wiktionary and Wikipedia are collaborative efforts of millions of volunteers around the world.

Installation and Use

QuickWiki is an experimental add-on for now. This simply means that the add-on is still in the alpha, beta or pre-release stage. Experimental add-ons are labeled with an ‘experimental’ tag and require a straightforward log in before you install them.

More information about the definition of an experimental add-on can be found here. The version history for QuickWiki (v0.93) says that many minor bug fixes have been implemented and the add-on is stable enough for a public release.

Installation is just like any other Firefox add-on and with a restart of the browser, QuickWiki is ready for use. The instructions to use QuickWiki are a no- brainer.

• To look up information in Wikipedia, press CTRL and right-click the word to get the Wikipedia information.

• To look up a meaning in Wiktionary, press SHIFT and right-click the word to get the meaning. I tried it out with a few idioms too (select the phrase) and more often than not it gave to me the meanings of the common ones. The latest version also gives us antonyms and synonyms.

• A dialog box to enter a word or phrase manually can be brought up by SHIFT + SPACE.

• To close the QuickWiki box, click anywhere else on the page.

• To configure the QuickWiki shortcut buttons, click on the ‘W’ symbol on the lower right bottom of your browser screen to bring up the Options box. The maximum width of the results box can also be set here in pixels.

• If you are not interested to use QuickWiki for the time being, just toggle it off with a left click on the icon.

The Cool Factor

QuickWiki more than lives up to its name, by giving us information from Wiktionary and Wikipedia within a second of the right click. Plus, the information box comes out as an overlay on the same page rather than in a new browser window or a tab ( as shown in the screen shots). A click anywhere else on the page takes it away. Thus it is fast, handy and unobtrusive for those of us who like to regularly look up information.

English is the only language that is supported for now. As the lingua franca of the world, this is not severely limiting. The Mozilla download page for QuickWiki v0.93 is here.

So, do you use this add-on? If it has helped you shave a few seconds off your word search do let us know in the comments.

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

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

• Three Firefox Security & Privacy Add-ons that can Co-exist (23)
• The Must-see “New Tab King” Addon for Firefox (Windows) (20)
• SmarterFox Makes You More Productive in FireFox (5)
• Preview Firefox Tabs as Thumbnails with Showcase (10)
• Make Your Own FireFox Search Plugins & Other Tips (8)

This sidebar makes research a breeze. Juice is currently in open-beta and available for free from Linkool Labs.

Juice has proven to be very useful, and has saved me extra open tabs and a lot of time. The Juice algorithm gathers information from multiple sources and aggregates it in a very simple, easy to use interface. For instance, you can just drag and drop “Google” (or any other company’s name) from an article to read the company description on CrunchBase, the latest stock quotations, news articles from major media outlets as well as blogs, images and video.

Plus the amazing thing about this addon is its speed and accuracy. It takes a second at the most for all this information to display – and it is contextually sensitive – which means a search for something like “apple” won’t relay you news about fruits if you’re visiting a tech-related website.

The Juice website explains the ‘magic’ feature:

This engine, comprised of a natural language processing system and a dictionary management system, helps to evolve the semantic web by connecting keywords with the most relevant, rich content from third-party web services.

It’s engine fails gracefully when it can’t find information using its algorithm – to an improved Google search -  with tabs for Images, News, Videos and Blogs. There are no obtrusive ads – a big plus when it comes to these personalized searches.

Here’s Juice’s demo video from YouTube :

When it comes to beta applications, especially these days, with tight release schedules and even more demanding investors, you come to expect crashes and hangs.  Not with Juice which took 2,3MB extra memory and didn’t cause any problems at all. The download itself is small, the download bar stopping at about 500KB.

It’s my job to test different things and write about them, but I don’t often continue using the product regularly.  Like John C. Dvorak said: “99% of everything is crap”. Juice definitely deserves its space on my computer.

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

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

• View A Multi-Page Article On One Single Page With PageZipper (14)
• Top 6 Firefox Add-ons For The Movie Freak (13)
• Three Firefox Security & Privacy Add-ons that can Co-exist (23)
• SmarterFox Makes You More Productive in FireFox (5)
• QuickWiki– Wikipedia & Wiktionary Addon for Firefox (2)

The internet has opened up a range of new ways to experience TV and to enjoy shows whenever you want.

Alongside, the web also provides possibilities to discover shows, catch up on previous episodes and connect with fellow fans.

We went out to find the best online TV show episode guides for you. Naturally, these sites supply much more material, for example tv show air dates, episode list for each show, background information or social components.

Have a look at what we picked…

1. LocateTV

LocateTV is superior because it takes advantage of many features the internet has to offer.

From the frontpage you can search for TV shows, actors and movies, see what’s hot, directly access new seasons and episodes summaries, browse TOP 5 lists and a lot more. Users from the US, UK and Ireland can set their local TV provider to view personalized airdates.

From a show’s dedicated page you can see when it will run on TV, whether it’s available on DVD, discover where you can watch it online and of course view the episode guide. The best part is that you can discover new TV shows and movies based on your picks.

All components are integrated with ease of use in mind. Personal picks and settings are saved through cookies and the site doesn’t offer a membership. However, you can share your favorite programs and actors with friends through a URL or embed a series or an actor on your website or profile. LocateTV also offers a search bar addon for Firefox and IE.

2. Wikipedia

Wikipedia is an excellent source for all sorts of information. Hence, it comes as no surprise that it also has tons of material in store on TV shows.

But the link above will not simply take you to Wikipedia’s start page. Instead you’ll land at the “List of television series episodes category” from where you can further specify your search. Of course you can always search for a show directly.

Don’t be alarmed by the many (0)s behind the subcategories. These numbers merely denote the number of sub-subcategories and by no means indicate how many series have been listed under the respective subcategory.

Wikipedia has to be the most practical database. Unfortunately, the A-Z list of all TV shows appears to be out of date, so one always has to go through the subcategories to browse and discover new series.

3. Television Without Pity

This site is different! It’s hilarious and offers tons of extras besides providing excellent recaps, i.e. episode guides. Humanoid humor absolutely required for mental digestion!

The amount of shows is limited, but includes all the hottest and latest TV productions. Additionally, each show has its own forum where members can discuss various topics. Beware of spoilers and mean comments!

US users will appreciate the TV listings, some shows have their own blog and members can edit the Wiki. There is a lot to discover on Television Without Pity and it’s a bit overwhelming and maybe even disturbing at times. But browsing the site is great entertainment.

Runners Up

epguides & TV.com together run a huge database of over 4,100 TV shows. On epguides, each show has its own page with basic information and a list of seasons and episodes. A detailed episode guide including summaries is usually provided through TV.com. From the frontpage of epguides you can search shows or browse from A-Z or by topics. All updates are made through TV.com. However, even though TV.com is way more advanced than epguides.com, providing a membership option and the possibility to add changes, epguides is easier to navigate if you’d like to browse shows randomly.

We have previously reviewed Tioti. It’s a social media platform for television shows, with a touch of Wiki-ness. On Tioti you’ll find information, links and ways to to interact with fellow TV lovers. You can log in using your Facebook account.

SideReel is similar to LocateTV also offering a forum for discussion and thus also a site membership. Members can add information, such as reviews, links, news or discussions. It’s a very interactive site. However, the episode guides aren’t thorough and are usually linked in through other sites, which makes them difficult to use.

We have previously reviewed services that let you view your favorite shows online! If you haven’t done so yet, check out Jimmy’s article How To Find All The Great New TV Shows Online, or Aibek’s post on 7 Excellent Destinations to Watch TV Shows For Free.

Which sites do you use to find your TV show episode guides?

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

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

• i.TV iPhone App Turns Your iPhone into the Ultimate TV Companion (7)
• Fancast – Get TV Listings & Watch TV Shows Online Legally (12)
• Clicker – The Complete Guide To Online TV & Movie Shows (0)
• Watch Free TV Channels On The Go With KitePlayer (18)
• Two Ways To Never Miss A Television Episode (11)

Thankfully, though, there are a ton of ways to find to do computer-like things when you’re not at your computer. Different places are creeping up that will help you read emails, make plans, win bets, find pointless information, and generally do things you’d do on the computer, without it.

I’m going to assume that you have your cell phone with you when you’re away from your computer. With just your cell, and for most of these, any cell will do, you can do many of the things you always do on the computer.

Here are 9 of the many ways you can use a computer with just a cell phone, beyond just accessing mobile sites (which most sites have by now):

Disclaimer: with these products, you will start texting – A LOT. If you don’t have an unlimited texting plan, prepare to see your bills go up more than slightly!

1. Texting, Google-style with Google SMS

You name it, Google SMS can do it with a text message. By sending a text message to GOOGLE (466453) you can find information like restaurant listings, weather, sports scores, calculator, conversions, and the like. Here’s the full listing, from Google, of all the things they can do with your text message.

But of course there are some risks to using Google SMS…..

2. Ask, and You Shall Be Answered

Got questions? Text them to ChaCha (242242). A real-live human being will answer your question in 160 characters, and send you the answer.

ChaCha is great because it’s a real person on the other end, which means you can ask a real question instead of trying to nail down search terms. If you don’t want to send a text message, call 1 (800) 224-2242 (2ChaCha). ChaCha can also send you a random joke or weather information, but the question and answer service is their bread-and-butter. It’s a great way to settle bets, or find answers to the irritating questions you just can’t seem to figure out.

3. Get your Wikipedia On

Wikipedia, in the words of The Office’s Michael Scott, “is the best thing ever.” Trouble is, for anyone who’s tried to use it from a cell phone browser, it’s tough to read. The formatting is bad for a cell phone, and using Wikipedia is much harder. Wapedia fixes that by taking Wikipedia and formatting it in a way that’s much easier to read on your cell phone. It strips away all the unnecessary stuff like the sidebar links, and puts everything into a one-column view that’s much easier to read on your cell phone. For an information-phile like me, Wapedia’s a great way to keep an easy-to-use Wikipedia in your pocket.

4. Go to the Movies

Want to go to the movies? Despite their terribly annoying ads, Fandango’s still the best place to buy movie tickets. In addition to their mobile site, you can use their relatively new SMS service to make buying tickets from your cell phone even easier. Send your zip code and a movie title to FNDGO (36436), and Fandango finds all the results for you. With an increasing number of carriers, you can even buy tickets with a text. Spur-of-the-moment movie craving? You’re all set.

5. Find a Starbucks and some Wi-Fi

I love Starbucks. There’s one on the ground floor of the building where I live, and I may personally be keeping it in business. Odds are, wherever you are, you’ll be able to find a Starbucks just by turning around. If not though, text your zip code to MYSBUX (697289) and Starbucks will show you their three nearest locations. Plus, with more and more Starbucks offering Wi-Fi, you’ll be able to get back on your computer.

Don’t want to go to Starbucks? Send “wifi” and your location to US411(87411), and you’ll get a whole list of free Wi-Fi hotspots nearby. That way, you won’t have to miss your computer any longer.

6. “Hello, Operator?”

Google search, for your voice and phone. Most 411 services are ridiculously expensive, but Goog-411 isn’t. You search Google with your voice, for a business or personal listing, and it connects you for free. You can even request a text message with all the contact info, for free.  Just dial 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-6446411). For more, check out Karl’s post.

7. Never Miss a Thing

Let’s say you’re looking to buy something on Craigslist. A boat, say. If you want to know when a boat comes onto Craigslist that’s in your price range, check out Notify.me. Set up notifications for everything from your friends’ Twitter statuses to breaking news stories, and Notify.me sends you an alert every time something matches.

They can be sent to your IM, email, desktop client, or cell phone via SMS. This one’s the one that will kill your texting bill, but if you’re sitting at your computer waiting for something, or just don’t want to be behind, Notify.me is a really useful tool.

8. Never Miss the Important Stuff

So, you’re kind of a big deal. People know you. Sometimes you get important email, even when you’re away from your desk. With AwayFind, you don’t need to worry about missing crucial email when you’re not at your computer. Using AwayFind, you can set up an “Out Of Office” email to auto-respond every time you get email, and include a link to your AwayFind page.

If someone needs to get in touch with you, they can fill out the AwayFind form, and their email comes through to you on your phone. It gets trimmed to one message, and helps you rest easy that if someone really needed to get through to you while you’re on vacation, they could. Plus, it gives you something to check as habitually as you do your email.

9. Buy, Buy, Buy

Let’s be honest: half the fun of the Web is the random, unneeded impulse buys. If you’re away from your computer and decided you’ve just got to have that cool thing you saw this morning, never fear, Amazon is here!

Using their “TextBuyIt” service, you can send a text message with a product name to AMAZON (262966). You’ll get two results from Amazon, with more coming if you reply with a text saying “m”. If you decide to buy something, reply with the result number, and you’ll get a call from Amazon to create and confirm your order. It’s so simple, it’s a little scary.

Who says you need to be at a computer all the time? Just by using your cell phone, you can free yourself from its grip.

Which cellphone numbers or mobile services do you use to grab information off the internet?

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

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

• Get FREE 411 Directory Assistance with GOOG411 (27)
• 15 FREE Useful Services To Access from your Phone (9)
• 12 Google Services with Mobile Access (14)
• Watch Online Products for Price Drops with ShoppingNotes (9)
• User Generated Content (Episode II) (2)

But imagine that you are marooned on an island with just your rusty laptop….OK, strike out the ‘Gilligan’s Island’ scenario and look at a more realistic setting of being away from a net connection. Get the picture? Here’s where some of the offline tools for Wikipedia browsing come in handy.

The Wikimedia Foundation has set up an offline Wikipedia version themselves understanding this need. The English version with a collection of about 2000 pages can be had in the form of a CD (an ISO file). But it comes at a cost of $13.99.

The penny pinchers among us have to put in a bit more effort and megabytes. But despair not. Here are four free tools for taking the Wikipedia knowledge off the net and into an anytime, anywhere experience.

I. WikiTaxi (OS: Windows)

All downloaded pages are stored in a WikiTaxi database. WikiTaxi uses compression to make sure that the database remains compact enough. For instance, the huge English Wikipedia easily fits on an 8 GB memory stick. WikiTaxi itself does not require an installation as it runs from an executable. The process to download the information is a bit long drawn out as you have to essentially download a XML database dump from the Wikipedia site containing the wiki content (The largest English Wiki is 3.5 GB).

An included WinTaxi importer contains this database into a WinTaxi database for you to browse offline. The database dumps are updated every few weeks. So you need to go online to get the most recent version of the information.

II. Zipedia (OS:Windows)

Zipedia is a Mozilla Add-on for Firefox enabling offline browsing. The Zipedia page describes it as the ‘poor man’s choice’. But when we don’t have access to the real thing, then it’s a worthy choice isn’t it? You will still need to download the Wikipedia database dump. Zipedia does not need any external database as this is done by the browser itself. The add-on works with Firefox v2.0-3.0+. To access the offline resource you need to just type in – wikipedia://wiki/

III. Wikislice (OS: Windows)

Wikislice is an application that allows the user to collate Wikipedia entries based on a particular topic or subtopic. Wikislice as the name suggests gives you a ’slice’ of the information in a downloadable format for easy reading offline. Wikislice comes as a web based tool as well as a desktop interface. To use Wikislice, just type the topic of your interest in the search bar provided and Wikislice will display all the applicable information for you to browse or download.

Here’s how it works -

1. Type in your topic and click ‘Go’.
2. You get the information and related subtopics (for more narrow searches).
3. The Top 50 topics are displayed over 5 pages.
4. Download the Wikislice (part of Wikipedia) offline if the number of pages is less than 2000.
5. The downloaded pages can be used with the Webaroo software. The app will check if you have the software installed on first use. In case you don’t, it will prompt you for the download.

Here’s a simple slideshow from the main site.

IV. Pocket Wikipedia (OS:Windows/ Linux and PocketPC)

Pocket Wikipedia is a carefully compiled handpicked selection of Wikipedia information and comprises of nearly 24,000 images and 14 million words. That’s a stack of fifteen volume encyclopedias (Encyclopedia Britannica has 40 million words and 24,000 images!). All within a 180MB free download in a single zip archive. This software differs from the others in one aspect – you get pictures within the text as in the original version. But remember that it does not contain the entire gamut of Wikipedia; just the more important ones for ready reference.

(Bonus V) How To Get Wikipedia on Your iPod

If you have an iPod and couple of GBs of spare space you can also install Wikipedia right onto it. For more details check out Mark’s excellent guide on How To Install Wikipedia on Your iPod.

Have you used any of these four software apps? If so, which do you prefer? Do you have another that you prefer instead? Or do you prefer accessing Wikipedia via the web?

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

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

• How To Make Your Own Books From Wikipedia (9)
• How to Install Wikipedia on Your iPod (82)
• 8 Sister Wikis from Wikipedia We Should Be Aware About (8)
• Wikipedia – Biggest Online Encyclopedia (13)
• Taking Search Back To Basics With Wikia Search (7)

Wikipanion (iTunes Link) is an impressive App for browsing Wikipedia. To illustrate its many features, let’s pretend we need to look up what a “blog” is. First, the search function:

It’s a fairly unsurprising search bar, but I was impressed with the suggestions that popped up as I typed. The auto-populated results are so good that you’ll usually get out of typing your whole query. After selecting a search topic you’ll get an article pane:

One of the things that’s nice about the article pane is that as long as you stay within the Wikipedia domain, you won’t leave the App (and consequently have to juggle Safari as well). Instead, internal links stay in the pane you’re viewing. If you want multiple articles open, you’ll probably need to switch to Safari, but for general reference it’s quite sufficient.

Also, notice that the App supports horizontal viewing. This is kind of a no-brainer, but many Apps leave it out.

The buttons along the bottom are very handy in Wikipanion. They appear to be the same ones found in Safari, but their functions are quite different. The “bookmark” button actually opens up the table of contents. Longer articles (like this one on blogs) have significantly lengthy subsections and manually scrolling to the one you want can be a chore. I suggest definitely looking at the table of contents [seen below to the left] whenever you get to a new article.

External links have been grouped together in a similar way. Clicking the “send to” button (usually used to copy a link to email) will open up the external links [seen above at the right] that are normally found at the bottom of a Wikipedia article.

I’m guessing that the developer used these icons because they are already part of the iPhone SDK. They’re logical enough, but I fear someone who didn’t have the benefit of a wonderful article like this one (I joke) might not discover them immediately. Hopefully the next version of Wikipanion will use icons distinct from those of Safari.

Wikipanion really gives the entire experience of using Wikipedia on a mobile platform. Right now there is no editing function, but I think most users will find this acceptable. Editing a wiki page with all of the necessary syntax should really be done carefully. A tiny keyboard where mistakes are easily made might be the wrong environment for a Wikipedia contributor. Feel free to debate this in the comments.

Despite the fact that this is, in some sense, a “walled garden” because you can’t do more than view anything, this is a solid App and it’ll be sitting on my Home screen for quite a while to come.

[rating=4]

As always, let us know what YOU think. There must be other Wikipedia Apps out there. Any you like better? What do you use to get your reference fix on the iPhone?

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

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

• 6 Apps That Will Turn Your iPhone into the Ultimate Reference Book (9)
• MakeUseOf Your iPhone: Set Up Voice Dialing With Cactus (8)
• MakeUseOf Your iPhone: iPhone as a Remote Control for iTunes (7)
• MakeUseOf Your iPhone: 3 Travel Apps To Hit The Road With (6)
• How to Install Wikipedia on Your iPod (82)

Maybe something like Wikipedia but on a smaller scale?

Hmm….maybe I should start this article off with the definition of what a wiki is:

According to Wikipedia :

A wiki is a collection of web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content, using a simplified markup language. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites. The collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia is one of the best-known wikis.

“Wiki” (/wiːkiː/) is originally a Hawaiian word for “fast”. It has been suggested that “wiki” means “What I Know Is”.^[4] However, this is a backronym. “Wiki Wiki” is a reduplication of the same word.

Now why would you want to create your own wiki?

How about a central repository to update information on a specific subject. Let’s take a real world example. Say you are an international spy organization and you know that your secrets will be safe on the interwebs

So you create a wiki and allow all your spies to login and update information on targets, weapons, gadgets and all things spy-related.

Ok, it’s not secure and no spy organization in the world is going to use this but you can use it for your next project, party or just for the fluck of it.

A while ago MakeUseOf had a story on How to Install a Wiki on your Website. The article recommends MediaWiki which is a popular open source Wiki software. It’s an excellent alternative who want to install a wiki website on their own domain name. The only thing, you need to have some experience with alike tools and be comfortable with modifying config. files.

On the other hand, if you’re looking for something simple and straightforward then you can go on over to the WetPaint web site and sign up. Start by hitting this big green ‘go!’ button on their home page.

Once you hit the button you will be on your way to setting up your account and having your wiki built for you. Check out the three easy steps.

In the first step we will pick our wiki’s name, URL and tell WetPaint a little bit about your wiki’s personality.

Then you need to tell Wetpaint who can edit your wiki – registered users, ANYONE (Including the anonymous trolls) or only specific people you choose.

Next we should choose a style for your wiki. There are a bunch more than the few below. There are actually 3 pages of 9 styles.:

After choosing the style, you get to brand your top banner. You can opt to leave it as is and this is what it looks like by default.

You can upload a custom graphic or point to one on the web. Once all that is out of the way it is time to get your WIKI on! Are you ready? Are you excited?? No?

Well what if I said I already set up one at http://asktheadmin.wetpaint.com and YOU can go ahead and edit and play with it to your hearts content! I have opened up edits to anyone and everyone – now go have some fun and play around with it . Post links to your wetpaint wiki’s for us to check out as well.

Leave us some notes in the comments on how much you love or hate this service. Do you use something similar? Put us on!

(By) Karl L. Gechlik is a superhero of the IT industry who wears many hats and changes in telephone booths. Karl mostly uses his powers for good and the occasional hysterical prank. Get your geek on & follow his geeky antics at the NEW askTheAdmin.com today. Stop by and see what we are all about!

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

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

• How to Install a Wiki on your Website (17)
• How to Install Wikipedia on Your iPod (82)
• Wikipedia – Biggest Online Encyclopedia (13)
• Taking Search Back To Basics With Wikia Search (7)
• Phonevite – Blast Out Voice Messages To Your Team For Free (8)

With over 2,461,000+ English articles as I write this, it would be tough finding the most accurate information and find what you are looking for all the time. I thus have found some of the best and most accurate Wikipedia search engines to help you get the most accurate information whenever you need it.

Here are just some of them (in no particular order):

Powerset

Powerset is a neat Web 2.0-looking Wikipedia search engine. Not only does Powerset search for Wikipedia articles, it also searches for “Factz,” or collections of facts across Wikipedia through your query, which are further integrated into all Wikipedia pages. You may even enter a question, which is accurately searched throughout databases around the web and on different websites to find the answer to your question, as well as related information and related media. Each article that you search for is integrated into Powerset, thus many of the awesome features, as well as continually added others, are able to be accessed through each article. You may see the demo video here.

Similpedia

Similipedia is one of the best Wikipedia search engines available. Not only is it extremely accurate and effective, it has a completely different approach to search. Instead of typing in a query, e.g. computers, you are asked to copy and paste a URL or a paragraph containing at least 100 words. Just press “enter” and let it go to work.

I decided to try copying and pasting the first two paragraphs of Tina’s article on Adobe Reader. The result were articles on Wikipedia ranging from Adobe Acrobat, PDF, to a comparison of e-book formats – all of which were relevant. Similpedia just added a new widget to their website that allows you to add code to your website and Similpedia will automatically add relevant Wikipedia articles. They have other widgets that include: a Firefox add-on, bookmarklet, contextual RSS as well as a Wordpress widget for similar content. I highly recommend trying them all out.

Wapedia

Wapedia is an interesting mobile Wikipedia search engine. It allows users to search for any article on one of the world’s largest encyclopedias through their cell phone. You are allowed to type in a keyword that of course is your search query, with two further options. You may “Go,” or click “Search.” The “Go” option automatically redirects you to the article it believes you are looking for, while the “Search” option searches for all the articles related to the keyword you provided, all of which are saved in the Wapedia website so that it does not redirect you to Wikipedia with a messed up mobile view.

Another cool option of Wapedia is the integrated news. The newest news is automatically configured for mobile phones and you are allowed to find it all right there in Wapedia. Other options include the ability to search for images on Wikipedia as well as other types of search. To make Wapedia even greater, they give you preferences for your mobile phone that include: picture sizes, external link options, page length, etc.

Wikia

Wikia has been previously talked about by Mark here, but since then it seems they have added a few more features. Wikia is somewhat of a Wikipedia search engine mixed with a new approach to search. It integrates users into the search results, yet more of that can be seen in Mark’s article. It seems though that Wikia searches for Wikipedia articles first when searching – a likely feature as the creator of Wikia was one of the first people to work on Wikipedia. Anyway, Wikia now as well has an actual wiki built in that allows you to browse in a similar manner to Wikipedia. I highly recommend trying this out as well.

What do you use? Do you just use the normal Wikipedia search engine or do you have another search engine to find what you’re looking for on Wikipedia? Tell us in the comments!

(By) Will is a computer nerd and geek that is raising money for developing a better internet and runs one of his blogs at FirefoxGeeks.

Latest popular post: How To use Folder Actions in OS X to Convert or Rotate Images

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

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

• Taking Search Back To Basics With Wikia Search (7)
• Massive List of ‘HowTo’ Sites + ‘HowTo’ Search Engine (42)
• MakeUseOf Your iPhone: Wikipanion (Wikipedia App) (5)
• Juice – An Excellent Quick Reference Sidebar for Firefox (8)
• How To Make Your Own Books From Wikipedia (9)

So considering the state of affairs with Google’s dominance over search, it’s nice to see some creativity and “out of the box” thinking still going on with regards to search. That is why I am fascinated with Wikia Search and whether it has the potential to go far in the long term. I am a big believer in user generated content on the internet so this project is right up my alley. I highly encourage you to get involved. It’s your chance to get involved in the building of a search engine from the ground up.

Wikia Search is the pet project of Jimmy Wales who also created Wikipedia and he is applying the same philosophy to Wikia Search as he did to Wikipedia. That is, anyone can help to create Wikia Search and anyone can edit it. We’re all in it together and let’s see what comes out at the other end (fingers crossed). Some people might consider that a perfect recipe for anarchy and total chaos but I consider it web democracy in action where anything can happen. Exciting isn’t it?

Basically (in case you haven’t worked it out yet), Wikia Search is a search engine. They use a web service called Grub to crawl the web and you can apparently download Grub yourself to make it go faster (although this is not required if you don’t want to do this). I am not an expert at this kind of thing so my understanding of the technical side of things is a bit hazy. If anyone who understands this better wants to clarify it in the comments, please feel free.

Anyway, the main part of the project is to go to the main page of Wikia Search and start typing in search terms and see what comes up. Now this is where you start to run into the first start-up problem of Wikia Search – the speed (or the lack thereof). The pages load very slowly. I really hope Wikia Search solves the speed issue very soon as I can see people with slow internet connections giving up really fast.

Once you type in a search term and results come up, you can then start to modify the results if you don’t like what you see. For example, if you type in a domain name and the domain name isn’t one of the results then you can use the “add to this result” box on the right hand side of the page to add the domain to the results.

So to use an example, I have a website called “Camelot Online” and after typing it into Wikia Search, it didn’t come up. So I typed it into the “add to this result” box and clicked “add” :

Just like Wikipedia, your edits are instantly added to the page. and as you can see from the screenshot, a RSS feed is instantly generated. So if someone came along and removed my domain from Wikia Search, I will know right away in my RSS reader. So don’t mess with my stuff!

Just as you can add URL’s to Wikia Search, you can also delete pages that are there if you consider them irrelevant (but bear in mind that pages you consider irrelevant may be considered relevant to others so cue lots of online feuding!). As you search on Wikia, you will find a lot of spam and adult material cropping up so you can delete those pages if they don’t apply to that search term. To delete a page, just mouse over the result and a “delete” link appears. But of course someone else can immediately come along behind you and reinstate the link. Such is the nature of a web democracy!

It remains to be seen how successful Wikia Search becomes and whether it becomes a serious rival to Google. My argument has always been that the Google algorithim is good but only to a point – a computer algorithim cannot detect websites that are a scam or websites that are showing inaccurate facts. Only human users can do that. That’s why I love Stumbleupon so much – because human users vote websites up and down and that in turn influences the search results. If Wikia Search gets its act together, it has the potential to do the same and that could seriously influence Web 3.0 when it comes.

(By) Mark O’Neill is a blogger, professional freelance writer and the editor of Make Use Of. Check out his personal blog at BetterThanTherapy.net

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

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

• Wikipedia – Biggest Online Encyclopedia (13)
• Find Out What’s Hot On Wikipedia With Wikirank (0)
• 8 Sister Wikis from Wikipedia We Should Be Aware About (8)
• Wikia – A Wiki Community Portal With Any Topic You Care To Know About (7)
• Welcome To The Future Of Online Search (5)

So to review the features, let’s fly with Google Maps to New York, the city that never sleeps…..come fly with me, let’s fly, let’s fly, let’s fly……

The MORE button

The key to turning on the new features is the “more” button at the top. If you mouse over that, you’ll see two choices, “photos” and “Wikipedia”. If you tick those, suddenly the Central Park area of New Yorkfills up with photos.

The photos, which are locally geo-tagged, are hosted by Panoramio. If you click once on a thumbnail, the photo expands and you can see the photo made bigger.

This kind of reminds me of what Google is doing with their Earth software but by also moving it into their Maps online site, they are giving people the opportunity to experience the features if they don’t want to download and install Earth (I know quite a few people who are not inclined to install Google Earth). Plus you can run Google Maps on your PDA.

Read Wikipedia content on the map

Next up, you can scroll around and look for the Wikipedia symbol on the map. When you find one and click on it, it then gives you the Wikipedia entry for that place so you can instantly be given all the available information on that building / landmark.

This is invaluable if the place is a tourist place such as a concert hall, a theatre or a historical landmark. For example, by scrolling around the map of New York, I found and clicked on the Wikipedia entries for the Savoy ballroom, Fort Lee in New Jersey, and Teaneck in New Jersey. So much information can be accessed at the click of a button!

Watch YouTube videos on the map

But the best feature of all has to be the ability to click on and watch YouTube videos inside the Google map for the region you’re viewing. The difficulty here though is that the videos don’t stand out. There’s no YouTube logo on the map the same way that there’s a Wikipedia logo for the Wikipedia entries. The videos look like photos and there’s no clear way to see them which means there’s an easy way and a hard way to find the videos. The hard way is to click around the map and hope you strike lucky (no thanks) and the easy way, as far as I can see, is to look on the maps sidebar. When you zoom in on an area of the map, the maps sidebar automatically filters out all the media and shows you all the photos and all the videos. But saying that, the maps sidebar tends to be a bit buggy. If you make one wrong click, it sends you off in the other direction and you can’t get back again!

All in all, these improvements have seriously impressed me, so much so that I am seriously considering buying a PDA and taking a closer interest in the mapping sites from now on. It’ll be interesting to see how Yahoo Maps reacts to all of this and what they will bring out in response. Will they copy these features or will they bring out something totally new and totally better to top Google?

The possibilities for these features are endless. Are you going on holiday soon? Then just go to Google Maps and type in your destination. Click through the photos of the area, view YouTube videos of the area and read relevant Wikipedia entries. In other words, go on a “virtual tour”. The same if you are planning to move house and relocate to a different area. You can use Google Maps to do your research. No more flying blind!

(By) Mark O’Neill is a blogger, professional freelance writer and the editor of Make Use Of. Check out his personal blog at BetterThanTherapy.net

Check Out Our Latest Post: Your Computer, Your World – How to Keep Out the Mindless

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

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

• Google Earth – Look at your home from Satelite (102)
• Two Random Alternatives to Stumbleupon (9)
• The Five Best Things About Google Maps (24)
• Learn Interesting Geographical Facts About Mars On Google (8)
• How To Use Google Maps On Your Basic Mobile Phone (18)

Google’s “Picks For you”

This one won’t be for everyone’s tastes for the following reasons. First of all, you need the Google toolbar installed. Secondly, you need to activate Google search history. You also need a Google account but anyone with a Gmail account already has one of those. So you kind of need to be a bit of a Google fan to have all of that and you also need to trust them with your search history (so anyone that values their privacy may howl with protest).

So if you have all of those things installed, click here and the “Picks For You” button will appear on your Google toolbar in the form of a pair of dice.

You can also, in theory, bypass the toolbar button and enter the following URL into the browser address bar :

http://www.google.com/searchhistory/items?op=rec_rd&cd=ifb&hl=en

and it does the same job as the dice button. But you still need your Google search history enabled. There’s no getting around that one unfortunately.

“Picks For You” is Google’s very basic version of StumbleUpon. You first need to have a fairly big search history built up. Then when you click the dice button, Picks For You takes a look at your search history, decides what kinds of sites you would like to see (based on your past searches) and then randomly takes you to a similar kind of site.

Obviously it is not as good as Stumbleupon. There’s no profiles, no close-knit community, no customization, no ability to choose subjects the way that Stumbleupon allows you to. But for a change of pace, “Picks For You” is quite nice and it will be interesting to see where Google takes this in the future.

Random Wikipedia pages

By entering http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random into the browser address bar, you are then taken to a random Wikipedia page. If you have writers block, I have often found that stumbling Wikipedia helps to clear the mind. I have had some issues with Wikipedia in the past but nevertheless, it is still a site worth visiting. Click the random button once and you could be taken to a page about Queen Victoria. Click the button again and you could end up on Homer Simpson’s page.

If you decide you like the random button, you can easily make a clickable browser button. Just right-click on your browser bookmark toolbar and choose “new bookmark”. Enter the random Wikipedia URL under “location” and under “name”, just give it a name such as “Wikipedia Random”. Then next time you’re bored and Stumbleupon holds no appeal, just click on the button and off you go.

Do you know if any other websites have random buttons? If so, please let everyone know in the comments with the URL of the random button so we can try it out! I am particularly looking for a Delicious random button (if one exists). I emailed Delicious and asked them but they didn’t respond. Does anyone know if they have a random button feature?

(By) Mark O’Neill is a blogger and professional freelance writer. Visit his blog at BetterThanTherapy.net

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

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

• StumbleUpon-Discover Websites that People Like (3)
• Stumbleupon Tools To Stumble Around The Web (14)
• Put MakeUseOf on your Google toolbar (7)
• Learn Interesting Geographical Facts About Mars On Google (8)
• Google Maps Rolls Out Spanking New Features (39)

Information / News Web Apps :

CBS News: www.cbsnews.com/iphone
Fox News: iphone.foxnews.com
Google: Google.com
Reuters Mobile: mobile.reuters.com
BrainyQuote: www.brainyquote.com/iphone.html

Social Apps :

Digg: www.digg.com/iphone
Facebook: iphone.Facebook.com
Twitter: m.twitter.com/login

Reference:

Wikipedia: www.keishi.net/ipodia/
People Finder: www.2robots.com/iphone/#_ByNumber
Urban Dictionary: www.idotg.com/apps/iwurd.php
Realtor: iphone.realtor.com

Weather Web Apps :

AccuWeather: apple.accuweather.com/widget/iphone1/iphone.html
Weather Underground: i.wund.com
Weather.com: www.weather.com/iphone

Shopping :

eBay: iphone.ebay.com
Amazon.com: www.amazon.com
iCoupie (coupons and deals): www.icoupie.com

iPhone optimized games :

Tetris: iphone-tetris.com
Bejeweled: static.popcap.com/iphone
iBowl: mynumo.com/iphone/ibowl/ibowl.php
Jacks or Better: elenor.net/iphone/poker
Mahjong: 38i.biz/mahjong/

Productivity / ToDo lists :

Tada List: tadalist.com
iNozbe: www.inozbe.com
Remember the Milk: i.rememberthemilk.com

Chat Messengers (MSN, Yahoo, AIM, ICQ, GTalk etc.) :

Meebo: www.meebo.com
Beejive: iphone.beejive.com

Just Neat:

Guitar Tuner for iPhone: iphoneguitartuner.com

Are you an iPhone user? Have any more great iPhone websites for us? Leave them in the comments and we’ll be sure to update our directory.

(By) Travis is a husband, engineer, entrepreneur, visual communicator, web developer and writer in his spare time. You can check out his personal blog at TQuizzle.com

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

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

• How to Read PDF Files and Other Docs on iPhone & iPod Touch (12)
• Cooliris For iPhone: Surfing The Web With 3D Experience (6)
• 5 Useful To-Do List Apps For The iPhone (46)
• 5 Great Apps To Turn Your iPhone Into A Powertool (24)
• Why I’m Digging Digsby (31)

While writing my own blog actually I found that a Wiki was the best way to convey some information. If you too own a blog you may want to write some more detailed guides, build knowledgebases and so on. I can think of at least a dozen of reasons why you may need one.

Show off your product in an in-depth, much more technical way, allow others to contribute to this with their own experiences, you could also use it as a personal blog form, a way to manage your information, a way to collaborate with others, the uses are endless. The reason that a Wiki is so powerful is that it is not constrained to one of these uses, you can use it for all at once.

My Wiki of choice is MediaWiki, for two distinct reasons.

• The first is that it is the framework that was (is) developed for Wikipedia. It sets the standard, and is indeed best suited for general use.
• The other reason is that I am not an expert in the field and I felt the safest with MediaWiki.

To find out if your webhost offers one, go to your hosting account and log-in to your Cpanel. You may find that there are a few installations already prepared for you, all you need is to click on install. I use Bluehost and it has two Wiki’s ready for installation (via the Fantastico module), but neither are MediaWiki. So we will have to work manually.

Download and Extract

First of all, head on over to the MedaWiki download page and download the latest version.

Windows users, don’t worry, it’s a tar.gz file but you won’t have to extract it on your PC. When finished, go to your file manager on your webserver and upload the file (or use FTP).

The easiest way to extract I think is to find the extract option, and let it extract to the location it’s in. It will then be put under the directory ‘mediawiki-1.11.0‘ (or the current version) and all you need to do is rename the directory, say to ‘wiki‘. At this stage, you should have your Mediawiki files at ‘www.yourdomain.com/wiki/‘ location.

Installation

The next step requires you to point your browser to the ‘config’ directory. This would be ‘www.yourdomain.com/wiki/config‘. Next, just follow the instructions on screen, everything should be pretty obvious, down until databases. Apart from the database name and user name and password I would leave everything as is.

Wiki can not (or at least won’t in my case) create the databases for you, so you may need to do this yourself. Go to your webhost and create a new database and a user for it. Make sure to set this newly created user as the admin or at least give it read/write rights. Once that’s done, enter the new database and user into the above form, and click on install. After a short while, you should see “Installation Successful” in cheerful, big, green letters.

Finally, go to the file manager again and navigate to the ‘config‘ directory (www.yourdomain.com/wiki/config) and move ‘LocalSetings.php’ file to the main directory of the Wiki (www.yourdomain.com/wiki/).

That’s it, you should see your Wiki on ‘www.yourdomain.com/wiki/’. Want to see a fully-functional demo? Check out my own Mediawiki setup at wiki.hackyourday.com.

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

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

• Create Your Own Wiki Site Easily With WetPaint (7)
• How to Install Wikipedia on Your iPod (82)
• Wikipedia – Biggest Online Encyclopedia (13)
• Top 10 Blogger Hacks and Tips (123)
• Taking Search Back To Basics With Wikia Search (7)

Yes that’s right. Thanks to iPodLinux, you can now have the entire Wikipedia encylopedia on your iPod. Clocking in at only 1.7 GB of space, it is a very handy tool if you have the sudden uncontrollable urge while out at the shops to discover the capital of Mongolia or the mating habits of eels. The Wikipedia file is updated approximately once every 6 months so you won’t have the most up-to-date version but hey it’s free and Mongolia isn’t going to change their capital anytime soon.

[Update: Please note, this doesn't seem to work on all iPod models. For more details check comments section.]

It’s very easy to set this up but the actual Wikipedia file is so huge that it takes a long time to download. I have been waiting for 35 minutes and the download is only at 40%. So be prepared to wait a while for the file to be finished.

1. First connect your iPod to your computer and fire up iTunes. Then make sure the box “enabling disk use” is ticked. This is extremely important otherwise you won’t be able to move any files on there. Then close down iTunes.

2. Download the program installation wizard and install. Make sure your iPod is still plugged into your computer as the program installation wizard will automatically detect your iPod presence and install everything directly there.

3. One important thing to remember during installation is that you will be asked if you want to make the Wikipedia your “default system” on your iPod. This means that when you switch on your iPod each time, do you want to see your music menu or the Wikipedia menu? I recommend you say no to making Wikipedia the default view.

4. When the installation is complete, eject your iPod from your computer.

5. Now is the time to see if the installation worked. You need to reboot your iPod which you achieve by holding down the play button and the menu button together at the same time for 5 seconds. You will then see the Apple logo which is the iPod re-booting. When you see the Apple logo, press down the re-wind button for 5 seconds and this kicks in the new Wikipedia section of your iPod.

6. If everything looks OK, you now need to download the huge 1.7 GB Wikipedia file. When it is downloaded, go to your iPod folder on your PC, specifically to “data\encyclopodia\library\” and place the file in there.

7. Again, eject and re-boot the iPod, use the rewind button to go to your Wikipedia section and see if the Wikipedia file works properly.

To make a search, just use the scroll wheel to choose letters to spell your search term (just like you would choose the keys on a mobile phone to type a SMS message). Then press the “play” button to start searching.

A few extra pointers:

*When accessing the Wikipedia file on your iPod, you have to go into “settings” first and alter the screen contrast and the wheel sensitivity. It will be totally off-whack the first time you access it.

*The older your iPod, the slower it will be to retrieve information from the Wikipedia file. Your iPod might even crash, prompting you to re-boot. So this works best with the newer iPod models.

*Every 6 months or so, download the Wikipedia file again so you get the latest version. However, saying that, the current file is dated February 2007 so maybe once a year is more accurate!

*When you are in the Wikipedia section, pressing the menu button turns the back light on. The back light will stay on until you switch it off again so you can read the text easily. Be aware though that having the light continually on is a real battery drainer.

*To get back to your music section, you need to reboot the iPod again by holding down the menu button and the play button.

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

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

• MakeUseOf Your iPhone: Wikipanion (Wikipedia App) (5)
• HowTo: Sell Old Cell Phones and iPods (9)
• How to Install a Wiki on your Website (17)
• Create Your Own Wiki Site Easily With WetPaint (7)
• Access Gmail Mobile on the iPhone and iPod Touch (5)

Since I write for my own blog as well as MakeUseOf.com, I end up coming across a lot of webpages on a daily basis. Most are what I term “one-hit wonders” in that I glance at them briefly before losing interest and moving onto the next site. Basically pretty much like a Stumbler. I might consider bookmarking the site in del.icio.us but on the whole, approximately 90% of the sites I visit on a daily basis are ones I will only look at once.

But there ARE sites that I constantly go back to for my everyday needs, sites that I often find I can’t live without. Here are five permanent websites in my Firefox browser favourites, plus why I like them and how they help me. This has kind of been written in the vein of my previous article where I showed what first-time computer users should install on their PC. Now here’s what they should put in their browser (note : send this article to my mother).

1. Internet Movie Database – before the days of the IMDB, I would go to see a movie and then emerge 2 hours later, completely shocked that it was so bad and that I had spent my hard-earned money on the ticket. But since I discovered the IMDB, I now read the user reviews of the movie I want to go see BEFORE I go and see it. This helps me to avoid the stunningly awful movies and spend my money going to see the good ones. Saying that, I still went to see Eragon.

2. Lifehacker – by nature, I am a bit fanatical about organising my life and making routine tasks simpler. I also like to achieve these goals using a PC wherever possible. So I guess it’s only natural that I have found a natural home in Lifehacker. Lifehacker gives you tips on productivity, organisation, how to optimise your PC and new websites / web tools. Most of the time though, the best information comes from the comments left by a very enthusiastic user community.

3. Google – as well as regular search queries, I also use the search engine to define words (thereby removing the need to own a dictionary), find the titles of songs by entering a few words of the lyrics into the search box (which keeps my iPod organised), find the answers to questions on TV quiz shows (so I know in advance if the annoying contestant with the cackling laugh is going to get kicked off), translate phrases into foreign languages (to impress the French girl at the end of the street) and of course, where would I be without Google’s online playground (which removes the need for me to have a sandpit in the apartment).

4. Wikipedia – people may claim the entries are wildly inaccurate but you can’t fault the principle and if you see something that is wrong, then make a user account and correct it! I have found a lot of good information on Wikipedia and I like being part of the community. It always ticked me off how Enyclopedia Brittanica used to make a lot of money hawking their huge expensive book collection to customers. I have always strongly felt that knowledge and education should be free, and Wikipedia goes a long way to making that a reality.

Plus with the news being indexed on a daily basis, we are setting up a legacy for future generations.

5. Break The Chain – as soon as you get an email account set up, people are going to start sending you all kinds of stuff including “cool pics!”, 101 uses for coca-cola (apart from drinking it) and pictures of the Loch Ness Monster. Break The Chain tells you if the forward you have received is real or an urban legend (I’m still convinced Nessie is real though!). A bit like Snopes. Thanks to Break The Chain, I have deleted countless emails claiming that Bill Gates will give me money by forwarding Hotmail emails on his behalf.

What websites have a permanent home in YOUR browser favourites?

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

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

• 6 Unique Web Communities That You Won’t Forget (54)
• Wikipedia – Biggest Online Encyclopedia (13)
• User Generated Content (Episode II) (2)
• UrbanDictionary – Words Defined by Average People (16)
• Two Random Alternatives to Stumbleupon (9)

If you are not using it yet, then you are missing something…Wikipedia is the biggest online encyclopedia, which is 100% edited by users. Nowadays, wikipedia has articles in almost any language you can think of. Below You can see number of articles wikipedia had in different languages at the time this post was published.

1. English: 1.354.000 + articles
2. German: 457.000 +
3. French: 352.000 +
4. Polish: 287.000 +
?5. Chineese: 250.000 +
6. Dutch: 223.000 +
7. Italian: 191.000 +
?8. Sweedish: 180.000 +
9. Portuguese: 175.000 +
10. Ispanyol: 147.000 +
…
As I have mentioned, Wikipedia is 100% maintained web users, meaning that anyone including me and you can go to wikipedia, select/search for an article of your choice and edit any information you would like on that artcile. While this may raise some questions regarding the credibility of several articles, it seems that this process works quite well. That is because several hundreds or even millions of people visit wikipedia daily and many of these people act as editors, and some of these people are experts in one or another subject. If someone publishes a misleading information(or change correct information about something to something false) it is usually corrected within minutes.

Wikipedia is extermely useful when you need to quickly access to information about a particular term or concept.

Ex; ajax,debt consolidation,data mining, Mozart, web2.0 and etc…

The terms that may encounter some terms while browsing web, talking to people or watching TV. Usually wikipedia will have a detailed description to whatever you are looking for, however sometimtes it may not very simple to comprehend. In many cases, you will also be provided with not only description but several online resources/websites related to this term.

Some example Pages Examples:

1. Article about eminem: (Wikipedia-Eminem)
2. Article about blogging: (Wikipedia-Blogging)

To make best use of wikipeadia I highly recommend to use it as a toolbar for your browser. I use Mozilla firefox. Whenever
there is term or a concept I need to check I just enter the term into the search field on my browser and select wikipedia as a search engine. This is extremely handy and very fast way to get information on allmost anything instantly.

• Wikia – A Wiki Community Portal With Any Topic You Care To Know About (7)
• Taking Search Back To Basics With Wikia Search (7)
• 8 Sister Wikis from Wikipedia We Should Be Aware About (8)
• YouTube.com – Online Video Sharing Site (23)
• Yahoo Answers – Get Fast Answers (4)