About Saikat Basu
Saikat Basu is the Deputy Editor for Internet, Windows, Productivity, and Work & Career. After removing the grime of an MBA and a ten year long marketing career, he dabbled in web development, networking, and SAP. After joining MakeUseOf in 2008, he rose from the ranks and now manages four high-growth sections while stealing time to write. You will also find his contributions in web publications like GuidingTech, GoSkills, OnlineTechTips, and Lifewire.
Beat Your Friends at Their Own Word Game in Scramble With Friends
It need not always be about sharpening your vocabulary; though that helps. Word games can be just fun. And when you introduce competitive game play against others in the digital Wild West of the web, the adrenalin surge is a bit more. No more relaxed word plays on a grid – with Scramble with Friends you have to go against the clock and against your opponents, in an arena that’s a jumbled up grid of words.
Tell The Number Of Unread Emails At A Glance With Tab Badges For Firefox
There are boatloads of add-ons available that take on tab organization and give you the power tools to really set up Firefox for your use. So, what’s a 6KB sized Lilliputian add-on doing on our list of Best Firefox Add-ons? At first glance, it seems that Tab Badges is playing David amidst the Goliaths. Scroll a bit up and you will see that Tab Badges is categorized under Custom Interface. Let’s do the explaining here.
Writing For the Digital Age: 5 Free Writing Style Guides Online
English is the language the world speaks and we have to put in our two bits to do it correctly. The web has created a global audience, so if you are among the ones who write in English for a living, you got to be word perfect even you may not be pitch perfect with your accents. As a writer and blogger, I know the pitfalls of a language error. If writing perfection is your calling card, you need a Style Guide by your side.
WinZip 17 Pro for Windows: Redesigned for Social Sharing and the Cloud [Giveaway]
It’s more than two decades since the first version of WinZip was released. From support for self-extracting archive files to AES-grade encryption, WinZip has gone through the cycle of changes. If you are using some other file compression alternative, download the WinZip trial. Even the trial version has enough features to keep you interested. But if you're interested in winning one of the 25 WinZip 17 Pro licenses for Windows that we have to give away this week valued at $1250, then read on!
Super Start Your Day With Visual Bookmarks And A Simple To-Do List [Firefox]
While the Speed Dial is a visual bookmark of recently visited websites, and a permanent home to your favorite pinned ones, it can be made into something more. That comes with the help of Firefox add-ons as usual. Super Start is a simple add-on that can supercharge your home tab on Firefox, and give your day around the web the launch pad it needs.
Go For A Jewel Rush And Try To Beat The Clock On Diamond Dash [iOS]
As you can see, there’s no dearth of ‘time-wasters’ and they get to be quite addictive too. Diamond Dash ticks all the right boxes if you are looking for such kind of games. It is super-simple, challenging, and addictive. The three qualities helped it to make it to our Best iPhone Games list. Diamond Dash (as you might have guessed from the name of the game) is a blitz with jewels and diamonds. It is a 60 second gem rush.
Learn How to Touch-Type With These 8 Top Tools & Tutorials
Learning how to touch type could mean the difference between 10 words a minute to more than 40. That could also mean the difference between adding half a day to your productivity. Or, more than that if you can clock 100 words per minute as most professional typists do. That’s why I sincerely believe that touch typing along with speed reading is one of the sacred arts of the digital age.
Only Book Lovers Need Apply: Go On A Journey Of Book Discovery In 7 Different Ways
I have been a long standing member of sites like GoodReads and LibraryThing, two well-recommended book services for timely book recommendations. But the eyes roam around, trying to pick up new book titles and authors. At most times, it is random browsing; but it has led to some cool discoveries of not only worthy page turners, but also different ways to reach the goal of finding a good book to read next. Here’s a sampling of seven places that a book lover ought to visit.
Think You Know Them All! Challenge Your Brand Knowledge With the Logos Quiz Game [iOS]
Thanks to the tsunami of ads around us, we see logos every day. Sometimes we notice the good ones, sometimes the not-so-memorable ones pass us by. As a business student, a favorite pastime of ours was to quiz each other on logos by covering up the essential details. That’s why I was pleasantly surprised to find a similar game on the Apple Store. The Logos Quiz Game will stretch your knowledge to the hilt, not to mention your memory cells.
Say Open Sesame And View More Than 80+ File Types With Free Opener [Windows]
Which is the very first file viewer or editor you go for after a fresh install? Some asked our wider community the same question - What is the best universal file viewer? A few worthies were mentioned. I found Universal Viewer to be a bit limiting especially when it comes to media files and even PDF. That made me turn to the one ‘criticized’ in the query itself – Free Opener.
The Tiny CoolPlayer Could Be The MP3 Player Of Choice For Your Portable Drive [Windows]
What would you say about an audio player that’s rounds up to a size of an average Chrome extension? What would you say about this MP3 player that is not only tiny in size, but is actually tiny in the space it occupies on a screen’s real estate as well? Well, you can say that good things come in small packages, or you can simply say – CoolPlayer.
10 Tools To Get Kids Excited About Programming
For the average kid, computers and smartphones are fun tools. Education comes much later. Getting a kid excited about programming might take some doing because logic needs a bit of time to develop. It is imagination and creativity which arrive first. That’s where the crux of these ten tools lie…using creative tools to get children excited about programming.
Kindle For PC Proves That You Don’t Need A Kindle To Enjoy Books From Amazon
Being the voracious reader that I am, a library was always a small hillock to conquer. Thanks to the eBook revolution that has swept over us now, we now have peaks to scale. One of them just happens to go by the name of a jungle – Amazon. Or to be more specific, the Kindle Store. The Kindle Store is heaven sent for us bookworms. I am not even talking about paying a dime here because there are absolutely legal ways to download free books from the Kindle Store.
Retire Notepad! Organize All Your Scattered Notes Neatly On ResophNotes [Windows]
Trying out note-taking apps is bit of an obsession. You can make do with the simplest ones around, but can’t avoid taking a look at the next one that arrives with a download link. If you are one of the many like me who still use the humble Notepad (or a Notepad alternative), you could do with some help from ResophNotes. ResophNotes is not a Notepad replacement, but a fast note-taking tool for Windows that offers you organization and backup in a small portable bundle.
Can KnockDown – One Of The Simplest Physics Based Game On The Apple Store [iOS]
You can be a sniper and knock down zombies or the enemy in cold blood. Or you can shed that violent streak inside you and just knock down a few cans. If you have ever played in the alleys and backyards of your childhood, you probably have piled up a few Coke cans and tried your aim with a rock or a tennis ball. I know I have, that’s why the simplicity of it all drew me to play this game when I spotted it on our Best iPhone Games page.
Please Note This Email! Some Super-Useful Tools To Help You Add Notes & Annotate Your Gmail Threads
Threaded conversations and smart labels were a start. The former really helped to have end to end conversations, and the later came into it later as an email organizational tool. But what if you want to add something more to a Gmail conversation? For instance, a note or an annotation that tells you. Gmail still lacks a notes feature for tagging a specific email with some extra information that’s of help to you as a future reference.
Play Epic Ping Pong Battles On Virtual Table Tennis 3 [iPhone]
Racket sports are a great fit for touch based games on iPhones, iPods, and iPads. The intuitive swipe of the finger mimics the sweep of a table tennis blade quite well. But how well can you control the shots, and play top-spins and cross-court smashes? And how close does a virtual game come close to a real one? That’s what we will find out when we start our rounds on Virtual Table Tennis 3.
Do You Copy & Paste All Day? Manage The Windows Clipboard Better With The Portable ClipTrap
The clipboard is one of the invisible but most used features of our Windows computers. But satisfied with the way it handles any copy-paste operations, we let it be…rarely fiddling with it to change its default operation. Come to think of it, it is a bit strange because copy-paste operations take place throughout the day, almost as an unconscious behavior, and always repeatedly. It may make sense to use a clipboard manager which will at least cut the repetitions of CTRL+C and CTRL+V.
AppAlerts Takes the Effort Out of Searching for the Right iPhone App as It Automatically Tracks the Apps You Want [iOS]
Think of AppAlerts as the ‘Google Alert’ for app search and you won’t be far from hitting the bull’s-eye. There are apps available which help you search for specific apps on the Apps Store in different ways. But that’s part of the problem…you have to do it every day. AppAlerts saves you the onerous job of sifting through more than 600,000 apps that are on the App Store by automating it completely with keywords.
Carry Medical Information In The Palm Of Your Hand With WebMD [iOS]
Talking to a doctor is one of the most unnerving experiences, a patient or a patient’s family has to endure. It is compounded by the lack of knowledge on how to go forward. Thanks to medical reference websites and mobile applications, the chasm between medical jargon and layman’s understanding can be reduced. The free WebMD iOS app should be an essential app you should be carrying 24x7 on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch.