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Enjoy The Weather Every Day With These 4 Beautiful Weather Apps [iOS]

Posted on 28 November 2011. Tags: Apps, Beautiful, Enjoy, Every, these, WEATHER

class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/2011-11-18-18h58_11.jpg" alt="ios weather apps" /> href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/weather">Weather is one of those things that defy technology. No matter how hi-tech we get, we can’t control the weather. If it wants to rain, it will, and all we can do is find sophisticated ways to forecast it, and convenient ways to stay updated.

Weather apps for href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/ios">iOS are abundant, and there are numerous ways to stay updated on the go with your iPhone. But when the iPad joined the game, weather forecasts became more than that – they became beautiful. Weather doesn’t have to be boring, and if you can get good and accurate information along with the entire ambiance of it, it makes the whole thing much less frustrating and way more fun.

Note that all the apps were checked on the iPad, but most are available for the iPhone as well. Here is a list of 4 excellent weather apps to make you want to check tomorrow’s forecast.

Weather HD Free

href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/weather-hd-free/id412489722?mt=8">Weather HD is powered by Weather Underground, and provides a soothing yet useful way to stay on top of the weather. The free version only lets you add 2 locations, so if you need more than that on a regular basis, try the paid version or one of the other apps.

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The general mode is a full-screen weather video, describing the current weather. This is actually not a bad thing to have as a screensaver next to you when it’s raining out. On the bottom, you’ll find a weekly forecast, which you can switch to an hourly forecast.

You can also view details such as local time, temp, humidity, precipitation, wind chill and so on. You can choose in the settings which elements will appear and get rid of those you don’t care for.

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Weather HD Free is ad supported. To make them disappear, as well as get more than two locations and additional videos, you can try the href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/weather-hd/id364193735?mt=8">paid version. It’s only $0.99.

Weatherwise [Free]

href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/weatherwise/id420954273?mt=8">Weatherwise gives a touch of good humor to the weather, which is something we could all use. The current weather is represented by a tranquil Bonsai tree around which the current conditions can be seen. For example, if it’s windy, you’ll see the night lamp that’s hanging from the tree moving in the wind.

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You can add up to 5 locations, or have the app use your current location to get weather details. On the main screen, you can see an icon-only weekly forecast and the current temp. You can tap the weekly forecast to change the Bonsai tree into that day’s forecast. Tap the hourly details to access hour-by-hour temperatures, wind speeds, humidity, visibility and more.

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While looking at the Bonsai tree, you can slide your fingers to move between locations, and view all your Bonsai trees. If you want some different themes, you can purchase some for $0.99 each through the app, but I find the Bonsai to be quite enough.

WeatherBug [Free]

If you’re looking for something a bit more serious, href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/weatherbug-for-ipad/id363235774?mt=8">WeatherBug could be it. WeatherBug is a comprehensive map-oriented app, which lets you choose between different map layers (such as radars, temperature, pressure and so on), along with detailed weekly forecast, videos from weather cams (US only) and elaborate current conditions.

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You can add several locations and then switch between them using the dropdown menu at the top. If you tap the weekly forecast, you can read exactly what you should expect on every day and night of the following week.

WeatherBug’s true merit is the map. Adding set locations is something you can do with any app, but with WeatherBug you can browse the map, and when you see a place you fancy, simply tap it to drop a pin and get a full weather forecast for that location. You can then choose to remove pin, add the location to your saved locations or simply move on in your quest.

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WeatherBug is ad supported. Get rid of the ads by upgrading to href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/weatherbug-elite/id310647896?mt=8">WeatherBug Elite for $0.99. Also available for href="http://itunes.apple.com/il/app/weatherbug/id281940292?mt=8">non-iPad devices.

Magical Weather [$1.99]

At $1.99, href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/magical-weather/id396179545?mt=8">Magical Weather is the priciest one of the bunch, but this beautiful and informative app is worth every cent. With a simple yet fetching interface, Magical Weather provides local weather for up to 9 locations, which it presents on a beautiful grid, complete with temperature, weather icon and an image that shows you the weather and the time of day.

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Tapping one of these squares, you’ll access the full weather forecast for the day, hour by hour, as well as the rest of the week’s. The whole thing sits on a gracefully animated background, which also represents the current weather and time of day.

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Not sure what all these numbers mean? Magical Weather has you covered. Tap the small question mark on the bottom left corner, and in slides a full key for each element of the forecast.

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Magical Weather is simple, provides only useful information, and has one of the prettiest interfaces I’ve ever seen.

Final Thoughts

All of these iOS weather apps will give your weather watching a whole new meaning. With any one of these, checking the forecast is not a chore anymore; I mean, who doesn’t want to check their cute Bonsai tree every few hours?

Fore more ways to stay updated on the weather, check out:

href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/7-feeds-rss-weather-updates/">The 7 Best Feeds For RSS Weather Updates
href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/4-web-services-track-earthquakes-storms/">4 Web Services To Keep Track Of Earthquakes & Storms Around Us
href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/weather-widgets-windows-7/">The Four Best Weather Widgets For Windows 7

Do you know of other awesome weather apps for the iPad? Share them in the comments.

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12+ Sites Every Kindle Owner Should Really Know About

Posted on 15 September 2011. Tags: about, Every, Kindle, Know, Owner, Really, Should, Sites

class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/5145997604_757ded8dde.png" alt="kindle web sites" />Seeing how Amazon is probably launching their new reader/tablet device in the next couple of months and recently produced their ingenious href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/amazon-cloud-reader-web-app-kindle-books/">Cloud Reader, the Kindle is a href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/kindle-sony-reader-headtohead-comparison/">hot topic for a lot of people. Even after a multitude of other tablets have surfaced after its birth, the Kindle remains a great e-book reader gadget and of course, still packs a lot of potential for reading enthusiasts. Don’t believe me? Just take a look at the number of blogs, services and tools dedicated to squeezing the most out of your Kindle, a bunch of which we will list up next.

First, for those that have recently acquired their new Kindle, a good starting point would be href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-download-completely-free-amazon-kindle-ebooks-to-your-pc/">this article on how to download e-books from Amazon to your PC (or href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/reading-ebooks-ipad-ibooks-amazon-kindle-mac/">this href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-use-the-amazon-kindle-reader-for-the-iphone-ipod-touch/">one if you own a Mac).

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Next, you can browse href="http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=2245146011">Amazon’s Free eBook collection, href="http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page">Project Gutenberg ( href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/the-best-6-sites-to-get-free-ebooks/">one of the ultimate public domain e-book libraries), href="http://www.archive.org/details.php?identifier=texts">the Internet Archive, and href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-5-websites-amazon-find-great-kindle-books/">the other sites where you can find great Kindle books in the Classics category, though you may occasionally find contemporary free works as well.

Public domain books are well and dandy but if you fancy some other types of books, including modern literature and works, the following are a few noteworthy websites that are serve up daily doses of free or very cheap e-books.

Sites With Free Or Heavily Discounted e-Books

I find that the following sites may offer you the same free e-books and offers occasionally, but sometimes they find different books available for free so it’d probably be wise to check all of them regularly.

href="http://amzn.to/FreeKindleBooks1">Amazon

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The link above leads to the results of a specific Amazon keyword search; it skips samplers, paid books, public domain or classic works, etc. This link is a goodie gathered by the good people at Pixel of Ink, which we discuss up next.

href="http://www.pixelofink.com/">Pixel Of Ink

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Pixel of Ink is an extremely popular website that’s updated several times a day with free or cheap e-books. It’s probably one of the blogs you definitely want to keep an eye on since it’s a rich source of Kindle (and Nook!) steals and bargains. The website is easy to navigate on your computer as it allows you to browse books by genre and tag.

You can also href="http://www.pixelofink.com/subscribe/">subscribe to their daily email newsletter that lists the most recent free and bargain e-books, or check out their sister site, href="http://www.inspiredreads.com/">Inspired Reads that lists affordable Christian reads for the Kindle.

href="http://www.ereaderiq.com/">eReaderIQ

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This site does a few more things than other e-book bargain hunting sites. It actually provides price drop email alerts, has a href="http://m.ereaderiq.com/">Kindle-optimized web site, lets you know when your favorite books will be available on the Kindle AND it offers international support, which should make a lot of our readers happy. Their Kindle book search function can take a lot of parameters so users that have specific search criteria will likely find the advanced book search very helpful.

href="http://blog.booksontheknob.org/">Books On The Knob

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This site has provided free/discounted e-book finds, occasional special offers, and deals for games and music on the Kindle (and to a lesser degree, Nook, Kobo and other readers ) on a daily basis since 2008.

There are many other blogs that update frequently with free e-books or great e-book deals - href="http://thefrugalereader.com/">the Frugal eReader, href="http://freecheapreads.tumblr.com/">Free (& Cheap) Reads, href="http://randomizeme.wordpress.com/">RandomizeME, href="http://www.kindleworld.blogspot.com/">Kindle World, href="http://kindlenationdaily.com/">Kindle Nation Daily, href="http://ilmk.wordpress.com/">I Love My Kindle, href="http://www.freeebookdeal.com/ebook">Free Ebook Deal, and href="http://dailycheapreads.com/">Daily Cheap Reads. And since we’re on the topic of saving money on e-books, don’t forget you can compare e-book prices in the Kindle, Nook and iBook book stores with href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/leatherbound-ebook-price-comparisons-kindle-nook-ibookstore/">Leatherbound.me.

Ways To Send Long Articles To Your Kindle

If you’d like to see how you can read long-form articles from your favorite blogs on your Kindle, there are several options. You can use the feed aggregator service href="http://www.kindlefeeder.com/">KindleFeeder, which delivers 12 of your selected blogs in Kindle-friendly views straight to your device if you have the free, non-premium service.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/2011-08-30_094133.png" alt="free kindle sites" width="420" height="553" border="0" />

You can also wirelessly get a selection of weekly articles hand-picked by href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/read-great-longform-articles-kindle-delivereads/">DeliveReads.

To send articles to read later from your computer to your Kindle, you can use the href="http://kindlebility.com/">Kindlebility bookmarklet to prepare and send yourself a href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/kindlebility-websites-kindle-friendly/">Kindle-friendly view of an article, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/sendtoreader-web-pages-to-kindle/">SendToReader if you own at least a Wi-Fi Kindle 3 model, or the popular href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/calibre-read-instapaper-ebook-reader/">Instapaper and href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/read-web-content-read-free-android-21/">Read It Later.

Lending Clubs

You can enable lending on your Kindle with the tips detailed in href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/loan-kindle-ebooks-amazon-members/">this post, but you’ll possibly encounter more book choices if you join a lending club, such as the href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/borrow-kindle-ebooks-kindle-lending-club/">Kindle Lending Club or href="http://lendle.me/">Lendle.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/2011-08-30_125815.png" alt="free kindle sites" width="577" height="333" border="0" />

href="http://www.thekindlechronicles.com/">Podcast: The Kindle Chronicles

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This weekly podcast discusses all things Kindle: news, interviews (with, for instance, href="http://www.thekindlechronicles.com/2011/08/05/tkc-159-dave-limp/">the Kindle VP) tech tips, Amazon announcements, e-book deals, etc. A few interesting topics include how to publish your own e-books, and upcoming Amazon changes, like href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000702481#">the Kindle Textbook Rental program.

Tools

To-Do List: href="http://kindletodo.com/">KindleToDo

The Kindle was never meant to replace your smartphone or agenda, but if you need to quickly scribble down some notes or a few to-do’s, there’s a website that makes this simple.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/2011-08-30_015013.png" alt="2011-08-30_015013" width="580" height="356" border="0" />

href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/kindletodo-to-do-list-for-kindle/">KindleToDo is a minimalistic website aimed at Kindle users that want to either create a simple to-do list, note or glance at a monthly calendar. The site will automatically save and load your to-do list or note on your next visit.

Customizable Startpage: href="http://www.bookmonk.com/home/">BookMonk & href="http://kinstant.com/">Kinstant

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/2011-08-30_092928.png" alt="2011-08-30_092928" width="332" height="587" border="0" />

As you can see in the screenshot, BookMonk allows you to create a simple startpage for your Kindle web browser from either your computer or on the Kindle itself. If you’re comfortable with the default links, you can navigate to the site from your Kindle and click on a Start Page link, which will prompt you to save the resulting text file with the links in a Start Page folder in your Kindle. Otherwise, use your computer to modify the links.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/2011-08-30_094816.png" alt="2011-08-30_094816" width="532" height="578" border="0" />

Kinstant is another start page website that you don’t actually have to save to your Kindle. You simply navigate to it on your Kindle’s browser and click on the links to a dozen or so Kindle-formatted blogs. You can also add the URLs of your favorite blogs, which will be automatically loaded next time you visit the site.

Want To Be Alerted When Your Favorite Title Becomes Digitized? Check Out href="http://oscurapress.com/mysteria/cgi-bin/mysteria.cgi">Mysteria

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Instead of constantly checking to see if your favorite book, movie or music item is available in digital form, give Mysteria a try. All you have to do is go through a simple signup, create a public wishlist on Amazon and that’s it!

If you know of additional noteworthy Kindle web sites, please let us know in the comments!

Photo credit: href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kodomut/5145997604/in/photostream/" rel="nofollow">kodomut

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4 Hacker Software Tools Every Budding Coder Should Have

Posted on 28 June 2011. Tags: Budding, Coder, Every, Hacker, Should, Software, Tools

class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/2642-12745437615W1311.jpg" alt="hacker software" />If you’re a computer geek, chances are you like fiddling around with things. You are, in short, a hacker. Although most hackers probably use Linux, there are some that use Windows. Maybe your business requires you to use Windows. This post covers some essential hacking and coding tools for all you Windows hackers. Why should the Linux crowd get all the fun, right?

Before we begin, what is a hacker? Well, Wikipedia defines a hacker as “a person who heavily modifies the software or hardware of their own computer system” while Google defines a hacker as “an enthusiastic and skillful computer programmer or user“. I bet most of you here fit that second description at least.

class="vt-p" href="http://www.jedit.org/"> jEdit

This is less known than Notepad++. It supports many advanced features, such as syntax highlighting, which is a must if you’re a programmer. It also has features such as a built-in macro language, which allows it to be incredibly extensible. It’s written in Java, which allows it to be cross-platform.

As a programmer, you are constantly removing code to optimize your program, to fix bugs or any number of other reasons. Sometimes, you may need it back. The so called “Kill Ring” stores deleted text, so you never have to worry.

It supports 130 languages, including AppleScript and Objective-C, which surprised me. So even as a stranded Mac developer, it’s worth a go. It comes with a nice amount of documentation that’s easy to understand, so if you’re ever stuck, don’t worry. It’s a powerful text editor that no Windows programmer should go without.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Screenshot-2011-06-13-at-08.06.35.png" alt="hacker software" width="386" height="560" />

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Screenshot-2011-06-13-at-08.01.52.png" alt="free hacking software" width="464" height="421" />

class="vt-p" href="http://getfirebug.com/">FireBug

FireBug is the number one free web development tool for Firefox which allows live inspecting and editing of webpages. It is is a powerful tool for testing your websites and fixing problems without having to reload the page all the time. Similar to Safari’s built-in ‘Element Inspector’ but for Firefox. Safari is not extensible enough for a web developer, though that may change with Safari 5. For now though, Firefox is the way to go for web development and FireBug makes it even better.

One use for FireBug is downloading page elements, such as Flash games.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Screenshot-2011-06-19-at-00.29.09.jpg" alt="free hacking software" width="560" height="350" />

Jorge covered class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/install-firebug-for-browsers-other-than-firefox/">how to install Firebug on other browsers than Firefox back in 2009, and James class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/steps-road-css-mastery">also covered it in his recent CSS tutorial.

class="vt-p" href="http://www.autohotkey.com/">AutoHotKey

style="margin-right: 20px; margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 5px;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Screenshot-2011-06-13-at-08.13.46.png" alt="free hacking software" align="left" />This is like class="vt-p" href="http://www.phraseexpress.com">TextExpander for Windows, although it goes much further than that. It’s a macro utility which runs in the background and intercepts any key or mouse presses you have ordered it to. It is easily script-able and allows you to do many things, from reversing your scrolling, to auto-correcting text, to the aforementioned text substitution.

I can have it set to substitute “@habib” with “habib@makeuseof.com“. I can set it to do it after the space, or immediately. My choice. That’s the beauty of it: everything can be tweaked. Here’s one line of code that replaces @habib with my email:

:*:@habib::habib@makeuseof.com

The block of text can be as long as I want. I can have pre-written email responses. For the budding coder, you can set it so that +ifelse writes out an if, else statement for you. Then just enter the condition, statements, and other elements. It’s obvious how this can speed up development substantially. In fact, with AutoHotKey, you can optimize a machine for any task, from development to gaming. If the game doesn’t allow you to choose the controls, just fire up the associated AutoHotKey script.

Tina wrote about class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/pimp-windows-autohotkey-scripts-activaid-2/">ac’tivAid, a set of useful AutoHotKey scripts, last year.

class="vt-p" href="http://www.virtualbox.org">VirtualBox

This is a no-brainer for web developers, especially if you run a geeky-type website, where a lot of visitors use Linux. Mac OS X can be installed, albeit without support and you’d be breaking the license, which is illegal.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Untitled.jpg" alt="hacking software" width="580" height="428" />

Some of you may be asking why not just install Linux here and dual-boot, or even replace Windows and have all these tools available out of the box, or with a better alternative? Well, some people are required to run Windows and may not want to keep VirtualBox running all the time, while dual-booting would be a pain in the ass. These tools allow you to have some of the power and extensibility of Linux without having to give up your job, dual-booting or keeping 2 whole OS’s running. VirtualBox allows you to test your websites with other OS’s, or develop for Linux in your spare time. If you are trying to port an application, virtualization is a lifesaver.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Screenshot-2011-06-19-at-11.58.51.jpg" alt="hacker software" width="560" height="350" />

This app has been covered many times on MakeUseOf, e.g. two posts by Jorge in class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/installing-windows-7-on-a-virtual-machine/">January and class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/free-operating-systems-to-use-on-virtualbox/">February 2009, while Justin wrote about class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/virtualboxs-seamless-mode-combine-operating-systems-desktop/">VirtualBox’s seamless mode last year.

What do you think of these tools? Do you have any other suggestions? Did you already know of these tools, and their uses? Are you going to consider retrying some of these programs? Tell us your thoughts in the comments section below!

Image Credit: class="vt-p" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=6884&picture=child-with-laptop">Alan Toniolo de Carvalho

href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/4-hacker-software-tools-budding-coder/">4 Hacker Software Tools Every Budding Coder Should Have is a post from: href="http://www.makeuseof.com">MakeUseOf

More articles about: href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/coding/" title="coding" rel="tag">coding, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/programmer-tools/" title="programmer tools" rel="tag">programmer tools, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/programming/" title="programming" rel="tag">programming, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/virtualization/" title="virtualization" rel="tag">virtualization, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/web/" title="web" rel="tag">web, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/webmaster-tools/" title="webmaster tools" rel="tag">webmaster tools />

Top 11 HTML Tags Every Blogger & Website Owner Must Know

Posted on 24 May 2011. Tags: Blogger, Every, Html, Know, MUST, Owner, Tags, Website

class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/HTML01.png" alt="html tags" />The world wide web knows many languages and is coded in several different ones. The one language however, that can be found all over and has been around since the invention of webpages, is the HyperText Markup Language, better known as HTML. As the name implies, HTML is not a programming, but a markup language. The markups are interpreted by browsers to visualize content on websites. In its most simple form HTML is used to format text, embed media files, and organize content on a webpage. In other words, HTML describes webpages and based on this description, the browser creates an ‘image’.

Thanks to href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/website-builder">free website builders no one really needs to mess with coding HTML anymore. However, on occasion HTML tags can come in handy, for example to make quick changes to a website, add hypertext in a comment, or format text for a forum post. In this article I want to show you a few, possibly random, but definitely useful and simple tags for daily use.

Before we start, let me introduce you to some basic rules that will hopefully make HTML tags easier to understand:

HTML uses markup tags, which are enclosed in angle brackets, such as this: <html>
Tags that look like the one in the example above are called start tags. Every start tag must be followed by an end tag at some point, such as this: </html>
Some tags do not describe content. To be compliant with current standards, however, they must still end. Consequently, they unite the start and end tag, such as this:

Formatting Text

HTML tags are usually straightforward. The tags for making text bold, italic, or underlined are derived from the respective word.

Input: bold /> Output: bold

Input: italic /> Output: italic

Input: underlined /> Output: style="text-decoration: underline;">underlined

Input: <s>strike through text</s> /> Output: style="color: #000000;">~~strike through text~~

Creating Hypertext

Plain URLs can look pretty ugly. Adding the hyperlink to a text, i.e. creating a hypertext, is much more stylish and will save space, especially if the link is very long.

Input: <a href=”http://www.makeuseof.com” title=”MakeUseOf”>MakeUseOf</a> /> Output: title="MakeUseOf" href="http://www.makeuseof.com">MakeUseOf

As you can see this HTML tag is a little more complicated, so let’s look at it in detail. The actual tag is <a> and the additional elements are attributes that specify further characteristics. The attribute href= specifies the link and title= defines the mouse-over tooltip. Be sure to use quotations marks to enclose the link and the title, otherwise you might end up with a broken link.

Embedding Images

A picture can say more than a thousand words. We should use them more often. And this is how you can manually insert one using HTML:

Input: <img src=”http://www.yourlinkhere.com/Smiley.png” alt=”smiley” /> /> Output: class="alignnone size-full wp-image-75628" title="Smiley01" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Smiley01.png" alt="html tags" width="20" height="20" />

Let’s also analyze this tag. Again, the actual tag is <img> and the required attributes are src= and alt=. The former points to the location of the image, i.e. its URL, and the latter provides an alternative text, which is displayed in case the display of images is blocked or the link is broken. Again, use quotation marks to avoid broken links.

The <img> tag is also an example of a tag that doesn’t need to be ‘ended’ and hence closes with the forward dash in the initial tag, i.e. <img /> rather than <img>.

Breaks & Paragraphs

To create a structured text, you need to utilize line breaks and paragraphs. And these are the tags you need to know:

Input: /> Output: This tag creates a line break. Note that this is another tag that unites start and end tag in one.

Input: Text inside your paragraph. /> Output: Unlike the previous tag, the paragraph tag has a standard start and end tag. The text in between the two tags is wrapped into a paragraph, meaning there is an empty line before and after.

Lists

There are essentially two types of lists: ordered and unordered lists, better known as numbered and bulleted lists. To create either, you need to know two different tags, but only three in total. Let’s look at the examples first:

Input:

Output:

Item One
Item Two

Input:

Output:

Item One
Item Two

To create an ordered list, use the tag <ol> and for an unordered list, insert the <ul> tag. In both cases, the <li> tag is used to define an item within the list.

Now that you have seen how simple and logic HTML is, you may want to go beyond the very basics and learn a little more. For more HTML tips, check out these articles:

title="5 Steps To Understanding Basic HTML Code" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-steps-understanding-basic-html-code/">5 Steps To Understanding Basic HTML Code
title="5 HTML Tips to Create a Fast Loading Free Website" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-html-tips-to-create-a-fast-loading-free-website/">5 HTML Tips to Create a Fast Loading Free Website
title="7 Cool HTML Effects That Anyone Can Add To Their Website" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/7-cool-html-effects-that-anyone-can-add-to-their-website-nb/">7 Cool HTML Effects That Anyone Can Add To Their Website

Do you feel a little more confident about using HTML tags now? If you have been ‘hand coding’ routinely before, what tags do you think are missing?

Image credits: title="HTML" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=22713652">kentoh />
/> href="http://www.supertintin.com/">SuperTinTin – Skype Video Call Recorder /> Record and save your audio and video conversations on Skype or MSN. Easy to use.

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Top 4 RSS Music Feeds To Get New Tunes Every Day

Posted on 10 May 2011. Tags: Every, Feeds, Music, Tunes

class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/folder_music.png" alt="rss music feeds"/>Music discovery websites seem to have exploded in popularity lately. There are href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-social-music-networks-discover-share-tunes/">music discovery social networks, desktop applications (for Linux, see href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-great-radio-apps-linux/">this post) and even href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/find-listen-promote-music-amazing-tunes/">online music stations. You can actually even resort to using href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/youtube-music-new-music-videos-youtube/">YouTube and href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/itunes-imixes-create-great-music-playlists/">iTunes’ iMix features to discover new songs. There are, indeed, many href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-10-free-ways-discover-music-online/">free ways to discover new music easily.

Steve recently wrote a href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/4-websites-check-music-releases/">post on what websites to check out to obtain new music releases. Since we want to make life easier for you and help you reap the href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-power-daydreaming/200907/how-music-feeds-and-steers-your-imagination">benefits of music for your brain, we will also go over what specific RSS music feeds you can get to obtain the latest tunes in the comfort of your RSS reader, that is, without having to check multiple websites daily.

href="http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/rss/home/0,,,00.html">ArtistDirect

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/4.png" alt="rss music feeds" width="498" height="588" />

This site offers feeds for featured music releases, mostly albums, along with the release date and album price. Though it may not have a lot of additional information, it’s definitely short and sweet, which should suit anyone that wants the updates in a quick glance.

RSS Music Feed: Copy href="http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/rss/storemusic/0,,80,00.xml">this link

href="http://itunes.apple.com/rss">iTunes

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/3.png" alt="free music rss feeds" width="580" height="160" />

Of course, being the giant digital store it is, iTunes maintains records of new music releases (both albums and singles) along with album/single price information, release date, genre and album/single cover. The cool thing about the href="http://itunes.apple.com/rss">RSS site that iTunes offers is that you can choose what the feed will display. You can make the feed display 10, 25, and up to 300 items, and best of all, you can pick what genre you’re interested in. The following feed is for 25 new releases of all genres.

RSS Feed: Copy href="http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wpa/MRSS/newreleases/sf=143441/limit=25/rss.xml">this link

href="http://newalbumreleases.net/">New Album Releases

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/2.jpg" alt="free music rss feeds" width="580" height="414" />

href="http://newalbumreleases.net/">New Album Releases appeared in Steve’s href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/4-websites-check-music-releases/">post, and it’s truly worth another mention here as it provides a feed full of informative posts about the latest albums that have been released. Each post details the artist, style or genre and even has an image of the album cover!

RSS Feed: Copy href="http://newalbumreleases.net/feed/">this link

href="http://roadie.thinkorange.pt/">Roadie

href="http://roadie.thinkorange.pt/"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/1.png" alt="rss music feeds" width="580" height="482" />Roadie provides a feed similar to New Album Releases with the difference that the former simply presents you with the name of the artist, the new album being released, the price of the album, and an Amazon MP3 link for you to obtain more information on the track list and the artist. If you want more details on Roadie, check out our href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/roadie-unique-rss-feeds/">Directory article. While the website says you can search for your favorite artist and get an RSS feed to get updates only for that musician, the resulting feed gives information on all artists, not your favorite artists exactly. It’s still a good feed to keep yourself updated with the latest album releases, since it reports additional albums that New Album Releases doesn’t.

RSS Feed: Copy href="http://roadie.thinkorange.pt/">this link

Now that you’re updated with lots of information on the latest albums, why not go to music streaming sites to listen to those new songs and albums? Here are href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/7-online-music-streaming-services-restrictions/">7 sites that do not impose any restrictions, such as time limits. You can also check out href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/complete-list-hottest-music-exploration-sites/">14+ Hottest Music Streaming & Discovery Sites, which should keep you plenty entertained.

How do you discover new music? Let us know in the comments!

Image Credit: rel="nofollow" href="http://findicons.com/icon/35632/folder_music?width=256#">Media Design (Ben Fleming) />
/> href="http://flashvideodownloader.org/fvd-suite/track/s/makeuseof">Download videos from the sites like YouTube, Break.com etc. Convert videos to almost any format. /> href="http://flashvideodownloader.org/fvd-suite/track/s/makeuseof"> src="http://flashvideodownloader.org/fvd-suite/banners/aban3.gif">

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More articles about: href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/discover/" title="discover" rel="tag">discover, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/feedreader/" title="feedreader" rel="tag">feedreader, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/feeds/" title="feeds" rel="tag">feeds, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/music/" title="music" rel="tag">music, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/music-albums/" title="music albums" rel="tag">music albums, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/rss/" title="RSS" rel="tag">RSS, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/songs/" title="songs" rel="tag">songs />

5 Things Every New Facebook User Should Do Immediately

Posted on 10 November 2010. Tags: Every, Facebook, Immediately, Should, Things, User

class="align-left" style="border: 0px none; margin-left: 20px; margin-top: 5px; float: right;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/0-fbfd-intro.png" alt="facebook tips" width="233" height="233" />We have written a lot of articles about Facebook in the past. For the hardcore Facebook fanatics out there, we’ve shown you how to class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-4-cool-ways-customise-facebook-profile/">customize your profile, add class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/add-facebook-widgets-buttons-website/">widgets and buttons to your website, save your class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/save-complete-facebook-chat-history/">chat history and customize your class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/customize-facebook-fan-page-welcome-tab/">fan page, as well as adding dozens of other class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/add-dozens-features-facebook-account-ffixer/">cool features to your account. We’ve also taken you behind the scenes to see how class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/facebook-work-nuts-bolts-technology-explained/">Facebook works.

Don’t have a Facebook account? Last time I checked, there were more than 500 million people in the world, so I know there are a few of you. If you are new to Facebook, there are some tips you should definitely do on your newly created account that take priority over everything else. In this article, I’ll show you what those things are.

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I Created A Facebook Account, Now What?

The first thing Facebook recommends that you do upon creating a new account is locate your friends via your email address. This is funny to me, because it’s actually the last thing I think you should do when you first create an account.

Why would you want to start friending people when you have a blank profile?

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/2010-10-25_1935_001.png" alt="facebook tips" width="448" height="325" />

In the next step, Facebook asks you to fill out your profile information. I suggest skipping this step as well, at least for now. Besides, they only ask you for your high school, college/university, and employer information, most likely because they don’t want to overwhelm you.

Step 3 we can do, so that is where I would like to start.

1. Upload A Profile Picture

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/2010-10-25_1936.png" alt="facebook useful tips" width="565" height="350" />

Facebook is called Facebook for a reason. Before adding friends it’s important that you have a profile picture, preferably of yourself so everybody will recognize you. I don’t have any statistics on this, but I’d say less than 1 percent of legitimate accounts don’t have a profile picture. It’s a rarity.

If you need a more practical reason to upload a profile picture, you’ll be pleased to learn that once you do this step, you will get a new tab on your profile: the Photos tab. This is where you’ll go later on to create photo albums to share your experiences with others.

2. Tweak Your Privacy Settings

You were probably wondering when I would get to the Facebook privacy issue, so lets get it out of the way now. Facebook has a multitude of privacy settings that control everything about your profile, how it’s viewed by others, found in search and accessed by applications.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/2010-10-25_2258.png" alt="facebook useful tips" width="522" height="330" />

To view your settings, just go up to your Account tab and select Privacy Settings. Once there, you can click Customize settings to begin altering them to meet your needs.

If you want to learn more about these settings, check out our latest guide, class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/download-unofficial-facebook-privacy-guide/">The (Very) Unofficial Facebook Privacy Guide.

3. Fill Out Your Profile Information

Now it’s time to fill out your profile information. If you head over to your Profile page, click on the Info tab and select Edit, you will have all kinds of fields to fill out information about yourself.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/2010-10-26_1440.png" alt="facebook tips and tricks" width="536" height="372" />

You can choose to fill out as much or as little information as you like here. If you’ve taken your privacy settings into account and feel confident with who will be viewing your profile, you can list more information than you maybe would have otherwise.

4. Join A Network

Once you’ve filled out your basic information, likes and interests, education and work, etc. you should join a network. Once again, head up to your Account tab and go to Account Settings. Then, click on the Networks tab.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/2010-10-26_1443.png" alt="facebook tips and tricks" width="295" height="273" />

Facebook networks typically consist of colleges, regions and places of work. For instance, the two networks I belong to are Penn State (my college) and VaynerMedia (my employer). One network is enough, but if you want to be able to share and connect with more people, you can join more.

5. Set Up A Username

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/2010-10-26_1439.png" alt="facebook tips and tricks" width="543" height="148" />

Although you’ve missed the gold-rush on this one, I still think it’s important for you to claim whatever username you can. On the Settings tab in your Account Settings, click on Username to claim your vanity URL (e.g. facebook.com/stevenjcampbell). It will ask you to verify your account via text message before allowing you to pick your name.

As a word of advice, try to use your real name here if you can. Facebook profiles are really close to becoming our online identities if you ask me, and it’s important to claim your name from a personal branding standpoint.

[Bonus] Find Your Friends

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/2010-10-25_1935.png" alt="facebook tips" width="473" height="322" />

Now it’s time to add your friends. Chances are you will find a lot of them in the same network(s) you’ve chosen, but you can search for them using your email contacts and standard Facebook search as well. If you completed the steps above, they will have a nice, professional looking profile to look at when they first accept your friend request, rather than a barren wasteland.

Are you excited about getting a shiny new Facebook account now? If you already have a profile, is there anything you’d like to add? />
/> Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out href="http://www.facebook.com/makeuseof">MakeUseOf page on Facebook. Over 24,000 fans already!

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5 Cool Android Apps That Every Movie Fan Should Have

Posted on 19 October 2010. Tags: Android, Apps, Cool, Every, Movie, Should

style="border: 0px none;margin-left:20px;float:right;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/androidmovies.jpg" alt="best movie apps"/>Like everything these days, movies are going mobile. Internet and mobile technologies together have opened many doors, and even us can feel subjects of a futuristic movie.

Below, we’ve aggregated some of the best Android movie apps for the movie lover. Find reviews and watch trailers on the go, locate movie theaters near you, and get interesting audio bits and wallpapers delivered right to your style="text-decoration: line-through;">doorstep phone.

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href="http://www.flixster.com/wap/apps/android">Movies by Flixster

The Movies application by Flixter is one the most extensive applications available right now for movie lovers. It combines local features with general movie data. Movie ratings from href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/">Rotten Tomatoes, one of the more popular movie review sites, are shown for all new movies and top box offices.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/flixster1.jpg" alt="best movie apps"/>

The Movies application will also look for theaters and movie showtimes near you, up and coming movies, and DVDs. Perhaps one of the more interesting features of the application is the ability to effectively ‘bookmark’ movies, which you’ll then be able to find in the My Movies tab above.

Download it by scanning this QR code with your Android phone.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/flixster.png" alt="mobile movies download"/>

href="http://www.imdb.com/features/android/">IMDb Movies & TV

Every movie fan with internet access should already be thoroughly familiar with href="http://www.imdb.com/">IMDb; the Internet Movie Database. This website is an unchallenged authority on cataloging movies and TV series, and is known for its often-time critic user reviews. Personally, I always take a look at IMDb to determine the worth of a particular movie.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/imdbandroid.jpg" alt="android app movies"/>

Having it readily accessible on my cellphone allows me to look up movie information without breaking a sweat, no matter where I am. If you’re living in the US, you can use the app to look up movie showtimes, TV listings based on your timezone, and even view recaps from last night’s shows. Users around the world can view film trailers, user and critic reviews, quotes, trivia, and of course all the different IMDb’s movie charts.

Download it by scanning this QR code with your Android phone.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/imdb.jpeg" />

href="http://www.androlib.com/android.application.com-binomed-showtime-xAmF.aspx">CineShowTime

Sure, both Flixter’s Movies and the IMDb app allow you to look up movie showtimes, but contrary to most modernist, I’m a strong advocate of dedicated applications. If you’re looking for nothing more than movie showtimes, there’s no reason your memory should be hogged by features you aren’t going to use. Besides, this application offers some interesting additional features.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/cineshowtime.jpg" alt="mobile movies download"/>

CineShowTime automatically determines your location and the movie theaters near you. You can view the showtimes and plenty of information on the individual movies, including duration, rating, and a link to the IMDb page. But best of all, the application will automatically add a showing to your personal calendar.

Download it by scanning this QR code with your Android phone.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/cineshowtime.png" />

href="http://www.appbrain.com/app/hollywood-movie-wallpapers/com.heroplanet.hollywoodmoviewallpapers">Hollywood Movie Wallpapers

If you regularly change your Android wallpaper, you’ve probably got your own sources of fun images, but I’ll bet it isn’t as easy to use as this application. Although the movie wallpapers supplied aren’t always as interesting, there’s always an ever-ready repository, and it doesn’t require you to individually resize and transfer any images to your phone.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/hollywood-droid.jpg" alt=""/>

Swap through the images, zoom in with using but a single finger, and set your new wallpaper in a mere two taps. You can also mail yourself the wallpaper, or contribute to the overall wallpaper quality by issuing a rating.

Download it by scanning this QR code with your Android phone.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/wallpaper.png" alt=""/>

href="http://www.androidzoom.com/android_applications/entertainment/classic-movie-quotes_iecs.html">Classic Movie Quotes

If anything, this application isn’t too sophisticated, but it’s a fun gimmick to have on your phone. Classic Movie Quotes, much like the name implies, supplies you with random audio movie quotes of movie classics.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/78053-2.jpg" alt=""/>

If you want, you can also save said audio quotes as a notification or ringtone sound byte. To do so, select a quote, and press one of the buttons at the bottom of the screen. This will remain in effect after reboot.

Download it by scanning this QR code with your Android phone.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/quotes.png" alt="best movie apps"/>

Do you know any other great movie applications for the Android? Let us know in the comments below! />
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Insert a Template Into Every WordPress Post With In-Post Template

Posted on 13 October 2010. Tags: Every, InPost, Insert, into, Post, Template, Wordpress

class="align-left" style="border: 0px none;margin-left:20px;margin-top:5px;float:right;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/blog.jpg" alt="wordpress templates" width="300" height="180" />As many bloggers out there probably know, it can be very annoying to try and create updates on your blog that are perfectly formatted or that include certain elements (like pictures or ads) into every post. Sometimes, when you’re tired and trying to get something written to your blog as quickly as possible, it’s very easy to forget those formatting issues.

I started my quest for a solution because in all of my blogs I always insert a Google Ad and a picture immediately following the “more” marker. This is a technique that a lot of bloggers use in order to break up the text of any blog entry. Some people insert their own banner image that might promote another part of the website, while others place ads or just imagery to spruce up the post.

id="more-55020"> /> The problem is that once you find a perfect format for formatting each post, you’d have to remember to type in that code or insert the picture every time you write a new entry. Not long ago, I wrote about pre-formatting blog posts using the Firefox plugin class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/scribefire-write-quick-preformatted-blog-posts/">Scribefire – but sometimes I like to edit directly in WordPress. Thankfully, I discovered an awesome WordPress template plugin called class="vt-p" href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/in-post-template/">In-Post Template, which will automatically inserts template information into the post for you.

Setting Up The In-Post Template Plug-In

There’s nothing complicated about setting up the In-Post template. Like most other WordPress plugins, all you have to do is FTP the plug-in folder into your WordPress “plugins” folder. Next, go into the plugins area in your WordPress admin panel and activate the In-Post Template plugin.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-55014" style="border: 1px solid black;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/inpost2.jpg" alt="wordpress templates" width="468" height="294" />

Under settings, click on “In-Post Template,” and you’ll see a very simple form to fill out. There are just two text fields and one drop-down box.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-55015" style="border: 1px solid black;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/inpost3.jpg" alt="wordpress page template" width="466" height="367" />

style="text-align: left;">Before we get into the template configuration, I’d like to show you what sort of thing you have to do if you don’t have a template in order to incorporate ads, pictures or anything else into every post you write. Here, I add an image on the right and an ad on the left directly after the “more” marker. With ads, you have to do it after so that your main blog page isn’t filled with 10 or more Google Ads (Google has a limit on the number of in-page ads).

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 1px solid black;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/inpost5.jpg" alt="wordpress page template" width="376" height="287" />

style="text-align: left;">Instead of typing this code into every single post, you can place it into the “In-post Content” inside the In-Post Template settings. If you don’t use the “more” marker on your blog, the In-Post template still lets you add formatting at the beginning or end of your post.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-55016" style="border: 1px solid black;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/inpost4.jpg" alt="wordpress page template" width="555" height="400" />

For example, if you want to append a bio to every post, just change “Ignore” to “After Post” and type in the information that you’d like appended to every blog post. Now that I’m using the In-Post template, I don’t have to worry about copying and pasting all of that code. I just place the “more” marker and it all gets inserted automatically.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-55018" style="border: 1px solid black;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/inpost6.jpg" alt="wordpress template" width="416" height="354" />

Here’s the final post with the content automatically inserted. You can do this for your own banners, a preface for every post, a bio at the end of every post – or any other content you are sick of pasting into your blog entries to keep things formatted and consistent.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-55019" style="border: 1px solid black;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/inpost7.jpg" alt="wordpress templates" width="420" height="343" />

style="text-align: left;">The pros of this WordPress template plugin is that it’s one of the easiest I’ve ever seen. There’s virtually no setup – you just add your content and tell the plugin where to place it. The cons of the plugin are that you can’t do all three at once – you can either use the more marker to insert content in the middle of your post, or insert content at the beginning or end. You can’t do all three.

Beyond that, I’ve found the plug-in invaluable for my own needs, and for anyone that needs to insert one section of content into every blog post, this little tool will really save a lot of time.

style="text-align: left;">Have you ever tried the In-Post Template and do you like it? Do you know of any other helpful WordPress template plugins? Share your insight in the comments section below.

Image credit: class="vt-p" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1162226">Svilen Milev />
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Create Music Playlists For Every Situation With Playlistnow.fm

Posted on 02 October 2010. Tags: Create, Every, Music, Playlistnow.fm, Playlists, Situation

class="align-left" style="border: 0px none; margin-left: 20px; margin-top: 5px; float: right;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/playlist.png" alt="create music playlists" width="300" height="151" />There is no shortage of ways to listen to music online, whether it’s by creating your own playlists on popular websites like class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/listen-free-music-online-grooveshark/">Grooveshark or listening to online radio stations. class="vt-p" href="http://playlistnow.fm">Playlistnow.fm is a service with a new spin on how to choose what to listen to online.

Rather than listen to music class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-websites-play-music-matching-mood/">based on your mood, or based on your favourite genre, Playlistnow.fm is all about listening to music according to your situation.

id="more-54590"> /> Whether you’re at the office, relaxing, or partying – there’s a playlist for just about every situation you could imagine on the site. Playlistnow.fm is part social network, part online radio. Create your own playlists or listen to other people’s playlists. Playlistnow.fm is not only a great way to listen to music depending on your situation, it also offers a way of discovering songs and artists similar to those you already like.

Playlistnow.fm does not have a registration page, but rather allows you to connect either your class="vt-p" href="http://facebook.com">Facebook, class="vt-p" href="http://twitter.com">Twitter or class="vt-p" href="http://google.com">Google account to access the site. It is worth mentioning though, that while they provide a method to revoke permission for access to your account – it doesn’t work. If you change your mind about using Playlistnow.fm – you will have to revoke permission directly through the account you connected to the site.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/signin.png" alt="create music playlists" width="580" height="291" />

Once you’ve signed in, you will be prompted to fill in your name, email address and location. If any of your friends from the service you connected are on Playlistnow.fm, you can follow them, and if you want, follow some suggested members including Playlistnow.fm staff members and popular users.

Playlistnow.fm focuses heavily on the social network side of things, with collaborative playlists, allowing you to add songs to other people’s playlists. Another social network feature is a feed of your and your friends’ recent activities on the site. Other users can comment on and ‘like’ each other’s activity on the site.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/activity.png" alt="make playlist" width="580" height="365" />

There are two ways to search for songs on the site. If you use the search bar at the top of the page, the search results are accompanied by a wealth of information.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/search.png" alt="create playlists" width="580" height="93" />

Song search results are accompanied by the audio track, similar songs, and a list of the playlists the song has been added to. You can ‘like’ the song, comment on it, or add it to your playlist. Artist search results are similar, accompanied by similar artists, a bio, and the available songs from that artist on Playlistnow.fm. If the song you want isn’t on the list, you can expand the search results to include YouTube songs.

You can also preview a song before adding it to your list, share the song via email, Facebook or Twitter. If you don’t feel like creating a situation-related playlist you can add the song to your ‘tiny playlist,’ a public list of your favourite songs, by clicking the heart icon.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/artistpage.png" alt="create playlists" width="580" height="256" />

To create a playlist, click on the ‘Create a playlist’ button at the top of the page and fill in the fields – the situation, tags, and the category.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/create.png" alt="make playlist" width="580" height="315" />

On the playlist page, you can then search for songs to add to your playlist. These search results are not accompanied by the information included using the first search method, allowing you only to preview and add songs to the playlist.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/search2.jpg" alt="create playlists" width="580" height="454" />

If you’d rather browse other people’s playlists, there are several ways to do so. You can browse playlists by tag, by categories, or even through the entire list until you find something that appeals to you.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/browse-playlists.jpg" alt="create music playlists" width="580" height="441" />

Playback is controlled by a player at the bottom of the browser screen. Through the player, you can skip and pause songs, set the playlist to play on shuffle or repeat, or share what you’re listening to on Twitter or Facebook, watch the video, or add the song to your tiny playlist.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/player.png" alt="create music playlists" width="580" height="46" />

If there is one major criticism to be made of Playlistnow.fm, it’s that you won’t always find the song or singer that you’re looking for. If your taste in music is less than mainstream, you will struggle to find songs to create your music playlists, despite the fact that the music is partly powered by YouTube videos. If the artist does not have a page on Playlistnow.fm, their YouTube songs won’t show up in search results.

Have you tried out Playlistnow.fm? Let us know what you thought of it in the comments.

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4 Android Phone Applications That Every Programmer Will Love

Posted on 18 August 2010. Tags: Android, Applications, Every, Love, Phone, Programmer

class="align-left" style="border: 0px none; margin-left: 20px; margin-top: 5px; float: right;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/littledroid.jpg" alt="" width="208" height="250" />For most programmers, programming isn’t just a job or a hobby, it’s really a way of life. When a programmer is faced with a new gadget, the first thought is usually “how can I program it?” Programmers live to tweak, customize and hack the behavior of their gadgets, and this is especially true when it comes to the mobile device that they live, work and play with every single day.

Each new language has a learning curve – it’s a process of learning the commands, functions and structure of the language, practicing and then building applications. Here at MUO, we’ve covered some great apps for learning programming skills, like href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/alice-teaches-object-oriented-computer-programming-to-kids/">Alice and href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/kids-can-learn-programming-from-scratch/">Scratch.

id="more-50902"> /> For programmers who own an Android phone, it is especially tempting to experiment, because anyone is allowed to write an application that runs on the Android OS. These days there are a few fantastic apps for programmers and I’m going to share 4 of them with you today.

Go Mad With Frink

Frink is a programming language named after the quirky scientist, John Frink, from The Simpsons. The language was created by Alan Eliasen to serve as an advanced method to perform calculations, including dealing with measurements and dimensions of various shapes. Alan now offers a href="http://futureboy.us/frinkdocs/android.html">Frink programming environment for the Android.

Visit his website for some of the Android specific functions you can use within this app.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/droid1.jpg" alt="" width="281" height="500" />

The first page you’ll see is the editing environment where you can write up the Frink script you’d like to test. Thankfully, he has included a number of example scripts so that if you’re new to Frink, you can see how the language is structured. Click “Run” and a pop-up opens with the output of your program.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/droid2.jpg" alt="" width="281" height="500" />

Frink is fun to play around with to create scripts for calculations and functions, and Alan does include some Android specific functions, but you aren’t going to be able to perform any advanced display features using Frink. However, if your goal is to learn the Frink programming language in your spare time, this is the app for you.

Create Your First Android App With iProgram

One of my favorite programming applications on the Android is iProgram. Once you href="https://androidscript.appspot.com">sign up for an online account, you can get started creating highly functional scripts that actually work just like any other app on your Android. There are great examples provided that can make creating your first app a piece of cake.

Here, I’ve used examples to create an application that displays my phone’s Wi-Fi status and also creates a two-button menu.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-50905" style="border: 1px solid black;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Droid3.jpg" alt="" width="524" height="410" />

When you install the iPhone app on your Android phone, you can sync all of your online scripts with your phone. From the phone, you can view your scripts and run them on your Android.

Here is my first app written on iProgram.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-50906" style="border: 1px solid black;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/droid4.jpg" alt="" width="281" height="500" />

This application took barely 15 minutes to put together. Some of the other examples show some pretty cool things you can do – all you have to do is tweak and combine the various functions within the code to suit your needs. Why search for the perfect app when you can write your own?

Learn Programming Concepts With AndroMaze

The next couple of apps I’d like to cover are more for younger programming students. The first, called href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/andmaz/">AndroMaze is a blast to play, especially if you like the idea of programming robots using a sequence of functions and then letting the robot run through those commands. With AndroMaze, everything is customizable, including the maze itself, as you can see here.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-50907" style="border: 1px solid black;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/droid6.jpg" alt="" width="281" height="500" />

Each “level” in the game consists of open space, walls and blocks, or “goals” that your little Droid-bot is supposed to collect. The goal of the game is to program the robot to work through the maze and collect each goal. Commands are go straight, turn left, or turn right.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-50908" style="border: 1px solid black;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/droid7.jpg" alt="" width="281" height="500" />

While the concept is simple, it’s actually an excellent game to teach younger programming students about the concept of sequential logic and subroutines. The program is entered by dragging symbols into the “Prog” field, and the clicking on the “run” button.

style="text-align: left;"> class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-50909" style="border: 1px solid black;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/droid8.jpg" alt="" width="281" height="500" />

style="text-align: left;">Watch as your little robot follows your every command. You can even create subroutines that the robot can repeat – what better way to teach young programmers about smart programming techniques!

Practice Programming In Logo With Android Logo

Another great programming app for anyone learning about programming concepts is called Android Logo on the Android Market. Logo was a 1967 programming language as an educational tool, but for anyone familiar with Turtle Graphics, this programming app is a fantastic way to learn how to create some very cool graphics using scripting.

If you aren’t familiar with Logo or Turtle Graphics, just check out the page on href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_%28programming_language%29">Wikipedia for a few examples and references.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/droid9.jpg" alt="" width="281" height="500" />

Just enter your Logo code in the box at the bottom of the main screen, and when you click “Run” you’ll see the active program running in the “Drawing panel.”

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/droid10.jpg" alt="" width="281" height="500" />

This little app is very addictive – you’ll find yourself looking for ways to create more intricate and interesting patterns and designs. It’s actually quite Zen after a while.

Have you ever played around with any cool programming apps on the Android? Share some of your favorites, or offer feedback on these Android apps in the comments section below.

Image Credit: rel="nofollow" href="http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1171276">Sasan Said />
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Coby 8 GB ? An MP3 Video Player That Suits Every Pocket

Posted on 12 August 2010. Tags: Coby, Every, Player, Pocket, Suits, Video

Gone are those days when you had to carry bulky walkmans if you wanted to listen to music wherever you went. The market today teems with a variety of MP3 players, which suit every pocket, both literally and figuratively. My personal favorite is the Coby 8 GB Flash MP3 Player with Touchpad and FM Radio. The reason is obvious. At $ 64.50, this Coby MP3 video player has a great price-value equation.

Digital entertainment is at your finger tips with this Coby Flash MP3 player. With its 8 GB memory, you can store your entire personal digital library. The USB 2.0 hi-speed enables fast file transfers and saves you time. It can also play digital music from almost all online stores and subscription services. ID3 tag and LRC supports for displaying song and lyric information are added advantages. Enjoy video, photos, and text on the full-color TFT 2.4″ screen with a 240 x 320 pixel resolution, which gives you vivid images.

The Coby MP-725 Touchpad Video MP3 Player can run the following formats:

1. Audio: MP3, WMA, OGG
2. Video: MPG, VOB, MP4, AVI, FLV, WMV
3. Photo: JPG, BMP, GIF
4. Text: TXT

An interesting addition to these Coby MP3 video players is the FM radio. They also have a multilingual menu system, which supports English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, and German.

The 3.5mm stereo earphones that come with the Coby 8 GB Flash MP3 Player take your listening experience to a new high. This MP3 player is powered by an integrated 580 mAh rechargeable Li-poly battery. This high-capacity battery lets you listen to your favorite tracks for up to 12 hours. It supports Windows Vista, XP, and 2000 operating systems.

Get a Coby MP-725 Touchpad Video MP3 Player today and discover a totally different viewing and listening experience.

Posted in UtilitiesComments (0)

Three Tools Every Newsgroup Subscriber Should Know About

Posted on 23 July 2010. Tags: about, Every, Know, Newsgroup, Should, Subscriber, three, Tools

There are hundred of thousands of different newsgroups on the
Net. Most newsgroup subscribers are members of multiple groups.
Find out which tools are available to make managing these
subscriptions easier.

Binary Boy

Binary Boy allows its users to download music, movies and
pictures from news servers. Folks can browse manually or
schedule a search to collect files while they sleep. An
intelligent subject cache speeds up searches and preserves
bandwidth. The program comes witha a decoder that is is
Hyper-Threading capable.

Using Binary Boy, one can search using single words, wildcards
or use boolean logic and custom search rules can be applied to
each newsgroup. This is one of the few applications that allows
users to decode damaged or incomplete mpg movies for previewing.
yEnc, MIME, QP-Lite, Quote-Printable and BommaNews encodings are
handled automatically.

More Information: http://www.deprice.com/binaryboy.htm

News File Grabber

News File Grabber is a specialized newsreader which lets you
easily download and extract all kinds of attachments and binary
files (like photos, movies, pictures, mp3-files and other stuff)
from the newsgroups on the USENET.

There are many decoding schemes supported, including MIME, UUE,
base64 and yENC (also multi-parts with auto-combining).

The program supports multiple servers, up to 20 simultaneous
download threads and secure server connections (SSL). You also
can extract from EML/NWS-files stored on your hard disk.

More Information: http://www.deprice.com/newsfilegrabber.htm

Pluckit

Pluckit is an amazing Windows program that automatically
searches newsgroups for binary attachments (pictures).It then
downloads and saves them for your pleasure.

As if by magic, Pluckit seeks out only messages with binary
attachments, grabs and saves them. Pluckit can display pictures
individually, in a slide show, or in a gallery! All you have to
do is tell Pluckit what kinds of pictures you are interested in
and then click the “Start Plucking” button.

Pluckit can acquire literally thousands of JPG’s, GIF’s, MPG’s,
AVI’s, ZIP’s, MP3′s, yEnc’s, RAR’s, and other file types while
running completely unattended in the foreground or background.

More Information: http://www.deprice.com/pluckit.ht

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Is Your Website Cross Compatible? – Does it Support Every Major Web Browser, Or Can Your Site Look.

Posted on 08 July 2010. Tags: Browser, Compatible, Cross, Every, Look, Major, Site, Support, Website

“Cross compatability in browsers”, If you have spent your share of time on the internet, I am sure you have heard the term before.

Basically, this refers to the ability to project your website in the same format, regardless of what browser your visitors are using to view your site with. It is very important to keep in mind that the browser *you* use to access the web is not the same for everyone.

There are many brands of browsers available on the web, some of which are more widely used that others, and just like the various operating systems available today…not all browsers function exactly the same way. In some cases, your content may display the same in most major web browsers, but it doesn’t always work out so easily. From tables to layers, JavaScript to php…there are many things that can display differently to the user browsing your website based on the application they are using.

This is why it is very important that, when creating a website (or page), you verify that the page functions correctly in all major browsers (this means having a machine with all browsers available to you so that you can view and test your site in each one). When something does go astray, it isn’t always simple to fix…but it can be done.

So always make sure that you check your work before you publish your work. It’s better that you catch the mistake before your customers do. Examples of popular browsers: Internet Explorer, FireFox, Opera Browser, Google Chrome, Safari and Netscape

Posted in UtilitiesComments (0)

Educational Software, the Right Tool for every Occasion!

Posted on 04 July 2010. Tags: EDUCATIONAL, Every, Occasion, Right, Software, Tool

It seems only a short time ago that educational software, was a novel idea, and yet now it is a staple both in the classroom and on the home computer. These days educational software for children includes areas of learning from maths to music, from literacy to learning a new language. There are, to be sure, very few subjects that cannot be at least in part learned on a computer. To assist in the important process of becoming literate, a huge variety of kids educational software packages are produced which help the child learn to spell, some help improve their writing skills, some are intended to expand a child’s vocabulary, and of course there is an extensive range of beautiful interactive books on the market to help them learn to read.

For kids just starting to read there are some good phonics packages and there are special word processors designed for children too. Many schools now have their own website and children can publish their work on the web which is a great way to inspire them to get writing. Maths seems the most obvious subject for learning on the computer, and educational software for young children is available to help with counting, other packages concentrate on helping them learn the characteristics of and important words associated with 2D and 3D shapes such as squares, triangles and cuboids, some expose children to the vocabulary of maths, words like ‘bigger’,’ smaller’, ‘up’, ‘down’, ‘many’ and ‘few’.

As children grow older, educational software packages are made to help with learning their times tables, which is perhaps an improvement on simply reciting ‘six sixes are thirty-six’ and so on, by rote! Software exists to help with mental arithmetic, learning about and using spreadsheets, money, time and 2D and 3D shape geometry. Children enjoy using computers and educational software can give them an entertaining way to learn, with the advantage that a child can repeat something as many times as they want to, computers don’t get bored!

A well thought out education package adds variety and freshness to the experience of practising skills, reinforcing things taught by the teacher or learned from books. Also parents like to be able to help their children make progress, and acquiring suitable educational software for their kids to play with on the home computer is one way they can help their child get ahead. Kids educational software can help improve learning in a huge number of areas; there are packages covering almost every subject known to man. For example, Art. Young children are used to drawing with crayons, felt tip pens, paint and paper, and drawing and painting programs are a completely different and exciting way to create images. Children love cartoons, and now there is a way to create their own animations using special software, something to impress their Mums and Dads and friends!

There is a totally amazing number of software packages designed to assist learning. Some software gives kids the chance to become young composers, and there is an educational software which helps improve a child’s ‘ear’ for music. There is at least one cookery package, and that’s without giving a thought to all the packages covering history, science and geography.

You can even get kids educational software which helps them learn about the Moon, an excellent software is SpexWorlds!Lunar a Moon base game from Aspex Software. This is a fascinating program and gets kids involved in building an on-screen Lunar base, with modular pods, space vehicles, space men and even an alien being! The colour of the lighting can be changed from white to red to purple and by adjusting the lighting, kids change the location of the base to Triton or Io or the fantasy world of Krypton. They will also learn of the original 1969 Moon landing, as the software is provided with a Moonlander and they can take an on-screen Moon walk! SpexWorlds!Lunar Moon base game is for kids aged 6 plus and is available FREE for a limited time. All you have to do is visit Aspex educational software, download it and there you are, on the Moon!

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EVERY TWEAKS KNOWN: Speed up Your PC

Posted on 03 February 2010. Tags: Every, KNOWN, Speed, TWEAKS

Make your computer faster with all this tricks, every single one of them. Really good tricks. Here are the links to some things I said in the video. 1. Windows Defender: www.microsoft.com 2. adaware: www.lavasoft.com My computer is running Windows XP Home Edition Version 2002 Service Pack 3. It’s a Dell Dimension DE051 1100, with an Intel Pentium 4 CPU at 2.80 ghz 2.79 ghz, 1.125 GB of RAM. It’s over-clocked at 3.1 ghz, and I’m running Dual Monitors MPR II Low Emission High Definition, on board video Card w/ 500mb of RAM and PCI Video Card at 256 MB of SDRAM. Both on High Definition Monitors. Internal DELL CD Drive, 2 external Samsung and Plexter DVD Drives. Samsung DVD Recorder and light scribe capability with DVD multi record and speed plus. Plextor with DVD reader and CD recorder. Three Hard Drives, all three Western Digital, primary hard drive with 80 GB of Space, 2nd internal hard drive with 500 GB of Hard Drive, and 3rd internal hard drive with 250 GB of hard drive. 500 GB hard drive is installed with Linux Ubuntu/Kubuntu/ and Red Hat. PCI card with surround sound capability, BOSE high definition sound system. Use for computer: Homework, gaming, and video editing.

Posted in WindowsComments (25)

How to Remove EVERY Virus, Malware, Spyware, Adware and ALL OTHER TYPES!

Posted on 29 January 2010. Tags: Adware, Every, Malware, Remove, Spyware, Types, Virus

This is a tutorial of How to Remove EVERY Virus, Malware, Spyware, Adware and ALL OTHER TYPES! I hope it helps and PLEASE COMMENT, RATE AND SUBSCRIBE!! It would be so helpful guys (IMPORTANT, MAKE SURE THE “HEAL/REMOVE” BUTTON IN THE SCAN SETTINGS IS TICKED SO VIRUSES AND OTHERS CAN BE PERMANENTLY DELTED)

Posted in Cell PhonesComments (8)

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