Nyan Cat is one of those memes that the more you try to avoid it, the more likely you are to encounter it. The solution is, of course, to embrace the meme and embrace the cat. That way you’ll get it out of your system and when Nyan Cat next crops up as you trawl your way around the InterWebs you won’t give two Nyan Cats about it.

Non-Stop Nyan Cat! is surely the best way of embracing the damn thing. And you can make use of this particular website by testing your own tolerance levels and the tolerance levels of those around you. I swear that anyone who can spend longer than 10 minutes on the Non-Stop Nyan Cat! site deserves some kind of medal. A Nyan Cat-shaped one, obviously.

What The Hell Is Nyan Cat?

Nyan Cat is made up of three different components: an animated GIF drawn to show what a creature combining a cat and a Pop-Tart would look like, a remix of a Japanese pop song with the Japanese word for “Meow” repeated over and over on a loop, and a YouTube video bringing the previous two components together in one glorious whole.

Non-Stop Nyan Cat!, meanwhile, is a website featuring our titular hero. He dons many disguises, his catchy tune changes wildly, but it’s still Nyan Cat and he’s still as annoying as anything you could ever possibly imagine. In triplicate.

Pick A Flavor, Any Flavor

Non-Stop Nyan Cat! features an astonishing array of Nyan Cat’s brethren. Click on ‘Pick A Flavor‘ and a sidebar appears with a smörgåsbord of 23 choices (at the time of writing) for you to pick from. You surely have to try them all, don’t you? I did, and it hasn’t done me any harm. Everyone does have a rainbow trailing behind them as they fly, don’t they?

Three of my favorite twists on the original Nyan Cat are:-

Ganja Nyan

To become Ganja Nyan, Nyan dons a Jamaican beanie, and steel drums are thrashing out the original tune. Stereotyping at its best.

Jackson 5 Nyan

To become Jackson 5 Nyan, Nyan dons a huge 1970′s-style afro and the original tune is cleverly entwined with I Want You Back by the Jackson 5.

Retro Nyan

To become Retro Nyan, Nyan enters a sepia world as if he has been given a part in a Charlie Chaplin-esque silent movie. The piano cover of the Nyan tune is very fitting.

Test Your Tolerance

How much of Non-Stop Nyan Cat! can you stand?

I managed 600 seconds (or 10 minutes). At which point I was ready to either put my fist through the screen or kick my own cat purely because he vaguely resembles Nyan Cat. In the end I merely took a screenshot as proof of my powers of tolerance and quickly shut the page. Then I lay in the bath sobbing for a while in order to recover from the emotional turmoil I had just put myself through.

See if you can do better. Just don’t cheat by muting the volume. Suffer! Like I did. Not that I’m bitter, you understand.

Annoy… Everyone

Once you’ve got sick of testing your own tolerance levels for listening and watching an animated flying cat with a rainbow shooting out of its backside, it’s time to annoy everyone else with it.

Whether you’re at work, school, in a public library, or even at home, I’d say it’s entirely appropriate to hijack a friend or colleague’s computer and make him sit through Non-Stop Nyan Cat. Just open the website, pick your favorite flavor of Nyan Cat and walk away quickly. And quietly. Trying not to hum the Nyan Cat tune as you do so.

Sometimes it isn’t even necessary to actually hijack someone else’s computer to annoy them with Non-Stop Nyan Cat! While playing with the site in order to write this article I’ve made sure to have my volume up high. You know, to really get into the spirit of the thing. My housemate is almost ready to throttle me, and I’m pretty sure one of my neighbors (thin walls) had a nightmare involving Nyan Cat thanks to my spectacular efforts.

Extending The Life Of The Meme

You may have thought, like I did, that Nyan Cat was set to be an Internet meme that lived and died in 2011. But no. Thanks to Non-Stop Nyan Cat! and the efforts of many on YouTube, Nyan Cat looks set to live on for a while yet.

You can also have Nyan Cat invade a webpage, or add Nyan Cat to a progress bar. God help us all.

YouTube has many variations on a theme starring Nyan Cat. My favorite of which has to be the 10-hour, 24-hour, and 50-hour videos which feature nothing other than Nyan Cat flying through the night sky. The 10-hour one, as embedded above, is even presented in HD. I’m sure YouTube really appreciated processing that particular waste of time.

Non-Stop Nyan Cat! even features a store selling various Nyan Cat products. These include games, wrapping paper, mugs, and clothes. My favorite of which has to be the ‘Yes We Nyan!’ t-shirt and hoodie featuring Nyan Cat as Barack Obama. I’m easily pleased.

Conclusion

Have you had enough of Nyan Cat yet? Please say you’ve had enough by now. Because I can’t take any more. I’m out. Nyan Cat is dead to me. Non-Stop Nyan Cat! has finally managed to kick my habit of listening and watching this foul creation galloping endlessly to nowhere. Now I need to find a darkened room suitable for me to curl up in the fetal position.

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Are you browsing this article in Firefox? If not, go ahead and fire up the browser and take a look at all the options you can change. It’s pretty easy to customize Firefox, right? Especially with the abundance of extensions and add-ons that are available throughout the web. But did you know about about:config? Did you know that you can further customize your browser by manually editing individual settings? If you didn’t, then you might find this article to be helpful.

A while ago, Mozilla implemented a feature called about:config into its applications. This feature allows you to edit every single one of Firefox’s internal settings manually, yes, even settings that can’t be accessed through the normal Options panel. Gaining access to these program settings is actually quite simple. All you have to do is go to the URL bar in Firefox and type….you guessed it, about:config! Then just start typing which setting you want to tweak and it will appear on the screen.

Keep in mind that it is possible to break Firefox if you grow too adventurous and fiddle around with parameters that you shouldn’t be fiddling with. MakeUseOf is not responsible for any damage you may cause to your browser or computer by exploring the following tweaks.

browser.ctrlTab.previews

Normally, when you use Ctrl + Tab to navigate through your current tabs, Firefox will just switch from tab to tab, rendering the page with each tap. If you set this setting to true, you’ll instead be shown a row of thumbnails that you can tap through. By default, this setting is set to false.

browser.taskbar.previews.max

In Windows 7, when you hover over the Firefox taskbar icon, you’re presented with a popup that shows a thumbnail preview of all the tabs you have open. If you like to have a lot of open tabs, this list can get pretty big and wieldy. Set it to 1 to minimize its intrusion, or whatever value you prefer. By default, this setting is set to 20.

browser.tabs.closeButtons

Do you hate having an X (the close tab button) on every single open tab in Firefox? Then tweak this setting to your pleasure. Setting it to 0 will only show the X on the currently active tab. Setting it to 2 will not display the X on any tabs at all. Setting it to 3 will remove the X from all of the tabs and create a singular X at the end of the tabs list.

By default, this setting is set to 1.

browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab

In a fresh-out-of-the-box Firefox browser, closing the last remaining tab will result in the entire browser closing. Some of you may not like this. Luckily, all you have to do is change this setting to false and you’ll be able to have an open browser without having any open tabs. By default, this setting is set to true.

browser.urlbar.trimURLs

This tweak is a small one, but some of you may desperately be wanting it. Have you noticed that sometimes the URL bar will truncate the http:// portion? If you want Firefox to stop doing that, then simply change this setting to false. By default, this setting is set to true.

browser.allTabs.previews

At the end of the tabs list, there’s a small button you can click to show a list of all the currently open tabs. With this setting, you can flip it to true and transform the tab list into a tab grid. You’ll see a grid of thumbnails that show all of the tabs you have open. This is very useful for quickly exiting out of multiple tabs.

This is probably one of the more unknown tweaks out there, but it’s a most useful one. By default, this setting is set to false.

Do you know of any other awesome Firefox about:config tweaks that people would find useful? Share them with us in the comments!

Image Credit: Shutterstock

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/beer-icon.jpg?323f2c" alt="beer apps for android" />I love beer. I love drinking it, I love discovering new kinds of it and I love learning about it. Are you a beer lover too? Well, it’s your lucky day! I’ve recently decided to move my beer passion to the next level, and take it with me wherever I go.

As a result, I am presenting to you the ultimate list of free, informative, helpful and fun beer apps for your Android device. Whether you want to learn about new beers, record your drinking habits or even brew some beers yourself, you’re going to find something you can use in this list.

href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.transmutex.bjcpdroid&hl=en">BJCPDroid [1.6+]

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/BJCPdroid.jpg?323f2c" alt="beer apps for android" width="547" height="443" border="0" />

BJCP stands for Beer Judge Certification Program. The BJCP’s goal is to train beer experts, and their Android app is a very informative beer index which includes everything you ever wanted to know about beer styles, flavors, aromas, ingredients, etc.

If you’ve always wanted to know the difference between a brown porter and a robust porter, or to get to know some classic examples for amber hybrid beer, you’re going to love BJCP’s app. There are no frills here, just information, and lots of it.

The app includes ads, but if you happen to be a BJCP member, you can remove them by entering your BJCP number.

href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.dangiulvezan.hoptopia&feature=also_installed_confirmation">Hoptopia [1.6+]

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Hoptopia is a great source for craft beer reviews, which you can browse by name, beer style and brewery. The beers are reviewed by real people, and each is given an overall score (out of 100). You can also read an in-depth review about each beer, and see what price you should expect it to go for.

After reading about a beer, you can add it to your favorites, which you can access from the “More” tab. This way, you can get to know lots of new beers by browsing, and create your own collections of interesting beers you want to try. The beer database is not huge, but definitely comprehensive, and will provide an interesting read for any beer lover.

href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.beerdiary&feature=also_installed">BeerDiary [1.6+]

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BeerDiary is a very simple app, which I nonetheless find extremely useful and fun to use. If you often feel the urge to record your drinking habits or to list the different beers you drink so as to never forget them again, you’re going to love BeerDiary.

With BeerDiary, you can add all your favorite beers, including the brewer’s name and location, a description and tag. You can then view your beer list at any time, and tap the beer-glass icon to signify that you’ve now drunk that beer. What you get is a list with all the beers you’ve drunk, and the exact times and days you’ve done so. You can browse your beers by name, brewer or tag.

The app doesn’t do any more than this at the moment, but a simple app is sometimes all you need for a simple task.

href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.metosphere.beerfree&feature=search_result">Beer [1.6+]

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With a name like that, where can an app go wrong? Beer, or by its full name, Beer – List, Ratings & Reviews, is for those who are looking for a beer diary with more capabilities than BeerDiary, and are also interested in reading other people’s opinions.

For each beer you add to your list, you can input a name, style, barcode, photo, ratings, and much, much more. You can also share each beer you add via Twitter, Facebook or email. For your own records, you can view stats, export to CSV, backup and restore, and more. You can search through all your beers, and also search through beers other people reviewed, read their opinions and comment.

href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.brewzor.calculator&feature=related_apps">Brewzor Calculator FREE [1.5+]

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/brewzor.jpg?323f2c" alt="best beer app android" width="560" height="441" border="0" />

If you’ve ever brewed beer by yourself, you’ve probably done some calculations. Depending on the process you’re using and on your level, there are all kinds of parameters you need to take into considerations when brewing beer.

Brewzor calculator is a free app aimed at both home brewers and professional brewers, and provides an impressive number of brewing calculators, some of which I’ve never even heard of before. You can set up the app to use your exact measurements, and also configure what kind of equipment you’re using. If you’re not sure what a calculator does, visit the href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.brewzor.calculator&feature=related_apps">app’s page for some explanations.

You can also try href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.brewzor.pro.beta&feature=search_result">Brewzor Pro Beta, a beer recipe manager, which includes all these calculators and an elaborate recipe manager for any brewer.

href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.weekendcoders.brewr&feature=related_apps">BrewR [2.1+]

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BrewR is another app aimed at brewers, and will especially appeal to home brewers. You can add your own recipes, complete with ingredients (which you can choose from the vast ingredient database), recipe notes and specific batch notes. It also includes several timers to use while brewing, such as a boil time countdown and hopping time alerts.

The ingredients in the database are editable, so you can pretty much add any ingredient you can dream of. You can also add your own notes to each ingredient. When you have a list of recipes, you can filter them and sort them in various ways, and even share them with friends through all the regular social channels.

href="https://market.android.com/details?id=org.icount.beer&feature=search_result">Beer Counter [2.2+]

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/beer-counter.jpg?323f2c" alt="beer apps for android" width="553" height="442" border="0" />

Beer Counter is yet another of those simple apps that do one thing well. If you want to keep track of how much you had to drink or of how much money you need to pay for your drinks when you hang out with friends, Beer Counter is the perfect solution. All you have to do is set your currency and the beer price, and then just tap the huge number every time you have another drink.

The app will save your stats for you, complete with time and place, and will tally up the costs for the night, until you start it over. You can view your activities on a map and automatically share your drinking ventures on Twitter and Facebook.

Bottom Line

Do you love beer but don’t own an Andoird device? Don’t despair! Check out href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-10-free-beer-related-applications-iphone/">this list of awesome beer-related iPhone apps or href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-6-websites-visit-love-drink/">this list of great drink-related websites you should visit.

Do you know of some  more great beer-related apps? Let us know in the comments.

Image credit: href="http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/301324/301324,1315317713,1/stock-vector-beer-app-icon-for-mobile-devices-84120178.jpg" rel="nofollow">Shutterstock

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/sandybridgethumb.jpg" alt="" />Intel has just unleashed a new line of processors. It’s not based on a new architecture, but is instead an expansion of the current Sandy Bridge line. Now, instead of a maximum of four cores, you can buy a processor with up to six!

Of course, you could do that months ago –  but you’d have to purchase a processor using the Nehalem architecture. That made no sense, because the quickest quad-core Sandy Bridge options were almost as fast and hundreds less expensive. Does Sandy Bridge-E resolve that issue? Let’s take a closer look.

Behind the Name

Once again, Intel has created a name that’s not nearly as clear as they might have thought. What’s the E stand for? Efficiency? Eco? Extreme?

Nope. It stands for Enthusiast. The Sandy Bridge-E is built to be the best of the best, and as a result it’s not meant to appeal to a layman user who uses his or her PC for common tasks like web browsing and href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/important-pc-gaming-terms-explained/">PC gaming. Instead, it’s targeted at people who need as many cores as possible, and use demanding applications that can actually take advantage of multiple threads.

Processor Details

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Two new processors will be offered at launch, the Core i7-3930K and the Core i7-3960X. The difference between these choices is clock speed and cache. The 3,930K offers a 3.2 GHz base clock speed and 12MB of cache, while Core i7-3,960X offers a 3.3 GHz base clock speed and 15MB of cache. Both have href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/hyperthreading-technology-explained/">hyper-threading, so the six cores can support twelve threads.

What about pricing? The MSRP is $555 for the 3,930K and $990 for the 3,960X. I’d expect retailers to actually ask more for these initially, as despite the already high prices, they will be in high demand. They are, after all, the most powerful processors money can buy.

That may sound dramatic, but it’s absolutely true. href="http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Processors/Intel-Sandy-Bridge-E-Review-Core-i7-3960X-and-X79-Chipset-Tested/Render-Tests">In testing by PC Perspective, the new processors were able to outperform the Core-i7 2600K by as much as 30%. As you might expect, programs with excellent multi-thread support revealed the largest gap between the quad-core and six-core Sandy Bridge entries. Software that doesn’t require the extra cores, such as games, show little difference between the new processors and the older quad-core Sandy Bridge products.

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Strangely, these new LGA 2011 processors do not come with a heatsink or cooler, making them the only processors sold by Intel in an OEM box without a cooling solution. Don’t forget to budget a processor cooler when purchasing one of these processors. Intel will offer its typical low-end cooler for $20, but also plans to offer a water cooler for around $80. Of course, for the same money you could purchase a third-party cooler. The choice is yours.

A New Chipset, Too

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In addition to the new processors, Intel is unleashing a new chipset, called X79. It is meant as a replacement for the X58 chipset that was once considered Intel’s flagship. Because X58 does not offer Sandy Bridge support, the chipset has been of questionable use since the release of the newest processor architecture.

X79 introduces yet another new processor socket, LGA2011. There are other changes, as well. RAM support has changed from href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/difference-ddr2-ddr3-ram-technology-explained/">tri-channel (as found on X58) to quad-channel, and the new chipset has been built to handle the high power requirements of the new processors, all of which are slapped with a 130W TDP. By comparison, a Core i7-2600K has a 95W TDP.

Chipset changes were also required because the new Sandy Bridge-E processors, like their previous brethren, entirely eliminate the Northbridge.

Should You Buy One?

So, you’re impressed by the performance. Now you’re wondering – should I blow my savings on one of these? Or is this not the best use of my cash?

That depends.

The title “enthusiast” doesn’t properly describe the exclusivity of these processors. I am an enthusiast, but I would never buy one of these, because I don’t run software that needs the extra cores. My most demanding tasks is gaming, which still sees only a small benefit from four cores, never mind six.

Instead, these products are aimed at people who use computers as important tools for doing work. If a 20% increase in performance can cut an hour off the time it takes for your PC to complete an encoding run, then you’re the kind of person this processor is for. If you regularly edit files with multi-gigabyte file sizes, you’re the kind of person this processor is for. If a computer crash effectively shuts down your business, you’re the kind of person this processor is for.

And in the hands of such a professional, yes, the high prices can be justified and may in fact pay for themselves in a matter of weeks by saving time that would otherwise be spent waiting for a task to finish.

Of course, there’s no accounting for taste. If you have a lot of money to spend on a PC, and you want the fastest possible, feel free to jump on the Sandy Bridge-E bandwagon. You may receive much better value from a less powerful configuration, but not every nerd cares about value as much as owning a stonking fast computer.

Conclusion

Sandy Bridge-E is an impressive step forward for Intel, and one that is perhaps overdue. The older Nehalem-based six-core processors were still commanding high prices, despite the use of a nearly three year old architecture and chipset.

With this new line, Intel will once again have a proper flagship that can leave both Intel and AMD’s best in the dust.

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/apple-ipad-apps.jpg" alt="" />Last April, I proclaimed the iPad the href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/ipad-device-photographers-mac/">best photo sharing device for photographers. Some readers took me to task for my opinion, but I still think its portability and classy design make for a much better photo display album than a laptop or disorganized photo prints. With the release of iOS 5, the Photos app for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch did not receive a major overhaul but it does benefit from the new wireless syncing, an album creation feature, and Twitter integration.

However, if you have just got your hands on an iOS device for the first time, you might find the new Photos app features a little confusing. Apple has made some useful changes, but there some issues you need to know about.

Wireless Syncing

The best iOS 5 upgrade for managing photos in the Photos library is wireless syncing. As with other iOS apps, you can now add and delete photos from your device’s Photos library without a wired connection to iTunes. I’m using the iPad, the first version, to explain the new features, but what I cover will apply to the other iOS devices too.

Whether you are using the iPad for the first time or upgrading from a previous operating system, you can access all of your photos in your iPhoto or Aperture library on your Mac through iTunes without having to use a USB connection.

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Simply click on your device in iTunes and then open the Photo section to select your albums and events. If you have lots of photos in the photo library of your computer, you probably would not want to sync all of them to your device because of the limited storage space on your device.

The wireless syncing process unfortunately does not take place on the fly. If, for example, you wanted to remove a few albums from your device, the process will not just focus on your photos. It will also sync any songs, apps, new contacts, and other related content during the process. In addition, your iOS device and iTunes will need to be sharing the same Wi-Fi network in order for the syncing process to occur.

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When you’re ready to sync, simply click the Apply button.

Photo Stream

By now, you might be familiar with Photo Stream – another new iOS 5 feature. Photo Stream, if enabled on your device and Mac, stores all of the photos and videos you take with your iOS camera and another camera and are saved to your Camera Roll. So Photo Stream has its own syncing process outside of iTunes.

Photos Library Menu Options

When you launch the Photos library on your iOS device, the user interface for the iPad and iPhone/iPod touch are slightly different because of the differences in size of each device. Nevertheless they share the same menu items – Photos,  (consisting of imported photos and videos you sync from the photo’s app on your Mac or PC), Photo Stream, Albums, Events, Faces, Places, and Slideshow.

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These visible menu items are pretty easy to understand, but it’s the hidden/pop-up controls that get a little confusing.

Share Button

In your Photos collection, when you tap on the Share button on the far right of the app, you get the option to add selected photos to an Existing Album or a New Album.

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Being able to add photos to a new or existing album is great because you don’t have to rely upon the photo’s app on your computer to do that. Photos can be deleted from your albums, but they will remain in your main Photos library.

However, when you try to delete a photo(s) from your main library, they will also be deleted from any albums you copied it to. You will be asked, “Do you want to delete it everywhere?” but you don’t really have a choice in the matter.

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Your other options include copying selected photos and pasting them in other supporting applications, and sharing through email or print.

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More Sharing Options

When you open a photo in your library, you get more options. A few options have been there since day one, such as emailing and using a photo as wallpaper. New options include tweeting a photo, which requires of course a Twitter account, and assigning a photo to a contact.

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Editing

On iOS devices with a built-in camera, you also get the option to edit photos. The editing features includes Auto exposure correction, cropping and rotation, and red-eye removal options.

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The editing features are great, but there are some differences between how your photos are saved. If you edit a photo from your Photos library, ones that originated from the photos app on your computer, the edits will be applied to a copy of that photo and saved to the Camera Roll. So in this case it’s non-destructive editing.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/IMG_1169.png" alt="IMG 1169" width="580" height="367" border="0" />

However, if you select and edit a photo you took with say your iPhone camera, those edits are applied to your original photo. So you will have to first duplicate the original photo if you want to retain the original and edited version.

There are href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-powerful-iphone-camera-apps-pictures/">3rd party iOS apps that provide href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-free-photo-editing-apps-ipad/">better options than what you get with Apple’s setup, but if your photo management needs are not that expansive, these recent iOS enhancements are okay, as long as you’re familiar with the limitations.

Let us know what you think of the Photos library features in iOS 5. Is it helping you manage your photos better?

View full post on MakeUseOf

class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/androidtabletsecurity1.jpg" alt="" />As tablets become more popular, they’re serving as stand-ins for computers for some users. Although most people still own a PC, tablets are particularly nice for web browsing and online video, making them common couch-side companions.

This, however, could introduce some issues. If tablets are being used like computers, they could be exposed to the same threats. Which begs the question – how can you secure your Android tablet?

Permissions – Like The Phones

The entry to understanding Android on any device is href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/control-permissions-applications-permissions-denied-android/">permissions, and in this respect Android tablets work much like the phones. Heck, this same system isn’t even Android exclusive – Google has already adapted the same idea to Chrome extensions and web apps.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/androidtablet4.png" alt="" width="560" height="233" />

Permissions are very simple. Before you download an app, you are given a list of permissions that app requests of your device. These are not optional – if you download the app, you are agreeing to the permissions. Once permission is given, it can’t be revoked unless you uninstall the app.

You therefore need to be very careful about what you download. Reading permissions can seem annoying – but do it anyway. An app that is malicious can easily get up to mischief without you knowing, and while such instances in the real world remain limited, they do exist.

Downloading An Antivirus App Is A Good Idea

As I point out in virtually every Android security article, antivirus apps for the platform remain a bit of an open question. Comprehensive, objective tests of their ability to defend again threats remain rare.

However, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/avcomparatives-reviews-android-security-apps-finds-flaws-news/">a recent A/V Comparatives study did show that most security apps were able to protect against a test selection of malware threats, and the study goes so far as to recommend that all Android users install antivirus software.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/androidtabletsecurity2.jpg" alt="" width="351" height="399" />

Which one should you download? I’m a fan of  href="http://usa.kaspersky.com/products-services/home-computer-security/tablet-security">Kaspersky’s Tablet Security, and recommend it as a first choice, but does require a pricey $20/year subscription. That may seem like a lot, and if you want free, href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.lookout&feature=search_result">Lookout Mobile Security can work well – but keep in mind that the app’s $2.99/month premium option totals to almost $36/year.

Treat It Like A Laptop

When it comes to network security, tablets are much like laptops. They almost always connect to the Internet via Wi-Fi, and are subject to all the href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/combat-wifi-security-risks-connecting-public-network/">security risks that results from that. Fortunately, your Android tablet supports secured wireless connections, and that’s a feature you should always use whenever possible. The issue which is of concern is the chance that a hacker will be able to obtain your browsing data if you use an unsecure connection, and it applies to tablets just as with laptops.

One useful feature is Android’s built-in VPN support, which you’ll find in your tablet’s settings. Just enter the VPN address and your username/password for it, and you’re off! You can use this with many href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/7-completely-free-vpn-services-protect-privacy/">VPN services to provide yourself with secure browsing over unsecured networks.

Use Honeycomb’s Encryption

Android has not been particularly popular with enterprise users because of a general lack of focus on enterprise security, but there has been some inroads made in that direction, one of which is the encryption feature on Honeycomb tablets.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/androidtabletsecurity3.jpg" alt="" width="495" height="258" />

The feature is found in the Location & Security section of Honeycomb’s settings, and can encrypt the contents of your tablet’s memory. Doing this does not make it unhackable, nor does it mean that someone couldn’t intercept your Wi-Fi transmissions, but it does means it will be difficult for anyone to steal your data if the tablet is lost or stolen.

If you do encrypt your tablet, remember that you also won’t be able to access the tablet’s data if you are locked out of your tablet. Backing up important files is, as always, a good idea.

Conclusion

Security for tablets is far from mature, just as the threats that may exploit a tablet are far from mature. There is some degree of security via obscurity available as of now, as many website exploits and viruses simply won’t work against tablets. That’s not going to last forever though. Security threats will become more and more common as the devices themselves become more and more popular. This process will take many years, but hey – it certainly doesn’t hurt to have a head start.

View full post on MakeUseOf

class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/facebook_logo_300x300.jpg" alt="types of people on facebook" />I’ve taken a look at the title="3 Types Of Reddit Commenters That Drive Me Nuts" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-types-reddit-commenters-drive-nuts/"> top Reddit commenters that drive me nuts, and I’ve also told you what you need to title="5 Things You Need To Stop Posting On Facebook" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-stop-posting-facebook/">stop posting on Facebook. However, what if you smash those two topics together? Well, you get the top stereotypes that exist on href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/facebook">Facebook!

Now, not all Facebook stereotypes are bad (there are maybe two of them that are okay…) However, it’s up to you to decide, so let’s look at them all.

The Tech

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Tech.png" alt="types of people on facebook" width="580" height="268" />

We all have the Tech on our href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/social-friends-facebook-opinion/">Facebook Friend List. Heck, he may very well be a writer for MakeUseOf! However, whenever you post a status update that is something like “my laptop’s hard drive has opened a portal to Hell and the cat is stuck inside my desktop’s fan”, the Tech is on the ready.

Immediately, he will do everything within his ability to fix it. Your Facebook wall will transform into a troubleshooting session that is better than any professional service! Also, their advice will actually work… sometimes. />

The RE:Fwd Master

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/REfwd.png" alt="types of facebook people" width="580" height="335" />

Remember a little thing called email? That was to be before Facebook and when Orwell’s Newspeak became mainstream. But all jokes aside, you know of chain emails, right?

FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO 30 FRIENDS BY 7 PM TONIGHT AND A MAGICAL WHALE WILL BE ON YOUR PORCH TOMORROW MORNING!!!

These are the types of bizarre messages that are sometimes sent out via friends and on other occasions via the workplace. However, this monstrosity has been revived on Facebook through the RE:Fwd Master. The RE:Fwd Master tends to post chain-eque status updates on their status updates, and I utterly hate it.

By the way, if you post a href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/youtube">YouTube video of yourself in the comments saying “RE:Fwd Master” five times fast, I’ll let you be my friend on Facebook. True story.

The Disgruntled Citizen

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Citizen.png" alt="types of facebook people" width="580" height="169" />

Zuckerberg created Facebook, and honestly, Zuckerberg reserves the right to title="Facebook Timeline Starts Rolling Out To User Profiles Today [News]" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/facebook-timeline-starts-rolling-user-profiles-today-news/">change it however he wants (much like a certain George Lucas). However, whenever Facebook makes a change, 99% of the posts on my feed become devoted to “how horrible” the new changes are. The remaining 1% are about cats being stuck in desktop fans.

It seems as though this stereotype compares itself a disgruntled citizen frustrated with the new laws that his dictator has instated. Well, truth be told, the Disgruntled Citizen hasn’t done much for Zuckerberg (save for being a demographic that builds ad revenue), but in my opinion, Zuckerberg sure has done a lot for the Disgruntled Citizen.

The Personal Cheerleader

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Cheerleader.png" alt="types of facebook people" width="580" height="267" />

The Personal Cheerleader is not a bad Facebook stereotype. As a matter of fact, I feel that this is the stereotype that everyone loves. These are the people who take time out of their day to sit down, look at what you have posted, and encourage you in some form or fashion. I love the Personal Cheerleaders, and the world needs more of them.

Alternatively, there is the Personal Stalker. These types do exactly what the Personal Cheerleader does except with a bit of a creepy twist. Their motives may not be as pure as the Personal Cheerleaders’, and chances are that they just want to have you over for dinner, or in extreme cases, have you for dinner. (F-s-s-s-s….)

The Insensitive Commenter

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Insensitive1.png" alt="types of facebook users" width="580" height="190" />

Occasionally, we will post tragic news on our Facebook page about a death in the family or a lost opportunity. These are all very terrible, and there is nothing funny about that at all. However, there are some people who entirely disregard the content of your Facebook status update and utilize the comment section as their own personal way to contact you. Say, for instance, that you have updated your status to something about your cat dying in a tragic fan accident. This will typically be the response of the Insensitive Commenter:

HEY. I WANTED TO KNOW IF YOU COULD PAY ME BACK FOR THAT PIZZA I BOUGHT YOU LAST FRIDAY. LOL.

People, they exist. You know that they exist. As a matter of fact, you may be one of them. It’s a shame, but we’ve all experienced them.

The Relationship Monitor

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/RelationshipMonitor.png" alt="types of people on facebook" width="580" height="192" />

I’ve discussed this before somewhere out on the seas of the Internet, but you will notice that every single time someone updates their relationship status to single (or in some cases, paired up) there will always be that one individual who acts absolutely shocked and surprised – “WHAT?!” or “WHY DID Y’ALL BREAK UP?!” seem to be common responses. Here we have the Relationship Monitor, one of my least favorites.

One variation of the Relationship Monitor would be the fellow who sympathizes with the poor girl who fell victim to such a break-up. He will write things such as, “I’M SO SORRY!” and “IF YOU EVER NEED TO TALK, JUST CALL ME, OKAY?”

Well, we all know his ulterior motives. He wants the girl for himself! If it were up to me, I would say that everyone should just leave the person alone. On the other hand, maybe folks shouldn’t publicize their break-up on Facebook, either.

What is your favorite (or least favorite, rather) type of Facebook stereotype? Do you have any others? Which ones frustrate you the most?

View full post on MakeUseOf

class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/facebook_logo_300x300.jpg" alt="types of people on facebook" />I’ve taken a look at the title="3 Types Of Reddit Commenters That Drive Me Nuts" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-types-reddit-commenters-drive-nuts/"> top Reddit commenters that drive me nuts, and I’ve also told you what you need to title="5 Things You Need To Stop Posting On Facebook" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-stop-posting-facebook/">stop posting on Facebook. However, what if you smash those two topics together? Well, you get the top stereotypes that exist on href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/facebook">Facebook!

Now, not all Facebook stereotypes are bad (there are maybe two of them that are okay…) However, it’s up to you to decide, so let’s look at them all.

The Tech

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Tech.png" alt="types of people on facebook" width="580" height="268" />

We all have the Tech on our href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/social-friends-facebook-opinion/">Facebook Friend List. Heck, he may very well be a writer for MakeUseOf! However, whenever you post a status update that is something like “my laptop’s hard drive has opened a portal to Hell and the cat is stuck inside my desktop’s fan”, the Tech is on the ready.

Immediately, he will do everything within his ability to fix it. Your Facebook wall will transform into a troubleshooting session that is better than any professional service! Also, their advice will actually work… sometimes. />

The RE:Fwd Master

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/REfwd.png" alt="types of facebook people" width="580" height="335" />

Remember a little thing called email? That was to be before Facebook and when Orwell’s Newspeak became mainstream. But all jokes aside, you know of chain emails, right?

FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO 30 FRIENDS BY 7 PM TONIGHT AND A MAGICAL WHALE WILL BE ON YOUR PORCH TOMORROW MORNING!!!

These are the types of bizarre messages that are sometimes sent out via friends and on other occasions via the workplace. However, this monstrosity has been revived on Facebook through the RE:Fwd Master. The RE:Fwd Master tends to post chain-eque status updates on their status updates, and I utterly hate it.

By the way, if you post a href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/youtube">YouTube video of yourself in the comments saying “RE:Fwd Master” five times fast, I’ll let you be my friend on Facebook. True story.

The Disgruntled Citizen

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Citizen.png" alt="types of facebook people" width="580" height="169" />

Zuckerberg created Facebook, and honestly, Zuckerberg reserves the right to title="Facebook Timeline Starts Rolling Out To User Profiles Today [News]" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/facebook-timeline-starts-rolling-user-profiles-today-news/">change it however he wants (much like a certain George Lucas). However, whenever Facebook makes a change, 99% of the posts on my feed become devoted to “how horrible” the new changes are. The remaining 1% are about cats being stuck in desktop fans.

It seems as though this stereotype compares itself a disgruntled citizen frustrated with the new laws that his dictator has instated. Well, truth be told, the Disgruntled Citizen hasn’t done much for Zuckerberg (save for being a demographic that builds ad revenue), but in my opinion, Zuckerberg sure has done a lot for the Disgruntled Citizen.

The Personal Cheerleader

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Cheerleader.png" alt="types of facebook people" width="580" height="267" />

The Personal Cheerleader is not a bad Facebook stereotype. As a matter of fact, I feel that this is the stereotype that everyone loves. These are the people who take time out of their day to sit down, look at what you have posted, and encourage you in some form or fashion. I love the Personal Cheerleaders, and the world needs more of them.

Alternatively, there is the Personal Stalker. These types do exactly what the Personal Cheerleader does except with a bit of a creepy twist. Their motives may not be as pure as the Personal Cheerleaders’, and chances are that they just want to have you over for dinner, or in extreme cases, have you for dinner. (F-s-s-s-s….)

The Insensitive Commenter

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Insensitive1.png" alt="types of facebook users" width="580" height="190" />

Occasionally, we will post tragic news on our Facebook page about a death in the family or a lost opportunity. These are all very terrible, and there is nothing funny about that at all. However, there are some people who entirely disregard the content of your Facebook status update and utilize the comment section as their own personal way to contact you. Say, for instance, that you have updated your status to something about your cat dying in a tragic fan accident. This will typically be the response of the Insensitive Commenter:

HEY. I WANTED TO KNOW IF YOU COULD PAY ME BACK FOR THAT PIZZA I BOUGHT YOU LAST FRIDAY. LOL.

People, they exist. You know that they exist. As a matter of fact, you may be one of them. It’s a shame, but we’ve all experienced them.

The Relationship Monitor

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/RelationshipMonitor.png" alt="types of people on facebook" width="580" height="192" />

I’ve discussed this before somewhere out on the seas of the Internet, but you will notice that every single time someone updates their relationship status to single (or in some cases, paired up) there will always be that one individual who acts absolutely shocked and surprised – “WHAT?!” or “WHY DID Y’ALL BREAK UP?!” seem to be common responses. Here we have the Relationship Monitor, one of my least favorites.

One variation of the Relationship Monitor would be the fellow who sympathizes with the poor girl who fell victim to such a break-up. He will write things such as, “I’M SO SORRY!” and “IF YOU EVER NEED TO TALK, JUST CALL ME, OKAY?”

Well, we all know his ulterior motives. He wants the girl for himself! If it were up to me, I would say that everyone should just leave the person alone. On the other hand, maybe folks shouldn’t publicize their break-up on Facebook, either.

What is your favorite (or least favorite, rather) type of Facebook stereotype? Do you have any others? Which ones frustrate you the most?

View full post on MakeUseOf

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).

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/2011-08-30_021548.png" alt="kindle web sites" width="480" height="356" border="0" />

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

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/2011-08-30_101153.png" alt="kindle sites" width="580" height="450" border="0" />

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

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/2011-08-30_100519.png" alt="kindle sites" width="681" height="593" border="0" />

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

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/2011-08-30_102604.png" alt="kindle sites" width="580" height="520" border="0" />

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

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/2011-08-30_123415.png" alt="free kindle sites" width="580" height="378" border="0" />

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

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/2011-08-30_104916.png" alt="2011-08-30_104916" width="580" height="407" border="0" />

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

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/2011-08-30_125620.png" alt="kindle web sites" width="580" height="351" border="0" />

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

View full post on MakeUseOf

class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/tweeter1.png" alt="twitter hashtag search" />Language is a constantly evolving creature that consistently steals words from other cultures, adapts itself to foreign tongues, and often shortens itself for easier use. However, with the advent of class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/twitter/">Twitter, we have an entirely new element of communication – class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-effectively-use-twitter-hashtags/">hashtags.

Hashtags, a creation of Twitter, are keywords highlighted in a post utilizing the pound symbol (‘#’). These keywords are often used on a massive scale, leading to trending tweets which reveal the world’s hottest topics. That’s all well and good, but what happens if you don’t know what those hashtags mean?

Define Your Culture

In a similar fashion to  class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/urbandictionary-words-defined-by-people/">Urban Dictionary and the class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/showdown-wikipedia-dictionary-wiktionary-urban-dictionary/">Wiktionary, class="vt-p" href="http://www.tagdef.com">Tagdef offers itself as a web-tool with the sole purpose of defining our modern, rapidly-moving world. However, unlike its predecessors that focus primarily on class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-online-slang-dictionaries-learn-jargon-street-language/">current slang or clique-spurred jargon, this community-fueled publication takes on the challenge of defining trending tweets.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Shot11.png" alt="twitter hashtag search" width="580" height="297" />

Here, you can find multiple definitions for the most viral trends in the world. Granted, the site is not moderated in any form or fashion, so your experience may give you as much intellectual wisdom as you would gain by just staring at a bathroom stall wall (which in many cases is actually a whole lot of wisdom). However, based on my personal usage of Tagdef, I have to say that it has a pretty solid set of definitions for a site that is user-based. Furthermore, it uses a class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/reddit/">Reddit-like voting system, so users can decide which definitions are the most accurate.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Shot72.png" alt="twitter hashtag" width="580" height="302" />

The site mainly serves as a search engine for Twitter hashtags, so there is a lack of a decent browsing feature. I remember that back in high school, I would sit around and look things up on Urban Dictionary, and Tagdef – which is an even more modern Urban Dictionary – could have done well by installing this function on their site. This does not take away from its usefulness, but it never hurts to add a bit of fun to everything.

A Real-Time World Glossary

Tagdef focuses on a flow of trending hashtags, so the homepage is always going to display the most current words that are on the tips of thumbs everywhere. Five categories are offered: Trending Tags, New Tags, Top Today, Top this Week, and All Time High. As you might guess, the site pulls these sets of trends directly from Twitter itself in an effort to encourage users to define them for the rest of the world. Furthermore, Tagdef provides cleanly-displayed trend class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/statistics/">statistics and graphs for all you number-crunchers out there.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Shot23.png" alt="twitter hashtag" width="580" height="97" />

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Shot61.png" alt="twitter hashtag" width="580" height="357" />

Despite my dissatisfaction that #justinbieber is a common definition on the homepage (thank you to all the parents who gave class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/smartphones/">smartphones to their daughters under the age of thirteen), the tool is a really cool way to keep up with what’s going on in the world. That being said, I would say that the definitions given are best described as leads for furthering your research on current events.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Shot31.png" alt="twitter hashtag meanings" width="580" height="124" />

A Tagdef definition may give you a general idea of what is going on in the world, but using keywords found in definitions, you will get a general idea of the news that people are talking about. For instance, you may see an incredibly vague tag floating around, so just pop it into Tagdef, look up the definitions, and you’ll be treated with the latest current events written in layman’s terms. How would I have ever known that Bieber is “the most amazingest boy ever” without Tagdef?

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Shot43.png" alt="twitter hashtag search" width="580" height="366" />

Conclusion

Is class="vt-p" href="http://www.tagdef.com">Tagdef worth class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/bookmarks/">bookmarking? Absolutely. It’s a handy Twitter hashtag search tool for explaining things you might not understand on Twitter, and it is also a good way to prevent potential pop culture embarrassment in front of friends. Are you going to spend a lot of time using it? Probably not. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a poor website – it just does what it’s supposed to do.

What other tools do you use to define Internet-lingo? Have you made use of Tagdef before?

href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/search-twitter-hashtags-definitions-tagdef/">Search For Twitter Hashtags You Don’t Know & Get Definitions With Tagdef is a post from: href="http://www.makeuseof.com">MakeUseOf

View full post on MakeUseOf

class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/tweeter1.png" alt="twitter hashtag search" />Language is a constantly evolving creature that consistently steals words from other cultures, adapts itself to foreign tongues, and often shortens itself for easier use. However, with the advent of class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/twitter/">Twitter, we have an entirely new element of communication – class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-effectively-use-twitter-hashtags/">hashtags.

Hashtags, a creation of Twitter, are keywords highlighted in a post utilizing the pound symbol (‘#’). These keywords are often used on a massive scale, leading to trending tweets which reveal the world’s hottest topics. That’s all well and good, but what happens if you don’t know what those hashtags mean?

Define Your Culture

In a similar fashion to  class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/urbandictionary-words-defined-by-people/">Urban Dictionary and the class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/showdown-wikipedia-dictionary-wiktionary-urban-dictionary/">Wiktionary, class="vt-p" href="http://www.tagdef.com">Tagdef offers itself as a web-tool with the sole purpose of defining our modern, rapidly-moving world. However, unlike its predecessors that focus primarily on class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-online-slang-dictionaries-learn-jargon-street-language/">current slang or clique-spurred jargon, this community-fueled publication takes on the challenge of defining trending tweets.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Shot11.png" alt="twitter hashtag search" width="580" height="297" />

Here, you can find multiple definitions for the most viral trends in the world. Granted, the site is not moderated in any form or fashion, so your experience may give you as much intellectual wisdom as you would gain by just staring at a bathroom stall wall (which in many cases is actually a whole lot of wisdom). However, based on my personal usage of Tagdef, I have to say that it has a pretty solid set of definitions for a site that is user-based. Furthermore, it uses a class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/reddit/">Reddit-like voting system, so users can decide which definitions are the most accurate.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Shot72.png" alt="twitter hashtag" width="580" height="302" />

The site mainly serves as a search engine for Twitter hashtags, so there is a lack of a decent browsing feature. I remember that back in high school, I would sit around and look things up on Urban Dictionary, and Tagdef – which is an even more modern Urban Dictionary – could have done well by installing this function on their site. This does not take away from its usefulness, but it never hurts to add a bit of fun to everything.

A Real-Time World Glossary

Tagdef focuses on a flow of trending hashtags, so the homepage is always going to display the most current words that are on the tips of thumbs everywhere. Five categories are offered: Trending Tags, New Tags, Top Today, Top this Week, and All Time High. As you might guess, the site pulls these sets of trends directly from Twitter itself in an effort to encourage users to define them for the rest of the world. Furthermore, Tagdef provides cleanly-displayed trend class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/statistics/">statistics and graphs for all you number-crunchers out there.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Shot23.png" alt="twitter hashtag" width="580" height="97" />

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Shot61.png" alt="twitter hashtag" width="580" height="357" />

Despite my dissatisfaction that #justinbieber is a common definition on the homepage (thank you to all the parents who gave class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/smartphones/">smartphones to their daughters under the age of thirteen), the tool is a really cool way to keep up with what’s going on in the world. That being said, I would say that the definitions given are best described as leads for furthering your research on current events.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Shot31.png" alt="twitter hashtag meanings" width="580" height="124" />

A Tagdef definition may give you a general idea of what is going on in the world, but using keywords found in definitions, you will get a general idea of the news that people are talking about. For instance, you may see an incredibly vague tag floating around, so just pop it into Tagdef, look up the definitions, and you’ll be treated with the latest current events written in layman’s terms. How would I have ever known that Bieber is “the most amazingest boy ever” without Tagdef?

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Shot43.png" alt="twitter hashtag search" width="580" height="366" />

Conclusion

Is class="vt-p" href="http://www.tagdef.com">Tagdef worth class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/bookmarks/">bookmarking? Absolutely. It’s a handy Twitter hashtag search tool for explaining things you might not understand on Twitter, and it is also a good way to prevent potential pop culture embarrassment in front of friends. Are you going to spend a lot of time using it? Probably not. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a poor website – it just does what it’s supposed to do.

What other tools do you use to define Internet-lingo? Have you made use of Tagdef before?

href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/search-twitter-hashtags-definitions-tagdef/">Search For Twitter Hashtags You Don’t Know & Get Definitions With Tagdef is a post from: href="http://www.makeuseof.com">MakeUseOf

View full post on MakeUseOf

class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/image-60.jpg?54167" alt="ipad tips and tricks" />The class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/ipad/">iPad is a pretty nifty thing. If you believe the true enthusiasts, there’s nothing you really can’t do with an iPad. We all know that if class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/ios/">iOS apps were an ocean, we would all be long drowned. This is not even considering the fact that some iOS devices are jailbroken.

So we all know there are lots of very class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/ten-top-free-apps-ipad/">cool apps out there, and if you’re willing to pay a few dollars for some once in a while, you and your iPad can have the world at your fingertips! (well, almost). But even without downloading anything at all, there are some pretty handy things hidden in the iPad.

Two Ways To Lock Screen Rotation

Yes, you’re not imagining things, this is a 2-for-1 tip! Those of you who’ve had the iPad for a while might remember that the little button on the right side, just above the volume control, used to lock the screen rotation. In iOS 4.x, this is no longer the case, and this button is now a mute button. So how can you lock the screen rotation? There are two ways.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/image-48.jpg?54167" alt="ipad tips and tricks" />

If you really liked having the hardware button locking your screen, you can turn back time and give it back that function. In Settings, go to General and look for “Use Side Switch to:”. Simply change this to “Lock Rotation“, and you’re done! The mute button will now lock screen rotation.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/image-47.jpg?54167" alt="tips and tricks for ipad" />

But wait a minute, what about muting? That’s also quite a useful function. You can choose to leave the button as a mute button, and lock screen rotation using a different method. Double click the Home button to access your open applications, and slide your finger from left to right, so as to reveal what’s on the left side of those icons.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/image-49.jpg?54167" alt="tips and tricks for ipad" />

There you will find some music controls, and, surprise! On the left side there’s a lock rotation button.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/image-50.jpg?54167" alt="tips and tricks for ipad" />

Note that if you prefer to have a hardware button for locking the rotation, doing this will reveal a mute button, so you can still mute your iPad whenever you wish.

Accessing Street View

Street View on the iPad is so cool, I don’t know how I lived without it before I knew how to find it.

In the Maps application, drop a pin wherever you’d like to have street view. You can do this by either tapping and holding a certain spot on the map (purple pin) or by searching for an address (red pin). Tap the pin and you will see a red and white man icon.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/image-51.jpg?54167" alt="ipad tricks" />

Tap this icon, and you will be transported to the (awesome) street view. You can still see the map in a small circle on the bottom right, and you can tap it to go back to map view.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/image-52.jpg?54167" alt="ipad tricks" />

“Find” Within a Page in Safari

This is supposed to be something very simple, but it took me a while to discover I can do this, as it’s a bit hidden.

If you want to find a word or a phrase within a page you’ve already loaded in Safari, use the Google search box on the top right. Type in what you’re searching for, and then, under all the suggestions you get for Google searches, you’ll see “On This Page” and also the number of matches. Under that you’ll see “Find“. Tap that.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/image-54.jpg?54167" alt="ipad tricks" />

This will take you back to the page, and will highlight the word you were searching for. Use the “Next” button at the bottom of the page to go to the next match. You can see how many matches there are still to go, but unfortunately, I couldn’t find a way to go the the previous match, which is kind of disappointing.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/image-55.jpg?54167" alt="" />

Adding PDFs to iBooks

class="vt-p" href="http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/ibooks/id364709193?mt=8">iBooks is a free application which lets you read eBooks on your iPad. But you can also use it to view PDFs on your iPad, which will allow you to search, bookmark and generally do with PDFs all the things you can do with eBooks. Getting your PDFs into iBooks is easy.

You can e-mail the PDFs to yourself, and then open this e-mail from your iPad. Tap the attachment, and then tap the arrow (open with) button on the top right. Choose Open in “iBooks” and you will be taken immediately into iBooks, and the PDF will open within its interface.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/image-56.jpg?54167" alt="" />

Once in iBooks, you can choose to browse your eBook collection or your PDFs.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/image-57.jpg?54167" alt="" />

Another way to get PDFs into iBooks is to simply add them to the “Books” section in your iTunes library and sync your iPad. The PDFs will appear in iBooks.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/image-46.jpg?54167" alt="ipad tips and tricks" />

Conclusion

The more of these little tricks I know, the more I love my iPad. I’m not sure why some simple things have to be hidden, but it does make the discovery process that much more fulfilling. We’d love to hear about more of these in the comments, if you have some! />
/>Need Assistance? Ask questions to MakeUseOf staff and thousands of other readers on href="http://www.makeuseof.dev/answers/" target="_blank" >MakeUseOf Answers!

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href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/4-ipad-tricks/">4 Useful iPad Tricks You May Still Not Know About is a post from: href="http://www.makeuseof.com">MakeUseOf

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/touchpadthumb.jpg" alt="" />If you walk into a retail store and ask a sales rep to explain a laptop to you, chances are you’ll receive a long list of hardware information focusing on what’s inside. You’ll be told what the processor is, you’ll be told the size of the hard drive, and you’ll be told the RAM installed.

This is information you’ll want to know, but in today’s world of speedy processors and cheap RAM, many users will rarely ask about all their laptop has to give. As a result, the difference between a good laptop and a great one comes down to the little things, like the touchpad. Yet the touchpad itself is a mysterious item. It’s there, it works, and it has for years. Not all touchpads are built the same however.

The Basics Of Touchpad Technology

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/touchpad.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="375" />

The first class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-disable-the-touchpad-while-you-are-typing/">touchpads made their debut in the early 1990s, and were one of several responses to the problem of providing an portable input solution with a portable computer (trackpointers and trackballs were also common). The first laptop to have a touchpad –or trackpad, as it was officially called at the time – was the Apple PowerBook 500.

Modern touchpads use a technology called capacitive touch. This is the same tech used by most modern class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/touch-test-touch-screen-test-app/">touchscreens, and it works by detecting the electrical current of a human finger as it comes into contact with the touchpad surface. This allows for smooth, easy navigation that doesn’t rely on physical pressure.

However, capacitive touch does have one minor disadvantage, and that’s the inability to detect inanimate objects or gloved human hands. Special touchpads, like the tablets from class="vt-p" href="http://www.wacom.com/">Wacom, are required for use with a class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/answers/tag/stylus/">stylus. Fortunately, only artists and Eskimos routinely bump into this problem.

The Differences Between Touchpads

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/touchpad4.jpg" alt="" width="412" height="530" />

While virtually all touchpads use the same basic technology to detect input, there are a wide variety of ways to use this technology, and a wide variety of touchpad sizes and textures.

The most important feature to look for in a touchpad is multitouch gesture support. Although this has become a common extra, it’s not ubiquitous. For example, I recently tested a MSI GT680R gaming laptop, priced at about $1,500, which did not have multitouch. Determining if a laptop supports this feature is easy if you can use it hands-on. Just try scrolling down a webpage with your middle and index fingers.

If a laptop doesn’t have multi-touch, it should at least have scroll space available. This is a small vertical area, usually on the right side of the touchpad, that’s exclusively designed to translate finger movement into an up/down scrolling motion.

Material quality, although low-tech, is critical. Most inexpensive laptops will simply construct the touchpad out of the same plastic as the surrounding laptop, and that works alright, but it doesn’t result in the smoothest feel. More expensive laptops, like the MacBooks, use a glass surface because it provides less resistance to finger movement. You’ll occasionally find other materials used, as well. The class="vt-p" href="http://event.asus.com/notebook/bamboo/index2.html">ASUS Bamboo series, for example, crafts the touchpad out of the same bamboo you’ll find on the rest of the laptop.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/touchpad6.jpg" alt="" width="550" height="411" />

Finally, the touchpad buttons are important. The best option is a touchpad that offers two separate physical mouse buttons, but many touchpads use what is called a rocker-style button. This means there is one individual with a rocker in the middle, which means the button operates like a seesaw. Rocker-style buttons look sexy, but they can be annoying to use because pressing the button near the rocker requires more force than pressing the button at the edge.

The perfect touchpad should offer multitouch support, a smooth surface, and two individual buttons with great tactile response. Finding all of these features together is difficult, particularly in inexpensive laptops, but it’s not impossible.

The Importance Of Software Support

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/touchpad7.jpg" alt="" width="550" height="394" />

Although your touchpad’s hardware is important, the software being used also has an impact on how your touchpad performs.

For example, Windows did not even support multitouch until Windows 7 ( class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/easily-activate-finger-scroll-windows-laptops/">although there are ways to hack it), even if the hardware was capable of it. Although much has been made about the inclusion of multitouch as it relates to tablets, its impact on laptops has been more immediate and obvious. Navigating Windows with a touchpad is much easier than before.

With that said however, there are still clear differences between Windows 7 and Mac OS X, which offers incredible multitouch support. Much of the difference between navigating Windows and Mac OS X on a laptop comes down not to the hardware (although the MacBook’s glass touchpad is nice) but to the software support. Ubuntu also offers full multitouch support as of version 10.10.

Conclusion

It’s easy to forget about the touchpad when a sales rep is gushing to you about the great hardware packed inside the new laptop you have your eye on. Don’t let that distract you. The touchpad is something you’ll be using a lot, and it cannot be replaced or upgraded, so you need to be sure to buy a laptop with a touchpad you like. />
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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: <br />

Formatting Text

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

Input: <b>bold</b> /> Output: bold

Input: <i>italic</i> /> Output: italic

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

Input: <p>Text inside your paragraph.</p> /> 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:

<ol> /> <li>Item One</li> /> <li>Item Two</li> /> </ol>

Output:

1. Item One
2. Item Two

Input:

<ul> /> <li>Item One</li> /> <li>Item Two</li> /> </ul>

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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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/polls.png"/>Last week we asked MakeUseOf readers exactly href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/email-addresses-makeuseof-poll/">how many email addresses you have. It turns out most of us around here have between 2 and 5 email addresses, and the rest of us have even more.

Out of the 954 votes, we had this breakdown: 51% have 2-5 email addresses; 29% have 6-10 email addresses; 10% have between 10-20 email addresses; 8% have 20+ email addresses; 1% have only one email address; while one voter (or .01%) had no email address at all.

Full results and this week’s poll after the jump.

The bulk of MakeUseOf readers have 2-5 email addresses), while the rest generally have more.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/email-addresses-poll.png" alt="" title="email-addresses-poll" />

This week’s href="http://www.makeuseof.com/service/polls/">poll question is: How Many Programming Languages Do You know?

MakeUseOf readers generally seem to have a little geek talent in reserve, so we thought we’d find out just how geeky you all are. In order to decide whether you “know” a programming language or not, think about whether you could honestly tell a potential employer you knew it. Basically, it doesn’t matter if you’d use a cheat sheet for reminders, but you should understand how the language works, have coded with it before and remember it well enough to not need to re-learn it. As for what counts as a programming language, that’s another argument. Be sensible!