class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/goldeneye.jpg" alt="gaming music" />Maybe you’ve heard of nerdcore, but the realm of video game music spans beyond that. Video games often capture us with their soundtracks, and every now and then an awesome band, singer, or rapper comes along and twists those nostalgic tunes into a new track.

Being a gamer and a fan of music is brought together upon listening and a whole new form of enjoyment can be experienced. Ever felt like you’ve lived through replaying one of your favorite games just by listening to an album? With this post, let’s hope to achieve that. I’ve got some smooth hip-hop, a little bit of metal, mashup, and arrangements for you to enjoy!

href="http://megaranmusic.com/album/black-materia-final-fantasy-vii">Random (Mega Ran) & Lost Perception – Black Materia: Final Fantasy VII

/> No one is going to argue that Final Fantasy VII is one of the most influential and breathtaking games that the RPG genre has ever birthed. Squaresoft hit this one right on the head, and more than 10 years after it was dropped we’re still discussing the possibility for a proper sequel. Ran and his partner, href="http://lostperception.com/">Lost Perception, blend together some awesome beats with the FF7 OST.

Ran’s music isn’t your average rap. His lyrical content is meaningful, and the wordplay and lyricism of the Black Materia album theme perfectly. You can learn a whole lot about FF7 before even playing it by just listening in to the content of this beautiful album. If you’ve never played FF7 before and you give this album a listen, you’ll be thoroughly impressed with the way that a hip-hop artist can proudly and effectively blend amazing lyricism with video game culture.

If you have played FF7, you’ll be blown away. If you’re a fan of FF4, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/final-fantasy-iv-free-remix-music-album/">check out this album.

href="http://artificialfear.bandcamp.com/album/loz-metal">Artificial Fear – LoZ: Metal

src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/BSFGGGe8HgA" frameborder="0" width="570" height="320"> /> Fans of Zelda have been going absolutely nuts over this album for more than a year now. Artificial Fear does an outstanding job of playing back tunes from the Legend of Zelda series–mainly Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask – with a hardcore metal twist.

The album is crammed with 24 tracks for you to enjoy and bang your head to.

href="http://goldnfly.com/">Alex Kresovich – Gold N’ Fly 007

src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Ll9Vp4R3bGA" frameborder="0" width="570" height="320"> /> When GoldenEye 007 hit the N64, FPS fanboys had a fit (and in a good way). Alex Kresovich takes the sounds from GoldenEye and mashes them together with some very lyrical rap songs. This album is the bomb.

Some of the featured artists include Tech N9ne (in the video above), 50 Cent, 2Pac, T.I., Rick Ross, Nas, and Jay-Z. If you’re a hip-hop fan, snag this!

href="http://music.jhsounds.com/album/hedgehog-hysteria">JH Sounds – Hedgehog Hysteria

src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/uAXOf_YjnQo" frameborder="0" width="570" height="320"> /> If you had a SEGA Genesis, you had Sonic the Hedgehog. If not, I’d argue that something was wrong in your childhood. JH Sounds’ arrangements of the Sonic soundtracks are stunning and beautiful. What’s even more is that this album is 100% free.

Give this one a quick listen and I bet you’ll be taken back to the days of holding the right directional button on that bulky, black controller.

href="http://megarankmurdock.bandcamp.com/album/forever-famicom">Random (Mega Ran) & K-Murdock – Forever Famicon

src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/j7zVhnYMIws" frameborder="0" width="570" height="320"> /> We started with Random and we’re ending with Random. The nerdcore legend collaborates with beatsmith K-Murdock to make one of the most nostalgic and memorable gamer classics out there.

With his trademark storybook lyricism, Ran and Murdock give us goodies from games like Earthbound, Little Nemo, Kirby’s Dreamland, Metroid, and Street Fighter.

Got an album on your mind that I didn’t manage to list? Let us know about it in the comments and we’ll all share some tunes for the gamers to play to. If you’re obsessed with video game OSTs, we’ve previously shared href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-sites-download-free-video-game-music/">five awesome sites where you can find those.

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/information.jpg" alt="information overload" />We are finding out that too much of information is also clutter. We have talked about href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/managing-digital-information-overload-technology-cure-opinion/">how technology can swing it both ways for us. For instance, a previous look at href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/7-sites-deal-information-overload/">7 Sites That Can Help You Deal With Information Overload gave us a bunch of tools to take on the information flow and swim with it. If you come to think of it, nearly every software, web app, or smart mobile app is built to somehow not sink under the tsunami of digital information.

But the question remains – are we doing a good job of managing information to make our days more productive? That query alone makes me benchmark new apps and see how they can be dykes rather than flood gates.

Let’s look at five more web services to tackle information overload with some interesting filters.

href="http://slipstre.am/">Slipstream

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/information01.jpg" alt="information overload" width="580" height="429" />

Slipstream is a 2 MB sized browser extension for Chrome and Safari (sorry, no Firefox) that helps to manage your Twitter timeline. Its operation is very simple – after you authorize it on your Twitter account, Slipstream lets you hide tweets you don’t care about with a single click.

You can automate the process by using hashtags to filter out specific tweets. Complete muting of certain tweets is also possible for specific users, topics, and timelines. You can create different keyword based filters and let Slipstream scrub your cluttered Twitter timeline. It’s very easy to setup and use via a simple ‘Hide’ click that opens a little box with the filter options.

href="http://ensembli.com/">Ensembli

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/information03.jpg" alt="information overload and internet" width="580" height="323" />

Tackle information overload with personalized news. Tell Ensembli about the kind of stories you are interested in and it scouts out web mentions for you across the board. You can fine tune it after signing in, but Ensembli works just as well without the free registration. Just use the little box on the homepage to let it know your topic of interest.

With a registration, you can setup Ensembli to send you daily or weekly email alerts when it comes across a story on your interests. You can also keep your account stocked with the stories you want to keep and share.

href="http://summify.com/">Summify

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/information05.jpg" alt="information overload and internet" width="580" height="315" />

Summify tackles information overload by applying some to the most shared and discussed items that you are interested in. It then ranks them by importance. You can add your Facebook, Twitter, and Google Reader accounts to bring your social feeds under Summify. Summify then rakes over your feeds, removes duplicate news items to reduce clutter, and shows streaming updates from your social networks with just the best stories.

You can set the web app with an update frequency, time interval between summaries, and number of stories to be sent in each summary, and also set up email notifications. Summify condenses your information and you can view it with the help of an iPhone app, get it on email, or take it straight on the web.

href="http://www.everyblock.com/">EveryBlock (U.S. only)

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/information02.jpg" alt="information overload and internet" width="580" height="390" />

The web is so universal that it makes us miss what’s happening in our neighborhood. EveryBlock is an interesting app because it brings back the idea of ‘local’. With EveryBlock you can follow neighborhood news (here are the href="http://dc.everyblock.com/news/">types) and connect with your neighbors in 16 U.S. cities. How does it help you to focus on important information? By bringing news that’s relevant at the level of neighborhood or city block. Anything that’s beyond that is kept out.

Updated news and tools to post messages and connect with those immediately close to you in your own city are the key features. You can narrow it down by ZIP code. It’s something to look forward to as more cities get added.

href="http://www.spezify.com/">Spezify

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/information04.jpg" alt="information overload" width="580" height="288" />

If you have to go on a search, take a visual search engine with you. Personally speaking, visualization of information helps me to digest information much faster. Spezify is fast and it taps into multiple information sources like Yahoo, Twitter, Reuters, Facebook, Wikipedia, YouTube, MSN, Amazon etc.).

You can filter the visual results by images, text, videos, music, and Twitter mentions. A list of related keywords also helps to try out a few more variations. If this has got you interested in visual search, try out href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/4-awesome-visual-search-engines-to-transform-your-search/">4 Awesome Visual Search Engines to Transform Your Search.

If too much of information is still buffeting you and you just want to do more with less, look into:

• href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-tips-deal-email-overload-gmail-show/">3 Tips To Deal With Email Overload In Gmail [Show & Tell]
• href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-ways-twitter-information-overload/">3 Little Known Ways To Use Twitter Without Information Overload
• href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/4-simple-text-summarizers-tackle-information-overload/">4 Simple Text Summarizers To Tackle Information Overload

Let us know of any favored app you use to manage information effectively. The simpler the better, if you too are swamped with too much of digital information.

Image Credit: href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=67359433" rel="nofollow">Shutterstock

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/image162.png" alt="" /> href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/facebook/">Facebook keeps changing and changing. Every month or so, users enjoy (or deal with) a new change in Facebook’s interface. While some people are really excited about the href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/facebook-timeline-starts-rolling-user-profiles-today-news/">recent Timeline profiles, others are still ticked off at things like the news ticker and the chat sidebar.

Another thing Facebook keep changing is the way we view images. While Photo Theater keeps improving and is no longer a major source of agitation to Facebook users, and while thumbnails keep growing, some people are still looking for an easy and quick way to view images in full size.

If one or more of these things are bothering you, I’ve rounded up some href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/google-chrome/">Chrome extensions that are sure to make you a happier Facebook user.

Facebook Classic

href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ffdodpcdalagnkbkojidmmcehlnhniad?hl=en-US">Facebook Classic is a Chrome add-on for people who dislike the new ticker, but want to be able to easily toggle it on again. It also gets rid of the new top stories and arranges the newsfeed in chronological order again.

After you install the add-on and refresh Facebook, the news ticker will disappear completely, leaving only the bottom half of the sidebar with the chat. You’ll also see the “Latest Stories” header instead of the “New Top Story” and “Recent Stories“. The change is not only to the titles – the small triangle to the left of each newsfeed item will also disappear. This triangle is usually used to mark a story as a “top story”.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/2011-10-11-12h37_32.png" alt="2011-10-11 12h37_32" width="580" height="429" border="0" />

If you want to turn on the ticker, find the “Show Ticker” link on the right side. This will toggle the news ticker on. You can toggle it back off whenever you want using the “Hide Ticker” link.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/2011-10-11-12h41_10.png" alt="2011-10-11 12h41_10" width="346" height="193" border="0" />

Facebook–

href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fecghihpjcmbdaicliecdpofhhianacj?hl=en&hc=search&hcp=main">Facebook– is another Chrome add-on which deals with similar issues. Once you download Facebook–, the news ticker will be gone. Use this add-on if you really don’t want to see the news ticker, because there’s no easy way to toggle it on and off.

As opposed to Facebook Classic, it also doesn’t leave you with half a sidebar for the chat, but expands the chat so it takes up the entire sidebar, the way it used to be before the news ticker joined the party.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/2011-10-11-13h04_51.png" alt="2011-10-11 13h04_51" width="504" height="441" border="0" />

Another thing Facebook– does is restore the title bar to the way it used to be. You get your Settings button back, and you lose your name and thumbnail in the title bar. Nice if you miss Facebook’s older look.

Sidebar Disabler

href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bfipfkeoidmndggnnpobeenlamiclald?hl=en&hc=search&hcp=main">Sidebar Disabler is a Chrome, href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/fb-chat-sidebar-disabler/">Firefox and href="https://addons.opera.com/en/addons/extensions/details/facebook-chat-sidebar-disabler/1.9.6/?display=en">Opera add-on which leaves your news ticker alone in its non-sidebar position, and turns the sidebar into the good old Facebook chat.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/2011-10-11-13h30_30.png" alt="2011-10-11 13h30_30" width="393" height="563" border="0" />

If the news ticker is not your problem, but you’re just sick of the sidebar as a concept, you’ll be able to forget about it with this add-on. The old chat returns in full glory, along with the old options and friend lists. You also get to see only your online friends again, which is one of the most sorely missed features in the new chat sidebar.

FB Photo Zoom

Moving on to quite a different subject, href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/elioihkkcdgakfbahdoddophfngopipi?hl=en&hc=search&hcp=ext">FB Photo Zoom has nothing to do with news tickers and sidebars, but has a lot to do with the way you view images. Some people still don’t like Facebook’s Photo Theater, and others (like me), are just too lazy to click the thumbnail every time they want to view a full-size image.

With FB Photo Zoom, hovering over a thumbnail with your mouse cursor will automatically open a preview of the full size image. This preview even moves along as you move your mouse, but disappears immediately if your cursor leaves the thumbnail.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/2011-10-11-13h21_58.png" alt="2011-10-11 13h21_58" width="580" height="408" border="0" />

FB Photo Zoom also comes with some configurable settings. You can use it to disable Photo Theater if you still hate it. You can create a keyboard shortcut to toggle the zooming effect on and off, and another shortcut to force-enable it even when it’s off. You can even control the delays of the fade in and fade out of images.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/2011-10-11-13h28_13.png" alt="2011-10-11 13h28_13" width="562" height="391" border="0" />

This also works with the tiny “Friends on Chat” thumbnails, which are so small they’re often unrecognizable. Quite an upgrade to your casual Facebook image viewing experience.

Bottom Line

The more changes Facebook makes, the more add-ons like these we’re going to find. I think it’s awesome that so many different ones exist – this way we can each create a user experience that suits us best, and make the most of Facebook without the things that annoy us.

If none of these add-ons hit the spot for you, you can find some more of them in href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/remove-facebook-news-ticker-fixed-header-chrome/">this post by Steve. If there are even better Facebook add-ons, or if you think people should stop complaining and enjoy the changes, do tell us about it in the comments!

href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/rid-annoying-facebook-features-4-addons-chrome/">Get Rid Of Some Annoying Facebook Features With These 4 Add-Ons [Chrome] 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/2011/09/Android-300.jpg" alt="" />Learn everything you need to learn about Android, for free! “These Are The Droids You’re Looking For: An Android Guide” by Matt Smith, is the latest free manual from MakeUseOf.com. Outlining the ins and outs of Android, this guide covers everything from basic usage to rooting your phone, and is a must-have if you use Google’s smartphone OS.

Android is among the most influential operating systems crafted this century. Along with iOS, it has paved the way for mobile devices that offer an unprecedented level of functionality. Currently Android is the most common mobile operating system — and there’s no sign that its popularity will wane anytime soon.

Already own an Android device? This guide will help you become acquainted with it, and teach you tricks that can make it even better than it already is. Thinking of buying an Android device? This guide can help you with your decision, by showing you what Android can do.

style="text-align: center;"> href="http://www.makeuseof.com/pages/download-these-are-the-droids-youre-looking-for-an-android-guide">DOWNLOAD These Are The Droids You’re Looking For: An Android Guide

style="text-align: center;">The guide is free but password-protected. Gain access to the password by:

style="text-align: center;">1- subscribing to our newsletter (you may do this on the download page itself, link above). Existing subscribers will receive the guide via email in the next couple of hours.

style="text-align: center;">OR

style="text-align: center;">2 – Simply href="http://www.facebook.com/makeuseof?sk=app_112097515539177">join our Facebook page. Quick and easy.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/android-3page.png" alt="" width="580" height="270" />

This amazing manual will teach you:

• Android’s history, from 2003 to now.
• Find out what Android version you’re running.
• Customizing the Android launcher.
• Enjoying music and videos on your phone.
• Exploring the Android Marketplace.
• How and why you should root your phone.
• Securing your Android phone.

style="text-align: center;"> href="http://www.makeuseof.com/pages/download-these-are-the-droids-youre-looking-for-an-android-guide">DOWNLOAD These Are The Droids You’re Looking For: An Android Guide

style="text-align: center;">The guide is free but password-protected. Gain access to the password by:

style="text-align: center;">1- subscribing to our newsletter (you may do this on the download page itself, link above). Existing subscribers will receive the guide via email in the next couple of hours.

style="text-align: center;">OR

style="text-align: center;">2 – Simply href="http://www.facebook.com/makeuseof?sk=app_112097515539177">join our Facebook page. Quick and easy.

View full post on MakeUseOf

class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Android-300.jpg" alt="" />Learn everything you need to learn about Android, for free! “These Are The Droids You’re Looking For: An Android Guide” by Matt Smith, is the latest free manual from MakeUseOf.com. Outlining the ins and outs of Android, this guide covers everything from basic usage to rooting your phone, and is a must-have if you use Google’s smartphone OS.

Android is among the most influential operating systems crafted this century. Along with iOS, it has paved the way for mobile devices that offer an unprecedented level of functionality. Currently Android is the most common mobile operating system — and there’s no sign that its popularity will wane anytime soon.

Already own an Android device? This guide will help you become acquainted with it, and teach you tricks that can make it even better than it already is. Thinking of buying an Android device? This guide can help you with your decision, by showing you what Android can do.

style="text-align: center;"> href="http://www.makeuseof.com/pages/download-these-are-the-droids-youre-looking-for-an-android-guide">DOWNLOAD These Are The Droids You’re Looking For: An Android Guide

style="text-align: center;">The guide is free but password-protected. Gain access to the password by:

style="text-align: center;">1- subscribing to our newsletter (you may do this on the download page itself, link above). Existing subscribers will receive the guide via email in the next couple of hours.

style="text-align: center;">OR

style="text-align: center;">2 – Simply href="http://www.facebook.com/makeuseof?sk=app_112097515539177">join our Facebook page. Quick and easy.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/android-3page.png" alt="" width="580" height="270" />

This amazing manual will teach you:

• Android’s history, from 2003 to now.
• Find out what Android version you’re running.
• Customizing the Android launcher.
• Enjoying music and videos on your phone.
• Exploring the Android Marketplace.
• How and why you should root your phone.
• Securing your Android phone.

style="text-align: center;"> href="http://www.makeuseof.com/pages/download-these-are-the-droids-youre-looking-for-an-android-guide">DOWNLOAD These Are The Droids You’re Looking For: An Android Guide

style="text-align: center;">The guide is free but password-protected. Gain access to the password by:

style="text-align: center;">1- subscribing to our newsletter (you may do this on the download page itself, link above). Existing subscribers will receive the guide via email in the next couple of hours.

style="text-align: center;">OR

style="text-align: center;">2 – Simply href="http://www.facebook.com/makeuseof?sk=app_112097515539177">join our Facebook page. Quick and easy.

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/intro4.jpg" alt="handheld console emulator" />In the href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-emulators-play-oldschool-16-32-bit-consoles-pc-19871993/">late 80′s, video gaming was gaining in popularity with the release of highly successful consoles from companies like Nintendo, Atari and Sega. Once technology had improved (and shrunk considerably) portable games consoles were possible, adding another theatre of war for hardware manufacturers to do battle on. It wasn’t a fad either, handheld gaming is a booming business even today.

Pretty much everyone now owns a device that can play, making anyone a potential customer. Knock the clock back 25 years and you’d have to go out, buy a chunky unit, some overpriced cartridges and hopefully have change left for a pocket full of AA batteries.

Let’s relive the past without the dodgy D-pads, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/7-ways-boost-cell-phone-battery-life-iphone-android-smartphones/">horrendous battery life and having to blow the dust off each cart before playing a game. To emulation!

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/sonic-no-no.jpg" alt="handheld console emulator" width="129" height="129" />

Don’t Ask Me For ROMs

No really, I can’t tell you where to get them. If you own original cartridges then you’re entitled to a backup copy, and you can go ahead and reclaim your collection. If you’re looking for ROMs then you’ll probably have no problems using Google, BitTorrent and if possible, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/three-ways-to-find-open-registration-on-private-torrent-sites-2/">private trackers.

Game Boy (1989) – href="http://vba.ngemu.com/">VisualBoyAdvance

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/gameboy.jpg" alt="handheld emulator" width="250" height="400" />

It was time to replace the Game and Watch – Nintendo’s first (rather DS-like) handheld venture, and the Game Boy was born. Nintendo aimed to keep production costs low and battery life acceptable, and despite initial criticisms the handheld eventually shot to success thanks to one game in particular.

Nintendo saw a game called href="http://www.tetris.com">Tetris exhibited at a 1988 game show and immediately saw the potential. The company bought up the rights to the game and released it as the Game Boy’s killer title. It was a hit-and-a-half.

I’ve just finished href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/visual-boy-advance-game-boy-advance-emulator-multiple-platforms-windows-mac-linux/">an article all about Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance emulator VisualBoyAdvance. It runs on all major operating systems (and a few other, more obscure platforms to boot) and provides great emulation.

Atari Lynx (1989) – href="http://handy.sourceforge.net/">Handy

style="text-align: center;">  class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/lynx.jpg" alt="handheld emulator" width="580" height="284" />

Initially called “Handy Game” (bet you’re glad they ditched that title) the Atari Lynx was the world’s first colour handheld games console. The unit was released around the time Nintendo were debuting their monochrome Game Boy and featured superior hardware, as well as an “upside down lefty” method of play.

Unfortunately the Lynx flopped. That colour screen was thirsty, as was the beefy hardware, which meant that the console chewed through batteries in no time. It was also expensive, and this further spurred on the success of the cheaper (and less unwieldy) Game Boy.

Handy is (allegedly) the best Lynx emulator – it runs on Windows but hasn’t had an update for a while so compatability mode on newer systems might resolve any issues.

Sega Game Gear (1990) – href="http://www.eidolons-inn.net/tiki-index.php?page=Kega">KEGA Fusion

style="text-align: center;">  class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/gamegear.jpg" alt="handheld emulator" width="580" height="376" />

One of the few consoles to give the Game Boy a run for its money, Sega’s Game Gear appeared in 1990 in Japan, with a worldwide release in 1991. It too featured a colour screen and devoured batteries like they were going out of fashion – lasting on average around 3-4 hours.

Sega intended to make a follow-on touch screen version of the Game Gear (which was based on the href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-retro-emulators-play-early-80s-home-consoles-pc-19811986/">Master System console) but production costs put the company off. The Game Gear can be emulated rather well with KEGA Fusion, an emulator that runs on all 3 major operating systems.

Game Boy Color (1998) – href="http://vba.ngemu.com/">VisualBoyAdvance

style="text-align: center;">  class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/gameboycolor.jpg" alt="handheld emulator system" width="245" height="400" />

Adding backwards compatibility for the first time in a handheld, the Game Boy Color was the next iteration of the Game Boy franchise. Further information about the console and emulator can be found in the href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/visual-boy-advance-game-boy-advance-emulator-multiple-platforms-windows-mac-linux/">VisualBoyAdvance article.

Neo Geo Pocket Color (1999) – href="http://neopop.emuxhaven.net/">NeoPop

style="text-align: center;">  class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/neogeopocketcolor.jpg" alt="handheld emulator system" width="580" height="383" />

The Neo Geo Pocket Color was a 16-bit handheld that disappeared from US and European markets due to an SNK buyout in 2000. Until then the portable was looking promising in the US market, even managing to give the Game Boy Color a decent fight.

NeoPop is tipped as the best Neo Geo Pocket Color emulator. It runs on Windows but also has a version for BeOS.

WonderSwan Color (1999) – href="http://calice.emu-france.com/oswan/">Oswan: href="http://www.emulator-zone.com/doc.php/wonderswan/oswan.html">Windows/ href="http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/12497/oswan">Mac

style="text-align: center;">  class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/wonderswan.jpg" alt="handheld emulator system" width="580" height="365" />

The WonderSwan Color was the follow-up to Bandai’s original WonderSwan console and only ever saw release in Japan. During its life it managed to steal 8% of the market share from Nintendo’s Game Boy, thanks in part to a deal that saw the original NES/Famicom Final Fantasy ported over.

Oswan appears to be the only WonderSwan Color emulator still out there, and runs on both Windows and Mac.

Game Boy Advance (2001) – href="http://vba.ngemu.com/">Visual Boy Advance

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/gba.jpg" alt="handheld console emulator" width="580" height="348" />

Adding two more buttons, improved graphics, improved sound and improved battery life to the Game Boy name, the GBA (despite not being quite as successful as the original) managed to shift more than 80 million units during its lifetime.

Nintendo franchises like Pokémon and Mario as well as some guests (including Sonic) made the console an overwhelming success. Far more information check out the href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/visual-boy-advance-game-boy-advance-emulator-multiple-platforms-windows-mac-linux/">Visual Boy Advance article, which covers the GBA.

Conclusion

So who’s still with us? Nintendo, sure – but the rest? Sega dropped out of the hardware market after poor sales of href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/8-great-emulators-play-modern-home-consoles-pc-19942001/">the Dreamcast, and many of the others simply publish, develop or churn out software these days.

Still, Sony have joined the ranks with the upcoming Vita and the 3DS can’t be far away from a revision by now. If you’ve enjoyed reading about these old portables or have found an emulator you’ve been looking for leave us a comment below!

Any favourite handhelds? Any favourite games? Nobody forgets their first handheld, right? Discuss below!

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/image104.png" alt="" />One of my favorite features in href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/windows-7/">Windows 7 is Aero Glass. There’s something really appealing about the whole Aero look, and I love changing the look and feel of my system by changing Aero colors.

But Windows 7 only offers 14 pre-set Aero colors, and if I need a change I have to go to my display options and do it manually. So Aero colors are a lovely thing, but let’s admit it, they’re a bit limited. So I’ve rounded up some cool tools that will enliven your Aero colors experience, be it custom colors, colors that match wallpapers, or even the weather.

href="http://hb860.deviantart.com/art/AeroTuner-183456299">AeroTuner

AeroTuner is a portable app that helps you do one thing: customize Aero color. If you’re tired of those same old default options (and let’s face it, only 3-4 of them are really usable), use AeroTuner to create your very own Aero color.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-20-20h02_46.png" alt="2011-09-20 20h02_46" width="451" height="451" border="0" />

With this little application you can choose your main color and glow color, and then start playing with color balance, blur balance and Aero stripes. You can pretty much create any look you want, and within seconds, your system will have a unique look no one else can match!

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-20-20h03_46.png" alt="2011-09-20 20h03_46" width="449" height="436" border="0" />

If you change your mind, simply click restore and your previous colors will return. You can also find your previous colors in the Personalize area when you right-click the desktop area.

href="http://aura.codeplex.com/">Aura

Windows 8 is going to have a new feature that will change Aero Glass color according to wallpaper. But what if you don’t want to wait? Try Aura.

This small and portable tool can change Aero color according to either wallpaper color or active window icon color. If you’re using IE 9 (which I’m not), it should also change color according to active tabs.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-20-20h23_43.png" alt="2011-09-20 20h23_43" width="522" height="479" border="0" />

What Aura essentially does is turn the task bar transparent, so it reflects the wallpaper, and the windows themselves get a color that matches the wallpaper or the active window. I’m not sure how the algorithm works, but it seems to be giving out greys a fair number of the times. Nevertheless, the general feeling is rather pleasant.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-20-20h46_59.png" alt="2011-09-20 20h46_59" width="525" height="323" border="0" />

href="http://www.carthagosoft.net/AeroBlend.php">AeroBlend

AeroBlend is very similar to Aura, but in my opinion seems to work a little better. This might be due to the algorithm that it uses to calculate the colors. It is also an actual installation, and not a portable app.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-20-20h40_27.png" alt="2011-09-20 20h40_27" width="370" height="202" border="0" />

As in Aura, you can choose whether it should change colors according to wallpaper, icon or content (not only IE9!), and you can control the color intensity right there from the settings window. You can also choose to check the mysterious option “Fade colos”.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-20-20h36_44.png" alt="2011-09-20 20h36_44" width="550" height="450" border="0" />

I’m assuming “Fade colos” is fade colors, and some testing seem to show that this is in fact the case. When you uncheck it, the change in color is immediate. The difference, however, is almost unnoticeable.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-20-20h38_50.png" alt="2011-09-20 20h38_50" width="486" height="290" border="0" />

As you can see, AeroBlend creates a pretty good match to wallpaper color, and the entire work environment becomes much more lively. Fun!

href="http://spikex.net/2010/04/aeroweather-weather-based-aero-color/">AeroWeather

One of the coolest tools I’ve found on my quest to boost my Aero color is AeroWeather. This nifty little tool changes Aero color according to either temperature or weather conditions.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-20-21h06_50.png" alt="2011-09-20 21h06_50" width="341" height="431" border="0" />

To start, you’ll need to set up your location (zip code works in US only) and choose whether the colors should change according to temperature or conditions. If you choose temperature, you can decide the range according to which you’d like the color to change. When the temperature is close to the lower end, your desktop will look bluish-purplish:

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-20-21h05_34.png" alt="2011-09-20 21h05_34" width="431" height="309" border="0" />

When it’s close to the higher end, it will turn reddish:

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-20-21h05_06.png" alt="2011-09-20 21h05_06" width="463" height="310" border="0" />

There are all sorts of other colors in the middle.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-20-21h06_06.png" alt="2011-09-20 21h06_06" width="459" height="312" border="0" />

AeroWeather can also dim your Aero color at night, which is a really cool feature. If you can’t see a real change, try increasing color intensity in Windows’ Personalize –> Window color.

href="http://winaero.com/comment.php?comment.news.13">AeroRainbow

AeroRainbow is another fun application – this time, an Aero color randomizer. This little app comes from the same developers as AeroTuner, but does something a bit different. The main feature is a constantly changing Aero color, either randomly or according to a list you can build yourself.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-20-21h22_30.png" alt="2011-09-20 21h22_30" width="579" height="402" border="0" />

You can decide how often the change occurs, but the slowest setting is one change per minute, which is still a bit fast for my tastes. You can also use AeroRainbow to change your colors according to wallpaper, active window or active window icon, and choose whether this will be according to dominate color or average color.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-09-20-21h24_41.png" alt="2011-09-20 21h24_41" width="450" height="471" border="0" />

If you create a nice color list, you can have a truly fetching desktop that never gets boring!

Bottom Line

Aero color tweakers, if you use them right, can help you create a system that is both fun and aesthetic. Just trying these tools out made me a happier person. Go ahead, indulge yourself and start playing with colors. It’s the easiest way to change your work environment so your eyes never get bored.

Do you know of some more interesting color customization tools for Aero? Let us know in the comments!

Image credit: href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&searchterm=colors&search_group=&orient=&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&commercial_ok=&color=&show_color_wheel=1#id=63322462&src=a0b49696413198094731f8db8705a1d9-2-68" rel="nofollow">Shutterstock

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/joe1.png" alt="" />In my last article about class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/broadcast-mobile-currency-and-starbucks-coffee-with-jonathans-card/">Jonathan’s Card, we discussed how you could grab a quick coffee fix for free, but unfortunately, the system was shut down by class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/starbucks-apple-offering-free-paid-iphone-apps-news/">Starbucks when Sam Odio manipulatively class="vt-p" href="http://www.sam.odio.com/2011/08/13/jonathans-card-q/">gained money from it. Granted, he gave the money he raised to the charity foundation Save The Children, but he also instructed how anyone could use the card to make profit.

Odio may have killed the Jonathan’s Card, but fortunately, other currency-broadcasting fans have rushed in with their very own versions of the Starbucks-sharing system. Check out these new (safer) up-and-coming replacements for Jonathan’s Card.

class="vt-p" href="http://www.freestarbucks.org">FreeStarbucks.org

In a swift move that happened directly after the unfortunate fall of Jonathan’s Card, a man by the name of Nicolas J Sheriff Jr. took a chance and developed another form of the ill-fated social sharing experiment. His version – class="vt-p" href="http://www.freestarbucks.org">FreeStarbucks.org – functions as a website which features a Starbucks barcode which you can use with your class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/iphone/">iPhone or class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/google-android/">Android phone. As with the case of Jonathan’s Card (and the official Starbucks app), all one must do is simply scan the barcode at the register when they are ready to pay for their coffee.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/FreeSbux11.png" alt="" width="580" height="289" />

One of the advantages to FreeStarbucks.org is the fact that when you go to refill the card for others to embrace the joy of espresso, the link is already set for you with the numbers of the card hidden from view. This means that if someone is feeling like ruining the coffee fun for everyone, the task will prove to be difficult since they don’t even know what the code for the card is.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/FreeSbux21.png" alt="" width="580" height="400" />

One thing that I found a little confusing (and I tried to contact Sheriff about this) was that I simply could not find a way to check the balance of the card. My advice for you right now would be to only try it out if you have some backup money in your bank account. This way, if you try to use the card and it’s entirely empty, you can avoid any minor embarrassment. Granted, you could still take a chance since you have to pay before the drink is made anyway.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/FreeSbux41.png" alt="" width="580" height="354" />

class="vt-p" href="http://www.talkaboutdesign.com/starbucks/">The Pay It Forward Card

Here we have another similar program sponsored by TalkAboutDesign – the class="vt-p" href="http://www.talkaboutdesign.com/starbucks/">Pay It Forward Card. The system utilizes an almost identical setup to FreeStarbucks.org, but it does have some minor differences that separate the two.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/PIF1.png" alt="" width="580" height="360" />

For instance, upon arrival to the card’s website, you will see the card’s balance right off the bat. Unfortunately, the current balance has been relatively low (likely due to its very recent start-up), but in order to remedy that, all one must do is deposit money into the card’s privately-numbered account with a few clicks of a button. Besides the website itself, TalkAboutDesign has also released an Android app that does virtually the same thing.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/PIF@.png" alt="" width="580" height="357" />

One of the differences between the original Jonathan’s Card and the PIF Card is that creator Maksim Petriv does not release any of the class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/api-good-technology-explained/">API whatsoever. He believes that this will help keep the card’s financial status safe, and furthermore, balance updates never show the exact state of the card. The TalkAboutDesign class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/twitter/">Twitter account has also used various Tweets that will simply state whether the card is full or not.

The Movement

The movement began with Stark, and even on the original card’s still-existing Facebook page, there are quite a few followers still discussing ways to keep paying it forward. Users have found the coffee to merely be a symbol for what inspires them to share whatever they may have with their fellow man. That being said, it’s not so much that these people are (as Odio puts it) “yuppies buying yuppies coffee” as it is that they are average Joes who are finally taking time out of their day to think, “hey, maybe I could do something nice for this person.”

As a matter of fact, taking a cue from the original Jonathan’s Card, you can find numerous individuals who have set out with the goal of making their own community Starbucks Cards, releasing little-followed class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/facebook/">Facebook pages featuring images of the barcodes as profile pictures. Click around on Facebook, and you’ll be sure to find at least one or two.

Conclusion

No matter what happens, there are always people that will want to shut down even the coolest of things. It’s the general cynical nature of the Internet, and sadly, you can’t help that. However, there are still people in the world out there trying to be kind to whoever they meet doing whatever they can – and yes, that can be in the form of a cup of coffee.

Were you able to use Jonathan’s Card before Starbucks had to shut it down? Have you been able to use any of the ones mentioned? In what ways have you paid it forward recently? Also, have you ever shared your own Starbucks card?

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/no-comic-sans-300x300.png" alt="" />It seems like wherever you are, there is always going to be some form of the printed word within your field of view. With so many words floating around, class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/design/">designers take great care to make their words stand out from the crowd through class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-cool-free-computer-fonts-stand/">stylistic fonts. But then we have the class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tech-fun/comic-sans-fighting/">Comic Sansusers. For some reason, people still insist on placing this overused font on the most peculiar text displays in the most inappropriate places. However, there are a number of people out there willing to fight the good fight and put an end to Comic Sans misusage. You can be one of them by taking a look at these three sites!

class="vt-p" href="http://www.bancomicsans.com/main/">Ban Comic Sans

Right here, we have the site that started it all – class="vt-p" href="http://www.bancomicsans.com/main/">Ban Comic Sans. Started by Dave and Holly Combs (both prolific designers), the pair set out in 2002 in an effort to “put the sans back in Comic Sans.” class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/b1.png" alt="" width="580" height="380" /> At first glance, the site has a semi-dedicated blog devoted entirely to the removal of Comic Sans from all text displays everywhere, and to prove a point, the Combs couple has even installed a section of their site providing several instances of Comic Sans misusage. In addition to this class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/flickr/">Flickr photo presentation of the font in everyday life, the site provides the following short 8-minute documentary (featuring Comic Sansified versions of common logos and brands) about the font as well as a firm class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/typography/">typography manifesto. width="580" height="430" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"> name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /> name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /> name="src" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1994310&server=vimeo.com&show_title=0&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=00adef&fullscreen=1&autoplay=0&loop=0" /> width="580" height="430" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1994310&server=vimeo.com&show_title=0&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=00adef&fullscreen=1&autoplay=0&loop=0" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" /> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/b2.png" alt="" width="580" height="380" /> Besides the content that the site provides, the Combs also sell various shirts, stickers, and even coffee mugs (by class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/sites-earn-easy-money-creative-designs/">Zazzle, class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/webs-coolest-shopping-destinations/">CafePress, and class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/2-places-design-sell-tshirts/">Spreadshirt) featuring artwork highlighting the campaign against Comic Sans. However, if you don’t feel like dropping too much money, they also have free propaganda flyers to print out as well as DIY stickers that you can simply make at home using the proper paper ( class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-create-new-design-projects-using-avery-designpro/">Avery 8164 to be exact). Also, if you still feel the need to use comic-fueled fonts, you should check out their wide assortment of Comic Sans alternatives. class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/b3.png" alt="" width="580" height="380" />

class="vt-p" href="http://www.comicsanscriminal.com/">Comic Sans Criminal

This is more of a one-shot kind of site in that it really serves no other purpose other than what it already is, but even so, class="vt-p" href="http://www.comicsanscriminal.com/">Comic Sans Criminal has the potential to be the gift that keeps on giving. Basically, the site is devoted to evangelizing the truth about Comic Sans misusage to those that take part in it. class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/c1.png" alt="" width="580" height="419" /> Upon arrival to the site, users are welcomed by a page that simply states, “You’re a Comic Sans Criminal, but we’re here to help you.” So if you see someone using the dreaded font, you should quickly send them the link, notifying them of their criminal state. After clicking through to the next screen of the site, they will be treated to an in-browser slideshow highlighting the negative effects of Comic Sans. class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/c3.png" alt="" width="580" height="295" /> However, the site does make note that there are a few reasons that using Comic Sans could be quite reasonable. Besides usage for an audience that is under 11-years-old and for comics themselves, the site makes aware that many dyslexics would find the font easier to read than anything else. As a matter of fact, for more dyslexic information, the website provides a link to class="vt-p" href="http://www.dyslexic.org">Dyslexic.org. class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/c4.png" alt="" width="580" height="590" /> Everything about Comic Sans Criminal is highly tongue-in-cheek, but it does provide a few legitimate points. For instance, items such as defibrillators should never be labeled in Comic Sans, so I guess you could say that proper use of the font (or lack thereof) could save a life. class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/c2.png" alt="" width="580" height="379" />

class="vt-p" href="http://www.blambot.com/">Blambot

Blambot is certainly not an anti-Comic Sans site, but it provides several free alternatives to comic-styled fonts. The site has a little something for everyone, keeping in mind the fact that comics often need different lettering for different purposes (no, Comic Sans can’t be used for everything). class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/bb1.png" alt="" width="579" height="379" /> The site has three classifications – limited edition paid fonts, paid fonts, and thankfully, an excellent selection of free fonts. I know it may be surprising, but there are a lot of other comic-related fonts to choose from besides Comic Sans. As a matter of fact, Blambot has a different font for every purpose whether it be for dialogue, sound effects, basic design, or even crazy symbols. class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/bb4.png" alt="" width="580" height="166" /> Blambot was founded by Nate Piekos, an artist who is proficient in comic font design and lettering. In addition to Blambot’s basic available fonts, Piekos also provides services for class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/two-free-tools-to-make-your-very-own-fonts/">custom comic font creation and design. class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/bb3.png" alt="" width="580" height="380" />

Conclusion

Comic Sans isn’t all that bad, but it certainly can misused or overused. Fortunately, the three sites above provide insight on correct usage of the font as well as plenty of healthy alternatives. Granted, if you are feeling angsty and full of hardcore font-rebellion, you could take a look at class="vt-p" href="http://www.agencyfusion.com/kill-comic-sans.html">Kill Comic Sans, a frustrating arcade-shooter with an emphasis on the incapacitation of the light-hearted (but evil) font. class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/killcomicsans.jpg" alt="" width="580" height="434" /> What instances have you ever seen Comic Sans misused? What are some of your favorite fonts?

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Mac.png" alt="keyloggers for mac"/>Before I get started writing this article, I’m just going to say that href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/apple/">Apple does a good job protecting its customers from href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/malware/">malware, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/virus/">viruses, and various other mythical beasts on the internet. However, a lot of href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/spyware/">monitoring software still exists for Mac, and you should know about it, right?

I’m going to be honest with you in that I didn’t download any of these at all, and this was done for two reasons – they aren’t free, and I don’t trust them.

Just know that the first purpose of this article is to let you know that this enemy actually exists, and the second purpose is to help you know your enemy by name.

href="http://www.spectorsoft.com/products/Spector_Macintosh/index.asp">Spector Pro [Snow Leopard]

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/SpecterSoft.png" alt="keyloggers for mac" width="580" height="300" />

As a product of SpectorSoft, href="http://www.spectorsoft.com/products/Spector_Macintosh/index.asp">Spector Pro markets itself as a way to check in on the kids or make sure that your employees are staying on task. It even prides itself with its ability to block websites and specific contacts on href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/instant-messaging/">instant messaging. However, we all know that this doesn’t mean people wouldn’t use it for malicious reasons. (As a note, the website also has some sketchy user testimonials anyway.)

Besides its basic run-of-the-mill keylogging methods, Spector Pro forwards all emails, transferred files, and screenshots to its primary operator (read: stalker). Also, like most keyloggers, the software will likely run in stealth mode if it is being used on you, so just keep that in mind. However, at the price of $99, the perpetrator would likely use it only if they had serious intentions.

href="http://www.sniperspy.com/">SniperSpy [Snow Leopard]

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/SniperSpy.png" alt="mac keylogger" width="580" height="300" />

href="http://www.sniperspy.com/">SniperSpy is one of three spy-related pieces of software produced by Retina-X Studios. Once again, we have the typical explanation of “Watch your children!” and “Watch your employees!”. However, in addition to its basic functions of screenshot capturing, location mapping (based on the current IP) and keylogging, SniperSpy allows its operator to view everything that you are doing totally live in a href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-spy-on-your-spouse-with-your-computer/">VNC-like fashion.

Basically, as you are typing out your romantic messages to your hypothetical forbidden lover, your spouse could be watching you as it happens. Another feature allows for operators to send the computer user an onscreen message – perhaps something classic like, “All your base are belong to us.”

href="http://www.aobo.cc/">Aobo Keylogger [Snow Leopard & Lion]

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Aobo.png" alt="mac keylogger" width="580" height="300" />

href="http://www.aobo.cc/">Aobo claims that you can use the software to “spy and discover the truth” and “get back a stolen Mac”. This is perfectly fine and seemingly honest, but there is always the chance someone might have ulterior motives while using it. The website for this software is a little iffy, so just keep in mind its users could be equally so.

The software comes in two varieties – standard and pro – and both of them collect the standard information that any keylogger would. However, the professional version is noted for its ability to record passwords that are typed in-browser, and it claims to have been the first keylogger for Mac to do so. All logs (including screenshots, keystrokes, and websites) can be sent to the operator’s email or  href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/8-free-ftp-clients-for-mac/">FTP.

href="http://www.amackeylogger.com/">Amac KeyLogger [Snow Leopard & Lion]

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Amac.png" alt="mac keylogger" width="580" height="300" />

Much like the other monitoring programs mentioned in this article, href="http://www.amackeylogger.com/">Amac Keylogger requires the operator to install the software on the actual computer itself. Granted, this could always possibly be done remotely by a well-versed operator, but in the meantime, just reconsider who regularly plugs flash drives into your computer.

Amac Keylogger functions just as you would expect it would – it watches you do whatever you do, sending information of your activities to the mystery man behind another screen. Although it displays itself as employee monitoring software, it is easily exploitable. If you download it once, it monitors all user accounts on the Mac in question, and it always will open up in stealth mode on the user’s computer. Also, much like Aobo, the professional version of this software can record passwords.

Conclusion

Keep in mind that Apple does subtly protect its users from these Internet demons anyway, but if you want a basic method to combat keyloggers yourself, you should take a look at this MUO article –  href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/4-ways-protect-keyloggers/">4 Ways To Protect Yourself Against Keyloggers. Besides this, remember to always update your OS to prevent unintentional installation, and don’t be surprised that some people do not. Take this example – a close friend of mine who works primarily with Macs once knew someone who hadn’t done so since the day that they bought it!

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Update21.png" alt="keyloggers for mac" width="580" height="180" />

Have you ever encountered an attack on your Mac? Do you have any further knowledge about the ones mentioned here? Share with us in the comments.

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/featured-wifi-hack.png" alt="wifi monitoring software" />If your Wifi is being hijacked by some dirty rotten thieves – class="vt-p" title="How To Check If Someone Is Stealing Your WiFi & What You Can Do About It" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/check-stealing-wifi/">I showed you how to check this before – what can you do to get your own back, or find out a little more about who is responsible? Or rather, if a hacker has gained access to your wifi network, what kind of nasty things could they do to you?

In this tutorial today, I’ll be demonstrating some low-level but terrifying utilities you can run on your compromised network. If you class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/paranoid-monitoring-networks-comings-goings-wallwatcher-ddwrt">weren’t paranoid enough after I showed you class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/crack-wep-network-find-insecure/">how to crack a WEP network in 5 minutes last week, you will be after today.

Prerequisites

• These apps will only work on a wifi network that is either open or has compromised WEP security for which you have the passphrase.
• class="vt-p" href="http://www.backtrack-linux.org/downloads/">Backtrack5 Security Linux Live-CD: if you’re unfamiliar with the boot process and how to get into a GUI, read class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/crack-wep-network-find-insecure">last week’s tutorial on how to hack your WEP network.
• A wireless card that supports monitor mode (where it captures all the packets on the network).

Note: This isn’t the only way to sniff out packets on the wifi, but as far as I’m concerned it’s the easiest for beginners and consists of really only a few shell commands to see results. It certainly isn’t the most comprehensive or effective way to do things, and there are certain drawbacks and limitations I’ll discuss beside each utility.

Today we’ll be covering 3 different basic-level utilities for figuring out what’s going on: urlsnarf, webspy, and driftnet.

Setting Up

Boot into Backtrack5 as described last week. Before continuing, make sure you have the following information noted down somewhere:

• The BSSID (Mac address) of your target network.
• The NAME of your target network.
• The CHANNEL number that the network operates on (1-12).
• The WEP key (if needed).

Start by placing your wifi card into monitor mode on the specified channel, using:

airmon-ng start wlan0 [channel]

Replace wlan0 with the name of your wireless device - iwconfig will tell you this if you don’t know it already – and with the relevant [channel] in there too (don’t include the brackets). You should now have a mon0 interface for monitoring network traffic.

Since the packets need to be decrypted on the fly, we need to run them through the airtun-ng utility, which will give us a live stream of the decrypted packets as it sees them on the network, in a suitable format for some of the other apps we will use today. Type in the following command, replacing your details:

airtun-ng -a [bssid] -w [password] -t 1 mon0

Leave out the -wbit if you’re doing this on an open wifi network. You should see something similar to this if it’s successful.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/airtun-ng.png" alt="wifi monitoring software" width="496" height="77" />

The utility created a new network device stream called at0, which we need to activate using another command (open a new terminal for this, and don’t close the one running airtun-ng):

ifconfig at0 up

Okay, setup is complete, onto stage 2.

URLSnarf

This is going to list out all the websites visited by users on the network, so you can see in real time what sites they are browsing too.

urlsnarf -i at0

It’s also going to give a lot of noise though, as each website visited results in a number of requests being made to various places. Here’s a snapshot of me browsing the iTunes store. A quick look over the list will tell me:

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/reeder-urls.png" alt="wifi monitor freeware" width="580" height="246" />

• The user is on an IP address of 192.168.0.5 (useful for finding out more later)
• The request is coming from a 32GB model iPad.
• Exactly which URLs are being loaded.
• The user has gone through a number of mobile applications, like Mobile Safari, Reeder (a Google Reader app), and the iTunes store.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/itunes-ipad.png" alt="wifi monitor freeware" width="460" height="70" />

With multiple users it could become difficult to tell which requests are made by who, but there are additional filters I won’t get into. For now, this is scary enough.

DriftNET

This one is used to capture images that are being downloaded from websites and such, and it’s pretty much as voyeuristic as you can get.

driftnet -v -i at0

Note: -v isn’t needed, but it shows a textual output in the console window which I prefer to know it’s working or found something. It isn’t perfect by far – during tests I found it only tended to pick up smaller images, presumably because it wasn’t able to fully grab the packets for larger JPGs and such, but it is effective none the less. Here I’ve browsed to a famous Chinese movie streaming website.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/driftnet.png" alt="wifi monitoring software" width="580" height="283" />

It certainly doesn’t pick up everything, but I can assure you that if they’re browsing to a certain pR0n site thats begins with Red and ends with Tube, you’re going to know about it.

WebSpy

While I prefer the log file format of URLSnarf, this utility will actually attempt to mirror what the user is browsing on your computer. In practice it doesn’t work as well as I’d hoped, but it’s intriguing none the less. You need to target a specific user IP on the network though – which you should have through URLSnarf, then type in the following:

webspy -i at0 [target ip address]

In another terminal, launch Firefox using:

firefox &

Now, in theory, whatever they visit will be mirrored onto your local Firefox browser. In reality, I found it would open a new browser window for every request the website site made – so a site like MakeUseOf might open new tabs for the various advertisers, and Disqus commenting – added to which some sites would only open by IP address. Certainly good fun and some sites work as expected, but of limited real world use.

Conclusion:

Running these utilities on your own network to see who’s stealing your wifi and what they’re doing with it is probably acceptable, but once you start running these in public spaces (as someone did with class="vt-p" href="http://freegeekvancouver.blogspot.com/2011/06/another-hack-wiretap-picture-frame.html">this wifi picture frame that grabs traffic from open wifi spots), you enter a whole new realm of illegalities. Or do you? It’s actually quite easy to secure your traffic even on an open wifi by tunnel everything through a VPN or such, so I hope this just goes to show you exactly how dangerous WEP networks and open wifi can actually be. Think twice before jumping on that local “free internet” someone seems to be broadcasting for fun. I plan to explore some more wifi trickery over the coming weeks, so stay tuned and play safe people.

As ever, feel free to comment and ask questions, or head over to our support community for crowd-sourced advice and unrelated questions.

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/belly-2354_640.jpg" alt="weight loss community"/>The fact is, losing weight is never going to be easy. No matter what method you try to use there is just this simple formula: eat less, burn more. There are a million ways to carry out eating less and burning more, the key is finding something that works for you. I weighed 225 pounds about 7 months ago, and now I’m coming in a lean and mean 175 pounds (that’s 50 pounds lost for my non-math major friends).

One key reason that allowed me to lose weight was motivation from others. I had friends who were either dieting at the same time as me, or had recently dieted to help me through it. I also had a wealth of people on the Internet who were happy to offer some motivational words, or a friendly tip. The key is knowing where to find such helpful people.

href="http://www.mynetdiary.com/">MyNetDiary

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/mynetforums.png" alt="weight loss community" width="575" height="601" /> /> This is the website/app I used during my dieting process. I found the user interface of their iPhone app to be the best, and most importantly, they integrated their community features into the mobile app. Obviously, cheating is most likely to happen at a restaurant, and chances are slim that you will have your laptop sitting in front of you. If you need a quick tip on how to avoid temptation you can pull out your phone and jump on the forums to plead for help.

They have a full-time dietitian on staff who is always in the forum answering questions, as well as thousands of helpful dieters who will be ready to help. Outside of the community, they also offer a calorie counter and exercise tracker.

href="http://www.myfitnesspal.com/">MyFitnessPal

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/myfitnessforum.png" alt="weight loss community free" width="579" height="554" />

The features of MyFitnessPal have been detailed in a full article class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/myfitnesspal-crossplatform-calorie-counter-diet-tracker/">here, but it’s worth repeating. They obviously have a calorie counter and exercise tracker and the basic features that any app or website of this sort has. Where they really shine is in their social networking and community part. When you meet goals, it posts them to your followers and lets them know.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/social.png" alt="weight loss community free" width="502" height="159" />

They also have an incredibly active forum filled with success stories, before and after pictures and people giving and receiving helpful tips and advice. You can also look on the forum for user-created healthy recipes; for those times when you get bored with eating the same diet food over and over.

style="text-align: left;"> class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 20px; font-weight: bold;"> class="vt-p" href="http://www.reddit.com/r/loseit">Reddit’s Lose It Subreddit

 

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/reddit1.png" alt="weight loss community free" width="567" height="340" />

It is impossible, in my opinion, to have any post about a community without looking to Reddit. We have already shown you many ways class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-ways-reddit/">Reddit can help people in need, but they are also great at helping you stay motivated to lose weight. They have over 23000 readers on their Lose It subreddit, and they are all quick to offer a helping hand. Users also post before and after pictures, along with detailed descriptions of how they lost weight.

They are also big on Non Scale Victories (or NSV) on Reddit. They love hearing about things like pants not fitting, people giving complements, borrowing a younger sibling clothes that didn’t fit before and things of that nature. A lot of times people forget about these little victories while losing weight and they concentrate too much on the number on the scale. It is important to remember these NSV’s and Reddit will not let you forget. Also href="http://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness">Reddit.com/r/fitness is a great community to learn more about exercising and burning those calories.

href="http://www.traineo.com/">Traineo

Traineo’s whole site is based on community. Every piece of content on their site is posted by one of their over 200,000 members. It is filled with tons  of tips, stories, workout plans, recipes, diet plans and pretty much everything you could want. There are thousands of photos of members to help motivate you. There is even an entire section of the site dedicated to just motivational tips for members, by members.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/tranmoto.png" alt="weight loss communities" width="341" height="427" />

They also have a really cool groups feature, which allows you to link up other people losing weight who share similar interests with you. For example, there are groups of college students, Wii users, runners, and a slew of other kinds of people.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/groups.png" alt="weight loss community" width="574" height="476" />

If you are looking for a pure community filled with hundreds of thousands of people who are all in the same struggle as you, this is the site you must check out.

Conclusion

If you are trying to lose weight and you feel like giving up, know that you don’t have to go it alone. There are people on the internet who are struggling with the same challenges as you, and they are happy to offer tips to help keep you motivated. Keep these communities in mind when you feel like slipping off the diet. Dieting is hard, but having a good support system will help immensely! Just keep at it, and don’t be afraid to lean on others for help.

Have you lost weight? How did you do it? Did communities such as these help you along? Let us know in comments!

Image Credit:  href="http://pixabay.com/" rel="nofollow">Pixabay

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/camp.jpg" alt="promote indie film"/>When I was younger, I always tried to find the cheapest ways to make short films and href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/videos/">videos with my friends. Even now as a video production major, I still find myself trying to find alternatives that require the least amount of money for making all things video-wise.

In my last production-inspired article, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/quality-resources-multimedia-project/">Various Little Known Quality Resources For Your Next Multimedia Project, I covered several sources for free video-related material. However, today, I’m going to run through three websites that will help you with the general steps of the movie-making process. With a little effort and a great deal of dedication, you can use all of these sites to their greatest potential.

href="http://www.indiegogo.com">Find Some Financial Backers [IndieGoGo.com]

Before you can start any legit href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/movies/">movie, you have to take the help of some bank to get things rolling. You could always just work with a budget of $2 and some shoe string (which I have actually found to be quite effective), or you could take things to the next level and try to create something that will make the cut at href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-awesome-free-documentaries-watch-online/">Sundance. In order to make your film, you’re going to need some producers, and thankfully, href="http://www.indiegogo.com">IndieGoGo has got your back.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/IG1.png" alt="promote indie film" width="580" height="322" />

IndieGoGo – a href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-crowd-funding-websites-support-favourite-charities-bands-projects/">crowd-funding predecessor to the very similar KickStarter – is a website devoted to all you indie creators out there who are short on money, equipment, and various other necessities. Although the site started primarily as a money-tree for aspiring filmmakers, IndieGoGo actually offers its services to campaigns of all kinds, so your production will be seen by creators everywhere. Sadly, the site can’t hook you up with Michael Bay, but it can hook you up with other filmmakers who can financially support your production through donations.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/IG2.png" alt="your indie film" width="580" height="282" />

You may be familiar with Kickstarter, so you probably already know about its incentive program. IndieGoGo offers basically the same thing, and since you are trying to get your film produced, you can offer perks such as private screenings, free DVDs, and even in-film appearances by your strongest supporters. Keep in mind that IndieGoGo expects you to conclude your fund-raising campaign within 120 days and will take 4% of the earnings, but at least you will have more money than you did before.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/IG3.png" alt="your indie film" width="580" height="397" />

href="http://www.indymogul.com">Start Your Production Off Right [IndyMogul.com]

There are no set cut-and-dry methods to making movies. Sure, there may be easier ways of doing things, but so often it seems as if “easier” means “more expensive”. My motto has always been “work with what you are given”, and the fact of the matter is that IndieGoGo may not raise you enough money for your production. Basically, you are going to have to improvise with what you have on deck.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/IM1.png" alt="your indie film" width="580" height="341" />

href="http://www.indymogul.com">Indy Mogul offers several shows, such as 4 Minute Film School and Backyard FX (which is, sadly, soon-to-be cancelled), that will help you find a plethora of material during the production process. Furthermore, Indy Mogul gives you access to a strong href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/community/">community of supporters – Mogulville – that will share tips and tutorials with you on your project.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/IM2.png" alt="how to sell your indie film" width="579" height="239" />

The website updates very often, so you will never be short on videos to watch and lessons to learn. Besides that, the website even provides href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/blogging/">blog posts with detailed write-ups on the movie making process. These posts include several fun items, but they also dish out a lot of technical know-how that you may need for your film.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/IM4.png" alt="how to sell your indie film" width="580" height="369" />

href="http://www.radiodaddy.com">Get Morgan Freeman [RadioDaddy.com]

Have you ever noticed how each and every epic film trailer seems to have the voice of God as the narrator? Furthermore, have you ever noticed how you don’t have any friends who can mimic that voice without sounding as if they should be in the Exorcism of Emily Rose? Well, href="http://www.radiodaddy.com">Radio Daddy can help you with that.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/RD1.png" alt="how to sell your indie film" width="580" height="212" />

Fortunately, Radio Daddy provides you with dozens of voice professionals that are willing to compose voiceover bits for your movie trailer (or for whatever else you might need as far as production goes). The site presents itself as an active forum, so there is a community system in which you can post your voice needs on whatever section of the site that applies to you. Sadly, you can’t actually get Morgan Freeman, but these voice talents come a close second. Also, if you feel like giving back to the community or just having some fun, try doing your own voiceovers for people.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/RD21.png" alt="" width="580" height="451" />

There is a free section of the site in which you can make requests for the generous professionals that will help you with your project if it is non-profit. Use it on a minimal basis with a lot of earnest gratitude, and you will likely find someone that is willing to help. However, if you have enough money in your href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/budget/">budget, go ahead and offer some payment for your voice artist’s work. After that, pop the voiceover right on top of your trailer, and you will have something with quality that will help to promote your work.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/RD3.png" alt="promote indie film" width="580" height="312" />

Conclusion

These three websites are sure to help you with your next indie movie project, and they can possibly give you a little edge on the rest of the video-making world. Hopefully, you’ll be able to get it done without having to spend much money out-of-pocket, and you might even learn a few new techniques along the way.

What other sites do you use for video-making? What projects have you made using the websites shown here?

Image Credit: href="http://morguefile.com/archive/display/25536">dorituz

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/B7ax35.png?54167"/>So what if you have an extensive library on your href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/amazon/">Amazon href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/kindle/">Kindle? Who cares if you have a bunch of href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/ibooks/">iBooks downloaded to your href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/ipad/">iPad? Some of the best novels can be found using just your Internet browser, and the best part is that you’ve probably never heard of them before.

So don your sans-prescription dark-rimmed glasses, and put on your impractical-yet-fashionable summer scarf. MakeUseOf is about to get hipster with a whole bunch of indie novels that you can read online.

href="http://www.onlinenovels.net">Online Novels

As a basic link list,  href="http://www.onlinenovels.net">Online Novels does not provide a sexy, decked-out, graphically-oriented website. However, it does exhibit quite a few novels with very detailed and articulate descriptions of each one.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/OnlineNovels.png?54167" alt="" width="580" height="384" />

Despite Online Novels’ vintage HTML that is so ironic, it offers some quality material for you to scroll through. Most authors have their own home-pages, so you can even check out their other material.

Most of the books that you will find here are free, and they can typically be read using just your browser. There are even a few short stories and poems if you  just want a quick read.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/OnlineNovels2.png?54167" alt="" width="580" height="318" />

In addition to the in-browser novels, there are actually some titles available directly from authors for your Amazon Kindle. Granted, if you can’t pay out for these, you could always just use your parents’ credit card in true hipster fashion.

href="http://www.booksie.com/">Booksie

href="http://www.booksie.com">Booksie is a community for aspiring writers to publish their work one chapter at a time. This site is a little more user-friendly than its Online Novels counterpart, and it also offers free audiobooks, PDFs, and eBooks.

(Please note, if you want to use your desktop to read the cleaner eBook versions, you should try out href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/koobits-desktop-ebook-reader/">Koobits.)

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Booksie1.png?54167" alt="" width="580" height="272" />

Writers use Booksie with the intent of getting their work read by the world. You can do your part and join the fun as a reader of novels while they are released piece by piece. The site really focuses on the in-progress work of a book, so you actually see it develop in episodic chapters (a la Great Expectations by Charles Dickens).

class="size-full wp-image-80738 aligncenter" title="Booksie7" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Booksie7.png?54167" alt="" width="580" height="541" />

This site is great for having something new to read, but if your imagination palate craves something light, Booksie also has a wide variety of poems and short stories to choose from.

However, if you aren’t big on fan-fiction, you should be warned that there are a few of them here, but generally speaking, the site has its share of good literature.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Booksie3.png?54167" alt="" width="580" height="340" />

The work found on Booksie might not be of the best quality, seeing that it is written by authors who put fingers on the keyboard in their spare time, but the nice part of this is that each piece comes directly from the original creator and is completely untouched by the hands of a market-minded agent or publisher. Read with an open mind, and you just might be able to appreciate some of it.

href="http://www.webook.com">WeBook

As previously mentioned in href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/webook-online-book-publishing-wannabe-authors/">MakeUseOf directory,  href="http://www.webook.com">WeBook is like the Texas cage-fighting match of online literature. The premise of the entire site is that authors submit their work, let you read it, and as it gains popularity (by your votes), it will eventually reach an agent who can get it published… and make it mainstream.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/WeBook1.png?54167" alt="" width="580" height="355" />

While this site was initially developed for authors just trying to catch a break, it provides totally free content for those who want to sit back with a cup of Earl Grey and enter someone else’s mind for a little while. However, if you are an author, you have to pay a one-time submission fee.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/WeBook2.png?54167" alt="" width="580" height="406" />

Each book is run through a gauntlet of three rounds that are all part of a process called “PagetoFame”. Authors start out with a single page submission for the first round, get voted up to a five pages round, and after that, they go on to the final fifty pages round.

If the book-in-the-making gets past these three rounds, it goes on to the Literary Showcase where agents can take a gander at it.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/WeBook3.png?54167" alt="" width="580" height="425" />

You’ll primarily only be reading parts of unfinished books via WeBook, but when one finally makes it as a New York Times bestseller, you can tell everyone you know, “I read that chapter before it was even published.”

Conclusion

So maybe these sites aren’t going to make you a hipster, but they are going to give you a look at some fresh reading material by a few unheard-of authors. This just goes to show you that you don’t always have to depend on the publishing houses to tell you what to read.

What are some good pieces of work that you have found using these sites? Would you recommend them? Also, what other sites have you found that host independent novels?

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/SugimoriPokeBall.png?54167" alt="" />Admit it; you still love Pokémon. I don’t care if you are 12 years old, or 30 years old, Pokémon is, and always will be awesome. Maybe since you’ve got older you stopped watching the cartoons and collecting the trading cards (like me), but you still dust of the Nintendo DS when a new Pokémon video game comes out. It’s okay, I am not ashamed to admit that I do it too.

In my old age I have become something more of a perfectionist, and while I do not expect to “catch them all” I do want to make sure I don’t miss anything too important. In my time playing Pokémon Black and White I have stumbled across some great websites dedicated to the fine art of capturing and training Pokémon. When it comes to something as important as Pokémon, sometimes a regular class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-5-sites-with-free-strategy-guides-for-gamers/">video game guide website just doesn’t cut it, and you need to go to the pros.

1. class="vt-p" href="http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Main_Page">Bulbapedia

Bulbapedia, aptly named after Bulbasaur, one of the starting 3 Pokémon from the original games, is a massive community wiki. Like all community pages, there is an absolutely staggering amount of information available on the site. It’s like having your own personal team of Pokémon fanatics there to tell you about every single detail about your newly caught friend. Perhaps you are interested in which episodes of the Pokémon anime Bulbasaur has appeared in? Or maybe you would like to know what Tepig is weak to? Fear not, Bulbapedia has you covered.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/statsbulba1.png?54167" alt="" width="498" height="462" />

Their Pokedex (list and description of Pokémon) is by the far the most in-depth of any other website out there. As it is community driven they have every detail about every Pokémon.

If you are a Pokémon genius then the one thing a site like Bulbapedia has that the others do not is the ability to share your knowledge with the world. Feel free to go on there and share what you know, just remember to make sure it’s correct, because they have an incredibly dedicated community who will remove it from the site as quick as you post it.

2. class="vt-p" href="http://www.smogon.com/">Smogon

Smogon is a little different from the other sites because it caters to a specific niche audience in the Pokémon community. They are built for only the most hardcore Pokémon players, as they cater to the competitive battle scene. Your average Pokémon player would never even consider stepping foot into this world, but for those who do, this site has you covered.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Smogon.png?54167" alt="" width="424" height="548" />

They have a slew of articles for people who are just looking to get into the competitive scene, and for people who are already involved. If you always thought battling your Pokémon was something that interested you, but you were just too intimidated to get involved this is the site you will want to check out.

They also have a tiered listing for Pokémon, which allows you to see how various Pokémon stack up in competitive games. This gives you the ability to analyze your team and see if you are really using the best Pokémon possible.

Smogon also features a very active class="vt-p" href="http://www.smogon.com/forums/">forum filled with other hardcore Pokémon players for you to discuss strategy, upcoming tournaments, and anything else you like.

3. class="vt-p" href="http://pokemon.marriland.com/">Pokemon.Marriland

Other than their less than stellar name, this is the best website for Pokémon information. While they offer a great Pokedex filled with stats and information on the Pokémon, I think their game walk-through is what blows the other sites away. They go into such an incredible amount of depth that if you followed their guide all the way through it would be next to impossible to miss anything.

They break down every single Pokémon you will meet throughout the game, and even write a brief review of how good the Pokémon is. They also tell you where to locate every item and exactly when during the game you will find it.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/boss1.png?54167" alt="" width="500" height="233" />

As if that wasn’t enough, they even recommend what kind of team to bring with you to face the various gym leaders throughout the game. For those who are really dedicated and want to get as much of the games as possible, they offer a video walk-through, which allows you to see exactly what the experts do while playing every step of the game.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/video1.png?54167" alt="" width="522" height="232" />

Conclusion

If you want to be like Ash and become a Pokémon master then you can’t afford to not look at these 3 websites. Even if you are just a casual player looking to make the game a little easier you will find useful information on these websites.

Hopefully reading this will help all you closet Pokémon fans come out and admit how much you love it. Do you have any other websites you use that you feel I missed? Let me know in the comments! />
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href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/master-pokemon-trainer-3-websites/">Become A Master Pokemon Trainer With These 3 Websites 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/2011/07/1328011_35408138i.jpg?54167" alt="" />I have fiddled with many class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/gtd/">organization systems, trying to find one that I could stick with. I’ve used class="vt-p" href="http://www.rememberthemilk.com/">Remember the Milk (a class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/8-easy-ways-to-manage-tasks-with-remember-the-milk/">sophisticated system whose iPhone app just didn’t cut it for me), class="vt-p" href="http://www.springpadit.com/">Springpad (with its class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/organize-your-life-with-springpad/">refreshing features that I thought could still mature a bit more), class="vt-p" href="http://www.toodledo.com/signin.php">Toodledo (which, despite being a class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-customise-toodledo-to-productively-get-things-done-in-your-day/">great place for valuable notes and tasks, it proved a bit too advanced), class="vt-p" href="http://www.reqall.com/">Reqall (with its class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-10-free-productivity-ipod-touch-apps-offline-capabilities/">great iPhone app whose development seems to have paused), and now, I’m trying to go with the simpler class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/organized-semester-google-calendar/">Google Calendar and class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-ways-to-access-your-google-tasks/">Google Tasks.

After trying so many different ones, I noticed that I yearned for specific features in a not-too-complicated system, like for example, integration between a calendar app and the task app in question. When it comes to calendar integration, the experience just isn’t completely optimized in Google Calendar and Google Tasks yet (e.g. you can’t view tasks in mobile calendar apps, even though Tasks shows up as a Google Calendar), which is a shame because calendar and task apps should work closely together. I consider this to be pretty much a difficulty brought by Google Calendar’s import/sync issues. GCal usually syncs once a day or less (except for native calendar clients like on the iPhone). If you’ve tried to import a calendar by URL to GCal from, say, Springpad, you will know GCal doesn’t act instantaneously when changes are made.

Thus, in my search for alternative calendar/task list applications, I’ve found two, class="vt-p" href="http://www.coolendar.com/">Coolendar and class="vt-p" href="https://1calendar.com/">1Calendar, that seem to focus a bit more on this integration. Hit the jump to find out more about these two applications.

class="vt-p" href="http://www.coolendar.com/">Coolendar

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/2011-07-04_202837.png?54167" border="0" alt="" width="580" height="284" />

Besides looking very coolly designed, class="vt-p" href="http://www.coolendar.com/">Coolendar accepts class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/coolendar-simple-online-calendar/">calendar/task entries in plain English, as long as you type the due date or time first, and then the event or task. All undated entries can be sorted in a specific order of your preference, and the ones that have due dates will be listed chronologically in the main list and in the appropriate tabs of either today, tomorrow or this week. Notice that there’s no matrix-like grid for month view. If ordering undated entries according to your own order isn’t enough, you can prioritize tasks by clicking on the red circle to the left of the entry.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/2011-07-04_202148.png?54167" border="0" alt="" width="433" height="445" />

That’s where Coolendar distinguishes itself from Google Tasks. The latter displays tasks in either your order or by due date. On the other hand, Coolendar lets you have both, but also lets you view tasks that are due today, tomorrow or this week, which means that if you’re on the iPhone or iPod Touch, you don’t need two separate GCal and GTasks apps. One ( class="vt-p" href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/coolendar/id434828509?mt=8">the official Coolendar iPhone app) will do.

Since Coolendar has a different philosophy on task or event duration and recurrence, it doesn’t have options to specify these two details. Coolendar believes that you can decide when you get reminded via SMS or Twitter about whether or not you need to reschedule the event for next time. In regards to event duration, Coolendar considers this a poison concept that simply doesn’t work. In these two aspects, Coolendar does work like Google Tasks.

If you want a simple, all-in-one solution to bring together your calendar and your task list, check out Coolendar. All you need to try the service is to sign in with your Google Account as there’s no registration procedure. If you’ve decided that Coolendar totally suits your needs, be sure to download the class="vt-p" href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/coolendar/id434828509?mt=8">free iPhone/iPod Touch app. Coolendar developers class="vt-p" href="http://coolendar.uservoice.com/forums/59797-general/suggestions/1190733-app-for-android">promise that the Android app is nearing completion, but if you’re still impatient, check out the mobile Coolendar web interface at class="vt-p" href="http://m.coolendar.com/">http://m.coolendar.com/.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/2011-07-04_202724.png?54167" border="0" alt="" width="580" height="415" />

class="vt-p" href="https://1calendar.com/">1Calendar

class="vt-p" href="https://1calendar.com/">1Calendar will look similar to the GCal desktop interface as the former contains a matrix-like grid for a weekly view of events in the center of the application, while to its left lies a sidebar of calendars in different colors.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/2011-07-04_223816.png?54167" border="0" alt="" width="580" height="498" />

On the right of the application, you’ll be able to create new tasks, as well as see previously added tasks in all their color-coded glory.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/2011-07-04_223839.png?54167" border="0" alt="" width="580" height="410" />

1Calendar differs from GCal in that it can sync Facebook events, as well import timetables from high schools and universities, though there are, of course, plenty of schools that need to get added.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/2011-07-04_224107.png?54167" border="0" alt="" width="394" height="375" />

1Calendar’s development seems to still be in its infancy, but its class="vt-p" href="http://itunes.apple.com/dk/app/1calendar/id385133297?mt=8">iPhone app (and the class="vt-p" href="https://market.android.com/details?id=onecalendar.calendar.ui">Android app probably, too) at least offers an event list view, which I wish most free GTD or task list apps could have.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/2011-07-04_234521.png?54167" border="0" alt="2011-07-04_234521" width="580" height="418" />

Though the iPhone app looks simple, this setup is much cleaner and does not involve poking around two different, separate apps, namely the native Calendar app and either Notes or third-party to-do list app.

Overall, these two apps, though still young, are refreshing alternatives to sometimes frustrating to-do list apps that lack integration with calendars.

Do you prefer to have separate apps to view your calendar and tasks, or do you wish to see more integration between your favorite calendar/task list apps? Let us know in the comments also if you know of other similar apps.

Image credit: class="vt-p" href="http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1328011">rdragan79 />
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href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/check-2-smart-calendar-apps-task-integration/">Check Out These 2 Smart Calendar Apps With Task Integration is a post from: href="http://www.makeuseof.com">MakeUseOf

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