TrIcKs n SiTeS: October 2009

Thursday, October 15, 2009

trendsmap.com

Twitter trends is an invaluable resource for anyone who is interested in tracking the latest news and trends. Trendsmap is a Web 2.0 app that uses top trending data from across the world, superimposing it on a global atlas using Google Maps in real-time. Using the app, one can study hash tags to find out what are the most discussed topics anywhere in the World. It’s a peep into the world’s consciousness in the form of internet chatter.

www.dataliberation.org

This Web site, developed by Google engineers provides detailed guides on how to import and export data out of Google’s suite of products.

While most software products tend to lock in the end user, Google’s products are designed to be interoperable – you can download your mails offline from Gmail, export your email contacts in several formats, and export all your blogger entries with comments, dates, and tags, and more.

The Web site has 25 entries covering products like Adwords, Analytics, Maps, Orkut, Picasa, Reader, and YouTube.

TubeChop

A wonderful Web tool to snip a certain section of a YouTube video and share it with people, relieving them the burden of watching the entire clip to get to the good part.

Rating: 5/5

Site: www.tubechop.com

Remaininplay.com

This Web site acts like an online repository for classic PC games. The collection includes popular titles like Wolfenstein 3D, Grand Theft Auto 2 and Duke Nukem 3D, and rare games like The Labyrinth Of Time and Rocket Ranger. These titles are free to download and play. Best of all, they don’t require high end PCs.

F My Life

Want a place to whine about the latest horrid incident in your life? Or perhaps you just want to read a few downers to realise how good you have it? F My Life is a great repository of 3-line stories!
Rating: 5/5

Site: www.fmylife.com

Returnmypants.com

Return my pants is a place where you can keep track of all the stuff your friends have borrowed from you, be it books, CDs, pants or underwear.

After registering on the Web site, you can make an entry of every item you’ve lent with the expected date of return, put in your friend’s email address, and he’ll get an automatic email from you reminding him that the book is due.

This neat online utility works both ways, friends can keep track of what you owe them too, so it works best when all your friends are on this Web site.

www.urdb.org

The Universal Record Database is a place where anyone can set the silliest world record as long as it’s a) quantifiable, b) breakable and c) legal. The records set aren’t exactly the pinnacle of human achievement, but are creative and funny – Most Times Saying “Obama” In 15 Seconds By A Group Of Four People, Longest Comment Thread On A Facebook Photo, Most Table Tennis Ball Bounces In 30 Seconds. The Web site gives you the opportunity to set your own world record, all you need to do is capture it on a web cam or camcorder, and upload the video.

Posterous

If handling a blog is too ‘techie’ for you, let someone else do it! With Posterous, all you have to do is send an email with your words and it will automatically get formatted and uploaded…
Rating: 5/5

Site: www.posterous.com

Artwiculate

‘Word of the Day’ competition that will help you widen your vocabulary; and it’s completely compatible with Twitter!
Rating: 5/5

Site: artwiculate.com

MP32Tube

Having trouble sharing a song with your friends? Here’s a simple and easy way to upload an MP3 to YouTube

Regular Web users would know that YouTube, the popular video-sharing site, is also used extensively to share MP3 songs. You will find an extensive collection of songs – from the latest to the rarest – on the site. However, if you try uploading one yourself, you will see that YouTube doesn’t allow for an MP3 to be uploaded.
Rating: 5/5

Site: www.mp32tube.com

veryfunnyads

All of us have seen many funny video advertisments being passed around, but if you want to see them all at one place check out today’s Web site, aptly named veryfunnyads.com. The Web site features hilarious advertisments from around the world in a easy to use interface that sorts them into categories, brands, countries, most viewed and most recent.

PetsMD

If you have a cat or a dog, PetsMD is a great resource to find out a lot of information about taking care of them, especially with regards to health and diseases..

Rating: 4.5/6

Site: petsmd.com

awkwardfamilyphotos.com

This Web site is a brilliant way to get back at your cousin, sibling, or a far off relative who harassed you when you were little. All you have to do is post their most embarrassing family picture on awkwardfamilyphotos.com, and wait for the Internet to take its course. If you don’t particularly feel like destroying your relative or friend, you can have a hearty laugh at the people who have taken the time to destroy thiers on the site.

Docu-View

Why spend hours sifting through documentaries on Google Video and YouTube to land on a good one, when Docu-View has already done the hard work for you?

Rating: 4/5

Site: www.docu-view.com

www.ruba.com

Here’s a Web site that understands how fellow travelers and tourists think, it’s appeal lies in giving you a flavour of the whole course, instead of focusing on the small tidbids. Ruba is a travel Web site where community-generated user reviews share travel experiences that span across cities, countries and continents. The user guides are pictorial, with geo-tagged locations on Google maps that give you precise location of the landmarks, restaurants, and tourist attractions. The Web site also links you to some of the best travel blogs, providing you with an excellent starting point for future adventures.

hi.im

A virtual visiting card for Internet users, Hi.Im provides a customisable landing page for anyone looking for you on search engines. You can reserve a sub-domain consisting of you name on the Web site (hi.im/yourname) for free, and add links to your Twitter, blog, flickr, LinkedIn, LastFm, Orkut , or Youtube profiles. The Web site pulls excerpts from all these disparate Web accounts to make a single active and accessible looking profile page.

Custom Guide

A repository of freely downloadable beginners guides for all popular operating systems and software, in an easy-to-print format

Rating: 4/5
Site: www.customguide.com

optimistworld.com

An antidote to all the doom, gloom and pessimism in mainstream media outlets, this news Web site is like a dose of prozac, covering only positive news stories and inspiring features on travel, sports and companies with a conscience. A section dedicated to charities tries to raise funds for various causes, from research funding to disability and Alzheimer’s.

Photo505

Put up your photo on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine; replace Mona Lisa’s alluring smile with yours; and get featured on Paris Hilton’s t-shirt – all with a few clicks at this cool photo-manipulation site.
Rating: 3.5/5
Site: www.photo505.com

textsfromlastnight.com

Telling a joke in 160 characters is not easy, but it’s easy to laugh at the misfortunes and misadventures of the inebriated on this site.

The Web site’s content is user generated, with a ranking system that puts the most hilarious and provocative text messages right on top.

Bing Visual Search

Sometimes, you need to search something on the Web that can’t be described in words, like say finding out the breed of a dog. For all such scenarios, there’s Bing Visual Search…

Rating: 5/5
Site: www.bing.com/visualsearch

www.bolohealth.com

Bolohealth.com is a networking portal for health enthusiasts. It provides a platform for users to create their own community, and to exchange views and opinions with medical professionals. The Web site helps you find a doctor or hospital in your vicinity, listing over 1,00,000 doctors, and 10,000 healthcare establishments in India.

Science Blogs

The best place on the net to follow those who follow science!

With over 75 blogs, 1,15,000 posts and 1.7 million comments, this is the best place to discuss and follow science on the Internet.

Rating: 5/5
Site: www.scienceblogs.com

Fliggo

A dead simple tool to create your own video blog or private video-sharing site for your friends and family.

Rating: 4.5/5
Site: www.fliggo.com

Text Ninja

Convert text into images, allowing you to use your personal data online while going undetected by spam bots

Rating: 4.5/5

Site: www.txtninja.com

Classic Reader

Want to read a few classics to kill some idle time in the office? Here’s the perfect place to satiate your literary cravings without having to download any pesky ZIP or PDF files.

Rating: 4.5/5

Site: www.classicreader.com

Rentoni

Difficult to keep a track of which DVDs or books you have lent out to a friend? Here’s a simple Web-based service that remembers it all and reminds you about it!

A simple and easy way to always keep a track of everything you have lent or borrowed…
Rating: 4.5/5

Site: 123.rentoni.com

Id.This

The easiest way to find out what you are looking at, when you don’t know it yourself, is to just ask someone else. So click a pic and let the world figure out what it is…
Rating: 4/5

Site: http://idthis.org/

www.deathswitch.com

Today’s Web site provides a life insurance policy on your personal information. In case of your death, the patent-pending service helps disclose confidential information to those closest to you, like your bank account numbers, passwords, final wishes, or funeral instructions. The service sends you periodical email messages requesting you to log in to the Web site, when you fail to do so for a while, the system assumes you are dead and sends your last message.

Make Business Cards

A quick and easy way to make a standard business card to print out at your convenience
Rating: 4/5

Site: http://www.degraeve.com/business-cards/

Pic Resize

Just as the name suggests, a simple online tool to resize your images and perform basic photo-editing and effects.
Rating: 4.5/5

Site: www.picresize.com

Blippr

A short and sweet peer-based recommendation service for movies, music, video games, books and more.

Easy, effective and highly helpful, Blippr is a must-visit for those with a penchant for pop-culture.

Rating: 3.5/5

Site: www.blippr.com

ScreenTunes

The perfect way to find out the name of a song from a movie and even get to listen to it!

Rating: 4/5

Site: www.screentunes.com

TinyPaste

Why copy-paste large chunks of text into a chat window or tweet when you can simply paste a link to the same?
Rating: 5/5

Site: http://tinypaste.com/

nextstop.com

Today’s Web site helps you find new ideas for the weekend or your next vacation. A global user community gives local recommendations and reviews, while a community ranking system helps separate the genuinely good places from the bad. Every location is mapped on Google, with address, contact details and working hours. An event calendar keeps you up-to-date on the latest events and live shows in your city

ABCYoutube

Now, downloading any video off YouTube, MySpace or Facebook is as simple as a-b-c
Rating: 5/5

Site: www.abcyoutube.com

Love Textures

A superb resource to get free, high-resolution textures and backgrounds in an easily-navigable interface.
Rating: 4.5/5

Site: http://www.lovetextures.com/

SampleWords

Freely downloadable templates for almost anything you would want. Resumes, calendars, organisers, cards, application letters, address books; it’s all here!
Rating: 4/5

Site: www.samplewords.com

LongURL

Avoid scams, phishing, malware, bogus sites and other online threats by checking shortened URLs before visiting them.
Rating: 5/5

Site: longurl.org

Feed Your Soul

Artist Jen Wallace believes that art is the best food for your soul, and to this purpose, has created a gallery of free-to-download artwork from several artists.
Rating: 4.5/5

Site: http://indiefixx.com/Feed_your_soul/index.html

eBlog Templates

Why should your blog have the same look as that of anyone else’s? Chuck the default themes from Blogger and Wordpress and find one that really gives your space a personal touch!
Rating: 3/5

Site: www.eblogtemplates.com

Go Fug Yourself

Celebrities aren’t exempt from making a fashion faux pas… and bloggers aren’t exempt from pointing it out and ridiculing them!

Today’s site - Go Fug Yourself is a fashion-watch blog run by two ladies, Jessica and Heather, who have worked in several costume departments in various TV shows and movies in Hollywood.
They know their fashion inside out and aren’t afraid to call a spade a spade, which usually makes for riveting reading as they track the styles of the rich and famous.
Rating: 4/5

Site: gofugyourself.celebuzz.com

Whyzz

Has your child asked you a question that you don’t know the answer to? Whyzz has all the solutions in an easy-to-explain manner for your little one…

Rating: 4/5
Site: www.whyzz.com

Thought Audio

An amazing collection of some of the best thought-provoking audiobooks, all in freely downloadable MP3 format
Thought Audio is as simple as it gets, and will almost always offer rich content for your time.

Rating: 4/5
Site: www.thoughtaudio.com

Blind Search

Which search engine is ideal for you – Google, Yahoo or Bing? Here’s an easy way to find out…
With the advent of Microsoft’s Bing and the new deal struck between Yahoo and Microsoft for search results, people often ask me whether one is better than the other, and how they both compare to the king of Web search, Google.

Rating: 4.5/5
Site: www.blindsearch.fejus.com/

pictreat.com

Liven up your profile pictures by having them retouched by Pictreat. The Web site automatically applies red eye correction, removes blemishes and spots, optimises colour balance and contrast to make sure you put your game face on all the social networking sites. Users can log in with their Facebook or Myspace ID, and also import albums from Facebook, Flickr, or other URLs.

The Free Dictionary

Ignore the ‘dictionary’ aspect and this is still one of the best sites to have as your homepage for daily updates.
For a long time now, my homepage has been set to The Free Dictionary. It is not because I use a dictionary frequently; in any case, as readers would know, I prefer the WordWeb program for looking up all references anyway.

Rating: 5/5
Site: www.thefreedictionary.com/

ZinePal

An easy, step-by-step way to create your own e-newsletter or e-zine out of your blog or some other Web site.
If you have your own blog or a web site, you would know the painstaking and tedious task of creating an e-newsletter for the same, to mail to your audience. Also, how about the times when you want to read a whole blog or access large documents from a site without an Internet connection? The amount of copy-pasting required, not to mention the formatting, is absolutely mind-numbing.

Rating: 4.5/5
Site: www.zinepal.com

zimblee.com

Zimblee calls itself “digital advertising for dummies”, and provides an easy way for bloggers and Web site owners to monetise their traffic. Small business owners can use Zimblee to create and launch an online banner ad campaign. Zimblee features a custom ad-creator module, which can help end users with no knowledge of Flash to design rich display ads with logos and animation effects. Businesses can create, launch and monitor an ad campaign from a single interface; the advertisements are displayed across a wide network of online publishers based in India.

What Browser?

A Googler’s attempt to explain what a Web browser is and how it matters to everyone… perfect for beginners!

Rating: 4/5
Site: www.whatbrowser.org

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Thursday, October 15, 2009

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

TrIcKs and SiTeS