Many websites offer free content, the only problem is that they want you to register with them first. Your email address starts to get pretty clogged up with all their ‘helpful’ emails.
Enter BugMeNot – this is a free site that hundreds of user-generated logins and passwords that you can use to gain access to the site without having to register. Just go to the BugMeNot website, type in the URL of the site that you want to access and you will get a list of logins and passwords for you to use. If one doesn’t work, just try another one.
For those Firefox users out there (and who isn’t these days ?!?) there is a BugMeNot Firefox Extension. Simply right click in the username or email box in the site that you want to access and choose ‘Login with BugMeNot’ and you should be good to go.
One of the most annoying things with iTunes is that it doesn’t automatically add tracks unless you happen to have downloaded them from the iTunes store (funny that !). If you download them from anywhere else, you have to manually add them into iTunes.
No longer ! Install iWatchSyncer and this little app will watch a designated folder for new tracks and whenever it identifies one, it will add it into your iTunes automatically.
Should be default functionality in iTunes, but isn’t. iWatchSyncer is a free download, so go get it !
For some things, Google reigns supreme – the number one search engine is just the best at finding what it is you are looking for. The only problem is that you do not get the most up to date information, as it’s spiders are constantly crawling the web and they can only do that so often.
Here is where Twitter comes in. People all over the world (about 7 million of them !) are inputting their 140 character messages on events that are happening here and now. Searching through Twitter, then, is likely to give you the absolut up to date news that is available.
Enter Twoogle – this site lets you search both Google and Twitter at the same time, allowing you to have the best of both worlds. Simple, yet brilliant !
So here’s another one from the Geek in me !
The MIT Media Lab has been experimenting with what they call ‘Sixth Sense’ inventions. They have built a prototype of a gadget that you wear around your neck. It has a camera and a mini projector and can sense your hand movements and what is around you and project information about that object from the internet via your mobile phone connection on to any surface. You can interact with things, much like Microsoft Surface as well.
Take a look at the video from the latest TED conference within this news story. I have to say – although this is early days – this is seriously amazing stuff ! Especially as they built this for $349 – imagine if they get this into mass production…………..
This is not something that you will use every day, but for those times when you need it, it is so easy to use that you will wonder why it wasn’t created before.
If you have a web page that you would like to save as a PDF, simply drag this bookmarklet Download PDF to your Bookmarks and click on it. It will download a PDF, which you can save locally.
Simple, effective – does exactly what it says on the tin……………
OK, I know this one is terribly geeky, but take a look at this story. I’ve long wanted one of those Microsoft Surface tables, but now there is an upgrade with some cool new functionality. It allows the table to project images through the existing image. Sounds a bit strange, but watch the video (you’ll need the sound on as the commentary is quite key).
I think the possibilities with this technology are looking very interesting.
There are lots of websites that you visit that offer content for free but ask you to register with them before you can access it. This, of course, means that you have to divulge your email address and hence opens you up to the possibility of, at best, lots of marketing emails from the company and, at worst, lots of spam.
There is a way around this, though. Go to BugMeNot and enter the website that you would like to access. It will provide you with a set of logins and passwords that you can use, thus keeping your email address squeeky clean (or as clean as it was before, at any rate !).
For Firefox users (and I hope that no-one is still using IE !), things are made even easier. There is an add-on that automates the whole process. When you come across a site wanting registration details, right click the user name or email address box and select ‘Login with BugMeNot’. It may not always work first time, but repeat the process if it doesn’t and you should be able to get in.
Very handy indeed !
If you want to read one of the best articles that I have ever read around all of those little pieces of software that you tend to build up over the years that make all the difference to your life on a computer, you must read this article. It is one of those articles that you should have bookmarked and refer back to it when you buy a new computer – full (and I mean FULL) of great tips – HIGHLY RECOMMENDED !
If you find a great website that you want to remind yourself to read, what do you do ? Most people will bookmark it, but then it tends to get lost in amongst the thousands of other bookmarks.
There is a handy website called Toread.cc – all you have to do once you’ve registered (for free, obviously !) is to set a link as a bookmarklet and then when you come across a page that you want to read later, you click on the bookmarklet and it emails the link and a copy of the full page to your Inbox.
I think this is a great way to keep on top of all these websites you absolutely MUST look at !
As we seem to spend most of our time at work and corporate IT departments insist on locking everything down very tightly so that you can’t do anything fun, it is my constant quest to find ways around their restrictions.
My latest victory is in the world of chat. There is no way that they will allow you to access any of the typical instant messaging sites, but they don’t seem to have come across tiny chat yet. When you access this site, all you have to do is give yourself a nickname and you’re done. After that just email or text the URL to a mate and you are good to go. I have tested this out with one or two of the more stringent banks around and it works there, so fingers crossed………..
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