Friday 5

The F5 list: Best apps, tools & tricks

This week's section is devoted entirely to rounding up the best cool Web apps, free downloads, useful sites and sweet programs, all with an eye toward providing you with ways to improve your life -- in both cyberspace and meatspace.

Of course there's always more stuff than you get fit into a newspaper page, even when you leave out every third word like "cool" and "nifty." So here's a more complete list of cool, nifty stuff, broken down by categories. And of course, this being the Web, everything is linked.

I began this list on April 10 over at my personal blog, so this list includes some suggestions from readers there. Now: What would you add? What would you replace?

THE BIGGIES (regardless of category)

1. Firefox: Without a doubt the best browser I've ever used.
2. Twitter: Simple, but so many uses.
3. Google Reader: Best RSS reader I've used. Share with friends. Post to site. Supports tags.
4. G-mail: I should use it for everything, just haven't made the switch yet.
5. Stumble: I don't randomly surf anymore, because Stumble is better.
6. Vimeo: A video-sharing/hosting site with a decent FLV codec and lots of free bandwidth.
7. Facebook: Even if you're not sure about social sites, this one is useful.
8. Portable Apps: With OpenOffice portable suite, this is an amazing set of tools.
9. OpenOffice: Why buy MS Office?

SOCIAL & COMMUNICATION

1. Twitter: I was slow to pick this up, and it's hard to explain to people why it's valuable. Now I get it.
2. Facebook: MySpace could have been Facebook, if it wasn't the worst software platform imaginable run by one of the world's most evil media companies. Facebook has had its ethical lapses and false moves, but it's still a great way to organize group activities on the fly. It's what teenagers use instead of email.
3. LinkedIn: Stodgy but useful.
4. Ning: Build your own social networks on the fly. Used to create Wired Journalists.
5. Digg: Spread the news.
6. Friendfeed: All your stuff (well, pretty much all of it) in one place.
7. gTalk: A handy IM client.
8. Gmail: If I can ever get my act together and switch over the Gmail, my digital life should get better. Unfortunately, my email life is in disarray and has been for a year, and so I've been slow to utilize my SECOND Gmail account.
9. Thunderbird: A great Mozilla replacement for MS Outloo... a Microsoft product so evil I can't speak it's cursed name.
10. Skype: I used this for doing overseas interviews and it was great, but I haven't used it since.
11. Snitter: "Snook's Twitter" runs on AIR and provides a cool, free, standalone Twitter interface.
12. Tweetpeek: This thing is just great. You can build a page that displays Tweets by all the people you follow. Also has a much more useful embedded widget.

BLOGGING & PUBLISHING

1. Blogger: The gateway drug.
2. Vox: An interesting service, but I haven't done much with it... though I'm thinking about it again.
3. Typepad: Their top-of-the-line account costs about $13 a month. BTW, here's a link to the open-source version of the software, provided by Matthew.
4. Wordpress: Recent update bugginess aside, this is the stuff to use if you're hosting.
5. Tag Cloud: Get a visualization from any set of occurrences. 
6. Flickr: The ubiquitous photo sharing site.
7. Statcounter: Free site stats, just works, very detailed.
8. Utterz: A handy way of getting audio posts onto your site. The Utterz people see their product more as an audio social site. I see it as a very smart way to get reports online from a "dumb" phone.
9. Vizu: Set up your own polls and display them on your site.

BROWSING

1. Stumbleupon: I don't have the time to explore Stumble the way I'd like. But there are moments when it's almost magical: You push the Stumble button and something great and unexpected appears on your screen.
2. Flock: This specialized version of Firefox is built for people who use lots of social media services . I'd tried it before and didn't "get it," but new-media whiz Don D. Lewis of Mount Pleasant gave me a demo and made me a convert. Here's Don: "What I like about it is the ability to have your Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Gmail and other automated feeds available as a sidebar. Using Flock allows me to browse the web while not missing real-time updates from the above social media sites...Flock does not have all the "plug-ins" that are available under Firefox, but I'm not a big extensions user anyway. Because the underlying code is essentially Firefox, I've not seen the need to upgrade to the latest Firefox release....Flock has traditionally been more stable than Firefox, but I've not tried the new Firefox 3.0 version. Like the say, "your mileage may vary".
3. Del.icio.us: The long-time champion folksonomy tagging service.
4. ZigTag: I love this tagging service. It's still being developed, but it's a great bridge between taxonomies and folksonomies.
5. Download Status Bar: A must-have Firefox add-on.
6. Sage RSS: Sometimes you down need Google Reader. A lightweight RSS reader as a Firefox add-on.
7. Fireshot screen capture: Excellent Firefox add-on.
8. Foxmarks: Firefox add-on I run on three computers.
9. Bugmenot: Beat news-site logins.
10. AVG Free: I love this virus protection utility. I upgraded to the pro version more out of loyalty than necessity.

TRAVEL

1. Google Maps: Great resource for all sorts of travel-related tasks.
2. Google Earth: This was cool when it first came out, but it's gotten better as users around the world add more information. Restaurants? Wi-fi hubs? If you're in a new city with a laptop and you've got Google Earth, you're oriented.
3. Seatguru: Some online travel services let you pick your seat. But what good is that if you don't know what the best seats are? If you know the airline and the type of plane, Seatguru tells you where the best seats are located in that model with that airline's seating configuration. Then book-away.

PRODUCTIVITY

1. PortableApps: If you use multiple computers, or occasionally log-in on someone else's machine, you need this suite of programs. The portable Firefox is reason enough to get this on your Flash drive.
2. OpenOffice: The ultimate cross-platform productivity suite. And it's free.
3. Ta-da Lists: I make to-do lists almost every day. This lets me share those lists with other people who just wish I'd shut up and have a beer or something.
4. Gethuman: User-submitted procedures for getting to a human being on various companies' robotic phone directories.

BUY & SELL

1. Craigslist: Most people know about the classified ads function of Craigslist. My favorite part is the "Missed Connections" section. Sometimes stupid, often banal, these messages to the cosmos are sometimes wistful and poetic and yearning and sublime. But I digress.
2. Zillow: How much is your house worth? Interesting question. How much is your NEIGHBOR'S house worth? More interesting.
3. Swapagift: In theory, this is a site where you can swap a gift certificate from a place you DON'T want to shop for a certificate to a place where you DO. But it's a GREAT place to buy discounted cards when you know you're headed to a particular store. Right now I can get $200 of Cabela's merchandise for $180. Good deal if I'm buying outdoor gear.
4. CafePress: This is the online insta-business store most online store people use. And it's good and it works.
5. Zazzle: This is the online insta-business store really artistic people use. And it's good and it works. Take your pick.
6. Shopzilla: Compare prices for things before you buy.

VIDEO & AUDIO & IMAGE

1. Media Converter: You wanna get something out of a  bad file format and into into something you can use? Use this. Free, but ad-supported.
2. Magic's Video Downloader (FF add-on): Doesn't work on all sites, but works on some big ones you visit frequently (YouTube, baby). When it recognizes media it can grab, the browser icon lights up. Click it and the file downloads. Great when you want to mashup a viral YouTube vid.
3. iTunes: The DRM is super-evil, but it's a great piece of software, particularly if you like podcasts/vodcasts.
4. SoundTaxi: I tend to buy cheap MP3 players, so I need a way to get my iTunes MP4 music into a playable format. SoundTaxi does this for cheap (price has gone up $5 to $20).
5. Current.com: It's the video-sharing site and community with a direct link to TV, which makes it an interesting place.
6. YouTube: Yes, the codec is crappy. Yes, it's a big mess. But it's the public square of the modern age.
7. Blip: They're trying to be a portal to Web video that's part of a series. The specificity of the mission makes it cool. You don't upload to Blip. You audition for Blip.
8. Vimeo: I like Vimeo a lot. It's my primary video hosting site.
9. Pandora: Lastfm.com is supposed to be good, too, but I really dig the "Music Genome Project" guts of Pandora.
10. MusicBrainz: Other people swear by this as a download that will sniff out the metadata for your messed up and disorganized digital music library. I haven't been able to successfully test it yet. There are multiple products you can try.
11. FoxyTunes: This is a Firefox add-on that lets you play audio CDs from your browser. Duh.
12. Internet Archive: There's so much stuff here, but this is where I go to get ironic stock video footage and nab audio I can use in my edits. It's (almost all) public domain or CC licensed stuff. Be sure to check out the AV Geeks collection.
13. The GIMP: This is the standard image processor for people who don't want to pay for Photoshop. It's free, open-source tech, and it's basically a no-cost killer for cheap image processors. Comes with a portable version, and I keep mine on a Flash drive.
14. Photoshop Express (BETA): Adobe now has an online version of its industry-standard image processor. You wanna bet this thing gives the start-ups that currently occupy the online-imaging space nothing but trouble?
15. Gickr.com: I love clever animated GIF files. Give Gickr up to 10 images and it turns them into an animated file for you to download and use.
16. Flickr (listed under blogging, too).

SEARCH

1. Google: The Daddy.
2. Google SMS: A did a Friday piece a while back on cool things you can do with your phone. Everybody ought to have these functions programmed into their cellphone. It's not perfect (I never could get it to deliver the Tar Heel's win in the Sweet 16 while I was off-grid), but this set of functions essentially extends Search to your "dumb" phone. For Free.
3. Wikipedia: It's not controversial because it's not perfect (it isn't). It's controversial because it's so simple and so revolutionary.
4. Zabasearch: This is a pretty good look-up for hard-to-find people. Many of the results lead to pay services.
5. NNDB: Think digital Who's-Who.

FUN & MISC.

1. I Want To: The ultimate "find an app to do it" page. Ugly as hell, but the place to go if you need a currency calculator, or list of disposable e-mail providers, etc.
2. Church Sign Generator: The original and best. Write your own church sign message and post it as a Jpeg.
3. CNet: It's a site, not an app, but it's so useful when you're buying tech that it might as well be its own category. Which is why Techcrunch can kiss my ass.
4. Bombay TV: You get to write three subtitles for a Bollywood film clip, so it's very fun. I'd like it better if I could figure out how to embed  it.
5. Free graphing paper generator: I use this every week. Why buy a pad of graphing paper when you just need a couple sheets? Plus you can make the graphing area precisely the size you want.
6. Second Life. I know this could go under other categories, and there are other Virtual Worlds to consider. But I'm putting it here kinda like YouTube is under video. It's the biggest, baddest VW on the block. Membership is free, so you can explore before you decide to plop down some cash for Linden Dollars.

USER-RECOMMENDED STUFF
Here's a list of recommendations from Charleston blogger Matthew Williams:

* Gimp
* Pidgin
* Avast
* Abiword
* NetNewsWire
*Magnatune

Websites:
* Reddit
* MetaFilter

Firefox:
* It's All Text
* Scribe Fire
* Adblock+

Blogging
* MTOS

Got something you wanna recommend? Leave us a comment and tell us about it.

 

This week's section is devoted entirely to rounding up the best cool Web apps, free downloads, useful sites and sweet programs, all with an eye toward providing you with ways to improve your life -- in both cyberspace and meatspace.

Of course there's always more stuff than you get fit into a newspaper page, even when you leave out every third word like "cool" and "nifty." So here's a more complete list of cool, nifty stuff, broken down by categories. And of course, this being the Web, everything is linked.

I began this list on April 10 over at my personal blog, so this list includes some suggestions from readers there. Now: What would you add? What would you replace?

THE BIGGIES (regardless of category)

1. Firefox: Without a doubt the best browser I've ever used.
2. Twitter: Simple, but so many uses.
3. Google Reader: Best RSS reader I've used. Share with friends. Post to site. Supports tags.
4. G-mail: I should use it for everything, just haven't made the switch yet.
5. Stumble: I don't randomly surf anymore, because Stumble is better.
6. Vimeo: A video-sharing/hosting site with a decent FLV codec and lots of free bandwidth.
7. Facebook: Even if you're not sure about social sites, this one is useful.
8. Portable Apps: With OpenOffice portable suite, this is an amazing set of tools.
9. OpenOffice: Why buy MS Office?

SOCIAL & COMMUNICATION

1. Twitter: I was slow to pick this up, and it's hard to explain to people why it's valuable. Now I get it.
2. Facebook: MySpace could have been Facebook, if it wasn't the worst software platform imaginable run by one of the world's most evil media companies. Facebook has had its ethical lapses and false moves, but it's still a great way to organize group activities on the fly. It's what teenagers use instead of email.
3. LinkedIn: Stodgy but useful.
4. Ning: Build your own social networks on the fly. Used to create Wired Journalists.
5. Digg: Spread the news.
6. Friendfeed: All your stuff (well, pretty much all of it) in one place.
7. gTalk: A handy IM client.
8. Gmail: If I can ever get my act together and switch over the Gmail, my digital life should get better. Unfortunately, my email life is in disarray and has been for a year, and so I've been slow to utilize my SECOND Gmail account.
9. Thunderbird: A great Mozilla replacement for MS Outloo... a Microsoft product so evil I can't speak it's cursed name.
10. Skype: I used this for doing overseas interviews and it was great, but I haven't used it since.
11. Snitter: "Snook's Twitter" runs on AIR and provides a cool, free, standalone Twitter interface.
12. Tweetpeek: This thing is just great. You can build a page that displays Tweets by all the people you follow. Also has a much more useful embedded widget.

BLOGGING & PUBLISHING

1. Blogger: The gateway drug.
2. Vox: An interesting service, but I haven't done much with it... though I'm thinking about it again.
3. Typepad: Their top-of-the-line account costs about $13 a month. BTW, here's a link to the open-source version of the software, provided by Matthew.
4. Wordpress: Recent update bugginess aside, this is the stuff to use if you're hosting.
5. Tag Cloud: Get a visualization from any set of occurrences. 
6. Flickr: The ubiquitous photo sharing site.
7. Statcounter: Free site stats, just works, very detailed.
8. Utterz: A handy way of getting audio posts onto your site. The Utterz people see their product more as an audio social site. I see it as a very smart way to get reports online from a "dumb" phone.
9. Vizu: Set up your own polls and display them on your site.

BROWSING

1. Stumbleupon: I don't have the time to explore Stumble the way I'd like. But there are moments when it's almost magical: You push the Stumble button and something great and unexpected appears on your screen.
2. Flock: This specialized version of Firefox is built for people who use lots of social media services . I'd tried it before and didn't "get it," but new-media whiz Don D. Lewis of Mount Pleasant gave me a demo and made me a convert. Here's Don: "What I like about it is the ability to have your Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Gmail and other automated feeds available as a sidebar. Using Flock allows me to browse the web while not missing real-time updates from the above social media sites...Flock does not have all the "plug-ins" that are available under Firefox, but I'm not a big extensions user anyway. Because the underlying code is essentially Firefox, I've not seen the need to upgrade to the latest Firefox release....Flock has traditionally been more stable than Firefox, but I've not tried the new Firefox 3.0 version. Like the say, "your mileage may vary".
3. Del.icio.us: The long-time champion folksonomy tagging service.
4. ZigTag: I love this tagging service. It's still being developed, but it's a great bridge between taxonomies and folksonomies.
5. Download Status Bar: A must-have Firefox add-on.
6. Sage RSS: Sometimes you down need Google Reader. A lightweight RSS reader as a Firefox add-on.
7. Fireshot screen capture: Excellent Firefox add-on.
8. Foxmarks: Firefox add-on I run on three computers.
9. Bugmenot: Beat news-site logins.
10. AVG Free: I love this virus protection utility. I upgraded to the pro version more out of loyalty than necessity.

TRAVEL

1. Google Maps: Great resource for all sorts of travel-related tasks.
2. Google Earth: This was cool when it first came out, but it's gotten better as users around the world add more information. Restaurants? Wi-fi hubs? If you're in a new city with a laptop and you've got Google Earth, you're oriented.
3. Seatguru: Some online travel services let you pick your seat. But what good is that if you don't know what the best seats are? If you know the airline and the type of plane, Seatguru tells you where the best seats are located in that model with that airline's seating configuration. Then book-away.

PRODUCTIVITY

1. PortableApps: If you use multiple computers, or occasionally log-in on someone else's machine, you need this suite of programs. The portable Firefox is reason enough to get this on your Flash drive.
2. OpenOffice: The ultimate cross-platform productivity suite. And it's free.
3. Ta-da Lists: I make to-do lists almost every day. This lets me share those lists with other people who just wish I'd shut up and have a beer or something.
4. Gethuman: User-submitted procedures for getting to a human being on various companies' robotic phone directories.

BUY & SELL

1. Craigslist: Most people know about the classified ads function of Craigslist. My favorite part is the "Missed Connections" section. Sometimes stupid, often banal, these messages to the cosmos are sometimes wistful and poetic and yearning and sublime. But I digress.
2. Zillow: How much is your house worth? Interesting question. How much is your NEIGHBOR'S house worth? More interesting.
3. Swapagift: In theory, this is a site where you can swap a gift certificate from a place you DON'T want to shop for a certificate to a place where you DO. But it's a GREAT place to buy discounted cards when you know you're headed to a particular store. Right now I can get $200 of Cabela's merchandise for $180. Good deal if I'm buying outdoor gear.
4. CafePress: This is the online insta-business store most online store people use. And it's good and it works.
5. Zazzle: This is the online insta-business store really artistic people use. And it's good and it works. Take your pick.
6. Shopzilla: Compare prices for things before you buy.

VIDEO & AUDIO & IMAGE

1. Media Converter: You wanna get something out of a  bad file format and into into something you can use? Use this. Free, but ad-supported.
2. Magic's Video Downloader (FF add-on): Doesn't work on all sites, but works on some big ones you visit frequently (YouTube, baby). When it recognizes media it can grab, the browser icon lights up. Click it and the file downloads. Great when you want to mashup a viral YouTube vid.
3. iTunes: The DRM is super-evil, but it's a great piece of software, particularly if you like podcasts/vodcasts.
4. SoundTaxi: I tend to buy cheap MP3 players, so I need a way to get my iTunes MP4 music into a playable format. SoundTaxi does this for cheap (price has gone up $5 to $20).
5. Current.com: It's the video-sharing site and community with a direct link to TV, which makes it an interesting place.
6. YouTube: Yes, the codec is crappy. Yes, it's a big mess. But it's the public square of the modern age.
7. Blip: They're trying to be a portal to Web video that's part of a series. The specificity of the mission makes it cool. You don't upload to Blip. You audition for Blip.
8. Vimeo: I like Vimeo a lot. It's my primary video hosting site.
9. Pandora: Lastfm.com is supposed to be good, too, but I really dig the "Music Genome Project" guts of Pandora.
10. MusicBrainz: Other people swear by this as a download that will sniff out the metadata for your messed up and disorganized digital music library. I haven't been able to successfully test it yet. There are multiple products you can try.
11. FoxyTunes: This is a Firefox add-on that lets you play audio CDs from your browser. Duh.
12. Internet Archive: There's so much stuff here, but this is where I go to get ironic stock video footage and nab audio I can use in my edits. It's (almost all) public domain or CC licensed stuff. Be sure to check out the AV Geeks collection.
13. The GIMP: This is the standard image processor for people who don't want to pay for Photoshop. It's free, open-source tech, and it's basically a no-cost killer for cheap image processors. Comes with a portable version, and I keep mine on a Flash drive.
14. Photoshop Express (BETA): Adobe now has an online version of its industry-standard image processor. You wanna bet this thing gives the start-ups that currently occupy the online-imaging space nothing but trouble?
15. Gickr.com: I love clever animated GIF files. Give Gickr up to 10 images and it turns them into an animated file for you to download and use.
16. Flickr (listed under blogging, too).

SEARCH

1. Google: The Daddy.
2. Google SMS: A did a Friday piece a while back on cool things you can do with your phone. Everybody ought to have these functions programmed into their cellphone. It's not perfect (I never could get it to deliver the Tar Heel's win in the Sweet 16 while I was off-grid), but this set of functions essentially extends Search to your "dumb" phone. For Free.
3. Wikipedia: It's not controversial because it's not perfect (it isn't). It's controversial because it's so simple and so revolutionary.
4. Zabasearch: This is a pretty good look-up for hard-to-find people. Many of the results lead to pay services.
5. NNDB: Think digital Who's-Who.

FUN & MISC.

1. I Want To: The ultimate "find an app to do it" page. Ugly as hell, but the place to go if you need a currency calculator, or list of disposable e-mail providers, etc.
2. Church Sign Generator: The original and best. Write your own church sign message and post it as a Jpeg.
3. CNet: It's a site, not an app, but it's so useful when you're buying tech that it might as well be its own category. Which is why Techcrunch can kiss my ass.
4. Bombay TV: You get to write three subtitles for a Bollywood film clip, so it's very fun. I'd like it better if I could figure out how to embed  it.
5. Free graphing paper generator: I use this every week. Why buy a pad of graphing paper when you just need a couple sheets? Plus you can make the graphing area precisely the size you want.
6. Second Life. I know this could go under other categories, and there are other Virtual Worlds to consider. But I'm putting it here kinda like YouTube is under video. It's the biggest, baddest VW on the block. Membership is free, so you can explore before you decide to plop down some cash for Linden Dollars.

USER-RECOMMENDED STUFF
Here's a list of recommendations from Charleston blogger Matthew Williams:

* Gimp
* Pidgin
* Avast
* Abiword
* NetNewsWire
*Magnatune

Websites:
* Reddit
* MetaFilter

Firefox:
* It's All Text
* Scribe Fire
* Adblock+

Blogging
* MTOS

Got something you wanna recommend? Leave us a comment and tell us about it.

HOW TO: Estimate distance

HOW TO: Estimate distance from Dan Conover on Vimeo.

Unless you had a great scoutmaster or spent some time in the military, odds are you never learned this little trick for converting routes on a map to a measurable, straight-line distance. I say that because of all the people I've shown this trick, none of them had ever heard of it before.

And it works -- an easy, reliable way to figure out the distance from Point A to Point B.

USA: Codes & capitals

In our continuing quest to avoid ever-encroaching stupidity, we've built this quickie quiz: Match the US Postal Code to the state capital.

For extra credit, mark these on the map (click here for a printable color map, and here for one in glorious black-and-white.)

Make your posts pop with simple HTML

Have you ever noticed how some people’s comments on blogs and forums just look better than others?

That’s because they’re using invisible HTML tags to dress up their thoughts. Learn these five simple tags (using the shifted characters above the comma and period keys on your computer) and bask in the glow of  your new cyber-geekiness.

Italic <em>: Makes plain text italic (the “em” stands for “emphasize”). Close it out by adding  a </em> tag at the end of the passage you want italicized. Example: “Very <em>cool!</em>” looks like this: Very cool!

Bold <strong>: Same thing as the italics tag. Close it out with a </strong> tag.

Hyperlink <a href=”http://www.example.com”>: Copy the full web address for your link and paste it between the quotation marks. Define the text you want to make clickable by adding a </a> tag at the end of it.

Inset quote <blockquote>: Decrease the margins for longer quotations  with a <blockquote> tag. Close out the quoted material with </blockquote>.

Send e-mail <a href=”mailto:you@abc.com”> : Treat this one like a hyperlink, closing it out with a </a> tag. The difference? People who click on the link will get a blank e-mail form with the address you specify in the “Send to” field. The address goes after the colon and don’t add any spaces.

5 green tips for Earth Day

Earth Day isn’t an official holiday and doesn’t have a bunch of fun traditions built up around it (at least in most families). That said, it’s as good a time as any to make some changes in your routines for the sake of the planet, not to mention your own pocketbook.

CHANGE YOUR LIGHT BULBS: It looks like the era of the incandescent light bulb is rapidly drawing to a close. The new compact fluorescent bulbs cost more up front, but will save you $30 in energy over the life of an average bulb. The good news for global warming? Replacing a regular light bulb with an efficient compact fluorescent bulb equals a 150-pound reduction in atmospheric carbon dioxide.

CHECK YOUR TIRES: Under-inflated car tires aren’t as efficient, and you’re paying for it. Keeping them at the proper pounds-per-square-inch rating will improve your gas mileage by about 3 percent. Look at it this way: If it costs you about $50 to fill up your tank, you’re saving almost $1.50 per trip to the gas station.

RETHINK YOUR THERMOSTAT: Spending about $100 on a programmable thermostat that manages your home heating and cooling for maximum efficiency is a smart investment. It will pay for itself in less than a year, and that’s without you having to change your comfort habits. You’ll get about 3 percent energy savings for every degree you shave off your thermostat setting, which means more money in your pocket and less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

DRIVE LESS: Duh. And if $2.70 unleaded isn’t incentive enough, remember: Every mile you drive equals about a pound of carbon dioxide gas.

PLANT TREES: Not only do trees recycle carbon dioxide, they’re also great for shading your house in summer.