MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [October 31st]” plus 7 more |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [October 31st]
- Thank You To MakeUseOf Friends!
- How Long Have You Been A MakeUseOf Reader? [Poll]
- 5 Awesome & Easy “Pimp My Laptop” Ideas
- Hot Tech Deals [Oct 31st]
- 10 Free MP3 Albums To Download [Sound Sunday]
- The 4 Best Free Linux Anti-Virus Programs
- How to Create a WordPress-Powered Webcomic with ComicPress
| Cool Websites and Tools [October 31st] Posted: 31 Oct 2010 08:31 PM PDT
These are just half of the websites that we discovered in the last couple of days. If you want us to send you daily round-ups of all cool websites we come across, leave your email here. Or follow us via RSS feed. Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Don’t forget to share our articles with others! It’s really important to us.
    
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| Thank You To MakeUseOf Friends! Posted: 31 Oct 2010 07:31 PM PDT
Thank you, guys!
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| How Long Have You Been A MakeUseOf Reader? [Poll] Posted: 31 Oct 2010 06:31 PM PDT
With a total of 1285 votes, this poll divided browsers as follows: Firefox had the most votes with 42%; Chrome came a very close second at 41%; A massive jump down to Opera on 10% votes; Internet Explorer and Safari both sat at the very bottom with less than 4% of the votes each. Full results and this week's poll after the jump.
This week's poll question is: How Long Have You Been A MakeUseOf Reader? We know some of you have been here forever while others are still quite new. What about you? Feel free to let us know what you love about MakeUseOf in the comments! NEW: Download MakeUseOf iPhone App. FREE!
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| 5 Awesome & Easy “Pimp My Laptop” Ideas Posted: 31 Oct 2010 03:30 PM PDT
Adding a personal touch to your laptop can be the best way to add a little bit of edge to your gear, and we’ve rounded up some of the best places to go to do just that. 1. Skins and DecalsFor a temporary change, laptop skins and decals that are easily removable are great way to change up your laptop, without making any permanent changes. When purchasing, just make sure that they are easily removable, otherwise you’ll be stuck with that sticker for as long as you have the laptop. SkynMobileSkyn offers a huge variety of stylish skins to give your laptop a bit of pizzaz. Most of their skins are probably geared more towards women, although the simpler designs will appeal to just about anyone. And for those looking for a bit of bling, you can even get personalised skins with Swarovski crystals.
GelaskinsGelaskins has such a huge variety of laptop skins for Mac and PC laptops, there’s something there for everyone. From Tim Burton artwork to elaborate digital art, to photography, their selection is endless. You can even use your own art or photography to create a skin. Gelaskins are also available for your mobile phones, MP3 players, tablets, ereaders and gaming consoles.
Skin StylerMac users can also get trackpad skins to liven up more than just the exterior of your laptops with Skin Styler.
Other places you can find great laptop skins and decals are Etsy, Schtickers and SkinIt. 2. Sleeves and Hard CasesIf you’re priority is to keep your laptop protected, you can do it in style with funky sleeves and hardshell cases. Speck ProductsSpeck Products have a wide selection of sleeves and hard cases specifically designed for MacBooks. It’s no secret that we’re huge fans of Speck. Let us know if a particular design catches your eye, we could possibly give it away!
TitanBetter known for their sturdy luggage, Titan also have a neoprene laptop sleeve on offer. It might not be the flashiest way to pimp your laptop, but the fact that you can keep it on the laptop while you work on it earns it a spot on this list.
3. Engravings and AirbrushingFor the more adventurous, getting your laptop airbrushed or engraved is another option for jazzing up your laptop. Smooth CreationsIf you’re looking to buy a new laptop, you can order one from Smooth Creations airbrushed and ready to go.
Laser It All & EtchamacWith Laser It All you can have any design of your choice engraved on your laptop. Mac users can also create their own design to have engraved on their laptops at ETCHamac.
4. Keyboard and Mouse AccessoriesAnother less permanent way to pimp your laptop is to accessorise your keyboard and mouse. MousepadsIf you prefer to use a mouse with your laptop, there’s no limit to the cool mousepads you can find. ThinkGeek’s Noteable Mousepad lets you make notes on its etch-a-sketch like surface. The Perpetual Kid has a collection of unique mousepads from a retro TV mousepad to a daily mood tracker mousepad.
KeyboardsAnyone can get in on the fun with glowing keyboard stickers from Think Geek, making your keyboard look as though it’s backlit.  5. USB AccessoriesUSB Accessories are another easy way to get all those little extras you might need to have around you while you’re working on your laptop. Cool yourself down in the summer with a USB fan that you can keep next to your laptop.
Alternatively, you can keep a chilled drink in a USB LED beverage cooler.
If you’re in a festive mood, USB LED Christmas lights will add a bit of cheer to your surroundings.
For the more practical readers, USB Geek’s radar pen holder monitors your CPU and RAM usage, while also giving you a place to keep your pens handy.
What have you done to pimp your laptop? Let us know in the comments. Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers!
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| Posted: 31 Oct 2010 01:15 PM PDT
For more fresh hot deals, visit our Hot Tech Deals page, which is constantly updated. Keep reading to find out today’s Hot Tech Deals.
Image credit: Modified from Svengraph’s icon set
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| 10 Free MP3 Albums To Download [Sound Sunday] Posted: 31 Oct 2010 12:30 PM PDT
If any of you have seen the Ron Sexsmith Documentary Love Shines, you got an idea of how the most talented artists of our time get screwed over, just because they are not aggressive enough. Maybe a culture of online publishing can become a lever and restore a much needed balance between corporate interests and fantastic music / the arts. People like you and me are the only ones who can make this happen. Please support independent music wherever you can. Donate to artists you enjoy, buy their records, and go see their live shows. And if you find something you like, share it with your friends and family. Reform the Resistance – selftitledGenre: rock
Reform the Resistance MySpace and Homepage. Mike Jones – Chicago Trio 2010Genre: jazz, piano, instrumental
Mike Jones MySpace and Homepage. Engineers in Your Ear – Til The Clouds Run DryGenre: alternative, hip hop
Engineers in your Ear MySpace and Homepage. Sean Fournier – Oh MyGenre: pop, folk, acoustic
Sean Fournier MySpace and Homepage. So Elated – selftitledGenre: indie, acoustic, folk rock
So Elated MySpace and Homepage. Kotchy – Baggy SpandexGenre: experimental, electronic, pop, hip hop
Ghostly Machines – In Nature, We Find YouGenre: ambient, electronic, natural
Ghostly Machines MySpace and Homepage. Ki:Theory – Arms For LegsGenre: alternative, rock, electronic
Ki:Theory MySpace and Homepage. Freakah – Free Album No. 1Genre: drum and bass, electronic, dub, dubstep
Spin Mixtape – Germs of Perfection: A Tribute to Bad ReligionGenre: mixed, punk, rock
Spin Facebook and Homepage. Bad Religion MySpace and Homepage. Review past editions of Sound Sunday here. Feel free to get in touch with me [tina@makeuseof.com] if you have free material to share or suggestions you don’t want to post in the comments below. Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras.
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| The 4 Best Free Linux Anti-Virus Programs Posted: 31 Oct 2010 11:31 AM PDT
If you insert your thumb drive regularly into Windows computers, for example, it might be infected, meaning you’re spreading malware with it and not even knowing it (see: Stuxnet). Antivirus software for Linux gives you a quick way to check your drives without any risk of infecting yet another Windows machine.
Most Linux antivirus software focuses on removing Windows viruses, and function as one-time-scan tools rather than the Windows-style, sit-in-your-tray-and-protect-you products that’s common in Windowsland. Such software is not essential for Linux users, but is pretty handy. Oh, by the way: if you’re looking for Windows anti-virus software, you will want to read the ten best free antivirus programs that we previously published. Avast
Avast, the anti-virus program I previously decided has the coolest name for an anti-virus program, also sports a pretty great Linux GUI. As you can see it looks right at home on my Ubuntu desktop. This makes it easy to update defintions and scan the folders of your choice. It’s also really easy to install Avast for Linux. Just download your package of choice (rpm, deb and tar.gz), then register for a free year of Avast usage. If you don’t register, you won’t be able to use the program:
Happily, registering gives you one year of free non-commercial usage, so you won’t need to do this frequently. And you’ll have access to a sleak GUI and all of the definitions Avast has to offer. BitDefender
This is one of my favorites. BitDefender frequently finds, for me, viruses that other scanners miss. Being able to use it from Linux is a big plus. Finding it for Linux isn’t straightforward, though. You need to head over to the BitDefender for Unices page, then click the “evaluation version” button. You’ll be given a form to fill in, and when you’re done you’ll get a license valid for one month and a link to downloads. The downloads look like this:
Find your platform and package of choice (ignoring, for now, the “.run” file extension) and download it (right-click and click “save as“, or your browser might try to open the entire file as a text document.) Change the permissions of the file to allow it to be executed. If you don’t know how to do this, the simplest way is to right-click it, click “Properties,” open the permissions tab, then click “allow executing.” Finally, open your command line. Browse to the folder with the file, then type “sudo ./[filename]“, where [filename] is the name of the BitDefender version you downloaded. You’ll need to read an EULA before BitDefender will finally install (mercifully, using the package manager of your choice). Why you need to go through all of that I don’t know, but it’s worth it. You now have access to a complete version of BitDefender. You can scan any file, update with the click of a button and much more. The graphical interface is identical to that of the BitDefender Live CD. The free license lasts for only 30 days, but you can apply for another one if you need to. ClamAVCompletely open source, ClamAV is probably the most famous Linux anti-virus. Using it requires some command line knowledge, but there is a basic GUI for running scans:
Installing ClamAV is simple; it’s in the repositories of most Linux distributions. Install the “clamtk” package and you’ll get the above GUI and you’ll have everything you need; or, if you’re an Ubuntu user, simply click here to download ClamAV. Once you’ve installed ClamAV, fire up your terminal and run “sudo freshclam“. This will update ClamAV’s virus definitions for you. Now you simply need to run clamtk. Fire it up from the command line, or find the program called “Virus Scanner” in the “Accessories” section of the menu. Use the GUI to scan any folder, or your entire system. Or, if you prefer, use “clamscan” from the command line. Either way you’ve got some quality, free anti-virus protection. AVG
Those familiar with AVG’s Windows interface will be disappointed: AVG for Linux has no GUI. This command line scanner does offer the same virus definitions of AVG’s famous Windows program, though. You can easily download AVG for Linux. You’ll find packages for every major distro, including .deb and .rpm files. Using the program is straightforward. First you need to start the AVG daemon: run “sudo avgctl –start“. Then you can use “sudo avgupdate” to update the software, and “avgscan” to scan a given file.
There’s not a whole lot else to say about this one, although I hope AVG releases a Linux GUI again soon (previous versions offered one). ConclusionThese four programs all offer Linux users a way to scan for Windows viruses, and the occasional Linux one as well. If you regularly help your friends and family out with IT stuff I recommend you install at least one such program, to keep it on hand. Can you think of any other Linux anti-virus programs? What do you think of the ones outlined? Let me know in the comments below, along with any questions you might have about the above products. Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras.
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| How to Create a WordPress-Powered Webcomic with ComicPress Posted: 31 Oct 2010 10:30 AM PDT
They shouldn’t be. Similar to photo portfolios and webshops, other web designers have created a simple webcomic template that’s friendly to use and easy to maintain. You guessed it, we’re talking about WordPress adaption. ComicPressComicPress brands itself as The WordPress Comic Publishing Theme; and a good one it is. It’s used by many popular webcomic publications, including FoxTrot, Player VS. Player (shown below), Dr. McNinja, Nuklear Power, Extra Life, Starslip and Octupus Pie. Check out these websites (and more featured on the ComicPress website) to get a clear idea of what’s possible using this theme and a couple of add-ons. Truly, ComicPress shows itself as not simply an amateur interpretation of a good comic publishing platform, but simply the latter in its true form.
There are two display modes for ComicPress, the comic view and the blog. By default, the blog is shown below the latest comic, much like in the screenshot above, but you can also display solely the blog or the comic and save the other for a separate part of the site. Installing ComicPress for WordPressIn this tutorial, we’ll assume you’ve got a valid WordPress installation – that is, hosted by you and not by WordPress.com. WordPress is a so-called content management system, used as the main ingredient by a large amount of blogs (including this one), company websites, webshops, and soon your very own webcomic. Best of all, it’s entirely free. If you need help setting one up, check out our Easy Guide to Build Your Own WordPress Site. Download the latest version of ComicPress from the website, upload and unzip it into wp-content/themes/comicpress. If your server host’s file manager doesn’t support the extraction of archives, you’ll need to unzip it on your computer and upload each file separately. It’s crucial to follow this folder structure to the letter; your theme files need to be in a ‘comicpress’ folder, all lowercase, or it won’t work.
Next, go to Plugins -> Add New in the WordPress sidebar and install both the ComicPress Manager and the Theme Companion plugins, as shown below. Make sure to activate them as well. You are prompted to after every installation, or can do this later on by going to Plugins -> Plugins.
Select Appearance -> Themes in the sidebar and activate the ComicPress theme shown at the lower half of the page, under Available Themes.
In Posts -> Categories, add two new categories; ‘Comic’ and ‘Blog’. You only need to name them, so you can leave the other text fields blank. If everything went right, you now have three categories; Comic, Blog and Uncategorized.
Go to the Posts -> ComicPress -> Manager Config, scroll to the bottom of the page and click the First Run button. This will create the necessary folder structures for managing your comics and publishing an RSS feed. Also go to Posts -> ComicPress -> ComicPress Config, and make sure the installation has detected the ‘Blog’ and ‘Comic’ categories you created later on.
You can configure the general ComicPress set-up in Appearance -> ComicPress Options. The options are many, but self-explanatory. Most interesting for a basic installation is the option to disable either blog or comment on your landing page.
That’s all the configuration needed. You can publish your first comic by going to Posts -> Comicpress and uploading a doodle. The image needs to use the following nomenclature: YYYY-MM-DD-Name-of-the-comic.ext, with ext being your file format (e.g. jpg or png), and the name of your comic never containing only one number. Uploading your image this way adds the appropriate title, date, and makes it appear on the site right when you upload. Do you have any other great webcomic ideas? Let us know in the comments below! Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers!
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Check out some of the latest MakeUseOf discoveries. All listed websites are FREE or come with a decent free account option. You can make use of them without spending a dime. If you want to have similar cool websites round-ups delivered to your email daily email subscribe 
Our MakeUseOf poll last week was to 
From laptop skins to etchings to USB accessories, there is no limit to the ways you can pimp your laptop to make it look and feel just the way you want it to. From removable to permanent changes, there are all sorts of ways you can change your laptop’s appearance, and geek out to your heart’s content.
If you’re in the market for a new computer, laptop, mobile phone, games and other accessories; don’t waste your time searching online. We’ve taken the liberty of locating the best tech deals and unifying them into a single post for your convenience.
Today, Sound Sunday celebrates its six months existence. When I started, I had my doubts whether there would be enough quality material to supply a weekly feature for so long. However, the sheer flood of legal free albums has been mind-blowing and there is no end in sight.
Does a Linux user need antivirus software? Not really: infecting a Linux machine is pretty hard to do. That doesn’t mean there aren’t good reasons to have scanning software around, though.
There are two major steps on how to start a webcomic; creating the website and drawing 
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