Friedbeef’s Tech

Continuing from where we left off in part 1, here are 10 more creative ways to get even more out of Wikipedia!

11. Simplify Complex Wikipedia Entries

Originally intended for people whose first language is not English, this simplified version of Wikipedia has gained a strong following among native English speakers (including myself) who just want a more readable version of complex articles. 

Simple English Wikipedia uses easy words and shorter sentences so people who read little English may easily read them.

12. Surf Wikipedia with nothing but your keyboard

All heavy Wikipedia users should know at least a few keyboard shortcuts that you have at your disposal.  Here’s a Wikipedia entry which gives you the complete list of every shortcut in existence!

13. Darken Wikipedia and help save the world

We’ve talked about how Google on a dark background could help save tons of energy.  This is how to pull the same thing off for Wikipedia.  Unlike blackgoogle.com, you’ll need to be running

1. Firefox - the ultimate web browser
2. The Stylish Firefox extension to modify page style displays on your PC
3. Dark Wikipedia style file to get the desired effect

A long process indeed, but hey - you’ll be helping to save the world…

14. View Wikipedia by date

This series of Wikipedia pages shows you everything interesting which happened in a particular year… and more.  What’s interesting here, is that it goes beyond historical events, listing down events which are scheduled to happen in the future - all the way up to the year 2100!  You can sort through interesting events by centuries, decades, or years.

15. Explore Wikipedia Sister Sites

One aspect rarely explored by many people would be the Wikipedia sister sites. 

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Started only in 2001, Wikipedia has grown to become the single most comprehensive information ever created.  As of now, there are more than 75,000 active contributors working on some 5,300,000 articles in more than 100 languages.

It has earned the distinction of being the 9th most popular site in the world according to Alexa, and has become so pervasive in our lives that scientists are even using it to help computers think smarter.

Here is the first installment of 20 creative ways to use Wikipedia

1. Read Wikipedia as a comic book

Bored of reading conventional articles?  Greg Williams picks Wikipedia articles and ?converts? them into small comic books.  Don’t expect to find a large amount of comic articles here, but be entertained as seemingly boring topics turn into light reading.

2. Navigate Wikipedia as a mindmap

Presented in a visual form, Wikimindmap helps you browse through related articles and ideas really quickly.  Using mindmaps, you can get a structured view of any topic available on Wikipedia. 

3. Have Wikipedia as a part of Google Earth

Want to dig deeper about a certain location on Google Earth?  You can now tap into Wikipedia’s vast information resources.  Just download the latest update to Google Earth, then go to Layers -> Geographic Web section in Google Earth and tick the Wikipedia box.

4. Go offline with Wikipedia on DVD

Useful as an offline reference tool, or for distribution in areas with slow or non-existent Internet access, Choice articles from Wikipedia is available for free download as a DVD, or you can buy it at $13.99.

Articles were chosen based on criteria for quality and importance set by the Wikipedia community. Topics covered include, among others, geography, arts, literature, science, history, and natural sciences. Users can browse articles using a built-in search engine or by surfing navigational pages.

5. Search Wikipedia and Google at the same time

This awesome Firefox extension shows you a relevant Wikipedia article along with your search results.  To top it off, clicking links in the wikipedia article will trigger new Google searches, making it a very useful research tool indeed.

6. Stumble Through the Wikipedia articles which are fine tuned to your taste

StumbleUpon has got to be the easiest way to rate websites and discover others which match your tastes.  Clicking one of the links on the StumbleThru page restricts your toolbar and returns pages only from that domain.  This gives you the chance to discover Wikipedia articles which were highly rated by people of the same tastes as yourself.

7. A better way to search Wikipedia and its sources

The contents of Wikiseek are restricted to Wikipedia pages AND only those sites which are referenced within Wikipedia, making it an authoritative source of information less subject to spam and SEO schemes.

On top of that, it comes with a powerful AJAX interface for search-as-you-type functionality.

8. Get Wikipedia’s ‘Featured Article’ in your email

Learn something new everyday with the best of Wikipedia delivered to you.

Featured articles are considered to be the best articles in Wikipedia, as determined by Wikipedia’s editors. Before being listed here, articles are reviewed for accuracy, neutrality, completeness, and style.  To give you an idea about it’s exclusivity, currently only one in 1,270 articles is listed here.  Get a daily dosage via email with this subscription link.

9. Find out which Wikipedia Articles are the most popular

The Google Trends hot keywords list shows you the search terms which are gaining momentum, which is good, but Wikicharts goes one step further by providing all Wikipedia stats by topic, and quantifying them.  Because Wikipedia is so widely used, you can safely assume that it truly represents how interested people are about a certain topic.

10. Optimize Wikipedia for your mobile phone

 Everything from the screen aspect as well as the content loaded has been optimized for mobile usage in this Mobile-Wikipedia project.  What does this translate into?  Faster loading time for on a phone, a better viewing experience, and information literally at your fingertips.

Bonus tip #1: Check out Uncyclopedia - the Wikipedia clone where practically nothing is true, but pretty funny

Bonus tip #2: One of the weirdest Wikipedia categories ever

Want more? Check out part 2 of this list!

What other ways can you stretch Wikipedia? Tell us in the comments!  

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“Kiva lets you connect with and loan money to unique small businesses in the developing world. By choosing a business on Kiva.org, you can “sponsor a business” and help the world’s working poor make great strides towards economic independence.

Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates from the business you’ve sponsored. As loans are repaid, you get your loan money back.  After that you can channel that money to help another person in need.” - About Kiva

The Project

Every month, I will be using a portion of this site’s revenue to sponsor at least one person in need on Kiva.   

Accountability

How do you know how many people this site is helping?  You can track all the donations made through my lender page.

How you can help

If you want to play a simple role in this project, please join this site’s community to help Friedbeef’s Tech!

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Bonus read: Find out more about Kiva

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