http://www.friedbeef.com Solving Everyday Problems With Simple Technology - Freeware, Productivity, Useful Tips & More Mon, 05 Jan 2009 10:28:29 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en It's safe to say that Pandora and Last.fm has changed the face of Internet radio completely by doing such a good job of matching song playlists to users that it's almost scary :)  Having said that, there’s always going to be a place for traditional Internet Radio ... http://www.friedbeef.com/how-to-discover-internet-radio-stations-that-match-your-music-tastes/ Ever wonder if a particular website was really down, or if it was a bad Internet connection which was keeping you out? downforeveryoneorjustme.com is an extremely simple free web service which tells you if the site is down from their end as well.  Just type in the web site's name, ... http://www.friedbeef.com/how-to-test-if-a-site-is-down-for-everyone-or-just-you/ Too many people have a great idea but don't make anything out of it. Some are afraid of failure, some are afraid of the pressures of success, and some just want to tell people about their ideas, just for the sake of doing so. Here is a general step-by-step guide ... http://www.friedbeef.com/7-steps-to-taking-an-idea-into-a-business/ No time to read, and just want to get the big picture? GreatSummary is a free web service which helps people turn information into understanding by providing a glimpse into the content of a document, without having to understand the entire document. Just point it to a URL or input some text ... http://www.friedbeef.com/how-to-create-instant-summaries/ Nowadays you can find almost any information on any person online.  An employer can learn his potential worker's past records and recommendations. You can investigate a person's character, friends, find his photos and videos. Alternatively you can look for no one in particular - searching for new connections with ... http://www.friedbeef.com/3-new-ways-to-network-and-find-people-online/ Want a quick way to host images on your blog or share a picture?  Piccdrop is a free image hosting site which allows you to upload any image so you can hotlink to it, and save on bandwidth.  The best part?  It requires no registration, so it's perfect for ... http://www.friedbeef.com/the-fastest-way-to-upload-and-share-a-photo-online/ Gadget Advisor is a new tech blog which is trying to build a sold niche for itself focusing on the product releases and news items that are the most significant, hoping to create a best of the best resource for computer hardware, software, gadgets, and tech news.  That way, it ... http://www.friedbeef.com/techblog-review-gadgetadvisorcom/ Typical cropping has sharp edges and won't give your images the artistic cropping it deserves :) Roundpic is a free web based service which helps give your images nice round corners that look very web 2.0... So you can change something like this... ... http://www.friedbeef.com/how-to-crop-round-corners-on-pictures/ Kiva.org, the Internet's answer to helping poor people make a better life for themselves, made two significant moves yesterday.  If you don't know about Kiva - check out this previous post on how it helps change lives.  1. Loan repayment system faster and better ... http://www.friedbeef.com/join-a-kiva-group-change-someones-life-forever/ This is a post by one of our new contributors, Sumesh.  Flickr is undoubtedly the most popular image sharing website, and a whole community of passionate users have developed around the awesome web tool. Thousands of photographers, designers and web addicts flock to Flickr every day in ... http://www.friedbeef.com/5-tools-to-revolutionize-your-flickr-experience/ A lot of the great pics you see on this blog actually come from Flickr, and there are usually several steps involved in the process of actually getting the picture up on the site.  This is how I usually do it: First, I'll use ... http://www.friedbeef.com/a-faster-way-to-use-flickr-images-in-your-wordpress-blog/   In need of a good sound effect?  FindSounds is a free service that allows you to... well... find sounds :) What it does is it crawls the web and indexes sound files, then as a user you can filter by file format, quality, and file size.  ... http://www.friedbeef.com/how-to-find-any-sound-instantly/ When it comes to organizing pictures, I only ever use Google's Picasa photo organizer.  Now, one of my favorite features from Picasa is something called 'I'm feeling lucky' where it enhances dark and bright colors in a photo and adjusts both color and contrast to optimal ... http://www.friedbeef.com/how-to-instantly-improve-images-online/ Previously only available as part of Google Earth, you are now free to browse through outer space directly from your browser with Google Sky!  Google Sky includes a number of different ways to explore the universe.  Select the thumbnail images at the ... http://www.friedbeef.com/how-sit-at-your-desk-and-take-up-astronomy/ Keeping in constant contact with your friends online has never been easier.  We've now got a growing list of instant messaging, email, and online social networks that help us stay in touch.  The trouble is, the more points of contact we have, the more time ... http://www.friedbeef.com/how-to-centralize-all-your-online-communication/