Computer and Web Articles

Adobe’s Acrobat Program is the industry standard for creating and modifying PDF files.

Problem is, at $450 for the regular “Pro” version and $700 for the “Pro Extended” version, Acrobat’s cost isn’t a drop in the bucket.

Thankfully, PDFCreator is a great—and free—alternative. If you don’t need all of Acrobat’s high-end bells and whistles (such as support for videos, maps, and 3D imagery) and if you’re interested in saving a few bucks, I recommend you give PDFCreator a shot.

You can download it right here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator.

1. www.cellar-app.com – An iPhone (and iPod Touch) app that acts as a “portable, swipeable showcase of what’s currently in your cellar or wine rack.” Sound like something you might be interested in? Visit the site, have a look around, and sign up to be notified when Cellar is available in Apple’s App Store.
2. www.rottentomatoes.com – A fantastic movie-review website filled with commentary from professional movie critics as well as everyday community members. Determine whether a movie will likely be good (or bad) before you head off to the theater.
3. http://dearcomputer.nl/gir - An alternative to Google Images. Google Image Ripper lets you search and browse through Google’s Image Search results without having to deal with thumbnails or frames; in other words, it’s “straight to the good stuff,” just like the website says.
4. http://tinyurl.com/lryq7v - In case you need a reminder about how important it is to exercise caution and common sense while texting, here’s a recent news story about a teen falling down a manhole while in the process of sending a message.
5. http://tinyurl.com/224mf7 - Keep track of open tabs with ease by using the Colorful Tabs Firefox extension. After installing this add-on, every tab you open will have a different color. Pretty and pretty handy for many Firefox users.

Social bookmarking is a method that exists so that Web users around the world can be exposed to sites of interest they otherwise might not encounter. It’s just like normal bookmarking, but with a sharing (social) component to it! Social bookmarking also …

1. Allows web users to bookmark and track sites of interest for personal use – similar to using the normal Favorites and Bookmark buttons in common browsers.
2. Goes beyond the “normal” bookmarking of your standard Favorites and Bookmark tools by allowing sites of interest to be searched for and shared with other Web users.
3. Usually incorporates “tags.” Tags are nothing more than keywords related to each bookmarked site or page that allow for easier, more effective searching.
4. Often exists within sites that employ voting systems so that users can indicate which bookmarks they found most interesting. The bookmarked sites or pages with the highest ratings are given more prominence and exposure to even more people within these social bookmarking sites.

Stay tuned next week for an explanation of how to get involved with social bookmarking…

I know I’ve mentioned tabbed browsing in the past, but the sheer number of web users I encounter day after day that have yet to take advantage of this technique tells me it’s time to revisit the topic. The following information is relevant for users of Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, all versions of Firefox, and all but the earliest versions of Safari.

So. You want to use tabbed browsing because it allows you to keep any number of websites open all within one browser window. This eliminates the need to open new window after new window each time you wish to visit a new site without closing the one you’re currently viewing.

Tabbed browsing also lets you “tab” through all your open sites by either by clicking on the tabs running across the your browser (beneath your toolbars) with your mouse or by holding down the Ctrl key with your left thumb and tapping the Tab key.

Play around with tabbed browsing and I’m willing to bet that once the hang of it, you’ll never go back.

1. www.tweetgrid.com – Have you jumped into Twitter yet? If so, you might just find TweetGrid rather helpful. Tweetgrid lets you create a search dashboard that updates in real time. This means you can search for up to nine various topics/events/phrases/people in real-time–and as new tweets are created, they automatically update in your little dashboard-grid. No need to refresh your page.
2. www.worldwidetelescope.org – “Enables your computer to function as a virtual telescope, bringing together imagery from the best ground and space-based telescopes in the world.”
3. www.spamcop.net – The premier online spam-reporting service. Help fight spam and cut spammers off at the source.
4. www.nothingbutnets.net – Spurred on by the fact that Malaria is the #1 killer of refugees in Africa,  NothingButNets.net has set up an extremely well-done, informative site that accepts donations to help start saving lives. Each $10 donation made through their site sends a malaria-preventing net (and message of hope) to a family in Africa.
5. http://tinyurl.com/alegmf - This post will teach Outlook users how to delay the sending of their email messages – an invaluable emailing strategy, in my opinion.

Have you heard of Roku yet? It’s a digital video player sold by Netflix.

Roku instantly streams highly quality movies from both Netflix and Amazon Video on Demand, pulling movies from the Internet and displaying them directly on your television.

With Roku, you can choose from over 50,000 movies and TV episodes to watch instantly – and just like with DVDs, you can pause, rewind, or play them anytime.

Twenty-four hour movie rentals from Amazon cost between 99 cents and $3.99 each, while movie rentals from Netflix are free and unlimited so long as you have a Netflix membership (even the cheapest option at $8.99 means free, unlimited, instant Netflix movies for your television).

Roku is small, delightfully easy to set up, and comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Learn more at www.roku.com.

There are millions upon millions of web pages promising that content is “Coming Soon!”

The sad fact is that most of these pages will not be live anytime in the near future. This is why people rarely believe you really mean it when one of your site’s pages reads “Coming Soon” or “Under Construction”. They won’t check back, and your site looks incomplete and unprofessional.

If a Coming Soon page temporarily makes good sense for your site, it’s imperative to provide credibility to you’re the text on that page by telling people when they can expect to see the new content. This summer? Next month? This winter?

Telling your site visitors that new content is coming “soon” just isn’t good enough.

1. http://tinyurl.com/ntvze3 - Learn what the infamous “There is a problem with this website’s security certificate” website warning means as well as what you should do next time you run into it.
2. www.greendimes.com – I’ve mentioned this website in the past, but it’s so great I think it deserves another recommendation. GreenDimes (now actually called Tonic Mailstopper) helps you stop junk mail in three simple steps. Fast, easy, and just $20 per year. Help the environment while getting rid of (most) junk mail once and for all.
3. http://tinyurl.com/69yh55 - Take a photo of any CD, DVD, book, or video game with your iPhone. Then use this free iPhone application to automatically identify–then find rating and pricing information on–that product.
4. www.messageSling.com - A free service that replaces the standard voicemail system on your phone. Make sure you click “Take the Tour” after arriving on the homepage to quickly learn all that MessageSling can do for you.
5. www.cleepr.com – A simple, easy to use search engine for music videos.