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Useful Websites

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megageek
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Useful Websites Empty Useful Websites

Post  vwlphb Thu Jun 07, 2012 11:55 pm

I remember finding some great resources in this thread on the old board.

Today I found the site email name finder, which tells you the name format of email addresses for various companies. I was getting the run around from AMC Stubs after a customer service rep lied to me resulting in all my old "virtual stubs" being deleted. After I was getting nowhere with AMC Stubs after three weeks with no promised follow up I was pissed, so I used the site to get the email format and send out an Executive Email Carpet Bomb. (Essentially I wrote out an email explaining my complaint and what I wanted from them, and sent it to all of the executives listed on the about us page such as the CEO.) Sure enough I got a call back from corporate a few hours later apologizing for the situation. Win!

Another ever useful site is down for everyone, or just me?

Also there are a ton of great educational sites out there, but lately I am really enjoying Khan Academy, a site full of short video lessons on topics as basic as arithmetic to art history to physics, and also topical subjects like an explanation of the Greek Financial Crisis.

What other sites do you all find useful?

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Post  particle_person Fri Jun 08, 2012 12:50 am

There is this amazing site called MakkaMappa that lets you take any JPEG, PDF, GIF, or PNG file showing a PICTURE of a map and turn it into a GPS-enabled smartphone map for your Android phone or iPhone. You can even hand-sketch a map. It works with ski trail maps, maps from brochures, subway maps(!), and historical maps.

You download the MakkaMappa app to your smart phone. Then on the website you set calibration points that match up points on the image file to points on Google Maps. Then you can make your GPS-enabled maps publicly available for other people to download, or you can keep them private.

My favorite use for it is historical mapping. I've made maps for most of eastern Massachusetts (which you all can download) showing the area around Middlesex and Essex county all through the late 18th and 19th centuries. It's really awesome to walk THROUGH a map of 1830s Boston and see things like when you go over what used to be water in the old days.

The main caveat is that it does take time to do the calibration (but the more effort you put in, the better the final result).
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Post  vwlphb Tue Jun 12, 2012 7:14 pm

So not strictly "useful" in the traditional sense, but certainly useful in expanding my limited wardrobe are Ript Apparel, Tee Fury, and shirt.woot!, three sites that offer a unique (nerdy) t-shirt design for 24 hours, changing every day (including weekends). They range from $10-$12.

Also cool is 123D Catch from Autodesk. If you feed it photos taken from all around an object, it will turn it into a 3d object that you can pan and tilt, or even feed into a 3d printer. And it's free!


Last edited by vwlphb on Sun Jun 24, 2012 5:12 am; edited 1 time in total

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Post  Red Wolf Tue Jun 12, 2012 7:35 pm

I knew about Tee Fury, but not the other two. Oh dear.

So, one I use is Conversion & Calculation Centre. It has measurement and currency conversion boxes, plus the time all over the world. Very handy.

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Post  vwlphb Tue Jun 12, 2012 8:12 pm

Red Wolf wrote:I knew about Tee Fury, but not the other two. Oh dear.

Ript Apparel is my favorite. Just check out their graveyard.

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Post  bookworm Tue Jun 12, 2012 8:50 pm

OpenCulture is awesome! If you want to learn a new language or take a college seminar for free, Open Culture is great for continuing ed.
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Post  Red Wolf Thu Jul 26, 2012 8:24 pm

Not a website, but belongs here. Anyone else who reads the Gawker sites has seen the shift in the comment section. This Firefox plugin puts it back how it was. I have the Chrome version on another computer, so I'll dig that one up soon.

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Post  jstilwe Thu Jul 26, 2012 8:41 pm

For travel shopping, I love Hipmunk. You can open several different search tabs within one browser tab, which is super handy for comparing prices on different dates and airports, AND you can sort flights by not only price but Agony, which takes into account number of layovers, flight time, and so on. It's delightful.

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Post  Red Wolf Thu Jul 26, 2012 10:51 pm


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Post  Morning Angel Fri Jul 27, 2012 12:32 am

I love this thread! Hipmunk is awesome as are Open Culture and Khan Academy. Thanks for the recommendations, guys!
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Post  dinahmoe Fri Jul 27, 2012 12:52 am

Red Wolf wrote:And the Chrome version.
Thank you!
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Post  Red Wolf Fri Jul 27, 2012 1:10 am

Glad to help. :)

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Post  punzy Wed Oct 03, 2012 9:48 pm

Slate posted this flow chart which tells you what type of apple to choose for different purposes. I have never heard of some of these, but I want to keep the chart forever.

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Post  Miss Moneypenny Wed Oct 03, 2012 9:55 pm

punzy wrote:Slate posted this flow chart which tells you what type of apple to choose for different purposes. I have never heard of some of these, but I want to keep the chart forever.

I can't speak to most of those uses, but Cortlands are, in fact, absolutely perfect for an apple crisp.

My favorite eatin' variety, Empire, was totally left off the chart, though! Sadness.
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Post  Tabby Thu Oct 04, 2012 10:20 am

My favorite eatin' variety, Empire, was totally left off the chart, though! Sadness.
Several far-north varieties are also absent. The World's Best Eating Apple, the Honeycrisp, is missing, as is the World's Best Pie Apple, the Haralson. I'm guessing this chart skews to east coast apple varieties (which doesn't explain the absence of Empire or Macoun, another delicious apple), because there are a boatload of delicious apples available in the Upper Midwest that don't make this list.

Cute chart, though, especially the recommendation for cider donuts and to feed Red Delicious to a horse.
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Post  Algae Thu Oct 04, 2012 3:55 pm

About a year ago, our local produce store got this lovely, dark burgundy colored apple called a Black Beauty. It was tart with just a hint of sweetness and tough - he said it was called a lunchbox apple because it wouldn't bruise easily. That was the best apple. I've not seen it again, sadly.
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Post  megageek Wed Mar 13, 2013 9:56 pm

Google just announced that Google Reader will be shutting down on July 1. Anyone have any RSS reader recommendations?

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Post  Lily Rose Wed Mar 13, 2013 10:21 pm

Well, crap. I use Google Reader all the time!

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Post  Jude Sun Sep 01, 2013 4:39 pm

I work in a campus library part-time, and one of my friends/co-workers told me about a site which offers free online courses from universities and colleges both in the US and internationally. I don't know if anyone here has ever heard of it, but I think there are some really interesting courses on the list, and did I mention? They're all FREEEEEEE!!!

Here's the link: Coursera

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Post  The Glen Sun Sep 01, 2013 6:30 pm

I love Coursera! There's a lot of positive feedback about it, though for some courses not everyone is happy with the output methods. I haven't actually taken any classes yet, but I'm signed up for the Terrorism one at the end of the month, provided I have the energy for it.

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Post  particle_person Wed Sep 25, 2013 11:27 pm

vwlphb wrote:We don't have the Useful Websites thread anymore it seems, so i thought I'd post here IFTTT. IFTTT lets you make formulas to automate links between various accounts. For example, I set it up so that if I post to my Twitter with "#fb" somewhere in the post, it will then cross post that to Facebook. That way I don't have to have all my tweets go to facebook, just the ones I want. I also have my Withings Scale measurements go into a Google Drive spreadsheet, the top NYTimes articles of the day put in my Pocket account for offline reading on my tablet, and have a bunch of rss feeds automatically post to tumblr as a Google Reader substitute.
(Our search thingy seems to have broken awhile ago. This reminds me I should look into that again.)


Last edited by particle_person on Wed Sep 25, 2013 11:29 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Post  particle_person Wed Sep 25, 2013 11:27 pm

choubetcha wrote:I love IFTTT! I had it set up for apartment hunting so apartments with the right keywords/price range would get emailed to me as soon as they posted. I also have my Pocket set to send articles to Evernote if I tag with a certain keyword.

I feel like I could be doing more cool things with it, so I like to browse the user recipes. I'm really excited they added twitter back in as a trigger but am waiting (hoping) for the ability to have tweets other than your own trigger recipes. That would be my ideal.
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Post  Shadowlass Fri Apr 11, 2014 1:39 pm

An encryption flaw called the Heartbleed bug has been found on dozens of websites. Mashable is providing lots of coverage, including which websites you should change your passwords on ASAP. Yahoo, Pinterest, and Facebook are among the sites affected.

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Post  Tabby Fri Apr 11, 2014 2:20 pm

Bruce Schneier, the security expert, linked to a site where you can test any other site's vulnerability for Heartbleed. Most banks and other big sites have already installed a patch, so you can change your passwords now and not have to change them again next week. My banks and credit cards have notices on their sites that they either patched their software or were never vulnerable. (Not every site was vulnerable, since many never used SSL.)
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