Affichage des articles dont le libellé est internet. Afficher tous les articles
Affichage des articles dont le libellé est internet. Afficher tous les articles

samedi 2 octobre 2010

World Day Against Cyber Censorship

The World now celebrates World Day Against Cyber Censorship on 12 March. This event is intended to rally everyone in support of a single Internet that is unrestricted and accessible to all. It is also meant to draw attention to the fact that, by creating new spaces for exchanging ideas and information, the Internet is a force for freedom. However, more and more governments have realised this and are reacting by trying to control the Internet.

i marks the occasion by issuing its latest list of “Enemies of the Internet.” This list points the finger at countries such as Iran, China, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam and Tunisia that restrict online access and harass their netizens. A list of countries that have been placed “under surveillance” for displaying a disturbing attitude towards the Internet is also released. Turkey and Russia are added to this list of countries "under surveillance".

Our web site awarded on 11 March the first “Netizen Prize”, with Google’s support, to the Iranian women’s rights activists of the Change for Equality (www.we-change.org) website. Journalist, blogger and activist Parvin Ardalan, one of the site’s founders, received the prize from French journalist Jean-Marie Colombani in a ceremony at the Paris headquarters of Google France. The prize recognizes an Internet user, blogger or cyber-dissident who has made a notable contribution to the defence of online freedom of expression.

iSendr: Send files directly to another computer over the web

Using the service is dead simple: you simply head over the website, click “share file” and point the website toward the file you wish to share. You’ll be given a link to share the file with, which you will share with your friend (you can optionally password protect the file if you’re worried about security). They paste the link into a web browser and presto: they have your file.

send files directly to another computer

This is a really nice tool if you’re looking to do a quick file transfer without installing any software. Best of all, your transfer is completely secure: the iSender team cannot see what files you’re sharing, as the file is never actually on their servers. This tool is quick, easy and safe; there’s no reason not to give it a shot.

Features

  • Web-based tool for quick file transfers.
  • Point the site toward any file and you’ll be given a link for sharing it.
  • Link allows someone to download the file directly from your computer.
  • Similar tools: FilesOverMiles, PipeBytes and JetBytes.

Check out iSendr @ www.isendr.com

10 Free MP3 Albums To Download


Sound Sunday is free music served weekly. This time I added a lot of folk to the mix, but you’ll also discover some punk, hip hop, and metal. If you are new to this, you may be interested in previous editions of Sound Sunday.

Artists and fans who would like to see their favorite free download featured in an upcoming edition can contact me here (tina at makeuseof dot com) or add their requests in the comments below.



Sean Wright – Box Them Up

Genre: rock, acoustic, pop

where can I download free mp3s
If this name sounds familiar, you either know your way around in the music business or you are a die hard Sound Sunday fan. At the end of July, I featured Sean Wright’s album Up The Creek. The man continues to release one album per month and is now up to 41 since April 2007.

Box Them Up is a free download available from Sean Wright’s Homepage.

Sean Wright MySpace and Homepage.

Magnetic Wind – Astral Vortexes

Genre: ambient, electronic, experimental

where can I download free mp3s
Magnetic Wind is the creation of the multi-talented musician Jessica Waters. Apparently, she could sing before she could talk, and once she had discovered her love for music there was no stopping her. Today, she masters several instruments, does her own songwriting, and commands every step of finalizing an album; including the mixing, engineering, and producing processes.

Download Astral Vortexes from the net label Endeless Ascent.

Magnetic Wind MySpace and Homepage.

Mark Tiddy – Escape This Town

Genre: pop, rock, acoustic, christian

where can I download free mp3s
UK artist Mark Tiddy aims to write realistic Christian music. He has a degree in youth work and, through his work, first hand experience of what the real world has to offer. Escape This Town is his debut album and especially the singing is a little rough around the edges. It’s definitely honest.

Escape This Town is a ‘name your price’ download from Bandcamp.

Mark Tiddy MySpace and Homepage.

Dan Padilla – As The Ox Plows

Genre: punk, rock

where can I download free mp3s
San Diego punk rock band Dan Padilla (the band not the man), have teamed up with Paper + Plastick Records, Razorcake, and Punknews.org to release their new album As The Ox Plows.

You can download the album from Paper + Plastick. The link is copy&paste at the end of the first paragraph or click here.

Dan Padilla MySpace and Facebook.

Chanes – An Experiment in Instrumentation (2010)

Genre: alternative, funk, ambient, electro, experimental, hip hop, trip hop

where can I download free mp3s
In their own words:

“An Experiment in Instrumentation is definitely one of the stand outs among the beat tapes in my opinion. There is not many words to describe the tape. There is also no lane it can be categorized in. Its a step in a new direction. A step of growth in my production. And most importantly, it’s new material for my people.”
An Experiment in Instrumentation
is a free download from Bandcamp.

Chanes MySpace and Homepage.

Buried Beneath The Prayers – In Hell We Burn

Genre: metal, death metal,

where can I download free mp3s
If you need some truly scary music for this upcoming Halloween, here you go. The band with the disturbing name has had quite some reshuffling going during their short existence. Currently, the band members are D-fat, Kenny, and Ario. I wonder what happened to Kreepshow.

The download link to In Hell We Burn sits in the band’s Facebook sidebar or click here for the direct MediaFire download.

Buried Beneath The Prayers MySpace and Facebook.

Owen Pye & The Sunday School Band – selftitled

Genre: indie, folk, rock

where can I download free mp3s
In 2008 Owen Pye, formerly a solo artist, met three like-minded musicians since starting his career in 2005. They became Owen Pye & The Sunday School Band, short OPSSB. Their selftitled debut album was released in 2009. Can you help OPSSB reach a thousand digital downloads?
Attention!
The free album download expires at the end of September!
The album is available through Owen Pye’s Homepage or NoiseTrade.

Owen Pye & The Sunday School Band MySpace and Homepage.

The Hanged Man and The Groovy Gloom – Empress

Genre: alternative, rock, folk

where can I download free mp3s
This album is a collaboration of The Hanged Man with The Groovy Gloom, “a revolving musical collective with a core comprising Connaire Doherty and Tommy Foster.” The Hanged Man himself is Adam, who composes, lends his voice, and contributes arts and words.

The free download of this four piece album is provided by Bandcamp.

The Hanged Man MySpace and Homepage.

Brad Sucks – Out Of It

Genre: indie, pop, rock, folk, electronic

where can I download free mp3s
Brad Sucks is a one man band and the man’s music definitely doesn’t suck. Out Of It is Brad’s second album, released in 2008. Although this last release has been a while, he is still out and about playing shows in his home country Canada and the US.

The entire album is available for free from Jamendo.

Brad Sucks MySpace and Homepage.

Andrew Heringer Band – Under California Skies

Genre: alternative, indie rock, folk, pop

where can I download free mp3s
142 people backed this album with a total of $10,000 through KickStarter.com. As a result, Andrew Heringer Band could release the album for free. This is for anyone who thinks the internet kills good music. This band and their album are living proof that the opposite must be true. Long live the music!

You can download this album from Bandcamp.

Andrew Heringer Band MySpace and Homepage.

3 FireFox Plugins That Let You Easily Navigate from Page to Page


Pagination is one tricky thing in a website design — hardly any website can do without it but it clearly accounts for lots of usability issues.

Clicking from page to page is tedious and distracting. Not every website is like Google and allows you to set the number of results per page (and even if they do have such an option, we are either unaware of it or don’t have time to configure it for every site).

Luckily, browser (in this case, FireFox) navigation addons and plugins are here to help. Here are three FireFox addons that let you navigate from page to page almost painlessly.




1. NextPlease!

NextPlease! is a cool addon, the most useful feature of which is providing you with a way to jump between pages using configurable shortcuts.

NextPlease! doesn’t just work on search result pages: it analyzes the web page and tries to determine the links which will take you to the next/previous or first/last page. The way it analyzes the page is described here. Basically, it looks like it detects common words for pagination, for example “next link”, “next page” etc.

The default shortcuts for NextPlease! are listed below:

CommandDefault Shortcut
Next pageCtrl + Shift + Right Arrow
Previous pageCtrl + Shift + Left Arrow
First pageCtrl + Shift + Up Arrow
Last pageCtrl + Shift + Down Arrow

You can change the default shortcuts by selecting Tools->Extensions and going to the NextPlease! Options page:

navigation addon

2. AutoPager

AutoPager (mentioned previously in the MakeUseOf post on speedy browsing with FireFox) is a featured addon that automatically loads the subsequent page when you reach the end of a page.

AutoPager needs rules to make it work. AutoPager will not work on a site if there are no rules for it yet. You can see the pre-built rules here.

Immediately after installation, you will be prompted if you would like to use the default directory of rules:

navigation extension

By default, AutoPager works with plenty of sites, including Lifehacker, the New York Times, Google, etc. You can easily create your own rules to tell AutoPager how to load your pages. Here are some detailed tutorials on creating new rules.

The page break is enhanced with some great navigation aiding tools including “Page up/down”, quick jump to the window bottom, etc:

navigation extension

Other features that can be accessed through the toolbar button include:

  • The ability to pause or enable/disable the AutoPager;
  • Site wizard that lets you easily create rules for new sites;
  • The ability to immediately load 3/5/10 pages:

    navigation extension

3. PageZipper

PageZipper has got a bunch of MakeUseOf love some time ago but it is said to have been improved since then. It is best to be used for image galleries because it has a couple of options that make viewing images easier and more fun.

  • As you scroll down a page, PageZipper automatically adds the next page to the bottom of the page you’re on.
  • On image galleries, clicking the arrow in the toolbar will skip you directly to the next image in the gallery.
  • PageZipper automatically resizes images in photo galleries to fit your browser window.

Another thing that makes it different from the previously mentioned tool in this overview is that it is enabled manually — every time you want to use it, click the button in the toolbar. So it is pretty much the matter of the personal taste; many people prefer the addon to be enabled manually, others prefer automatic triggering.

Note: if you can’t seem to find the button after you install it (like I did), go to View -> Toolbars -> Customize. Drag the zipper icon into your toolbar. FireFox will hide all new buttons like this by default, so no surprise here.

navigation addon

Do you think any of these navigation addons and tools are worth a try? Would they make you faster and more productive?

6 Online Riddle Games to Keep You Glued to Your Computer


If you’re in the mood to give your mind a little exercise, online riddles are a great place to do just that. One of the most popular genre of online riddle games consists of multiple levels, containing clues in the source code, in photos, and just about everywhere you can look.

These games certainly aren’t for the easily frustrated. They are long, difficult, and sometimes one level can take ages to crack. Luckily, there are forums filled with other players happy to give hints when you get stumped like Gamershood and Nordinho.



NotPron

NotPron is a challenging riddle game, and according to its creator, its the hardest riddle game on the internet. Each level contains some sort of hint to get you to the next level. Getting to the next level could be achieved by finding the right spot on the picture to click, by changing the text in the URL or by discovering the username and password to get through.

Sometimes you have to turn to resources outside of NotPron including Google or even using an image editor. The riddle gets progressively harder, which makes it all the more satisfying with each correct answer. The only way to save your progress is to bookmark the latest level. The creator also recommends keeping a note of the solution to each level.

riddle games

OddPawn

OddPawn is a mammoth riddle game, with over 300 levels that will have you scratching your head. In order to play OddPawn, you have to register for a free account, providing a username, password, email address and your country of residence. While OddPawn lets you choose where to start the game, we’d recommend starting with Chapter 1 to ease yourself into the harder levels.

Each level is accompanied by a question you have to answer to move on. The levels are varied, with questions relating to logic and math, and much more. The game is something of a scavenger hunt, looking for clues in the source code, file names, URLs and more. While OddPawn does keep track of your progress, be sure to bookmark the last level you are at so that you can quickly get back to that page. Otherwise you’re going to have to quickly click through the levels you’ve already completed without having to answer them. And don’t clear your cookies, otherwise you will have to solve each level again. It’s also worth mentioning that if you plan to procrastinate at work with this game, some of the levels require your audio to be turned on.

math riddle games

The DaVinci Code

Whether or not you liked the book, the online riddle game, The DaVinci Code that Random House put together for fans will definitely appeal to everyone. Following the hints in each level will leave you feeling like a detective, although if there is one small complaint, deciphering the font they used makes the riddle just that little bit more difficult. For those of you who are old hands at the online riddle genre, The DaVinci Code will be a quick and easy game to pass the afternoon with.

math riddle games

The First Door

The First Door doesn’t waste any time starting out with a difficult puzzle. All answers to each level are typed into the URL. Be sure to follow the instructions carefully, and don’t forget that the answers are case sensitive. Unlike other puzzles listed here, you don’t need to look in the source code, you don’t need any other programs, you just need to figure out the answer to each question using logic.

Occasionally you’ll stumble upon easter eggs which will help lead you to the right answer. Once you’ve completed the First Door, you can move onto the sequel. Once again, don’t forget to bookmark your place in the riddle otherwise you’ll have to start all over again.

math riddle games

Amnesya

To play Amnesya, you will need a photo editor and an audio editor, but they do suggest good free apps that we have reviewed here on MakeUseOf like Audacity and Gimp and IrfanView.

Like the other riddles listed here, you have to change the URL to get to the next level. Clues are hidden in the images, in the source code, and in a bunch of other places. Luckily there’s a very straightforward tutorial that will walk you through all the different places you can look for clues. Be sure to bookmark your spot in the game to come back to it.

jokes riddles

Einstein’s Riddle

Einstein’s Riddle is a very different kind of riddle game. There’s only one level, but don’t be fooled by that, it’s definitely a headscratcher. You are given a list of facts about 5 men, and using logic and deduction, you can answer the one and only question in the riddle.

riddle games

The 12 Of The Best Escape The Room Games


The Japanese-inspired Escape the Room games are among the most elaborate, time consuming and challenging games you can find online. The games combine all sorts of puzzles and riddles with the detective work of looking for hidden objects and clues. Some of them are elaborate with plots and stories, and others are as simple as breaking out of a sealed telephone booth.

This are 12 of the best Escape the Room games out there – and it’s ideal place to start if you’ve never played these games before.



1. Submachine Series

The series of 9 Submachine escape games will definitely keep you on your toes. You won’t find yourself trapped in just one room, but rather in a labyrinth of rooms that you have to navigate.

In Submachine 0 you’re trapped outside for a change, and are trying to find your way into a dark, ancient chamber.

free escape the room games

In Submachine 1 you’re trapped in an underground labyrinth.

free escape the room games

In Submachine 2 you’re trying to find your way out of an abandoned lighthouse.

free escape the room games

In Submachine 3 they’ve really turned the labyrinth aspect of the game up a few notches.

escape the room free

In Submachine 4 you start out on the roof of an old house, and start the game by finding your way in.

escape the room free

In Submachine 5 you’re trapped in another underground labyrinth.

escape the room free

In Submachine FLF you start out trapped in a white padded cell.

And in the newest game, Submachine 32 Chambers, you guessed it, you’re in the mother of all labyrinths, trying to find your way out.

2. The Crimson & Viridian Rooms

The Crimson Room is a classic Escape the Room game, and if you’re a fan of the genre, you’re bound to have given it a try. Look for clues to eventually get the bedroom door open.

The sequel to the Crimson Room, the Viridian Room is just as challenging. You’ve broken out of the bedroom, and now you have to use the same tactics to escape a slightly creepier room.

3. Neutral Escape Games

Neutral has a great series of Escape the Room games, with some of the most impressive graphics you’re going to find in this genre, and they are by no means easy. Save your game and come back to it later, so you can still attempt to lead a semi-normal life while trying to crack these games.

The Neutral games going from easiest to hardest are Switch, Sphere, RGB, Lights and Vision, and there’s a new one in the works.

4. Mystery of Time and Space

The Mystery of Time and Space is the great granddaddy of Escape the Room games with 20 levels to solve. Like the Neutral games, you’ll be happy to know that you can save your progress and come back to the game later.

5. The Doors

The Doors is another labyrinth of an escape game, with rooms and doors that seem to go on forever.

6. The Haunted

The Haunted begins with you standing out in the rain in front of a dark house. You have to find your way into the house and figure out your next step from there in a game that can get pretty creepy, music and all.

7. Ant Hill Trap

If The Haunted proves to be too scary for you, you could always try something completely different with Ant Hill Trap. With some of the cutest graphics ever in an Escape the Room game, this one is suitable for adults and kids alike.

8. Afro-Ninja Escape Series

Afro-Ninja has a series of 5 mini-games that are challenging, but less elaborate than the others listed here, if you want a quick fix for your Escape the Room addiction.

In Series 1, you have to make your way out of a locked car.

In Series 2, you find yourself locked in a closet.

In Series 3, you’re stuck in a phone booth. (It doesn’t get much tighter than this!)

In Series 4, you’re trapped in the bathroom.

And in the latest Series 5, you’re stuck in a freezer, with a new added twist not often found in Escape the Room Games. You’re racing against the clock to avoid dying of hypothermia.

9. Railway to Heaven

Railway to Heaven is another mini-escape game where you’re racing against the clock. You’re trapped in a cage on a railroad track and you don’t have too long to figure out how to get out before it’s too late.

10. Guest House

Guest House is a challenging game filled with riddles, puzzles, and quite a few Macgyver tactics that have to be used to find your way out.

11. Murder Escape

In Murder Escape, you’re stuck in a room with a disconcerting pool of blood seeping in from under the door. Find the clues to get out.

12. No Exit

No Exit is a challenging Escape the Room game which really tests your powers of observation.

free escape the room games

What are your favourite Escape the Room games? Let us know in the comments.