Let us begin this blog with the basic tool necessary for all computer users
Typing tutor
We will introduce several on-line tools meant for learning/enhancing typing skills. Powertyping ( http://www.powertyping.com/) is one such tool. This tool is a free typing tutor.
Ebook search engine
Tens of hundreds of e-books on a variety of subjects are available on-line. Many of them are available for free download. If you are looking for a means to find e-books relevant for your work, enlist the service of the e-book search engine ‘Free Book’ ( http://www.freebook-s.com/).
Web2pdf converter
While on a web page, you may wish to save it in PDF format directly from the browser for sharing its content easily. The free on-line serviceWeb2PDF converter http://www.web2pdfconvert.com/Default.aspx) serves this need with ease- just enter the web page address and click on the ‘Convert’ button’. To facilitate the process further, it offers a browser add-on too. Once this add-on is integrated with the browser you can convert the current page by just clicking on the ‘web2pdf’ button from the toolbar.
Data recovery tool
File deletions by accident are quite common and to help us recover from such disasters several tools exist (like Recuva). The free software, ‘Win data Recovery’ ( http://www.files-recovery.org/) is yet another one that is worth a test. You can use it to recover deleted files (even from RecycleBin), files lost from a crashed hard-disk and the like.
Watch movies on-line
After a few hours of hectic work, many of us long for a short diversion to refresh. Of course, these days no need to move away from your computer if it is Net enabled. You can comfortably watch movies, listen to music and socialise with friends. If you are looking for another diversion avenue, take a look at the on-line movie site, QuickSilverscreen (http://quicksilverscreen.com/), where you can watch a variety of movies for free.
Until a few years ago watching classic and offbeat movies was a difficult proposition unless you had access to film festivals or a film library. The Net, with a variety of movie archives, is changing all that. Jaman ( http://www.jaman.com/), the on-line movie hosting service offers you access to a variety of films. The advantage of this on-demand movie hosting service is the ease with which one can watch a variety of movies anytime, anywhere directly from your browser. If you wish to watch great classic movies (like ‘Third Man’ and ‘Charade’ ) for free, take a look at this wonderful service. Though all the movies hosted here are not available for free viewing, a wide variety of movies can be viewed without any payment.
Archival software
We know that files/folders are compressed/archived in a variety of formats such as zip, rar, arj and so on. Archival tools (like winzip) help us decrypt such compressed files. Izarc ( http://www.izarc.org/index.html) is one such tool worth a mention. This free tool can be used to decrypt files in a wide range of formats that include zip, rar, tz and tar.
Google Translate client
Google Translate (http://translate.google.com/#) enables you to translate text and web pages from one language (like English) to another (say spanish). A shortcoming of this service is that to get the text translated you need to either upload the document or paste it on the service’s input box. This means, while composing an article on one’s wordprocessor (say MS-Word), if one wishes to see its Spanish version, she has to interrupt her work, move over to the Google translate’s web page and then copy/paste the sentence. This is certainly not a pleasant solution. Ideally, one needs a solution that enables to obtain the translated content directly from the application (in this case MS-Word). The free software, ‘Client for Google Translate’ (http://translateclient.com/) helps you do exactly this. To translate the text from an application simply select it, click on the icon that pops up and in a few seconds you will find the translated version of the selected text.
Wordnik
Thanks to the numerous dictionary services, finding the meaning of a word or phrase is not at all an issue in the on-line world. One feature of words in any language is that they evolve over time. Different people use it in different contexts. A dictionary service should be able to take care of this aspect as well. In addition to providing us a word’s traditional meaning and usage examples, the service should provide us examples of the way in which the word is used in a variety of contexts.
In this regard, the dictionary service Wordnik ( http://www.wordnik.com/) outshines other similar applications. In addition to providing the usual dictionary stuff (word’s meaning, synonym, antonym and pronunciation), Wordnik presents usage examples from a variety of sources such as magazines, journals and Twitter (yes, real-time tweets with the word from Twitter).
Domain name finder
Several on-line services exist to tell you if a domain-name is available or not. Domaintyper (http://domaintyper.com/) is one such service worth a try. The advantage of this service is the ease with which one can operate it. As soon as you start entering your preferred domain name, the service displays its availability in real-time.
Pesticides on your food
It is common knowledge that a lot of pesticide is used when growing vegetables/fruits. Though it is a major health hazard, many of us simply ignore this issue. If you wish to know more about the pesticide residues contained in different vegetables, check out ‘What is on my food” (http://www.whatsonmyfood.org/) .
