5 Internet Radio services outside the US

To be honest I'm not much of a music junkie. If I feel like listening to something, well, I don't really have a collection of 50,000 songs that can just "turn on". Instead, I depend on online radio stations to feed me with the latest music there is. Of course, it's even better when I can choose the type of music that I want to listen to, instead of just listening to whatever my local radio station is playing.

So, without further ado, here's a list of radio websites that I've started liking. Please feel free to share you own. Also, you may probably notice that there's no mention of Pandora here, because Pandora (and Spotify for that matter) doesn't quite work outside the US yet.

Go Canada Go! Watching Olympics Online

I must say, after seeing Canada beat Norway 8 - 0 (and the No way Norway posters held up by spectators who paid $1500 CDN for a round robin game), hockey definately seems to be Canada's sport.

 I for one am proud to have the maple leaf on my desktop :D

Oh, and how do you watch the 2010 winter olympics online you ask?

CTVolympics.ca seems to be the best bet for Canadians and people from other countries I'm hoping. Their player does use Silverlight
though, but I've tried it with Moonlight (Silverlight's open source cousin) and it seems to work alright. NBColympics.com and Vancouver2010.com also have videos, but they don't seem to be streaming things live.

Learning to Program Python with Computer Games

While I never really bothered to learn Python (I don't really know why), a resource named Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python (2nd Edition!), has piqued my interest. The book is geared towards people who are just learning to program and introduced Python in a rather enjoyable and fun way with simple games like Hangman and TicTacToe.

Search for a word that is at the tip of your tongue

How often have you realized that there is a word that is at the tip of your tongue, but just isn't coming out? While similar to writers block, this can be just as deleterious. But fear not, there is an online web app that can now help you find the word that you are searching for.

Instead of having searching the word database like you would in a conventional dictionary, you can now search on on other factors like "Sounds like", "word meaning" and the letters the word contains. The app is called Tip of My Tongue, and I guarantee you that if you are a blogger or a writer, you'll be using this online web program more than once.

Of course, it's not perfect yet, but it's just a matter of time before it becomes more robust, or a web engine like Google picks up the idea. Typing in say 'eek' and using the sounds like box to refine the search actually yields several results, even those that are distant from the pronunciation of the word 'gawk', and to narrow it down, you'll have to give the app more input.

The app uses several online dictionaries, mostly wordnet apparently, and a host of other websites. However, in my brief inspection of the site, I've noticed that some words, especially those associated with idioms and containing other meanings are not present when you use the 'Word Meaning' feature, and the results from the letters features can be quite overwhelming. Nevertheless, while the app is no substitute for a proper dictionary or a thesaurus, it will sure help you find the word that you already know and is on the tip of your tongue.

Readable - A web app that makes it easier for you to read webpages

Let's face it... Although we've come a long way from the first webpage on the internet the most used method of communication on the web is text. Yes, we have videos, images and other interesting content (ex: ytmnd) out there on the interwebs, but just like I'm communication with you right now, text is essential.

So, what do you do when you can' t read the text clearly because there is a picture of a jumping rhino on the background that doesn't provide contrast or the web designer though it was cool to have a really small 7px font size?

Or to be more true to life, let's say you stumble onto a website like CNN that's littered with ads all over the place, and it makes it really hard for you to find your content. What do you do then? Until now, you'd either have to download it to tweak the html or use a text only browser to view only the text and get rid of everything else.

However, now there is a cooler web app in town called Readable that is going to be your best friend. It uses javascript to extract the text out of a page, and display it in an overlay that you can customize to your liking. For example, all you can make the size of the text bigger, have a grey background with black text, and get rid of annoying ads on web pages. Take a look at how a post in beyond teck displays:

Plus, all you have to do is click a bookmarklet in your bookmarks toolbar, and Readable will do the rest. If it has problems finding the text on the webpage, it'll ask you to click on the text, and then take care of the rest.

Here's a little demo from the creator of the app:

So if you tend to use the internet a lot, especially to read news and other blogs, Readable might soon become your best friend.

How to improve your comprehension/vocabulary score for SATs, ACTs and APs

Here's something for fellow students who might be practising for a standardized exam (to the older readers: yes, remember those?). Learning vocab words and lists for standardized exams isn't what most people consider to be an enjoyable task. But I've recently figured out that it can be enjoyable... if you know what to do. People always ask me about how I have such a great vocabulary (ok, not really... but pretend that they did) and this is what I always tell them:

The best ways to improve your vocabulary are...

1. Reading (my english teacher swears by this one - according to her, you'll retain 5% of the vocabulary from anything you read):
I for one hated reading. Especially the "romance" novels that are supposed to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Why? Because first off... they make so sense, and second, they take too much time (and did I mention, they never have any pictures in them?!) So often, I just ended up reading the first few chapters, and then never touching the book ever again.

But the truth is, you don't always have to read "the classics" or "the quintessential Socrates series" if they don't make any sense. There are several other, dare I say enjoyable, sources of inspiration that you can plunge into. Especially if you like technology, there are several other things you can read, to improve your vocabulary and improve your comprehension skills. Remember though. If you come across a word that stumps you, you might want to check out what it means (I recommend using one of the dictionaries mentioned in this post) before continuing.

Here are some "good" websites where you might find interesting (if you don't like Harry Potter and all that kind of stuff that is...)

The Onion (America's Finest News Source!) - A great news source. Although, I advise that you take everything you read on that website with a grain of salt.

e-Books online - There are a ton of e-books that you can potentially download (or even read) online. If you get board with one of them, why not just switch to another. It's easy, and who knows, you just might find something interesting.

News Websites (NYTimes, Globe and Mail and even CNet sometimes)- Like The Onion, news websites are a great source of information, provided the english they use is good. However, I would stay away from the depressing kinds of news though... you don't want any nightmares.

Crossword Puzzles - Crosswords are a great way of improving your vocabulary, especially when it comes to big words.

Write! - The best way to learn how to read, is to learn how to write. Try to use big words when you're writing though so that you get a feel for certain "esoteric" words. If you want, you can publish them online (in a blog), and if you have something to say (like I always do) I'm sure you'll build your own group of readers as well. This is good, because you'll be able to get feedback, and also do well on the writing portion of the standardized tests. Although I recommend that you practice writing too, because unless you're taking the MCAT, you'll be using a pen, and not a keyboard.

Vocab Lists - Vocabulary lists are the least preferable method of learning for me. That's because rote memorization almost always never works unless you're a savant. However, if you feel like you need to brush up on a little bit of vocabulary, here are some tips concerning vocab lists:

• Never simply memorize the words. You'll be memorizing them for 5 minutes and then you'll forget it all!
• Instead, what you want to do is put the word in a memorable sentence of some sort, and "use the word". This way, you'll retain the word better, and hopefully you'll be able to recall it when necessary. [Rinse and Repeat!]
  

Bonus: If you're Canadian, you might want to check out some columns by Rex Murphy. Even though he is from Newfoundland he never uses a word that smaller than 9 syllables.

In my opinion, there is no substitute for reading. So incase you're wondering what to do a year before the standardized test, I suggest you start reading first and then try the other tips I've mentioned here!

Good Luck!

Wikipedia: The Free Encycopedia that can't always be trusted

Yes, I know that quite a lot of people use Wikipedia by now. But, sometimes I wonder - should I really trust an encyclopedia that is free. Here are a couple of reasons why using Wikipedia might actually a bad thing, especially when you are using it to do some research or learn more about a topic.

Wikipedia is free. But that also means that it has to rely heavily on volunteers to write articles to the website. Over the course of the past few years, the requirements for a proper wikipedia article have been updated, and now a days, most articles need proper and thorough citations for every point stated. This is a good thing of course, because it ensures better quality information.

However, this doesn't mean that someone who just wants to screw around with the system can't get away with doing something malicious. For example, when I was doing some research for a project through the ever handy Dictionary app, I came across this little "problem".

Clearly, it's possible to say that not everything on Wikipedia can be trusted when people misuse the website for fun. Also, there might be a possiblity of a person using another person's blog/private website (where certain information may be eschewed) and accidently presenting the wrong information.

Furthermore, another problem that wikipedia has is the biased information on controversial topic. Of course, in my opinion it is impossible to get rid of biases in even the best of encyclopedias and news paper articles (hey, we're humans, our prejudices sometimes just come through unintentionally).

Nevertheless, when you see articles like articles on the Gaza/Israel conflict, they always have a 'The neutrality of this article, and factual errors are being disputed' sign, meaning that the information might potentially be way off. Not good when you want to find out something for a project.

But, I guess there are some things that Wikipedia really excels in. For one, it gives you all the necessary information really fast in a well categorized wikipage. Plus, there are always ways to find out if the information in Wikipedia is correct or not. More about that in my future posts...

CalorieKing: A great free website to keep track of calories

Some people are able to maintain their weight in tip-top condition without any effort. Others, are not so lucky. There are many things out there that experts recommend you do in order to lose some weight. But, most of these plans involve cutting down the calories.

Are you counting your calories to get back on track? Good for you. But the problem is, how can you cut down on calories, when you don't really know how many calories are there in something? Things like subway sandwiches, Big Macs and tomatoes don't come with a nutrition label.

However, fear not - where's there's an internet connection, there is a way. It's called CalorieKing.com and it's a website that helps you find how many calories are there in each types of foods. Be it a banana or a egg McMuffin - it's mostly all there.

Plus, you can also specify the method something was cooked and so on. For example when you type in rice, you won't get a option for rice, instead you'll be presented with several options such as brown rice, white rice, sticky rice... and so on.

Of course, you can also pay to become a member of the site, and they'll offer additional features like ability to track your weight, track progress and help you "stay motivated", but I'm pretty sure an excel spreadsheet can help you do the same.

Create free logos for your blog, website, business or company

Here’s a great little website that allows you to create and customize your own logos. It’s called Logo Creator from Logo Yes. And that’s just what it helps you do. All you need to do is go the website, and start going through their process of creating a logo.

It’s pretty simple for the most part. Just go the website, choose a logo, and then it’ll give you the option of saving your logo. Of course, I wouldn’t recommend using such logo creators if you are running a considerably big company – that’d be a job for a real graphic designer. But, if you need a logo for your small business, then websites like this would probably be the best bet.

List of Websites for FREE math help, practice and tutorials!

Here’s a list of websites that are great for that additional math help anyone might need. I found then especially helpful last year when I was studying for my Math finals. Although these resources can’t really replace the experience you’ll gain by doing out the questions yourself, they will help you understand the concepts a little better.

Also, I must point out that the following resources will not replace friends and teachers that might be able to help you out. So use them only if it is truly necessary or just to review things you already know.

Yahoo Education Math - A great resource that covers all kinds of math topics from Grade 7 - Grade to Calculus. If you want to brush up on some math then this is the place you have to visit!

Purple Math - A website that’s great for help with topics that might be a little bit on the advanced side like Calculus and Functions. But nevertheless, they have lots of examples, illustrations and graphs that will help you better grasp the concepts. It even has a forums section where you can ask questions and get answers.

WebMath - A website that can not only teach you how to solve problems, but also help you solve them. Plus, it caters to many levels of math such as General Math, k-8 math, trigonometry and even calculus. A great resource.

Algebra Help - A site that has a huge list of algebra lessons, tips, help and much more. If you need some algebra help then this is the website you should visit.

MathForums - A great place to get help and even to solve their ‘problems of the week’ where they post a question every week or so, and you can try to come up with an answer for it.

Bonus: King’s list of On-line Math Activities - This website provides a great list of games that you can play to improve your mathematics skills. Although I must point out that it is all pretty basic math, but nevertheless you’ll definitely improve your skills or perhaps even gain a liking for math after playing these games.

Are there any other great math resources that you know of that might be beneficial to a student or an adult alike?

5 ways to download free MP3 music from the Internet - Legally!

Ever wanted to be able to just go on the Internet and download the new song everyone was talking about? Sure, your friends will probably tell you to go get limewire or start using bittorrent (both these ways are highly illegal if copyrighted material is being passed on), but taking that route will only result in your computer getting infected with viruses and spyware. Here are 5 ways you can get free music and guess what - they are totally legal!

To be honest, there aren't a lot of ways you can really get free (DRM free as well) music on the Internet. However, here are a couple of websites that offer free music downloads, so if you have a mp3 player that is just waiting to be filled with songs (that weren't downloaded illegally), this is the best place to start.

1 million Free and Legal Music Tracks - Tracks created by independent artists can now be downloaded from their websites. The Red Ferret Journal provides a comprehensive page that features the websites of such artists from where their music can be downloaded. Bear in mind though that these artists aren't prominent artists, so you probably won't find Akon or U2 tunes on there.

SpiralFrog.com - A website where you can download a lot of the latest music content, completely free. It will be in the WMA format wrapped with DRM restrictions though, so you will have to convert it to .mp3 or AAC (the act of removing DRM is illegal though) before you transfer those songs to a portable music player such as an iPod. The catch is that when you go to their website, you'll be bombarded by loads of advertisements so that they can pay the artist's royalties. Although their business model is a bit sketchy, it is legal and totally free.

The good thing about this website is you get to download all the latest hits and music all for free. The only downside of downloading music from this website is that it is DRM protected. So you'll have to figure out how to get rid of DRM (which is illegal of course) in order to use it freely. You also need to sign up in order to use spiral frog's service.

Download.com Free MP3 music downloads - Another website where you can get free music, One thing you need to keep in mind is that the music they offer isn't necessarily popular. It's very unlikely that you'll probably find the latest Gwen Stefani song on here and the same goes for other popular artists. But if you are open to new kinds of music then why not give this website a try! If you are into other stuff like instrumental music, it's quite a great website.

Freeplaymusic.com - This is a great website for getting mostly instrumental songs. It's also a great site if you are looking for intro/outro music for your podcast. According to their site, all music is for personal use only, but I'm sure they'll let you use it in a podcast if you put in a plug for them.

Ruckus.com - A great way for students to download free music from up and coming artists. You'll need a .edu address from universities that have an agreement with Ruckus, and you can find a list of universities signed up on their articles page.

How to find out if someone is stealing your content

Have you ever wondered if someone is stealing all your posts and other content that you've published on the internet? Well, this post is all about finding out if someone is copying and pasting your content word for word. Plagiarism is not a great thing for your website because you might be loosing a lot of visitors and or revenue when someone else who has a higher pagerank/gets more visitors steals your content and posts it on their website. Even worse, someone else might be making money from the content that you worked hard to write and publish.

Here are a couple of tips on how to find the content stealing culprits!

Use Copyscape. Copyscape is a great little tool that auto-magically searches for content similiar to that of your website on other websites. All you need to do is mention the url of the website, after which copyscape will search the web for similar articles.

The only downside to this method is that if someone has rephrased some of the words in the article, copyscape might not be able to find it (you'll have to use the google method mentioned below). Another thing is that the free version will only show you a couple of websites that have plagarized content from your website, and not all the websites on the internet that have copied your content.Use Google. Yup, that's right, this wonderful search engine can also be utilized to search for copies of your posts. Here's how you can find out if someone else has similar posts. Take one of your post titles, or key sentences in posts that you might think are plagiarized and search for them on google. The trick here is to enclose the title or key phrases in quotations, so Google will only show those phrases and not phrases/titles related to the query. Here's an example:

Yes, in case you are wondering... that website pictured in the screenshot above stole my post =( !

Use digg.com/slashdot.com/shoutwire.com search. You'll be surprised how many websites out there copy your posts, submit it to digg, and get more visitors than you do. Many people have websites for the only one reason - making money. If a website gets dugg, it usually gets lot of visitors.

Even if it doesn't make it to the homepage of digg, there is a good chance that when someone searches for that particular phrase, they land up on the digg.com submission page and eventually visit the website (that stole your content) to see what the post is about. So, all you need to do is search for your title on digg, and if you find a website that has copied your post... bingo! You've found the content thief!

Check your web-analytics logs. Often you might have put a link to a post in your own website in one of your posts. Many you simply copy and paste also copy all the links in that post. This means that when a user clicks on one of your links, they'll be coming to your website. Most of the time all web statistic softwares will record this incoming link, and add the incoming entries to your log. So once in a while, simply browse through your logs and check for any websites that might have reposted your content.

If you use wordpress or any other CMS software, check any trackbacks, or incoming links that might help you find the website that is stealing your posts.

I'm sure, if you use these tips, it should be enough to catch anyone who is stealing your content and republishing it on their website. Once you've found out who is stealing your content... dealing with them is another long story, which I'll try to cover in some other post.

Sphere is here

Today I was just browsing through the net (just like any other day) and I realized that Google blogsearch wasn't the only one out there. First I must say that Sphere a San Fransisco based start up has a great site design, very intuitive and easily navigable and I absolutely love (well it's not perfect, but close enough) their gradient selection, it reminds me of the Visual Studio site. And by the looks of it since Google is looking out for more programmers I don't think their blog search is going to look as good as Sphere any time soon. The same goes for technorati, although technorati does seem to show only the most recent posts made by bloggers.

In ability to search through blogs is just as good. And I've actually got a couple of hits from Sphere already! Along with that all the posts are indexed from the past 4 months, so you can easily search through all the different posts I've put up. By default it only searches through the posts put up in the last week though however this can easily be changed by changing the setting to 'last four months'. Choosing the 'custom range' option is also a good way of getting more of what you want.

However, when I compared the search results with the Google Blogsearch Sphere didn't do all that well. For example I searched on 'iPod Shuffle Problems' one of the top posts in this blog on Blogsearch and my post was the 9th post. On Sphere it wasn't even there. Why? Because it wasn't indexed yet because this post was made a while ago... This experiment was also repeated on technorati (using normal settings) with similar results as Sphere, my post wasn't to be seen anywhere. Along with that for some reason technorati seemed to be down when I was trying to search.

So I guess it is safe to say that each have their own advantages and disadvantages... and Sphere might turn out to be the better one if they can do a great job of indexing (since right now they are out to get new servers I believe) and probably try to implement some light-weight AJAX (i.e. AJAX that doesn't take too much time to load) to give it a little web 2.0 pizzaz (but too much web 2.0 is bad as well). Therefore, right now I think Google Blogsearch is the best if you want to search through blogs in particular in general although results might vary.