Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Google voice on iphone by HTML-5

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iPhone/Palm Pre: Apple and/or AT&T don't want the Google Voice service to have its own iPhone app, and we think that stinks. Google is finally releasing the next best thing: a mobile site that basically replicates a dedicated Google Voice app.

 

The big advantage of Google's new Voice app (which is already showing up for Voice users at Lifehacker HQ) is the direct contact access. Rather than having to store secondary numbers or use the somewhat old-school-looking Voice mobile site to pull up your contacts, Google Voice's new webapp provides super-quick, as-you-type access to your Google Contacts. The interface is similar to what you see when you visit Voice in a full browser, with the same mobile look and feel as Gmail, Reader, and other products have recently received.

 

 

When you dial, it's not the familiar experience of having Google Voice call you, then call the other person—it's a direct dial to that person, probably using those same secondary numbers Google seems to have stockpiles of.

You'll want to make sure your phone's contacts are synced up with Google if you're keen on using Google's Voice app. It's a free service, and requires a Google Voice account (which we hear they're giving out more regularly).

If you're already seeing the new Google Voice app in your iPhone or Pre browser, tell us what you think in the comments.

Google Voice [via Gizmodo]
Google Voice for iPhone and Palm WebOs [Google Voice Blog]

Send an email to Kevin Purdy, the author of this post, at kevin@lifehacker.com.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Make FKN money before you Die! for real.

Do you want to make extra money? I believe knowing a few ways to supplement your income won’t hurt. You might not need them now, but when you needed them it’s nice to know the available options.

Extra money onlineThere are many ways to earn extra income, but here I make a few restrictions to prevent this post from being too broad:

  1. I only cover how to make extra money online. This way you can work wherever you are in your spare time.
  2. I only cover ways to make money in relatively short time. I don’t include anything that takes weeks or months to get results. That’s why I don’t cover things like blogging or revenue sharing with article sites (because building the necessary traffic could take a long time). On the flip side, most of the ways I discuss here won’t give you passive income. They require you to actively work to earn.

For each of the ways I’m about to share, I list some relevant web sites you can use. I don’t test all of them, so please read their terms before you decide to use them.

Without further ado, here are 9 ways to make extra money online:

1. Writing

Writing is a popular way to earn side income. The world is always hungry for good content and if you have writing skills you will find many opportunities online. Here are some sites that offer article writing jobs:

You can also write tutorials. Tutorials are more difficult to write than ordinary articles since they contain step-by-step guide on a topic. But they also pay more. The sites below pay between $150 to $300 for each published tutorial:

2. Designing

Graphic design skill has a lot of demand these days. You could design logos, posters, or even entire web sites. Browse the sites below to find design jobs:

3. Programming

Do you know how to program? Then what about taking some programming jobs online? You can find them at:

4. Tutoring

If you liked to teach then online tutoring is perhaps the way to go. The nice thing here is you don’t need to physically go to a certain place to tutor. You can do it in the comfort of your home. Here are some web sites that offer the opportunity:

5. Selling stock photos

Many people like photography. If you happen to be one of them, why don’t you sell your photos for profit? These sites help you sell your photos:

6. Microworking

With microworking, you make money by doing simple tasks that you can usually finish in a few minutes. They pay you a little for each completed task, but because the tasks are simple, you could complete a lot of tasks in a day. Here are two sites for microworking:

7. Selling stuff

Obviously, you can make money by selling stuff. Do you have items in your home you no longer need? Other people may want to buy them from you. Just list them at:

On the other hand, you can also sell your own creations. They could be T-shirts, post cards, bags, and pretty much anything you can imagine. Here are some places to sell them:

8. Website flipping

If you’re good at making web sites, you can sell them for profit. It could make you more than $100 for a few hours of work. Here are two popular places for website flipping:

9. Translating

Do you master foreign languages? If you do then translating is something you might want to consider. There are a lot of translation jobs online. Here are some sites that offer them:

***

In addition to the specialized sites listed above, there are sites that offer opportunities in more than one category. Browse them to find various opportunities:

Do you know other ways to make extra money online? Feel free to share them in the comments.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Makthe Most of Chrome with These 13 Excellent Extensionse

 

 

Shortly after Google Chrome's Extensions gallery opened, we rounded up 18 worthy downloads. Now that Chrome's official add-on market has matured a bit, we've dug up more productive, annoyance-fixing, feature-adding extensions that you should consider adding to your collection.

At this point, extensions for Google Chrome work on the Beta and Dev channels for Windows, the Beta for Linux, or the dev channel for Macs. If an extension doesn't work across all platforms, we've noted it at the front of each description.

Checkers & notifiers

Google Mail Checker Plus: There are tons of Gmail and Google Apps checkers in the extensions gallery. So why this one? First off, it handles both standard Gmail and (multiple) Google Apps accounts. Second, its roll-down mail notifier lets you actually act on the messages it shows—archive, delete, spam, mark as read, or reply. Third, if you don't ever want to open the Gmail tab, that's fine—you can read the whole message in the checker window. Fourth, and finally, it offers a wide range of icon styles to choose from, so it meshes with whatever Chrome theme and OS you've got going. Best of class.

Google Calendar Popout:As with Google Mail Checker, this is one of many Google Calendar extensions to choose from. The version made by Google offers a little button badge showing you the time until your next appointment, but for those with multiple calendars, it's a bit annoying, because it only picks up appointments from the primary/personal calendar. This model simply rolls down a mini-calendar (which you can turn off in the options), shows color-coded appointments, and offers the Create Event and Quick Add links that GCal addicts depend on.

One Number: This one's simple. If you're a Google fiend who doesn't want blow-by-blow pings and notifiers, One Number combines all your Google app notifications into one handy window. (Original post)

Annoyance fixers & site improvers

Better Gmail: Our own How-To Geek had previously rounded up a Better Gmail for Chrome to complement the popular Firefox extension, but Chrome's extension system and script support has changed quite a bit since then. A very helpful coder rounded up scripts that are still working into another Better Gmail extension, one that includes a lot of the things we like to see available: folder hierarchies, mouse-over row highlighting, footer appending, and much more.

Clickable Links: Forums, blog comments, really old sites—they're full of links written out in text, asking the reader to precisely copy and load the text in their address bar. This extension updates those annoyingly non-interactive links to the modern day.

A Bit Better RTM: It simply tweaks, improves, and makes shortcut-friendly the Remember the Milk webapp for the convenience of serious task management. Based on the popular Greasemonkey script, Bit Better moves your list tabs to the left, lets you hide lists you hardly ever look at, and makes nearly every action do-able from a keyboard. It does those things and more from the background, too, so that's one less taskbar button to deal with. (Original post)

VidzBigger: This two-for-one add-on reconfigures the layout of YouTube, MetaCafe, and DailyMotion to make the actual videos the (larger) star of the page, and also adds a download link whenever possible to your viewing screen. You can also scroll related videos without having to move your video out of place, which is just the thing for ... terribly unproductive web video binges. Sigh. (Original post)

Other cool stuff

IE Tab: Windows only: As you might expect, IE Tab isjust like its Firefox counterpart: It renders the web page you're looking at in a separate tab, using Windows' built-in Internet Explorer rendering engine. Helpful for developers, and those 476 remaining sites that refuse to accept any browser except IE.

Session Manager:Chrome can automatically pick up your tabs where you left off, and offers a decent tab and web history from its "new tab page." If you tend to open tabs in batches, though, or don't always want to pick up exactly the way you left it, adding Session Manager to Chrome is a nice time saver. Open up a batch of tabs, save them to a new session name, and you're up and running. (Original post)

Everymark: An extension after our own hearts, mostly because these hearts love the light-speed-quick Everything search engine for Windows. Everymark aims to provide that same type of as-you-type convenience for your local bookmarks. Chrome's own OmniBar (that's "address bar," for those who don't buy into Google's super-hype terminology) does a decent job of pulling up bookmarks that you're typing for, but Everymark searches the name, the URL, the date modified, and folder names, all at once.

WOT (Web of Trust):This one showed up in early form, but now ranks as one of the best sanctioned extensions to tell you more about where you're going on the internet. Using WOT's research and input from the community, the extension shows you the trustworthiness of whatever page you're looking at, and provides a link to the rating page with more information.

Firebug Lite: In the hearts and minds of developers who love Firebug, nothing can replace it. But this is a noble first attempt for the Chrome-using set. It comes from the same development team, and it's basically a JavaScript file, molded into an extension, that emulates some of the Firebug features that let you watch in real time as you change a site's code.

uTorrent for Google Chrome: Are you a uTorrent fan who's also a Chrome user? Install this little add-on to your browser and, using the awesomeness of uTorrent's WebUI, you can remotely control your BitTorrent downloads from anywhere in the world (that has web access). uTorrent itself is only for Windows and Mac systems right now, but this extension can be used anywhere Chrome extensions are allowed.


What extensions have made their way into your must-have list, or just your Chrome taskbar for now? Tell us, and link, your favorite finds in the comments.