Top 40 useful websites to learn new skills

Posted on by sahildua2305

Source: http://www.marcandangel.com/2010/05/24/top-40-useful-sites-to-learn-new-skills/

“Here are the top 40 sites I have personally used over the last few years when I want to learn something new.

 

Hack a Day – Hack a Day serves up fresh hacks (short tutorials) every day from around the web and one in-depth ‘How-To hack’ guide each week.

 

eHow – eHow is an online community dedicated to providing visitors the ability to research, share, and discuss solutions and tips for completing day-to-day tasks and projects.

 

Wired How-To Wiki – Collaborate with Wired editors and help them build their extensive library of projects, hacks, tricks and tips.  Browse through hundreds how-to articles and then add to them, or start a new one.

 

MAKE Magazine – Brings the do-it-yourself (DIY) mindset to all of the technology in your life.  MAKE is loaded with cool DIY projects that help you make the most of the technology you already own.

 

50 Things Everyone Should Know How To Do – While not totally comprehensive, here is a list of 50 things everyone should know how to do.  It’s a great starting point to learn new skills.

 

wikiHow – A user based collaboration to build and share the world’s largest, highest quality how-to manual.

 

Lifehacker – An award-winning daily blog that features tips, shortcuts, and downloads that help you get things done smarter and more efficiently.

 

100+ Google Tricks That Will Save You Time – Today, knowing how to use Google effectively is a vital skill.  This list links out to enough Google related resources to make you an elite Google hacker.

 

Instructables – Similar to MAKE, Instructables is a web-based documentation platform where passionate people share what they do and how they do it, and learn from and collaborate with others as the tackle new projects and learn new skills.

 

Merriam-Webster Online – In this digital age, your ability to communicate with written English is paramount skill.  And M-W.com is the perfect resource to improve your English now.

 

Lumosity – Learn to improve your memory by playing a series of fun and educational brain training games.

 

100 Skills Every Man Should Know – Another compilation article with instructions to help you learn new skills.  This one says it’s geared for men, but I think most of these skills are applicable to women as well.

 

5min Life Videopedia – Lot’s of great tutorials and DIY videos………”

Read More…

List of 101 most useful websites

Posted on by sahildua2305

Originally posted at: Monster Hub

List of 101 most useful websites:

01. screenr.com – record movies of your desktop and send them
straight to YouTube.

02. bounceapp.com – for capturing full length screenshots of web
pages.

03. goo.gl – shorten long URLs and convert URLs into QR codes.

04. untiny.me – find the original URLs that’s hiding behind a short
URLs.

05. localti.me – know more than just the local time of a city

06. copypastecharacter.com – copy-paste special characters that
aren’t on your keyboard.

07. topsy.com – a better search engine for twitter.

08. fb.me/AppStore – search iOS apps without launching iTunes.

09. iconfinder.com – the best place to find icons of all sizes.

10. office.com – download templates, clipart and images for your
Office documents.

11. woorank.com – everything you wanted to know about a website.

12. virustotal.com – scan any suspicious file or email attachment for
viruses.

13. wolframalpha.com – gets answers directly without searching
– see more wolfram tips.

14. printwhatyoulike.com – print web pages without the clutter.

15. joliprint.com – reformats news articles and blog content as a
newspaper.

16. isnsfw.com – when you wish to share a NSFW page but with a
warning.

17. e.ggtimer.com – a simple online timer for your daily needs.

18. coralcdn.org – if a site is down due to heavy traffic, try
accessing it through coral CDN.

19. random.org – pick random numbers, flip coins, and more.

20. mywot.com – check the trust level of any website – example.

21. viewer.zoho.com – Preview PDFs and Presentations directly in the
browser.

22. tubemogul.com – simultaneously upload videos to YouTube and other
video sites.

23. truveo.com – the best place for searching web videos.

24. scr.im – share you email address online without worrying about
spam.

25. spypig.com – now get read receipts for your email.

26. sizeasy.com – visualize and compare the size of any product.

27. whatfontis.com – quickly determine the font name from an image.

28. fontsquirrel.com – a good collection of fonts – free for personal
and commercial use.

29. regex.info – find data hidden in your photographs – see more EXIF
tools.

30. tineye.com – this is like an online version of Google Googles.

31. iwantmyname.com – helps you search domains across all TLDs.

32. tabbloid.com – your favorite blogs delivered as PDFs.

33. join.me – share you screen with anyone over the web.

34. onlineocr.net – recognize text from scanned PDFs and images – see
other OCR tools.

35. flightstats.com – Track flight status at airports worldwide.

36. wetransfer.com – for sharing really big files online.

37. pastebin.com – a temporary online clipboard for your text and
code snippets.

38. polishmywriting.com – check your writing for spelling or
grammatical errors.

39. awesomehighlighter.com – easily highlight the important parts of
a web page.

40. typewith.me – work on the same document with multiple people.

41. whichdateworks.com – planning an event? find a date that works
for all.

42. everytimezone.com – a less confusing view of the world time
zones.

43. warrick.cs.odu.edu – you’ll need this when your bookmarked web
pages are deleted.

44. gtmetrix.com – the perfect tool for measuring your site
performance online.

45. imo.im – chat with your buddies on Skype, Facebook, Google Talk,
etc. from one place.

46. translate.google.com – translate web pages, PDFs and Office
documents.

47. youtube.com/leanback – sit back and enjoy YouTube videos in
full-screen mode.

48. similarsites.com – discover new sites that are similar to what
you like already.

49. wordle.net – quick summarize long pieces of text with tag clouds.

50. bubbl.us – create mind-maps, brainstorm ideas in the browser.

51. kuler.adobe.com – get color ideas, also extract colors from
photographs.

52. followupthen.com – setup quick reminders via email itself.

53. lmgtfy.com – when your friends are too lazy to use Google on
their own.

54. tempalias.com – generate temporary email aliases, better than
disposable email.

55. pdfescape.com – lets you can quickly edit PDFs in the browser
itself.

56. faxzero.com – send an online fax for free – see more fax
services.

57. feedmyinbox.com – get RSS feeds as an email newsletter.

58. isendr.com – transfer files without uploading to a server.

59. tinychat.com – setup a private chat room in micro-seconds.

60. privnote.com – create text notes that will self-destruct after
being read.

61. flightaware.com – live flight tracking service for airports
worldwide.

62. boxoh.com – track the status of any shipment on Google Maps –
alternative.

63. chipin.com – when you need to raise funds online for an event or
a cause.

64. downforeveryoneorjustme.com – is your favourite site really
offline?

65. example.com – this website can be used as an example in
documentation.

66. whoishostingthis.com – find the web host of any website.

67. google.com/history – found something on Google but can’t remember
it now?

68. errorlevelanalysis.com – find whether a photo is real or a
photoshopped one.

69. google.com/dictionary – get word meanings, pronunciations and
usage examples.

70. urbandictionary.com – find definitions of slangs and informal
words.

71. seatguru.com – consult this site before choosing a seat for your
next flight.

72. sxc.hu – download stock images absolutely free.

73. imo.im – chat with your buddies on Skype, Facebook, Google Talk,
etc. from one place.

74. wobzip.org – unzip your compressed files online.

75. vocaroo.com – record your voice with a click.   The 101
Most Useful Websites  4

76. scribblemaps.com – create custom Google Maps easily.

77. buzzfeed.com – never miss another Internet meme or viral video.

78. alertful.com – quickly setup email reminders for important
events.

79. encrypted.google.com – prevent your ISP and boss from reading
your search queries.

80. formspring.me – you can ask or answer personal questions here.

81. snopes.com – find if that email offer you received is real or
just another scam.

82. typingweb.com – master touch-typing with these practice sessions.

83. mailvu.com – send video emails to anyone using your web cam.

84. ge.tt – quickly send a file to someone, they can even preview it
before downloading.

85. timerime.com – create timelines with audio, video and images.

86. stupeflix.com – make a movie out of your images, audio and video
clips.

87. aviary.com/myna – an online audio editor that lets you record and
remix audio clip.

88. noteflight.com – print music sheets, write your own music online
(review).

89. disposablewebpage.com – create a temporary web page that
self-destruct.

90. namemytune.com – when you need to find the name of a song.

91. homestyler.com – design from scratch or re-model your home in 3d.

92. snapask.com – use email on your phone to find sports scores, read
Wikipedia, etc.

93. teuxdeux.com – a beautiful to-do app that resembles a paper
dairy.

94. livestream.com – broadcast events live over the web, including
your desktop screen.

95. bing.com/images – automatically find perfectly-sized wallpapers
for mobiles.

96. historio.us – preserve complete web pages with all the
formatting.

97. dabbleboard.com – your virtual whiteboard.

98. whisperbot.com – send an email without using your own account.

99. sumopaint.com – an excellent layer-based online image editor.

100. lovelycharts.com – create flowcharts, network diagrams,
sitemaps, etc.

101. nutshellmail.com – Get your Facebook and Twitter streams in your
inbox

My timepass when SPOJ server was down!

Posted on by sahildua2305

Hey there!

I hope you enjoyed my last post about How I managed to download profile pictures of my facebook friends.

So, just like other normal days, when I am extremely into solving SPOJ problems one after another. And suddenly this happened!

There is a problem with SPOJ and their judge is down. Hence we are not able to process your submissions. We are looking into this.

— CodeChef (@codechef) September 6, 2014

 

spoj

All of the websites based on SPOJ(CodeChef, Ideone etc.) were down consequently. I had just submitted my solution to a problem on SPOJ and I was yet to see the results of my submission. But it was down for long time enough to make me bore.

I was continuously refreshing the SPOJ website to know its status. Since, like all other programmers, I am also very lazy and believe in automating most of the boring tasks of life. I thought of automating this task as well!

Here is how I did it:

import requests
import winsound
from time import sleepcount=0
while(1):
response = requests.get(‘http://spoj.com/ ‘)
count+=1
if len(response.content) != 231:
winsound.Beep(200,5000)
print “Number of times checked: “+str(count)
break
print “Number of times checked: “+str(count)
sleep(10)

 

This was the script that I wrote in just 15 minutes and automated the task of checking whether SPOJ website was up or not yet.

How does this work:

It keeps making HTTP requests to the SPOJ website and returns the response. Since SPOJ website wasn’t down on server so the HTTP request to website wasn’t returning any error code. So, it was really hard to detect whether site is up or not. So, what I did was – noted down the length of the return content when the website was down. It was just 231 chars down(which mainly included the html code for their error message). So using this number, I put a check on the number of chars in return content of HTTP call that whenever the number of chars in this response will be more than 231, it will make my system beep for the given number of seconds(milliseconds actually) once the website is UP.

Here is the Github Repo where I have committed the entire code that I used to serve this purpose. You can fork it and play around it as you want.

For feedback/suggestions/feature-requests, tweet me @sahildua2305 #SPOJtimepass

This is how I downloaded profile pics of my Facebook friends using Graph API

Posted on by sahildua2305

Hey there !

A few days ago, my friend Hasil wrote a python script to post “Thank you” comments on B’day posts automaticlly using Facebook Graph API. It suddenly arose my interest in Graph API. And, after having developed applications(small/mid level) based on more than 8 APIs till the moment, it was just another API that I was going to work with; But the most complicated one I have ever worked with. So let me share my experience with you all, hope you guys will enjoy it, I surely did enjoy learning and using it.

What is Graph API?

Facebook Graph API

Graph API is HTTP based API(Application Processing Interface), that allows developers to send GET and POST requests to Facebook servers for data exchanging.

HTTP is a standard web protocol that is used all over the world and most of web applications for fetching and sending data to a remote server, of which GET and POST are two defined ways to work with data.

Graph API is HTTP based and hence helps us in fetching,GET request and posting, POST request from Facebook servers really easily without going into complex process underneath and any programming language which has support for these two requests can be used. But Python is my choice of language for some obvious reasons 😉

For identifying these GET/POST requests uniquely for each developer, Facebook uses an access token and all the requests are uniquely identified by Facebook server using this token only. We will shortly get to know how to get the unique access token. So let’s get started.

Getting Acess Token:

As mentioned earlier, everytime we send request(GET/POST) to Facebook, we need to use access token for Facebook servers to identify us as a unique developer. Generating an access token is really easy. Just follow the following simple steps:

  • Open Graph API explorer and click on Graph API Explorer. Now, click on Get Access Token and tick all the options that come under your set of requirement from Graph API. (PS: you can tick all the options including the ones in Extended Permissions)
  • A really long random code will be generated and that’s our access token which is required to work with this amazing Graph API.

Fetching Details of Friends with Script:

For making HTTP requests to Facebook servers, I am going to use Python module Requests. It makes our life really easy(one of the reasons that Python is the language of my choice).

import requests
import json
token = ‘ ‘ # paste the access token that you got in last step, here.
api_url = “https://graph.facebook.com/v2.1/ “
params = {‘access_token’ : token}
call = “me/friends?fields=picture.width(9999).height(9999).type(large),gender,name”
response = requests.get(api_url + call, params=params)
r = (json.loads(response.content))

And the output will be some JSON encoded object returning the information about your friends. Now you just need to read the JSON object and use information about each of your friends one by one.

Downloading Profile Pictures from the information extracted:

Now, that we have extracted all the information about friends, next job will be to perform download action on profile picture of everyone. Just create a folder in the main directory where your python script is saved, named ‘images’.

import urllib2
for f in r[‘data’]:
p_url = str(f[‘picture’][‘data’][‘url’])
urlopener1 = urllib2.build_opener()
page1 = opener1.open(p_url)
my_picture = page1.read()filename = f[‘name’]+”_”+f[‘id’]+”.jpg”
print filename+” downloaded…”
fout = open(‘images/’+filename, “wb”)
fout.write(my_picture)
fout.close()

Now you can check your images folder. It will have all the downloaded profile pictures of your friends.

That’s it. It may seem to be complicated at first, but you can open Graph API explorer at any point of time and understand how things are working.

Here is the Github Repo where I have committed the entire code that I used to download profile pics of my facebook friends. You can fork it and play around it as you want.

For feedback/suggestions/feature-requests, tweet me @sahildua2305 #FBtrick

How I developed my most-famous self-project in just 3 hours!!!

Posted on by sahildua2305

How I developed my most-famous self-project in just 3 hours!!!

I am going to write about my journey to develop my most-famous self-project — MySpeed Application.

MySpeed Application

Here’s how I started writing code that night —

On a crazy night, I was being extra-innovative and mad for developing something cool. I was searching APIs to use and create something awesome and innovative out of them. Suddenly I thought about how the internet speed testing websites work and became curious in running internet speed tests via API. I started searching for Internet Speed Testing API. I found a couple of them but which were completely redundant.

Finally, I came across this one which made my night! SpeedOf.Me They are the only service providers which provide internet speed testing services without any adobe flash(completely HTML5). They had their API in JavaScript language only(which isn’t generally my stronger part). But I was fascinated enough by the API scope that I was compelled to develop a web-app surrounding the API.

I, actually started coding at 2:10 am, 31st July. Starting from the basic rest running script to the pre-final draft of the web-app that had just a couple of HTML elements(a couple of tables and some chunk of text).

What did I want to make—

By this time, I had entire idea of what I wanted to make. I wanted to develop an app that will let users run internet speed tests, find out their download & upload speeds and the most importantly — will tell them their global rank based on previous results.

What I ended up developing—

After coding continuously for about 3 hours – at 5:00 am, I was ready with the Beta version of the app. I thought a little about the name, and decided to name it MySpeed Application.

By that time, I was already running late. But I needed a lot of people to test the app that I had created just out of my curiosity. So, that was the time to act a little bit devil! I mailed the link with description of the application to the mail list of PicsMashup. Acting a little smarter, I scheduled the mails to go at 12:15 am — just to make sure it reach out to maximum people. But, all in vain! Not even a single person opened the email(except me of course). But, I knew it was the fault of the title that I chose for the email not the application itself. So, to attract people to validate the idea and test the beta application, I shared it with all of my social networks and sat back calmly to see results. The results were astonishing. I got more than 80 unique(IP) users within next 24 hours. Nonetheless, 400+ visitors!

Current Scenario—

Till the moment of writing this article, MySpeed Application has got more than 150+ unique testers and 1.5k+ visits on the web-app. I keep on improving it and adding new features to the app as much as I can get time from my super-tight schedule.

For feedback/suggestions/feature-requests, tweet me @sahildua2305#MySpeed

Node.js: does it have any future?

Posted on by sahildua2305

Altabel Group's Blog

Within a short period of time since its initial release in late 2009, Node.js has gained the interest of thousands of experienced developers, grown a package manager and a corpus of interesting modules and applications, and even became the reason for a number of startups to appear. You may have heard about node.js, or read articles claiming how great it is; you may have even read some technically focused explanations on why it is so good.

So let’s try to understand what it is about this technology that makes it interesting to developers. And what the commercial pluses of adopting Node.js when developing and deploying web applications.

I’ve carefully look through a number of forums and experts’ opinions in these regards. Below you could find some main reason why it is worth to use Node.js.

* Node.js is a platform for writing high-performance, scalable web applications and network programs in…

View original post 506 more words

Glorious Success

Posted on by sahildua2305

It was Matric Examination Results (PSEB), 2009. One day before the announcement of results, in the early morning, my father asked-“beta kya hone waala hai kal?? merit list (Top 1%)  mein aa toh jaayega naa??“. I had no answer, just nodded with a silence. Mom & Dad then got to go to some relatives. My younger brother & me were alone at home.

In the afternoon, door-bell rang!! I opened the door, and what i saw was a completely unknown person to me, rushing happily into the house. Before I could ask him anything, he congratulated me introduced himself as a Press Reporter from daily newspaper “Dainik Jagran” and asked me to ask my father to come. I had no idea whats going on. I told him that Mom & Dad werent at home. Seeing my totally confused face, he started speaking and thereby making me more & more confused!!

He said-“teri punjab mein first position aayi hai!!!!!” I was like “ye banda pagal ho gya h kya!! ya fir galat address pe aa gya hai!!”. I wasnt ready to believe what he was saying. But finally he convinced me that I was the person securing Rank#1 in Punjab. I was in a condition like “tum kon ho aur main kon hu aur kahaan huu main abhi 😛 “. Then he called my Dad to tell him the good news. He was overjoyed as expected. Mom-Dad headed to home as quickly as possible with just a little bit of sweets because even they were not confident about that news.

For the first time in my life, I felt that my parents were happy because of me. This made my success even more enjoyable and proudy one too 😉 . Then there was my first interview. After that it was like “one goes, other comes”. There were several interviews of mine & my parents.

Here are some pics of those wonderful moments when i was rewarded for my “glorious success”…….

100_2735DSC_0039

2 Years Spent in Chandigarh- The City Beautiful

Posted on by sahildua2305

I am from Tanda Urmar, Punjab. After having my matric standard education in 2009 in a local school there, it was time to head towards IIT & AIEEE preparations. Due to some delay in decision regarding this, I began my competitive preparation at FIITJEE, Chandigarh centre in 2010. There I joined week-end program so as to keep my 12th studies at par with that of competitive study. I used to go to Chandigarh every Saturday early morning and then return on Sunday evening. Yeah, it was a very hectic and boring schedule.

But the only thing that was fascinating me during that time interval was Chandigarh City! Chandigarh’ Open Roads! Chandigarh’s Beauty! Chandigarh’s Open Minded People! Those OTDIs running endlessly on those open roads! That staring at attractive Girls! It was an endless Attraction!!! ❤ ❤ (still under its influence :P)

Coming to study part which was my aim behind coming Chandigarh- in earlier days I was not able to understand even a single thing that teachers used to narrate in the class. But it didnt take me much time to come into my own colors! In the meanwhile, I got some new friends as expected.

  • Bharat Bajaj- got selected in IIT with AIR 1073. Doing chemical engg. at IIT Delhi.
  • Ankit- got AIR 12000 in AIEEE. Doing CSE at NIT Kurukshetra
  • Hasil Sharma- got 308 in BITSAT. Doing chem. engg. at BITS Pilani.

And now its my turn to declare what did i get!!

Results didnt go in my favour!! I was thrown completely out of track!!

I didnt get selected for IIT. In AIEEE too, I was unable to justify my talent that had made me Punjab Board State Topper once in Matric Standard!

Then the biggest question was what to do now? The options available with me were- either to take admission in a low standard college or to put a break and prepare for IIT again!

And obviously the decision was very tough! Some of my Father’s friends advised him not to let me drop a year. Yes, It was risky- Infact very risky! But I was not in mood of joining the college that I deserved at that time. I got struck to my decision of preparing for IIT again!! And my father too agreed with me!! I joined AAKASH Institute, Chandigarh centre.

This was the turning point in my life. I had to go to Chandigarh again, but this time with some strong determination. I wanted to prove those relatives and my father’s friends wrong who had scolded them for the decision of Drop! There I started my preparations at the speed of light and decided to continue at the same pace throughout the year. Soon I was An Apple Of my teachers Eyes! In the meanwhile I got a few new friends- Mani, Sarbjeet, Dilsher, Mehak, Tamanna, Komal & some hostelers- Aakash, Manpreet, Aarush, Devan, Ishaan &  few more…..

Throughout the year, I studied and for the first time in my life enjoyed studying!! In hostel we had many occasional parties too. We had alot of fun & mastii meanwhile!!!

The whole year went well. Finally it was time of Exam- the long awaited moment! It was 8th April, 2012. But unfortunately it was not my day again! I made a lot of mistakes and after the exam I could easily find out that the only hope i had was AIEEE. Then i put even more efforts in its preparation. This time I made it!!!! Exam went enough good that i was able to see a clear future through thick forests!!

After results the value of a year dropped came out to be AIR IIT-5408 & AIR AIEEE 3128. It made my way clear to Punjab’s best engineering college- PEC, Chandigarh. But then I came to know about some more colleges that were in my easy reach with a brilliant rank in AIEEE including DTU, NIT Allahabad, NIT jaipur, IIIT heydrabad & NSIT. During this, I was offered Mining Engineering at IIT-BHU. I declined the offer! Then the only thing I had to do was to wait for the conselling results. I wanted to join a good college in Delhi. But my parents wanted me to join PEC. I remember exactly that it was 29th july 2012, when counselling results for PEC were announced. And I got CSE there. I went there acc. to parents wish and made registration and did other official formalities. But it was decided that if ever I get a chance to join DTU or NSIT, I would withdraw my admission at PEC. And luckily that day was 31th July 2012. Yes, just two days later my wish came true! then there was literally nothing more to think about. I packed my luggage, got my documents ready & headed to Delhi.

And here it comes, finally I was in My Dream City- DELHI….. btw i m still here. enough for now. will share further experiences later.