Today was the first day, after using Wikipedia for ages I actually took the time to look at what the front page has to offer. I found separate part of Wikipedia named the Wikiversity. It contains many courses, lessons and whatnot on a load of subjects. From applied sciences to practical art, you will find a lot of things to read and do.

A particular one I found was the WikiU Film School Course. At first I though this would be a 30 minute read with explanations of the storyboard, camera angles and so on. I love film making so I delved in. There are 12 lessons, and after 30 minutes of glancing over (not even reading), I was still in the middle of lesson one.

These lessons also require you to do, not just to read, so in reality I would still be happily working on page one. Essentially the course takes you through one scene from pre-production to rolling out the film on your very own PC. Detailed is a huge understatement, but despite this, it doesn’t loose the fun factor. You will be doing activities, learning insider stuff all the way.

continue reading "Learn to be a master filmmaker with Wikiversity"

Picture this. You just moved house and are looking out for a little furniture to tide you over till you can afford to buy something new. Or, you have an old rocking chair you want to get rid of but no one seems to want it. The answer to both these problems is Freecycle.

Freecycle is the website for the Freecycle Network, which is made up of 4,342 groups with 4,921,000 members across the globe. The purpose of this network is that if you have something to give, there’s someone out there who wants it. The catch is that it has to be given for free.

How do you join? You start by finding a Freecycle group that’s close to your home. Then, you can join and post about whatever it is you want to give away. If you find an item you like and would want, you simply mail the owner and tell him you’re interested. It’s first come first serve so be quick.

continue reading "Get Things for Free at Freecycle"

Mind maps are said to be the most effective way to plan things because they follow your thinking better than any other method can. I have serious doubts about the global truth of that sentence, but true enough, at times it can prove pretty useful.

The great thing about a mind map is that it shows you the relationships between separate entities in your though process really well. It is in a form which you can overview and comprehend easily, even if you’re looking at someone else’s map. We have seen out share of offline mind maps, but bubbl.us has brought the technology to the web, injecting it with sharing goodness in the process.

In a very clean environment you can add balloons under or next to each other, create/delete links between them and change the layout and color in a jiffy. You can create a beautiful mind map in a few minutes, with lots of detail and value. The best part though is the ability to share them.

continue reading "Create mindmaps and share them online"

I’m always looking for good project management solutions, and so far I haven’t found one that fits my needs perfectly. Short of programming one for myself, I don’t think I (or anyone else) can find one I can just apply to my life. That said, ProjectOffice is a pretty good try at creating something actually Usable.

The app gives you project, task and resource management, a calendar, wiki projects and issues. I really love the way that it handles resources and issues. The reason I haven’t transfered my real work to an online app is that it is very rare that project management software supports adding someone t your team, without actually having them come and accept and then working with you inside the app. I don’t want to colaborate with my people through apps, I just want a way to track who’s doing what. ProjectOffice does require the name and email, but you can just enter a dummy email and you’re off.

Apart from that, issues is something that is very unique to this program, I may just start using this app because of this. The feature is very closely related to bug tracking, a special type of management module that programmers use.

continue reading "Manage projects online with ProjectOffice"

Our first anniversary is approaching fast and I thought it would be a nice idea to have a competition to celebrate this event. I hope we see lots of people participating in the competition. Let me give you a rough overview of what I have in mind:

Write an article for ghacks.net

Write an article that has a minimum of 200 words and submit it to my email address (will be listed at the end of the article). The article that you submitted will be posted on ghacks.net if it meets the guidelines (no spam, illegal, gambling, sex and the like). I will contact you asap if the article was rejected and will state the cause.

continue reading "Ghacks first Anniversary Competition"