5 Useful Internet Tools For Web Junkies
5 Useful Internet Tools looks at web applications that Internet users may find useful. These tools aid you in various tasks, from storing information to specific web searches and reminding you that your Internet time for the day is up. The usefulness of the tools depends largely on how you are using the Internet. If you spend all of your time on Facebook, then you probably won't have much use for most of the apps, if you are however an active user, one who frequents many sites and actively contributes, then those tools are more likely for you.
HTML Entities Converter
HTML Entities, what's that again? It can happen that you want to post HTML Code, or any other code for that matter, on a website. You want to post that code, not execute it. It now depends on the website how the code is interpreted. It should be displayed and not executed, but some websites execute the code nevertheless. Instead of showing <font size="20px">Hi</font> it shows the text Hi in a font size of 20 pixels. The HTML Entities Converter converts code into a format that is not interpreted as code on websites.
Just paste your code into the form on the page and click the Make Code button afterwards to turn the code into text that is not interpreted by websites as code. (link)
Word Count Tool
Counting words may not always be important, considering that many services such as Twitter do that for you. If you write articles on the other hand you might want to count the words. Maybe you get paid per word, or you want to make sure that the word count does not exceed a limit.
The Word Count Tool counts the words of text that is pasted into its form.
Just paste the text into the form and click on the Submit button to get an exact word count seconds later. (link)
Creative Commons Search
The majority of contents on the Internet are not free to use. You can get into serious legal trouble if you use images, text or media without the permission of the copyright holder. An exception to that are contents that have been published under a CC license as they usually allow you to use them on the Internet.
The Creative Commons search engine crawls the web for those contents. Say you need a photo of a car or location to post on your website, blog or Facebook page. You can use the search engine to find that photo and use it even if you do not have the written permission to do so.
The search engine supports Google web search, Google Images, Flickr, Blip.tv, Jamendo, SpinExpress and Wikimedia Commons.
It is still recommended to verify the Creative Commons license before you start using the media. It is also fairly common that attribution is a condition for the license which basically means that you need to attribute the work to the original creator or website. (link)
Online Alarm
An online alarm may be helpful if you want to be notified at a later time, for instance that your tea is ready, that you have to shut down the computer now because you need to go to work or a meeting, or that your break is over and it is time to continue working.
Kuku Klok is a Flash based online alarm that runs in the background, provided that the web browser and page stay open. You can set the alarm and pick one of the available alarm sounds that include traditional sounds, a Slayer guitar riff and military trumpets. Should be something for everyone. (link)
Short Text
With Short Text it is possible to save text on the Internet. The text becomes available under its own web address, which could be handy for several purposes, like posting to Twitter or saving text in the cloud.
It does not seem possible to delete text once it has been posted though. (link)
Which useful Internet tools are you using? Let everyone know in the comments.
Text can be set as private, comments can be allowed, it is possible to use rich text and to link videos or images.
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Word counting can be better achieved using a script such as this one:
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/3083
This will show you your character count on any website simply by mouse over.
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Interesting, thanks a lot.
Hm… intresting, i’ll try alarm :)
My favourite online tools (not counting the usual suspects such as Google, Youtube, Wiki etc.) are:
– Doodle: Easily arrange times for meetings, parties etc.
– Virustotal: For a quick scan of the suspicious .exe no matter which computer I’m on.
– 10 minute mail: It is… a 10 minute mail! In case you just need a mail for sign-up + confirmation mail but don’t want to risk a lot of ensuing spam.
– Print what you like: Lets you create a bookmarklet that cuts away all the unneccesary gunk on a web page when you wish to print the page.
Not sure how link embedding works in these comments, so you’ll have to work the Google-machine if some of my proposals sound interesting ;)
Virustotal is indispensable, the other’s are nice as well.