All Ping

Google and Bing/Yahoo are not fans of people who copy content. This is because copying the work of another person without their permission is an infringement of their copyright. Google and Bing/Yahoo do not have the time to check to see who has permission to use some content and who does not, so they class most forms of duplication as bad (except for legitimate sharing). Google have also made it clear that they do not like duplicate content because it does not offer any use for the user. Copying the content of another person is no better than changing the front cover of a book and publishing it again. 

What Google would like to avoid is a situation when people search for something, they look at the first result and read it, and then look at the second search result and see that it is the same as the first. If this started happening on a regular basis then people would start using other search engines to find their results. That is why Google has a very low tolerance for duplicate content. Here are ten online tools you can use to check for online content, but they are in no particular order.

Similar-page-checker

From the world of uncreative tool naming comes “Similar-page-checker” allows you to see how closely your pages are similar to the pages of others. It scores you with a percentage on how similar your content is to another person’s.

Plagium

This is a plagiarism detector that allows you to run duplication checks online. It is a tool that uses an algorithm to check the words on your website against the words on another website. If they match in a certain pattern (or a lot) then it will alert you to the possible duplication.

Plagiarisma

Another tool with an uninspired name, this tool will check your content to see if it has been copied online. It is good at checking files other than web pages, such as documents files.

Duplicate-content

This will show you any issues it thinks you have with duplication and runs a duplication analysis. It shows you corrections and penalties for copying.

Articlechecker

This is another web paged duplication checker that focuses on large chunks of text. It runs a duplication check by searching for similar content line by line. You can scan a page of your website and see if anyone has copied it.

Dupefreepro

This is a plagiarism checker that will highlight if your website has any duplicate content or not. You run the duplicate checker and if another website has similar content to you then it will tell you and give you an idea of how much has been copied.

The Google search engine itself

This can check your content for you, just copy and paste a line or two into the search engine. You may get numerous results so try putting portions in quotation marks. You can check every three or four lines to see if another person has copied you.

Copyscape

This tool will allow you to check your website for plagiarism. You can run five free searches online to check to see if your web pages have been copied online by someone else. This tool also comes with other features. You can copy and paste some text into a box and run a check to see if it has been copied online. Or you can run a check on numerous documents to see if it has been copied. You can also set up a copySentry to alert you if your web content has suddenly been copied by another person.

The Yahoo/Bing search engine itself

You can do with Yahoo/Bing what you can do with Google. Every few lines you can take a bit of text and put it into the search engine. If you pick parts of the text that do not have punctuation then you may have more luck. If your words have been coped verbatim, then there is a chance that a search engine will show you it.

Duplichecker

This is actually a free tool that you can use to avoid a bit of plagiarism. You can check your web content with that of other websites. The limitation with this is that the website and web content has to have been crawled by Google, although this is the case with a lot of plagiarism tools.

Mozilla is off to a good start converting regular web users into web makers. Webmaker tools are a great resource for aspiring developer and designers who want to take the next big step in learning and building.

This post will take a brief look at three Mozilla Web Maker Tools, respectively Thimble, X-Ray Goggles, and Popcorn Maker. These three tools will allow you to learn how to code, inspect the codes of other already-built sites and produced mashup of videos.

Thimble’s editor is far from a traditional full-fledged editor. It has simple tools like the syntax hints helper, spell checker, preview and text sizes, probably a good tool for beginner-level designers and developers.

Thimble’s hints popup, another wonderful feature for beginners lets the user view some useful hints and information when editing or viewing a line of code or certain CSS/HTML element.

Thimble also makes it easy to publish your creations and share them with friends.

The publish feature gives you two links: one, for sharing with all your friends and followers and two, for editing published projects in the future. In the publish project popup there is also a tab to share your project on Google, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

X-Ray Goggles

To learn coding, sometimes you have to look at how other sites are coded. Mozilla Webmaker’s X-Ray Goggles, when activated, lets you inspect the code behind any web page anywhere from Hongkiat.com to your own blog.

It work’s basically like the browser’s inspect tool but with fewer features. Installing it is as easy as drag-an-dropping it into the browser’s bookmark bar. After you install it, you can use Goggles on whichever website you browse in the future.

To use Goggles, type in the URL of the website in which you would like to inspect. The default Goggles URL displays to you a basic webpage with an image embedded on it.

Goggles also has a handy built in editor so you can remix and adapt the webpage live in Goggles, and see the changes right before your eyes. Goggles also allows you to publish your remixed and created work in Goggles basically the same way that Thimble does. Just make sure the content you are remixing is not copyrighted.

Popcorn Maker

Popcorn Maker makes it easy to enhance, remix and share web media and video. Start it up, type in a video URL of HTML5, Youtube, Vimeo, or Soundcloud.

This is where the fun starts to happen; you can then remix the videos by adding elements and media features on your sidebar by dragging and dropping to the appropriate timeframe of the video

Everyone who works on a computer would know that it’s not easy to concentrate on work the entire time. This is especially apparent when working on your own computer where there’s no network restrictions to what websites you can visit, giving you the ease of access to social networks, non-work related news websites or watching tech channels on YouTube.

Doing any of the above distracts you, wastes time and ultimately you won’t be able to focus on your work, be it working at home or in an office environment. So here are a few apps that we think couldhelp you focus and concentrate better. Although you may not like the idea of installing some of these apps, but giving it a try won’t hurt if you want to up your performance at work.

Distractions Be Gone

Here are some tools for your web browsers to help you stick around in sites that take up all your valuable time. Installing these tools means you’ll be blocked from your favourite websites until work time is over.

1. StayFocusd

[Chrome Extension] StayFocusd is an extension for your Google Chrome browser that limits the amount of minutes spent on a list of ‘blocked sites’ determined by you. You can set the maximum allowed time per day for every blocked site and once you’ve used all of it, you won’t be able to access the sites until the daily reset time or when the active period (for example: 9am – 5pm) is over.

Once the timer is running, accessing these options is not easy as they require you to type in a paragraph of text without a single mistake. There’s also a Nuclear option for those desperate times for urgent deadlines – all blocked sites will be disabled and only sites on the Allowed list can be accessed (take note of all possible sites you could possible need before you turn this on). If you find yourself surfing on Facebook too often, you need this.

2. LeechBlock

[Firefox Add-on] Here’s one for Firefox. Like StayFocusd, LeechBlock has options like blocking sites for a set period of time, limiting the amount of minutes online in a day, and setting which day LeechBlock will be automatically enabled. They also allow you to redirect these blocked sites to a predefined page or just make it load really, really slow.

Once these options are set, you can prevent access to the settings. Parents can also set a password so their child will not be able to access it, or hide it from the Add-ons manager so it’s harder for them to find and disable it. They also give different sets of sites that you can block. These presets make it easy for you to block a set of sites while allowing another block for the same period of time.

Work & Play Balance

Balance is important, so give yourself a small reward when a job is finished. A small reward could be some time off work to read your favorite magazine or 5 minutes of surfing social networks after 25 minutes of non-stop work (read: Pomodoro technique).

3. Strict Workflow

[Chrome Extension] Strict Workflow is a Google Chrome extension that allows you to concentrate on work for a certain amount of time then reward you later on. It helps you concentrate by blocking a list of websites for a fixed period of time. Once that is over, it’ll unblock those sites to give you a break from work, then block it again after the break time is over.

All you have to do is list down websites which you want blocked. You can then set a timer to how long you want to these sites blocked (work timer), and then set the break timer duration. This lets you keep track of time so you don’t spend too much time on non-work related sites.

4. Simple Timer

[Firefox Add-on] Simple Timer for Firefox does not have the ability to block websites like Strict Workflow. However, it still gets the job down by way of a countdown time. The countdown timer is the main thing you should set up, e.g. for each 25 minutes of work give yourself 5 minutes of break time.

Once these countdown timers are set, you can save the list for future use. The timer sits on the bottom right corner of the browser letting you know how much time you have left. There are options like desktop notifications and alarms for you to configure, giving you a lot of flexibility to how you want the timer to help you focus on getting things done.

Create A Peaceful Environment

If all you need is a conducive environment to collect your thoughts then here are three more tools to create that peaceful work bubble for a smoother brainstorming session.

5. Ommwriter

[Mac OS] If you’re a freelance writer and need to focus on just writing something without any distractions then you can try Ommwriter. This is a free text editor app for Mac OS that runs in full screen. The only text formatting you can find here is to change the font type and size. The text box floats on top of a serene picture in the background, which can be changed to suit your writing mood.

If you are someone who likes to work with music, there are also ambient sounds to help yousooth your senses, and even keypress sounds for that friendly tapping on the keyboard sound some of you love. Once you are done, save your work on a simple .txt file to be used elsewhere.

6. CreaWriter

[Windows] CreaWriter is a free program for Windows that where you can customize the background ambient sound and background picture. Unlike Ommwriter, you cannot change the font, text size or add formatting in the free version, but you can in the paid version.

The full program is ‘donationware’: a donation as low as 6 Euros will get you the full program and all its features. While the free version suffices, the full program allow you to change things like thetext box color, and font color to suit your needs.

7. Soundrown – Ambient Sounds To Help You Relax

There are some of us who may doze off if we work in total silence but then find it hard to focus when listening to songs. Here’s where Soundrown can help. It provides ambient sounds instead of lyrical songs to accompany your work session.

You can choose the calming sound of waves crashing on the beach which sets up the lovely illusion, or the sound of raindrops, coffee shop chatter, a passing train, kids and even crickets. Going to the site gives you a random ambient noise and can also mix the sounds by opening 2 tabs on your browser, giving you a combinedeffect like coffee shop chatter on a rainy day.

If your work or studies need you to make presentations in front of an audience, a crowd or your peers, then you know the importance of having good, engaging and effective presentation content in your hands. Powerpoint may not be cutting it for most of us anymore, but fret not, we have here a great Powerpoint alternatives as fine replacements.

Whether you need presentation tools for business proposals, HR training, a viva voce, or for teaching a class, these tools will probably help you keep your audience entertained through and through. Manipulate your videos, images, animation, audio clips and more into a winning presentation that will definitely help you win over the crowd.

Prezi

Prezi is a zooming presentation tool that lets you create and present your ideas on a large and zoomable virtual canvas. You can easily place ideas, images, and videos and arrange them in a natural flow to tell your story. It works on Cloud, desktop and even on the iPad or iPhone. It offers a Free account which gives you public presentations plus 100MB storage space.

Click here to learn more about its pricing plans.

 EWC Presenter

Looking for a way to create free and interactive professional-looking, HTML5 presentations? Try EWC Presenter. It provides an HTML5 WYSIWYG editor for you to design simple presentation content in HTML5.

Users can animate their presentations with a Flash-like editor where you can select keyframes, set the length of the various animations, and so on. It’s still under Beta and it’s free to register an account.

 SlideRocket

SlideRocket is a presentation platform that helps you to create and manage your presentation. Import your existing presentations from PowerPoint or Google, and start using SlideRocket’s authoring and tracking tools to create a vibrant and dynamic presentation.

You can work with HD video, audio, charts, pictures and Flash. SlideRocket has since been acquired by ClearSlide, if you would like to try it out, check out this link.

 Vuvox

Vuvox offers 3 main features: Collage, Studio and Express to create a multimedia presentations with feeds, links, music, audio, video and photos from Flicker, SmugMug or Picasa. It’s a useful tool to create a documentary-style slideshows.

It is also perfect for multimedia collage presentations that require the use of rich media elements.

Empressr

Empresser is an online rich media presentation editor which allows you to add photos, music, audio, video, and even Flash into your presentation. Users are allowed to share their presentations via link or embed them on their websites.

Registration is free and there’s no limit to the number of presentations you can create and store.

 Oomfo

Charts are importaint in a presentation and that’s why we’re including Oomfo in this list. In short, Oomfo helps you to design interactive charts like Pareto, Waterfall, Funnel, Marimekko, Pyramid and etc. Oomfo allows you to connect your chart data from your Cloud application or multiple Excel files.

You may start by choosing a chart template from its gallery and it only supports Microsoft Office 2003 and above.

 

 Scrollshow

As the name suggested, ScrollShow is a scrolling presentation editor for iPad with multi-speed backgrounds. With ScrollShow, can create panoramic presentations with parallax effect. It is ideal to present timeline presentations, animate infographics online or at a personal level, present your vacation photos. It is cool, fun, easy to use and costs only $4.99.

 Knovio

If you always share your presentations on the Web, Knovio can help you show your personality by letting you attach your voice or a video alongside the presentation. You can coordinate your narration to run parallel to the slides.

You can even import PowerPoint presentations that are already done and work on that with Knovio. Your slides can then be shared on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn or shared privately with close friends.

Present.Me

Similar to Knovio, Present.me supercharges your presentation by adding videos side by side to your slideshows whether it is in Powerpoint, PDF, Excel, Word, Google Docs or Open Office format. You can even watch the edited presentation on mobile devices using Present.me exclusive apps.There are limitations for free account. Check it out to find out more.

 VCASMO

VCASMO is an online presentation editor for multimedia slide shows, business presentations, training, academic teaching and etc. It lets you easily place videos with subtitle and PowerPoint presentation side by side and publish in on your desktop, iPad or even iPhone.

Free account comes with 512MB storage with unlimited presentations.