Yaara Lancet

Twitter has added six more languages to its translation center, and is now looking for translators who will help Twitter officially support them. The languages are Catalan, Afrikaans, Ukrainian, Greek, Czech and Basque. If you can speak these languages and want to help translate Twitter, you can head over to the Translation Center and start working.

Twitter launched the new Translation Center last year, and since then has been adding more and more languages to the list. It now offers its interface in 28 different languages, after adding support for the Right-to-Left languages Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew, and Urdu only last month.

Twitter receives thousands of requests for new languages, and these six new additions were the most requested languages. According to Twitter, nearly half a million people are already participating in the translation project, which has been around since October 2009. New people, who speak one of these six new languages, are now invited to join in on the fun.

If you can’t speak these languages, you can still help. On the main Translation Center page you can find the full list of languages Twitter is currently working on, which include Dutch, French, Russian, Hindi, Italian, and many others.

Do you help with Twitter’s translation project? Would you consider joining now?

Source: Twitter Translation Center

There’s a definite visual streak happening all around us, with services like Pinterest and Instagram blowing up and becoming immensely popular. The visual trend is a welcome one, and we are slowly seeing people share more and more images using more and more websites, apps and other image-oriented services.

Into this mix, enters Twizgrid, an iOS app with the goal of turning one of the most popular text-oriented services, Twitter, into an entirely visual experience, and a stunning one at that. Twitter is slowly becoming a popular sharing route for images, including images taken on Instagram and other photo-sharing services. Twizgrid brings all of these together into one comprehensive image browser for Twitter, which you’re not going to want to put down.

Note that the screenshots below were taken on an iPad, the interface might look slightly different on an iPhone or iPod Touch.

Twizgrid As An Image Browser

If you want, you can connect Twizgrid with your Twitter account and use it like any other Twitter client. You don’t have to do this, however, to enjoy Twizgrid, and I will start by going over Twizgrid’s capabilities solely as a Twitter image browser.

Upon loading the app, you will meet Twizgrid’s own gird. These are images retweeted by the @Twizgrid account, and feature all kinds of beautiful images from many different users.

Swipe right and left to browse through the grid and discover more interesting photos. If you find a specific photo interesting, tap on it to find out more and to see a larger version.

An individual image page includes the image on the left, which you can pinch to zoom to its full size, and the tweet that included it on the right. In this case, since we’re browsing the main Twizgrid grid, all images are tweeted by @Twizgrid, as you can see from the small avatar on the right. There are many things that can dome with this information, and I will get to all that a bit later.

Image wise, you can swipe left and right to continue browsing photos in this form, or swipe down to go back to the grid. Tapping on an image will allow you to copy the image, e-mail it, or save it to your photo album.

Twizgrid also comes with sophisticated search capabilities, which let you filter images by keywords, locations, people and more. For example, I can easily search only for images that have to do with food. With general searches such as this, the results are highly relevant. Tap the magnifying glass icon at the top to start searching.

The search menu includes three tabs: Albums, People and Search. The Albums options lets you look at pre-configured Twizgrid albums such as pets, nature, fashion & design and more. The People tab lets you look at images uploaded by people you follow or who are following you (more on connecting your Twitter account later in this post). The Search tab is where it gets really interesting.

To start, you can search for any keyword, expression, hashtag, mention and more. The Search tab features a full list of syntaxes you can use in your search.

Now you can make this even more interesting by using locations. You can grant the app access to your current location, or enter any location in the world that comes to mind, and then search for images only near that location.

So, for example, I can search for the keyword “waterfall”, in a 200-mile radius from Hamilton, Ontario (waterfall capital of the world!), and see what images people uploaded to their Twitter accounts. Here, the results are not always spot on, but accuracy is still pretty good.

Twizgrid As An Awesome Twitter Client

As mentioned earlier, you can connect your Twitter account with Twizgrid and use it as your main Twitter client, or as an alternative for when you’re browsing images through it. Twizgrid uses the Twitter account which is configured in your device’s settings. Tap the cogwheel on the top right to connect the app to your Twitter account. Now you can really start having fun.

While browsing an image, tap the share button to retweet, favorite, or copy this specific tweet with its image.

Tap the pen icon to tweet a photo or text. You can pick a photo from your library, or use the device’s camera to take a photo and attach to your tweet. You can then compose your tweet as you would on any other client and send it to the world. You can also add a location to your tweet.

Here is one of my favorite features on Twizgrid: While browsing tweets, you can tap on any hashtag or Twitter username, and immediately view a photo grid for that hashtag or user.

These grids are composed of tweets from all over Twitter, not just those curated by Twizgrid. If you’re curious about a user, either tap a username or the avatar thumbnail, and Twizgrid will open a full profile page for that user, complete with info, latest tweets, a follow button and the option to view this user’s grid.

Bottom Line

Twizgrid is, hands down, one of the best iOS apps I’ve reviewed this year. The interface is gorgeous and intuitive, and it really seems like the developers have thought of everything. While reading my Twitter feed becomes boring sometimes, using Twizgrid brings new life into Twitter, and creates an experience that is frankly better than Instagram and Pinterest combined. Even the price is sweet.

What do you think of Twizgrid? Should Twitter be viewed in such a visual way, or does this compromise the whole point of Twitter? Do you know of similar services that visualize Twitter? Let us know in the comments!

Remember Google, the search provider? With all that’s been going on other fronts, it’s sometimes possible to forget what lies at the source of this huge company. Apparently, Google hasn’t forgotten, and after quite a few social-related and mobile-related launches, it is now rolling out a brand new way to perform Google searches – the Knowledge Graph.

First and foremost, the Knowledge Graph is about things, not strings. What does that mean? When you search for things Google knows about, such as places, people, etc., Google will now gather its knowledge about these things and include that in the search results. So when you search for a name, you will also get a summary of information about that name. Also included will be names other people have searched for along with this one.

If you search for an ambiguous name, such as the Taj Mahal, Google will let you choose between the historical landmark, the musician, the casino, etc., so it becomes easier to find what you’re really looking for, and get only that portion of the search results.

According to Google, the database currently contains more than 500 million objects, with more than 3.5 million facts about these objects and their relationships with other objects. Google have obviously made good use of search information indicating what people are looking for in order to create this search experience.

The Knowledge Graph is currently only available to U.S. English users, but will roll out slowly to other countries and languages as well. In the meantime, you can watch this video to learn more about the new features of Google Knowledge Graphs.

How do you think this will affect the competition between search engines?

Source: Official Google Blog

Remember the awesome free Facebook MOO cards we told you about a few months ago? They’re back with a vengeance, and you can now create free MOO Facebook cards for Pages, as well as for your personal Timeline.

Any business owner can now use its Facebook Page photos and information to create these nice printed cards, and as always with MOO cards, each card can get its own unique design, according to the number of photos existing on the business’s Page. The offer includes 50 Facebook MOO cards, which you can get for free “for a limited time”.

All you have to pay for when ordering is shipping costs, which range anywhere from $10-$20, according to your location. For 50 awesome MOO business cards, designed according to your Facebook Page Timeline, that’s not too bad a deal.

The first Facebook offer came from MOO last January, when they started offering free Facebook-based printed cards for individuals. Quietly, they have now extended this feature to businesses as well, and they too can add that extra something to their marketing in the form of the irresistible MOO cards.

Did you get your personal Facebook MOO cards? Do you plan to get some for your business?

Source: The Next Web

Summer is almost upon the northern hemisphere, and official camping season is just around the corner. An important and integral part of any camping trip, be it car camping, backpacking or just a day camp in the woods, is camping food. It never ceases to amaze me how simple ingredients cooked on a fire can become so delicious just by the change of settings.

There are lots of websites offering camping recipes and cooking tips, and the variety of recipes that exist is amazing. If you’re planning a camping trip, it’s time to browse these recipes and refresh your repertoire. If you live in the southern hemisphere, bookmark and save for next year!

Scoutorama.com

Scoutorama offers a huge list of camping and Dutch oven recipes. The recipes are crudely divided into breakfast, lunch and dinner, but these can easily be switched around and used for any meal. All lists contain a good amount of dessert recipes as well.

To make is easier to find specific recipes, the site also offers an advanced recipe search, where you can search for recipes by keywords, meal type and type of camping. The recipes are plain text with no images whatsoever; just a list of ingredients, equipment and preparation. Recipes have user ratings, which are visible only from within the recipe.

Camp Recipes

Camp Recipes includes 741 recipes, divided into 18 different categories. For each category, you can browse a list of recipes which includes difficulty, number of servings and prep time for each recipe. It’s also indicated whether a recipe is suited for backpacking. Here too, there are no images, but the recipes are short and to the point with a list of ingredients and preparation directions.

You can search through the recipes only by keywords. The website also features a blog, where you can find more recipes and cooking tips.

KOA – Kampgrounds of America

KOA’s website provides lots of camping information aside from recipes, and you can use the site to find KOA campgrounds around the US and Canada, and even book your next camping trip on a KOA camping site. Concentrating on the important thing (food), the site offers recipes divided into five categories, within each you can browse recipes by the alphabet.

Some recipes are submitted by KOA itself, while others were submitted by readers.

About.com

About.com has several articles about camping food, but this recipe index is especially useful. Here you can look for recipes by main ingredient, by course and by cooking method. So if you want only recipes prepared by foil wrapping, or only recipes with shrimp, this is an excellent source. All recipes are on About.com, and have been submitted by readers.

Another About.com recipe article worth mentioning is Popular Camping Recipes, where you can also browse recipes by categories, and includes a useful list of other cooking articles at the bottom.

BBC GoodFood

What sets GoodFood’s recipe list apart from most others, is that most of these recipes weren’t originally intended for camping. While this can render some of them less useful, it’s also a good source for recipes you may not find anywhere else. GoodFood classifies recipes as suitable for camping if they are very easy to make, usually in one single pan, or if they’re suitable to take on trips after having prepared them at home.

In this spirit, you will find here recipes for all sorts of simple muffins, along with things like no-oven pizza to cook in a frying pan and tin foil roasted sweet potatoes. All recipes include user ratings, difficultly level and prep times.

Serious Eats

Serious Eats is a a good website to know if you’re a foodie in general, but this specific article is going to turn your next camping trip into a culinary dream. While these recipes may not be suitable if you’re looking for super simple recipes to make in 5 minutes, they will definitely be worth the effort if you’re ready to put some into them.

This is one of the only websites that include images alongside the recipes, and many of them also include a story or introduction before they get down to business.

Taste of Home

Taste of Home offers a nice list of camping recipes, complete with images and user ratings. There are also several informative videos you can watch, such as how to make a Pudgie Pie in a waffle iron and other camping recipes. Scroll down, and you’ll find a list of other related articles you can enjoy.

While there aren’t a lot of recipes here, there are some unique ones you’d want to check out.

Dirty Gourmet

Dirty Gourmet is a website dedicated entirely to outdoor cooking, and provides many recipes which are divided by type or by activity. You can browse all recipes suitable for backpacking or for bike touring, or browse just breakfast recipes or only snacks.

Recipes include beautiful images, which is a nice bonus, and each also specifies the number of servings, prep time, cook time and which activity it’s suitable for. A great source for outdoor recipes.

Love the Outdoors

While it does include some breakfast, dessert, main dish and side dish recipes, I’ve included Love the Outdoors for it’s other related tips. The Cooking Methods article will tell you all about the difference between camp stoves, charcoal, wood fires, and other methods; the Outdoor Kitchen Checklist includes a list of equipment that will make your outdoor cooking experience more enjoyable.

The site is a bit difficult to browse, but there’s some good information to be found on it.

Dutch Oven Dude

A Dutch oven is a cast iron cooking pot which can be used to make wonderful outdoor recipes. Dutch Oven Dude is a website dedicated to this cooking vessel, and includes detailed explanations on how to cook with a Dutch oven, how to choose one, how to take care of one, and of course, a list of Dutch oven recipes. If you want to get into Dutch oven cooking, this is a great place to start.

What do you like to cook on camping trips? Do you know of other great sources for camp recipes? Share these and any recipes and tips you know in the comments.

Image credit: oskarlin

Windows Phone users can now officially enjoy the LinkedIn experience using the new LinkedIn mobile app for Windows Phone devices. The new Windows Phone app is heavily inspired by Microsoft’s Metro design, and includes all the features you can expect from an official LinkedIn app.

Using the Windows Phone app, you can connect with professionals from all over the world, read a real-time stream of updates and news from your connections, your industry and the companies you follow, send and receive messages and invitations and, of course, get suggestions for available jobs that are suitable for you.

According to LinkedIn, some features of the Windows Phone app even surpass those of the iOS and Android LinkedIn apps, and they specifically point at the ‘companies’ and ‘jobs’ features as the best examples of this. The LinkedIn team is open to ideas and feature suggestions, which you can send by joining the Windows Phone group right here. Through this group you can also receive updates on the app’s development, etc.

Download the new Windows Phone app for LinkedIn for free here.

Did you get to try the new Windows Phone app? What do you think of it?

Source: LinkedIn Blog

Chrome’s default start page has nothing to be ashamed of. With its neat appearance and quick access to apps, most visited pages and recently closed tabs, it’s fast becoming a great option for a default start page, which doesn’t require any additional installation.

However, Chrome’s start page is not perfect for everyone, and other great options do exist out there in the form of browser extensions. One great option we’ve told you about in the past is Speed Dial 2, which has become quite similar in appearance and function to what Chrome offers by default. If you’re looking for something completely different, here are some excellent options for creative, useful, or simple new tab pages for Chrome. Which is your favorite?

Awesome New Tab Page – For The Widget Lover

Awesome New Tab Page is exactly that: an awesome new tab page that will cater to all your browsing needs. Awesome New Tab Page is a metro-inspired new tab page which makes use of widgets instead of mere icons. You can download many useful widgets for your start page, and if you’re a developer, you can even write some yourself.

The start page is totally customizable: you can change tiles, colors, sizes and positions for each widget. Your Chrome Apps can be included as well, simply by dragging them onto the main start page. The extension comes with a brief yet useful tutorial when you first install it, so you’ll find your way around in no time. If you’re into tiles and customization, this one is a must-try.

Incredible StartPage – For The Bookmark User

If you’re a bookmarks person, Incredible StartPage can become your new best friend. With it’s well-designed interface, Incredible StartPage turns every new tab into a visual bookmarks experience. But it’s not only about your bookmarks, the extension also lists all your recently closed tabs for easy access, and provides several notepad areas where you can scribble thoughts or things to do and know they’re saved and safe.

The extension can also sync to your Google account, which will make it possible to send notes to Gmail or Google calendar, and also sync your notes to your Google account. The appearance is customizable as well, of course. For more information, read Saikat’s full review of Incredible StartPage.

Bookolio – For The Search Lover

While providing quick access to all the usual things, the most prominent feature of Bookolio is its search options. The Bookolio new tab page features a search box on the top which can be used to perform searches right from your start page. You can choose which search provider to use, with more specific options such as deviantArt, Dailymotion and YouTube available.

You can also have Bookolio automatically use the search you used last. Use the round buttons to switch between search providers. A list of your most visited websites appears in the white bar underneath the search box, but can also be viewed as a dropdown list on the top, just like your recently closed tabs.

The bottom area of the page is dedicated to your bookmarks, organized by folders. You also click on the “Applications” button to view all your Chrome apps. You can’t customize the appearance, which is too bad, but not a deal breaker, considering Bookolio’s default design is quite beautiful.

Start! – For The RSS Lover

Start! is a beautiful start page that incorporates bookmarks, apps and your favorite RSS feeds. After installing the extension, your new tab page’s main area will be populated by your bookmarks. This extension will not be very useful if you have lots of bookmarks, as it only shows as many bookmarks as it can fit in the allotted area, and there is no obvious way to control this. If, on the other hand, you’re not a heavy bookmark user, you can start bookmarking pages you use often to have them appear in the bookmarks area. Below, you will see the apps bar for quick access to apps.

Start!’s unique feature is the ability to add RSS feeds. In the extension’s option, you can add a URL to any RSS feed, or to any RSS bundle which you can create using Google Reader. The feed will then appear on your new tab page.

You can change the start page’s background by clicking on the “Change background” link at the bottom, which will loads a random photo from Flickr as your background. You can also click the “(by url)” link to upload your own background. The slider controls the opacity on the content against the background, for a perfect match between background and icons.

My Start Page – For The Minimalist

With all these widgets, icons, buttons and notepads, some of you may be wondering what in the world happened to plain old links. If this crossed your mind, My Start Page might be the best option for you. My Start Page comes with nothing built in – what you add is what you have. You can add up to 20 URLs to your start page, which will appear as good old links. There’s also a search box where you can perform a Google search from within the start page.

Appearance is entirely customizable. You can load any online image as your background, play with text color and size, and even with the links’ and search box’s positions on the page. With its bare-bones appearance, My Start Page steals the show with its simplicity, and is a real keeper if you’re looking for a simple start page.

Do you know of other start page extensions for Chrome? Is there an extension on this list you particularly like? What would the perfect start page extension include? Share all your thoughts in the comments!

Last week our poll joined the recent add-on discussion, and we wanted to know how many add-ons you have installed on your browser. Perhaps the most interesting result is that no one at all voted that their browser doesn’t support add-ons. Just another proof that MakeUseOf’s readers know how to choose their browsers!

Out of 292 votes, 4% have 0 add-ons installed, 27% have 1-5 add-ons, 28% have 6-10 add-ons, 25% have 11-20 add-ons, 13% have 20-50 add-ons, and 4% have more than 50 add-ons. Whoa.

Full results and this week’s poll after the jump.

If you’ve learned some stats, you can see the results form a perfect normal distribution. Most people have an average amount of add-ons, and few people have a weird number of add-ons, such as 0 or over 50.

This week’s poll question is: What Do You Think Of Google Drive?

Since Google Drive launched less than a month ago, we’ve been debating, discussing and thinking about this new addition to the cloud storage world. Is there a real need for another service? Does Google Drive offer something that Dropbox, Skydrive and kin don’t? With it’s 5GB free storage and it’s seamless Google integration, Google Drive does seem to have something to offer, but will you desert your current service for it? What do you think of this new contender?

What makes Google Drive better or worse than others? What do you like or don’t like about it? Explain your vote below.

Lately, I’ve been exploring Pinterest for all its possible applications. After telling you about 5 useful Pinterest tools, I still wasn’t sure what to do on Pinterest. After the first wave of ideas was done, I couldn’t find things I truly wanted to pin no matter how hard I tried.

It was around this time that I heard about Pinstamatic. Despite the somewhat unfortunate name, Pinstamatic offers a solution for anyone who is looking for something more out of Pinterest. If pinning images is simply not enough for you, Pinstamatic lets you pin entire websites, text, locations, music and much more. It does all this without ruining the Pinterest experience or making your boards look less aesthetic.

The Old Look vs. The New Look

Before getting started with Pinstamatic, you should know that it’s still a work in progress, and at the time of this writing has two different designs: the old one and the new one. The old one, being the veteran, is bug-free and more responsive. The new look, on the other hand, is much more appealing, but is still a little bit buggy. Officially, Pinstamatic is still using the old version, but the new one will take over sometime in the future.

In the meantime, for an overall better experience, I recommend using the new version of the website. The bugs I encountered were mainly visual, and had no real effect on the actual pinning. Most screenshots in this article are taken from the new design.

Using Pinstamatic

Using Pinstamatic, you can pin a website, a sticky note, text & quotes,  a Spotify track, a Twitter account, a date or a location. More features such as photo filters will be added soon.

To start, all you have to do is choose the icon matching what you wish to pin. It helps if you’re already signed in to Pinterest – that way you’ll be directed straight to Pinterest without having to sign in first. Let’s start with pinning a website.

You can enter any URL, and Pinstamatic will create a preview of it on the right side of the screen. If you check the “Full length” box, you will be pinning the entire page, no matter how long it is. If you leave it unchecked, you will only pin the top part of it. Don’t worry if it takes a few seconds for the preview to generate, it will eventually appear. This is what the preview looks like for a specific post page from MakeUseOf.

If you’re happy, click on “Pin”, and you’ll be redirected to the regular Pinterest pin interface, where you can choose a board and add comments.

Next, you can try pinning text or sticky notes. It’s unclear why sticky notes are a separate option, but both of these let you type in any text you wish and pin it as an image. In the quote option, you can also add an author, and choose from six different styles. In sticky notes there is no author and only one style – a yellow sticky note.

Changing styles will automatically change the preview accordingly. If nothing happens, click on “Preview” to refresh the style.

One of Pinstamatic’s coolest features is the ability to pin music. Unfortunately, this is only possible using Spotify, but if you and most of your friends are in the right country, this shouldn’t be a problem. To pin a track, start typing its name. Pinstamatic will search Spotify’s database and come up with suggestions.

The actual pin is made up of an album cover with a play button on top of it. You can check the different available options to choose the best-looking album cover. Clicking on the pin will redirect your friends to Spotify, where they can listen to the track you’ve chosen.

Another nice feature is the ability to pin Twitter accounts. Let’s say you’ve found an interesting Twitter account and want to tell all your friends about it. Sure, you can tweet it, but wouldn’t it be much more informative and creative to pin it? To do this, simply insert the Twitter username you want to pin. Pinstamatic creates a nice image for the account, including its name, description and the last tweet it made.

Moving on to location. Sometimes you visit a really interesting place but don’t have a photo. Sometimes you want to show your friends where you went to school or where a cool restaurant is. Pinstamatic lets you pin an exact location to Pinterest. You can either enter an address, or use the map to place the pin on that location. You can then add a title and a description to your location.

The pin will appear as a map, with a note “attached” to it. The title you’ve given the location will appear on the note. The description will appear in the pin’s description area, not on the image itself.

As you can see, Pinstamatic automatically adds its own URL and name to your pins, but you can easily remove these if you wish.

Similarly, you can pin a date, which will appear as a huge calendar icon with the date on it.

Final Thoughts

Pinstamatic is in no way perfect yet, and some customizing options are certainly in order. The ability to decide which part of a website to pin, or to have more control over the appearance of the pins would be welcome, but even as it is, it’s a really great idea that can magically add some life to a stale Pinterest presence, or inspire any bored Pinterest user.

What do you think of Pinstamatic? Do you know of other tools that enhance your Pinterest experience? Share everything in the comments!

If you use Dropbox, and love free extra space (and who doesn’t), get ready for the 2012 round of Dropquest! In case you missed it last year, Dropquest is a game in which you have to complete a series of riddles, tasks and puzzles, and if you manage to do so, you win a staggering 1GB addition to your Dropbox storage space for life.

This year, Dropquest will launch on May 12, at 10AM PST (17:00 GMT), at which time the official Dropquest 2012 page will become available (if you click it now, you’ll get a 404). According to Dropbox, this year’s quest will be even harder than last year, but there are glorious prizes waiting for those who can complete it first.

Aside from the 1GB of storage awarded to anyone who finishes the quest, Dropbox will also give away a Dropbox employee hoodie, a limited edition Dropbox Hack Week t-shirt, a Dropbox drawing signed by the entire Dropbox team, an invitation to help write the next Dropquest, 100GB/20GB/5GB/2GB extra storage for life, and other goodies. These prizes will go to the chosen few who manage to complete all tasks in the quickest times.

So sharpen your brains, browsers and pencils, and get ready for May 12. Other than the free space, we all need a good challenge every now and then. Good luck!

Source: Dropbox Blog