Occasionally I have to work with some huge documents, typically as PDFs, but I don’t always have my laptop with the full Acrobat package on it. When that happens, and I need to break the PDFs up, I use a free online PDF splitter tool called PDFSplit! – which is available here.
It can extract all pages in a PDF to individual PDFs, or just grab a certain section of a PDF and save it into a new file. It’s quick. It’s online. And it’s free.
Continuing the theme of highlighting free online tools that I’m finding useful, there’s a tube downloader that’s got a great range of download options and approved sites. It’s called Tube Offline and is a firm favourite of mine.
Obviously you need to check the legality of downloading and storing videos that are available online, but it’s been very helpful to capture some online videos so they can be watched offline, when I don’t have an internet connection. Kids’ cartoons, training videos, fitness lessons – download them for free with this tool and they can then be stored on your iPad, iPhone or other mobile device to watch when you’re on the go.
And if the file you download isn’t in the right format, this file converter here is pretty handy too, which also includes a download option to grab videos straight from online streams. Or the online converter tool – here – which I’ve highlighted previously.
I realise I’ve not added anything to the site for ages… I’ve just been so busy with work commitments! Anyway, more for my reference than anything else – here’s a really good site that you should definitely add to your favourites if you want to make sure you don’t miss out on the latest deals. It’s not like a GroupOn or LivingSocial deal web site, it’s more of a crowdsourced deal forum where the general public list the various deals they come across on and offline, and then others vote on the deals – casting them as either hot or cold deals depending on the amount of ‘heat’ added (or not). The site is: www.hotukdeals.com – and it’s a site I visit regularly. They also have a twitter feed @hotukdeals and their own ios and android apps.
I came across a really handy reference guide earlier, concerned with the size of typical web banners.
It’s taken from Wikipedia, but I’m including it on my site as it’s probably an easier to access resource.
(Click on image to view full size)
If, like me, you like to play around with your web site – occasionally you’ll accidentally break it, as I have. This latest time, I disabled the directory browsing on my site to increase security, but the way that I tried to do it through the cpanel index manager, left my whole site inaccessible.
So that I remember next time I do this… I’ve written the instructions down here.
Continuing on from my last post about domain name alternatives (HERE), there are other tools freely available online that should be part of any webmaster’s toolbox. This post will include links to the ones that I use most frequently and have found easiest to use.
There’s no point in struggling through with your web site, you may as well take advantage of the free resources that are available to you – and there are lots! All you need to know is where to look for them.
So, you’ve decided you want to have your own web site – either for a personal blog, interest site, or some business venture (or whatever else) and now you need to decide on the domain name that you want. Unfortunately, there’s quite a lot of other people that have had exactly the same idea and there’s increasing competition for the best web names out there.
Even if you’ve decided on a really cool name, it may already have been taken by someone else that has launched their own web site – or could have been secured by a cyber-squatter, who’s going to try and charge an exorbitant amount to allow you to take it…. so, what’s the alternative?
I came across this picture resize tool the other day and thought I’d share it, since it’s actually quite handy. Not everyone fancies setting up Batch processes in Photoshop to resize multiple images, so this should certainly help in that instance.
Amazon and Play.com are two high profile sites that have addressed the ‘long tail of search’ and have built their operating model predominantly around selling high volume at low price, where small margins will collectively add up to large profits – and it’s something that seems to be working really well for them. For the regular customer, the two sites provide a first class online retail experience, often undercutting the high street and even other online retailers. However, the prices quoted on Amazon and Play.com aren’t necessarily the best prices.
As long as you’re willing to accept second hand products, then the Amazon Used and New feature and Play.com’s Playtrade offer the same familiar interfaces of these well regarded sites, but the products here are second hand. All listings include an explanation regarding the condition of the products and it’s not unusual to find used products for half the retail price, or even less!
Temporary email addresses are free services available online that allow you to set up and use a temporary email address. They’re all pretty easy to use, but one of the ones I’ve used and would recommend is 10 Minute Mail (link here: http://10minutemail.com).
Why use a temporary email address? – Well, for one thing, it can be really handy when signing up to some web sites or forums that insist on you registering before accessing all the content, or submitting any of your own questions. It’s also great at avoiding spam – because if your temporary email address has expired, there’s nowhere for the email to go!
Signing up with 10 minute mail gives you a temporary email address for 10 minutes (you can keep extending the 10 minute window though, but only so long as you are on the site). The interesting part of this disposable email service though, is that it allows you to receive, read and respond to any emails received whilst your address is currently live. This means you can sign up to web services or forums, for example, and click on the confirmation email request as and when it comes through.
It’s definitely going to be added to my favourites, and will certainly be a tool I’ll use again.