Saturday, September 30, 2017

Get Tips for Staying Productive, Happy, and Mindful at Zen Habits

https://thebestsites.com/website/get-tips-staying-productive-happy-mindful-zen-habits/

Include Hostels in Your Hotel Search with All The Rooms

The typical hotel finder only includes results that they get paid to show. All The Rooms takes a different approach. They aggregate as many results as possible. Their search engine combines results from pretty much any room finding service that offers an API. This is why their search includes results from alternative-type rooms from services like Airbnb.

In a search for rooms in NYC, a search was done on TripAdvisor and All The Rooms to compare the services. TripAdvisor generated about 3,000 results. All The Rooms generated over 13,000 results. Like their name implies, All The Rooms really does do a good job at finding as many rooms as possible.

What about price though? All The Rooms did not match up to TripAdvisor's prices for the New York Hilton in Midtown. All The Rooms generated a price of $375 and TripAdvisor generated a price of $286. That's quite a difference. Granted, the result we compared was featured in TripAdvisor's "Best Value" section.

All The Rooms still deserves a spot on The Best Sites. Alongside the hotels that are priced at the default level are results from hostels and private rentals. These results are likely to be the same across all room booking services (in terms of price). The service does a great job at showing you exactly what's available. It might pay off to use the service in areas where the results are scarce on other hotel websites.

According to an e-mail we received from All The Rooms:

Customers can conduct a customizable search and receive a list of every single room available. Whether a hammock in the Caribbean, a flat in NYC, or a 5-star hotel in Hong Kong, we’ve got it. Customers book with ease, knowing that they have found the perfect place to stay anywhere in the world.

In the e-mail, they also noted that they have been featured in an article on The New York Times.

https://thebestsites.com/website/include-hostels-hotel-search-rooms/

Friday, September 29, 2017

Make the Background Transparent in Images with Clipping Magic (Not Free)

Clipping Magic is an online web app that allows you to make the background of images transparent. It started off as a free service but is now a full-fledged pay-for service. Pricing starts at $3.99/month for 15 images.

The app takes a common task that requires some technical know-how in Photoshop into a task that anyone can complete. To make a background transparent, you have to upload your photo into their online web app. Then you have to mark the background with a red marker and mark what you want to keep with a green marker. Clipping Magic takes care of the rest. If it doesn't work out the first time, you may have to take a look at their tutorials.

Clipping Magic is more than just an online tool. They feature an API and also a JavaScript embed so you can utilize their service inside your own web app. The pricing is a bit steeper for these features.

It's a shame the service isn't free but until a freemium competitor arises Clipping Magic will have a spot on our website.

There may be one free, easy-to-use contender. However, I didn't have much luck with it when I tried it out. It's called Background Burner.

https://thebestsites.com/website/make-background-transparent-images-clipping-magic-not-free/

Thursday, September 28, 2017

Host Private Gits for Free with GitLab

https://thebestsites.com/website/host-private-gits-free-gitlab/

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Send Free Faxes Without Using a Sketchy Site at HelloFax

HelloFax is a full-featured online fax web application. It offers 5 fax pages for free and after that you'll have to opt for a paid plan. It starts at 9.99/month.

The service separates itself from the many other contenders with a professional-looking website and features that are unique to HelloFax. They have a Google Docs extension that allows you to send faxes directly from Google Docs. They also have integrations with Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, Evernote, and OneDrive.

The company also maintains HelloSign, an eSignature platform. Part of the reason we're featuring HelloFax instead of a website that is "more free" like FaxZero, is because we want our faxes to be reliable and professional. HelloFax received a good review from PC magazine. It also gains the users trust with a better website design than other online fax services.

The service works like most online fax services. It connects with your e-mail. You can send faxes by sending an e-mail to the number@hellofax.com. You can also use their extensions or upload a PDF through their web app (after logging in).

If you want to receive faxes, you'll have to pay. Sadly, there are no services that let you receive faxes for free yet.

https://thebestsites.com/website/send-free-faxes-without-using-sketchy-site-hellofax/

Vine.co: Entertaining 6 Second Video Clips

https://thebestsites.com/website/vine-co-entertaining-6-second-video-clips/

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

5 Best Websites for Used Cars

https://thebestsites.com/list/5-best-websites-for-used-cars/

Upload Any File and Get a Share Link at Mixtape.moe (No Sign Up Required)

Mixtape.moe is a drag-and-drop file sharing website that requires no login. After drag-and-dropping a file, you'll be given a link to the file that you can share with anyone. The maximum file size is 100MB and you can upload multiple files at the same time as long as they're under 100MB total.

The site runs on donation money. The site also features a section for sharing Text.

https://thebestsites.com/website/upload-file-get-share-link-mixtape-moe-no-sign-required/

A Simple, No-Fees, Online Bank Account: Simple

https://thebestsites.com/website/simple-no-fees-online-bank-account-simple/

Monday, September 25, 2017

ConsumerReports.org: Reviews You Can Actually Trust (Not Free Though)

https://thebestsites.com/website/consumerreports-org-reviews-can-actually-trust/

Sunday, September 24, 2017

Raise Money for Yourself, Others, or Charities with GoFundMe

https://thebestsites.com/website/raise-money-others-charities-gofundme/

The New York Times Has More Pulitzer Prizes Than Any Other Newspaper

https://thebestsites.com/website/new-york-times-pulitzer-prizes-newspaper/

Get Definitions of Slang Words and Phrases on Urban Dictionary

https://thebestsites.com/website/get-definitions-slang-words-phrases-urban-dictionary/

Saturday, September 23, 2017

Buzzfeed Defines Social Media News

https://thebestsites.com/website/buzzfeed-defines-social-media-news/

WebMD: It May Not Be a Doctor, But It's Close Enough

https://thebestsites.com/website/webmd-may-not-doctor-close-enough/

Join the Open Source World by Hosting Your Code on GitHub

https://thebestsites.com/website/join-open-source-world-hosting-code-github/

Send Money Directly to the Extreme Poor with GiveDirectly

https://thebestsites.com/website/send-money-directly-extreme-poor-givedirectly/

Order Grocery Items at Wholesale Prices with Boxed.com

https://thebestsites.com/website/order-grocery-items-wholesale-prices-boxed-com/

Get Terms of Service Overviews with a Browser Extension

Terms of Service Didn't Read is a web service that aims to educate the public on what they're agreeing to when they click the checkbox for, "I have read and agree to the Terms of this website." So many of us (basically all of us) agree to terms that we never skim through. Truth be told, if we actually read and understood the legal jargon in Term of Use agreements, we would pass on the service.

Terms of Service Didn't Read lists a whole bunch of Terms of Use agreement summaries on their home page. You can scroll through them or use their search feature. They rate each agreement using the letters A, B, C, D, and E. Class A is really good for the end-user and Class E is really bad.

You'll discover facts like, "Deleted videos are not really deleted," on YouTube.

The service has extensions for many major browsers including Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Opera. They're currently working on an extension for IE. You can find their extensions here. The extensions will integrate the sites data with your browsing experience.

https://thebestsites.com/website/get-terms-service-overviews-browser-extension/

Be the First to Know About Crimes in Your Area with CrimeReports

CrimeReports, owned by Motorola, is a Google Maps and police-data mash-up web application. It is a cool website because it allows you to get a birds-eye view of crimes happening anywhere in the US. The data is incomplete though. It doesn't have all crimes, just the crimes that are shared publicly by police stations.

The site is still cool though. You can easily spot on the map which areas have a feed of crimes being reported. The app differentiates the type of crime by using different icons.

If CrimeReports has crime information in your area, you'll be surprised how many local crimes occur on any given day. The site has an alert feature which will e-mail you about crimes that occurred in your area.

They also have sections of the website where you can Submit a Tip or Register a Camera.

Screenshot of CrimeReports

https://thebestsites.com/website/first-know-crimes-area-crimereports/

Friday, September 22, 2017

8 Cool Websites for Video Game Deals

https://thebestsites.com/list/8-cool-websites-for-video-game-deals/

Medium, the Blog Host That's Banned in Malaysia

https://thebestsites.com/website/medium-blog-host-thats-banned-malaysia/

50 Coolest Websites of 2017

https://thebestsites.com/list/50-cool-websites-2017/

Influence Decision Makers by Signing a Petition Online at Change.org

https://thebestsites.com/website/influence-decision-makers-signing-petition-online-change-org/

Supercharge Your Website with a Global CDN for Free Using Cloudflare

https://thebestsites.com/website/supercharge-website-global-cdn-free-using-cloudflare/

Pick a Year, Get a Grid of Top 100 Billboard Songs with The Nostalgia Machine

The Nostalgia Machine is a nifty little website. On their homepage, you'll be greeted with a simple input. Pick a year, hit the submit button and you'll be shown a grid of Billboard 100 songs from the year you just submitted.

The music player pulls the songs from YouTube and you can even make a playlist by hitting the plus icon that appears when you hover over a song in the grid.

https://thebestsites.com/website/pick-year-get-grid-top-100-billboard-songs-nostalgia-machine/

Listen to Unlistened-To Tracks from Spotify with Forgotify

Forgotify is an interesting website. The website has an embedded Spotify music player that will play random songs from Spotify that have never been listened to before. Are you bored and looking for a cool website to check out? Forgotify is for you.

https://thebestsites.com/website/listen-unlistened-tracks-spotify-forgotify/

Make: Home of DIY Tech Projects

https://thebestsites.com/website/make-home-diy-tech-projects/

Save Web Content for Later Using Pocket

https://thebestsites.com/website/save-web-content-later-using-pocket/

Thursday, September 21, 2017

Delete Web Accounts You No Longer Use with JustDeleteMe

JustDeleteMe is a repository of links and instructions that will help you delete accounts across a wide variety of internet accounts. Their web page lists hundreds of websites. Each website is rated as being Easy, Medium, Hard, or Impossible to delete your account from.

The Easy accounts will be as simple as clicking the link box on JustDeleteMe and following the instructions given by the website. The Medium and Hard websites will have instructions on what you have to do to delete your account. The instructions usually entail sending an e-mail out to the company's customer support team, asking them to delete your account.

They have a Chrome extension that will notify you about the JustDeleteMe rating in the URL bar.

The service was acquired by backgroundchecks.org and is no longer located at justdelete.me.

https://thebestsites.com/website/delete-web-accounts-no-longer-use-justdeleteme/

Get a Free US Mailing Address and Have Shipito Forward Your Packages Worldwide

Shipito lets you shop at your favorite US-based stores and have your packages delivered to you anywhere worldwide. This is useful for customers who need to get around region-specific stores. After signing up, Shipito gives you a permanent US mailing address that you can send your packages to.

When your packages are delivered to Shipito, they will take pictures of your packages and ship them out to you wherever you are in the world. They charge $2 + the cost of shipping. Check out their shipping cost calculator.

For power users, Shipito offers a paid plan that gives you a couple extra options including the ability to combine packages.

Shipito has some competitors which include ViaBox and MyUS. In this comparison, Shipito was named the cheapest, best service for package forwarding.

https://thebestsites.com/website/get-free-us-mailing-address-shipito-forward-packages-worldwide/

Get Your News from Google News, a Free News Aggregator

https://thebestsites.com/website/get-news-google-news-free-news-aggregator/

Top 10 Websites for Finding Memes

https://thebestsites.com/list/find-memes-on-these-10-sites/

Unsubscribe from E-mail Newsletters with Ease Using Unroll.me

Unroll.me is a nifty service that connects to your e-mail and helps you manage your e-mail subscriptions. After connecting your e-mail, Unroll.me will show you a list of all the e-mail subscriptions you have. You can then go through the list and either unsubscribe, keep, or roll up the subscription.

Screenshot of Unroll.me

Rolling up is Unroll.me's answer for people who are overwhelmed with e-mail but don't want to unsubscribe to all their newsletter subscriptions. Any subscription you roll up will be added to a daily e-mail that Unroll.me sends you which includes all the e-mails you rolled up.

How Unroll.me Handles the Unsubscribe Process


When you unsubscribe from an e-mail subscription using Unroll.me, the following happens:
  • Unroll.me automatically deletes all e-mail received by the sender

  • After 24 hours, Unroll.me automatically tries to unsubscribe you from the e-mail using the sender's unsubscribe instructions

How Unroll.me Makes a Profit


Unroll.me is a completely free service. They make money by scanning through your e-mails for advertising data. They are very clear on their website and say:
As a means of keeping our service free, Slice Technologies, which owns Unroll.Me, measures e-commerce through a technology that automatically recognizes commercial emails and extracts purchase information from them. Our technology is designed to ignore personal email, which does not help us measure market trends.

Slice strips away personal information– your name, email, address, anything that could identify you – to build anonymized market research products that analyze and track consumer trends. We respect your privacy and don’t share your receipts, emails or any of your personal information with our clients as part of our business model.

Unroll.me came under heat when it was reported that they were selling Lyft e-mails to Uber. This is perhaps why they have the prominent disclaimer on how they stay profitable.

https://thebestsites.com/website/unsubscribe-e-mail-newsletters-ease-using-unroll/

Lend Money to Third-World Small Business with Kiva

https://thebestsites.com/website/lend-money-third-world-small-business-kiva/

Apartment Decoration Inspiration from Apartment Therapy

https://thebestsites.com/website/apartment-decoration-inspiration-apartment-therapy/

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Share Your Screen Without Installing an Application with DeadSimpleScreensharing

Dead Simple Screen Sharing is a browser based screen sharing and audio conferencing tool that is easy to use. The configuration is quite simple with the application's focus on ease of use.

Start Screen Sharing on Chrome or Firefox


To share your screen with Dead Simple Screensharing, you'll need Chrome of Firefox. They do not support screen sharing with IE. If you're on Chrome, you will need to install their Chrome extension to get started with screen sharing. If you're using Firefox, you don't need an extension.

To start a conference, you just need to click the Dead Simple Screensharing extension icon in the tool bar for Chrome, and click on the “Host a Meeting” button. On Firefox, you can just go to their website and click "Start a Meeting".

Once you have started your meeting, you'll have the option to invite people via e-mail or by sharing a link. Your viewers will not need to install an extension.

They offer the service for free. However, you can opt for a paid plan if you want features like the ability to record your meetings or access to their API.

Using the free service, your first three meetings are uncapped and then after that you're limited to 15 minute conferences. You can get around this by clearing your cache/cookies.

https://thebestsites.com/website/share-screen-without-installing-application-deadsimplescreensharing-com/

Another Free Way to Learn a Language (and Much More): Memrise

https://thebestsites.com/website/another-free-way-learn-language-much-memrise/

The "World's Largest Social Network for Language Learning": Busuu

https://thebestsites.com/website/worlds-largest-social-network-language-learning-busuu/

The Easiest Way to Share Screenshots: Snag.gy

I found Snag.gy when I opened up a support ticket at NextScripts (we use them to auto-post links to our articles to 50+ web 2.0 properties). For some reason our Google+ auto-posts weren't working and their tech support asked us to take a screenshot with Snag.gy and send it to them. Being stubborn to learning new technologies, I ended up just using Print Screen and Paint and then uploaded the image in an e-mail.

I could have saved some time though. Snag.gy lets you paste files directly into their website. You can test it out by pressing the "Print Screen" button on your keyboard and then go to their website and paste by pressing Ctrl+V (on Windows). After pasting, you're given a unique URL to the photo that you can share with anyone.

They also support cropping the screenshot and adding text notes/drawings to the image. If you want to manage your uploads (delete them, view a history of them, etc.) then you can sign up for an account on the site. By signing up, you'll get access to their management features.

According to the FAQ on their home page, the images expire after they haven't been viewed for 6 months.

https://thebestsites.com/website/easiest-way-share-screenshots-snag-gy/

Quite Possibly the Best Web Comic: The Oatmeal

https://thebestsites.com/website/quite-possibly-best-web-comic-oatmeal/

High-Quality Guided Meditations from Calm.com

https://thebestsites.com/website/high-quality-guided-meditations-calm-com/

Learn How to Code for Free at Codecademy

https://thebestsites.com/website/learn-code-free-code-academy/

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

The 12 Best Websites for Studying

https://thebestsites.com/list/best-websites-for-studying/

10 Cool Websites Everyone Should Know About

https://thebestsites.com/list/cool-websites-everyone-should-know-about/

Hone Your Chess Skills with a Sleek Web App Called Chesscademy

Chesscademy is a high-quality web app that will help you beat your friends the next time you play chess with them. During the initial sign in process, Chesscademy will gauge your skill level by letting you play a quick game against the computer. After the game, you'll be brought to your first lesson.

If you don't know how to play chess, that's no problem - the site asks you whether you know how to play chess during the initial sign in process. First-time chess players will be directed to the basics of chess lessons while experienced chess players will be directed to more advanced lessons.

The lessons consist of a brief video explaining different chess strategies and a game where you play the computer in a scenario where you can test out what you learned from the video.

You don't have to create an account to use the site. You can jump right into chess training in training section of their website.

There's more to say about the site but we ran into an error message when using the Forgot Password feature. Regardless, the site is pretty nifty and you'll definitely be able to take your chess playing skills to new heights if you practice with Chesscademy.

https://thebestsites.com/website/hone-chess-skills-sleek-web-app-called-chesscademy/

The Ultimate Resource for Supplement Research: Examine.com

https://thebestsites.com/website/ultimate-resource-supplement-research-examine-com/

Amazon Prime Users Get Amazon Video for Free

https://thebestsites.com/website/amazon-prime-users-get-amazon-video-free/

Barking Up the Wrong Tree Covers How to Be Awesome at Life

According to their website, they have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Wired Magazine and Time Magazine. We found the website in Business Insider's, "The 43 best websites for learning something new."

At first glance, you'll notice a mediocre web design but on further inspection you will see a vast amount of informative articles that can improve your life. The site features articles that backed by research. You'll come across articles like, "Stoicism Reveals 4 Rituals That Will Make You Loved," and "How To Stop Being A Pushover: 5 Secrets From Research."

The website is the child of Eric Barker who has a best-selling book titled, "Barking Up the Wrong Tree."

The site has over 300,000 newsletter subscribers.

https://thebestsites.com/website/barking-wrong-tree-covers-awesome-life/

The Biggest, Most Reputable Online Dating Site: OkCupid

https://thebestsites.com/website/biggest-reputable-online-dating-site-okcupid/

Buffer: A Free Tool to Manage Social Network Posts

https://thebestsites.com/website/buffer-free-tool-manage-social-network-posts/

Monday, September 18, 2017

Literary and Cultural Commentary Magazine: The Atlantic

https://thebestsites.com/website/literary-cultural-commentary-magazine-atlantic/

Take Online Courses from Prestigious Institutions at Coursera

https://thebestsites.com/website/take-online-courses-prestigious-institutions-coursera/

Sunday, September 17, 2017

Find Tech Jobs with Dice.com

https://thebestsites.com/website/find-tech-jobs-dice-com/

Find a Plethora of Q/A Sites at StackExchange

https://thebestsites.com/website/find-plethora-qa-sites-stackexchange/

Use Your Phone's Camera to Get Homework Answers at Socratic.org

https://thebestsites.com/website/use-phones-camera-get-homework-answers-socratic-org/

The Pacific Ocean of DIY Guides: Instructables

https://thebestsites.com/website/pacific-ocean-diy-guides-instructables/

Saturday, September 16, 2017

A Search Engine for Free Movie and TV Show Links: Alluc.ee

Alluc is a highly-rated search engine for free movies and TV shows. It is the most-liked free movie service on AlternativeTo and it's in the #2 spot on BestFreeStreaming.com. The site crawls through over 60 different free movie and TV show websites. The pop-up advertisements are tolerable unlike Primewire.ag. Finding a free movie link is as easy as searching and then clicking a link that looks legit.

There are ways of integrating Alluc with Kodi. This will give you access to free movies on your HTPC. Here's a video that describes how to install Alluc on your Kodi-powered HTPC.

The site also has a Downloads section and a Subtitles section where you can download files instead of streaming.

https://thebestsites.com/website/search-engine-free-movie-tv-show-links-alluc-ee/

Watch Virtually Any Movie Online for Free with Primewire.ag (or Alluc)

Reddit swears by Primewire.ag. They have their own subreddit for it and the site is featured in Mashable's article, "The 15 Best Websites, According to Redditors". Upon further research, you might stumble upon some websites that do a better job than Primewire.ag. After all, with Primewire.ag, it's difficult to find the right links to click to watch the movies for free because there are ads all over the place that say, "Click Here to Watch". Even if you don't click on the ad links, Primewire.ag will bombard you with pop ups of all sorts.

If you look at AlternativeTo's alternative sites for Primewire.ag, you'll see that Alluc is actually the most liked. Alluc is a search engine for free movie links. When using it, I wasn't bombarded with ads like I was on Primewire.ag. I found a free movie link for Inception much faster than on Primewire.ag.

There's also this neat site that lists free movie streaming sites. The list contains both Primewire.ag and Alluc. To no surprise, Alluc is rated #2 and Primewire.ag is rated #20 on the list.

https://thebestsites.com/website/watch-virtually-movie-online-free-primewire-ag-alluc/

Metacritic: A Review Aggregator for Movies, TV Shows, Games, and More

https://thebestsites.com/website/metacritic-review-aggregator-movies-tv-shows-games/