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Check In & Become Mayor Of Your Favorite Venues With Foursquare

mayor of foursquare Are you constantly on the move? Do you like finding new, interesting places to eat or hang out at, or do you welcome the familiar? Regardless of your routine, Foursquare can enhance your traveling and make wandering around your own town fun. Do it enough, and you could become the Mayor of a Foursquare location.

Foursquare – much like Gowalla – is a geolocation app for your phone, which means it uses your geographical location to work. Foursquare can tell you what’s all around you and can let you share what you’re doing with your friends. If you’re a Twitter user, you’ve probably seen an increasing amount of Foursquare tweets in your stream as of late.

Geolocation apps are becoming a popular trend fast, especially as businesses learn how to use them for their benefit. Being that Foursquare is one of the most popular geolocation games in town, allow me to share with you everything you can do with this app.

Where Do I Get Foursquare?

First thing’s first, let me briefly cover where you can get this app. You can use Foursquare on any phone. If you have an iPhone, or one with Android, Blackberry, or Palm you’re in luck, because Foursquare has supported apps for those phones.

Don’t have a fancy phone? That’s alright, because you can simply go to the mobile site to use it with your phone’s web browser. If you have a phone that doesn’t have a web browser, you can check in by sending messages to 50500 (only available in the US).

Lastly, anyone can check into Foursquare from the regular website. To make this easier, you can try the Firefox and Chrome extensions.

Checking In With Foursquare

The main idea behind Foursquare is to check into the places you visit (e.g. restaurants, bars). You access the app on your phone (by one of the many ways I’ve discussed) and check into the venue you’re at (e.g. Cafe 210, State College).

foursquare badges

Upon checking in, you will receive points and (eventually) badges – like being the Mayor of a Foursquare location. These ‘accomplishments’ will be added to your profile for all to see. Add friends (Gmail, Twitter, Facebook) to compete against. Once you’ve added a friend, you can then see all of their check ins and total points accumulated.

foursquare badges

Because you can check in from anywhere and there are points involved, you may want to consult the rules. Also, you can find a list of all the available Foursquare badges here.

How To Become The Mayor of Foursquare

foursquare badges

If you’ve been to a place more than anyone else, Foursquare will crown you “The Mayor” of that Foursquare spot. According to their website, they calculate ‘mayorships’ based on the most days with check ins in the past 60 days (so 2 check ins to the same place in one day just count 1 time).

If someone else comes along who has checked in more days than you, they will steal the “Mayor” title from you. A lot of bars and cafes now offer “Mayor Specials”, which is usually something like a free coffee or appetizer, or a discount of some kind. Some places offer specials to everyone who checks in. Watch for the yellow “Special Nearby” icon in your app.

[Note]: If you want to become mayor of Foursquare, you will need to have uploaded a profile photo.

I Can’t Find My Venue. Now What?

If the venue you’re looking for isn’t there, don’t sweat it. Foursquare gives you the ability to add venues. You can do this from your phone or the website. All you have to do is click on Add venue and add the necessary information.

what is foursquare

Just type in the name of the venue, along with its address and phone number (if you know it), and you’re all set. Foursquare will add the location to their database, along with a Google map and all of the information you provided. It’s a great way to get local venues discovered!

While entering information, you can also pick the category of the venue (e.g. Bar, Wings) and add tags and tips.

Wait, What Are Tips?

what is foursquare

Ah, yes. Foursquare lets you leave tips for your friends to discover when they check into places. You can leave tips to let people know about your favorite experiences (e.g. favorite foods, things to try) or anything you like.

mayor of foursquare

You can add tips to your To Dos list on your profile. Once you’ve completed an action, it will be added to your activity stream. Tips are currently tied to places, so you will need to type in the name of a place in order to leave a tip.

Still Don’t Know What Foursquare Is?

Check out this video for a visual recap of everything I’ve just covered:

Conclusion

Foursquare can be a lot of fun once you get into it. It’s a good way to compete with your friends and it helps you get out more. As more and more businesses get on board, I’m sure we will be seeing some interesting and creative ways to use such geolocation apps. Since Foursquare is one of the more popular apps out there, it will be particularly interesting to see where it is headed.

If you still have any questions about Foursquare that I did not address, you should check out their in-depth FAQ page.

Do you use Foursquare or any other geolocation apps? Where do you see this technology headed? What have you become the Mayor of? Please leave your thoughts, ideas, and comments below!

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Do You Share Passwords With Your Spouse? [MakeUseOf Poll]

Last week’s poll invited the dreamers of you to answer this question: Where would you live if you could freelance online from anywhere? The poll answers were strictly divided into certain types of areas, but the comments led to some very interesting specific locations and reasons for your choices.

The results clearly tell us that if MakeUseOf readers had online freelance work and wi-fi wherever it’s needed, most of you would hit the beach or an island. That’s 35% of MUO responders heading straight for the sun and sand. Sounds lovely, but I’m not sure you’ll get much work done there! Almost with a perfect draw for second place came two very different locations: ‘Mountains’ on 20% and ‘Busy City’ on 19%. This tells us that MUO readers are pretty equally divided when it comes to the sociable and the introverted: Half of you want to live it up and the other half want to get away from it all. ‘Remote Village’ on 10% was slightly more popular than the 6% of votes for ‘Tropical/Forest’ area. However, after reading the comments, this seems like it’s because few people believe they’ll get good internet access in a forest. Love the priorities, MakeUseOf readers!

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

As you can see, all those cafés in beach towns had better start improving their wi-fi access for the influx of freelancer workers coming their way!

Now, enough with the dreaming and on to something a tad more serious.

This week’s poll question is: Do you share passwords with your spouse/partner?

Please note: I’d normally just say “partner”, but I didn’t want anyone getting confused with business partners. By saying spouse/partner I intend to cover all manner of serious romantic relationships where both parties love and trust each other completely.

Sharing passwords is a pretty serious security issue. I doubt that any security specialist would ever recommend sharing any passwords for any reason, yet so many couples do it anyway. The consequences of shared passwords (even without considering a potential break-up) are numerous and in some cases quite dire. But somehow, when you’ve come to trust someone so much, it seems far less important to keep these things secret.

So, let’s see what the general attitude is among MakeUseOf readers. I’d be very surprised if many of you are as open with passwords as the general public are.

Have you shared your most important passwords? Just a few? Which passwords are most important to you? Or, are you of the “I love you, but not THAT much” security-cautious variety? Do tell!

When considering your answers to this poll, if you are single or with someone you don’t entirely trust, please consider what your stance would be if you did have a partner you trusted completely. Would you share passwords then?

Feel free to elaborate on your answer a little in the comments – we realise a complicated question can never be answered completely by a simple poll choice.

Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers!

Portable Linux Apps Which Work With Any Linux Distro

Portable Apps for Windows and Mac have been around for a long time, but are less common in the Linux world. Due to the complexity of Linux dependencies, and the different way different distributions locate these dependencies, the portable Linux application long seemed like a pipe dream.

Until now.

New website PortableLinuxApps features a number of portable Linux applications, which will work on any Linux distribution. These can run off your flash drive or from a folder in your home directory; it doesn’t matter. Best of all, there’s documentation out there to help you make your own program, should you not be able to find what you’re looking for.

How It Works

Like portable applications for other operating systems, portable Linux apps bundle each and every dependency a program has within a single executable. This has downsides: applications with redundent dependencies will take up more hard drive space, for example. For many the convinence of portable applications outweight this negative, particularly in our present age of cheap hard drives.

Because every dependency of each program is bundled in the program itself, these portable Linux apps can run on practically any Linux distro (although I’m certain someone in the comments will manage to prove this wrong). Ubuntu, Fedora and SuSe are all confirmed to work with these apps, which is a solid start.

Just remember: once you download such an app, remember that you’ll need to change the permission to allow executing the file as a program. If you’re not sure how to do this the simplest way is to right-click the file, then click “Properties” followed by the “Permissions” tab. You’ll find the option to allow execution at the bottom of the window:

portable linux

One Online Collection

It would seem that, for now, PortableLinuxApps.org is the place to find…well…portable Linux apps.

portable linux apps

The collection currently is quite small but features many MakeUseOf favourites, including:

DosBox, a DOS emulator for playing old games.
Handbrake, the best way to convert video.
Transmission, the light BitTorrent program.
Pidgin, the universal IM program.

Just download the software, set the permissions and you’re good to go!

Rolling Your Own

Can’t find a particular program you’re looking for? You can bundle it yourself! The process is relatively easy, if not a little convoluted. The good folks at OMG Ubuntu recently wrote a post explaining how to convert an Ubuntu .deb file into a portable app, so check that out for more information.

Here’s hoping that in the future creating a portable app from a .deb file will be a two-click affair!

Conclusion

portable linux apps

Package management is perhaps what makes Linux great, but it’s also one of the most common complaints newcomers to Linux have. Being used to simply Googling and downloading any program needed, the average new users are a little confused by what they find: .tar.gz files or worse.

This is made worse by the sheer number of different Linux distros on the market, and the fact that they all have different ways of managing packages. The best thing to do, of course, is to learn to use your distro’s package manager. But portable apps are cool, and certainly have their place.

Can you think of cool uses for such technology? Have any apps you’ve bundled yourself that you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments below!

Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers!

The 5 Best Questions From You [MakeUseOf Answers]

MakeUseOf Answers is the place where you can ask us all your difficult tech questions. And should you be able to answer a question from someone else, you have the chance to win $50 in our Best Answer of the Week contest. Just provide a valid email address or sign in with your Facebook account.

This week’s well deserved winner is Yousef for his answer to this question: “Is a Mac harder to use than a Windows PC?” Congratulations Yousef!

And here are our best questions of the week:

To learn more than you ever wanted to know, browse MakeUseOf Answers. You can view Latest Questions, Unanswered Questions or Most Popular Questions. For regular updates subscribe to the Answers RSS Feed.

Need help? Ask your question at MakeUseOf Answers! Free, no signup, no spam.

British Powerlifter Crashes Into Wall

This took place at a British Drug-Free Powerlifting Association event, which isn't nearly as fun as the British Drug-<i>Fueled</i> Powerlifting Association, where instead of crashing into walls, they smash through them.

Written on 23 July 2010 by PCPIMP under Break.com with Comments Off
Tagged with Association, association event, British, drug, event, FREE, Fueled, Fun, isn, lt, place, Powerlifting, smash

Turbocharge & Customize Your Mac Finder Windows [Mac]

mac finder windows If you are relatively new to the Mac and you rely on the default setup of the Mac Finder, you are probably taking longer to find items on your hard drive than you actually need to. The Finder, like other applications, can be customized and turbocharged so that you can access and open items faster.

(Note: for additional tips about the Mac Finder and other Mac related tools and how-tos, download the free MakeUseOf Mac manual. If you’re an advanced Mac user, you might want to check out this MUO article about TotalFinder – A Mac Finder Alternative with Some Cool Extras).

Customize The Toolbar

As with all applications, you should see what can be customized in a program’s toolbar. The Finder is no different. So first, open a Finder window (Finder>New Finder Window) and let’s see the few items there by default.

(1) Forward/back buttons for navigating open windows.

(2) Icon, List, Column, and Cover Flow buttons for file viewing and arrangement.

(3) Action button (more about this later) for creating new folders; duplicating, burning, and labeling files and folders

mac finder

(4) Search bar for finding files and folders in your hard drive.

These items are a good start, but there’s a few more handy items that you might want to add to the toolbar. So click on View>Customize items.., in the menu bar to see what else can be added.

mac finder

All of these items are pretty self-explanatory. You can drag any item onto the toolbar for easier and quicker access, since more than likely you will have one or more Finder windows open at any given time. You can also of course drag items out of your toolbar that you are not using. If you don’t need these items labeled, click the Show Icon Only drop-down button on the bottom-left.

Files & Folders

The Customize items are great, but more importantly you can also drag any file or application in your hard drive onto your Finder toolbar. It’s like having a dock of items in the Finder that you can activate or open.

mac finder

Simply click on an item and drag it to the toolbar. An alias of that item will be created in the toolbar and the original will remain in its place. To drag the item out of the toolbar, hold down the Command key and click and drag it off the toolbar.

Applications that you have in the toolbar can be useful for opening accompanying files. So for example if you have a picture file that you want to open, simply drag that file from its folder, place it on top of the Preview icon in your toolbar and it will open that file. You can also activate an application that you put in the toolbar by simply clicking on it.

You can drag as many items you like in the toolbar. When a window is dragged to a smaller dimension, overflow items can be accessed by clicking the arrow icon that will appear in the toolbar.

find files on mac

Finder Preferences

Again, as with any application, open its Preferences and see what you can customize to fit your needs. Click on your desktop and then go to Finder>Preferences. There you will find four sections. Let’s examine some possible items you might want to change.

General

You probably will want to uncheck the boxes for items on the desktop. Having your Finder filled with Hard and External disks, and CD/DVD icons does nothing but add clutter. These items can always be accessed on the Sidebar of any opened Finder window.

find files on mac

Each time you open a Finder window, you can have it open to a selected window by default. So for example, if you find yourself opening your Documents or Pictures folder a lot, then change the drop-down button under “New Finder windows open:“.

Labels

Using the Actions button (noted above) in your toolbar, you can select one or more file or applications and label them with a selected color. I use the colors to make certain items stand out in a folder, but you might want a more systematic approach to your color coding. So you can change the names for each color to say Red for Urgent files, Green for Complete Drafts, etc.

find files on mac

Sidebar

The Sidebar is where you can click on or off items that you want to appear in any Finder window that you open. You will probably want to keep all the items checked, except for a few items in the Search For area.

Advanced

Items in the Advanced area are pretty self-explanatory as well. If for example you don’t need to be warned that you’re emptying Trash on your computer, then simply uncheck that item. If you want all your trashed items securely deleted, then check that box.

mac finder windows

The key to becoming a Mac power user is knowing how to get things done faster on your computer. Let us know how you have customized your Finder to get things done faster.

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Kid Destroys Glass Table With Bottle

Con: You don't have a place to set your empty bottle, anymore.<br> Pro: You now have the world's largest cupholder.

Written on 21 July 2010 by PCPIMP under Break.com with Comments Off
Tagged with bottle, Con, cupholder, empty bottle, lt, place, world

4 New Features That Makes Google Docs Even Better

google docs features Google Docs has been by far one of the more useful offerings from Google in my life. Sure, Gmail is a close second because I do use it every day. However, since there are other worthy alternatives to using Gmail for my email, Google Docs will have to be my pick.

One of the major reasons why Google Docs is useful to me is because of the amazing collaborative features it has. Being able to work together on spreadsheets and documents has been imperative in the past few years.

That being said, web-based word processing has had its downfalls (check out the debate). One of the downfalls is Google’s ability to render documents correctly. Let this article serve to prove that Google is working on the issues and hopefully someday online word processing can possibly replace the old school offline way of doing things. In its newest release, Google Docs has worked on four areas that makes it even better than before.

Real Time Collaboration

Like I mentioned earlier, one of the Google Docs features I love is that I have the ability to collaborate with other editors. Now Google has improved this to the point of real time collaboration. This means that I can be working on a document or spreadsheet at the same time as another editor and we can actually see changes as they take place.

Notice in the screenshot how there is a block highlighted in a color and how a name pops up.This tells me that a change is taking place at that exact moment.

google docs review

Chat With Other Collaborators

This Google Docs feature goes right along with real time collaboration. When Google acquired EtherPad (read more about it), perhaps they put them to work on Google Docs instead of Google Wave. Either way, I see this as a great improvement to Google Docs; a move that makes a lot of sense.

Now when you have another editor working on the same document, the name shows up at the top right side of the screen. Clicking on the name will drop down an EtherPad-type chat sidebar. Looks familiar, right? Very cool though.

google docs features

Higher-Quality Imports

In the past, importing documents created by offline word processors to be edited via Google Docs usually turned up some wonky formatting issues. If it is true that they are improving the import abilities, I am all for it. This is one area I see as holding me back from going all out using just web based word processing. Google, never stop improving in this area. We want to see the exact document that we uploaded, please.

Ruler

Last but not least, Google Docs has added a ruler at the top of the documents editor. Word processors for years have had this feature. Why it’s only now becoming available in Google Docs, I’m not sure. However, having it finally here is a blessing.

As you can see, we can now more easily format our documents. A quick glance at the ruler, and perhaps a few quick adjustments, and we are on our way to a more better formatted word processing life.

google docs features

Even with these new Google Docs features, online word processing has much to be desired. What else do you think Google Docs should add? And what is your favorite (new or not) feature of Google Docs?

Zune 4.0 – A Stunning Media Management Application

After buying the Zune HD music/video player from Microsoft, I was re-introduced to the Windows Zune Player software. It has undergone a big overhaul since we last reviewed it. One thing remains the same though – it’s still an incredible media management application.

You don’t need the Zune player to enjoy the benefits of the PC software. Below, we’ll discuss some of its more prominent features, and give you another couple of reasons to diss iTunes.

Zune Is…

Zune is the name of Microsoft’s music technologies – recently diverging into the fields of other popular media as well, like online video. It started with the launch of ‘the Zune’, Microsoft’s iPod rival that suffered from an undeserved marketing failure. But now, Zune is present on a multitude of different systems, ranging from the Zune HD and mobile phones to your Xbox 360.

microsoft zune hd

The Zune player is also available for your Windows PC but as of yet, Mac OS X and Linux are left out. Microsoft’s iTunes counterpart, this application manages your Zune device, as well as your local music libraries. MakeUseOf covered Zune 3.0, the old version, with a laudatory review. Much has changed since, with the big upgrade to Zune 4.0.

Zune 4.0 Media Manager

The 4.0 version launched in September last year, together with the Zune HD device. It got a complete interface and design overhaul – although touches of its predecessor are left present. Once again, you can expect a visually stunning and innovative interface, even if it’s still much of a memory hogging application.

zune player

It also integrates better with your other devices, such as the Xbox 360. Notable is the newfound importance of the cloud. Especially in the United States, the Marketplace – where you can buy music and video – is not to be missed. The new ‘Social’ tab allows you to interact with other audiophiles, and accentuate your musical identity; it’s Zune’s new social network for music fans.

microsoft zune hd

The music player itself highly resembles its predecessor. The beauty of it relights the hunger for innovation in our hearts – and perhaps confirms that it’s time to move to a new standard interface for media players.

Zune comes packed with a number of interesting features for the everyday music lover. There is Mixview, which shows a composition of connections to other artists and albums. Smart DJ puts this to use, by generating playlists of songs that are somehow related to a single artist, album, or song. The web streamer allows you to play your music on any device with an internet browser; even the Zune-ignored Mac and Linux systems.

Premium: Marketplace & Zune Pass

By all means, the Zune is a free music player. But the Marketplace and Zune Pass are two optional premium features that might enrich that experience. Sadly, these are only available for users in the United States and Puerto Rico.

The marketplace requires little to no explanation. It’s a place where you can buy the latest music and video. You’ll also find music videos, top 100 lists, channels and playlists.

microsoft zune hd

More interesting is the Zune Pass – directly related to the Zune Marketplace. For a monthly subscription fee of $14.99, you can download as many songs as you want – plus 10 songs ‘to keep’, each month. The Zune Pass was already available before the 4.0 update, but hasn’t lost its appeal.

If You Can’t Download The Application…

This link should take you to a page where you can download the Zune media manager. However, you might be redirected to a website of your own locale. Not all of these websites offer this download.

zune player

If you encounter this problem, scroll down to the bottom of the page and find the current region/language. Click International, and select United States on the next page. You should be able to find the download there, for sure. Note that although not all countries can access the market place, they can use the software as a regular media management application.

What do you think of the Zune player software? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!

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Cool Websites and Tools [July 19th]

Check out some of the latest MakeUseOf discoveries. All listed websites are FREE (or come with a decent free account option). No trials or buy-to-use craplets. For more cool websites and web app reviews subscribe to MakeUseOf Directory.

List Your Website Here!

Geocontext Profiler – Hikers, climbers and bicyclers often need to know the altitude and topography of the terrain they are going to visit. This information can better prepare them for what lays ahead. Thanks to Geocontext Profiler, it is now easy to pull up the topography statistics of any given location. Read more: Geocontext Profiler: Online Tool To See Topography Statistics Of Any Given Location.

		Pick ‘n Zip – Facebook’s a great place to put pictures you want your friends to see, but a terrible place for pictures you want your friends to download. Unless they know about Pick ‘N Zip, that is. This web app connects to your Facebook account and allows you to bulk download photos from Facebook. You can grab entire albums or even every photo tagged by a particular person. Read more: Pick ‘n Zip: Easily Download Entire Facebook Albums.

		Xoki – The web can be a very distracting place. If you don’t intentionally take time to slow down, your entire life can quickly become a series of work to do, links to click and people to contact. Xoki is a web app that’s a bit of a non-app. Designed to offset information overload, Xoki displays a single-color page. Nothing else. Read more: Xoki.com: Take a Break and Relax With Favorite Colors on Screen.

		ColorReminder – Choosing the right colors is one of the most important elements of design. If you ever feel yourself struggling with the color selection, ColorReminder has a huge collection of web colors for your design inspiration. Click on any of the 150 colors to see the Hex code or click on generate to see variations of that color. Read more: ColorReminder: Generate & Find The Right Color.

		VideoSprout – Video Sprout is a web service that lets you share videos privately. This is a useful option for social networking users unhappy with the privacy settings they are offered. Your uploaded video will have a unique URL which you can copy and share; alternatively, you can send out email invitations to recipients through your Video Sprout account. Read more: VideoSprout: Upload & Share Videos Privately Online.

List Your Website Here!

These are just half of the websites that we discovered in the last couple of days. If you want us to send you daily round-ups of all cool websites we come across, leave your email here. Or follow us via RSS feed.

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Tag Archives for place

Where Do I Get Foursquare?

Checking In With Foursquare

How To Become The Mayor of Foursquare

I Can’t Find My Venue. Now What?

Wait, What Are Tips?

Still Don’t Know What Foursquare Is?

Conclusion

Similar MakeUseOf Articles

Similar MakeUseOf Articles

How It Works

One Online Collection

Rolling Your Own

Conclusion

Similar MakeUseOf Articles

Similar MakeUseOf Articles

Customize The Toolbar

Files & Folders

Finder Preferences

General

Labels

Sidebar

Advanced

Similar MakeUseOf Articles

Real Time Collaboration

Chat With Other Collaborators

Higher-Quality Imports

Ruler

Similar MakeUseOf Articles

Zune Is…

Premium: Marketplace & Zune Pass

If You Can’t Download The Application…

Similar MakeUseOf Articles

Similar MakeUseOf Articles

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