Webware

Barnes & Noble has quietly shuttered its how-to site Quamut. The site, which was launched back in late March 2008, was a mix of professionally produced how-to guides and user-created wikis, the latter of which are no longer available.

What remains are the 1,685 guides which will continue to be sold both at Barnes & Noble's online store as digital downloads, and at brick-and-mortar stores as laminated paper reference guides. These range anywhere from $2.95 to $5.95 depending on what format they're in.

There's no word yet on whether the company will continue to invest in the creation of more guides, or if its user-generated how-to guides will once again be made available. For now, the only way to access them is through a Web cache like Google.

Barnes & Noble also continues to run in-house ads for the site on its online store, despite the change.

A Barnes & Noble representative could not be immediately reached for comment.

In light of Gmail's updated e-mail import feature, which was released on Wednesday, we put together a short video to show you how to use it.

The good news is that it's incredibly easy. So easy anyone can do it. Then again, if you're new to Gmail (which is just the type of person this feature is aimed at), the process can be confusing.

We take you through the steps of entering in your old information, and what it looks like when the process is all done. To see this in glorious HD, head over to CNET TV.

If video's not your thing, here's a step-by-step slideshow that shows you how to do it:

In the past, we've done Newbie's Guides for certain services, but we wanted to switch things up and really dig into a product's advanced features.

Video-sharing site YouTube is the perfect service to start with because it's massively popular and incredibly simple to use, but also has a few powerful features that are tucked away. This guide is to help you learn how to use some of these advanced features and to serve as a simple reference page.

For the sake of simplicity, we're only covering searching, viewing, and sharing. We've skipped uploading since it's pretty straightforward and made simple with the service's recently launched multifile uploader. We're also not including any third-party downloading tools because that is against YouTube's terms of use and is already an official first-party feature on some content.

Searching

Using YouTube's search tool:
YouTube's search engine works a lot like Google's. In fact, it uses the same search operators to let you tweak your results. Here are some worth remembering the next time you're looking for a video:

• Limit to words in the title. Putting "allintitle:" in front of your search keeps YouTube's results limited to those videos with the matching words in the title. This is great if you want to keep it from searching through descriptions or tags. Not so useful if the video you're looking for has a misspelled or misleading title.

• Exclude a term. Add a "-" then the word you want to exclude will keep it out of the results. So if you're searching for explosions but don't want to see videos with diet Coke or Mentos, you'd type in "Explosion -diet -coke -mentos." Be sure to add the "-" in front of every word you don't want.

• Play the wildcard. If you're too lazy to type a word, or think that YouTube will figure out the words you're leaving out, you can just put in an asterisk in place of that word. In practice, this means that searching for something like "Fallout: Broken Steel" you could just type "Fallout * Steel" and have it guess the word in the middle.

If you can't remember these off the top of your head you can find them in YouTube's advanced search box, which shows up as an option in the results of any completed search. It's also worth going there if you want to filter how long the videos in the results should be. This is a great way to find long-form content that's 20 minutes or more.

Search and browse with your eyes.
If titles and thumbnails are not enough, you can explore additional, related video clusters by using YouTube's warp feature. This is a feature that can still be found on some videos, but YouTube has since relegated it to its TestTube section. That doesn't mean you can't use it on any old video though. Simply inserting "warp.swf" in the URL instead of the word "watch" will send you into full-screen "warp speed" mode. To read more about how to use this feature check out our coverage of it.

Third-party search tools
There are a handful of third-party YouTube search engines and tools that add a little bit of utility on top of YouTube's search. Here are some of our favorites:

... Read more

Online gaming network Cellufun plans to unveil a new mobile game on Monday called MadeOff, which allows players to create their own Ponzi scheme.

The game's name is a play on Bernie Madoff, the recently convicted mastermind behind the biggest known Ponzi scheme in history. Madoff had more than 4,800 clients who invested money in his investment firm, expecting high returns. Instead of investing that cash into real securities, Madoff allegedly pilfered billions of dollars from clients before he was arrested in 2008.

Gamers playing MadeOff will engage in the same basic activity. You can choose to be a fund manager, trying to coax other Cellufun players into investing in your fund. You can then use their CelluPoints--the game's currency--to pay off some investors, while stealing the rest for yourself. Fund managers will have a menu in the game that allows them to post ads on the network that can be searched by investors. The ads mention what the fund manager is promising as a rate of return on the CelluPoints invested.

If you don't want to run your own fund, you can invest your CelluPoints in other players' Ponzi schemes. If the fund manager is capable, you could receive an inordinately high return on your CelluPoints investment. As you get more CelluPoints, Cellufun will award virtual trophies for your effort. But if the fund manager decides to close their fund, you will lose all your points.

MadeOff will run continuously, allowing more people to invest in the Ponzi schemes and win more CelluPoints. But at a time that Cellufun decides, "the feds" will come in and break up the Ponzi schemes they catch. According to the company, the Feds are Cellufun employees.

Investors looking to rack up CelluPoints need to be aware that at any time, the feds can come in and shut the fund down, taking all the CelluPoints with them. Fund managers need to decide when to close the fund and walk away with all the points they've accumulated from investors before the feds crack down. It turns MadeOff into a strategy game that will make some players profitable and others broke.

An educational experience

I didn't have the chance to play MadeOff because Cellufun told me that the game isn't quite ready. It's still being tweaked for its release next week. But it sounds like it has promise. Though the idea of running a Ponzi scheme might turn some off, given Madoff's crimes, I think it can be used to educate the public.

Ponzi schemes date back to 1920 when an Italian immigrant, Charles Ponzi, became a millionaire in six months by stealing more than $15 million from 40,000 people.

It wasn't until Madoff was arrested that Ponzi schemes became big news again. Though some believe the worst is over, Madoff whistle blower Harry Markopolos told Congress in February that there are more Ponzi schemes out there that the SEC and other federal regulators still haven't found.

Perhaps MadeOff will educate players and help them identify those schemes. It could help them protect themselves before they become a victim.

You can play the free MadeOff game on more than 7,000 mobile phones by accessing the company's mobile Web site. Though it's designed for mobile phones, you can also access MadeOff from your computer's browser.

There's no lack of music instruction online. Sites like iVideoSongs and Internet-connected applications such as Garage Band, can tailor music instruction right down to the specific genre, song, and instrument of your choice. The trouble is, they don't actually show you how to make a great recording.

If you're more interested in how to use side-chain audio compression in Logic, than how to how to play "Stairway to Heaven," WinkSound.com is worth a look. The site design is a little rough, but the video tutorials are helpful and clearly organized into relevant topics (Garage Band, Beat Making, Ableton Live).

Nearly all of WinkSound's video content is user-generated, with much of it collected from sites such as YouTube. It's also worth noting that there's a definite emphasis on electronic, pop, and hip-hop music production, although you'll also find generally applicable video tutorials on subjects like recording acoustic drum sets or best practices for mixing in ProTools.

If you're new to using recording software, WinkSound isn't going to replace the value of a well-written manual, but it's a handy resource for peeking into other people's studios and cribbing a few techniques.

The economy is in trouble and we're all cutting back on spending, unsure of what the future might hold. We're also starting to realize that maybe doing things ourselves instead of hiring outside help is a great idea.

But if you're someone like me, building a deck in the back yard or, heck, painting vaulted ceilings, just isn't something you're proficient at. But luckily for us, there are a slew of sites across the Web that provide articles and videos that can help us complete any project.

5min.com
I like 5min because I can learn about almost anything in, well, 5 minutes or less.

5min features videos from users who are experts on a particular subject. Sometimes, their expertise is buying an electric shaver. Other times, it's installing weatherstripping. Either way, you can find anything from the simple to the complex on 5min.

Although the videos are great, my favorite feature on 5min is the company's video player. Unlike some players that only let you play, stop, rewind, and fast-forward a clip, 5min's video player lets you zoom in, proceed frame-by-frame, and run the video in slow motion so you don't miss any steps. That feature comes in especially handy when you watch a video on a complex topic and the expert is moving too fast in their instruction.

eHow

eHow is a fantastic how-to site that includes both videos and articles. And although there aren't nearly as many videos on the site as other services like 5min, eHow still provides a fine alternative for learning how to get things done.

eHow enlists the help of professionals to create the more than 300,000 articles on the site. From learning how to tie a tie, to how to caulk, the site has it all. That said, if you're looking for video, you're not going to find much on eHow--it's designed to provide step-by-step text instructions. Sometimes, especially when I need to figure out how to build something like a deck, that's ideal. But for simple topics like learning how to throw a baseball, a video works much better. In those cases, I tend to use sites like 5min or Expert Village instead.

You will be forced to sit through commercials on the company's videos, but that's not a big deal--they're only 15 seconds long and run before the clip. I should also note that the site's video player doesn't offer all the extras like those that you'll find with 5min, so you'll probably find yourself moving the slider back quite often to figure out how to do something.

But video isn't what eHow is all about. The site is ideal when you want to bring instructions with you wherever you need to complete a task. Unlike 5min or Expert Village, I don't need to sit in front of my computer to see how to sand wood flooring when I use eHow; I can print out the instructions and read them. And on complex projects, having that option is ideal.

Expert Village

Expert Village is a little different from a service like 5min, which allows users to upload videos to display their expertise. Expert Village employs experts who work in fields ranging from music to home improvement who research particular topics and create short videos--usually no longer than five minutes--detailing how to perform a particular task.

The value of Expert Village's use of experts is seen almost immediately. Sure, you can find a really informative video on 5min and it might provide the same quality as something on Expert Village, but generally, that's the exception, not the norm.

According to Expert Village's internal figures, the site features over 131,000 videos that have been viewed more than 292 million times. And given the wide range of topics those videos cover, Expert Village is an ideal source for help.

One especially nice offering that shouldn't be overlooked is Expert Village's series. Unlike 5min or even eHow, some Expert Village experts stay on one topic and create a series of videos to walk you through a process.

For instance, one expert is teaching Chinese etiquette.... Read more

Howcast, the how-to video host and platform, on Friday released its iPhone application, bringing its entire catalog of short-form informational videos to the popular device.

Much like YouTube's iPhone application, the Howcast app lets users search for videos, find them in a small selection of featured clips, or pick them by popularity or publication date.

It's wonderfully entertaining--including the option to shake the phone (or iPod Touch) and go to a random clip, no matter what part of the application you're using.

Where the mobile experience falls short of its Web counterpart is in lacking an integrated wiki system and wonderful custom Flash player.

The wikis, in particular, make the Web product far more compelling, since you can get the gist of any video in a few simple paragraphs that can be edited by the Howcast community.

For something like a food recipe, the wiki descriptions can be immensely handy, especially if you're planning to take your iPhone into the kitchen or use Howcast when you're out shopping.

Likewise, the lack of the Web service's video player, which lets you skip to different sections of the video, is a real bummer. It's something that's possible with QuickTime chapter markers, but it's not currently implemented in the iPhone app. In future versions, I'd love to see that change.

Howcast is free and available in Apple's App Store. If you're a fan of the site, it's definitely worth a download, despite its shortcomings.

With video search being what it is (see Truveo, Blinx, etc.), we're possibly over the need for video how-to sites that simply compile from other sources. However, I wanted to write about video how-to site WonderHowTo because it's got a great collection of clips, and an even better way to sort through them--maybe more so than your standard video search tool.

Each category goes about two levels deep, but that second level is where all the care has been taken. For example, if you dig into Arts & Crafts, there are 13 different subcategories, each of which has been meticulously sorted. You can divide up the results even more with tags and keywords. There are also alternate ways to explore videos related to what you're watching with a little sidebar of clips that sits to the left, and will continue to play down the list as each video finishes.

Unlike some how-to sites that create content that can only be found there (see HowCast), nearly all of the content found on WonderHowTo is picked from video hosts like YouTube. In fact, the submission process doesn't actually let you upload a how-to video you've made, and instead just lets you drop in a URL where it will slurp up the video and house it with its grading wrapper. What's neat is that you can give the video a new title and description, much like Digg and other user news sites, which has led to some more useful or simply entertaining creations than the video author may have originally intended.

The service recently introduced little widgets you can drop on your blog. Each widget can be set up to show the daily featured videos, but you can also set it up to show off your latest playlist. Unfortunately the videos don't play within the widget. You can, however, run a search from inside the widget, which is a nice touch.

Between all the various how-to video sites (see: 5Min, VideoJug, Instructables, Graspr, Sclipo, and SuTree), the staying power of WonderHowTo is in its curation. The service has a full-time curator alongside the users who are pumping in content and categorizing it, but without providing a way for people to add their own bits without having to go through another service first, it's missing out on a chance to offer some of the depth offered from competitors like HowCast, which have really innovative ways to change the way people are interacting with these user-created instructional videos.

Sometimes I feel like people might think we talk the talk, but don't walk the walk when it comes to using some Web services. Believe me when I tell you we use this stuff every day, and over the last month, nothing has been more useful to me than Craigslist. Why? I was moving, and I did 95 percent of it using a single service to find movers, boxes, people to buy and take away old furniture, and most importantly--a place to live.

After having just finished, I know I could have done some things better, and I thought this would be a good chance provide a focused collection of tips and tricks for each stage of a move. Something useful for any would-be movers who have never used the Web to hunt for a new place, then get the job done by selling excess junk, and finding the right equipment to get from point A to point B. I've also nixed using just Craigslist, as a balanced attack using several best-of-breed Web services will save you time and money.

Finding a place

Mash Maker (review) from Intel is a very slick tool for parsing through Craigslist's myriad of listings and making the data accessible in ways that Craigslist does not provide for. There are a few "plug-ins" for Craiglist in the Mash Maker gallery. The most useful ones are the tables plus maps one that will let you see pricing, move in dates, and more in an easy to use chart that can be sorted. There's also a great one that will give you the price versus subregion that will tell you the average price of apartments based on each neighborhood you're looking at.

Another mash up that existed before Mash Maker, but that's still accessible without the installation of the plug-in is HousingMaps, which mashes up Google Maps with Craigslist housing listings. You're not going to find some of the most up-to-date listings from just an hour or so ago, or be able to search through them like you can on Craigslist, but using the filters it's simply a fantastic way to check out a bunch of places with less text and more topography.

If you're trying to buy a house, there are some even better services that bring a lot more depth to the table. Trulia and Zillow offer simple and deep services that give you a lot of information and put you in touch with real estate folks or homeowners without you even needing to leave your house.

Trulia has the most eye candy of the two, with a time line viewer called HindSight that will show you growth and other housing trends by geography. It's really only useful in a few cities, unlike Trulia's core service which will let you hunt for houses with a high level of ease. Fellow housing search tool Zillow is also great for potential homebuyers, and ties in things such as a mortgage finder and a great map tool that includes homes for sale, recently sold homes, and even places people are just thinking about selling and just waiting for the right offer to get out.

Continue reading to learn about research tools, finding movers, and what to do if you find yourself temporarily homeless...

... Read more