On Computers » Internuts

START YOUR OWN FUNDRAISER

Bob and Joy Schwabach — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 15:08:59 +0000

GiveForward.org lets you create a personal fundraising page for any person, cause or non-profit and solicit donations from all over the world. If you create a non-profit organization in the U.S., you’ll need a federal tax identification number.

JETSETTER AND SESAME STREET

Bob and Joy Schwabach — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 15:30:49 +0000

Jetsetter is what they call a “curated” travel site. Instead of relying on hundreds or thousands of reviews from unknown reviewers, as tripadvisor.com does, this site only describes hotels the web site staff has been to, and then shows only the ones that currently have deals. You get a weekly email telling you of the week’s sales. A deposit is required to hold a reservation.
eBooks.sesamestreet.org/free offers a rotating selection of five free Sesame Street eBooks, for reading on your computer screen, phone or Internet-connected device. For $25, you can get access to 100 interactive eBooks and audio books.

MEASURING WORTH, BUZZVOICE, AND COOLIRIS

Bob and Joy Schwabach — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 19:26:12 +0000

– MeasuringWorth.com translates past prices into today’s dollars. Example: in 1902, a barrel of oil in West Texas sold for three cents. That would be 77 cents in today’s dollars.(The actual current price is around $85. ) If you made $10,000 a year in 1774, that would be the equivalent of $5.2 million today.

– BuzzVoice.com is a free service that will read your favorite news items and blogs out loud. You can listen on your computer, MP3 player or your iPhone and share the items with others on social networking sites like Facebook. It’s a pretty robotic voice, but tolerable.

–Cooliris.com helps you find, navigate, and subscribe to shows on the web, including TV episodes, news, etc.

CONNECTIFY.ME AND OTHER SITES

Bob and Joy Schwabach — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 14:52:22 +0000

Crocodoc.com is a free service that lets you mark up, fill out, and highlight PDFs, Word documents, PowerPoint slides, and web pages.
OverMyMinutes.com sends alerts when your remaining cell phone minutes go over the limit you set.
Connectify.me is a free program that turns your wired Windows 7 laptop into a Wi-Fi hotspot. This is handy when lots of people want to use the Internet and there’s only one Ethernet cable.

OYSTER FINDS THE REAL PICTURE

Bob and Joy Schwabach — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 16:19:51 +0000

Oyster.com shows you a side-by-side comparison of the photos that popular hotels take of their properties and the unedited reality.

Their ongoing series “Photo Fakeouts” include:

Oyster.com's undoctored photo of the same hotel

Hyatt Regency Washington's Photo

A Washington, D.C. hotel photo that makes it appear as though the U.S. Capitol Building is only steps away—in fact, it’s almost a mile away.
A seemingly romantic beach is actually in the center of an active construction zone.
A male model emerges with a surfboard from what appears to be an expansive wave pool. It’s no bigger than a hot tub.
A Caribbean chain offers “king beds” that are really two double beds shoved together.

Oyster.com has hotel reviews for 14 destinations in the U.S. and Caribbean and over 200,000 undoctored photos. You choose the price range, ratings, and amenties you want and they give you “the bottom line” summary plus links to a review full of pros and cons.

A New York hotel we chose had 161 photos, info about what to do nearby, and gossip about those who’s stayed there, such as Marlon Brando, Tennessee Williams and Vladimir Horowitz. Tripadvisor.com has lots more destinations, but if yours is on Oyster.com’s list, it will give you the true picture.

FOUR GREAT SITES

Bob and Joy Schwabach — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 21:45:43 +0000

newseum.org/todaysfrontpages shows you a map of the world with clickable dots. Each dot opens up a city’s newspaper front page, exactly as the paper looks. If you click “readable PDF” at the top of the page, you can easily read that paper’s front page. You can read front pages from papers all over the world, but only for the current date.
Fiverr.com lets you hire yourself out or hire someone else for $5 a job. Someone is offering to make a personalized work of art from your photo. Another wants to make a mobile version of your favorite website. Someone else will cut the fluff out of your PowerPoint presentation. There are hundreds of others.
Tawkon is a would-be iPhone app that Apple hasn’t approved yet. It tells you how much radiation is being emitted from your iPhone. But you don’t need this app if you remember a couple of things. Don’t hold your cell phone too tightly; a headset is better. The harder your cell phone has to work to keep a connection going, the more radiation it emits. Try not to call from an elevator or a room deep inside a steel and concrete building.
adrive.com Free 50 gigabytes of online storage. Hard to beat free.

TV EVERYWHERE, CHAT ROOMS, GEOGRAPHY QUIZZES

Bob and Joy Schwabach — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:27:28 +0000

– TVGorge.com has thousands of TV shows you can watch online, including those previously unavailable outside the U.S. We thought TVGorge was better than Hulu in many ways. It had the latest episode of our favorite show, “The Mentalist,” for instance, while Hulu had only short clips of older episodes.

– TinyChat.com is allows you to create your own chat room while you’re online, a place where you and people with the same interests can interact. They have video and audio chats and whiteboard drawing. You can bring in your Facebook friends, or — click “TinyChat Next” to enter a chat room with others, categorized by topic, such as “technology” or “humor.”

– Go to jimspages.com to quiz yourself on U.S. geography. Click “Do you know your states?”

INTERNUTS FOR FREE

Bob and Joy Schwabach — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 02:06:58 +0000

– AbsurdlyCool.com is an aggregator. It collects free stuff from many other sites and presents them here.

– HeyItsFree.net has links to free Blockbuster rental codes, gallons of chocolate milk, and coupons for a variety of products. Like AbsurdlyCool, it’s also on Twitter.

–BestFreeTraining.com has links to free online training in a variety of subjects. We looked at free training for Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Microsoft Office. Some links, like yogadownload.com, offer mostly un-free stuff, but we found free videos when we clicked “podcast” under the “our classes” tab.

–SocialBuy.com offers deep discounts on everything from cupcakes to tanning. It was just launched and so far serves only the west coast of the U.S.

PET FINDER

Bob and Joy Schwabach — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 18:08:02 +0000

Cartoon dogs that speak can help you decide what breed you want. It’s the latest thing at PetCentric.com.

We listened to a basset hound from France, a sheepdog from Scotland and a mutt from the USA. You can plug in half a dozen variables, such as how much time you have for a pet, whether you have kids or allergies, and so on. Then click on a realistically-drawn cartoon pet on the screen and hear them talk about their breed in the accent of the country they came from. It’s a great way to learn about dog breeds.

You can also click on “Adopt a Pet” to find free dogs and cats from nearby animal shelters. Purina Pet Foods sponsors the site.

WEBSITES FOR COMPLAINING AND VIDEO EDITING

Bob and Joy Schwabach — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 01:37:42 +0000

SeeClickFix.com is designed to help people submit complaints about their city to their city. Of course it helps if city workers actually monitor the site. Our town actually does, and recently responded to a woman’s complaint about an alley near her home almost before her fingers left the keys.
Animoto.com lets you create professional looking videos in a few seconds, by dragging and dropping the clips you’ve uploaded, and using an easy interface to trim your segments. It’s free to use if your video is less than 30 seconds long. Otherwise, it’s $3 a video or $30 a year for an unlimited number.