Free Internet Access (kinda)

Yea, this is exciting and all to have free internet access, but be warned. I've tried many of these in my travels and most want to install some type of funky toolbar or bombard you with banner ads. They are usually ok in a pinch, but stick to free hotel or restaurant wi-fi if you can. From the site:

All Free ISP is the fastest way to find a cheap or free internet access service provider in your local area. With this comprehensive database of free isp local dialup access numbers, you can quickly find all free internet service providers in your local calling area throughout the USA and Canada. We also provide detailed information and ratings for each free isp to help you compare the free ISPs and select your new free internet access provider. Plus, All Free ISP now includes a selection of full-service, discount ISPs!

Finally, finding a discount / free ISP is as easy as 1, 2, 3.

Spreadsheet Templates, Calculators, and Calendars

I've been a big fan of DocStoc for awhile, but find myself using this more and more. From the site:

Vertex42™ is a leading provider of Excel templates, financial calculators, and calendars. We also host The Excel Nexus - The ultimate directory of 3rd-party Microsoft Excel® resources, including add-ins, templates, tutorials, and consulting services.

Kongregate - Total Time Waster, But Tons of Fun!

Not much more to say. From the site:

At Kongregate we're building the leading site to play games - or to make them. We have thousands and thousands of the best free games, and our community features mean that playing them here is more satisfying than anywhere else. If you do well in our games you'll earn badges, level up, and gain the respect of your friends. Profiles, chat, comments, private messages, and forums make it easy to exchange game tips or just relax in the company of enthusiastic gamers from around the world.

We know that making great games isn't easy and our mission is to help indie developers make better games and earn more money doing it. We share advertising and microtransaction revenue with game developers - and they retain full rights to their games. With features like multiplayer support, persistent data storage, high scores, and statistics, we take care of a lot of the headaches involved in game development.

Uploading a game is quick and easy - the best rated games make it to the homepage and get millions of plays. For developers just starting out, our community features are great for getting quick feedback on what works and what doesn't.

To learn more about Kongregate and our plans, check out our FAQ, or read some of the very nice articles that other sites have written about us.

Pricewatch

I've used Pricewatch and even spent a bazillion dollars to advertise way back when I had my computer store. I was always pleased with the service as a distributor but now find myself using them for regular consumer purchases. I've yet to have a bad experience with any of the vendors listed (but always be careful because they do have to pay a fee to be listed). Anyway, I saved a bunch today when looking for a memory upgrade for my daughter's notebook. Total price with free shipping was $14.98 (Normal Mail 5-7 days). Yea, fifteen bucks and the best price I got from Newegg was $48 plus shipping. I've never heard of the company I ordered from, but a very nice CSR called me on the phone within minutes to verify everything (they probably spent more on the phone call than profit on the memory). I'll let you know how everything goes but if they deliver what they promise, I'll probably be ordering more pieces/parts from them in the future. Note they are located in NY (which really doesn't mean anything) and I've had some bad experiences with online NY companies. Again, I'll keep you posted...Here's the quick info from the site:

Edit: Here's a bigger/better screen cap from the site which will give you a better idea of what they do/sell/provide:

Search Engine Land

I love this site (and it's quite geeky). It's not really an online tool, but these folks always have the latest scoop on what's happening in the "Search Engine Land". From the site:

"Welcome to Search Engine Land! Search Engine Land is a news and information site covering search engine marketing, searching issues and the search engine industry.

The site is led by journalist Danny Sullivan, who has been covering search for the past 11 years. It is published by Third Door Media, which also produces the Search Marketing Expo conference series and the Search Marketing Now webcast events."

Edit: Apparently Google is um, how shall I say...'worried' about Microsoft's new search engine Bing. I'm not so sure they are worried as much as they may have finally found a competitor in that space. I personally use google, but do find myself using Bing more and more....for what it's worth.

Do Stuff for Money

I haven't tried this yet (but a long-time paypal user). My friend sent this link to me this morning and it sounds interesting....but, I'm always careful with this sort of thing. From the site:

What is Do Stuff For Money?

Do Stuff For Money is a PayPay-sponsored site that allows friends to send each other offers via email, real or fake, to do pretty much anything.

Do Stuff For Money is meant to be a fun way to get your friends to do things...for money. But just in case you get stuck on your offering path, we've created this helpful question and answer section to aid you on your way.

How does it work?

Simply type in your first name; the first name of someone you want to send an offer to; the dollar amount you want the recipient to get if they complete the task you propose; and the task you want them to do for you. Once you've completed the form, click on the "Send Offer" button and we will ask you for your friend's email address so we can send them a link to view your offer.

I received an offer, what do I do now?

If you've received an offer from someone, you'll have the option to accept it or decline it. If you decline it, you don't need to do anything else and we will notify the sender. If you accept it, we will let the sender know and it will then be up to them to pay you for completing your end of the offer.

How do I actually pay a person if they accept the offer?

Log in to your PayPal account and go the Send Money tab. Enter in the information and click on the Personal tab/other to send them the money.

Linkedin - Relationships Matter

I joined almost 6 years ago when they were first starting and really haven't used it much because I couldn't get others to use it?!? Seems like now they are a "real player" and I'm going to revisit...from the site:

Syncplicity

Like (kinda) DropBox, Syncplicity has a few more options. I use both for different reasons/functions. From the site:

What is Syncplicity?

Computer files are unruly creatures. They make you go out of your way to back them up. They demand you remember to copy them to USB drives or email them to yourself so you have them handy. They don’t like being deleted or overwritten and will never come back if that accidentally happens. And the big ones – the worst of their kind – don’t fit everywhere (especially email!) and make sharing them or collaborating on them with others painful at best, impossible at worst.

That’s why we created Syncplicity. Syncplicity puts an end to all the hassles that surround your files and your data, protecting them and ensuring you always have them everywhere you need them – without doing a thing.

What does Syncplicity do?

Syncplicity backs up all your files, keeps them synced and up-to-date across all your computers and computers of people you’ve shared them with, allows you and your friends to access them online (even if your computers are turned off), and can even sync them with Facebook and Google Docs.

In other words, the days of copying, burning, emailing, uploading, downloading, and especially losing your files are now nothing more than a distant memory.

Who are you and why should I trust you?

Take a look at our About page and poke around our Forums to get to know the company better. We started Syncplicity over a year ago with a vision to simplify today’s tedious nature of dealing with files. Our passion is finally becoming reality.

We designed our service and our product with privacy and security in mind from the very beginning. Take a look at our comprehensive Privacy Policy that covers not just your personal information, but also all the data you’re storing in your Syncplicity account. And click here to read a bit about how we encrypt and secure your data from start to finish.

DropBox

Can't say enough about this one. I use it daily...From the site:

If you...

email files to yourself

want to share large files but can'trely too much on USB drives

need automatic backup of documents

want to access your files anywhere

want to share photo albums

then this is for you and free up to 2G

Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus

Woha Nelly...this is neat! I know my daughter (college student) is going to love this...

You can use a lot of the 'Free' stuff, but for more advanced services/options, it's going to cost you. Not much if this is a tool you really need and are a professional writer, but it's the free stuff I personally would use occasionally.

From the site:

How does Vocabgrabber work?

VocabGrabber analyzes any text you're interested in, generating lists of the most useful vocabulary words and showing you how those words are used in context. Just copy text from a document and paste it into the box, and then click on the "Grab Vocabulary!" button. VocabGrabber will automatically create a list of vocabulary from your text, which you can then sort, filter, and save.

Select any word on the list and you'll see a snapshot of the Visual Thesaurus map and definitions for that word, along with examples of the word in your text. Click on the word map or the highlighted word in the example to see the Visual Thesaurus in action.

Want to try it out? Click on one of our sample texts to fill the box and start grabbing!

How can I view my vocabulary list?

After you grab the vocabulary from a text, you will see a list of words and phrases in "tag cloud" view. In the default view, words in the vocab list are arranged by relevance (more on that below!). In the tag cloud, words that appear most frequently in the text are displayed in a larger font size. The color of the words is based on whether they match one of our seven subject areas (Arts & Literature, Geography, Math, People, Science, Social Studies, Vocabulary).

You can also choose "list" view, which will give you the vocab list in a table, with columns displaying each word's subject areas, relevance score, and number of occurrences in the text. Or you can select "gallery" view, displaying a thumbnail image of each word's map in the Visual Thesaurus.

How can I sort my vocabulary list?

Above the word list you'll see four different sorting options: Relevance, A-Z, Occurrences, and Familiarity. By default the words are arranged from most relevant to least relevant. The other options allow you to sort your list alphabetically, by number of occurrences in the text, or by how familiar the words are in written English overall. To reverse any of these orderings, just click on the name of the option again to toggle the list order.

How can I filter my list by subject?

Your list will initially have the "Show All Words" box checked. But if you want to focus on vocabulary in one or more particular subjects, just click the appropriate box or boxes. The number in parentheses next to the subject name indicates how many words in the text match the subject.

Subjects include academic areas of interest (Arts & Literature, Science, and Social Studies), names of historical figures and places (People and Geography), and words that are of particular importance for language learners at all levels (Vocabulary).

How can I filter my list by relevance? (And what is relevance, anyway?)

All the words in your vocab list are ranked with a relevance score of 1 to 5, with 5 being the most relevant to the text. We calculate relevance by comparing how frequently words are used in the text versus how they are used in written English overall. That allows us to zero in on which words are most significant for the average reader.

By default, the vocab list displays words with relevance 2 through 5, leaving off the words that score only 1 and are therefore least significant. But you can choose any combination of scores by clicking on the bars under "Show Relevance."

How can I add VocabGrabber to my browser toolbar?

In the top right-hand corner, click on the button next to "Add VocabGrabber to your Toolbar." Then follow the directions for your browser to install the VocabGrabber directly on your toolbar. Once installed, you'll be able to use the VocabGrabber on any online text without having to copy and paste. Just click on the VocabGrabber "bookmarklet" and the VocabGrabber will immediately start grabbing the vocabulary from whatever page you're reading in your browser.

How can I create a Visual Thesaurus word list from my vocabulary?

Individual subscribers to the Visual Thesaurus can generate word lists from VocabGrabber results. Subscribers can click a button that says "Create Word List," which automatically selects whichever vocabulary words you have displayed based on your sorting and filtering options. You can then add a title to your word list and choose to include an example sentence of each word drawn from the text you're analyzing. (If the word appears more than once in the text, you can pick which example sentence you want to use.) You can also customize the list by deselecting any words that you don't want to appear. Then just click on "Save Word List" to add it to your collection of Visual Thesaurus word lists.

FireFox RC3 Released

Yea, I'm a FireFox and Chrome Fan. Release Candidate 3 is now available here:

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html

** Remember, this is a "RELEASE CANDIDATE" - NOT a final release so there may be bugs....but I've had no problems so far..

TextHog - Simple real-time expense tracking via text, email & twitter

Yea, sorry about the "Twitter" reference, but a neat site and I'm trying it out now. Will update you in a few weeks after I decide between this and ShoeBoxed...from the site:

What is Texthog?

Texthog is a super simple service to track your budgets and expenses online. We believe that the easiest way to keep track of what you spend, is to record it in real-time.

How does it work?

Every user is provided with a unique texthog email address. As transactions are sent to this email address, they are parsed by texthog fairies and recorded in your texthog account.

MetaGlossary

"Meta" means beyond, more comprehensive, or more highly organized, and with respect to other dictionaries and glossaries, MetaGlossary is all these things. MetaGlossary harvests definitions from the entire web, the world's largest, constantly-updated repository of information. Hence, it surpasses traditional dictionaries, which grow more out of date with each passing day. MetaGlossary is as dynamic as the web, offering the most current information out there on the most contemporary topics.

However, unlike other search engines, MetaGlossary is able to precisely extract the meanings of terms and phrases from the often frustratingly unmanageable mass of information on the web. It provides you with concise, direct explanations for terms and phrases, not just endless links to sift through in search of a comprehensive definition.

What's more, MetaGlossary organizes these meanings based on topic and usage, so you'll find the one you're looking for quickly and easily. Since MetaGlossary spans the expanse of the web, even your most field-specific requests for terms, phrases, acronyms, technical jargon, and slang, will be successfully met.

Book Reviews Reviewed

My daughters and wife are avid readers; and by avid I mean hundreds a year. I'm not and if it doesn't have "Technology" or "Digest" in the title, I'm usually not interested. Anyway, my oldest daughter is always looking for new and little know books to read and she asked me to find the best place to look for such titles. Reviews from other readers was the most important part. Anyway, I cannot vouch for any of the following, but based on my research of others research and reviews of others reviews - here's what I came up with. I'll let you know what my family thinks after they've had a chance to review the reviews...

In no particular order...and a quick snippet of the home pages:

New York Times is actually the first place I thought of since it's really the only one I've ever heard of:

Well, after finding about 10 review sites, I stumbled upon this (Complete Review) which lists all the review sites. Argh! Anyway, here ya go and comment on your favorites if you find a really good one.

Be sure to check out "The Complete Review" for everything all sorted nicely, but here are the "Major" sites for quick access:

• The Atlantic Monthly. Relatively few reviews, but good archive (including "classic" reviews) and other literary articles and interviews -- but nothing fully freely accessible.
• The Economist. Current articles accessible, good archive (but reviews only accessible to subscribers after a while), interesting selection of books.
• Kirkus Reviews. Except for a few featured reviews in every issue only accessible to subscribers.
• London Review of Books. Excellent articles, though relatively few from print version freely accessible.
• The New Republic. Good archive, interesting long reviews -- but now almost inaccessible except for subscribers.
• The New York Review of Books. Excellent clear, simple site design. Some articles from the current print version freely accessible.
• The New York Times. Great archive, much of which is freely accessible, but recent and current content generally registration-requiring.
• Salon. Reviews, and articles about books. Very good archive. New material now only fully accessible if you pay -- or endure an ad-show.
• The Spectator. Good review coverage and archive.
• TLS. The marvelous Times Literary Supplement -- an invaluable publication, but very little freely accessible on site. A great resource if you're willing to register and pay.
• The Washington Post. Good coverage, fairly benign registration (requires enabled cookies, but can submit invented user-data.)

Lowe's Landscape & Garden Planner

If your outdoor inspiration needs a little help, here is the tool you need.

Use Lowe's Landscape and Garden Planner to help build the yard of your dreams. With our design tool, garden and landscape planning are as easy as clicking and dragging.

Site requires free registration but I think it's worth it. I've tried (and failed) many online planners and they all are a bit complicated for me. This is by far the best and easisest I've ever used and I actually finish a project I start without giving up.

Microsoft Office 2010 + FREE Stuff!

I'm not sure how I stumbled upon this early this morning, so I'm sorry I can't give credit. The good news though is there's a potential to get a loaner laptop and a free copy of Office 2010 when it ships. I've been involved with many Microsoft promotions like this and my experience has been way above expectations. They usually end up giving you a bunch more stuff than originally promised.

The signup is super easy and takes just a few minutes. Do it now before June 30th to get in line. I did.

Curculator - Online Currenty Conversion

What is Curculator?

They say the best products are made when people create something to solve their own problems. We have actually created Curculator for ourselves. Working with money and currencies every day, it was always the same boring routine - open the classic calculator software, add some numbers, then go to bank's web page, get rates, go back, multiply, divide, and then all over again. You know it already.

We have been looking for this kind of web software for a long time but there was nothing out there. Millions of people every day having the same problem, and still no solution. And yet it was so simple - putting the calculator and currency converter in one place. The only solution was to create it. Luckily, we are a web company so we knew how to do it.

Alice

I just placed an order this morning and I'll let you know how the whole thing goes. From what I've seen, this may actually be one of the Online-Stores that makes it. In reviewing prices, they are right on target with the Big W Supercenters without the hassle of going there. Here's the skinny from the site:

Alice is here to help
Let’s face it; you can probably think of a thousand things you’d rather do than drive to the store again and again for toilet paper, toothpaste, trash bags and the dozens of other home essentials that keep your home running. We can too. That’s why we started Alice.

The Internet has changed the way we shop for things like books, clothing, shoes and electronics. We buy online for the convenience and the power we have to get product reviews, choose brands, see price comparisons, and make better choices.

But when it comes to home essentials, we still trudge off the store, load up the cart, and haul a trunk-load of stuff out the parking lot. Why? Because no one has come up with an efficient, cost-effective way to buy these goods online. Until now.

Scratch Household Shopping off the To-Do-List
Alice provides you a better way to manage all of your household essentials online. You tell Alice what you buy—choosing from great deals on 1000’s of products—and Alice goes to work. We organize all of your products, find coupons and deals for you, remind you when you might be running low, and help you order just the items you need so you can avoid that trip to the corner drugstore or the big-box store. And all this convenience comes direct to your door with free shipping included.

Get Big Box Savings & Free Shipping
Best of all, you won’t over pay for the power and convenience of Alice. In addition to free shipping on every order, you’ll find great prices too. That’s because Alice isn’t your average retailer. You order from Alice just like you would a retailer, but behind the scenes we work like a marketplace, allowing manufacturers to sell directly to you. This direct to consumer model eliminates the retail middleman, saving lots of costs that can be passed directly on to you. And in addition to saving you money, the Alice marketplace allows your favorite brands to have a direct relationship with you—to reward you, personalize things for you, and work smarter for you. It is a win-win that gives you fantastic convenience AND tangible savings.

Alice Isn’t a Person, She is a Team
Our team at Alice is made up of a talented group of people that are passionate about changing the way you shop for the goods that keep your home running. Our mission is to make your home run smarter, to give you extra time to spend on the important things in your life, and, of course, to make sure you never run out of toilet paper again.

The Alice co-founders, Brian Wiegand and Mark McGuire, have a spent their careers building customer-focused companies. Their formula is simple: use the web to disrupt existing business models and shift more power to end consumers. With a strong team in place, Alice is ready to shift the power back to you one trash bag, toothpaste tube and pack of diapers at a time.

RecipeBridge

I love this site. It's soo "Google-esqe-ly Simple" as you can see from the home page above.

RecipeBridge basically "scrapes, scratches and crawls" all the food blogs and recipe sites for whatever it is your looking for. The rusults are super clear to understand and even provides other important stuff like the specific ingredients and amounts.

About the Founders
After years of searching through Google results for recipes our founders decided that cooks around the world deserved a simple place to find any recipe, the result is RecipeBridge.

ReferenceBot

ReferenceBot is a free online professional reference automation and collaboration tool. ReferenceBot acts as a reference escrow that mediates between the prospect, the employer and the reference, and at the same time builds a universal repository for professional referrals. This tool benefits everybody in the job hunting/marketing and hiring/subcontracting lifecycles:

It benefits companies hiring, outsourcing and subcontracting: it provides an online tool to help organize and automate the request for reference process for candidates. In addition, if they request references for a candidate that already exists in ReferenceBot, all the candidate references will be available right away for review, taking out the need to request references again and speeding up the selection process

It benefits job seekers, freelancers and marketing people: allowing them to collect and showcase references that they request by themselves, in addition to the references requested by their prospect employers, clients and purchasers, in a centralized place and mediated by ReferenceBot.

ReferenceBot will also suggest existing profiles to employers and clients looking for talent: if you have an account with ReferenceBot, and a company is looking for someone with your skills, ReferenceBot will suggest the match It benefits the professional or industry peer giving out the reference: they don't have to write references over and over again, they're just bothered once and their review will be stored in ReferenceBot forever. References will also have a rate for each review they make.

ReferenceBot utilizes proprietary methods to avoid impersonation of references and fake pumped-up reviews. ReferenceBot is written in Python/Django, hosted in Google App Engine, it is free to use and free of advertising.

ReferenceBot is the ultimate online professional referral and recommendation collaboration tool, create your account now, it's free.

Wakerupper - Simple telephone reminders

Use Wakerupper to...
Set a wake-up call at a specific time Remind yourself of important events Remember to take medication on time Escape from a boring date or meeting Remind child or spouse to do chores Set reminders for tasks and follow-ups.

I use this tool all the time for reminders, not wake-up calls. If you use more than 10 per day, there is a .05 charge which you have to pre-pay. They do give you a $1.00 credit if you sign-up, but that's not necessary to use the site.

SellingBin - Turn your used stuff into cash

"What we do - We do not buy your items -- we search for your quote from a network of buyers looking for exactly for the type of product you are selling. You will receive the best quote directly from the buyer.

How it works - It only takes a minute to complete the appropriate form for your item. We deliver the information to our network of buyers. The buying quotes are delivered directly to you. Our service enables multiple buyers to view the product details so you will get the best quote. Quotes are delivered to you within 48 hours. "

This is interesting and a lot easier than eBay. I hope this makes it and I posted a Sony Playstation 2 and a Nokia E50 phone just yesterday. I'll keep you posted on how it all goes. As of this writing, I've received nothing more than a confirmation email.

Paystr: Friends Pay Friends Online

Neat idea and account setup is super easy. It's a tough market though trying to squeeze in on the Paypal market. Anyway, here's the scoop from the site:

"Collecting money online from friends, family and clients, should be as easy and secure as buying a book from Amazon and now it is.

Paystr is a 100% free, secure, online listing site to reliably collect money or pay a friend. Just imagine being able to collect money in advance and not spend your time worrying if you are going to be paid by everyone or paid at all.

Collecting money can be frustrating and difficult. Paystr eliminates the excuses and makes it easy for you. Take a moment and think how instead of hearing from people that they forgot to bring you a check or do not have any cash, now they can pay you online, at anytime, and you will be able to spend your time enjoying the party, event, game, gift or whatever it might be you were collecting for."

Microsoft Security Essentials (FKA Moro) now available, sort of.

Microsoft's free anti-malware now officially known as "Microsoft Security Essentials" is now available for limited download. There's a limited amount of download slots available and it's probably alredy been met. There's always the good old torrent search option though if you just can't wait.

Currently it's only available to folks in the United States, Israel and Brazil (Brazil?). You'll also need to have a verified Genuine version of Windows to install. If you meet all the requirements, be sure to uninstall any other Anti-Virus or Anti-Malware software you have currently.

I've been really happy with Avira Anti-Virus, Avast! and AVG in the past, but since I installed what was formerly known as Moro, I've been impressed. We'll have to wait and see how the Anti-Virus Experts out there evaluate it's actual detection capabilities.

A New Way to Enjoy Entertainment on your TV & PC

Boxee for Windows just about ready. From the site: "On a laptop or connected to an HDTV, boxee's free software lets you navigate all your personal movies, TV shows, music and photos, as well as streaming content from websites like MLB, Netflix, Pandora, Last.fm, and Flickr from one screen with a remote."

I've been playing around with Hulu Desktop for awhile and am glad to see Boxee ported to Windows. They both have good and bad points and since they both are relativly new, we'll just have to wait and see who comes out on top. I think it's all going to be a matter of personal preference when all said and done.

Pocket PC Central Windows Mobile Software Center

Umm.... Here's a rather unique site that lists software for your Windows Mobile Phone. Not sure how legal this is, but they do put together a bunch of nice software and it's updated regurlary.

10 Minute Mail

Yep, 10 Minute mail allows you to sign-up for those mailing lists and freebies you find on the net without ever giving up your real email address. Basically it gives you a temporary email address for 10 minutes (which you can extend if necessry) that you can verify when asked. Very cool service and I use it all the time.

Email Trace - Email Tracking

From the Site: "Is it possible to find the origin of an email? Yes, it is! Simply Copy and Paste below the email header of the message into the box below on this page to trace an email. This email tracer pinpoints the location of the senders IP address."

Very useful tool to track down the idiots out there...Somday I'm going to show up at the spammers door and ... um ... well, you know.

Free PDF Unlock Online Utility (Beta)

From the site: "Some PDF documents prevent the user from copying and pasting or printing it's contents. This sometimes presents a problem since the author of the PDF might have used a font that is not available in the sytem trying to read it. This page contains a free online utility that allows you to upload a PDF, once uploaded, a version of the PDF without printing or copying/pasting restrictions is displayed in a new browser window."

Had this happen a few times to me and this site saved my butt!

Who Called Me?

From the site: "This is a user supplied database of phone numbers of telemarketers, non-profit organizations, charities, political surveyors, SCAM artists, and other companies that don't leave messages, disconnect once you answer, ignore the Do-Not-Call List regulations, and simply interrupt your day."

Nothing more to say, it's a great tool!

Web-based Project Intelligence?

From the site: "Kontup is a web-based business management tool. It provides an easy and fast way for small to medium sized teams or companies to manage projects by tracking revenues, work load and all business related things. Kontup is a collaborative tool for sharing data with partners or customers. Kontup is web 2.0 business intelligence for projects or work."

Sign up is easy and fast, however, it's not something I would really use on a daily basis. Seems like a great product if you need this type of project tracking. Basic Tools are free and of course you gotta get off the checkbook to get all the goodies. Here's more form the site (I did have to adjust the 'engrish' a bit before posting this if that tells you anything)...

What do I need?
All you need is an Internet connection and a modern web browser with JavaScript turned on. Kontup officially supports Firefox 2.0 or later, Internet Explorer 6.0 or later, and Safari. Anyway we guarantee the best graphic look only on Firefox 2.0 or later. If you don't have it, we recommend you switch to it.

Where can i get additional help?
Kontup was designed such that a new user can be completely operational in just few minutes. If you need more help maybe we didn't do our job well. Anyway we are really pleased to support you anytime.

Can our IT department or ISP host Kontup?
Kontup is a web-based, hosted service. Anyway Kontup is available for purchase to install on your own servers, please contact us.

Will Kontup have an API interface?
An API interface is planned, but will not be available for the initial release. We have planned a tools that will help you browsing Kontup off-line. Please contact us for more information about it..

AllMusicFM - Start Building Your Playlist

Umm, I've seen a bunch of these come and go. They claim to be 100% legal, blah, blah, blah...I hope they make it because it's a very easy site to navigate and they do have a bazillion tracks available (500 Million + according to the site).

FREE Online Invoicing that Keeps your Billing Organized!

From the site: "Intuit Billing Manager is the fast, easy, FREE way to manage your invoicing online. Use the Billing Manager web site to create customized, professional invoices, send them by email and track payment history and status — all on one place. Spend less time on your paperwork and more time on your customers."

I've used this for several years now and it blows away the competition (just do a google search and you'll see). It's free, no client limits, no printing limits, no limits period. It's also super easy to setup a merchant account to accept credit cards and virtual checks (no Paypal stuff, it's very secure).

down for everyone or just me?

Yea, I know...everyone else has already blogged about this. BUT, it's an important site to check your network before spending a bazillion hours re-running Malwarebytes, Spybot, Adaware, etc., just to find out it has absolutly nothing to do with you. Before twittering about the problems you're having, try this first.

Dragonfly by Autodesk

From the Site/Refer a Friend eMail:

"I found this cool new Technology Preview for an online application by Autodesk. It's called Project Dragonfly, and you can explore home improvement ideas by easily creating your own personalized home designs without downloading anything. The best part is it's free!"

I actually have zero ability when it comes to design/drafting. This is a real gem however, because I was able to recreate my main Floor plan in less than an hour. I'm going to use this when doing "Wireless Heat-Maps" for my customers.

PDF to Excel

Direct from the site description:

"Use PDF to Excel to quickly and easily create highly-editable XLS files, making it a cinch to re-use tables and spreadsheets from PDF files in Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice, Google Docs, and WordPerfect Office. Best of all, it's entirely free!"

After playing around and setting up an account, it does work very well. I threw it a few "curve-balls" and with few exceptions, it performed great. Although it's not something I would use regularly, when the need arises, this is the place to go for ease of use.

Contenture - Micropayment Service

A Micropayment service designed for content-oriented sites, but it works well with just about any website.

It's fully automated but you do have to pay a monthy fee (small, but important). Your site gets payments based on how often you visit. The getclicky.com folks put this together and I personally would like to see this make it in the real (interweb) world. Great idea, but there's a bunch of other players in this field.