A recent article in Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Magazine profiles a new free web service, My ID Score, which analyzes whether an individual is at risk for having their ID stolen.
Walmart Online as Your Electronics Store
August 21, 2009At different times during the past several weeks I needed to purchase a short TOSLink optical cable and then a SATA to USB converter. I automatically first searched Amazon, which I do for just about everything (not just electronics) I want to purchase online because if they don’t carry it themselves, it is highly likely that one of their listed merchants does. For both these items, which each cost around $10, they were only carried by affiliated merchants (meaning I couldn’t bundle them with a third item to get over $25 and be eligible for free shipping) and the shipping/handling charge was almost equal to the price of the item.
I recently had a good experience purchasing a window AC unit from Walmart online and having it delivered to their local store for free where I picked it up. So I decided to see if their online store carried the connectors I needed. They had both at a comparable price and I could have them shipped to their store for free or shipped directly to me for about 1/3 the cost of what the Amazon merchants wanted. And whatever you purchase from them online can be returned to your local store which totally eliminates the major hassle of online returns and any associated shipping costs! Also do keep in mind that their there online store appears to carry orders of magnitude more electronic items than what you will find in a local store.
For high priced electronics such as HDTV’s, Blu-Ray DVD players, and Home Theaters Systems I’ve found that Walmart doesn’t carry the newest or top of the line models. So do the best you can to pin down your requirements and do other research before searching for these type items there.
Free Online Faxing
July 29, 2009Even though the need continues to decline, we still may find ourselves in the position to occasionally have to fax a document. While some of us will continue to own multifunction printer/copy/scan/fax machines (I have an HP Officejet J6480 All-in-One), for others who don’t this need to fax means a trip to the UPS or FedEx store. However as Sandy Berger notes in a recent article, GotFreeFax may be just the answer to save you the trip.
Need to Edit a PDF Document?
July 29, 2009The PDFtoWord website converts PDF files to either Word or Excel for free so you can then edit them as you choose. You first upload the PDF file to their site and then they send you a link where you can download the converted file. Of course if the PDF file is protected you need to supply the password.
Want to Print Just Part of a Webpage?
July 18, 2009If you only want to print the content in a section or part of a webpage this is easy to do with IE.
- Select what you want to print by dragging across the content just like you would in Word
- Select File/Print Preview from the IE menu
- From the Print Preview tool bar toggle off Headers and Footers if you like, and then change As laid out on screen to “As selected on screen”
- Click the Print icon on the far left of the tool bar and then when the dialog pops up select your printer if necessary and click Print
Recycling Electronic Items
May 27, 2009Looking for a place to recycle broken or unusable electronic items like computers, TVs, or printers that your municipal recycling program currently does not accept? Best Buy has started a national recycling program with most stores participating. They charge $10 for computers and TVs (up to 32”) but give you a $10 gift card in return. All other items (e.g. printers, cartridges) they accept for free. In all cases you are limited to bringing in two items per store visit. Note that for computers they require that the hard drive be removed. More details about the Best Buy program can be found here.
For old electronic items that are still in working order, try selling them on Gazelle.com. Additionally computers can be donated to National Christina Foundation and cell phones to CallToProtect.
Converting Office 2007 Files to Office 2003
May 26, 2009Are you continually receiving files in the new Office 2007 format (i.e. docx, xlsx, pptx) which you can’t open and work on because you have not upgraded from Office 2003? Of course one way to deal with this is to ask the sender to do a Save As to the Office 2003 format and then resend the file. A more simple long-term solution is to install the Office Compatiblity Pack now available for free from Microsoft. After installed it will convert the Office 2007 format files to the Office 2003 format so you can not only view them but also edit them as you normally would.
Save Time Entering Often Used Text
March 13, 2009Do you frequently need to enter the same text into an email or when filling out a web form? This might be something like your full name, an organization’s name, a url for site, or just a long word that you have trouble typing correctly. I recommend trying Texter a free utility created by one of principals at LifeHacker. All you have to do is enter a “hot string” or abbreviation in Texter and its replacement text, and then select how you will trigger the replacement. For example I have PO as an abbreviation for POA No. 6 so that when I type PO and hit the space bar PO is replaced with POA No. 6. While my primary use is in Outlook emails and Word, I have yet to find an application where Texter will not work. Other “abbreviation expander” utilities I’ve tried either did not work in web forms (like this blog) and Flash forms, or cost around $50.
Evernote
February 26, 2009It almost seems to good to be true but there is a free product, Evernote, that allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at any time, from anywhere. For example you can save whole or selected portions of web pages to Evernote. Or an entire email or just selected text. In the process of saving an item you are prompted to give it a categorization Tag so you can easily filter your saved items. I find it invaluable whether doing online comparisons in searching for a product or doing research for an article I plan to write. There is a Premium upgrade if you need some advanced features, but for the me the free version is perfect.
The Best Free Windows Tool
February 25, 2009If you are looking for a tool to help you optimize, cleanup & repair, improve security, and manage a number of Windows facets, I highly recommend Glary Utilities. Not only is it free, but it is so comprehensive that it eliminates the need for many single function tools.
