I checked dealnews.com today and found the Staples career stimulus program.
Thankfully I am not currently looking for work but a lot of people are and this sounds like a great promotion.
All you need to do is go to your local Staples and get 20 copies of your resume and 40 business cards for free.
Their career stimulus program site also gives tips on job seeking, resume writing, preparing for an interview, networking, and even leaving a lasting impression.
If you don’t usually shop at Staples so you are not sure where one is you can use the find a store option on their website.
If you are reading this chances are you know what twitter is and if you don’t have an account yet you can get one at www.twitter.com
If you are wondering why twitter is important you can check out this video which gives a great explanation.
For a long time I just used the twitter site or my iphone to update twitter. There is nothing wrong with doing it that way but you don’t get as involved as you do with a desktop client. You can see people’s conversations instead of only noticing who is directly talking to you.
I tried using twirl but never got into it. I then noticed some of my friends tweets saying tweetdeck on them. I decided to download it and check it out. www.tweekdeck.com
Now tweetdeck I was really able to get into. There are many different options including searches, 12 seconds, stock twittering, twitscoop, twitpic, and an option to shorten urls.
My favorite option by far is the ability to see facebook status updates. I have several friends on facebook. I even use facebook more than twitter. Now I can see the update within tweetdeck just like the tweets I receive. Now I find myself leaving tweetdeck open all the time to keep up with my friends.
If you use twitter and facebook I would absolutly recomend tweetdeck over the other twitter clients.
You may think that the shipping from other countries would make a pricing advantage impossible. This however is not always the case. When I was in college I started buying my textbooks online. I bought a book from cheaper than anywhere in the U.S. even with the shipping. Prices can vary significantly between different products and locations so it is always worth checking out the differences. You can do this with http://www.pricenoia.com.
Another thing you might be interested is the ability to search the best rated products. Pickii.com will do just that. It will essentially tell you want is hot and what is not. It gives you top ten lists from over 10,000 different categories.
Sometimes there are several items with good ratings. So how do you decide which one to buy? One thing I look for is free shipping and amazanian.com can help you search for that.
The last way to get the most out of amazon is ironically the ability to search it and other sites that compete with it. I have two in mind. The first one is StoreMinator.com.
This one lets you compare Amazon and ebay to find the best deal. The second one is Searchbay.com. From here you can search eBay, UBid, Overstock, and Amazon. (eBay is currently not working but they are working on it.)
It gives you tabbed results so it is easy to continue onto your desired retailer when you find the best price. Killer Startups.com says, “Think of Searchbay.com as a tabbed browser with eBay, uBid, Overstock, and Amazon always open.”
Have you decided to venture in the world of image editing? Decided, but don’t know how?
Photoshop can be quite difficult, if you throw yourself at it without preparation. You’ve probably got no clue how everyone gets that wizardry done, because you don’t know head from tail in that maze of buttons and filters!
Don’t despair, because MakeUseOf will be your guide in this intricate, yet magical world.
We’re proud to present An Idiot’s Guide To Photoshop, the starter’s manual for every Photoshop initiate to carry! This guide starts right at the very bottom, assuming no knowledge at all, and walks you through all basic aspects of the application. The guide even comes with three full pages of shortcuts, cheat sheets covering all the application’s possibilities!
Let MakeUseOf’s own Karl Gechlik from AskTheAdmin guide you throughout the different editing possibilities in 30 illustrated pages, and get you to know your paint bucket from your eraser.
Are you watermouthed yet? Got itchy fingers and want to get busy?
Get shopping now! Download the Idiot’s Guide To Photoshop here in PDF, no strings attached.
This is a great iPhone application that allows you to view your google docs on your phone.
You may say but I can already view my google docs on my phone. Well I say this is better. Below you see an example of viewing a document through the google iphone option
Now here is the same document with Mighty Docs.
This is a free application but the most important feature of the program is once you open the document it is cached. You can view it anywhere even if you do not have an internet or wifi connection. If you live in an area with dead spots (like my apartment) this can be very helpful.
For a lot of people it was a sad day when they learned that Google was dropping their notebook application.
I say this may be a blessing in disguise because now former notebook users can become evernote users.
Evernote is one of my favorite applications. You can access your information from the web, the application, or from your mobile device. I use it with my iPhone.
Here are some instructions on how to import your data into evernote.
OK I’ll admit it I don’t really cook. Whenever I think about cooking I am very intimidated and can’t decide what to even try.
Well here is a site that can help.
JustFoodStuff.com is a recipe site but with one important difference.
Instead of telling it what you want to cook and it giving you a recipe you tell it what ingredients you have and it gives you a recipe that contains them.
First I tell it what ingredients I have.
Then it gives me search results of what recipes contain them
You can also sign up to create a pantry containing your ingredients and submit recipes.
First there was Google pack. The collection of software that Google bundled with stuff to improve your computer experience. Then I saw on makeuseof.com that someone had listed their pack choices. I thought that I should do that so below are my essential MPack recommendations. These are FREE programs that no computer should be without.
Everyone needs antivirus software and this is the one I use. The current version takes up more resorces than the previous one but if it can run without problems on my three year old Compaq it will probably run fine on yours. It does add a toolbar but you can remove it with no problems.
Here are some other options for antivirus software.
Avira AntiVir Personal I’ve heard good things about this and will probably review it in the future.
Most good good antivirus software tends to bundle some kind of spyware software. I however like to have an old standby that I know is good at removing things. I’ve been using this for quite a while now. I started with ad aware but always had problems and had to keep reinstalling it. I’ve never had that problem with spybot. My mom had some malware on her computer recently and she used spybot with great sucess.
The browser of choice for non Mac geeks everywhere. Even though Microsoft is trying to catch up I still think that Firefox is superior. They have many add-ins to enhance the browser that are very easy to add. My favorite one is from the weather channel. For example right now I know it is 20 degrees without going to a weather site or leaving my computer.
4. Internet essentials
I am including the following under one entry because I think they are all essential to the web browsing experience. It is possible that these are already installed on your computer but you should go to these sites to make sure.
The standard for buying, organizing, playing, and transferring mp3s and podcasts is iTunes no question about it. It is an all in one and easy for people to understand. There are alternatives but this is the easiest and if you have an iPod it is even easier. For now everyone needs iTunes.
You can see the previous article I wrote about why you need a VPN. Hamachi is my favorite. I’m now using it on both my computers. I never knew security could be so easy yet not slow down my computer. Hamachi is a must for anyone who wants privacy and or security.
From there it can be downloaded and installed on your system. (I would uncheck the “include the hotspot shield community toolbar” in general extra toolbars are a bad idea) and when you want to run it you can see it like a web page but it soon turns into an RSS feed type page. You will also see an icon in the taskbar.
I like it but the only problem is that it is advertising driven. This means when I searched google for more VPN information I got an add for cricket above the search results.
I didn’t like that so I ditched hotspot shield and tried hamachi.
Hamachi has both a paid and free version. It also works for windows, linux, and mac. If you are using it for non-commercial purposes then download the free version and make sure you choose non-commercial during the installation.
During setup it will ask you to join the test group. You may get an error that it is full. Click cancel and close the guide window. Then create a new network by clicking the network button.
(it is the middle one at the bottom with the three dots that make a triangle) Choose create a new network then name it and give it a password.
Once it is setup there will be a client that you can close by clicking the upper left button and just let it run in your taskbar.
I noticed no problems when using hamachi and will be using it on my laptop from now on.
My cousin asked me a while back if I was worried about the data on my iPhone and I told her no. I rarely use it off of an encrypted network and when I do I am careful about what information is transferred. That got me thinking I had never considered the phone connection. Was it secure?
