Who says you can't get something for nothing? The Web is chockfull of sites that showcase online freebies of every description. In fact, there are so many sites that catalog free stuff, that it's almost impossible to sift through them all to find what's actually worthwhile. We sent Digital Living Today writer Scott Bass into the World Wild Web on a bargain safari. He discovered that some of the best free things online aren't shampoo and cat food samples (though he found those too), they're services that can save you real time and money.
Online Photo Albums
Sharing pictures with friends and family has never been easier thanks to the Web. With some of the free online services available, now the whole world can see that 200-picture photo shoot of your pet ferret Jingles.
- Picture Trail: Add fancy borders and background music.
- MSN Photo Albums: 30 megs and photo chat.
- Zing: Unlimited storage, supports captions and slideshows.
Talk Is Cheap
We've heard about free long distance phoning using Internet telephony but this is a totally different approach. The folks over at Broadpoint Communications have a concept called "Freeway" that will grant you free long distance calls from any US phone via an 800 number simply for listening to their ads. For every 15 second ad you hear, you rack up 2 minutes of free long distance.
Free Fax You aren't still paying for an extra fax line are you? You shouldn't be, now that sites like eFax offer a free fax line that dumps both faxes and voice mails right into your email box. The upgrade to an 800 number or the ability to send faxes will cost you a little scratch, but if you're like me and receive more faxes than you send, then this is one fabulous freebie.
Complimentary Clip Art
Remember the days when you had to buy clip art collections on CD-ROM? Now a search for "free clip art" on any search engine will result in a flurry of results. Here are some of the bigger and better collections to save you some of the legwork on your next desktop publishing project.
- Free Clip Art 6,000 free images in 300 categories.
- Clip-Art Extensive links section if you don't find what you're looking for.
- AAA ClipArt So much stuff, it'll souse your mouse.
Web site Tune-Up
If you've posted a site on the Web (be it personal or business-related) that you'd like examined for problems with its HTML, over-bloated images, etc., than look no further than the Web Site Garage. Sure they're trying to get you to purchase their premium services, but the free reports generated by their sleepless online robo-mechanics will give you some great insight, gratis.
No-Pay Survey
Conducting surveys isn't just for high-priced market research firms anymore. If you have a need to conduct a survey of your organization, whether it be the people in your department or the members of your softball team, then check out Zoomerang. They'll help you create a custom online survey and will tabulate your results once they're completed. You have to pay for the real fancy services like cross-tabulation, but the free service is more than sufficient for simple surveys.
So for mothers everywhere, if you're listening: turns out it's OK to go swimming after eating, chocolate doesn't cause pimples, and there is such a thing as a free lunch, after all. Bon appetit!
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