Cool, Free Stuff!

Ok, so this entry is going to be totally boring to some of you, and in a different direction than most of my mindless rambling. But here goes. Over the past few months, I've run accross a number of cool, free things online. Although I've used them for business reasons, there are plenty of ways you could utilize them for personal uses. I've used most of them...and who knows...maybe you'll find one of them useful.

Google Checkout - We (Seritus) just started utilizing Googles 'currently free' checkout service. Essentially, we use it to bill our clients, and it allows instant payment from them via credit card or whatever means they want to pay, and it directly deposits their money into our checking account. No Fees! Eat that PayPal! (Credit Card fee's are currently waived by Google (until sometime in 2008), but even once that couple percent kicks in next year, that's not a bad deal considering the convenience. But until then, set up an account! If someone owes you money, just send them a Google invoice and they can pay you instantly with their credit card. Jim, this one is particularly useful for you for collecting FF fee's or even your fee's for the brackets. No more me holding onto peoples cash for 3 months, then having you hound me for it. They can pay you instantly and leave me out of it. Many other uses too! (insert the one you are thinking about here!).

Vyew - We ran across this site when our free WebEx trial expired for Seritus. WebEx is great and all, but we don't use it enough to justify paying for the service at this point. Vyew is an online collaboration tool which has both free and for fee services. However, at least for now, desktop sharing, document sharing, etc. is all free. There is also free phone conferences! It's a long distance call, so if you are still on the old fashioned paying by the minute for long distance junk out there...you will incur some long distance charges. But that alone should be incentive enough to get with the times and get Vonage or just use your cell phone! Anyway, there are plenty of times sharing your desktop is helpful, so keep this in mind and set up your free account! If nothing else, check out the free conference calling. Might come in useful for your next Fantasy Football draft.

DriveHQ - I haven't actually used this one yet since I have 2 ftp sites anyway, but I just know it's going to be cool. Ever had a big file(s) you wanted to get to someone, too big to email...you don't have your own ftp site....neither do they (losers), etc. Well, DriveHQ gives you your very own ftp site for free! Up to 1 GIG of space I believe. Again, there is a limit of what you can do with the account for 'free', You have to set up people in your group that have access to your site, and for free I think you only get one person. So either change it for each scenario, or just give people the userid/password for the shared account you set up. I'm not here to tell you how to manage your stuff...i'm just here to point you in the right direction :)

Gmail - Ok, if you haven't heard of Gmail yet, what are you doing reading my blog? Gmail is the best (IMO) free email out there. Plenty of storage space (I have almost 3 gig of space now), and the interface is plenty easy to use. If you are using some old hotmail or yahoo account or some garbage like that, drop it and move on to Gmail. There is even an integrated messenger client. Sheesh.

Anyway, exciting stuff, huh? Next time you owe me money, expect to pay me via Google checkout. And if I owe you money, I'm only paying if I can use Google checkout. So you better set it up.

So have a great Memorial Day weekend! We're heading to the cabin(s) and hopefully the forecast improves and we can actually get out on the lake for a bit. Otherwise I guess I'll be doing a lot of drinking and playing Wii! Ava says 'Bbbbaaaaaaah' (she makes that noise when she gives kisses, duh). And if my last entry got over 20 comments, this one should get more with things like "man, I can't believe I never used (insert one of the 4 things above) before! It has totally changed my life! And best of all it's free!