Author Archives: Russ Turley - Page 2

Top 25 Free & Freemium Web Apps for Students

Posted by on August 19, 2011 No comments

School is starting soon or has started already for many colleges and universities. There are so many great resources nowadays for the student that are either free or next to free to assist them in their studies. Whether it’s getting organized, working with fellow students or a free word processor, there’s never been a better time to be a student and not spend a dime on “other” expenses.

Below is a great link with 25 Free or Freemium (free initial service, pay for more features) web application that college students may find useful.

Top 25 Free & Freemium Web Apps for College Students.

While all these services are worthwhile to try out, a couple of these services stand out as ones not to miss.

They are:

  • Dropbox – File synchronizing between computers
  • Google Docs – Online word processor, and spreadsheets with collaborative features
  • Remember The Milk – Manage tasks/to-do lists so nothing gets forgotten
  • Evernote – Save those notes and ideas for later using your computer or mobile device.

Dropbox Makes Sharing Files Easy

Posted by on August 18, 2011 No comments

Transferring files from home to work and back can be a huge pain.  In the past you may have used floppy disks for transferring files back and forth. Then there were ZIP disks. Most recently flash memory USB thumb drives are the thing to move your files from computer to computer. Now there’s something easier.

Dropbox is a service that gives you a 2GB online storage site. Each computer you install the Dropbox utility on syncs with the online repository. The Dropbox utility also keeps all computers that use the same account synced with the latest version of your files. Anytime you turn on your computer, those files are there and ready for you to use.

Wait! It gets better. You are also able to share your files with others. Just input an email address and Dropbox will make those files available to that person. They don’t have to be Dropbox users themselves. The files are available to them on the Dropbox.com website. They will have to join Dropbox to access the files, but then they get the benefit of the service if they choose to install it on their system.

Wait! Again! There’s more. You now have a personal web server with Dropbox. There is a public folder that you can share files from. Simply copy the files to the Public folder and then copy the public link and share it with the world. The Public folder will not execute server code, though you could use JavaScript along with HTML and CSS to create a nice little site.

There’s even more to the service. And the best part of all this is the price. It’s free for the 2GB service. If you’d like to have more storage then you can upgrade to one of their pay tiers for 50GB or 100GB.

Try Google Plus

Posted by on August 18, 2011 No comments

If you’re interested in trying out Google+ but haven’t been invited yet, fear not.  Use the link below to get in the new Google social network “field trial“.  And when you’re on there, add me to one of your Circles.

http://powurl.com/gplus

Free Anti-Virus for Windows

Posted by on August 8, 2011 No comments

For some unknown reason, my virus protection on at least two computers failed/crashed and refused to start again. On these two computers I was using avast! Antivirus Free. The last time that I checked on it, it was version 5 of the software. The change to a new engine, the latest is version 6, may have been the thing that broke it. Either way, this was an opportunity to check out the landscape of free anti-virus products out there for the home user.

If you’re still using any Norton or McAfee products at home.  Stop!!  Uninstall that software right now and install one of these free alternatives.  Why?  In a word, expired subscriptions.  Most home users get a 90-day trial of one of the commercial antivirus programs on their new Windows-based computer.  When the 90-days is up, there is a nag screen that will tell you that it’s expired, but more often than not the warning gets dismissed and from then on the computer is out of date with the latest virus definitions.  That means you’re at risk of getting a nasty virus.

I’ll let you explore these alternatives on your own, but I have used AVG, avast! and Microsoft antivirus products personally.  They all work and I’ve never had an infection on any computer with these products installed.  The most interesting one of the bunch is the Panda Cloud Antivirus.  The reason being its described as “Light”.  That’s a great thing in an antivirus.  It shouldn’t slow down the system its protecting.  The lighter the better, so this is one I’m going to do some more research on.

So, which one did I pick?  I could have reinstalled avast! and tried that again, but instead I went with Avira this time around.

Let me know your opinion of these free antivirus applications in the comments.

VUDU: The Other Streaming Movie Rental Service

Posted by on July 26, 2011 No comments

I was reminded of the VUDU service today.  VUDU is a streaming service that lets you rent or buy movies and TV shows and streams them to you.  They started out life as a dedicated box you would purchase that had a portion of the movies on their service cached on the internal hard drive.  The movie would start right away and then stream from there.  Nowadays they are strictly a software company.  On your computer you can rent movies for $2 and have access to them for 2 days.  Good deal.

And here’s the best part.  According to their website, you can get movies the same day that they are released on DVD.  No more 28 day Netflix penalty.

And here’s the worst part.  Television shows.  The catalog of available television shows, especially children and family programming is anemic at best.

VUDU is built into numerous web connected devices , Blu-ray players, HDTVs, and the PS3.

So, this seems like a killer combo for streaming content:  Netflix Streaming – $7.99/Mo. and VUDU for new DVD release access, a-la-carte pricing.  I just need a way to get VUDU content on my TV.

Wouldn’t it be nice to see a VUDU channel on my Roku.

 

Success Story: Swift Freight Router Upgrade

Posted by on July 21, 2011 No comments

Recently I was contacted by the owner of Swift Freight, a multi-national corporation that ships products for it’s customer all around the world.  With the rising cost of phone services eating into the bottom line, they decided to install IP phones in three locations.  They purchased and signed up with Phonebooth.com and purchased phones and service for their offices in California, New Jersey and in India.

I was asked to provide a router with Quality of Service (QoS) features to ensure adequate bandwidth for the new IP phones as well as Virtual Private Networking (VPN) for the California office.  Their current router was the venerable Linksys WRT54G.

The options were to either purchase a new router with the required functionality (the phone vendor suggestion) or upgrade their current router with third-party firmware (my recommendation).  From my own use of third-party firmware (DD-WRT) I knew that their router had the capability to fulfill their requirements if it was upgraded.

The client chose to go with my recommendation of the upgraded Linksys router.

The router was taken off-line, upgraded with the DD-WRT firmware and put back in service.  The router was then configured for QoS for the SIP protocol that their new IP phones use.  The VPN service on the router was enabled and configured for two remote employees to access the company internal network.

Phone quality is now guaranteed and the office resources are available to remote workers.

Netflix Alternatives

Posted by on July 13, 2011 2 comments

As you read here, or on some other source, Netflix is raising their prices for the streaming and DVD combo service.  They are raising it from $9.99 per month to $15.98.  From the sound of their blog post on the subject, they are pretty resolute on this change.

As always, our members can easily choose to change or cancel their unlimited streaming plan, unlimited DVD plan, or both by visiting Your Account.

That sounds eerily like, “It’s my way, or the highway.”

Well, thanks to Netflix raising their prices 60% it’s going to cause people to look for alternatives to Netflix.  I just resurrected my Hulu account that has sat dormant for a couple of years.  I signed up for the service when it launched but didn’t find the service compelling.  Now that I may be rethinking my choice of streaming video service, and the Hulu service is much more mature now, it may be a viable option. The price is the same $7.99 as Netflix and they have a large number of television shows and movies to choose from. Not as large as Netflix, but may be doable. The thing that will make it possible to switch will be the content for kids. Perusing the television shows I’m not seeing a lot of programming for children, except for Naruto.

I think Matthew Leech has a good plan for replacing the DVD portion of Netflix.  I didn’t think about using those red kiosks at the grocery store.  They rentals are only $1 (if you remember to return them the next day) and they have the latest DVDs there even before Amazon VOD.  I’m still holding onto the idea that Amazon will bolster their streaming offerings with their Prime service as well.  That along with the cheap or free shipping that comes with the service would work well for the family.

One bright spot in this whole thing is the fact that all three services, Netflix, Hulu/Hulu Plus and Amazon VOD/Prime are all services that are available on my Roku set-top box.  Stay with Netflix, add Hulu Plus or dump them all.  Any way I go, I’m covered.  That’s refreshing not having to change out boxes and cables behind the entertainment center.

Free Shipping on Roku XD and XDS, Buy Now. Limited Time Offer.

Meanwhile, I’m not making any decisions until August 31, 2011.  At that time I’ll cancel the DVD service.  Until that time though, I’m going to go on a DVD binge and catch up on the top 20 movies in my DVD queue.

Netflix Raising Prices 60% in September

Posted by on July 12, 2011 No comments

Or, if you go back in time to the point that Netflix added streaming to the service ($7.99 then) they are effectively doubling the price for streaming and one DVD at a time.

Amazon Prime, and their one price for Prime shipping services and streaming, is starting to look more interesting. Prime is $79 per year or $6.58 per month. Assuming Amazon is aggressive in getting new streaming content this might be the place to look in the future.

In the meantime, I’ve had the same DVD at my house for roughly three weeks. Apparently the DVD service is not that important, but it was nice to have for those titles that don’t stream yet. I’m going to be sending that one back and going for the streaming only. I’ll rent new movies on Amazon VOD instead of getting them on DVD. Both services are available on the ROKU so I don’t have to choose just one.

Free Shipping on Roku XD and XDS, Buy Now. Limited Time Offer.

Audible Bucks the Trend

Posted by on July 11, 2011 No comments

“And the hits just keep on coming” is what I thought I would be saying when I received an email from Audible.  As you may or may not know, Audible was purchased by Amazon.  When I saw the words “Audible” and “affiliates” in the same email, I thought that was the next affiliate program to be discontinued.

Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!

But, the opposite is true, at least for now.  Here’s the email:

Hello Russell Turley,

Governor Brown of California signed a budget on June 29, 2011 that included a piece of legislation that imposes the collection of taxes from consumers on sales by online retailers even if the online retailer has no physical presence in the state. Although many online retailers were forced to terminate their relationships with their affiliates due to the passage of this legislation, Audible.com will not be terminating its relationships with its affiliates at this time.

If new legislation is passed or circumstances change we will notify all of our California partners and publishers at that time.

If you have any questions about the Audible affiliate program please do not hesitate to contact me!

Best Regards,

Keeping Monetization in Your Hands

Posted by on December 29, 2010 No comments

I read an interesting article today. And by interesting, I mean terrifying, especially if you use Google Adsense in an attempt to monetize your podcast/blog. They article can be found at Duck Works Magazine. It’s the story of a cameraman/boat enthusiast that produced content and put it on YouTube. He was making a good bit of money from the videos by using Adsense to display ads with the videos. Apparently he was making too much money, because Google decided to close his account.  Closed his account, took away any money they owed him and canceled a check!  I’ll let you read the article and get all the details for yourself, but there is one huge thing that you should take away from this article.

Putting the monetization of your blog or podcast in someone elses hands is folly. It’s the easy way to go, especially if you have decent traffic on your site, but in then end someone else is in control. Google didn’t get to be one of the biggest companies around because they’re giving away money. They keep the lion’s share of the ad revenue and you get a tiny sliver of it. Get any more and you’ll get banned. And if you think that you are the exception, here’s another thing to think about. The chips are stacked against you. One of the customers/readers/viewers of the film maker in the article is a lawyer. They examined the Adsense contract and had this to say.

The contract is designed so that it is almost impossible not to break the Google rules.

So there it is. It’s “almost impossible” to play by the rules that Google sets forth. My advice: don’t play.

If you’re looking for ways to monetize your podcast or other online venture, be sure to read my article on monetization or better yet, pick up my ebook, The Virtual Podcast Seminar, to learn about all things podcasting.