Computer and Web Articles

Here’s another great (and completely free) tool I’ve discovered: www.MeetWithApproval.com.

MeetWithApproval.com lets you arrange meetings and events, work out which day works best for everyone, and keep track of who’s coming.

The site’s design is clean and pleasant looking while the site itself is very basic and easy to use. Keep Meet With Approval in mind for the next time you plan a meeting, party, reunion, get-together weekend or corporate event.

• Interested in learning how to make your very own iPod screensaver? Visit http://tinyurl.com/y9ak4s.
• Interested in knowing when you should buy your plane tickets? Learn whether the airfare you’re interested in purchasing is going to go up, down, or remain the same so you can know exactly when to buy: www.farecast.com.
• Interested in finding a site that will help you pick the best seats on your flight? Visit www.seatguru.com.
• Interested in using a website that enables you to chat with MSN, AOL and Yahoo - without having to install any software? (This is great when you’re on the road). Check out www.eBuddy.com.
• Interested in easily giving your cat its own homepage, or seeing the homepages of other cats? Visit www.catster.com. (If you’re a dog lover, try www.dogster.com.)

I’m not exactly sure how I feel about this website, to tell you the truth. But the concept is an interesting one, so I’ll share it with you anyhow. SearchPlates.com gives you the ability to send an e-mail to anyone you’d like, using their license plate. For free.

See a hottie drive by? Wish you could chat with her? Just write down her license plate, enter the plate number into www.SearchPlates.com, and send her a message.

The catch is this: for that hottie to ever see your message, he or she has to log in to SearchPlates.com and look up his/her own plate.

The site’s homepage shows a bulleted list offering reasons why you should use SearchPlate. On this list you’ll find “Ask someone a question about their car,” “Make new friends” and “Recruit people for you car club.” I got a kick out of those, especially considering that the graphic at the top of the site displays license plates with the following phrases: “e-mail me,” “too cute,” “hey sexy,” “admire u” and “hottie.”

I looked up my license plate. No one had sent me a message.

By default, the Windows XP System Restore Utility reserves 12 percent of each of your computers’ drives for itself. That’s a lot of hard drive space!

You can cut down on the amount of space this process uses by either turning off the service altogether or reducing the number of its restore points. To adjust the System Restore settings, right-click on My Computer, select Properties, then select the System Restore tab.

If you don’t have a terrific backup system in place (shame on you!), I recommend not turning off System Restore completely, as it can be a useful tool when you need to rescue your computer from viruses or software issues. Instead, within the System Restore Tab, choose your main drive (most likely your C drive) and hit the Settings button.

Use the slider to set how much space on this drive will be used by System Restore for restore points. If you’re unsure as to what amount to choose, I’d recommend 5 percent. And there you go; precious hard drive space freed up for your use!

Before Ta-Da lists, my desk always seemed to be strewn with sticky notes. Remember to call so-and-so. Make sure to finish projects x, y, and z before Friday. Pick up apples at the store.

Now that I use Ta-Da lists, my desk is cleaner and I feel much more organized. In a nutshell, Ta-Dais a free online service that allows you to create and manage your to-do lists in an extraordinarily easy manner. Signup takes about 10 seconds, you can share your lists with others (here honey, I made this nice online list of all the household chores you should do this weekend and I set it as your homepage), and there’s no install or software required.

Ta-Da Lists are SO easy. I promise. Why aren’t you using them? (http://www.tadalist.com)

A while back I extolled the convenience and functionality of DropSend.com, a site that allows you to e-mail up to five huge files per month for free (when you send more than five files you pay a small fee).

Though I personally still use Dropsend.com, I thought you’d like to know of an alternative I recently discovered: www.MailBigFile.com. Sign up for a Pro Account for a measly $19 per year and you can send files up to 2GB to your family, friends or coworkers. Files can be downloaded up to 25 times, they’re available for download for 14 days, and you receive a notification once the file has been downloaded by your recipient.

If you’d like to use the free service, you can send files up to 512MB in size to one recipient, and the files are available for download three times over the course of five days. Pretty good for free, if you ask me!

I’ve enjoyed reading the entries on www.mouseprint.org for some time now. The site dedicates a new entry every Monday to consumer education by focusing on the fine print in ads, service contracts and product labels.

Mouseprint locates contradictory claims companies are making about their services and products, explains how companies are tricking consumers and offers suggestions as to what consumers can do to make better decisions.

A recent entry told how Scott released a “Now Improved” version of their toilet paper, claiming that it offered “improved long-lasting value and convenience.” The “Mouseprint” was that although consumers were paying the same price for the “improved” toilet paper, each of the 1,000 sheets went from 4 inches to 3.7 inches - making each roll 300 inches shorter!

For those of you who don’t have Photoshop - as well as for those of you who do but don’t know how to use it - I guarantee that SnipShot will make you smile.

SnipShot is SO cool. The site allows you to quickly and easily resize, rotate and crop your photos. No software to install, no plugins at all. Just visit www.snipshot.com and browse to the photo you’d like to edit on your computer directly from the homepage!

SnipShot also lets you make basic image adjustments such as contrast, brightness, saturation and hue, allows unlimited redos, saves a copy of your original so there’s nothing to worry about, and can edit photos up to 10MB in size.

When you’re done, export your photo as a .gif, .jpg, .pdf, .png, or .tif. And here’s what you’ve been waiting for me to tell you: It’s free!

Shortcuts give you quick, easy access to files, folders and programs you use on a regular basis. If you’re tired of having to dig down and click through eight folders every time you go looking for a particular file, it’s time to make a shortcut!

To create a shortcut, simply navigate to the file, program, or folder you’d like to be able to access more quickly. Right-click this item, then choose Send To, then choose Desktop (Create Shortcut). If you’d rather have your shortcut exist somewhere other than your desktop, you should choose Create Shortcut from the Send To menu instead, then move the shortcut to whatever folder you’d like.

To delete a shortcut, just drag it to your Recycle Bin or right-click it and select Delete. Remember, it’s always OK to delete shortcuts as you’re not deleting the actual program or file. Shortcuts are disposable and replaceable; you can make as many as you’d like.