Computer and Web Articles

I learned about this gem of a site while reading the book Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein.

Stickk.com helps people reach specific goals they set for themselves: goals from the seemingly small (such as “make an appointment for the dentist”) to the quite ambitious (say, “stop using illegal drugs”). Conceived by Dean Karlan (a Yale economics professor) and Ian Ayres (an economist and Yale Law professor), the Stickk process is simple yet effective; apparently users as a whole are experiencing a success rate of almost 80%. Not bad, eh?

Here’s how it works:

First, you set your goal.

Second, set the stakes for not reaching your goal. For example, you could set the stakes at $250. If you reach your goal, you get your $250 back. If you don’t reach your goal, that $250 goes directly to charity. Or, as an even greater incentive, Stickk.com allows you to set an “Anti-charity” as the recipient of your money should you fail to reach your goal. Anti-charities support causes you strongly disagree with. How would you feel if you didn’t stick to your commitment and all your money went to … the NRA? The Education Fund to Stop Gun Violence? How about the NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation? The Americans United for Life?

Third, pick a referee who will monitor and verify the progress of your Stickk Commitment Contract.

Fourth, enlist friends and website members aiming for similar goals to act as your support group.

Then it’s time to start working to reach your goal! And thankfully, it’s not as easy to cheat the system as you might think.

So stop drinking coffee!

Start eating breakfast every morning!

Do 20 sit-ups every day!

Stop the excuses, and start reaching your goals!

You’re not alone; Stickk.com and its users are there to help you every step of the way.

ScreenSnapr was created for all of you who have, at one time or another, thought, “Geez, I wish there was an easy and FREE way of taking pictures of what’s on my screen … and saving those pictures … and sharing them with my friends.”

Press two keys on your keyboard and you’re instantly provided with an image that you can save to your computer and a website address that you can share with anyone you’d like.

Hop over to www.screensnapr.com and watch the little 30 second introductory video at the top of the homepage to learn more.

Adobe’s Acrobat Program is the industry standard for creating and modifying PDF files.

Problem is, at $450 for the regular “Pro” version and $700 for the “Pro Extended” version, Acrobat’s cost isn’t a drop in the bucket.

Thankfully, PDFCreator is a great—and free—alternative. If you don’t need all of Acrobat’s high-end bells and whistles (such as support for videos, maps, and 3D imagery) and if you’re interested in saving a few bucks, I recommend you give PDFCreator a shot.

You can download it right here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator.

Social bookmarking is a method that exists so that Web users around the world can be exposed to sites of interest they otherwise might not encounter. It’s just like normal bookmarking, but with a sharing (social) component to it! Social bookmarking also …

1. Allows web users to bookmark and track sites of interest for personal use – similar to using the normal Favorites and Bookmark buttons in common browsers.
2. Goes beyond the “normal” bookmarking of your standard Favorites and Bookmark tools by allowing sites of interest to be searched for and shared with other Web users.
3. Usually incorporates “tags.” Tags are nothing more than keywords related to each bookmarked site or page that allow for easier, more effective searching.
4. Often exists within sites that employ voting systems so that users can indicate which bookmarks they found most interesting. The bookmarked sites or pages with the highest ratings are given more prominence and exposure to even more people within these social bookmarking sites.

Stay tuned next week for an explanation of how to get involved with social bookmarking…

I recently came across a blog post that recommended keeping records of conversations with customer service representatives with the help of a handy Excel spreadsheet file. The strategy and associated spreadsheet are simple and effective.

Interested? Read the short post and download the spreadsheet for free right here: http://tinyurl.com/lstpfs.

Question:
I’d like to be able to listen to new music that I like for free without having to use iTunes. I’ve heard there are sites out there that play music based on what you tell them you like to listen to. Do you know of any sites like this?

Answer:
Sure. There are indeed quite a few sites out there that offer customized-just-for-your playlists that allow you to listen to, rate, and purchase new music based on your existing musical preferences. My personal favorite is Pandora (www.pandora.com). Just pop in the name of an artist or band you enjoy, turn your speakers up, and leave the rest to Pandora. And yep, it’s free.

Gickr.com lets everyday people instantly create animated photos (i.e., mini photo-slideshows) for their websites, to send to friends via email, and for Facebook, MySpace, and Flickr accounts, etc.

Choose up to 10 images or photos you’d like your image to animate through, choose your image size, then choose the animation’s speed. Easy!

Gickr even provides you with the code you need to drop your animated photos into sites like Friendster, WordPress, Orkut, Hi5, and LiveJournal.

Check it out at www.gickr.com.

Your business’s website patiently sits around 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year – existing solely to provide your customers and potential customers with useful information. Hopefully your website is well-designed and easy to use so that there are no obvious, large barriers keeping your site’s visitors from being able to find the information they’re looking for (or coming across the information you want them to see!)

If you’re not an expert on websites, though, how can you tell if your site is as effective as it could be? How can you tell if an unhealthy website is potentially hurting your business? It can sometimes be tough to receive objective, unbiased information from your own webmaster, as he/she will often assure you that your site is just about the best thing since sliced bread. It can also be challenging to accurately decipher your site’s analytics and statistics – if you’re even able to get a hold of them, that is!

For these reasons timeforcake has set up a free online service that allows you to learn more about your business website’s health and effectiveness. Simply visit www.WebsiteHealthCheckup.com and find out if your website has issues that are keeping it from being the effective marketing tool it has the potential to be.

Question: I was wondering if you knew of a way I could send text messages to my friends when I’m on my computer? I figured there had to be a way to do it but I haven’t been able to figure it out. Can you help? (And I would prefer the cost to be free.)

Answer: I can help. The solution is www.sendafreesms.com – free, spam-free text messaging direct from your computer.

A few things to keep in mind when using this service:

1. You must know the carrier of your friend’s cell phone in order to successfully send a message.
2. Don’t forget to enter in the phone number as numbers only (no dashes, spaces, etc.)
3. Prior to sending your message, you’ll be asked to enter a pin number. You can find this pin number at the top of the form (the pin number changes from day to day).
4. If you submit your information and it goes through successfully, you’ll see a “Message Sent” confirmation. If you don’t see this confirmation, it means there was an error in one of the fields you filled out, so try again.