In today’s world, starting a business can be a daunting task. You have to know the regulations, find office space, market your product, choose the right business services, etc. Fortunately, the Microsoft Start-up Center takes you through this process step-by-step. If the complexity of starting a business has prevented you from doing so, you can check it out at http://bit.ly/7mtGCX
Windows 7 is coming in October. If you are planning on buying it when it comes out, it would be smart to pre-order it now. Why? Because through July 11, Microsoft is offering discounts of 50% off or more on retail copies of Windows 7. In fact, the Home Premium upgrade sells right now for $49.99. That’s a quite a bit cheaper cheaper than the $99.99 than it will sell for after July 11. If you want the Professional version, you can currently get that for $99.99. You can pre-order Windows 7 on Amazon at http://bit.ly/CawrF.
If you still use a notepad, or even the “Notes” app on the iPhone, there’s a much better way to remember things. Using a free service called Evernote (http://su.pr/5VRkxF), you can keep your notes on the internet and access them from whatever device you use. If you have an iPhone, Palm Pre, or Blackberry, there is an Evernote app that allows you to access your saved notes and take text, picture, and sound notes and sync them to your Evernote account. In addition, even if you don’t have an iPhone, if you have any cell phone with text/picture/sound messaging capability, you can post notes to Evernote. If that phone has web browsing capability, even if it’s just basic WAP browsing, you can access your saved notes. You can also access your notes from any computer with internet access. Furthermore, there is an Evernote application available for your computer that will allow you to access your notes even when you do not have internet access. In the end, you get an advanced note-taking system that you can access from a variety of devices and take with you wherever you go. Best of all, it won’t cost you a cent, unless you need the premium version.
The iPhone 3G S was released today at 7:00 AM. Unlike previous iPhone releases, this one has two buying options. You can either buy it in store, at a Apple, AT&T, Bestbuy, or WalMart store, or you can buy it online from the Apple or AT&T website. The price is $199 for the 16GB version, $299 for the $32GB version, or $99 for the old 8GB iPhone 3G (not S). The key features in this new S release that are not available with the older iPhone 3G are:
If you have purchased the 3G S, or if you are planning to, let me know in the comments. If you’ve spent some time using it, let me know what you think of it.
In an earlier post, I told you about some keyboard shortcuts that can be used to complete common tasks faster. Well, did you know that keyboard shortcuts can be used to launch common programs, too? You can, and it’s pretty easy to set up.
To set it up, right click on the program in the start menu that you would like to configure keystroke launching for. Next, click “Properties”. In the resulting dialog box, click the white text field next to “Shortcut key”. After that, enter your keyboard shortcut just as you would while launching the program. Then, click “Apply” and “OK”, and you’re done!
The iPhone and iPod Touch 3.0 software have been released today. You can download them now from iTunes.
However, if you want a legal way to get the iPod Touch software for free, go to http://bit.ly/wVrHI, and use you browser’s “find” function to search for “3.0″ If you keep going through the results, you find a link for the 3.0 firmware for your device. Next, copy and paste that into your browser’s address bar and download the file. Then, open iTunes with your device connected. After, that hold down the shift key in Windows, or the alt/option key in Mac OS X, and click restore. Select your downloaded firmware, and voila. After the restore, you will then have the 3.0 firmware on your device, for free!
Apple has released a beta of the new Safari 4. From my experience, this new version of Safari is awesome! It has a new “Top Sites” feature that lets you see your most frequently visited websites. Also, you can now browse through your bookmarks and history with cover flow. Safari 4 has much faster Javascript performance, so you may see web 2.0 sites that you visit run faster. Try it out at http://apple.com/safari.
Circuit City is closing all operations in the U.S. While this is bad news, they are having a liquidation sale from now until March 31st. As that date approaches, prices on electronics in their store may drop drastically. So, watch their site for deals, grab those unused gift cards, and be sure to use them soon.
Update: Circuit City has come back from the dead, under new management. Go to http://bit.ly/7M8VTQ for more information.
Have you ever tried to find a file on your computer, only to realize that it was on another computer. Syncronization services can help. They push your files to all your computers, so you always have the data you need. I suggest trying Microsoft Live Mesh, which provides 5GB of storage and is free. If you need more storage than that, try Syncplicity, which provides 50GB of storage and costs $9.99/month.
Want to know the best deals out there on Black Friday? Want to know how to know how to get money back for your purchases. Here are some tips for you:
Look for Black Friday ads:
Some sites that show Black Friday ads and deals include:
http://www.2008blackfridayads.com/
http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com/
Search for deals the normal way:
It’s also important to look for the lowest price on an item you want to buy on sites like pricegrabber.com. Also, in my experience, Amazon.com consistently has the lowest price or one of the lowest prices on many items.
Get Cash Back on your Purchase
Once you find the items you’re going to buy and what stores you’re going to buy them at, sign up at fatwallet.com and mrrebates.com and use their links to the store you’re going to buy at. When you purchase the item or items, you can get cash back on your purchase, which can be delivered via methods such as check or PayPal.
