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Create/Convert PDF files for free

2009-10-06T08:07:00.001-07:00

We all have acrobat reader to read PDF files. But when it comes to creating a PDF files for any purpose you are at loss as without Adobe Acrobat it is impossible to create a PDF file. Or is it so?

The truth is that you can create a PDF file even without acrobat installed on your system. The easiest way out is to create a MS word document and then convert it to PDF using any of the available PDF converter tools. Let’s take a look at some of the tools you can use.

Online PDF converters

FreePDFConvert

Convert Microsoft Office, Open Office, graphic images, vector graphic and other formats to PDF online. Upload your files and it will be send to your email after it is converted to PDF.

PDFOnline

Convert your office documents to PDF. Converted file are sent back to your email.

PrimoOnline

PrimoOnline provides you with the ability to create PDF files from your office documents by uploading them.

Firefox Extensions

PDFescape

PDFescape allows you to open and edit PSF files online. It is a free PDF editor in your Firefox.

pdfit

Convert the current page to PDF.

Free Online Personal Finance Management Tools

2009-10-03T03:26:00.001-07:00

Online personal finance management tools are great to keep in touch with your finances the easy way and these services are growing fast. Here is a list of some free online personal finance management tools.

Mint

Mint is probably the best known online personal finance management tool. Mint saves you the trouble of bookkeeping by automatically pulling in your balances, purchases, stock trades, etc. It connects securely with more than 7,000 US financial institutions. Mint has impressive financial analysis tools and is definitely a must try if you are looking for an online financial management solution.

Thrive

Thrive aggregates your bank, credit card account information into a single interface. It has partnered with 8000+ banks. It categorizes your spending automatically so you can analyze exactly "where your money is going".

Expensr

Expensr is another free online personal finance manager which tracks your spending and compares them with similar people so you know where to improve. It lets you create budgets to stay on track and you can also use their forecasting tools to avoid any financial surprises.

Rudder

Rudder is another online personal finance management tools that brings all your bank / card accounts (Connect to 3000+ banks & credit cards) in the same place, It helps you track your bills, and it has a innovative feature called ‘What’s Left’ which helps predict your future cashflow.

Wesabe

Wesabe is part money management tool, part community. It pulls all your financial information together for you. It provides you with an easy way to manage your money. You can view all of your bank/ credit card details in the same place.

Yodlee – MoneyCenter

Yodlee money Center lets you manage your finances better by letting you view al your finances in one place, set and track a budget, track your spending etc..

Pennyminder

Pennyminder lets you manager you finances by tracking deposits and withdrawals so you can known what's happening with your money. It lets you share your journals with anyone by email and imports your bank statement.

Geezeo

Geezeo provides you with a set of online financial tools to help you reach your goals and make your finances better everyday. It automatically categorizes all your expenses from all your accounts into one place. Its community is a great place to ask specific questions to financial experts, connect with like-minded people, and learn from others

NetWorthIQ

NetworthIQ is a social personal finance manager designed to make monitoring your net worth easy and fun.

Quicken Online

It automatically organizes your accounts in one place to simplify internet banking, keep track of your bills, lets you check your balances from your cell phone and helps you set your budget goals and track its progress.

Sell your photos and earn money : Big list of stock photography sites where you can sell your digital photos.

2009-09-20T12:04:00.000-07:00

Stock photography websites are a great place to sell your photos and earn money. There are stock photography websites that are ideal places to sell your photos no matter if you are a professional or amateur photographer. There are several ways to sell your photographs through a stock photography sites. You can sell exclusive rights to a photograph or you can get paid per downloads. Also, the payment varies form site to site while the most common payment methods seems to be PayPal, Moneybookers and check. Here’s a large list of stock photography websites where you can sell your photographs along with important details like how much they pay and the payment methods. Have fun selling your photos.

BigStockPhoto

bigstockphoto pays you 50 cents to $3 per image download. You can also earn more on special license downloads. It' minimum payout is $30 and they pay by PayPal. You can also request a check for a minimum payout of $50.

iStockphoto

istockphoto pays you 20% for each file download. However if you are an exclusive contributor then it can go up to 40%. Minimum payout is $100 and they pay by Check, PayPal/Moneybookers and Direct deposit or pre-paid iStockphoto MasterCard Payoneer.

Dreamstime

Dreamstime pays you 50% fee for each transaction and 60% for exclusive images. Exclusive photographers also get an additional bonus of $0.20 for each approved submission. Minimum payout is $100 and payment methods are check, PayPal or Moneybookers.

Shutterstock

With a collection of more than 6 million stock photos shutterstock is a big player in the stock photography market. Shutterstock pays you 25 cents every time your image is downloaded. However, once you reach $500 in earnings, your commission can go up to 30 cents per download. You can also earn money by referring photographers and stock buyers. The minimum payout is $75 by PayPal or Moneybookers and $300 by check.

Stockxpert

Stockxpert is another great site dealing with stock photographs. It currently has more than 2.9 million images with thousands added every day. They pay you 50% for each download. Payment methods are PayPal, Ikobo, Moneybookers and you can also request a check.

123RF

Another great stock photography resource with over 4.0 million images. They pay you 50% of the net proceeds from each photo downloaded. You can also earn buy referring customers (15% of the purchase or subscription), and referring photographers (10% of the price of each of their photo downloaded). Payment methods are PayPal, Moneybookers and checks.

Canstockphoto

Canstockphoto pays you 50% commission for guest and member purchases and 25 cents for subscription sales. Payment methods are PayPal, Moneybookers and check and the minimum payouts are $50 for PayPal and $100 for Moneybookers and check.

Fotolia

Fotolia is another popular stock photography website with over 5 million photos and illustrations. They pay you 30- 44% commission for non-exclusive files and 47-61% commission for submissions by total exclusive contributors. You need a minimum of 50 earned credits to get paid and the payment methods are PayPal and Moneybookers.

ShutterPoint

ShutterPoint offers a high payout of 85% for full Royalty-Free license and 70% for standard Royalty-Free license. Minimum payout is $50 and payment methods are PayPal, Moneybookers and check.

Photostockplus

Photostockplus pays you 85% commission on all sales minus a 3.25% processing fee. Minimum payout is $100 and payment methods are check, bank wire or PayPal.

Crestock

Crestock initially pays you a commission of 20% but it goes up to 30% once you have reached 100 downloads. For subscription downloads you get $0.25 commission per download. The minimum payout for payment by PayPal, Moneybookers is $50 and the minimum payout for payment by bank transfers or check is $100.

SnapVillage

SnapVillage pays you a royalty of 30% for every image sold on a standard or product license. For an image downloaded on subscription you earn 30 cents. Payment method is PayPal and the minimum payout is $10.

Citizenside

Well, this one is not exclusively for stock photos but it allows you to sell your photos to perspective buyers. They pay you a commission of up to 75%. Payment methods are PayPal or bank transfer

Adography

Adography is a nice place to sell your photographs. Adography does not accept returns and so you get paid immediately when someone buys a photo. All payments are made through Amazon Payments.

PhotoShelter

Home to over 40000 photographers, Photoshelter is another good place to sell your photographs. You don’t have to wait for a check from them as you can use your own PayPal or merchant account to sell your photos.

Buy-photo.eu

Buy-photo.eu offers a commission of 50% for every sold photographs. Payment method is PayPal and the minimum payout is 50 Euros.

Alamy

With Alamy, you get 60% of each sale. They pay you monthly (if payout exceeds $250).

PantherMedia

You get a commission of 50% (can go up to 60%) of the sales of your images via PantherMedia. You can also earn by referring new members. Payment method is PayPal or direct payment to your bank account and the minimum payout is 30 Euros.

Tradebit

Not exactly a stock photography site (lets you sell sounds, photos, software, e-Books, music etc.) but you can still sell your photos through tradebit.

ClusterShot

ClusterShot helps you sell your photos. They allow anyone to sell their photos. When you sell your photos they act as an escrow service to ensure payment is successfully received before the photo is released to the buyer. You can request your payment anytime and it will be paid to you after deducting a 12% fee off the sale.

Photospin

Photospin pays you a revenue share of 50% for exclusive images and 40% for non-exclusive images. The minimum payout is $50 and the payment methods are PayPal and check.

FreePhotoMarket

Freephotomarket lets you sell your photos without charging any fee on transactions. You can set your own price for your photos and you can sell up to 100 photos for free. However, to sell more than 100 photos you need to pay an annual fee of € 199. Payment transactions are done by PayPal and full sale amount is directly deposited to your PayPal account

StockPhotography

Stockphotography splits sales 50/50 with you. They notify sales quarterly and pay you by checks in £ Sterling or US$.

Paxxion

Paxxion allows you to sell your images through them. You can set your own price for your work. Paxxion doesn't take any commission for transactions but if you don't want to be limited by the free membership account you have to pay a fee of little more than 3 euros per month. Payment is made by PayPal.

MicroStockPhoto

Microstockphoto pays you 35% of the sale price for each image that is downloaded. The minimum payout is $50 and payment is made by PayPal.

Mediafocus

Mediafocus pays you 20% to 40% of the net billing of images (the pay depends on the photographer's experience, image quality etc.). The minimum payout is $50.00.

StockphotoPro

Stockphotopro pays you 20% royalty every time your images are purchased and 30% royalty if you have a 300+ images collection. Payment method is PayPal and the minimum payout is $10.

FeaturePics

FeaturePics pays you 70% of the license fees received for all photos. Minimum payout is $50 and payment methods are check, PayPal and Moneybookers.

Imagecatalog

Imagecatalog pays you 40% for each sale of your images. Minimum payout is $75 and they pay by PayPal or bank check in US funds.

Stockphotospot

Stockphotospot pays you up to $2 when you upload any photo. You then get paid 20 cents per downloads of your photos. Their minimum payout is $100 and they pay via PayPal or Check.

Yaymicro

Yaymicro pays you a commission of 50 % to contributors on all credit sales. For subscriptions the commission is €1 per download. Payment methods are PayPal and Moneybookers and the minimum payout is €30.

Zymmetrical

Zymmetrical pays you a commission of 70% and the minimum payout for PayPal is $10 and for Payoneer it is $50.

Cutcaster

Cutcaster pays you 50% a commission for exclusive contents and 40% for non-exclusive contents. The minimum payout is $20 and they pay via PayPal, Moneybookers or check.

Stockphotomedia

Stockphotomedia pays you a commission of 35% to 55% for each image downloaded. The minimum payout is 60 EUR and is paid via PayPal or Moneybookers.

ImageVortex

Imagevortex pays you a commission of 70% of the original sale price. The minimum payout is $100 and the payment methods are PayPal, check or a wire transfer to your bank account.

ThePhotoStorage

Thephotostorage pays you a commission of 50% of the sale. The minimum payout is $100 CAD dollars.

Pixmac

Pixmac pays you a commission of 50% for non-exclusive rights and 60% for exclusive rights. Payment methods are Moneybookers and PayPal.

PictureStock

Picturestock pays a commission of 50% to the photographer when an image is sold. Payments are made by check or international money order.

Anka Agency International

AAI pays you a commission of 50% on the net sales. However they need a minimum of 100 images to be submitted.

fotoLibra

Fotolibra pays you a commission of 50% of the sell. Platinum members get 60%. The minimum payout is £50 and payment methods are check, bank transfer or PayPal.

Abundant Photo

Abundant Photo pays you a royalty of 50% each time one of your photos are purchased. The minimum payout is $10.00.

MrPaparazzi

MrPaparazzi is a place to sell your celebrity photographs. They pay you 50% of all licensing fees (including secondary and subsequent licensing) after deduction of applicable taxes. Payments are made via electronic transfer to your bank account or by check.

Thesnitcherdesk

Thesnitcherdesk is another place to sell your celebrity photographs. You get 50% of the sale and is paid via PayPal or bank transfer.

Photrade

Apart from earning money from their ad revenue sharing model, you can also earn by selling your photos on Photrade. You get 80% of the markup made on any sale.

Picturenation

Picturenation pays you 40% commission on each sale. However to upload more than 5 images you need to have a Pro account which costs you £10 a year. Minimum payout is £50. Payment is made via bank transfer or PayPal.

Vizero

Vizero is place to upload your photos and sell them to prospective buyers. You fix the price of the photos and Vizero charges you 25% commission on each sale if you hold a free membership account and 15% commission on each sale if you hold a paying account. Payment is made via PayPal and MoneyBookers. However the free account has a limitation of only 5MB upload space and it expires after six months.

Express Digital

Express Digital lets you sell photos through them by setting your own price. They take a commission of maximum 15% as e-commerce transaction fee for each online order along with a 3% fee as the cost of payment processing. They pay you every two weeks.

Get $30 off on Lunarpages basic hosting

2009-09-15T08:46:00.001-07:00

Need a hosting for your personal website or blog? Here’s a great offer from Lunarpages hosting. Get $30 off 24 months basic hosting plan. This hosting plan is excellent for starting a personal website. It starts from $4.95 per month and include free domain name, unlimited storage, unlimited bandwidth,unlimited MySQL database, unlimited add-on and sub domains,unlimited parked domains, unlimited ftp accounts, support for PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby On Rails etc.And it also includes 24 hour support and service.

Moreover with this Lunarpages Basic hosting plan you get $25 Facebook ads credit and $25 Google adwords credit and $700 worth of goodies.

Okay, now here's how to get $30 off on Lunarpages basic hosting. Just use the coupon code below to avail this offer.

Coupon code for $30 off on Lunarpages basic hosting: TD30

I am back!

2009-09-14T11:01:00.000-07:00

Well, I know I haven't updated this blog for quite a while. I have been busy in things I couldn't just ignore and thats how it was. But, I am trying to make some time off from now on to at least keep this blog alive and post regularly. So, do keep checking this space. As of now, I am off to this place to find some discount coupon codes for T-shirts.

Find User reviews and rating on Web Hosting

2009-04-08T17:24:00.000-07:00

Choosing a web hosting provider is not an easy task. You have to consider various things like uptime, cost, control panel, storage space, bandwidth etc before you can decide on the web hosting that is best for you. It always helps to know about other people’s experiences about any particular host. One way to know about any web hosting provider is to search for reviews or ask in webmasters forums to know more about it. However, it takes a lot of time to do all these things.

But the good news is that there are actually places where we can find reviews of many website at the same place saving us a lot of time. WebHostingRating is such a website which provides web hosting rating and reviews. You can find independent customer ratings for website hosting providers for Unix hosting, Windows hosting, Reseller Hosting, VPS hosting, Dedicated Hosting, Managed Hosting etc.

They also have hosting awards, the winners of which are determined by user votes in 12 hosting categories like Best Budget Hosting, Best Blog Hosting, Best Forum Hosting, Best Unix Hosting, Best Windows Hosting, Best Email Hosting etc. At the end of each month the system generates the list of best hosting companies based on the user votes. These awards are also a good indication of the best web hosting providers.

If you are looking to build your site using any of today’s popular CMS like Joomla, Drupal, WordPress etc, then you can go through the CMS Web Hosts section to find out the best hosting provider for your need. All in all, this is a great place to find user reviews and rating of web hosting providers that helps you decide on the best web hosting service for you.

97% of emails are spam

2009-04-08T16:51:00.000-07:00

In a new security report Microsoft says that 97% of the mails sent are spam. Among spam, 48.6 of it are advertisements for pharmaceutical products. There are interesting facts in this report which you can view here

15 cool apps from the Google Applications Gallery

2009-04-08T16:45:00.000-07:00

Google has an application for us to do right about anything. Here's a cool list from Webware about 15 cool apps from the Google Applications Gallery. Check this out.

Where to find Linux Jobs?

2009-02-20T21:39:00.001-08:00

Yeah sure you can use the big places like Monster to search for a Linux job but if you prefer a job website catering specifically to Linux Professionals then here are two sites which will get you going.

Mojolin.com is a job site focused on Linux, Apache, MySql, PHP, Perl, Python and other open source professionals. It offers the latest jobs and also career advice.

kerneltrap.org has a job board where you can find the latest Linux jobs.

New Nokia N86 mobile

2009-02-20T17:27:00.001-08:00

The new mobile in Nokia’s N Series is out. Nokia N86 sports a 8MP camera with Wide-angle Carl Zeiss optics and has many cool features. wwwblog runs a short review of the new mobile you can find here.

Scan Registry for File Extension problems

2009-02-20T16:07:00.001-08:00

Ever ran into problems related to file extensions? I am sure you did. I have had such a problem many times with my system. If you are not sure what I am talking about here than just try to remember the last time you installed any software in Windows and it asked you during the installation process whether or not it should associate certain file types with it, and you clicked yes (some applications actually associates certain file types with them even without asking!).

It’s fine till now, but when you uninstalled that software somewhere down the line you notice that certain file types which was associated with the program you just uninstalled isn’t associated with any applications anymore and you have to follow the long route to open those files (as double clicking on them doesn’t open them). Ideally the previous file association should be restored when an application is uninstalled and its file association is removed. But if it doesn’t happen due to any reason your file associations are broken and your registry is in a mess with many broken entries. There are many other reasons which can cause various file extension problems in your system.

So, how do you fix them? Sure, you can fix some minor problems manually with a few clicks, but it will be time consuming and there may be some problems which you may not even be aware of. This is why taking help of software for this specific job makes good sense. Here’s one such software from computerfileextensions, which scans your registry for such errors and fixes them with a single click. They also have a database of numerous file extensions with description where you can find out what a particular file extension actually is. So if you want to know what file type are the files with an extension PPS ,DLL or DMG, just access the extension database and find the description.

SiteLauncher : Launch your favorite websites using your keyboard

2009-02-19T17:13:00.000-08:00

Here's a new Fiorefox Add-on which can be quite useful. It gives you a super-quick way to to open your favorite websites using only your keyboard. One special hotkey brings up the 'Launcher', followed by a unique key to launch a site.

@SiteLauncher

GPS Tracking Solutions from Brickhouse Security

2009-02-19T17:07:00.000-08:00

GPS tracking has generated a lot of buzz off late (both positive and negative). GPS tracking finds use in many areas from employers tracking employees to spying on your spouse. Many of these uses of GPS tracking have raised concern about privacy issues. But whether or not you like it, GPS tracking is here in a big way and it is going to stay. GPS tracking can also be extremely useful to travel business owners who can manage their fleet of vehicles better with a tracking system in place. It can also be helpful to track down a stolen vehicle. But at the same time it has been used to spy on people, (especially by suspecting spouses and depending on the law of your land it may be illegal too.)

Anyway, if you have a need for any GPS tracking solution (whatever the use you may find), let me introduce a place where you can find a variety of GPS tracking solution to meet your different needs. Brickhouse Security provides GPS tracking solutions to a wide customer base. Their elite client base includes the FBI, US Navy, Police etc and is trusted by many corporate and small businesses. With their GPS tracking devices you can track any vehicle or person anywhere. There is a wide range of devices available suite your needs sporting features such as long battery life, small size, works indoors, fleet management system etc.

So, if you are in need of a GPS tracking solution, don’t look beyond Brickhouse Security. They also offer huge discounts over the current market price which results in heavy savings for you. You can also use paypal to purchase their products or order securely online by phone. For more details visit Brickhouse Security.

Livedrive Out of Beta

2009-02-18T15:37:00.001-08:00

Ok, my previous post was about the new version of Livedrive that was released yesterday. Well, today I got a mail from Livedrive which says that they have closed the beta program and Livedrive is now open to public. They are also offering a 20% discount for the first 10,000 customers. You also have the option of trying it out for free for 30 days. if you are a Livedrive beta user but not willing to subscribe to the service, your account will be automatically deleted.

Some benefits of subscribing to Livedrive now -

Enjoy a 20% discount (first 10,000 accounts only)
30 day total satisfaction guarantee – they will refund your subscription fee if you wish to
cancel your Livedrive account within 30 days from now, for any reason.
Secure your Livedrive Address
Continue using the full features of Livedrive
Access to priority support and service
Instant online activation

@Livedrive

New version of LiveDrive released

2009-02-17T14:05:00.001-08:00

A new version of the Livedrive Desktop Software has been released today. It includes a number of speed enhancements and fixes some bugs. You can download the new version of Livedrive here.

Top Web 2.0 security threats

2009-02-17T13:54:00.001-08:00

Online security threats have always been a bigger problem. Web 2.0 websites and resources are quite popular and the downside is that they also bring newer online threats. Never thought of it that way? Well, neither did I until I read this informative post at RWW.

Make Firefox your Productivity Machine

2009-02-17T12:47:00.001-08:00

The power and versatility of it make Firefox the favorite browser of most of us. The efficiency and power of Firefox can be further extended by using extensions. Mashable has a nice post on how to make Firefox more productive by giving a few tips and extensions which works wonder.

Check it here.

Technorati Tags: firefox,tips,productivity

Common Photoshop Mistakes and Malpractice

2009-02-16T20:08:00.000-08:00

So you know Photoshop? But how sure are you of the thing you do in Photoshop? Are you committing any mistakes, any misuses, is anything at all is wrong? Or how about learning a few tips which would tell you how to avoid doing some very common Photoshop mistakes. designcubicle has agreat articles which gives a nice and useful insight into common things that we often mess up Photoshop and how to avoid falling into those common pitfalls.

Antivirus for windows 7

2009-02-16T19:07:00.000-08:00

One of the biggest issues for Windows 7 beta users is the choice of a good anti virus solution. There are very few anti virus solution available that are officially compatible with Windows 7 and a couple of others anti virus tools are reported by users to work with windows 7 even though not officially compatible. Here’s a link to an article which discusses the anti virus software that work with Windows 7

100 Adobe AIR Apps for Productivity

2009-02-16T18:53:00.000-08:00

Adobe AIR has created quite a buzz and there is numerous AIR apps already developed catering to the various needs of the users. If you don’t have any idea what an AIR app can do but are curious about it, well check out this list I stumbled upon recently. It lists 100 top Adobe AIR Apps for productivity. I am sure you might end up installing AIR after you go through the list and decided to try out some of the apps. You can find the list here.

Adobe AIR Apps for Photos & Videos.

2009-01-31T19:53:00.000-08:00

Here's one more list of great Adobe AIR apps. This time around it focuses on Adobe AIR Apps for Photos & Videos.

How to find and remove duplicate files on your hard drive

2009-01-30T19:33:00.000-08:00

If you have numerous images, mp3 and other types of files on your hard drive, you may have noticed that organizing a great number of files is not an easy task. And the worst part of this problem is the duplicate files. The same file may exist in various locations with the same or different file name etc. Finding the duplicate files manually and removing them may take forever and that is where a software tool can help you. MUO has a nice post which reviews some of the duplicate file remover tools. Check it out.

10 Great Google Search Tricks

2009-01-29T20:00:00.000-08:00

Are a Power Google user? Don't worry if you are not. Here are some tips which can make you one.

70+ Great tutorials for Adobe Photoshop.

2009-01-29T19:16:00.000-08:00

Want some great Photoshop tutorials to enhance your Photoshop skills? Here’s a great list of 70+ great tutorials for Adobe Photoshop.

100+ Tools and Themes for Blogger

2009-01-27T19:39:00.000-08:00

Mashable comes up with yet another useful list. This time it is for bloggers on the blogger.com platform. The list contains 100 plus resources (tools, themes etc.) for blogger.com blogs. A must read for blogger on blogger.com