Links
(I have no financial stake in any of the listed companies, and get no commission or referral fees unless explicitly stated)
Do you like what I've done on this site? It's amazingly easy and amazingly inexpensive. On my home page, click on the link for 1and1 web hosting. You can register a URL (such as www.thomasrush.us or MyFamilySite.com ) for $7/year. They'll host it for as low as $3/month, and give you a free tool called "website builder" that is all I needed to use to create this site. No knowledge of HTML or coding needed. If you do want to do more than this tool allows, you can get a free copy of NetObjects Fusion (one version back from the current version 9, but still an awfully good tool). The service has been reliable and all that is promised. Yes, if you click on the link and sign up, I get a few bucks... I'd appreciate if you would, if you're considering building a website or switching hosting services.
CD Source
CDBaby.com: If you like independent music and don't know of CDBaby, you are in for a treat. CDBaby is probably the largest online site for buying independent music. Previews up to 2 minutes long of many or all of the songs on each CD. And a 'bargain' list of $5 CDs in every genre that contains hundreds (maybe thousands) of total titles; there were 85 acoustic blues $5 CDs alone! Shipping very reasonable; I think it tops out at $7 for any or more CDs. Buy fifty CDs and it's still $7.00. Eat *that*, BMG! (Oh -- BMG would charge you $125 just to ship those CDs.)
Read the about page for more info on who they are. Two really cool things about CDBaby:
- Artists get $6-12 from selling a normal-priced CD on CDBaby, and get paid weekly
- If you don't specify otherwise, the artist is notified of your purchase. I've gotten several very nice letters from the artists, and have made some friends. (one has even taken the time (unprompted) to read my site posted to my forum here!)
Music
Nubzilla's online music cafe. Hey, even I haven't had time to explore this much, but if they have Fremont John, they can't be all bad. Looks like a good site for people who like music.
Deal!
*Note: Expired, but... PCConnection seems to be running this still, so check it out if you're in the market for a 19" LCD monitor... it's still a whale of a deal!*
Thanks to BensBargains, I found a great deal on a 19" LCD monitor... specs seem pretty good, and the price is a *wow*. Go to PC Connection and look for the Hanns-G HU-196D. The link to the Hanns-G monitors should be here. This is a 19" LCD, 1280x1024 native, 8ms response time, 250 nit brightness, 700:1 contrast, digital and analog inputs. Three-year warranty. Price on the website is $240 (which would be a decent price), but there are two rebates totalling $110, good through May. The rebates bring your cost down to $130, which is a fantastic price. Note also that PC Connection has free shipping for orders over $249, so get some batteries or media or.... well, if you look around a bit, they've got some things for $.01, including an IBM credit memo (!) (item 6464391), or $.82 (a real pocket watch, from some Gigabyte reseller promotion, item 6755738). Order a couple hundred IBM credit memos (currently on order), and you'll get free shipping.
Update -- 8 August -- price after rebate for the 194D is now $110!
Story Behind The Deal (yes, that deal above)
It's just that easy. Order a monitor for $239, get $110 in rebates, get a heck of a deal. But...
Oh, yeah. They've got a deal for free shipping if your order is
above $249. What can I add for $10? Oh, some media, but I don't
really need any more blank CDs. Some cables, but I'm pretty well
stocked up on those, too. Hey -- here's a three-pack (*3* pack?) of
AAA batteries, I can use a few (literally) of those. Hmm... a pair of
9V batteries for the smoke alarms, OK. And an Ethernet crossover
coupler; that could come in handy. But I'm a few dollars short of
that magical free shipping number. Hmm... I wonder what's cheap that I
*don't* need?
Turns out that you can look at the categories at PCConnection and
sort by price, low to high. And... this looks like just the ticket!
For $.01, yes, one cent, you can get an IBM Credit Memo, whatever that
is. I'll take a few, because it sure sounds good. Oh, and here's a
real pocket watch, probably some kind of a reseller spiff, from
Gigabyte, only 86 cents (gosh, they're going for $15 on ebay!). Got a
couple of dollars left to go, let's see...
Hmmm, this *does* look interesting. It's also just one cent. A
duplexer for some kind of Genicom printer. Conveniently out of
stock... good, good. Quick look on ebay shows this same product
selling for... something like $540! Sign me up for 180, and I
hit $249.01 -- *perfect*!
I select the option for cheapest shipping, which has now converted
to free because of the order's total. My order is accepted.
Gosh, I wonder what's going to happen now? I *expect* that I'll be
able to call PCConnection in a few days... tell 'em I don't really need
$10,000 worth of obscure printer duplexers sent to me for less than two
dollars, you pay the shipping. But we'll see!
Amazingly enough, the monitor showed up the next day, delivered by DHL! This was a total surprise given the free shipping. I got one set of batteries with it. Nice.
Other parts of the order trickle in. A couple days after the monitor showed up (I'd been checking the web site, the duplexer was still on back order, and the credit memos were out of stock, dangit), I got an email from PCC, asking me to contact them about my order. Cool -- I'd been waiting for something like this:
Hello,
I have been asked to contact you because one of the items you requested online (#6464391) is an invalid sku that is not associated with a product. If you remember what it is you were attempting to order, we will gladly research this further and send you pricing and availability. Please reply via email or call Customer Service at 800-800-XXXX.
Thank you,
Sincerely,
Melissa
Customer Correspondence Consultant
This is not exactly unexpected. I called for Melissa, and got
Somebody Else Whose Name Started With M. We had a nice conversation.
She was puzzled that anyone could have ordered the Credit Memo, it
wasn't supposed to have been selectable; likewise, the duplexer (oh,
and a thermal kit I'd also ordered a dozen of for $.01) was only
supposed to have been an option orderable with another product. "So I found a bug in your web application?" "Yes, I guess you did."
She was very nice, I was too... told her I had just found those
items and been bemused; figured I'd order them to get my order up to
the $249 to qualify for free shipping... but that there would be no
hard feelings if she cancelled those oddities, which she did. And I wouldn't even charge for debugging the PC Connection web site.
Besides -- what would I have said to Sandy when 200 boxes of Genicom printer duplexers showed up in our driveway?
Music
Want to listen to mp3 files for free, without pirating them? And even
better, own the files you've listened to? Somewhere, somewhen, I saw a
pointer to Indy.
Indy provides streaming music from independent musicians. You rate each
song with 1- to 5-stars; if you rate a song 1 or 2, it stops playing
and goes to the next song. Over time, the application learns the kinds
of music you like, so is less likely to play a rap song if you don't
like rap. Songs are saved on your hard drive in directories that
indicate how you ranked them (5-star, 4-star, etc), so you can keep just
the ones you liked, and delete the rest. Click in the title/artist area and open a window to the artist's website where you can usually find more song downloads and tour dates. You won't find the top name stars here (it's for *independent* musicians), but I can guarantee you'll find music you like. Totally free to use, and the mp3s you have downloaded and heard are yours to listen to as you wish. http://www.indy.tv
Music
OK, this one's not free, but it's cheap, and it's good. Pandora is a free-trial (10 or 20 hours), $3/month service that will stream music to your computer. You create "stations" based on artists or songs you like, and Pandora does a pretty decent job of finding other musicians and songs in that style. As the song plays, you can flag it with "I like it" or "I don't like it". If it's a 'don't', it's skipped. If it's a 'do', you'll get more like it in that station. Part of the Music Genome Project, Pandora does a better job of identifying styles than indy does. http://www.Pandora.Com
So why would I use Pandora over Indy?
Has 'big name' and some independent artists
Probably has support if you need it, since it's a subscription deal
Loads album graphics
Supports genres (such as blues) through selecting the artists for a station
(negative) Only a stream generated by Pandora; you can't play a song over or determine the order songs are played in.
(negative) Music is not saved to your hard drive
Each song saved as an .mp3 file on your hard drive
You can freely copy the mp3s you listen to
Cool, minimalist interface
You assign clips One to Five stars in Indy's rating system instead of just +/- ; the ratings you give are used to determine future songs played.
(negative) Doesn't have the concept of musical genres like "folk" where the listener can use that information
Search Tool
Yes, Google's great, and it has a lot of wonderful add-ons like Google Earth and Froogle. But if you just want the best search engine, take a look at Clusty. It brings back the results that Google does, but also has a sidebar of 'clusters' of related links in related groups that can lead you to find interesting things you didn't know you didn't know. http://www.clusty.com
Newsletters
One of the best is Randy Cassingham's weekly This Is True -- dedicated to exposing human stupidity in all its flavors (my words, not his!). It's humorous and often thought-provoking look at human foibles. There is both a free edition and a reasonably-priced Premium edition that has twice as many stories, as well as some additional 'bonuses'. http://www.ThisIsTrue.Com
Skylines
Just a site that made me go 'wow!' when I started drilling down. Lists and ranks cities worldwide based on some at-least-somewhat-objective measure of how 'cool' their skylines and skyscrapers are. A full 499 cities are ranked! Links to cool information about each one. Could be a wonderful way to spend some free time.
http://homepages.ipact.nl/~egram/skylines.html