iMommies

Today is RSS Awareness Day! If you aren’t familiar with RSS (Real Simple Syndication), here’s my explanation, in a nutshell: RSS is the best method for staying on top of the latest articles published by your favorite sites, without cluttering your inbox, or waiting until the next day’s email.

When readers subscribe to an RSS feed for a specific blog or website, they’re notified immediately (via their browser’s toolbar) as soon as a new article has been published. If you aren’t notified of a new article…there isn’t one! No need to waste time with checking websites that haven’t published anything new since your last visit, and best of all…RSS is free!

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Thanks to Carrie for sending in details on how to legally download free computer software…every day of the year!  Giveaway of the Day offers a daily free licensed software download, regularly sold on other sites at varying prices.  Yesterday’s free software program was WinWatermark (an image editing software with watermark creation capabilities); today’s giveaway is Space Interceptor, a PC space combat game; tomorrow…who knows?

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Unlike Yahoo Go and Gmail for Mobile, Teleflip’s service is compatible with ANY cell phone.  There’s no charge for the service, though your cellular provider will charge a text message fee for each email message, unless you have a text messaging plan.  You can even input a list of specific addresses from which you’d like to receive emails, so that you don’t get inundated with spam messages.    

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The post office is a great resource for packing and shipping supplies (seems fitting, doesn’t it?), specifically if you intend to ship via Express or Priority Mail.  They’ll ship a variety of mailing products (boxes, envelopes, labels, etc.) to your home or business for no charge AND even pick up your packages.  

To order supplies, click here, and to schedule a shipment pick-up, click here.

Whether you have a business, or simply mail packages to long-distance friends and family, Express Mail and Priority Mail can be very economical routes.  Save time by maintaining a small stock of boxes and envelopes on hand - and then those last minute shipping chores will be much more manageable, convenient, and economical. 

If you’re reading this now, and were able to navigate to the site on your own, then you probably don’t need this, but perhaps you know someone who does!  Peter’s typing course is self-paced and teaches all of the basics, including proper hand placement.  No need to pay for Keyboarding 101 when you can take the online version in the comfort of your own home!

If you have a small business or nonprofit organization, you may benefit from the Xerox FreeColorPrinters program.  If you print between 2,000 and 4,000 pages per month and have at least one employee, you’ll very likely be eligible to receive the Phaser 8560 printer (it can be returned at any time, but after 3 years it’s yours to keep with no further obligations), along with free service and support.  In exchange, you must be willing to send in the monthly usage reports (done right from the printer) and purchase all of your ink supplies from Xerox (for the first 3 years). 

This could be a great program for many small businesses, but make sure you have all of the details first.  There are fees associated with not printing at least 2,000 pages per month, or failing to submit the monthly usage reports.  The ink prices are higher than a standard home printer, but go much further than the home printer cartridges too, so if your organization is operating on one of these low-volume printers, you should definitely look into this program.  The estimated cost of printing is $0.01 to $0.10 per page (black & white vs. color), which is definitely not a bad price.  The time savings could be advantageous as well, turning out as many as 30 color prints per minute.

Add DialAHuman.com to your favorites, and when you need to call a large company, check for the number there first.  They have a long list of large companies, and the corresponding phone numbers that will take you directly to a line answered by a real person.

If your employer offers health insurance, it almost always makes economical sense to buy into it.  Not only does it lower your tax bracket, but the monthly premium for the employee is typically paid by the employer. 

If, on the other hand, you do not have an employer-sponsored medical insurance plan, or you’re a small business owner shopping for rates, the eHealthInsurance.com website puts a large selection of comparable providers and rates at your fingertips in less than a minute.  It’s not part of an affiliate program or other middleman payment scheme, so offers the same rates that you would see if applying separately with each provider.

Already own your own business or thinking of starting one?  Business Breakthrough by Visa has a great website with helpful tips for financing, low-cost marketing, organizing your home office space, and hundreds of other necessities for starting, maintaining, and growing your business.  The entire site is a MUST-READ!

Click Here for Free Business Advice!