Free Name Tag Creator

If you're like me who depends on name tags to remember people's names when in a gathering, then you'll enjoy Big.first.name, a web application for creating free name tags.

True to its website's name, the sizes they provided for the name tags are really BIG, thus making it easier for people to read and recall names. This is an ideal tool for any event such as seminars, conferences, or product launches.

To create your big name tags, you must first register on the website. Once logged in, add an event title then click on "Add Nametags" and start encoding your guests' names. If you don't feel like typing and already have a file of your guests' names, you can upload them onto the site. They provide an instruction on the file format, although I think your file should be in spreadsheet.

After you're done with the names of your guests, you can preview the layout of your tags in PDF format. If you still want to adjust the size of the tags, you can choose another layout for them. A preview of the available tag layouts are available by clicking "Avery Templates" on the homepage. You can also make your name tags colorful by assigning different colors for the big first name, full name and details, and the footer. Don't forget to customize the footer because the default footer is the website of Big.first.names. When you're finished editing your tags, click on print.

Big.first.name provides examples of real nametags created from their website.

Related Links:
Free ID card maker
Free brochure maker
Free certificate templates
Free scrapbooking kits

Free Travel Checklists

Let's see, vacation list: remembered the milk, took out the garbage, turned off the lights, remembered the sunblock, unplugged the computer, locked the door...did you forget anything? Are you sure? Oh wait, DontForgetYourToothbrush!

DontForgetYourToothbrush is a UK-based website that helps you plan the things you need for your travel or vacation. It serves as a free personalized travel checklist by giving you planning and packing lists depending on the type of travel you're planning, whether it's a beach vacation or a European driving vacation. The website's planning list contains recommended activities you will need to do from months before your vacation, up to the day you leave your place. The list is very extensive, from checking the validity of your passport to unplugging your computer and TV in case of lightning strike during your travel. To personalize your planning list, check the boxes beside the activities that you want added to your list.

Once you're planning list is done, the website then takes you to its list of recommended things to pack. The list is categorized by clothing, cosmetics and medication, documents, etc. There's also a packing list for your baby or your pet. When you've finalized all your lists, you can then print them and/or choose to receive e-mails, reminding you of your checklist items.

As traveling can be stressful, DontForgetYourToothbrush helps you keep your sanity when planning for travel. The website's name may sound funny, but it's no laughing matter when you forget your favorite swimsuit on your way to a vacation in Bahamas, or your toothbrush on a romantic getaway.

Free Brochure Maker

 Here's a useful tool for small businesses and organizations that have little or no budget in producing company print collaterals.

My Brochure Maker is a free web-based application that makes it available for everyone to create professional-looking brochures and flyers. It is simple and easy to use even if you don't have any knowledge on desktop publishing.

Click on the "Get Started" button to begin. A new window will appear where you'll be creating your brochure. Select the type of brochure you want to create, and then choose which theme you want. Do not worry if the theme you like is not in the selection. You can always replace the stock photos with your own and customize it according to the brochure theme you want. Each theme has already been laid out. All you need to do is provide the text for the spaces available. I strongly advise that you finalize your text before you start doing your brochure or flyer, because it is difficult to edit them on the website.

After you're done with the text and have reviewed everything, click "Next" to print your brochure. There will be instructions on how you can print it properly. In case you cannot yet finalize your brochure, you can save your work without having to create an account. Just give your e-mail address, and the website will provide a link for you to retrieve your project.

My Brochure Maker might not have any of the advance editing tools that other professional design software have, but it's got the basic tools needed which are simple and easy to follow. And best of all, it is free! Students and non-profit organizations might also find this application useful for their projects, campaigns, or events. It's a great tool for everyone who does not know how to use Adobe Photoshop, does not like MS Publisher, or have the budget to buy expensive desktop publishing software.

Here are some more resources to help you create a great and readable brochure:

     

A stylish way to advertise your blog for free

I never realized that there are so many websites to advertise your blog until I joined several forums. Although most are free, some require certain conditions before they advertise or include your blog in their list. BlogUpp is an easy way to advertise your blog for free.

Launched in March 2008, BlogUpp was created to provide real value for the online community. It's got a unique way of promoting your blog by linking it to other blogs with the same category. It's also very easy to use. You don't need to register, sign up, or participate in forums. Just enter your blog's URL, copy the code for the widget, and wait for their approval which doesn't take too long. You may already put the widget on your blog page while your blog is being approved.

Perhaps one of the great things about this blog promoting service is that for every 10 readers of your blog, BlogUpp will show it to 9 other readers. This increases more traffic for your blog without any efforts on your part. What they do is take a picture of your blog and read your RSS on a regular basis. The number of blogs varies from language to language, and they are not mixed while sharing. Right now, the number of blogs on BlogUpp is rapidly increasing, which means more exposure for your blog. If you want to know how it works, you can check the widget on the right side of this blog.

According to the authors of the site, BlogUpp service will remain free and quality-content oriented. They said that they will soon be introducing, along with stats, the possibility for everyone to buy additional impressions for extra promotion. I hope when they said "buy additional impressions" they don't mean we will have to begin to pay for it.

With a lot of blog advertising venues to choose from, BlogUpp is definitely one worth trying.

Get free recipes based on ingredients that you already have

I admit, I'm such a lazy cook. Oftentimes, I find myself staring blankly at our pantry or the inside of our refrigerator and I'll still be clueless on what food to cook. We would have meat, pasta, veggies, and spices, but I still wouldn't know which would go best with what ingredient. But now, I've found a new savior to help me during those what-can-I-cook-today moments.

RecipeMatcher is a website that helps you generate free recipes based on ingredients that you already have. Just enter your available ingredients and RecipeMatcher will come up with tons of recommended free recipes based those ingredients. The free recipes are ranked based on the ingredients that you already have. They also show you the additional ingredients you may need.

With RecipeMatcher, you may either sign up for a free account or just go directly to the "What's in your pantry?" area and input your ingredients. One good advantage of having a free account on the website is that you can have an ePantry where you can keep an inventory of all your groceries and ingredients that you have at home.

Aside from free recipes, RecipeMatcher can also generate alcoholic drinks based on what's in your bar.

Free Online Video Editor

UPDATE: As of June 2009, Yahoo has decided to discontinue Jumpcut.

Yes, you can edit your videos online for free. Jumpcut is a free online video editing tool that makes it easy for you to create/edit a video whether or not you are knowledgeable on video editing.

What makes Jumpcut easy to use is its drag and drop feature. Upload a photo, video or music and automatically adds a template for you. You can also add titles, transitions or cool effects. It may take a while though for some videos or music to load or when you want to preview your work. I strongly recommend a fast and reliable internet connection when you're working on your video on this website.

Some videos on are public and are remixable, that is, you can edit them in whatever style you want. But if you want to keep your video private or final, you can choose to label it "not remixable."

I discovered Jumpcut in 2007 after my then boyfriend (now husband) and I got engaged. I wanted to surprise him with a short video of "our story," but I didn't have any video editing software in our PC, nor do I have any video editing skills. I searched online for any free video editing tool and saw. The website can be a little slow, but I was satisfied with the results.

With its many great features, there's only one thing that disappoints me. The website doesn't allow you to download your video. You can only share it by e-mail or posting a code to your website.

Free Fonts

They say fonts help establish the identity of a brand. That's why it is important to choose carefully what font to use when designing a logo. However, if you're someone who wants something more than the limited standard fonts, then check out Dafont.com, a website of free fonts.

DaFont.com is a great font resource for graphic designers and anyone who wants unique and personalized fonts. As of today, they have more than 8,000 fonts available, most of which are free as long as they're not for commercial use.

For easy selection, Dafont.com has categorized their fonts alphabetically, or grouped by its author. But the best way to search for their fonts is through themes. They have font themes that are: Fancy, which has fonts for cartoon, comic, stencil, horror or old school; Foreign Look, such as Arabic, Mexican, Chinese, Japanese and Greek-looking fonts; Techno; Gothic; Script; Dingbats which has animals, aliens, bar code and even sexy type fonts instead of the alphabets.

Dafont.com also makes it easy for you to view the fonts before download. Just click on the font you like and it'll show the rest of the individual letters or characters. When you want to download the font, click on the download icon and the font will be sent to your desktop in a zip file. Instructions are available for both PC and Mac users.

Registration to Dafont.com is optional but not necessary to download their fonts, unless you want to submit your own fonts or leave comments.

Free Online Highlighter

My husband and I love highlighters. We have almost every color of it - pink, blue, orange, purple, green, and the very common yellow. They're very useful, especially when reading a very interesting book. My husband even uses highlighters to color code sentences that he likes. So imagine our joy when we learned about Awesome Highlighter, a tool to highlight things you think are important on the web. Finally, we can highlight text not just on paper, but also those on the web (and without having to own one of those fancy tablets)!

Awesome Highlighter is a free tool that you can use when you want to highlight a text on a webpage. It helps you show others the important messages you want them to see on a particular webpage. Like the other web applications I've featured on this blog, Awesome Highlighter is easy to use.

Type in the address of the website where you want to highlight some text, and Awesome Highligher will then take you to that website. Using your mouse, start highlighting the text that you want to emphasize. Click "Done" when you're finished. Awesome Highlighter then shows you a summary of the text you've highlighted and the highlighted address. If you're not yet sure about the text you've highlighted, you can also go back by clicking "edit highlights" for any changes you want to make. When you're done highlighting, you have the option of either sending the page by e-mail or copying the highlighted address onto your blog or website.

I like how the website provides a summary of the highlighted text. It makes it easy for the recipient to understand why you're sending them a particular website. You could also make a note on the highlighted webpage for your personal message.

As my husband and I were trying the highlighter application, he couldn't help but say, "awesome!"

From the website:
"The Awesome Highlighter makes it easy to show your friends, co-workers, or the annoying person on the message board the important parts of any web page. By highlighting text, you help the reader focus on what you want them to see."

Free: Appear on a Magazine Cover

Who says only stars can be magazine covers? With MagMyPic, everybody gets a chance to be on the cover of a (fake) magazine.

MagMyPic has 20 realistic fake magazine covers with the font styles of real and well-known magazine covers. Land on the cover of Vague, Sports Celebrated, or Natural Geography. Whatever title you choose, you grace its cover for free.

The site is very direct and easy to use. You don't have to register or download anything. Just upload a picture you want as a magazine cover. The site then generates a selection of all their fake magazine covers with your selected picture as the cover. Choose which magazine you like and the size, whether small or medium. The website then finalizes your selection and gives you a code to paste onto your sites like My Space, Facebook or Friendster. You can also just right click on the image to save it directly to your desktop.

I had a fun time with this website, especially in putting my dog's picture on their magazine covers. I never thought being on a magazine cover can be this addicting! :)

Free Lecture Notes

With vast resources readily available online, the Internet has truly become a virtual classroom for all of us. One such site that proves this is Varsity Notes, a website where professors can share their lecture notes to the world. As written in its homepage, it claims to have the "world's largest directory of free lecture notes."

Read a lecture on Corporate Finance from a professor of New York University; learn more about Geophysics from a professor of Cornell University. Enhance your knowledge about Organic Chemistry from a professor of University of Toronto, and get more techniques in Probability and Statistics from professors of Imperial College of London.

Varsity Notes contains lectures ranging from Accounting to Sociology (Biology has the most number of entries). They are available either in pdf format, MS Powerpoint or HTML. College professors and students might find this site useful, although I've noticed that most of the lectures came from professors from universities in North America.

Whatever field you want to study, Varsity Notes shows us that learning knows no boundaries. So go ahead, make your learning "world-class" and maybe a gaining a little knowledge might not be dangerous at all.

Free Online Task Manager

If you're going bananas over task delegation for your team, then you might need a little help from a monkey. Monkey On Your Back is a simple and very easy-to-use website of to-do lists for other people. Let me explain:

Once you've registered, Monkey On Your Back lets you create a monkey for each task you want to assign to somebody. You may include a brief note about the task and the specific date for its deadline. The website then sends through e-mail a "highly trained, super-intelligent monkey" to let that person know about his/her assignment. Monkey On Your Back will also send e-mail reminders about the task or its deadline. Once a task has been done, you may "kill" the monkey and move on to giving new assignments.

The free basic account lets you send up to five monkeys to remind your people of their task. You can upgrade your account for only $20/year if you enjoy sending more monkeys. I only wish the developers of the program would make the monkeys more colorful or animated to make reading a work assignment more fun and enjoyable.

The next time you're faced with a task, stop monkeying around and get on with your (hopefully not a monkey) business.

Free Online To-Do List Manager

I am such a "to-do list" person. Call me obsessive-compulsive, but oftentimes, it's only after I've written down the list of things I need to do that I feel organized and ready to start my day. And I get a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction whenever I cross out or check a task on my to-do list. So when I've read about Remember the Milk, I couldn't help but sign up and try this free online task manager.

With the website's cute name, Remember the Milk helps you organize your tasks and categorize them into Personal, Study and Work lists. If you want more than a simple list, you could add more info about a certain task such as its due date, time estimate, location, or simply just add notes about it. There's also a color coding guide to label a task according to your priority.

Remember the Milk is not just for your computer alone. You can take your to-do list with you and be reminded via e-mail, SMS and instant messenger.

With a cool to-do list like that, who wouldn't forget the milk?

Related Links:
Free Travel Checklist
Free Online Task Manager
Free Birthdays & Events Reminder Tool

Other tools to help you keep organized:

  

Free Website Templates

If you're aiming for a professional design for your website, but don't have the budget to hire a website designer, then Free Website Templates is a great start for you.

As the name suggests, the website offers totally free website templates. Although there's not much of a selection in terms of designs, the website does have available templates for almost any industry. Plus, the best thing about it is you can modify the templates to suit your style. Their only condition is that you state that you used a template made by them.

Aside from the free downloadable templates, the website also offers a free service called "request a template", provided you already have an existing website. There's also a forum where you can discuss and learn more about website designing.

Free Website Templates is easy to use. No need to register. Just click on the download button and you get the template of your choice in zip file.

Free Web Creation Made Easy

Now you can create your own website that looks like it has been designed by a pro. True to its slogan "web creation made easy," Weebly is simple and straight forward. It's easy for you to customize and personalize your website. It has a variety of themes and gives personalized subdomain based on your site's name.

I believe that one of the greatest features about Weebly, besides their drag and drop interface, their lack of cost, their free hosting, the 70+free professional designs to customize your website, their blogging features, and ability to publish your domain, is that they don't force advertisements onto your site. Sure you could add them yourself, but you don't HAVE to have them with your free account.

So if you're like me who is kinda ignoramus about HTMLs, CSSs and other Internet codes, then Weebly is a great start for you to try your hand on website creation.

Publish Your Child's Story Online for Free

If you think your child is the next JK Rowling, then Tikatok is a must-visit website for you.

Tikatok is a community for children to showcase their story writing skills and have their stories published. The site lets budding literary artists become published authors as they show off their original stories and illustrations.

Book creation is made easy with the website's StorySparks feature. It assists your child from choosing a theme to naming characters. It gives hints at the bottom of each page on what your child should write next. Illustrations, which are also made by kids, are also available to support the story.

Registration to the site is free, but there's a $20 fee if you want to purchase a hard copy of your child's work. I think this fee is just nominal compare to the invaluable joy of seeing your child's printed work with his/her name on it.

I'm a big fan of children's books, and I think they are more fun to read when they are written by kids themselves. I congratulate the website creators for making a venue for children to enrich their skills and showcase them to the world. But I wonder how they came up with the name Tikatok.

From Tikatok website:

Tikatok is a free creative community for kids under 13 where they can write, illustrate, and share their original stories, and have them printed out into real hardcover and paperback books. It was developed by two mothers to encourage the imagination and creativity of their children and children everywhere.

Free Sheet Music & Lessons

Have you always wanted to learn how to play a musical instrument? Or if you already know one, have you been wanting to get free sheet music for your favorite songs?

Then you might find 8notes.com useful. 8notes.com has free music lessons on almost any musical instruments, from string instruments like piano, guitar, and violin, to brass like flute, saxophone, and trumpet. It also has a collection of thousands of sheet music files that you can download for free!

I find the website very organized and easy to navigate. Sheet music files are grouped according to its category and genre: classical, pop music, rock, jazz, traditional and film, and TV. They also have songs for children, wedding, and funeral, plus audio sound bytes for each song.

Joining the site is free and becoming a member gives you unlimited access to the database of resources and links to other sites that offer free sheet music.

Free Wedding Help

Getting married can be stressful, especially when you start putting together all the details needed for a perfect wedding. Hiring a wedding planner is ideal, but what if you and your fiance/e are just working on a limited budget and couldn't afford one?

Mywedding.com is an ideal place for you to plan your dream wedding, as it offers a wedding website where you can post all the details of your special day. It is extremely useful in keeping friends and relatives up-to-date about your wedding. The best thing about this is, your wedding website is totally FREE! I wish I'd known about mywedding.com when my husband and I were preparing for our wedding. We used another site which gave us only one month to utilize all of its feature for free. As a result, we lost the site once the trial period expired. :(

From the reviews I've read on a number of wedding forums, mywedding.com has one of the best wedding templates to fit your style and match the theme of your wedding. There's a page to tell your love story and how it led to the engagement, a section to create picture galleries for you and your bridal entourage, and a site to keep a blog where you can express your excitement on getting married or vent frustrations on some vendors. There's also an online RSVP and guestbook to help you manage your wedding guest list. And the option to upload music to your site adds the perfect drama needed to boost the mood of your wedding site.

Free PDF converter

Saving your file using Adobe's PDF format is a surefire way to share your files exactly the way you wanted them to appear. However, it costs Adobe PDF software can cost so much, and copying it without a license could get you in trouble with the law.

Good thing there's PDF Online, a website which allows you to upload any document or pictures, and converts them into PDF, for free! The PDF website's service is real easy to use. It doesn't require any registration, you don't need to sign up, and you don't need to think up any new usernames or passwords. All you need to do is upload your file, provide a file name for the soon-to-be-converted to pdf file, and enter the e-mail address where you want the converted file sent. The recipient will receive the pdf file within minutes as an attachment. I've used their service a number of times and so far and it worked perfectly for me. My files turned up to be exactly the way I wanted them, and all in pdf format.

PDF Online supports a number of file extensions for conversion: DOC, RTF, PPT, PUB, XLS, TXT, JPG, GIF, TIFF, BMP, PNG, EMF and WMF. The maximum size for uploaded files is 2MB.

Free Digital Scrapbooking Kits

Even scrapbookers are now going digital, turning to the Internet for ideas, new designs and unique embellishments. Indeed, digital scrapbooking is the new trend!

I think digital scrapbooking is part of the "evolution" of photo books as creative people clamor for more control of their photos, designs and layout. One of the interesting websites I found on this ever-growing popular hobby is Shabby Princess which features free scrapbooking kits to download (as long as it's for personal and non-commercial use). Their designs vary from holiday-themed kits to seasonal and occasional themes to everyday fun activities. There are classical designs, nature-inspired, and funky themes (which I like best!) to choose from.

If you're new on digital scrapbooking, Shabby Princess has a tutorials section to help you get started. I've noticed though that most of the how-to's are on using Adobe Photoshop, which can be extremely useful for non-artists.

As we become more empowered by our digital cameras, I will not be surprised if digital scrapbooking becomes more popular than paper scrapbooking. Plus, it solves some of the problems that traditional scrapbookers face such as creating space for scrap tools like papers, die cutters and scissors. But most of all, you say goodbye to paper cuts! :)

You Send It Free

If your e-mail account prevents you from sending files that are larger than 10MB, it's time to use YouSendIt, which allows you to send large files easily and instantly. I've been using YouSendIt since a friend recommended it 3 years ago. I use it to email videos and presentations that are too big for my normal e-mail account.

I find YouSendIt very easy and simple to use. Just go to the site, enter the e-mail address of your recipient/s, enter your e-mail address, upload the large file you want to email, and press "Send It". The recipient will receive an e-mail notification about the file with the link where he/she can download it.

YouSendIt is free for sending large files that are up to 100MB.

From YouSendIt Website:
"YouSendIt is the No.1 digital delivery company serving business and individuals on the Web today. Our innovative service enables users to send, receive and track files, on-demand. YouSendIt provides a trusted, convenient and smart solution for transferring large files over the Internet, replacing the need for FTP transfers, overnight couriers and unreliable email attachments. YouSendIt's technology platform provides developers and partners the resources for integrating YouSendIt services into the applications people use for creating and communicating. When it has to be there now- just YouSendIt!"

Free Online Invitations

With almost everything now online comes a faster, easier and chic way of sending invitations to any event: Evite, which lets you send free invitations to your friends anywhere in the world (as long as they have Internet access of course) be it a birthday, a wedding, shower, or even a class reunion.

Evite lets you personalize a free online invitation and customize it depending on your style. Guests are sent an e-mail which provides the link to the invitation. They can RSVP by just a click of a button.

A wedding invitation for instance, is time consuming, from finding a cheap yet good printer, to sending out the wedding invitations, and keeping track of the guests. Evite helps you easily manage and keep track of your guests as it provides real time status of the invitees - who are coming, who have declined and who are still undecided (the maybe group). There's also a space for invitees who want to leave a comment to the host.

My friend used this service for the baptismal of her son. I was impressed at how detailed the list of information was included in the online invitation, including a call-out if you need to carpool.

So toss those envelopes and stamps and go green instead, utilizing those free online invitations.

From Evite Website:
"Evite.com is the top online destination for invitations. A free service, Evite.com estimates it saves party planners millions of dollars in paper invitations and postage each month. With party-planning tools and content, the site helps hosts be more successful while saving even more money and time."

Instant Message Me for Free

Instant messaging programs are definitely free. But what if you're using a computer with no IM program installed and need to chat with a friend at that moment? Or maybe you're using somebody else's computer who doesn't want the program on their hard drive. OR, maybe you just don't want the spyware that often accompanies the download of some of the popular IM programs out there. Good thing there's a website where you can instantly log on to your IM without having to download it.

Meebo sure knows how to put to use the word "instant" into instant messaging. It offers free IM access to the most popular IM services: Yahoo! Google Talk, MSN Messenger and AOL's AIM. No need to through the hassle of downloading an instant messenger software to your computer. Instead, you just simply go to the site, enter your username and password to an IM service of your choice, and within minutes, you can already start chatting with your friends.

From Meebo Website:
"You can keep in touch with friends you know on any instant messaging network (AIM, Yahoo!, MSN, Google Talk, ICQ, and Jabber) at meebo.com, or reach out and have live conversations with anyone at any website with Meebo Rooms and Meebo Me. Instant messaging from absolutely anywhere, no downloads or installs required, and free!"

Watch TV shows & movies for free

Missed an episode of your favorite television show? Ever been wanting to watch a movie that's no longer being shown in the cinemas?

On SurfTheChannel, you can watch online the TV programs you've missed. And this includes those that you've missed in years! The site features edition of current and past TV shows dated as far back as the '70s and '80s such as M*A*S*H, Punky Brewster and 21 Jump Street.

As for the movies, the selection is vast, from the first Friday the 13th movie to the recently-shown Horton Hears A Who. Yes, even movies that are not yet out on DVD are already available on the site. But what makes it more interesting is that movies which are currently being shown in the cinemas are also already available on the site. Oooh...do I smell a copyright infringement issue? According to the website (under Legal Disclaimer), "SurfTheChannel is a simple resource site. All content visible on this site is located at 3rd party websites." That makes them not a host of the videos, but a link to the websites that has the videos of the movies and TV shows.

Channels in SurfTheChannel include movies, TV, cartoons, anime, music, docus and sports.

Yes, I like them free!

The Internet has been my constant companion ever since I've become a bum. It's such a big, big world out there! But what got me more interested are the tons of free online resources available. So I decided to create this blog and share the Internet freebies I've discovered and will discover to all the Internet users worldwide.

This blog is about free online resources - anything from free digital images to free website templates, from free online games to free online television shows, from free online invitation to free software.

Just a disclaimer: The sites that will be listed do not mean I am fully endorsing them. They are listed to provide you with available or alternative resources without spending a penny.

Hmmm...maybe there's such a thing as free lunch after all.