Free Christmas Fonts

Christmas is only a few weeks away. If you are doing any Christmas project, such as creating your own family Christmas card or holiday gift tags, here are five websites where you can download free Christmas fonts to help you express your creativity for this season. Each site contains lots of Christmas fonts that bring out the spirit of the season.

1. The Holiday Spot - My favorite fonts from this website are the Frosty and Kingthings Christmas 2 fonts. Aside from fonts, The Holiday Spot also includes free Christmas toolbar, cliparts and midi files.

2. Christmas Buzz - Similar to The Holiday Spot, this website also includes lots of free Christmas graphics including wallpapers, screensavers and e-cards. It also has free recipes to help you plan your Christmas meal.

3. Xmas Fonts - This website has unique and interesting Christmas fonts and dingbats such as Naked Monk,  Skellington Bats, and Baby Jeepers.

4. Xmas Fun -  This website does not really offer a lot of Christmas fonts, but it has a lot of fun free Christmas stuff including Christmas games for the family.

5. Jinglebell Junction - This website also offers free Christmas crafts, animation and avatars.

You might also like...

Free Digital Scrapbook Fonts

Free Fonts

5 best websites to get free ebooks

The increasing popularity of Kindle, Nook and iPad has turned many book lovers into electronic readers. It has also increased the demand for books available online, especially free e-books. So whether you own an e-reader or prefer to read a book online or on your PC, here are five best websites where you can download free e-books. These websites are a great resource to find a vast selection of free downloadable online books on a wide variety of subjects.

1. Project Gutenberg

One of the pioneers in setting up a digital library, Project Gutenberg has the oldest collection of free ebooks online. The website contains over 100,000 free e-books produced by volunteers and through its partners and affiliates. It was founded by Michael Hart, who invented ebooks in 1971.


2. Free Book Spot

Free Book Spot boasts of links to free ebooks in more than 90 categories including archaeology, environmental engineering and statistics. You can also add free ebooks to the list.

3. ManyBooks.net

As the name suggest, ManyBooks.net carries more than 28,000 free ebooks. Ebooks are sorted through authors, genre languages and titles. It also has a “Books of the Week.” Personally, I think this is the easiest free ebook website to navigate. It also has a simple and clean look. The website is maintained by Matthew McClintock. Donations are accepted to help keep the website updated.

4. Free-eBooks.net

Free-ebooks.net allows you to browse the books by author or by categories. It features the latest addition to their list of free ebooks and offers free magazines. Registration is required to access the library and download a book.


5. Bookyards.com

Bookyards.com’s goals is simple – to be the “library to the world.” And they are doing this by simply searching the web continuously for free ebooks. Aside from the free ebooks, Bookyards is also a portal to educational materials, news and blogs, videos and other web links.

Related link: Visit e-Reader Accessories for other resources on e-readers!

Free ID Card Maker

Do you need to create an ID card for a class, guests or simply for yourself? With the help of BighugeLabs, a web portal that allows you to create effects on your photos, you can create an ID card, nametag or any badge in an instant. Here are the simple steps to create a customized ID card:

1. From the homepage, select “Badge Maker”
2. Once you’re on the Badge Maker page, upload a photo you’d like for your ID card. You can either upload a photo from your PC, or get it from your Facebook or Flickr account.
3. Choose which part of the photo you want visible in case it needs to be cropped – center, left or right
4. Choose the layout orientation of your ID, whether it’s landscape or portrait
5. Select the color you want for your ID
6. Fill out the information requested – name of your ID, your name and other text you want included. You also have the option to include a bar code.

When you’re done, press “Create.” The website will instantly generate your ID. Save the image if you’re satisfied with the ID design. If not, you can always go back and edit it.

BighugeLabs is a simple and very easy to create an ID card. The only thing I hope they would add to this very helpful application is a “preview” function while you are in the process of creating your ID card.

Related Link: Free name tag creator

Free Digital Scrapbook Fonts

The choice of fonts you use adds impact to your design. This is especially true if you are into digital scrapbooking. Apart from the photos and embellishments, fonts help set the mood and tone, and amplify the theme of your scrapbook project. Having the right fonts would also add extra oomph when you decide on digital scrapbook printing. If you are seeking new fonts, try Scrapbooking Fonts, a website that offers free downloadable fonts.

Scrapbooking Fonts provides a wide variety of free fonts for you to use for heading, main text or photo captions of your pages. Fonts are classified according to themes such as modern, decorative, and vintage. There are also Celtic, Asian inspired and illustrated fonts, as well as holiday-themed and dingbat fonts. The website even has Disney-themed dingbats!

One of my favorite fonts was the “Cool Dots” because it reminded me of the time when I would put dots on each end of a letter to give my handwriting some extra style. Here's what it looks like:

Here are other fonts that I like: Little Trouble Girl

Lemon Chicken

Kayleigh

Scrapbooking Fonts also provides a free guide to downloading and installing fonts if you don’t know how to install them.

Aside from the free fonts, Scrapbooking Fonts offers quotes or sayings that you can use as headings or captions, such as quotes about love, inspirations, babies and families. So if you are into scrapbooking or digital scrapbook printing, check out Scrapbooking Fonts and you'll be inspired to find the perfect font.

For some more ways to improve your scrapbooking skills, take a look at these best selling books:

    


Related Links: Don't forget to also read my post on Free Digital Scrapbooking Kits!

Free custom watermark to protect your photos online

Are you concerned about your online images being used or downloaded without your permission? We hear stories about photos being used in promotional materials or websites without the consent of the individuals in the photo. Adding a watermark to your photos would make them a little more secure. WaterMark.ws is a free tool that allows you to instantly add customized watermark on your images and makes it easy for you to put your “own stamp” on them without the need to register, verify e-mail, or install anything.

WaterMark.ws is very simple to use and works in three easy steps: Upload; Add text or image; and Download. It saves you time by allowing you to upload multiple photos at a time and do batch processing. However, each photo file size should not go over 500 kb. Once you have uploaded your photos, proceed to adding a watermark. This is where the fun starts. You can choose to either upload an image, or type a text to use as your watermark. You can use your logo, company name or website instead of the usual copyright symbol. There are also options for font, size, color, angle, or to have your watermark tiled. You can resize or compress your images to fit your purpose. For example, you can resize your image to make it suitable for a blog post. Once you have decided on the styles, click “Process Photos” and the website will immediately begin processing your photos.  Depending on the number, this may be really fast; sometimes less than 20 seconds for one to two images!  Finally, download the watermarked photos onto your PC.

While Watermark.ws is a very useful tool, the developers may want to consider including a link feature to social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, or to photo sharing sites like Flickr or Photobucket.  This would make it more convenient to post your watermarked photos quickly. 

Copyright infringement is so rampant on the web and with the “right click”, anyone can claim your images as their own. But with WaterMark.ws, you can protect your photos from unauthorized use.

Four free social media tools to update your status

Social media has become a part of almost every company's publicity plan. So, it's not surprising that a lot of Internet marketers and public relations professionals have come up with an "editorial calendar" for their tweets and Facebook status updates. If part of your job is managing several Facebook pages, Twitter accounts or other social networking sites, then you might find these four free social media tools handy when scheduling your updates. 

1. Later Bro

Later Bro is a very simple and very direct way of scheduling your tweets and status updates. No registration is required. Just link your Twitter and/or Facebook accounts and pre-schedule your update. It also saves your post, so you can resend it for another day. Their website is also very clean and simple. It takes you straight to what you need to do – update either your Twitter or Facebook account.

Later Bro covers only Twitter and Facebook. I’m not sure if it covers Facebook pages or groups; so for now, I would say that this is best for personal accounts and making sure that you won’t forget to post a birthday greeting on a friend’s wall.

2. Social Tomorrow

Still in its beta version, Social Tomorrow allows you to be well, social tomorrow by pre-scheduling your tweets and updates today. Social Tomorrow is similar to Later Bro in a sense that it only covers Twitter and Facebook, although this one covers Facebook Pages and Groups. It is also very easy and simple to use.  A free account allows you to send 10 messages each for Twitter/Facebook Profile, Facebook Pages and Facebook Groups in a month.

3. Sendible

Sendible is another free tool to help you manage your social media accounts. Unlike Later Bro and Social Tomorrow, Sendible covers almost all the major social networking sites, from Bebo to Twitter. A free account lets you send up to 100 messages a month.

Sendible boasts itself as "a one-stop-shop for all your marketing needs" because it also covers e-mails and blogs and for paid accounts, SMS. Moreover, it provides analytics on the updates you post.

I've had a few connection errors when I used it the first time. Also, I had a hard time figuring out where to start. But as soon as I've figured out everything, it wasn't difficult at all to start scheduling my tweets and updates.

4. Hootsuite

Represented by an image of an owl, Hootsuite is similar to Sendible wherein it allows you to cover multiple social networking sites (five social media profiles for free accounts). Also, it allows you to check your accounts in one page through different tabs/streams and gives you the option to be notified by e-mail once your updates have been posted. And, if you have other people managing your accounts, you can also add them as "team members" to schedule the updates.

Since Hootsuite covers live stream, this is best for those who update their profiles and accounts actively. At first, the live stream was kind of confusing to me because I felt like there were so many things happening at once, until I've discovered that you could personalize that live stream. It worked out better for me.  

I wish I had known about these free social media scheduling tools when I was managing Facebook pages and had to update them by a specific time. I don't have those fancy smart phones, so I had to use a computer with an Internet connection to update the pages. I would be in the dog park watching our beagle play with other dogs only to realize it was time to go home to update a Facebook page. If I had known about these free web tools, managing those pages would have been easier.

For detailed and unbiased reviews of the above social media tools and for more sites similar to these, check out these two articles from trustworthy links:

Article in Mashable by Erica Swallow
Social @ Blogging Tracker by Chin Ya

How to calculate the value of your charitable donations

Have you ever wondered what expenses can be deducted from your taxes? For example, church tithes and donations to church projects, trips to volunteer activities, or tickets bought for a fundraising cause? Now there's a free and easy way to find out if "it's deductible." Itsdeductible.com is a free website service by Turbo Tax that is designed to help you calculate the value of your contributions.

I first learned about this free online tax calculation from a dear friend who regularly donates clothes and other items to non-profit organizations like Goodwill. So when my husband and I did some "fall cleaning" recently and ended up with eight big bags of items for donation to The Salvation Army, itsdeductible.com was very useful in calculating the values of all the items we gave away. Itsdeductible.com helps you keep track of your donations whether they are cash, bonds, items or gas mileage, so you don't need to guess their value. More importantly, the value given is in accordance with the IRS' "fair market value."

To use itsdeductible.com, simply create an account and declare your filing status and estimated income range. Once you've provided the info, the website will then calculate your estimated federal tax rate. You can now begin recording your donations. For items donated, the categories are extensive - from clothing to furniture to pet supplies. The resale values are dependent on the style and condition of your donated items. For example, a men's sweater in very good condition (described as "high") is valued at $18, while a sweater in good condition (described as "medium") is priced at $9. You can also add your own item if it's not listed in any of the categories, such as leather jackets or motorcycle helmets.

It's always nice to save money, and with tax time quickly on its way, it's never too late to follow up on your deductibles with itsdeductible.com.

Note: itsdeductible.com is only applicable to US taxpayers.

Free Certificate Templates

Awarding a certificate is a great way to recognize people for their work, service or accomplishment. It’s a great motivation tool, too. And if you’re the one receiving a certificate, the experience can be rewarding.

I just stumbled upon this website called Certificate Street that contains tons of free certificate templates. All templates are grouped into categories such as sports, business, schools, etc. They also have free blank certificate templates which can be customized for different occasions and events. Furthermore, there’s a category for “relationships” which I think is a good idea. Sometimes we forget to thank those who are dearest to us and giving them a certificate can be a unique way to express our gratitude.

Certificate Street is really a great tool not only for school teachers and volunteer coordinators, but also for companies and families. I like the story of how this website was born. The web owners were looking for a certificate to hand out to their students, but couldn’t find the perfect one. So, they started to create their own.  I can totally relate to their story. Most of the time, I would need a certificate for some people I’d like to thank, but I usually end up not finding the right design or the right words that match my need. I want the certificate to feel personal and not just another certificate template, so that the person receiving it would feel really special.

Certificate Street offers unique and creative certificate designs that are lively and colorful which are available in .PDF format. Their certificate designs do not contain the usual common clip arts or borders that you see on the web or in an MS Office suite. The site is also very easy to use. No need for registration, account sign in or passwords. Just download the certificate template you like, fill out the needed text and print.

I think my only two suggestions are to include the ability for the user to change the font and to include a mail merge function, which would be great for anyone giving out more than 10 certificates. Also since I love pets, maybe there should be a category for animals/pets? But then again, who am I to complain? The site is 100% free...and I love it!


Related post: For other free templates, check out my post on Free Brochure Maker and Free Name Tag Creator.

A Better Way to Land a Job

Unemployment really stinks.  And if you’re like me, you’ve added your resume to practically every job-searching site on the web, only to get daily emails with lists of jobs that either you’re not qualified for, or have nothing to do with your field.

So let me introduce you to something new that I've come across recently.  It’s called “Weedle.”  Unlike those other job-searching sites, Weedle connects you with people who need your skills, and when I say skills, I mean not only something you’ve done full-time, part-time, but even a hobby!  That’d be nice, huh?  Getting paid to do something you’ve done most of your life for fun?

So how does it work? According to their site, Weedle is a social networking site (much like LinkedIn, but different in that it also helps you get found on Google for your skill, versus job title).  For example, say you’re a Carpenter. On Weedle, instead of mentioning your title, you’d mention your skills, like “Cabinet Maker”, “House Builder”, etc., giving people a better chance of finding you.  And with all the names for jobs changing (waitress to server, stewardess to flight attendant, DJ to On-Air Talent, etc.), this could really be handy in making you stand out.

So look beyond the resumes, evaluate your skills, and discover the NEW way of searching for a job.

Related Link: How to turn your resume into a "wow resume"

Free PDF to Word Converter

I was looking through the forums for Adobe PDF viewer one evening, when somebody asked a good question: "Why do we have to download 400+ MB in upgrades just to view a file?  And it's the same format, just bigger update files each month or so."  Good question!  Especially when at most times, all you can do is read it.

PDF-to-Word offers another suggestion.  PDF-to-Word conversion technology allows you to quickly and easily create editable DOC/RTF files.  In other words, you’ll be able to re-use PDF content in applications, such as Word, Excel, OpenOffice, and WordPerfect.

And not only is it not a hefty-sized program, but it’s also entirely free!

Sound too good to be true?  Check it out at pdftoword.com.


Related Link: Free PDF Converter

Create free wall-size posters

It’s great being able to blow up your pictures on the computer, but once you print it out, it comes out on a small, single page…wonderful.  But with Block Posters, you can blow up the picture and print it out as a poster!  Huh? But how can you do that? Your printer only takes legal and letter-sized paper.  So how do I get the poster paper into the printer?

With Block Poster, it’s as easy as 1,2,3:

1. Upload your image from your computer
2. Slice your image and choose how many sheets wide you would like your poster to be once printed.  And then once you’re happy with your selection,
3. Download the .pdf file containing your newly created images, and print.  Each page will be a section of the picture.  Combine like a puzzle, and tape to the wall your new enlarged poster.

 Block Poster is great for students and kids looking for ways to decorate their rooms, maps for companies, photographs, and more.

How to sleep better with the sound of the rain

Having trouble sleeping?

I find that I always sleep best when it rains.  I don’t understand it much, but there must be something about the way it sounds…it’s soothing, relaxing, tranquil.  If only every night I could sleep as well as I do when it rains.  Now I may, with “Rainy Mood”.  Rainy Mood is simple, for there’s nothing to download.  Just log into their site, turn up the volume, close your eyes, and relax to the sound of a constant rainstorm, the faint sound of signing birds, and occasional thunder.

“Add gentle rain to your environment. Enhance your music. Sleep better. Relax.”

Be A Star On A Magazine Cover

Now everybody can be a star!  With Magcover, you can be on the cover of your favorite magazine (or one similar to it).  We’ve had a lot of fun with this.  Magcover provides the magazine’s headline, so all you need is a picture of yourself.  Next, add your own headlines, or keep the ones provided.  It’s real easy and a lot of fun to create!  You’ll need to register for an account if you wish to save it, print it, or send it to friends, but it’s free.

Magcover does have other options, allowing you to order high definition magazine wraps to impress or fool your friends and colleagues with.  Printed on glossy photo paper, preformed to fit a perfect bound magazine (also included), and even shipped worldwide.  You may also order them on shirts, mugs, and bags.

Magcover is easy, professional-looking, and best of all, it’s free (unless you make an order for it to be printed onto something).

Free Weigh Loss Secrets

Trends in dieting seem to change with the season – one day you're being told to eat high protein, the next day whole grains.  It all gets a little confusing. That's where Fat Secret comes in.  Fat Secret is a place for overweight people who are interested in food, diet, and achieving their food, diet and exercise goals, to but don’t want to go at it alone.  Fat Secret helps makes it easy to record your food and exercise, keep a lifetime record of your weight, discover recipes that are right for you are pretty special, and find buddies online to support you as you achieve these goals. You can also use your Fat Secret profile with many other services like Facebook, iGoogle and on your mobile phone.

As a helpful and encouraging community, Fat Secret takes the feedback and collective experience of members to discover what really works. Fat Secret is totally independent, and instead of giving recommendations, tries to provide the tools and framework for you to achieve your goals, as the community generates answers to all food, diet and exercise questions.

So what makes Fat Secret  different from other weight loss sites?  For one, Fat Secret does not promise free consultations, profiles, plans or advice only at expense of an expensive 'premium' service.  Instead, Fat Secret is totally free, and neither affiliated, associated,  nor in any way related to any of the diets or diet companies referenced on their site.  Though Fat Secret may provide their general opinion on some aspects of these 'popular' diets, Fat Secret neither endorses nor support s them or their programs.

Free Recipes for the Bored Eater

I don’t know about the rest of y'all, but when it comes to cooking, I’ve got a select number of regular dishes that I know how to prepare on the spot.  I can also get creative at times, but that’s mainly what my culinary skills consist of.  Lately though, I’ve become bored of these basic dishes, even to the point where I mainly just eat for the reason of survival…I’m just not enjoying my food anymore.  And it’s not that I can’t cook something else, but that I don’t have any ideas of what else to cook.  

For a while I’d look through my cook books, but there are only so many times I can go through it before I’ve tried everything my food allergies will allow me to eat.  Then I came across food.com.  At food.com, I found free recipes galore!   At the top of the page, the first thing I saw was a picture that made my mouth water, a popular category, top ten recipe searches, and top-rated recipes.

To keep things new, each day food.com features a “Chef of the Day” and one of their dishes.  Members (free) can post their own recipes, rate and review others’, join in discussions, and can keep updated through various networking sites, like Facebook.

Food.com also helps you calculate nutritional information on recipes by using the USDA nutritional information database.

I think maybe the only downside (so far) of food.com is that there are so many recipes and categories that I don’t know where to begin…it’s so overwhelming!  :P

Free Secure Online File Sharing and Storage

Have you have had that problem where you were given a company laptop to use, but you’re your main files were on your computer at home? Sure you could thumb-drive them over or email them to yourself, but then what if you updated the files on your home computer? You’d have to then email it to yourself and replace the one on the company laptop, or the opposite, all over again. Or say you have a Smartphone and want to bring up a picture that’s on your computer.
Dropbox has a solution to all of this. Instead of going through all this time-consuming trouble, you can now access your important files via the web to any computer or Smartphone, even somebody else’s if necessary. Let me explain:
First, download Dropbox's software and create a FREE account, which gives you 2 GB of space. Dropbox will put a special folder on your computer. Next, simply drop files into this folder, and they will instantly be available on any of your other computers, and the web.
If you need to access your files from someone else’s computer, simply login to www.dropbox.com. You can view, download, and upload your files securely from any web browser. Anything you put into this folder will automatically sync to your other computers with Dropbox installed, as well as get safely backed up online.
Check this out though too: You can also share any folder in your Dropbox with friends or colleagues, even if they use a different operating system from you, or don’t have Dropbox installed! In your Dropbox folder is a “Public Folder”. Any file you put in this folder gets its own internet link so that you may share it with others- even non-Dropbox users! And since your files are saved online, these links work even if your computer’s turned off.
This is especially good for when you’re blogging. For example, I was talking with a buddy the other day about something. Now I’ve got a bunch of notes on this topic on my computer, but I don’t want to copy and paste them all onto my blog for him (it’d be a really long post). But I also don’t want to just email him the files, because this is good information…others can benefit from it, too. So I simply drop my file (notes) into the Public folder, right-click/control-click the file, then choose “Dropbox, Copy Public Link”. This copies the internet link to my file. Now I can just paste the link to my blog post and share the file with others. I can also paste the link into emails, instant message conversations, etc.!
And something else I just discovered, for every friend who joins Dropbox, you both will receive 250 MB of bonus space, up to a limit of 8 Gigs!
If you’d like some more information on Dropbox, or like me, would like to check reviews before trying it out for yourself, here are a few trustworthy links:
CNET
OnlineBackupDeals
PC Magazine
For use with Android

I'd like to add something to this:  
For the past week, my wife and I have been using Dropbox, and we really like it.  Besides the reasons I've mentioned above, another neat thing we can do is share files with others ANYWHERE.  For example, my sister in law lives in another country. She takes a lot of pictures of her toddler daughter, too many to send via email. So instead, she downloaded Dropbox, transferred (or copied) her pictures to her online Dropbox, gave my wife her pass codes for her online Dropbox, and now my wife is able to not only view the pictures, but also save some to her computer, and do the same with our pictures.  It's like online file-sharing.  Really cool!

Free Typing Test

Here's one I've been having fun with lately: a free typing test. With the economy the way it is, many are turning to their other hidden talents as a qualification for their next job.

OK, so you're filling out the resume when you come across "Typing:____wpm". Do you know your typing speed? Seriously, when was the last time you clocked your typing speed? Sure you could guess, or play a few rounds of "Typer Shark" on Yahoo Games, but those aren't real words, and if you're real good, the game could last for hours! And if you simply guessed, what's considered a good speed? 30? 40? 50 words per minute? So how can you test your typing speed?

I suggest Typeonline. Assessed and named by both the Education Network Australia (EdNA), and the National Grid for Learning (NGfL) as "A quality educational resource", Typeonline is an easy to use, accurate, and free typing test.

When you're ready to begin the typing test, simply click the "Start the clock" button, then copy the sample text by typing in in the box below. Then when you're finished, click the "Stop the clock" button. It takes a couple quick seconds to calculate, and "Tada!" Your typing test score is revealed, as well as how well you did.

Typeonline offers free typing tests for not just words, but also for numbers, or both numbers and words. Typeonline also offers free typing lessons and posters to help you improve your typing skills.

Last time I took the typing test I got 70 wmp! I sure am glad I didn't just guess a measly 30.

Free Games

AddictingGames.com provides a portal jump station to many of the most popular free online games. Games are divided into several handy categories: Action, Puzzle and Board, Arcade and Classics, Shooting Games, News Games, and more. There's also a lot of the top games to try for all ages.

A lot of the games at AddictingGames.com are harmless fun - and some are even educational - but all are very easily addictive. For example, there's a completely addicting "Minni-Putt" game where you can practice your miniature golf skills, or "50 States", where you learn geography by dropping a state onto its correct spot on a map.

Though most games are kid-friendly, I do feel the need to throw out a caution: some games on AddictingGames.com do feature obscene material, inappropriate language, and bad morals, and violence to humans and animals. So "viewer's discretion is advised", but otherwise, all the games on AddictingGames.com are very fun, very addicting, and very free.

Free Real-Time High-TechTracker

Have you ever wondered who visits your site? Sure you’ve got counters and trackers to tell you where they linked to your site, but have you ever wondered stuff like who: who’s your audience? How’d they find your site? What interests them (seriously)? I’ll bet that neither your counter nor tracker gives you detailed activity information about visitors that have recently left your site. Well let me tell you, I’ve got a counter/tracker that will make yours sound like a near-sighted man looking through the wrong end of binoculars. It’s called W3Counter.

W3Counter is your free, hosted website solution for answering the key questions about your website. There's no installation, no configuration, and tracking begins as soon as you copy and paste a code onto your website. You’ll receive a dashboard for each of your websites which will give you an executive overview of the key statistics to watch.

How does W3Counter work? Check this out: It’s a real-time tracker, which means you can actually follow visitors as they browse your website (creepy, huh?). You can even watch arriving visitors appear as new info markers on the map, with a referring source and landing page for each new hit. (You're like a navy seal in the digital brush!)

And here’s a neat perk: with w3counter, you can label your visitors. That way when somebody returns to your site, instead of trying to remember their IP Address, each label will appear in your tracker reports of online and recent visitors. There you can view all the past activity of each member or customer.

Downsides: I signed up just to see w3counter work, and found 2 downsides. One is that the code for the tracker doesn’t work with some Java-based sites, like Xanga for instance. The second problem is that since I can’t use the tracker on my site, I figured I’d cancel my account. Only, I can’t find the link to do so…I’m sure it’s around someplace, but not as easy to find as one may prefer.

On the upside though, it does work for Blogger, and yes, we are tracking you now.

Free Online Picture Hosting

We've all heard that if you upload your pictures to the internet, they're there forever and anybody can get a hold of them. So with that in mind, community sites like facebook, myspace, or your personal blogs are really not the safest places to share your life's experiences. But what if you want to easily and quickly share your pictures via email, chat, social network, or a message board (forum)? Or maybe you'd like to share your pictures only once, and then forget about them, never having to worry about them surfacing in some company's ad? Or maybe you'd just like to have a backup copy of your pictures stored on the internet for safe keeping? What do you do? You could pay an annual or monthly fee to one of those hard drive backup sites, or you could check out a free online picture hosting site, like "fumpr.com".

Formally known as "FixUpMyPic", "Fumpr" is "the world's fastest and easiest (free online) image host". There's no need to register, and yes, it is 100% free!

Once you upload your pictures, you'll be provided with a fast loading image and some easy ways to share them on the internet. JPG, PNG, BMP, and GIF up to 3MB are allowed, though fumpr will eventually allow additional file types and larger sizes in the future.

The ONLY way someone will see your pictures is if you share the link with them. For instance, if you want the pictures for yourself only, just don't share the link. Or if you only want one person to see them, then give them (and only them) the provided link. And everything you post will be safely stored there forever.

In terms of picture content, anything is allowed unless deemed illegal and/or inappropriate by applicable law. On that note though, if someone reports an picture, then without reason to the original uploader, fumpr will permanently remove the picture. This is also good should somebody upload an embarrassing picture of you, say from your younger years, that you don't want anybody else to see. Simply click on the "Contact or Report" link at the bottom, email fumpr the link, and "(they)" will take care of it."

Another reason fumpr.com is the best free online picture host for you and your pictures.

Free Character Names Generator

Have you every wondered where Gene Roddenberry got names like Work, Spock or Klingon? Or how Street Fighter got the names of its characters' awesome moves? Whether you're writing a story, movie script or an assignment for your fiction writing class, SeventhSanctum is here to help writers of all genres conjure up intriguing, fascinating and unique names for their story characters. And, it doesn't end with just giving you free character name generators, SeventhSanctum also helps you come up with plots and ideas to make your writing more interesting.

For example, when I clicked on “Anime/Manga”, it listed off a number of possible generators, such as a “Power Generator”, which generates those crazy, multi-word, occasionally incoherent attacks our beloved anime characters yell out. So I clicked on that and I was given a number of drop-down lists to describe what I was looking for. Let’s see. I wanted “1” name generated, fitted with “Armor Piercing”, “Air”, and “Nuclear/Atomic”, with a size of two to seven words. I clicked "Generate" and read “Tornado Atomic Battler”. Hmmm...not too fancy, so I clicked “Generate” again and got “Nucleo Battler Way Atomic Crashing Beam!” Yeaaaaahhhhh! now that’s more like it!

So you get the idea here? Seventhsanctum is a free character name generator that helps battle the infamous plague known as 'writer's block'. Check out some of their other unique generators, especially ones for creating short stories. And if you still can’t seem to pinpoint the perfect antidote, try clicking on their “Random Generator”.

Seventhsanctum is truly inspiring, fun, and almost guaranteed to get your creative juices flowing!

Free Calorie Counter

Whether you're trying to lose weight or gain it, counting calories is a huge part of your life.

I used to try counting calories, but since most of what I ate didn't come with a nutrition table, I lost both track and interest in that quickly. Then I came across "Calorie Connect". At Calorie Connect, just type the name of the food, and the nutrient table shows up to the right.

Unfortunately though, different brand names do have different calorie counts, and it doesn't account for different brand names. But it does give a basic idea for the food types.

Another nice feature with Calorie Connect is that, being a free online interactive nutrition and wellness service, they also provide an exercise page. This allows you to record your exercise activities and assess your progress towards weekly and monthly goals. Nice! Maybe now I can get those abs I've always wanted.

Owning (or leasing) your car just got easier!

When you’re looking for a car to buy and want to know about its history, you look at Carfax. We used it when searching for our latest car, and it was very helpful.

But what if you own a car and are looking to sell? What’s it worth on the market? Would you get more by trading it in or selling it to a private owner? That’s where DriverSide comes in. Simply enter the car's make, model and year, then click “get started”. Did you know that keeping maintenance records could help you sell your car for more money? Read more car ownership tips or latest car reviews by visiting DriverSide's reviews and advice page.

Now maybe you just got a car and want to know more about it or how to better care for the car you already own or are leasing. By registering with DriverSide, you’ll be alerted when your next service is due, what needs to be done, repair price estimates, car diagnostic tools, service history logs, and digital storage of service records. Or if you have a question, ask advice from their certified mechanics (for free!).

All DriverSide can’t do is give an estimated price for your car’s sentimental value.

Blipfoto: Daily Photo Journal

Blipfoto is an online daily photo journal that lets you publish one image each day, starting on the date you sign up. Most people use this as a challenge to take and publish one picture every day of their lives, while others just add entries when they feel like it, leaving empty days in between. It's the zero-fuss website that lets anyone join in and publish or record your life in pictures, improve your photography skills, or just keep in touch with your family and friends. They just insists that any pictures you upload are taken on the date you're uploading them against. In other words, if you upload a picture and date it 1st January, the picture must have been taken on 1st January.

And now, (Extra! Extra! Read All About It!):

Blipfoto has teamed up with Channel Four Television and the National Theatre of Scotland to bring you “Unstaged”, a global photographic event comprised of three consecutive contests, together which aim to expose the extraordinary aspects of daily life. The contest's first prize wins a new Canon 500D and 500 pounds cash (that’s Eurodollars).

The contest is free to enter, but to take part, you need a free blipfoto.com photo journal, and be thirteen or over.

Your contest entries will consist of five pictures with accompanying text, taken and uploaded to your journal between each contest's published start and end date. At the close of each contest, the Blipfoto community - including participants in the competition - will be given a week to nominate the finalists. The top ten nominations in each category (junior and adult) then go before a judging panel for a final decision. The contest's judging panel will include Joe Tree (Blipfoto), Stuart Cosgrove (Channel 4), Vicky Featherstone (National Theatre of Scotland) and others.

Nominations and final judging will be based on the entrant's collection as a whole; where the underlying concept is as important as the technical execution, where image aesthetics are balanced by narrative text. Unstaged is truly open to all - a winning contest entry is just as likely to come from a camera phone as an expensive digital camera. Join the community now and begin seeing the world in a completely different way!

Free Book Search and Matcher

A neat idea and creation, BookLamp matches you with books according to your style. The example they use is, say you "like Stephen King's "It", but thought it was too long. Booklamp allows you to find books with a similar level of tone, tense, perspective, action, description, and dialog, while at the same time, allowing you to specify details, but only about half the length."

The interface is very smooth, attractive, and intuitive, but at the moment, their database currently only holds science fiction books and fantasy books. They emphasize that while their service isn’t very functional yet, they are working on it.

You do have to register to use BookLamp, but it’s not a lengthy process. By registering, you can compare books, post in the forums, and suggest books to be added. But because of their limited collection, signing up for BookLamp now mostly just shows interest and support for the service.

BookLamp aspires to be a “Pandora for books”. BookLamp is also looking for suggestions for their future direction, so if you explore and have ideas, feel free to suggest some to them.