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 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 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 "E-Cards That Don't Suck"

E-cards. We've all seen them, whether we sent them or they were sent to us, e-cards are corny ways of getting a smile out of somebody we care about. Some sites offer many, some offer only a few unless you're a registered member, some e-cards are cute, some are eh-OK, and some are just plain stupid.

Rattlebox on the other hand, is a free e-card site that's raised the bar for e-cards. Promoting their bold statement, "E-Cards that don't suck", you'll find a new variety of cards with, let me say, and "interesting" gift of creativity.

Rattlebox's collection of online video e-cards includes pets, children, vintage film & cartoons clips, and some pretty rockin' animated styles, too, appropriate for the workplace, school, sports, travel, and every occasion.

Rattlebox greeting cards cover a range from sexy and provocative, to sweet love; funny birthday cards, thanks, apology, thinking of you, congratulations, good luck, invites, save the date, vote, new baby, couples, wedding, anniversary, relationships, sympathy, encouragement, insult, breakup, graduation, new home, new job, and many more! *Be aware though that some Rattlebox e-cards are adult-oriented, not so appropriate for children. Most are labeled with a yellow “Caution” banner across the selection, and a warning before playing (but some are not).

Although you are not required to in order to send a funny short film to your friend or loved one, free registration will allow you to create your own e-cards from your own videos, and include them in the Rattlebox online library. Cool, huh? Click here for an example from the "thinking of you" category.

Related Links:
Free superhero maker
Be on the cover of a magazine
Create your own photo messages
Funky avatar creator

Free Superhero Maker

Move over Superman! Now, everyone can be a superhero with this cool application from Kodak - Make Me Super, a website that makes anybody feel like a member of the Justice League. Make Me Super transforms you into a superhero instantly with a video and picture to boot. All for free!

The website is really fun to try. I got a kick out of making a video of my "super husband." First, choose your gender. Second, enter your superhero name or what you want to be called, (Super Mom, Super Girl, etc.). Third, upload a picture that you want to be placed on the superhero face template. You can choose a picture either from your Kodak Gallery account or from your desktop. Once the picture has been uploaded, adjust the size of the picture by scaling or rotating it to fit the face template. Then click on the video button and enjoy your superhero 10 seconds of fame. You can also share the superhero video with your "super friends" through e-mail. Also as a bonus, you can download your superhero picture onto your computer!

So go ahead and see if you look good in a spandex and a cape. :)

Totally Fun and Free Online Games

Bored? Need to kill time but do not have anything to do? Or perhaps, you need a short break from what you're doing? Visit Friv for free, fun and addicting games.

Friv offers 200 free games, from easy to difficult. The website combines some of the best flash online games, which are displayed randomly in small squares. They are neither categorized nor arranged alphabetically, but the games' titles are revealed as you point the mouse on them.

From Tetris to Sudoku, Friv's selection of games is very vast. If you get tired of playing action games, you can go back and try a puzzle game. Because of so many selection of games available, just deciding on what to try first could take a lot of your time. But surely, once you get started, you definitely won't notice the time passed by.

Send Free Photo Messages

If you can't say your message in words, then say it in picture, Polariod style!

Using a Polaroid-style background, Photo Notes lets you send cool photo messages to your friends and loved ones for free. It is so easy to use. Even children can "play" with Photo Notes.

To start, choose a photo that you want to send and upload it. Then, choose a polariod-style frame that you want to use for that photo. Next, click on a style font and color you want. Type your message on the box provided. Be concise as possible, as you only have a maximum of 50 letters for your message. Click preview.

If you're satisfied with your photo and message, enter the e-mail address of your recipient(s). You may also import e-mail addresses from your address book. Lastly, to make sure that it's a human who is using the Photo Notes services, enter the code shown and press e-mail. Your recipient(s) will get your photo message within minutes.

I had fun using Photo Notes, and I admit it was quite addicting. Here are some photos I made from the website. These are photos of some of the lovable dogs available for adoption at the Peninsula SPCA:





Sinatra is a brindle male German Shepherd Dog and Boxer mix; Peaches is a purebred Staffordshire Bull Terrier; Muttley is a sociable black and white Labrador Retriever mix.

Create a photo mosaic for free

Now you can create your own photo mosaic, without the hassle of compiling thousands of photos on your favorite photo editing tool.

PicArtia lets you create free online photo mosaics in a breeze. This cool mosaic creator is fun, simple and totally easy to use. First, select a photo that you want to transform into a beautiful mosaic. You can upload a picture from your computer or from the Internet. Then, click on the gallery and select a category, which includes paintings, flowers and birds, among others. You can also view the photos of each category before deciding on choosing one. The photos from the category will compose your mosaic. After you've decided on a category, you can now finalize the setting of your mosaic.

Finally, provide a name and an e-mail address where you want the mosaic to be sent. PicArtia will send you an e-mail with a code that you will use for downloading it, which will be in high resolution. You can also share your mosaic to your friends by e-mail or by embedding it on your social networking site.

PicArtia is a fun and addictive tool. You can also use it to make unique event invitation, gifts or greeting cards to your friends and family. I only hope that in the future they will add more categories in their gallery, or include a feature where you can use your own photos as the composition for creating a mosaic.

Above mosaic is a photo of Toby, a fun-loving hound and beagle mix, that is available for adoption at the Peninsula SPCA.

Free Funky Avatar Creator

Want an original and personalized avatar?

BeFunky lets you create and customized a personalized avatar for free through its Cartoonizer, Uvatar and Video Cartoonizer. Creating an avatar is made simple as it provides an animated step-by-step use of the site's features.

The Cartoonizer instantly transforms your pictures into a sketch or a digital painting. Simply upload a favorite picture from your desktop, a webcam or any website, then click "sketch" and watch the picture instantly become cartoonized. You can adjust the level of sketch, add color, or warp the picture. You can also add "goodies" like frames, jewelry, or text.

The Uvatar is my favorite feature of the avatar-creating website because of the variety of options you can do with it. Choose a picture where the whole face is visible. Using the site's tracing tool, click the areas of the face that you'll be using for the avatar. Choose a gender of your avatar and adjust the size of the face on the avatar body selected. The fun part comes in choosing the avatar's clothes, costumes and background to go with your style. When you're finished creating your avatar, you can share your avatar with friends, or post it on your favorite social network.

If it's not too late and you're still thinking of a unique (or belated) gift for your dad for Father's Day, log on to BeFunky and create an uber-unique avatar for him. The avatar picture on this entry is actually a picture that my husband and I made out of our (his) dad's picture. To us, he is truly a Super Hero!

Free Jigsaw Puzzles

My high school best friend got me hooked into this: Jigzone, a free online jigsaw puzzle website where you can solve puzzles ranging from the easy 6-piece to the difficult and dizzying 247-piece triangle-shaped puzzle.

As mentioned on its website, Jigzone is truly a jigsaw paradise as it has got thousands of puzzles to choose from. Every day, the jigsaw website features a puzzle of the day. If you don't like the day's featured puzzle, you can view the puzzles from their gallery, which are categorized according to their theme.

Registration to the jigsaw puzzle site is not required, as you can just play instantly. However, it's still best to sign up for a free account so you can compete with your friends and share your "solve times" with them. But the best part of having a account is on this jigsaw website is that you can upload your pictures, and turn them into your own jigsaw puzzles, which you can post on your website, or send as a puzzle postcard to your loved ones. Here's a picture jigsaw puzzle I made with my husband's baby picture:



Like real jigsaw puzzles, Jigzone can be truly addicting. I'll bet once you've tried a jigsaw, you'll never be content with solving just one puzzle.

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! :)