Swaptree

Swaptree.com is an all-in-one trading service for books, DVDs, music, and video games. The service allows you to post any of these items by simply entering the barcode or ISBN number (it it is a book) that is associated with the item. Swaptree attempts to look-up the item in its vast database and provide you with a photo and description of the item. Once you confirm the information is correct (and add a few details about the condition of the item), it will be posted to your “items i have” list.

Swaptree also allows you browse for items that you want and add them to your “items i want” list. Depending on what you have added to your have list, and what is currently available, you may already be able to swap something you have for an item in your want list.

Since the Swaptree system relies on its users to post items for trade, the more in your “items i have” list, the more options you have for trading. Swaptree looks at the items you posted and finds other users who want those items. Swaptree has a useful feature that shows you to see all the items you can get “right now”. These are items not necessarily on your want list, but are available to you if you swap one of your items with another user. The reason the number of things you can get right now is so high is because of Swaptree’s three-way trading system.

Three-way trading works like this. Say Mike has a CD that he is willing to swap. Joe has a DVD that Mike wants, but Joe doesn’t want the CD that Mike is willing to trade. Joe  instead wants a book. Swaptree introduces Jane into the mix. Jane wants Mike’s CD and is willing to send Joe the book he wants (because she is offering it for trade). I send Jane the CD, Jane sends Joe the book, and Joe sends me the DVD. All this happens in tandem - so I don’t have to wait for Joe to get his book before he sends me the DVD I want. It may sound confusing, but you will see how easy it is once you start using the service.

Who pays for it all?

You have to pay shipping on anything you send. If you use the postage center on the site, Swaptree only charges you a small fee to print postage for each item you are sending. When you sign up for the service, your credit card is used to print postage only when needed. If that doesn’t suite you, then just simply pay for your own postage somewhere else, and drop it in the mail. Since they have an extensive database of sizes and weights for each item, it makes it really simple to just print postage through the Swaptree site and drop the item in the mailbox.

Swaptree also has a comments and feedback section where you can see other users ratings and decide on whether to swap with them or not. Most have a good reputation and are genuinely fast to ship and accurate on their items’ wear and tear descriptions.

PaperbackSwap/SwapaCd/SwapaDVD

These three sites, Paperbackswap.com, SwapaCD.com and SwapaDVD.com all have the same look and feel work slightly different from Swaptree. The difference here is that you can only swap a book for a book, a DVD for a DVD, or a CD for a CD, and each site is run independently (meaning you have to create a user account on each site in order to use the service). Also, each site is run on a “credits” based system.

Paperbackswap/SwapaCD/SwapaDVD are each run the same way, so for ease of typing, I’ll just use Paperbackswap for illustration purposes from here on out.

Paperbackswap requires you to post 10 books online to receive your first two credits. Credits are gained by posting 10 books, sending a book to another user, or buying them outright from the site (credits are $3.35 each as of this writing).  Most people have at least 10 books they are willing to part with, so this doesn’t seem to be an issue for the most part.

One of the big differences with this Paper/DVD/CD swapping service is that you don’t have to spend any out of pocket dollars to get a book. If you have earned credits, you can request a book.  On, the other hand, if someone requests a book from you, you will have to front the dollars in order to ship the item to the requestor.  Similar to Swaptree, you can print your postage online through the site.

Paperbackswap’s postage feature is similar to Swaptree’s in that you can print postage directly from within the site, but also includes something called a wrapper. It is the postage printed on a larger sheet of paper that you can wrap the book in and drop in the mail. No need to find a large envelope or box. Simply use the printed wrapper the book, tape it up.  and off to the mailbox you go.

Both Swaptree.com and Paperbackswap/SwapaDVD/SwapaCD.com have an extensive database of available media to from which to browse. There will be no shortage of items from which to choose.

I like the convenience of having DVDs, CDs, Books and video games available to swap in one place. Swaptree has Paperbackswap beaten in this arena whereas Paperbackswap offers a nice wrapper feature to make mailing more efficient.

If your looking for a cheap way to consume more music, movies, books or video games - these two services have you covered.

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JustResizeIt is a free utility that makes image resizing really simple. This Adobe Air application will run on Mac, Windows, or Linux (so long as you have a GUI and can drag and drop with your mouse).

Once you download and install the application, you can easily batch processes a bunch of photos by dragging a group of them onto the little icons that corresponds to the size you need.

In this example I needed these photos to be at 640×480 so I dragged them to the properly 640×480 icon.

Once I release the mouse over the icon, JustResizeIt starts to process the files. You will see a progress indicator which tells you how many files have been processed so far.

When it has finished processing your files, you can simply drag the icon back to the same folder, to the desktop, or to a new folder where you want the resized files to appear (also try dragging them into the body of an email).

In this case, I chose to place the resized images back into the same folder the originals were in.

JustResizeIt automatically renames the files using the date and the size you chose and places them in the folder.

It’s that simple. No need to open a complicated photo editing program to resize images.

Customization

JustResizeIt also allows you to customize the current sizes and add new ones as well.  If you need to change any of the settings, you can simply open the expansion tab up and have the customize settings available for use.

If you need a quick and easy way to resize your images, download JustResizeIt and give it a test drive yourself.

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I’m certain that at least a few of you have been victim to a stolen laptop.  With reports indicating that a laptop is stolen every 53 seconds and that 12,000 laptops a week are are lost in US airports (source Fast Company), it almost seems inevitable that we will suffer from this loss.

Since these reports also indicate that only about 3% of these laptops are ever recovered, you may wonder if there is anything that can be done to help increase the odds of yours being recovered.  Of course there are many laptop tracking solutions available to report on your laptop’s location. One such solution is software based Prey.

Prey is free, Open Source software available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Prey works by sending your information about your laptop at scheduled intervals to an email address you configure.

Prey can also be configured to only send the information when you have determined that the laptop has been lost or stolen.  You achieve this by configuring Prey to check for the existence of a URL before it sends the information (see their FAQ for more on this).

Of course, Prey requires that the laptop have an active Internet connection, so you can’t guarantee that you’ll recover the laptop, or even that Prey will report anything if it can’t get to the Internet. But as pointed by the developers of Prey, most thieves like to look around at the data on the laptop before completely wiping the hard drive, and that leaves some room for a short window for Prey to do it’s magic.

Prey is definitely worth a look.

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Do you think your computer might have been compromised? No anti-virus, no problem. You can do an online virus, spyware, and malware scan using some free tools on the web.

Housecall – Mac, PC and Linux

Housecall from Trend Micro will do an online scan of your computer. Tell you what it found and makes recommendations for keeping your info private, like removing cookies and temporary Internet files. Housecall is also capable of spyware and malware detection and removal.

Kapersky Online Scanner – PC and Linux

Kapersky’s scanner also scans for malware and spyware. Seems to be a bit slow as it needs to download about 52MB virus definition files before it actually starts the scan.

BitDefender Online Scanner – PC only and must use Internet Explorer

Bitdefender also detects spyware and malware on your computer.

All of the above do not prevent viruses, spyware, or malware from infecting your computer. They are tools used to detect and clean an infected machine.

Recommend running a full scan from different anti-virus companies just to be safe. Instead of buying a product, this online solution fits well.

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Please don’t click on any links one of these emails.  Especially if you do not know the person that supposedly sent you the greeting card.  Once again, if you receive an email that meets the above criteria, please delete it.

As a matter of principle, I don’t believe in sending E-Cards as they (the companies that provide the e-greeting service) can be used to collect and sell “valid” email addresses to other companies.  Please take a look at my 9 Tips to Less Spam post for more info on how to avoid getting spam like this.

Cleanup Info

Symantec has some info on how to cleanup the trojan.  Basically disable system restore, update your virus definitions, do a full virus scan, and cleanup the registry.

• http://www.symantec.com/norton/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2008-122308-1429-99&tabid=3

Trojan Info

A trojan is a malicious program that collects information about your Internet activity and send that info to other websites where the information is collected.  Some are very sneaky and collect keystrokes, password and bank login information.  Bottom line is, don’t get a trojan.

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Do you have a photo or two or you want to share with a friend or family member? The simplest way I’ve found so far is to use Picmatic. Picamatic doesn’t require you to login or register an account to add or access photos.

Picmatic is a web based interface that allows you to upload a picture in one click. Simply pick a square on the Picamatic web page and choose the file to upload. Keep uploading until you’re done.

Once you have uploaded a file, you’ll see a clickable “Links” item. This will reveal the various links you can use to share the photo. Links for Forums, Blogs, Chats, and the direct URL (your file size is below 300Kb) to the photo are visible.

Picamatic also lets you send the URL of your Picamatic photos to yourself in email. Click the “Save these images” link and enter your email address. Check your spam folders if you can’t find the email. It’s a good idea to add picamatic.com to your spam filter to ensure delivery. The next time you want to access the files you can access them anytime by click on the link in your email. You can also bookmark the link for easy access to the files anytime.

Picamatic says there are no size limits or limits to the number of photos you can upload. So far, Picamatic has not indicated any intent to delete your files after a certain period of time. So you could potentially store files for as long as you want.

Head over to Picamatic and try it out for yourself.

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Online passwords are now just a part of our daily life. Many of us don’t really consider how important it is to have a strong password or what it takes to make a strong password. Most of our online activities require us to provide a password in order to use them. A weak password can really cause a lot of trouble if it gets cracked or guessed. The weaker the password, the easier it is for automated programs to crack your password with a “brute force attack”.  Here is a easy, visual way to check your password strength.

The Password Meter offers a password tester. You can quickly see if your password’s complexity is too low and what you can do to make it stronger.

Enter your password in the password field and immediately get feedback as you type every letter, number or symbol. As you progress to a more complex password, the items in the Additions Pane will start to turn colors and you’ll see the symbols start to change as well.

The Password Meter calculates your password score by adding points from the Additions items and Subtracting points from the Deductions items. It is pretty hard to get all of the deductions to zero, but it’s fun trying. I was able to get a perfect score with the following xBc1$3Dy4=.

Give it a try at http://www.thepasswordmeter.com.

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Ever wanted to create your own font? Maybe you have a creative project you want to do and need that special font to make it just perfect. Now you can create your own fonts with FontStruct.

Fonstruct gives you a design interface in which to draw your letters. You’ll create capital and lower case letters and can also do the numbers and symbols if you want. When you’re done, you can simply download the font set and install on your computer. You can also share the font with others.

You don’t have to draw every letter if you’re not going to use them all, but if you want to share your creation, it might be a good idea to have a complete set.

What’s also cool about Fonstruct is that you can create any designs or shapes and use them as fonts. Say you want your “A” to look like a gorilla, go for it. Then perhaps your “B” looks like a banana - that’s cool too.  Now put them together to make a nice little gorilla eating a banana picture.  Just check out some of the picto people that have been created by user saberrider.

Here are a few featured fonts available in the Fonstruct gallery.

Create your own at Fonstruct.Fontshop.com.

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Password management can be a pain and there a few things we should not be doing to keep our information safe.  For one, you should not be using the same password for every site.  If someone sees or gets your password on one of those sites you could be compromising all of your online accounts.  But, having to remember a different password for each site is not easy and you’ll most likely need to keep a document or file around to record all your passwords.

A great tool called SuperGenPass can make your password management a bit easier.  SuperGenPass does not require you to install any software on your computer.  It is a simple bookmarklet that you drag into your browser’s bookmark toolbar.  You can put it on as many browsers as you like and on multiple computers.

How Does SuperGenPass Work?

SuperGenPass works on the simple principle of “master password” + “mathematical equation” = “new secure password”.  Most of us can think of a “master password” we would like to use.  A password we know we will remember.  SuperGenPass lets you use that password to generate a random secure password for every site you log on to - yet have every site’s password be different.  So your password for amazon.com and your password for yahoo.com are completely different but were generated by the same “master password”.  All you have to do is click on the bookmarklet from your browser and it does the rest.  It even puts the generated password in the password field so you don’t have to cut and paste.  And since you can install the bookmarklet on any computer and any browser, you can access your account info from anywhere.

SuperGenPass doesn’t store any of your information or passwords.  Even your “master password” is not kept online or stored.

Check it out for yourself at SuperGenPass.com

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Have you ever found yourself fumbling around on your computer for a calendar?  Are you opening up Outlook or Google Calendar (or some other calendaring program) to see on what day the 23rd falls?  No need to go to those extremes for a simple date look up.  Now you can turn any background or image into desktop wallpaper with an added month calendar.

BigHugeLabs has a cool tool for turning your favorite photos or backgrounds into more useful desktop wallpapers.  Browse over to their Wallpaper tool to get started.

Choose a photo from your computer, paste a link to a cool photo, or link your Flickr account so you can use your own Flickr photos if you like.

The tool allows you to pick a few more aesthetic options and takes only a few seconds to spit out a nice background.

Save the file, share it, email or upload it to Flickr right from within the tool.

Here’s the background I’m using right now.

My current desktop wallpaper

More Fun

Also check out BigHugeLabs for other fun photo tools.

Magazine Cover or Movie Poster

• Puts your face or other photo on a magazine cover or movie poster. Create your own titles and taglines.

Motivational Poster

• Create your own motivational posters from your favorite photos.

Framer

• Adds a border or frame around you picture.  Choose from over 20 different kinds.

Framed using the stamp option

Captioner

• Allows you to add up to 4 captions on your photos.  Choose from thought bubble, speech balloon, or single line.  Place them in the right spots for the perfect effect.

There are a whole bunch more to check out, so don’t forget to visit  BigHugeLabs.

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