Cute  (but useful) Gadgets, etc.

Below are some great FREE services and downloads (cute gadgets) that you shouldn't be without!

I'm always looking for cute gadgets so feel free to recommend a link.

When is the last time you calibrated your monitor?

"Uh?  Get real Sunny!  I've never heard of this!"

It's no joke!  In our line of work, where color is very important, we need to make sure that our monitor is 'fine-tuned' and that we are seeing what we THINK we are seeing!  There are many sites that explains in detail about monitor calibration but I found Photo Friday's to be fast, easy, and FREE and one less gadget to install!

http://www.photofriday.com/calibrate.php

I wouldn't tell this to anyone but I'll tell you...

Before I got good at being better, there were times when I needed to measure and I would find myself tearing little bits of paper, holding them to to the monitor to use as a guide.  I'm sure I'm not the only one to have done this but to spare embarassment, I won't ask for a show of hands!  Then one day, I ran into this nifty FREE little tool call JR Screen Ruler.  It accurately measures and will display measurements in pixels, pica, inches and centimeters!  What a concept eh?  Kudo's to the creator for this one!

http://www.spadixbd.com/freetools/jruler.htm

So you have the screen ruler already eh?  What about this one?  Meazure is a program that measures, magnifies and captures the screen!  Check it out!

http://www.cthing.com/Meazure.asp

"I just can't seem to match the color I need!"

How many times have you said or thought this?  Your color worries are over because now, Color Cop has come to your rescue!  There's quite a few cool features to this handy tool and a great addition to your collection of gadgets!

http://prall.net/colorcop/

Need a image viewer that lets you do MORE than view?  This one rocks...

Irfanview was the first FREE tool to be added to my gadget collection many moons ago.  Just like a fine wine, it seems to get better with every new year and I find myself using it a lot!  If it's not part of your gadget collection - maybe it should be!  You can read more about it and download it here:

http://www.irfanview.com/

Do your fingers grow tired of unzipping files one by one?

Save the wear and tear on your fingers and get Extract Now today!  This is another one of those 'how did I manage without it' utilities that is the greatest little invention since that last one!  It can unzip tons of zipped files in record time!  I use it quite often and my fingers highly recommends it!  Just click on the link below to read more.  The download button will be at the bottom of the page!

http://www.extractnow.com/

Strange but true or Lessons to be learned...

I'm going to give you a 'nutshell' version of my story.  A few months ago, I had a computer built - requested 2 gigs of memory among other things.  Brought it home, plugged it in and was impressed by the speed but considering my old computer had only 248 gigs of memory, I think anything at this point would have dazzled me!  About a week later, I was reading an email from a group and they mentioned Belarc Advisor and all the cool things you could find out about your computer by running it.  I thought it would be fun and besides, I wanted to see what they had installed in my new computer so I quickly downloaded this free program. Good thing too - I discovered that they had only installed ONE gig of memory!  End of story.  Oh, guess I should add that it reallys runs fast now!! *lol*  Hopefully this testimony will have you running over for this free download!

http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

"Are you serious?  A free web store builder?"

Yuppers - that's what eCRATOR is all about.  It's another great way to get your products seen and hopefully makes some sales also.  Well worth checking into!

http://www.ecrater.com/

 Phone Sweet Phone

One word. Skype.  You have an option to go for the freebie or pay a small price and get the 'Real McCoy' as I did.  Their free service will let you talk to other Skype users.  So let's say you are in one state, mom is in another - you both have Internet connections.  Guess what?  You can both download Skype and talk to each other for FREE using a mic.  Works great with those 'long distance' relationships too!  For me, I decided to pay for the option to call anywhere in the USA and Canada to regular phone numbers (great if you have a business) so it costed me only $29.95 a year.  Sweet eh?  But that wasn't good enough - I wanted a phone number so others could call ME using their regular phones sooooo - for another $38 I got a phone number too.  That's it - my total cost for an entire year - only $68!  The entire process took less than 15 minutes.  And yes, you can purchase accessories (like phones) to go with it.  And the amazing thing about it is that it lives up to it's name!

www.skype.com

...more great links coming soon so STAY TUNED!