Ron K.

Converting YouTube videos to other video or audio formats is a service not many online tools provide. Usually you have to visit separate sites for video and audio format conversions. "ConvertVideoToAudio" however provides all the conversion formats under one interface.

Web-based, nothing to download, and this couldn't be easier. Will convert to ALL popular AUDIO formats, and will convert your YouTube FLV video to MP4! User interface is so elementary... no explanation is necessary. Just go to site and convert.

Love this. Enjoy,
Ron

If you intend to share a bunch of links you've discovered lately, then sending those via email looks like the easiest thing to do. But it isn't convenient to click on them one by one and open in browser tabs, especially if there are a lot of them.

BridgeURL solves this problem by helping you create a website slide-show and combining all those sites into a single URL.

The "web-based" service doesn't require registration and you can quickly add URLs and share the new URL that's generated. Simple but has been incredibly handy!
Have a great 2011,
Ron

Had to bring this to your attention. I love it:

Min.us – Here is another minimalist tool that lets you share you photos galleries online. Min.us is a simple website creating quick anonymous albums by letting you drag your pictures to the website. Once the album is complete, a link to your album will be provided. You can then manage the gallery from the link with options such as changing the name of the album, adding more photos, and deleting photos.

Hope you enjoy...
Ron

Should link not take you where you're trying to go, point your browser here:
http://www.insults.net/html/swear/

I can't say this will save you money or keep your consumer's "cul" out of harm's way, but should you want to vent your spleen, in no uncertain terms, might as well have them respond with, "Huh?" (smirk.)

Send the despicable on a wild online chase through language dictionaries and translators to get a clue what sort of carnage you've bathed him/her in. Unquestionably good for the soul; will expand the flavour of your insults collection and salacious reputation, and certainly provide the sheen of one who has that unquestionable Internationale flair when flaying taking someone apart with the written word. You'll charm your friends and leave those you have no use for in a virtual quandary of French, Swedish, Latvian, Yiddish... or really fry an $#*! in Latin (let 'em dig that crap up)!

Have some fun today!
Revoir mes amis,
Ron

If link above does not get you where you want to go, point your browser here:
http://www.joindiaspora.com/

This is fascinating. Most know the downsides of Facebook, the security flaws and rather ambiguous uses of our personal information. There is a new "Facebook" in town. Open source, and you can decide where your personal data is maintained... on someone's servers who-knows-where, or if you choose, on your own computer. I have a feeling this will be big.

From N. Y. Times:
How angry is the world at Facebook for devouring every morsel of personal information we are willing to feed it?

A few months back, four geeky college students, living on pizza in a computer lab downtown on Mercer Street, decided to build a social network that wouldn't force people to surrender their privacy to a big business. It would take three or four months to write the code, and they would need a few thousand dollars each to live on.

They gave themselves 39 days to raise $10,000, using an online site, Kickstarter, that helps creative people find support. It turned out that just about all they had to do was whisper their plans. "We were shocked," said one of the four, Dan Grippi, 21. "For some strange reason, everyone just agreed with this whole privacy thing."
They announced their project on April 24. They reached their $10,000 goal in 12 days, and the money continues to come in: as of Tuesday afternoon, they had raised $23,676 from 739 backers. "Maybe 2 or 3 percent of the money is from people we know," said Max Salzberg, 22.

Working with Mr. Salzberg and Mr. Grippi are Raphael Sofaer, 19, and Ilya Zhitomirskiy, 20 "four talented young nerds," Mr. Salzberg says all of whom met at New York University's Courant Institute. They have called their project Diaspora* and intend to distribute the software free, and to make the code openly available so that other programmers can build on it. As they describe it, the Diaspora* software will let users set up their own personal servers, called seeds, create their own hubs and fully control the information they share. Mr. Sofaer says that centralized networks like Facebook are not necessary. "In our real lives, we talk to each other," he said. "We don't need to hand our messages to a hub. What Facebook gives you as a user isn't all that hard to do. All the little games, the little walls, the little chat, aren't really rare things. The technology already exists."

The terms of the bargain people make with social networks you swap personal information for convenient access to their sites have been shifting, with the companies that operate the networks collecting ever more information about their users. That information can be sold to marketers. Some younger people are becoming more cautious about what they post. "When you give up that data, you're giving it up forever," Mr. Salzberg said. "The value they give us is negligible in the scale of what they are doing, and what we are giving up is all of our privacy."

The Diaspora* group was inspired to begin their project after hearing a talk by Eben Moglen, a law professor at Columbia University, who described the centralized social networks as "spying for free," Mr. Salzberg said.

The four students met in a computer room at N. Y. U., and have spent nearly every waking minute there for months. They understand the appeal of social networks.
"Certainly, as nerds, we have nowhere else to go," Mr. Salzberg said. "We're big nerds." "My social life has definitely collapsed in favor of maintaining a decent GPA and doing this," Mr. Sofaer said.

A teacher and digital media researcher at N. Y. U., Finn Brunton, said that their project which does not involve giant rounds of venture capital financing before anyone writes a line of code reflected "a return of the classic geek means of production: pizza and ramen and guys sleeping under the desks because it is something that it is really exciting and challenging." The Diaspora* crew has no doubts about the sprawling strengths and attractions of existing social networks, having gotten more than 2,000 followers of "joindiaspora" on Twitter in just a few weeks.

"So many people think it needs to exist," Mr. Salzberg said. "We're making it because we want to use it."

If link above is not complete,. Point your browser here:
http://www.google.com/s2/u/0/search/social#socialcircle_Considering how indispensable Google and its services have become for us, it is no surprise that Google knows more about our online connections than anyone else. To let you know how it identifies your connections for its social search results, it has a page with tabs called Social Circle and Social Content.

Interesting insight to your most frequent contacts and content.
Ron.

Buying a car can no doubt be a stressful experience. There are just plenty of things to worry about, from whether or not you've picked the right car, what the reviews are saying, if it's going to be reliable, and if you're paying too much, (avoid a good deal of hassle, and walk-in asking for the "new" or "used-car" manager. This person can squabble price directly with you, rather than having the sales person run back & forth with middle-man. And, if you want to be assured of a courtesy car... with 24 hours advance service call, ask for that with pen-in-hand, JUST BEFORE you sign the contract. Get it in writing as well!)ond what your trade-in is worth.

Buying a new car can be a bit overwhelming sometimes, but it doesn't have to be. With the Web, it's easy to simplify everything to avoid some of the hassle and frustration altogether.

CarZen.com

First, perhaps the most important thing to do is to research a new car and figure out what kind of car is right for you. With so many makes and models out there to choose from, how do you make that process easier? That's where CarZen comes into play.

The site allows you to quickly select a vehicle that fits your specific needs. All it takes is just a few simple steps. First, just pick any of the body styles you are interesting in along with your price range.

A list of possible cars for you is shown below and from there, you can go on and select your personal preferences, including your specific needs, wants, and style, to narrow down the list further. Once completed, just review your results to check out the cars that are perfect for you.

Displayed for every match in your results is the percent match based on your needs, along with basic information about the car, including MSRP, invoice, and MPG. Below that, you can review the report card of how the vehicle was scored followed by a helpful overview of the model, basic stats, styles, and features.

Great place to begin when you really arent certain what "style" car you have in mind.
Ron

I think this is a classy idea. Whether marking a passing, birth, getting married, falling in love, opening doors on a new business, swearing off cigarettes... anything-at-all. If you have any "blogger" in your blood, are a dyed-in-wool-romantic, or simply feel motivated to mark an occasion... I think you'll like this:

YourTribute is a web-based tool, that lets you set up a personal website (a Tribute) to plan, share and remember a significant event or special someone. A Tribute can be created in minutes, but remains online for life to provide an everlasting record of the special occasion.

Why Your Tribute?

It is easy and elegant. Create a personalized Tribute for your event in minutes. Your Tribute includes many of the features of popular online invitation, photo sharing, blogging, and social networking websites, in an easy-to-use intuitive interface.

Check the site out. I'll be surprised if you don't find something worth carving into the "foreverness" of the Internet.

Thanks. As always, if you found this review interesting or helpful, please recognize this review, in some category, in my ratings!
Ever-On...
Ron

I've only begun tracking my homes energy consumption. I find it's an interesting & literal way of getting a feel for where money is wasted. Saving energy not solely for cost sake, but without sound cliche, start being kinder to mother Earth.

What follows is the website's verbatim commentary on hos it works. I think it's worth looking into:_"Do you remember RecycleBank, the Philadelphia-based company that rewarded customers for recycling? I thought that was a great idea, and I've got a similar response to Earth Aid's new rewards program for energy savings. Rolled out earlier this month in Washington, DC, Earth Aid offers a program to track your energy use and savings, and then to "pay" you for those savings through reward points that can be redeemed at partner companies.

In its press release for the launch of the rewards program, the company claims that its program "…creates a virtuous circle of local businesses providing incentives for households to save energy, and households re-circulating their savings on their utility bills into local businesses – benefiting both the local environment and the local economy." All of this is on top of money actually saved by consumers cutting their energy use…

I've been using the program for several months now, and its been a great way to track energy use: each month, I get a statement showing me how my energy use compares to that same month the previous year (and, yep, we're saving so far!). So far, the rewards program is only available in DC, but as the whole program is based on the concept of "rewards for savings," I'd expect to see reward partners established in other cities soon.
How Does Earth Aid "Pay" Consumers to Save on Electricity (and other utilities)?

As I noted in my earlier post for SUNfiltered, Earth Aid bundles the energy savings from participants and sells them on the carbon market. When I talked to CEO Ben Bixby about the concept back in April, he noted that the company's rewards will likely only be a part of the payback consumers receive from cutting energy usage: in addition to lower utility bills, consumers who make energy efficiency upgrades to their home may also be eligible for tax incentives. The Earth Aid system itself ups the ante a bit, but may be more important in the long term for providing an initial incentive for individuals and families to start exploring reduced energy use… and the many benefits it creates for both the planet and the pocketbook.

So, what do you think? A good way to get people focusing on their home energy use, and how to reduce it? I know I've been stoked to see our savings…".

Hope this makes sense for you!
If you like this, report it on SiteJabber give the review a reward as a GreatFind! Smile...
Ron

This seems simply smart. When shopping for a particular item, see what BestCovery suggests as best of lot. When shopping online, there is an opportunity to cross-reference pricing/quality (equals "VALUE" incidentally) one can just wear-out before being certain he/she has done all the homework possible. This website gets you started... if not facilitating your purchase decision. It uses TWO savvy criteria to "decide" best choice.

Simply start searching for the product by entering a few keywords in the search box or browse using the categories. For each category, BestCovery will show you the best available product in the market.

Products are ranked using two different methodologies I mentioned above: Firstly, products are extensively reviewed and ranked by experts belonging to the industry who know the products inside and out. They pick the best product, write their thoughts on it and give it the "Best" stamp.

However, in many other cases where expert ratings are not available or not suitable, BestCovery uses an intelligent crowd-sourcing technology that takes user reviews and ratings from a number of consumer sites like Amazon, and ranks products based on that. In either case, you are able to see which product beats others when it comes to a specific purpose.

The categories and sub-categories are pretty detailed. For example, if you are looking for a GPS, BestCovery tells you what the best GPS is overall, the best GPS with real-time traffic and even the best GPS for golf. You can also view other products, read their reviews and buy any product mentioned on BestCovery through a number of suggested vendors.

Features:

* Identify the best products for each category.
* Search, browse by category or see recent bests.
* Read about the experts who rank products and see their profile.
* Read hundreds of user reviews for any product.
* Buy the product you like using provided vendor links.
* Compare prices between different products.
* No registration required.

This can be a very handy consumer tool when trying to narrow a purchase decision. It seems like an excellent starting point!

Hope this help a bit,
Ron.

I reviewed "followUpThen.com" here a while ago. I was very impressed with the design simplicity, and speed of setting e-mail-based reminders.

The creator of another program, "FollowUp.cc" brought his product to my attention, and it's better yet. This is the way EVERYONE should be setting reminders and reminding others. I asked Chris the designer of FollowUp.cc to explain the basics of creating reminders. Here is his response to me verbatim:_Ron, my apologies for the radio silence. I was actually in and out of the hospital the past 2 weeks, but all is fine now and thankfully nothing to worry about. So, let's get some info flowing finally :)_ "Here's the comparison you asked for:

- FollowUp.cc supports a time component on day of the week and date based reminders, such as: *******@followup.cc and *******@followup.cc. In addition, we also support minutes and military time! So, you could also write *******@followup.cc or *******@followup.cc (notice the period to separate minutes).

That's probably the biggest addition and difference between our syntax and theirs.

- FollowUp.cc also has a lot more utility. Here's the list off the top of my head:

1. You can register and adjust settings (such as Timezone and if you want to store your message bodies etc).

2. There's a calendar view of your reminders, letting you see past ones, future ones, and then even Edit or Delete them.

3. You can have multiple email addresses under the same account which most people do since most people have multiple email addresses

4. There is an RSS and iCal feed of your reminders so you can import them into your calendaring system such as Google Calendar, iCal or Outlook etc.

5. Snooze Links: This is probably the most convenient and best feature people like. The snooze links enable One Click snoozing of reminders which then lets you archive the email and get it out of your in-box.

6. There are a bunch of intelligent logic pieces under the hood such as when a "public reminder is set", meaning in the To or CC field, it will not continue to set a new reminder for each Reply to All by recipients of the email.

7. If you set a reminder on an thread to someone and then set another one, it will update the existing one (assuming the reminder is different). This way you don't multiple reminders set for the same thread (this only works in Gmail or other threaded systems like the new Hotmail).

And there's technically more, but i assume that's good enough for now :) Let me know what you think.
Thanks,
Chris".

Highly recommend (to those who needs/enjoys a calendar/reminder system that's absolutely brilliant) a visit to "FollowUp.cc", without the quotes of course.

I don't know how I'd stay on top of things without followup.cc.

Ron.

Everyone is interested in saving money. For more reasons than I care to think about, many do little or nothing to pare-down what consumer services cost. For those invested (no pun) in saving as much as possible, refusing to be ripped-off, here's cool site that can potentially help._BillShrink has always incorporated wireless service into its features since – let's be honest – wireless bills one of the worst offenders for paying too much without realizing it. Lots of people currently getting screwed over o wireless plans Pricing plans fluctuate so much between different plans and services, and a lot of the time you're confused as to what you are actually paying for. It is especially tough when you consider that a lot of plans lock you into a 2 year deal.

Compare wireless phone services
On BillShrink, just select the Wireless service tab, fill out your information (current carrier, current cost), and hit Go>>. BillShrink will then ask you for your usage information, which – in most cases – you can sign into your service provider and grant BillShrink access to the statistics.

After BillShrink has all the necessary information, you can begin viewing potential savings. You can enter your email address so the service remembers your settings, also._Credit Cards: compare bank services:
For credit cards its the same thing. Just select the information pertaining to your credit usage and hit Go>>. Then you will have to fill out a little more information to narrow down what you're looking to accomplish with the service. Whether you're looking to get a new credit card or are attempting to get your very first one, BillShrink can accommodate you._Savings & CDs
BillShrink can also find you the best rates on Savings and CDs. After you fill out how much you could afford to save each month, BillShrink will search through hundreds of savings accounts, finding and matching you with the ones that best fit your saving profile. It also computes the amount you will earn in interest per year, minus fees._Gas Stations
Finding the cheapest gas stations is something everyone should be able to take advantage of immediately. Enter in your most frequent destinations (i. E. home, work) and make/model of your car and BillShrink will find and display all of the cheapest gas stations in your area using Google maps._Television Service:
The television service feature on BillShrink is listed as beta, but there's really nothing beta about it. To compare cable and satellite bills, enter in your address, current provider, and how much you currently pay to see how much you could be saving with an alternate service. BillShrink makes sure to only list the services available in your area, which I thought was pretty cool._Conclusion
If you use BillShrink properly, you can potentially reduce your bills and save yourself a lot of money. It's a pretty straight forward service and is generally very easy to use and navigate. BillShrink is definitely one of the sites I will be incorporating into my money-saving arsenal (along with Mint).

Everyone complains... now do something to stop the constant drip of wasted money.

There's always a few people who take a bit longer than they should getting back to you when you send out an email. For those people, FollowUpThen.com is the perfect solution that saves you time and effort. There is no signup required, but the first time you use their service, you will be asked to verify your email address.

After that, each time you send out an email that might need a gentle reminder, all if you have to do is add a FollowUpThen email address in the CC field.

The email address format depends on how long you want to wait before sending that second follow-up email. You can specify the length of time to wait using *******@followupthen.com or *******@followupthen.com, and so forth, or you can specify the exact date using *******@followupthen.com or *******@followupthen.com. Just be sure to use the following format when using an exact calendar date: *******@followupthen.com.

If you put the follow-up under BCC, ONLY THE SENDER will get the message. And finally, if you put the follow-up in the To: field, the reminder will come to you in the time frame you specified.

Fantastic way to keep track of appointments and anything else you need to be reminded of. This one is hot. Love it.
Hope it simplifies your life calendar.
Ron.

POINT YOUR BROWSER HERE: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6984/

Ever had one of those "oh f*#k" moments when the web-form content you've been writing so carefully, crafting the words, and was sounding so right, just disappears? Then, within seconds it dawns on you there IS NO WAY to get it back - and you'll have to start all-over-again... if you haven't become too depressed to continue.

If you've gone cold as some errant mistake (Firefox crashes, or you hit "cancel" rather than "submit" - OUCH!), then you need Lazarus. If not, install it anyway, before disaster strikes!

Lazarus securely saves forms as you type, allowing you to safely recover your lost work after server timeouts, network issues, browser crashes, power failures, and all the other things that can go wrong while you're entering forms, editing content, writing web-mail, etc, etc, etc...

Lazarus works on ordinary web forms, WYSIWYG editors, and even AJAXified comment boxes, and will save you from pretty much any given server, browser, or connection problems that might otherwise cause you to lose your work, or that really pithy blog comment you struggled on for over an hour.

Lazarus now comes with 2048-bit RSA and 256-bit AES hybrid encryption, so your form history is more private and secure than ever! Lazarus also includes search functionality so you can recover text even if you can no longer find the original form you entered it into.

Never lose anything you type into a web form again! Lazarus securely auto-saves all forms as you type, so after a crash, server timeout, or whatever, you can go back to the form, right click, "recover form", and breathe a sigh of relief.

I think this Add-On is a real life-saver!
Ron.

Crowdrise: Social Networking Site For Fund Raising & Advocacy

Somewhere in us all exists a desire to push advocacy and help those in need. Crowdrise was created to help people wanting to help other people. It is a "charity- social-networking" website that lets users send donations online for various fund-raising activities and advocacy... or create his/her own advocacy program.

Once you sign up for a Crowdwise account, you can either start a fund-raising campaign, volunteer for a project, or get sponsors for your volunteer projects. You can choose whether you just want to donate money or be part of the volunteering team. You can also set up as many fund raising campaigns and volunteer projects that you want.

There is, however, a transaction fee once you donate to the project or charity you set up. Crowdrise deducts 5% on donations made through their site and a $1 transaction fee for donations under $25 or a $2.50 transaction fee for donations $25 and above. That rather sucks, but the web-site is a business and charges a fee to organize.

Crowdrise not only aims to help volunteers and fundraisers but is also a fun way for people who share the same passion of helping people in need to bond, interact, share stories, share visions, and be friends with.

Features:

* Easy search engine for the charities or foundations you may want to be part of.
* Users can win amazing prizes as long as they incur many points.
* Donations are secured since the Crowdrise uses Amazon Payments.
* Easy user-interface; adding friends, uploading photos and videos are easy.
* Transaction fee applies.
* Share your project.
* Team fund-raising esprit de-corps!

Good luck,

Ron.

Point Browser To: http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/warbyparkercom-try-on-glasses-digitally/

Trying on glasses can be a pain. Not every frame and shape works on every face, so the process consists mostly of guessing and testing. How your face is shaped can determine a lot of this, so buying glasses online is a bad idea.

Or is it? If you'd rather get an idea of the sorts of frames that work with your face without spending time in a store, check out Warby Parker's online showroom. Here you can not only browse an online store full of different sorts of glasses, but also upload a picture of yourself to try on glasses digitally.

The idea simply is that you'll like what you see and purchase glasses from Warby Parker, but you're by no means obligated to. If you just want to see if certain shapes look good on your face you're welcome to; there's no registration process for doing so.

There are only 46 glasses to choose from at this time, but it's still a great way to get a feel for the sorts of glasses that could work for you.

Have fun with it.
Ron

Semantic search is concerned with the exact meaning of a search term, its definition and the search context. Search engines based on semantic search algorithms are thus better at eliminating irrelevant results.

Try "Complete Planet" for some tougher searches. See if you don't find your results less confused, more specific.

You really have to have your "kid-within" available for the web site. Google Fight was available as a Google widget, some time ago. It's basically two fields in which you can type... ANYTHING, person, place, or object. You then click "Fight" and Google will tell you what won.

The results are based on Google repetition and other sophisticated algorithms. But who care? Google Fight is now it's own web site. You can search the results as an adjunct to the essential FIGHT.

Examples of fights: panasonic vs sony
Books vs television
Males vs females
Bottled water vs american cars

Searches can be virtually anything. When bored... it's another option. Then there are the specific fights: BP Oil vs Earth.

Happy Fighting!
Ron

We've all been there. You're interested in a website or a download, but the site wants your email address before letting you near the goods. You want access, but you're not quite sure you want it enough to hand over the information.

The site asks you to supply an email address, and follow up with confirmation, and perhaps a login and password. It's hard to avoid the process or any of the steps, but the part that really annoys me is the need to supply my email address to yet another unknown party.

But what if you could instead supply a temporary email address that was forwarded to your own? And then define either a maximum number of emails to forward, or a maximum period of time for which that would happen? This would stop you from receiving spam email to your regular email account. That's what "tempalias" will do - and do it very nicely.

A word of caution though. Remember that the whole reason you would go through this is that you don't want to supply your email address to someone you might not trust. You need to be comfortable tempalias is a safe place to hand over that address. I'm relaxed about it, but you should always make your own decisions on security, and not just take my word. Tempalias has more so say about the subject.

Remember also that if it turns out that you want to have an ongoing relationship with the website then you will need to return and sign up with your real email address. Tempalias has commitment issues, and won't phone you back the next day, or at least not the next month.

"If something of yours is damaged, repairing it yourself is the best way to learn more about the damage and to prevent it from happening in the future. But on the flip side, repairing something by yourself is not advisable might inflict even more damage. A great repair-it-yourself website is iFixit".