Using free web tools is a cost-effective and easy way to improve your academic productivity. Well-designed apps can also replace costly software products and free up computer space. These are 14 web tools that could prove useful to nearly all college students:

1. Posti.ca (http://www.posti.ca/) Students who often use sticky notes will certainly enjoy using Posti.ca. It can be used to make and place digital notes in the web that can be opened from any computers and any locations. Those notes can also be sent from iGoogle and Twitter and may be shared with everyone including those who don’t have a Posti.ca account.
2. Adobe Buzzword (http://www.adobe.com/acom/buzzword/) It is a free online word processor that works in major web browsers. It can be used to create and edit documents, track changes on a project from anywhere and collaborate with others.
3. Creative Pro Office (http://www.creativeprooffice.com/) It is a free online office management app. Features include a project manager, office dashboard, calendar, time tracker, and expense monitoring. Creative Pro Office was developed for small tech teams and independent professionals, but it could also be useful to any student who needs to boost productivity.
4. Whiteboard (http://writeboard.com/) With this free web application, students can collaborate on projects and documents from anywhere and make changes in a snap. It allows users to write, compare, and collaborate in real time without the worry of losing their works.
5. Bubble.us (http://bubbl.us/) It allows students to turn thoughts into a color-coded mind map and it’s also perfect for visual brainstorming.
6. PromoOnline (https://online.primopdf.com/Default.aspx) It is a free and easy way to make PDF documents without having to buy and install software. With just a couple of simple steps, you can generate a PDF version out of any file.
7. BibMe (http://www.bibme.org/) An online bibliography maker for those who want to make a bibliography quickly or works cited page in APA, MLA, Turabian, or Chicago format. You can enter the necessary information or use a search feature to find articles, books, websites, or video clips.
8. ThinkFold (http://www.thinkfold.com/) Students looking for a simple way to work at group projects should find what they want in ThinkFold. This free online tool allows students to create documents, make changes and add images – all in real time.
9. Awesome Highlighter (http://www.awesomehighlighter.com/) It takes some of the mental confusion out of online research by giving students a chance to highlight the important sections of a web page and convert it into a more manageable link.
10. FlashcardExchange (http://www.mindpicnic.com/) Simply the world’s largest web-based flashcard library, students can create and use flashcards online. If they don’t have enough time to make their own flashcards, it is possible to study ready-made cards made by other people.
11. Mindpicnic (http://www.mindpicnic.com/) It is an online learning software. Users can choose many Mindpicnic courses and begin studying as soon as they create a free account.
12. NoteMesh (http://notemesh.com/?a=home) Developed by students, it is a free web service for students who need to collaborate on a collection of notes in a certain class. NoteMesh makes a simple wiki that can easily be updated by all group members.
13. CollegeRuled (http://collegeruled.com/) It can be used to make to-do lists, classroom message boards, a color-coded class schedule and much more. Those schedules can be linked to or from Facebook profiles and opened from any computers.
14. NetVibes (http://www.netvibes.com/#General) It is a handy tool that gathers all of your favorite email accounts, blogs, video providers, social networks, and more to a single place, perfect for students who use the same sites regularly.

Do you already use any of these online tools? If it’s the case, feel free to share your experience with us

Google was nicknamed BackRub

Like most booming internet companies, Google had an interesting upbringing, which was marked by a lowly beginning. It started out as a purely scientific research project by two young Ph.D. students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. According to an official documentation, Brin and Page argued on every single subject they discussed. These incessant arguments, however, may have been what actually spurred the duo to reconsider web-searching and create a novel strategy for websites ranking based on backlinks, and not determined by how many times a certain search term is shown on a given site, as was the norm.

Due to the unique approach, Page and Brin planned to name the new search engine, BackRub. Fortunately, in 1998, Brin and Page decided to drop the sexually suggestive name, and came up with a now famous global brand ‘Google’, a word originating from a typical misspelling of “googol,” a word which refers to 10100.

Google scans our e-mails

Nothing in this life is perfect – or without even the slightest controversy – and with Google, it isn’t an exception. Google scans our Gmail e-mails through a process known as content extraction. All outgoing and incoming e-mails are scanned for certain keywords which will allow more accurate advertising. The technique has brewed quite a hail of controversy.

Google Street is also accused as a breach of personal privacy. The service offers high-resolution street-view images from around the globe and has, on many occasions, caught poor individuals committing questionable acts. Similarly, Google Earth has continuously come under fire from a few governments about the security risks it poses.

Google spends $70 million annually on employee meals

Seventy million dollars each year – that works out to about $7,300 per employee. While the actual details vary depending on your location, employees at Google’s California HQ, aptly entitled as the Googleplex, may get two free meals each day from eleven different gourmet cafeterias. As if that weren’t enough, the office has a few snack bars that are cram full of healthy and tasty morsels to munch on.

But, what if their cars are in a bit of a rut? Easy; Google offers on-site oil changes and car washes. The list of perks for working with Google is never-ending, making it obvious why it’s considered the best place to work, offering: on-the-spot massage therapists, full athletic facilities, haircuts, language classes, day cares, drop-off dry cleaning,  and a clinic just to name a few.

Google loses more than $100 million each year through “I’m Feeling Lucky”

There is not much to see when you open Google’s main search page, and maybe simplicity is one of the factors to Google’s success. When using Google, you are given a couple of options: a normal Search or a supposedly handy “I’m Feeling Lucky” button. By clicking the former, you’re given that typical list of search results; but if you click the latter, however, you’re automatically redirected to the #1 web site on a specific search result, bypassing Google’s search engines results page.

Other than the fun factor, the driving idea behind this feature is to give the users instant access to the actual information they are looking for, and hopefully save them time that would usually be spent perusing endless pages of search results. Sounds handy and harmless enough, right? Not really. Because it bypasses all text advertising and it is believed that Google loses more than $100 million each year in advertising-generated revenues.

1. Administration of underlying OS: Relevant only for software-based solutions. Whether when using Windows or UNIX, someone will need to spend some time updating the operating system: making configuration changes, installing patches from time to time, and tracking resource performance and consumption.
2. Enterprise policy administration: When using centralized spam blockers, whether it is a software-, appliance-, or ASP-based system, will require certain amount of organization-level administration, including quarantine management and white-list management for adjusting the degree of filtering, should too few or too many messages are tagged as spam.
3. Performance upgrades monitoring: As the company and/or the e-mail capacity grows, someone has to watch resource utilizations over time so that an upgrade to network capacity and server hardware can yield better results
4. Automatic algorithm and signature updates: In order to stay completely effective, an anti-spam solution must have the most recent rules (ways to determine whether an e-mail is spam or not) and signatures (characteristics of all known spam messages). Spam filters do this by periodically downloading and installing updates from the spam filter’s website. Someone must watch this diligently to make sure that the updates work properly.

Global warming still remains a debated topic in the scientific community and the politicians who claim that there isn’t enough proof to support the validity of global warming due to unregulated anthropogenic activities. Then there is another section of scientists who claim to be sure about the phenomenon and the consequences of global warming. This bunch of scientist has changed the world around by numerous summits and conferences and has come up with protocols which are now being reframed to accommodate developed nations. Like it or not, as on today global warming is an official threat.

Everyone has to do their bit including people like you and me. Global warming has definitely stirred up many delayed and better said ignored scientific developments like bio diesel, harnessing solar energy, wind power and geo-thermal energy. These alternate energy solutions can slowly replace the conventional energy programs and are being endorsed by most governments across the globe as they are cleaner and eco-friendly technologies.

Promoting green means of upgrading living standards have bought about positive changes such as compressed natural gas (CNG) in cars and thereby replacing petrol; since CNG is a cleaner fuel that emits few or no green house gases (GHGs). Products such as CFL bulbs and T5 tube lights are slowly replacing traditional incandescent bulbs and fluorescent tube lights respectively. LED bulbs are also quickly catching up as they emit lower GHGs and are also energy efficient.

Every industry and sector is required to meet targets to reduce GHG emissions or simply pay for it. Opting for greener and cleaner technologies is the new age mantra. Promoting products that fall in this category can be a decent business option even during an economic slowdown.

Solar panels and wind turbines and several such products are considered as promotional items of go green revolution. This is almost like a cult phenomena taking over the world slowly. Many can find lucrative career options in the field of environment as well. Research, education, law, economics and management re few aspects of environment; anybody participating in this field would do well not only for themselves but the whole world. Just look at the big picture that you could be a part of as well.

Wall papers have been around for decades now, but they have taken on a better form as on today. You can take pictures of your choice and share them with the interior designer or a vendor you trust who would be able to develop it into scenery on your favorite wall and there you have your personal touch that would eventually help you bond emotionally to the place.

Posters and banners have found their way into our homes and offices as well as on today. Many have got pictures of wedding and birthdays developed into posters and placed them on walls and doors like in earlier days people used to place paintings and at collectibles. It is almost like having a memory on the wall.

It has become cost effective and far easier to give that look which you have aspired all these years on your own terms. Most offices use posters and custom made tripod stands with giant images placed on them to attract attention of employees and other people who constantly visit the work station. Posters have a limited life span and are subject to change all the time which makes it all the more important to opt for this means of interior enhancement as one can change as per their requirement, taste and budget.

There were other unexpected things in my trip too, some of them are cool and exciting like when i discovred the beauty of the unknown places that I visited and others are just shocking and not really cool for instance when I fall sick for more than 5 days, it was horrible! Anyway, the experience was very good for me and I learnt a lot of new things like how to camp in the desert ( a real arabian desert ) and how to stick to ”and manage” a budget. I enjoyed my time too especially at the beach part, It was beautiful.

Here are some pics of my unexpected trip:

I’m glad that I’m back safe (lol) to do something that I love, I’m back to the blogging business! Please forgive the lack of posting and welcome back everyone

Here are tips on how to get the maximum value of your money: 

1. Keep track of the money you circulate. The best way to do this is by keeping a record, dividing the money that goes out under the following categories:

• Regular bills: These are for the rent, electricity, water, and so on..
• Debts: This is any money you use to pay off financial obligations.
• Special purchases: This is for anything that doesn’t appear as a regular item in your budget like a new cellphone, a gift, a medical emergency..
• Investments: Any money used to increase your net worth.
• Banking: Any money you put in the bank, for whatever purpose.
• Pleasure: This is money you exchange for good feelings like a movie you enjoyed, a dinner that was delicious, a long-distance call to a loved one abroad..

After seeing how much you usually spend in a month on each category, make an effort to cut down on some expenditures. You might vary and adjust the other categories, but it’s important for your sense of money as a source of personal pleasure to keep this one intact, and even let it expand when that feels right. If you use your creative imagination, you can play around with your budget and keeping track of your money will help you make the right alterations.

2. Trust your feelings when confronted by a spending decision. Inside you is a barometer that can help you decide whether or not something is right for you. If you just take the time to relax and pay attention, you’ll know at gut level whether or not you really want to do or buy something which will cost you. Check them out, by all means. Make certain you really feel you want to spend your money this way, that you really want what you’ll be getting in exchange for your money, then do it!

3. Never spend money without a sense of it as medium of exchange knowing fully well what you are getting in return. This doesn’t mean that you should make sure you get superior value for every penny you spend like some old miser, but this does mean that you should have a sense of the quality of whatever you’re buying. When you learn something new, have a sense of that money being exchanged for knowledge. When you buy food, have a sense of the money circulating and bringing you back pleasant taste sensations and physical nourishment. But if you spend money on an object that gives you no pleasure, performs no useful service, and stimulates no new ideas, then you can consider your money exchanged for a poor bargain.

Since there are around 150 social media sites, it can be a huge waste of time signing up for all of them. Signing up to each site will take approximately 5 minutes. If that number is multiplied by 150 sites, well… it’ll take a really long time! There are many programs that will fill out the information and join for you, but often they put the wrong information in the wrong fields. This will give you a presence on these social networking websites, but can also make you look like an idiot. Also, these tools may actually just scour these sites for your presence and open accounts in your name, but for themselves and not you.

With online name branding and social networking becoming more and more important, it’s a great idea to get what is called social networking identity protection. I stumbled upon a website the other day that really does the job. After ordering Social Media Identity Protection, real people got to work in getting my name up on 150 social networking websites. Not only did this get my presence all over the internet, but it brought me a little bit of traffic from each social networking site.

Now, Google does not disclose sales figures by division, so there is no definitive revenue number for YouTube. The range of estimates from financial analysts stretches from a low of $90 million (Bear Stearns) to a high of $240 million (Credit Suisse).

All the numbers are well below the estimated maximum of $753 million Google is spending annually, based on our calculations. So, depending on whose version of revenues you accept, Google is losing anywhere from $513 million to $663 million annually on YouTube, or anywhere from $1.4 million to as much as $1.65 million every day (see chart below).

Google is paying big cash to allow us to watch all those videos in exchange for ads that aren’t even coming close to cover the expenses. Big numbers.. All what I can say is “Wow…Great Job Google!” What do you think?

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