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Best Free Online Software
Who says there is “no free lunch”? After Google launched a business model based on giving products for free and earning revenue on advertisement, more and more software are being created as web applications and given out for free. I have tried to list some of the best that are available online for free.
Free Radio
Even though there are so many existing music sites like AOL Radio or Yahoo Radio, I love Pandora. It is so simple to use, you mention the genre of music you like and it keeps playing songs in that genre. You can also provide feedback on a song so they do not play songs you do not like again. You can have several play lists on different genre.
With the launch of Pandora iPhone app, the popularity has sky rocketed recently.
Free TV
Enough has been written about Hulu and Joost. If you are asking me what are these? You have been missing out big time. The media networks NBC Universal, News Corp joined forces (since they were sick of people uploading their content in youtube) and built Hulu. Hulu brings together a large selection of videos from more than 130 content providers, including FOX, NBC Universal, MGM, Sony Pictures Television, Warner Bros. and more. Users can choose from more than 1000 current primetime TV hits such as The Simpsons, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, 24, House, Lie to Me…
It also brings to you movies not the latest release but classics and hits. Guess what all of them for free!
If you are one of those that complaints about the quality of video on the internet, you haven’t seen Hulu yet. The video quality is unbelievable. Another interesting fact is several TV manufactures are planning to include WiFi adaptors to the TV, so you can view internet TV directly from your 42 inch Plasma from your living room.
Hulu is also the fastest growing video site on the web (through ads). It has done what youtube is unable to do for Google (generate revenue). More networks are either flocking to Hulu (like Disney) or creating their own web TV.
Free To-do List
A to-do list is indispensable, be it in your office or at home. They help you remember thinks that you need to do. As a working professional it helps you remain organized.The advantage of having a to-do list online is it can be accessed from any where, provided you have internet.
Free diagram software
Sick of trying to draw a flowchart with MS Word or don’t want to pay for Visio, no problem use gliffy. You can draw simple flow charts to complex architectural floor plans, for free.
After you are done, export it to a jpg, png or svg (Vision file format).
Not to be left behind Autodesk the creator of Auto Desk has its own online version software that allows you to draw complex Architectural Floor Plans.
Free image processing tools
How many times have we wanted to tweak our photos a little before posting it online? Many of us give up since Photoshop, CorelDraw or Fireworks are so expensive and also we have to download a hug piece of software, install it. Who needs these software for just a tweak? Instead try picnik.com. It has so many features like changing gray scale or to sepia tone, making a funny face.
Free online file format converter
How about the need to convert files types without software? How about one tool converting more than 50 file formats into various other formats? Zamzar does it for you.
Register with zamzar, sign in, upload a file and give it a few minutes. They email you the converted file to your email id. Simple as that and for free.
Free Office Tools
Sometime there is no need for people to have the full Office installed. All we need to do is open a power point that your colleague emailed you. Few years ago, tough luck if you did not have Office installed. Not anymore companies like Google and Zoho provide an entire suite of office products all for free. Personally I live Zoho better since they have a much richer feature set. Zoho also offers a whole set of other products (yes, all free) where you can share these documents and collaborate.
Info: Zoho has a host of other free tools that might interest you. There are way too many I can write a separate hub about that.
Free Money Management Tools
It’s hard to monitor your money with 5 credit cards, 2 loans, 3 checking accounts, 1 CD, 1 savings and 1 investment account. The technically sound ones can use fancy colored excel templates, but for the others there is mint.com. An online (yeah yeah its free) web tool that automatically aggregates all transactions and beautifully reports it for you. I have drooled enough about mint here already.
Isn’t it wonderful you get so many powerful tools online for free? Is it just me or are you excited as much? Let me know, if they were useful or you know more free online tools please let me know.
