Emailing LARGE files (www.yousendit.com)

TIP OF THE DAY

Emailing LARGE files
(www.yousendit.com)

If have a file that's too big to send out by e-mail -- usually because the recipient's e-mail account won't allow file transfers over a certain size, try You Send It.  You can upload files up to 1 Gigabyte in size, and the recipient receives an e-mail directing them to the site to download the file. You can even send your file securely, if necessary.  Best of all?  The service is FREE.

Dirty secrets of airline credit cards

  TIP OF THE DAY

Dirty secrets of airline credit cards

Dirty secrets of airline credit cards
They may be costing you far more than you think, according to a credit card research firm.
September 23, 2004: 12:18 PM EDT
By Jeanne Sahadi, CNN/Money senior writer

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) -- So you carry a balance on your credit card but rationalize that at least you're getting free airline tickets for your spending efforts. Well, you may be an unwitting member of the Suckers Club.

CardWeb.com crunched some numbers on 11 major U.S. carriers who sponsor a credit card. The findings aren't pretty if you don't pay off your balance in full every month.

For starters, CardWeb found that while airline cards give you an average of 1.4 percent back on your purchases in the form of free miles, they also charge about 5.9 percent more in interest than non-rewards cards.

And don't forget to add the annual fee you'll pay for the privilege of paying more interest on that reward card. Most non-rewards cards don't carry annual fees.

Say, for example, you carry a $3,000 balance every month. Between interest charges and fees, you'd pay an average of $482 a year on an airline-sponsored miles-reward card, CardWeb found. That same balance on the best-priced, non-reward card would only cost you an average of $254 a year.

CardWeb tested one scenario to see how long it would take to earn a free round-trip coach ticket valued at $338 from the East Coast to San Francisco if you charged $1,000 a month. Answer: About 24 months.

Assuming you regularly carry a $3,000 balance on that card, and you're paying an average of $482 per year for two years, that's a total of $964 in interest and fees in exchange for that $338 ticket.

By contrast, if instead you carried that $3,000 balance on the average best-priced non-rewards card, you'd pay $254 a year for two years, bringing your total to $508, plus the $338 price for the ticket. Your entire outlay: $846, or $118 less than if you'd used the miles-reward card.

So in effect, that "free" airline ticket is actually costing $118 more than if you just used the best-priced no-frills card and bought the ticket yourself.

Of the 11 cards CardWeb analyzed, only three (America West, Frontier, and Southwest) would have saved you money compared with the cost of using a non-rewards card from the same issuer and buying a roundtrip ticket on your own.

How much money? Between $13 and $91.

Airline-sponsored rewards cards, which make up the majority of the market in miles-rewards programs, can be great deals for some cardholders. Those who pay their balance off in full every month, charge a lot and fly the same airline frequently can make out well.

But CardWeb points out that anyone using these programs -- whether carrying a balance or not -- should be aware of three potential pitfalls:

• Some programs limit the number of free miles you can earn in a year;
• Getting a free seat can be tough since airlines set increasingly tight restrictions on the use of miles; and
• The programs can be cancelled with very little notice. Make sure you'll use what you accrue sooner rather than later.

Student & Teacher Edition of Microsoft Office

TIP OF THE DAY

Student & Teacher Edition of Microsoft Office

EXCERPTED FROM Woody's World of Windows:

1. THE 'STUDENT AND TEACHER EDITION' OPPORTUNITY

One of the cute marketing tricks of recent years has been Microsoft's bundling of some Office components into a 'Student and Teacher' edition. 
The Student and Teacher edition of Office 2003 for Windows  is available in most retail stores and from reputable online stores.  It contains the standard versions of Word 2003, Excel 2003, Powerpoint 2003 and Outlook 2003 - which is the same as the 'Standard Edition' of Office 2003.  It's a similar story with Office 2004 for the Macintosh.

The difference isn't the software - it's the license and price.

2. PRICING
Windows: the Standard edition of Office 2003 retails for US$399 while the upgrade pack is $239.  The same software in the Student and Teacher box is only US$149.

Mac:  the Standard edition of Office 2004 for the Mac retails for $399 while the upgrade pack for previous Office users is $239.  The Student and Teacher edition is only $149.

Throughout we'll give US retail prices - though usually you can obtain a cheaper price, especially online.    See our online shops for the USA  http://shop.woodyswatch.com

Similar price differences apply in other countries that have Student and Teacher editions including the UK and Australia.  Check you local Microsoft web site to see if this special bundle is available in your location.

3. LICENSE
The Student and Teacher edition is for "non-commercial (non-revenue generating) use" and you can install it on up to three computers in a household.

That is different from the standard license that allows installation on one computer only plus a "second, portable device for the exclusive use of the primary user".  In other words the standard Office license is for use by one person only on a desktop or portable computer.

We believe that the Student and Teacher Edition does NOT qualify for future upgrades - though we can't see anything that explicitly says that in the current Microsoft documentation.

4. WHO CAN OFFICIALLY BUY IT?
According to the end user license the user has to be a "Qualified Educational User" or in the household of a "Qualified Educational User" - strangely that term isn't defined in the EULA directly.  Instead it refers to "Qualified Educational-User Criteria' set forth on the product packaging for this Software at the time of installation."

And on the box that we have it says:

"Qualifying Criteria
- Full or part-time student
- Home schooled student
- Full or part-time faculty or staff of an accredited educational institution
- Member of a household meeting any of the above criteria
Noncommerical use only "

There's more on the rules on the Microsoft web site http://www.microsoft.com/office/editions/prodinfo/students/doyouqualify.mspx .

Interestingly that site says you are eligible to use the product after the qualified educational user no longer qualifies.  In other words you have to be an educational user at the time of purchase but your license doesn't expire if you stop your formal education.

5. WHO REALLY BUYS IT
In the last section we tell you the legal details of the Student and Teacher license - but here's what really happens ...

Anyone who wants it, buys it.

That's right - there's no check made that there is a 'qualified educational user' in the household.

In retail stores the salesperson may ask if you're a student, but that's only because they are on commission and will want to sell you the more expensive version of Office if they can.  You can grab the Student and Teacher Edition off the shelf and take it to the cashier without any questions asked or purchase it online also with no questions asked.

The Product Activation system can control the installation on more than three computers - but there's no direct way to ensure that Office is being installed on computers in a single household.


6. WHY IS IT AVAILABLE?

According to Microsoft (as recently quoted in Wired magazine) - 'we trust our customers' but in practice the company must know that people are buying the package and installing it when not qualified.

The Student and Teacher Edition is often the best selling version of Office and that doesn't make sense if all the purchasers are truly qualified.  Microsoft is turning a blind eye because it suits them.

There's various theories as to why Microsoft released the Student and Teacher edition - the truth is probably a mixture of them.

The Student and Teacher edition lets Microsoft offer Office at a lower price and thus fend off the various small rivals - the idea is to stop any of these Office wannabes from getting a foothold in the market by having a lower price.  Sure, Office rivals cost less, but at US$150 Microsoft figures many people will pay a slightly higher price for the 'real' Office.

So why not just cut the price of Office across the board?  If Microsoft dropped the price of Office Standard then all the other bundles would have to become cheaper.  Worse still the volume license prices would drop.  Worse again, some large special license users (such as governments) often have a deal where they are charged the guaranteed lowest price - if a supplier were to sell at a lower price then the supplier has to refund the difference.

Microsoft Office is a great revenue stream for the company, and it wants to protect the overwhelming market share of Office and the income that it provides from volume licenses.

Student and Teacher Edition lets Microsoft effectively sell Office to retail users at a lower price while, with a straight face, purporting that Office retails to the general public for $250 more when dealing with their larger volume customers.

While that's legally true, the fact that Student and Teacher Edition is sold so widely and openly in general retail channels.   There's no real check of qualifications means in practice Office is being sold at a much lower price to the general public.


7. WHAT STUDENT AND TEACHER EDITION IS NOT.

The Student and Teacher edition of Microsoft Office 2004 is:

- Not the academic edition.  That's a separate and more closely monitored license arrangements for educational institutions.  Usually only students can purchase academic license through approved vendors, generally connected to the college / university.  See http://www.microsoft.com/education/HowToBuy.aspx

- Not different software.  The license to use is different but the software you run is exactly the same as other bundles of Office.

URLInfo

TIP OF THE DAY

URLInfo

From Inter-alia:

URLinfo from FaganFinder is a terrific resource -- just plug in a URL, and you can instantly connect to all kinds of information about that site -- general registration information, related sites, cached pages, and much more. This is definitely a tool to keep around if you need to research a website.

Chris Sherman has a review over at SearchDay.

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About URL

By Chris Sherman, Associate Editor
August 24, 2004

A new tool from search craftsman Michael Fagan uncovers a hidden wealth of information about virtually any web page.

The unassumingly named URLinfo reminds me of those Ginsu knife ads: It slices, it dices, it translates... It's an investigative tool that performs dozens of useful operations that help you get scads of information related to a particular web page.

URLInfo's deceptively simple tabbed interface actually provides links to more than 85 tools. To use it, type a URL into the form on the page, and then click one of the ten tabs at the top of the page. These tabs describe functions: General, links, similar, cache, search, blogs/feeds, translate, track, develop and misc. Under each tab is a set of links related to its general function.

The General tab performs look-up functions about the URL. There are links to a couple of Whois services, Alexa, social bookmarking/caching services such as Furl, Stumble Upon, and others.

The links tab checks backlinks to a page from Google, Yahoo and others. The similar tab finds related pages from Google, UC More, and others. Cache, as you might expect, provides links to copies of the page stored at the various search engines and other sites that save cached pages.

Just about all of the functions offered by URLinfo are self-explanatory. If you don't know what a link does, simply click on it and watch what happens. You'll likely discover a useful tool that you haven't hear about before.

The translate tab is particularly useful. It's a "meta-translator" that uses several online translation services, automatically matching the translation you want with a tool that can handle it.

There are some fun tools included, as well. The word popularity colorizer highlights words on the page, changing font sizes to indicate how commonly used the words are. Textalyser performs detailed statistical analysis of the page, including word count, sentence length, and keyword density.

Trying to read a page that requires a user name and password to log in? Cut and paste the URL into URLinfo, click the Misc tab and the BugMeNot link, and more often than not you'll get the keys you need to unlock the story.

These are just a few of the features offered by this terrifically useful utility, part of the ever expanding tool set at Faganfinder.com.

Scare-ware

TIP OF THE DAY

Scare-ware

I keep getting warnings when I'm online that my computer is infected with spyware and that I should download a free program to fix it. Are these warnings real?

Ken Colburn of Data Doctors answers:

An unfortunate reality of today's Internet experience is that just by casually surfing the Net, you can pick up numerous pests commonly referred to as Adware and Spyware. Think of it as the inevitable grime that is picked up on your vehicle just by driving it around. Virtually every computer that spends any time at all on the Internet will come in contact with these hidden programs that exist purely to pester us with advertising by tracking what we do when we surf.

By harvesting the surfing habits of millions of users, companies can sell access to 'targeted' groups (surfers that tend to visit clothing or car sites, etc.) to the annoying advertisers that are looking for a very small response rate to make it all worthwhile. Between all of the in-your-face pop-up ads, vulnerabilities in just about every Internet enabled software program, and hidden programs within other programs, it has become a major task to combat this latest blight of online life.

The 'warnings' that you are referring to are nothing more than an aggressive advertising campaign to try to scare you into buying a product (a.k.a. 'Scare-ware').

There are no programs currently available that can actually check your computer for Adware and Spyware through a pop-up window, and even if they could, I would not trust them. The majority of anti-spyware programs are actually very questionable in their tactics to get you to buy. Many of them make it look like they are scanning your system and come up with concocted results to make you think that you are infected, because they know that virtually everyone online has some form of Adware or Spyware in their system.

A Web site known as Spyware Warrior currently lists 96 different spyware removal programs that are of questionable nature because of false-positives, poor results, or deceptive advertising. Some are actually spyware programs in disguise! These rogue programs will go as far as offering a free download that will scan your system, but will not clean it out unless you pay. To make things worse, they may even require you to buy a subscription to their service in order to uninstall the program, even though it did nothing for you.

In general, the best anti-spyware tools are free and have gained popularity through word of mouth, not pop-up ads. The two that I always recommend are Ad-aware Personal Edition and Spybot Search and Destroy. Both of these programs have gained such an audience that they are constantly being knocked off at hundreds of Web sites that push inferior programs.

Only download these programs from the links that I have listed above or you can always check the Data Doctors Web site for a list of all of the programs that we have tested and recommend for fighting Spyware, pop-ups, spam or any of the today's most common nuisances.