John Hesch

You’ve seen the ads and emails floating around the Internet about referring a few friends and receiving a free Ipod. Well, it’s true. I know several people who have actually received their Ipods in the mail.

Basically this is a marketing program where freeipods.com gets paid by how many people they can get to complete offer requests from companies such as Citibank, BMG, Blockbuster, etc. Apparently getting six people to complete these offers pays more then it costs to purchase Ipods as incentives.

I have completed my offer and need a few more people to sign-up and complete offers to receive my free Ipod. Here’s what you do.

First, open up a new email account at one of the free web based email services such as Hotmail, Yahoo or even Google’s Gmail. I’ll even send you an invite. You’re going to use this email address for signing up with the Free Ipods site. Now if you get a bunch of spam it’s no big deal.

Now go here and sign-up. Complete one offer. I signed up for the Columbia House DVD offer. There are some really easy ones like completing a credit card application. Some of the offers will allow you to sign up for a trial offer for $1. You can then cancel before your trial period ends.

Now go and get five people to do the same thing. Within a few months you will receive your free Ipod.

Ta-da List: Simple sharable to-do lists. I saw this a few days ago but forgot to mention it. Ta-Da List is a new service that lets you make simple, sharable to-do lists. You can keep them to yourself, share them with only specific people, or share them with the world.

Ta-da makes it easy to…

• Keep track of all the little things you need to get done
• Make lists for other people (co-workers, friends, family)
• Share lists with the world (“My favorite movies of 2004″)
• Subscribe to your lists in RSS so you’re always on track
• …and more!

Streamload gives users free 10GB of Storage with 100 MB of download bandwidth per month. Not bad for free. I may use this to backup my music files.

Simple tutorial on How to Backup DVDs.

I have been meaning to write about Bloglines, the most comprehensive, integrated service for searching, subscribing, publishing and sharing news feeds, blogs, and rich Web content but Josh Bancroft did an excellent job.

I tried importing my Bloglines OPML into Thunderbird to read my feeds but it was not nearly as convenient as Bloglines, and after a day or two I switched back. I agree with Josh, if a website does not offer an RSS syndication feed I don’t come back. My online time is valuable and tools like Bloglines and del.icio.us are what allows me to accomplish so much more.

ObjectGraph Dictionary is similar to Google Suggest but is a dictionary. ObjectGraph provides suggested words as you begin to type in the word you want to look up. Pretty cool especially if you don’t know the exact spelling of the word. There are two dictionaries being used; a regular dictionary and FOLDOC (Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing) with the regular dictionary set as the default.

The developer also explains exactly how the page was developed using XMLHttpRequest which was first implemented by Microsoft in Internet Explorer 5.

Congratulations to the Utes (12-0) for beating Pitt (8-4) in the Fiesta Bowl in Tempe Arizona tonight. Utah beat Pittsburgh 35-7.

Forbes 2005 Platinum 400 — America’s Best Big Companies.