Friday

Welcome to Free For Today!

Free For Today is your chance to give yourself a present every day.

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Meet Sam, Our Quality Control Guy

This is Sam. He runs our quality control division. He calculates the value you receive on everything we recommend. He takes his job very seriously, so you know we will always find you terrific products and services.

Here are some of the letters our subscribers have sent to Sam:

"Dear Sam, Free For Today is like a present to myself. Each day before I start work I take a quick look to see today's gift."

"Sam, I just want you to know that Free For Today makes a real difference in how I start my day. Now, I have something fun to look forward to right after I turn on my computer."

"Sam, I can't thank you enough. Free For Today is unbelievable! I am in business for myself, and Free For Today has saved me thousands of dollars. I would have paid for services that were not as good as the valuable, free services you recommended."

"Dear Sam, I am a freelancer so I don't like to spend money on Internet services that I will only use on one job. All of the powerful, free resources you suggested have really increased my income: Now I spend less but accomplish more with the resources you recommend."

Everyone else on our staff wants to know why Sam gets all the credit.


Thursday

Free: World's Best Video Phone Calls & Video E-mail

SiteSpeed: Easy-To-Use Free Video Phone Calls and E-mails.

Good morning. It's Sam again. In case you have forgotten, I am in charge of quality control here at Free For Today, and I am so cynical that a product has to be really good for me to recommend it. You may remember this is my favorite picture. It's me counting all of the money I am saving subscribers.

Yesterday, subscribers wrote the "boss" that they trusted the advice in my last post. I think because I am such a cranky, demanding guy. So, it looks like I am going to be writing more posts.


One of my favorite services is
SightSpeed. You see a few years ago my sister Marge moved out West, and we don't get to visit her too often. Now, we use SightSpeed to stay in touch.



I learned about SightSpeed one day in our offices. I was walking through the big open work area at Free For Today planning to count some more money, when I couldn't believe my eyes. One of our young computer geniuses was using his computer as a video phone. The sound was clear and the picture was smooth.

He was using SightSpeed and it is 100% free. I discovered SightSpeed is a PC Magazine Editor's Choice, and was named by PC World as one of the best 25 products of 2007. It seems to me that if these two magazines agree that a service is really good, it probably is really good.




I installed SightSpeed and I was so pleased with the service I even smiled. I called my sister Marge and she started using the service with me. In just a few minutes, Marge and I were having our own video and audio phone call, and best of all there were no charges for the SightSpeed service or for the calls. It was all Free!

Now, I talk to Marge by video phone all the time. Sometimes I feel like she is right in the room with me, instead of thousands of miles away.

By the way, when I say SightSpeed is easy-to-use I mean it is really easy-to-use. Marge is my older sister and she is getting on in years. She won't use anything that does not work with the simple press of a button. But, she downloaded the SightSpeed software, installed it, and started using the service in less than a minute. I was impressed, and you know it takes an awful lot for me to be impressed.

Marge uses a Macintosh while I use a PC. There's a version of SightSpeed that works with each of our systems.

The son of one of Marge's friends has young kids and travels a lot for business. One day when Marge and her friend were sharing a cup of tea, Marge started telling her about our video phone calls. Later that same day, Marge's friend told her son about the service. Now, he uses SightSpeed to call home every night. It's a better way of saying "good night" to the kids.

To make free video calls, you and the person you are calling both need to install
SightSpeed . But, since the service is free and simple to set-up, it's easy to ask your friends to get it.

After Marge and I started taking regularly by video phone, she did something really funny. She started looking at SightSpeed's other capabilities and discovered she could send me a singing video e-mail for my birthday. What's funny is that Marge can't carry a tune when she sings. My wife and I just could not stop chuckling as we watched the video e-mail of Marge singing happy birthday to me over and over again.

Marge said it was really simple to create a video e-mail and she was right. Now, I regularly send SightSpeed video e-mails to all my friends.

I also send video e-mails to suppliers when I am unhappy with their work. For a cranky guy like me, video e-mails are also a great way to let people know that they have made you grumpy.








Free Set and Forget Backup: Recommended by the Wall Street Journal


Mozy: Free, Automatic Secure Online Backup

Hi this is Sam. Here's my picture. I am in charge of quality control here at Free For Today. You can see me counting all the money I save our subscribers. Sometimes the "boss" also let's me write recommendations like this one.

I don't understand all of the fancy phrases you hear today, but I do understand good old fashioned value, which is why I wanted to write about Mozy today.

Now, as I have gotten older I admit I have become cynical. Can you imagine how many times I have heard people offer me something for nothing? I bet that I have heard the words "what have you got to lose?" at least 64,756 times. But, I think that's what makes me good at this job. I am so cynical that a product really has to be good in order for me to suggest it to you subscribers.



Most people think I don't like to have fun. But they are wrong. Why I remember the time my wife Amy and I spent almost two whole hours sharing one strawberry milk shake on a Saturday night at the local diner. But, that's another story...

Every few weeks one of the bright young people that work here comes running into my office, his or her face puffy with tears, telling me that their computer has died, and they have lost all kinds of stuff that I barely understand. Of course, as far as I know, "twitter" is what my wife and her friends do at a social gathering.

Now, I ask these suffering youngsters why they don't have an off-site backup program installed on their computers. They usually tell me that they back-up all of their important stuff and it's too much trouble to back-up everything. Or, they look kind of foolish and say "I always meant to, but somehow I never got around to it." So, I ask them to name all of the things they have lost and it's a pretty long list. It's amazing to me how much stuff that is critical to their everyday lives these young people keep on one super-vulnerable computer.

After I hand my crying friends a few tissues, I tell them what they should do from now on.

There's a backup service called Mozy, that I like to call my "set and forget" friend. It's incredibly easy to set-up and once you turn it on, it automatically backs up everything on your computer. You never have to worry about back-up again. Mozy now works with both PC's and Mac's.

With Mozy installed, you can use your computer every day, add things, change things, download files, write important documents, and never worry because in the background my friend Mozy is always working -- sending a private, secure version of your computer files to a super reliable offsite facility. I bet they have plenty redundant backup systems too. The service keeps your information private by using fancy stuff I don't understand like 448-bit Blowfish encryption and 128-bit SSL encryption. Just like in the spy movies on TV.

Naturally, I read The Wall Street Journal from cover to cover every day. So, when Walt Mossberg at The Wall Street Journal, who is probably the nation's leading technology reviewer went looking for the best backup program, he concluded that Mozy was his top choice: That's good enough for me!

Mozy also received the PC Magazine Editor's Choice Award, plus lot's of other great reviews from "important people."

Now, here's where it gets really exciting. Mozy is available for free. I could not believe it. I still don't understand why anyone would give away something this good for nothing. I have always said Internet business ideas just don't make sense to an old fashioned person like me.

The free version of Mozy is exactly the same as the paid version. And, you can use it as long as you like. Yes, if you need to store more than two Gigabytes of information (which is an awful lot) you will have to start paying a fee. But, that's your choice...and it probably means you like the service a whole lot.

So, if you don't want to come running into my office all puffy faced,and teary eyed, I suggest you install Mozy right now.

Installing Mozy only takes a few minutes and the worst thing you can do is say I will do it later. Then, I guarantee you never will. If you wait, I am willing to bet my pension you will end up just like all the other sad faces I see every day. If I have learned anything in my long life it's to do something easy when you are thinking about it-- which is right now.

By the way, I hear some of these so-called productivity gurus charge a fortune for this old-fashioned do-it-now wisdom I just gave you for free. Hmm... I better talk to the "boss." I'm not sure I am allowed to give free advice (which I think is pretty valuable) plus valuable free product recommendations.