innovative business solutions & creative ideas

In my opinion, one of the most important skills a student can learn before graduation is typing.  Just about every profession they might go into will require some level of typing skill. But what if you somehow missed that class?  What if your typing speed is below par?  Fear not, the Web has numerous ways to help – and they are all FREE.
Let’s start a the beginning.  If you never learned to type at all, you need to understand the basics.  Check out the downloadable “Bruce’s Unusual Typing Wizard.” It will show you proper hand placement as well as give you the skills to start correctly.  It is remarkably fast.
Once you know the basics, it’s time to hone your skills.  That’s where the fun comes in.  Here are my favorite speed-building typing games:

• QWERTY Warriors – For those of you that like shoot-em-ups, this typing game is for you.  Type the words underneath your enemies and hit ENTER to kill them.
• Typer Shark – Although the graphics are not as good as some of the other tpying games listed, for some reason, this site is my favorite.  I keep finding myself going back to this one.  Similar to QWERTY Warriors, you shoot advancing enemies by typing words.
• AlphAttack – The graphics are much better on this game and it puts you in more of a Missile Command defensive posture.
• Other Excellent Typing Games: Axis of Evil, Baracuda, Typing Master,and FreeTypingGame.net.

So, what if you could combine the faces of two celebrities into one?  What would they look like?  Find out at my site of the week, Morph Thing.  You can also load your own pictures and create some great, and sometimes scary combinations of your friends.  This is a great way to see what your future children would look like if you married this person or that person.  Check it out morphthing.com.

No doubt you’ve been to some of my favorite online video sites like YouTube and Hulu. But what if you want to go beyond simply viewing what everyone else is doing?  Read on…

• Posting your own videos is very easy in YouTube.  You simply set up a free account, shoot your video in digital format and upload.  Easy.  What most people don’t know is that YouTube videos cannot be longer than 10 minutes.  So, what if you want to upload something a bit longer?  Head to one of my favorite sites, Vimeo.  While you aren’t limited in the size of your video, you are restricted on how much you can upload at a time, at least in the free account.
• Viewing YouTube videos is fairly easy, but I’ve found an interface I like much better, iDesktop.tv.  You can see a bunch of videos in thumbnail format, which makes searching through the YouTube haystack much easier.  In addition, this site makes it much easier to download and save the videos for later viewing.
• The best video downloader, however, is YouTube Downloader HD. Not only can you grab any video from YouTube, this amazing program allows you to download and save videos and audio files from MySpace, Veoh, and Vimeo.
• To see some great stats on what people are viewing on YouTube, check out their highly configurable video analytics page.
• Not near a TV and need to see the news or that episode of Lost?  Search for it on Justin.tv.  This site is perfect when you absolutely, positively have to watch live TV now.

Sometimes I just get stressed out at work.  You know, everything suddenly hits at once.  When that happens to you, close your door, turn down the lights and go to my site of the week, Mood Turn.  The site is very simple.  Just beautiful  shots of nature and soothing music.  That’s it.  After five minutes, you’ll be calm, collected, and ready to take on the world.  You’ll definitely want to bookmark moodturn.com.

I speak to a number of schools and churches on the subject of Internet safety.  I’ve seen the statistics, I’ve done the research, so hear me when I say this:  I don’t care how good you think your kids are, you MUST have some sort of Internet filtering software on any computer they will be using.  Period.  Trust me, they or their friends will try something at some point and you need to make sure it gets stopped, and that you know it happened.

My favorite software to do this is K9 Web Protection.  It will automatically block any attempt for a computer to access an inappropriate site.  You, as the administrator can add other sites or unblock sites as needed.  K9 can even enforce the times during the day that the Internet can be accessed.  If you don’t want anyone accessing the Internet after 10 at night, it will do that.  And K9 is free.

Other kid-safe sites include Kidzui, ZuiTube, and TotLOL.  If you need a great whitelist for your kids’ computer, check out PikLuk.

When was the last time you created, or updated, your resume?  Chances are, you are a little rusty at what needs to go into it.  Let the Web help!  Online resume creation is simple if you know where to go!  My three favorite sites are:

• CeeVee – This site couldn’t be simpler.  You don’t have to enter your information in any certain order.  When done, you can print out an incredibly professional looking resume.
• Free Resume Creator – While not as polished as CeeVee, this site does give you a few more style options and does not require you to sign up to use it.
• Advice Resources CV Builder – This site is located in Europe, but don’t let that dissuade you from using the incredible resources.  Not only can you build a resume quickly, you can find a lot of help in WHAT to put in it.

Displaying a lot of numbers is tough.  How do you communicate meaning in all that mess?  With Charts of Course!  My site of the week, Lovely Charts, allows you to quickly and easily create organizational charts without having a copy of Excel on your computer.  From how your company is structured to laying out a complex process, this site is perfect…and free, but only at lovelycharts.com.

If you travel a lot, you know how useful audio books can be to speed up the trip. And while you can buy a number of audio books from iTunes or Audible.com, the fees can add up….Unless you visit my three sites of the week.  That’s right, this week I am giving you three for the price of one!  Before you shell out any money, check out Books Should Be Free, Audio Owl, and Librivox.  These sites have collected hundreds of out-of-copyright and public domain recordings for you to download and enjoy.  So, before you saddle up for that long trip, load your iPod or MP3 player with some great literature!