innovative business solutions & creative ideas

It won’t be long before you college students go back to school.  Buying textbooks can be very expensive, but not if you head to my site of the week, eCampus.  Here, you can buy, sell, or even rent textbooks.  The interface is dead simple.  Just enter the name, author, or even a keyword to see what books are available.  I wish this service had existed when I was at college.  Heck, I wish the Internet existed then.  Anyway, to save a bunch of money on textbooks, head to ecampus.com.

Who says they don’t make video games for Girls? My eight year old daughter was upset because all the games her brothers played were shoot-em-ups.  She asked me to find her some games more her style.  Well, I found it, and made it my site of the week: Girls Go Games.  This site has hundreds of games all geared to girls – shopping, makeup, ponies, you name it.  Check it out at girlsgogames.com.

The Smithsonian Institution is one of the largest museum organizations in the world.  What most people don’t know, however, is that millions of photographs have been stored online in the Smithsonian Images section.  Any of them can be downloaded freely for personal or educational use.  It’s an incredible archive and should be bookmarked by students and teachers.

One of the biggest questions I get on a day-to-day basis goes something like this:  “Eric, should I upgrade my old computer or buy a new one?”  Well, the answer is not as cut and dried as you might think.  But I will give you an answer.
First, how old IS your system?  My basic rule of thumb is that if a computer is four or five years old, just go get a new one.  If you upgrade a system that old, you are only delaying the inevitable replacement by a year or so.
You see, it’s not that computers 5 years old stop working.  It’s that they aren’t powerful enough to run the software built today.
If your computer is only a year or two old, then, sure, upgrade:  Get your RAM up to to 2 or 3 gigabytes.  Add a new hard drive.  And if you’re a gamer, get a faster graphics card and a larger monitor.  But remember my five year rule.
After all, if you just keep upgrading your old system, you’ll eventually end up with what we call a Frankenstein system.  And you know what happened to him!

Sometimes you just need to see what someone else is seeing.  And when working on a proposal, report, book, or any document with a bunch of people, it can get real confusing sending multiple versions around via email…Which brings me to my site of the week: Sync.in.  This site is drop dead easy.  It allows you and a group of people to work on the same document at the same time.  Did I mention it is free?  Check it out at sync.in.

You know, there’s been a lot of talk lately about how safe your personal information is on Facebook. How do you know that you set those complicated security settings correctly?  Well, visit my site of the week, Profile Watch to find out.  You simply put in the address of your profile page and it will tell you what information is available to everyone on the planet.  It even has a handy meter.  Check your privacy at profilewatch.org.

Ever just needed a place to put your stuff?  Want to share some files with friends but can’t email them because of their size?  Check out MediaFire.  They offer unlimited uploads, unlimited downloads, and unlimited storage for free.  At first, I didn’t believe them.  But after some more research, and testing on my own, I discovered they are legitimate and very useful.
You can even set up a “drop box” on a blog or website for your friends to upload their files to you.  To see more of their features, check out their video tutorial on their homepage.

Ever been sitting in front of Facebook or Twitter and wanted to post something but weren’t quite sure what to say?  Then, check out my site of the week, Generatus.  It will randomly give you a clever, funny quip to liven up your profile.  Your friends will think you are a comedic genius, but only at generatus.com.

I love playing with Photos.  My site of the week, Photofunia, allows you to take your ordinary, boring photos and jazz them up.  Put your face in the Mona Lisa.  Create your own motivational poster.  This site is amazing.  So take a great picture of yourself and head to photofunia.com.

Are you a garage sale hound?  Do you revel in the notion of finding hidden treasure in someone else’s collection?  Then, keep reading.  As most of you know, the rule of successful garage sale hunting is “being first.”  I’ve found some great Internet sites that will give you the jump on your competition.  Some of these sites simply help you plot an efficient route between all of the addresses.  Others give you a preview of the loot you will find.  So, before you jump in the car, check out these great Garage Sale links:

• Yard Sale Treasure Map – I love this site.  It collects all of the local garage sales from Craigslist and presents them in map form.  You can search the ads for specific items like “baby toys” or “furniture.”  Then, click the “Optimize Route” button to finish up.  What could be easier?
• Garage Sale Tracker – The feature that caused this site to be added to my favorites list is their iPhone app.  Imagine, having the perfect Garage Sale tool in the palm of your hand.  You can post your sale for free on this site, and it will even cross-post it to your Facebook Account if you want.
• GSALR – While not as polished as the other two, this site usually has the largest collection of sales.  You can even add addresses from the paper and have it optimize your route.