Let Pandora.com Help You Discover New Music That You'll Love

Type in the name of an artist or song, and Pandora will play songs it think you'll like. It's choices are based on the data gathered for the Music Genome Project, a six-year effort that is the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken.

Each time you typer in a new artist or song, you save it as a station. You can also share your stations with your friends. Pandora even tells you why it chose a particular song to play for you. And it has options to help you buy any of the songs you like from iTunes, or buy the whole album from Amazon.com. And with each song, you can tell Pandora whether you like it or not, so it can learn to make better choices for you.

It's all browser-based, so there's nothing to download. And of course, it's free (ad supported), although there are also paid options that get rid of the ads.

It's a bit like Yahoo! Music, which let you build your own customized station by rating songs, but while I liked the Yahoo! service, I eventually gave up on it -- it only worked in IE, and they ended up limiting the free service so much it wasn't worth bothering with.

Not only is it cool to find new music that I like, but it's fun to play around with it too, just to see what songs it'll play.

Make Money Online - Sell Your eBook at Amazon.com

Matt at Building a Second Income Stream has posted an article by Stephanie Chandler from BusinessInfoGuide.com about how you can write an e-book and sell it at Amazon.com, Powell's, Ebookmall and other online booksellers.

It's called (no surprise) How to Sell E-Books on Amazon.com and it explains the step-by-step process e-book authors need to follow, as well as the costs involved -- $250 total, $225 to get an ISBN (International Standard Book Number) and $25 to submit the e-book to LSI, the publisher that handles e-books for Amazon.com.

I have to admit I haven't given a huge amount of thought to the idea of writing an e-book, but after reading this, I'm tempted to give it a bit more consideration.

Bloglines - Free audio and video from LearnOutLoud

This is my first attempt to email a blog entry directly from Bloglines Blogger blog. I hope it works.

From a post at Lifehacker, I've discovered LearnOutLoad.com, a company that specializes in providing 'audio and video educational material for personal and professional development'. In other words, they've got audiobooks, MP3s, podcasts, and even DVD videos to help you fill 'dead time' (time spent commuting, exercising, doing chores, etc.) with a chance to learn something useful or interesting.

They've got over 9000 items in their online catalog, but the really cool part (and the part that explains why I'm posting about this at FreeCashSpace) is that over 750 of those products are absolutely FREE!

Watch a video presentation by Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com or by bestselling author Thomas Friedman. Or listen to Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay, 'Self Reliance' or to an audio version of Seth Godin's free ebook 'Knock Knock'.

There's a lot of great stuff here, and best of all, it's free.

Steve Rubel's Ten Bloglines Hacks

I've been using Bloglines as my RSS feed aggregator and reader for ages now, and thanks to Steve Rubel's list of hacks, I think it's safe to say I'll be using it more and better after I try a few of his suggestions.

If you don't know what an aggregator is, or you've never tried one, read about them at Wikipedia.

I have to admit, I'd never thought of using the 'blog by email' feature at Blogger to blog directly from Bloglines (and I'm not doing it now), but I think I might have to give that a try.

I also like the idea of being able to sync a desktop aggregator (or two or three) with Bloglines.

If you're a Bloglines user, or interested in becoming one (it's sooooo much easier keeping up with and reading a large number of blogs), read Steve's Ten Bloglines Hacks at MircoPersuasion.

Ten Sensible Tips for Web Startups (or any other business)

Evan Williams has posted a list of 10 tips for web startups, but as I read it, I realised that they're pretty good tips for starting just about any kind of business, online or offline.

Starting with the first tip, be narrow. Focus on the smallest problem you could solve that would be useful. It's OK to think big, but start small. I also like #4 -- be picky. Apply this to everything you do, even if it means passing up chances for easy money. I also like #6 -- be self-centered. Create a product or service that you want to exist, then use it. Make it better based on your desires. But never fall into the trap of thinking your wants and needs are the only ones that matter. And maybe my favorite tip of all is the last one -- be balanced. I've seen too many people fly high then crash and burn later. Balance is the key.

Good stuff from Evan. And really good stuff to keep in mind if you're starting up an online business.

Oh, for those who don't know who Evan Williams is and aren't sure if the guy really knows what he's talking about, he's a co-founder of Blogger and Odeo.

Save Money -- Linux on an Older Computer

I saw a post at Slashdot that led to an article at ASE Labs explaining how to breathe new life in an older computer by installing Linux. A great idea -- and possibly a HUGE money-saver!

If you've got an old desktop or laptop (something like a Pentium II 266 Mhz or so) sitting around doing nothing, why not install Linux on it and put it to use as a second (or third or fourth or fifth) computer? And if you don't have an older computer gathering dust, it might not cost much to get your hands on one. Some people even give them away!

My inlaws just gave us an old Pentium II 266 earlier this year. I plugged it in and it wouldn't even boot up, so it sat in the garage for 4 or 5 months. Then one day when my kids were bugging me wanting to play games on my (um, I mean the family) computer, after I reluctantly handed it over to them, I went out and started taking that old computer apart.

In the end, after reseting the BIOS (and overclocking it up to about 350 Mhz), replacing the CD-Rom with an old one I had in a box, and swapping the old 15-inch monitor for a 17-inch that was sitting around doing nothing, we had a computer just for the kids.

Most of their games play just fine -- a few are a little slow -- plus I combed the Net (and the free disks from my computer mags) for lots of great freeware games to keep them busy. They love it!

I've also got an old Toshiba laptop (a Pentium II 233 Mhz I think) that I bought on eBay for around $150. The battery doesn't hold a charge, but it's still good for word processing and such.

Both these machines run Windows 98 just fine, and the kids' computer will need to continue to do so becaue it's mostly for playing games. And the laptop will probably keep running Win98 as well since it's also got MS Office installed. But since the sale didn't include the disks for Windows or Office, if I ever have to wipe the hard drive, I'll more than likely install Linux and Open Office as replacements.

I've just checked on eBay.com, and there are plenty of good older laptops going for around US$100. In Australia, it'll probably cost more like AU$200. But with so many great FREE Linux applications, I think that's pretty good value.

17% of Americans Make Money Online

I just read an article at the PC World Techlog Blog about the Pew Research report that says that 17% of Americans have at some point sold something online. Link: Have You Sold Something Online?

According to Pew, not only have 17% (25 million people) sold something online, but 2% of Americans are selling something online at any given moment!

Both the article and the report are interesting reads, but I think the most interesting of all are the comments after the article. So many different stories, with people selling all sorts of stuff in different ways for different reasons. And I agree with those who said this trend is only going to continue to grow as it becomes easier and safer to buy and sell goods and services online.

My personal take on this, of course, is that everybody should be selling something online. Whether it's through eBay, a classified ad site, Craigslist or your own website, it's probably not as hard as you think.

My wife and I started on eBay, first just selling off stuff that had been sitting in our garage for way too long. Then we decided to open an eBay store and sell hand-made jewelry -- gotta plug it -- TheHappyFairy eBay Store. Now we're in the process of building our own ecommerce site and selling directly.

In addition to that, I've got this website going and working on another one, and when I get that one finished, I'll probably start on one or two more -- content-based sites that will include selling as an affiliate (like the Amazon.com Associate program, selling advertising space (like Google Adsense), or both.

Hopefully within the next year or two, we'll have a half dozen sources of income from our online activities -- and so will millions of other people, and we'll all be buying from, selling to, and bartering with each other.

Paid to Read Payments -- Week 3 November 2005

Several good payments came through this week:

PolarPTR $0.89
Classical-Mail $0.50
GainSeek $2.00
Total $3.39
Monthly Total $12.75


Plus I've got $10.02 in my Amazon Mechanical Turk account!

It's a good thing there's a bit of money coming in this month, because I've got a couple ideas going that are going to mean I need a bit of cash for buying domains and hosting. For that, the cheapest options I've found so far add up to $18/yr -- $6 for the domain and $12 for the hosting.

Make Money Online -- Amazon Mechanical Turk Update

Woo hoo! I've just submitted my 200th HIT to Amazon Mechanical Turk!

Of those 200 HITs, 162 have been approved, 24 have been rejected, and 14 are still pending (including 8 from today). All up, I've got $4.86 in my account -- about half-way to my goal for 1 free book this month.

If you haven't tried Mechanical Turk, you really ought to give it a shot. It's a VERY EASY way to make money online. Lately, there have been two different kinds of tasks -- photo assignments and recording artist confirmations.

For the photo assignments, the Turk gives you the name and address of a business and a group of photos. Your job is to pick the best photo of the business, or if none of the photos are good (or aren't photos of the right business), you choose 'none.' Those jobs pay 3 cents each.

The recording artist confirmation gives you an album title and a list of possible artists who made the album. You pick the right artist and submit. That's it! You get paid 2 cents for each accepted submission.

This is sooooo easy to do when you've got a bit of time to kill. Just bookmark the site and pop in whenever you have time. My biggest day so far was Nov 12, when I submitted 45 HITs, with 37 accepted, 8 rejected, and $1.11 going into my account.

Get Paid to to Surveys -- PureProfile

Cool, I just did a PureProfile survey about shoes for $6. It took 20-30 minutes, one of the longer surveys I've done in a while, but it's nice to qualify for a larger payment. That brings my total for this month to $8, and my PureProfile account total to $17.90. When it gets to $25, I can request payment directly to my bank account.

If you're in Australia and you want an easy way to earn money online, join PureProfile. It's easy to join and participate, and I've been getting anywhere from 1 to 6 surveys a month.

And whether you're in Australia or not, if you're interested in getting paid to do online surveys, here's my list of recommended paid survey companies. Good luck and happy earning!

Get Paid Online by Keeping Busy

Lots going on over the weekend and into the new week. Most of the weekend was spent doing research for the online business my wife and I started last year. It's been more of a hobby than anything else, but it's taught us a lot, and brought in a few dollars, so we're happy with it and looking to expand this year.

After that was all done, there was a bit of time for "Get Paid" stuff, including beginning to catch up on all the unread paid emails sitting in my inbox, requesting a few payments -- from Classical-Mail ($0.50), DonkeyMails ($0.98), GainSeek ($1.28), and PolarPTR ($0.89). Of the 4, Polar has already paid me!

I also spent a bit of time doing a few traffic exchanges, not only to build up a few credits, but also to see if there were any new trends in what's being advertised on them. I started with ShareAdSpace, ClickCrazey, ClickVoyager, and DeepSeaHits and will try to get to some of the others tomorrow.

I completed a survey for NFO MySurvey and earned 75 points, which puts my weekly total up to 170 (worth $1.70) and the total in my account to 6410 (worth $64.10). I've decided that when the total hits $70, I'm going to request payment.

And with only 6 HITs still pending, I've got a total of $4.80 in Amazon Mechanical Turk account!

And I've got $6.75 in my ePinions account that I'll cash out when I hit $10.

And if that's not enough to keep me busy, I'm still reading a lot of blogs, eBooks, etc. about ways to make money online, and working on plans to put some of those ideas into action.

Get Paid Online -- Keeping Busy

No big paychecks so far this week, but that doesn't mean I haven't found plenty to keep me busy. I've been doing a bit a Mechanical Turk in my spare time, and I've got $2.76 in my account right now -- well on the way to the $9 or so I need to get a free book.

I've also done a few surveys at NFO MySurvey, and added about 100 points to my account. That brings my account total up to 6335 points, which converts to over $60 when I cash it in.

I know the reviews I published at ePinions are getting a bit of traffic, because they've been reviewed a couple times. The thing is, I forgot that reviews under 200 words are considered Express Reviews, which means they don't get normal ratings or tracking stats, and they don't earn Income Share. So that means I won't get paid for contributing them, but hopefully they'll help people make good purchasing decisions.

Adding Adsense to the blog has also starting bringing in a little money, so I'm going to spend some time learning more about Adsense and how to make it work better.

And I haven't forgotten that I said I was going to put together a new template, either. That's still on the To Do list, and I've had a little bit of practice by doing some extensive modifications to a Wordpress template for my wife. Working with Wordpress reminded me again how I wish I'd started FreeCashSpace as a Wordpress blog. Oh well.

There's plenty to do, so I guess I'd better get busy doing it!

New Reviews on ePinions

I've written and published two new reviews at ePinions, one for the Breville Nova Cordfree Kettle, and one for the Hauppage WinTV-Go TV tuner card.

I think I've mentioned it before, but I'll say again that publishing reviews at ePinions is a great way to make a bit of extra cash. And reading reviews published by others is a great way to research products before you purchase, and also a way to find some really good bargains.

Paid to Read Payments -- Week 2 November 2005

A few more payments came through this week:

StatesPTR $0.30
Mesmerizing-Mails $0.24
Random-PTCs $1.07
Total $1.61

Monthly Total $9.36

The money from StatesPTR was completely unexpected. That program was sold months ago, and the transfer of the site got all messed up so the new owner hasn't done anything with it. Except pay the members. Thanks, Alex!

The monthly payment from Mesmerizing is small, but steady.

And Random-PTCs just keeps 'em coming. That's 3 payments in a little over a month.

Plus I've got $1.23 in my Amazon Mechanical Turk account.

Amazon Mechanical Turk

How cool is this? Amazon has a new service where you can get paid for doing tasks online. Or if you have a job that needs doing, you can put it up there and pay people to do it for you.

Right now most of the tasks (called HITs) are paid for by Amazon themselves. They're trying to match addresses with pictures of buildings, so they're paying people 3 cents each to look at a group of pics and choose the best one that matches the name and address of the business provided.

I've done about 30 of them, 3 of my choices were rejected, 13 were approved, and the rest are still pending. So I've got $0.39 in my account, which I can have transferred to my Amazon Gift Certificate account or directly to my bank account!

Since I love reading, I'm perfectly happy to use it for Amazon GCs.

I figure a half hour or so a day and I've got myself a free book once a month -- SWEET!

If you want to give it a try, here's the link: Amazon Mechanical Turk.

Paid to Read Payments - Week 1 November 2005

Not a bad start for November

MoonlitSubmit $0.04
DonkeyMails $0.61
PolarPTR $1.10
Mail-Down-Under $2.50
HeavenlyEmail $3.50
Total $7.75

Free Audiobooks (AudioStories?) -- James Patrick Kelly

Thanks to this story at BoingBoing, I've been enjoying listening to a few audio short stories in the form of podcasts created by science fiction author James Patrick Kelly (Wikipedia, his website) . He's also doing podcasts of each chapter of his novella, Burn. He'll release a new chapter every week for 16 weeks.

Here's the link: http://feeds.feedburner.com/freereads

More Great Free Web Applications

After my last post about Windows Live and lots of other online applications, I remembered one, Backpack. Backpack works a virtual desktop sort of thing for keeping all your to-do lists, notes, files, photos and such online in one place. And other apps from the same company, 37Signals (they rock), include Ta-da Lists, a way to create and share to-do lists online, Writeboard, a collaborative writing app that has a cool version-tracking feature that lets you compare different versions of a document. And their flagship program, Basecamp, a project management application that lets you store notes, schedules, to-do lists, writeboards and more -- and the basic version (1 project max.) is, like the other 37Signals apps, completely free.

I really dig the 37Signals philosophy of software design -- it's all about 'less software', keeping it simple, not trying to make software that does everything, but to make it so that what it does, it does well.

Microsoft Windows Live, Office Live, & Other Online Office Applications

Saw this article at Slashdot and thought I'd share. Apparently MS has decided it can make some advertising money by offering more online services, so it's launching Windows Live and Office Live.

Windows Live is basically a personal portal, virtual online desktop kind of thing, with email, blogging, news, messenger, etc. not that different from MyYahoo, Google Homepage, Netvibes and others. If you have a HotMail or Passport account, you can log into Windows Live at http://www.live.com -- but there's not much there yet. But there will be soon, including a new online email client and a new online instant messenger that will include VOIP that will let you call regular phones, pretty much like Skype.

Office Live is apparently going to be online versions of scaled-down MS Office applications. Different levels with have different amounts of functionability, and will range from free (ad supported) basic functions to subscription-based advanced functions.

For some non-Microsoft online office-type applications, here are a few that I've been playing around with:

Writely.com - it's a word processor, it's in beta, and it's free. And it works in IE, Mozilla, and Firefox.
NumSum - lets you create simple spreadsheets. It's also in beta, and it's also free.
Kiko - an online calendar program. Works in IE and Firefox.
ThinkFree Office - Microsoft-compatible word processor, presentation builder, and spreadsheet applications. And also lets you create PDF files. All free!
Meebo - online Instant Messenging -- use AIM, ICQ, Yahoo Messenger, Jabber, GTalk, Microsoft Messenger -- all in one browser window!

Paid to Read Earnings for October

OK, here's the final payment results for October, 2005.

Random-PTCs $1.35
Mesmerizing-Mails $0.23
GainSeek $0.90
DestinysDollars $2.50
Random-PTCs $1.36
AK-Mail $0.88
Total $7.22

That's a pretty slow month. On the other hand, all I had to do to earn it was read email and visit the advertisers' websites. Did I see anything cool being advertised? Nothing that stands out. I don't think I made any online purchases through a PTR ad this month. Maybe next month.

Another bit of information that might be helpful is how long it took me to earn those payments in each of the programs. I can check this easily thanks to the data tracking provided by ThePaidHelp.

With Random-PTCs, I earned that in about three weeks. I generally request payment once a month from them, and usually get paid within a few days after the request.

Mesmerizing-Mails pays every month, no need to request.

With GainSeek, it took me about a month to earn that amount. It's a no-minimum program, so you can request your earnings at any time. I like to request mine monthly.

It took about three months to earn that $2.50 payment at DestinysDollars, and my guesstimate is that it would've taken about another month to reach the $4.00 minimum if I hadn't received the random payment.

A second payment from Random-PTCs in the same month is a bit unusual, but certainly not impossible. Especially since I've got a small (4 down from 9) downline.

The money from AK-Mail took about 4 1/2 months. This isn't a big earner for me. But I've been a member for a long time, they have fun riddle contests on the weekends, and I can earn points to use to buy ads. The owners are friendly and professional, and I enjoy being a member even if it doesn't pay much.

Doing PTR is never going to be a big earner for me. Or for most people that get involved in it. The only way to make any significant amounts is to build huge downlines. If you can do that, you can earn hundreds a month. But that's just not for me. I'm more interested in using the money I get from PTR to finance bigger and better online earning opportunities.

Trulia.com -- Real Estate Search Engine

I love search engines, so I'm always on the look-out for new ones. Big general-purpose search engines like Google and Yahoo Search are fine, but I also like search engines created for specific purposes like Trulia.com -- a search engine for real estate listings.

So far, they've only got listings for California, but hopefully they'll eventually get it rolled out nation-wide. They don't do 'for sale by owner' listings, but instead integrate data from heaps of different real estate websites into one big interface.

Already they've indexed over 100,000 real estate websites. The initial interface is simple -- a search box where you can type in a city name or ZIP code. Then on the first results page, you can choose nearby cities, narrow the results by price, size, number of bedrooms, etc. The locations of the listings are shown through a Google Maps interface, and in addition to info on the individual properties, there's also some useful info about the real estate market in your chosen city -- average house price broken down by bedroom, average days on the market, etc.

It's easy to use, it looks good, it's helpful, and it's not hard to see how they could end up making a lot of money. For people interested in California real estate, it's worth a bookmark, and if you're more interested in other states, you can give them your email address and they'll notify you when they've started offering listings in that state. Sweet!

Edited to add: Since I've been Flockblogging, I haven't been logging into Blogger to make my posts. But after publishing this entry, I realised it needed a bit of tweaking, so I logged into Blogger to edit it. And according to Blogger, this is the 100th FreeCashSpace blog entry. Woot!