Data Doctors Tech Tips

Security experts are warning that spam messages from around the world are on the rise with many speculating that our improved economy is making us more of a prime target as a result.and#160; How we conduct ourselves online can have a lot to do with the volume of spam we get and an easy way to cut down on junk messages is to use a disposable e-mail address.and#160; From now on, when you need an e-mail address for a less important interaction such as getting special offers or gaining access to a sites that you will probably never use again, rather than giving them your actual e-mail address, try using a disposable address from theand#160;http://mailinator.comand#160;website. You can make up any email address you'd like using the Mailinator tool or use one of their suggested addresses to get what you want without giving up your daily e-mail address.and#160; There are no lengthy sign up processes, no cost involved and no waiting but remember not to use Mailinator addresses for anything sensitive because your temporary inbox is usable by anyone that thinks of the same address.and#160; The next time you're required to provide a working e-mail address from a site you know you willl never use again, remember our Mailinator tip!and#160;

Today's the 5th day of the month and perfect for our $5 Data Doctors Tech Tipand#160; 'Crowdsourcing' is the ability to use the Internet to tap into a crowd of people that can potentially provide a service that you need.and#160; Many crowdsourcing websites allow you to generate bids from the crowd for a task you have, but wouldn't it be great if you could find a large crowd of people willing to do lots of tasks for just 5 bucks?and#160; Well that's just you'll find at a site calledand#160;http://Fiverr.comand#160;and#8232; Need to send a loved one a unique birthday greeting? it's only $5!and#160; Need a flyer designed for your upcoming event? it's only $5!and#160; Gift ideas, graphic design, videos, simple animations, online marketing, voice over talent, music beds or just about any kind of task can start as low as, you guessed it $5! Tasks that are a lot more involved may cost you more, but this site is all about being cost really effective, so give it a shot for your next outsourced task!

Printing things from a web page can become a big waster of your paper and expensive ink because you're forced to print advertisements and other junk that you have no use for. Even when the page offers up a printable version of any article, its usually stuffed with an ad or other common ink wasters.and#160; Wouldn't it be helpful if you could print what you like instead of all the extra junk?and#160; Now you can if you use an excellent online printing tool calledand#160;http://printwhatyoulike.comand#160; You just type the web address of the page you want to print and you will be provided with the tools that allow you to get rid of or isolate any section of what you see on your screen.and#160; You no longer have to waste ink and paper on useless ads or other junk when you just want print out an airline boarding pass. https://Printwhatyoulike.com is free and works with any major browser so there is nothing to download or install.

OCR which stands for Optical Character Recognition, is software that can scan images to recognize the text from something that generallyand#160;can't be edited, like a JPG or PDF. OCR software generally comes with a scanner but setting it up can be a bit of a hassle and of no use if you are at the office and your scanner's at home.and#160; So, the next time you end up with a scanned image, electronic fax or other forms that you would normally have to retype manually, check outand#160;http://OnlineOCR.netand#160;and give the free online conversion tool a try.and#160; It can extract text from everything from PDF files, JPGs, BMPs, TIFFs and even GIF files and convert them into editable text files, documents or spreadsheets.and#160; It supports lots of different languages and will scan multi-page PDFs and Zip files when you register for free.and#160; You just upload your image file, choose the language of the text and then choose the output format for it to do its magic... nothing to setup or install...

Any parent that's about to send a child to their first year of college is probably including an expensive laptop computer as part of the mix.and#160; That beautiful new laptop is also a highly sought after item by thieves, so before you send your child off, make sure you have installed and setup a location tracking program.and#160; One of our suggestions is Prey, because it offers their basic tools as a free download at and#160;http://preyproject.comand#160; Once you install it, the program can track the laptop's location, take a snapshot of whoever using it, grab a screenshot and lock down the system when it goes missing.and#160; One downside to using a freebie tool is that you are on your own to figure out how to recovery the laptop.and#160; Anyone wanting tracking and recovery assistance should look into LoJack for Laptops instead http://www3.absolute.com/lojackforlaptops/home. It costs around $40 for two years for the standard package and if it goes missing, simply file a police report and they'll do the rest!and#160;

We've all had to sit through a presentation just watching the presenter read off of a series of PowerPoint slides for an hour; it's excruciating and why they refer to it as 'Death by PowerPoint'.and#160; If you're one of the many that has to make presentations to a group, do us a favor - get rid of those boring Powerpoint slides and try using Prezi.com in its place. Prezi is a free web-based tool that allows you create a much more interesting and dynamic presentation that is really easy to lay out using their virtual canvas. It allows you to present your info in a more engaging manner.and#160; You can start by importing those old boring PowerPoint slides so you do not have to start all over and because it's a web based presentation, it's easily shared with your audience.and#160; And here's one more tip; instead of creating a long list of text heavy slides, try using images and short bullet points to encourage you to deliver your info in more of a conversational way. The idea is to talk to your audience not your slides. http://Prezi.comand#160;

On those occasions that you have an item that is in great condition but you no longer have a need for, you'd generally like to find someone else that can use it, instead of chucking it in the trash.and#160; Finding that someone that wants it can be a bit of a hassle, so often times putting it out on the curb with a sign saying "take me, I'm free" usually helps to get it to someone else. Well, that giving concept is what is behind an excellent community recycling website calledand#160;http://Freecycle.org which is a virtual exchange site that can get items into the hands of someone that could really wants it.and#160; At nearly 10 million members, this website is focused on building a worldwide gifting movement which will reduce waste, save our precious resources and ease the impact on our landfills.and#160; This non-profit reuse community website makes it simple to gift your unneeded items to someone in your community that could probably use the help.and#160; So if you know someone with items to get rid of or is in need of items, have them checkout the amazing environmental web community atand#160;http://freecycle.org

Anyone responsible for generating presentations or reports which needs to include website references has probably gone through the long process required to capture a thumbnail to add some graphics to your info.and#160; You can certainly use screen captures along with image editing tools to accomplish this laborious task but we have a better way.and#160; It's called https://thumbalizr.com and it's a really easy to use option. Simply type the web address of your desired website into the box and tap on the 'Thumb It' button. This tells the tool to go out and gathers up the elements, assemble them and create a thumbnail image that can range from tiny to very high resolution.and#160; http://Thumbalizrand#160;is spelled T H U M B A L I Z R and the basic service is free. It's sure to improve any presentation of info that includes a website and it's much more engaging than just the link.

Anyone with a dog that likes to take their furry family member along when they travel knows that you'll have to spend some time ahead of time making sure wherever you are going is dog friendly.and#160; Dog-friendly hotels are just the start of the research; you'll want to find dog-friendly restaurants and sometimes even dog-friendly public transportation.and#160; You'll also likely want to find local dog parks, dog beaches and dog friendly tour operators. If including fido in all your travels is important, you can find a treasure trove of dog-friendly travel info atand#160;http://dogfriendly.comand#160; Their city guides can help you discover the dog-friendly hotels, campgrounds, attractions, parks, outdoor restaurants, beaches and using their highway guides can help you setup a cross-country trip showing all the pet friendly hotels on your route.and#160; They can even help you understand what is involved in domestic or international airline travel for your dog. How about figuring out which rental car company is more tolerant of dogs and which ones you'll want to avoid? Sure enough, you can find it all at dogfriendly.com.

There are many situation where scheduling the delivery of an email message can be very useful, like when you don't want to miss a friend's birthday or anniversary.and#160; Microsoft Outlook has had this ability for years, but if you have migrated over to Google's excellent Gmail for email, you probably noticed that you lost this ability.and#160; That is until you install the Boomerang for Gmail add-on, which is a free tool that does a lot more than just schedule e-mails for delivery.and#160; The 'Send Later' option that will appear after you install it, makes it simple to schedule any message for delivery, but Boomerang can also help you stay organized. It can mark messages in the Inbox that you want to read later and schedule them to appear in your Inbox as a reminder.and#160; It also lets you track any message you send and generate a reminder if you have not heard back from them, to allow timely follow-ups in an efficient manner.and#160; Anyone that spends their day using Gmail will be more productive withand#160;http://Boomeranggmail.com