50 Fab Freebies – Services

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lego spacemen
photo by Gaetan Lee

Advice

Sometimes you just need pointing in the right direction, Direct.gov has an excellent section on higher education and entering university. This is the Governments advice website, so should be accurate and reliable. Also the National Union of Students is a valuable resource, for current and future students. Student Tax Advice is also helpful in explaining tax obligations whilst being a student.

File Storage

Backing up files can be a pain, partly it is time consuming, partly because damaging or losing the media you chose to backup to and partly due to the knowledge that something always goes wrong just before you were planning on backing stuff up. But there are alternatives, ADrive, allows you to backup your files online, up to 50GB free. Allowing you to access the files where ever you are in the world. A similar service is provided by mozy who offer 2GB free, also Xdrive offer 5GB.

Remotely Access Your PC

Logmein allows you to access your home pc from any pc that has the internet, this is great if you’ve left a file at home or need to access some work you did at home. The only problem is your home PC has to be left switched on else you still have a problem, but otherwise it is a great little tool. An alternative is TeamViewer, which also allows you to remotely control somebody else’s computer.

Scan, Copy and Fax

Ever wanted to make a quick copy of the notes on the whiteboard, maybe you’ve just woken up to find that important lecture, only moments away from being wiped off the board. scanR is your friend in these situations. scanR allows you to take a photo using your phone, MMS or email it to scanR. They then email a PDF copy of your picture to you, with the photo all cleaned up!

RSS Readers

If you don’t know what RSS is you better read this first. But in a nutshell RSS readers are a way of reading the latest updates to your favourite websites and blogs from one page, therefore allowing you to stay up to date with the latest going ons. Google Reader is one of the most popular, allowing you to categorise your feeds to make it easier to find the info you want when you want it. Bloglines is another web based reader worth a look.

Free Web Hosting

It seems everyone wants to set up their own website, if you can do without the flashy domain name (the bit that goes in the address bar), then you have plenty of options. Weebly or Yahoo Geocities are a good bet if you are just starting out, or just want to ‘have a go’ and why not? I started via Geocities many years ago! If you want to set up a free blog then try Blogger or WordPress.com.

Got your own suggestions? Please leave a comment below.

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