Technology Simplified™

File this under “How to…” get a free education at some of the best learning institutions in the world. This is actually a follow up post to a previous post on the same subject. This time with much more free resources.
Merry Christmas!

Universities With the Best Free Online Courses

No tuition money? No problem! There are many top universities that offer free courses online. This list ranks some of the best free university courses for people who want to enhance personal knowledge or advance in their current field.

Universities with the Best Free Online Courses — Education-Portal.com

Also check out this Lifehacker post: Discover the .EDU underground

I found this online today. I really like the idea of creating custom DVD’s using Freeware apps.This is a great way to do it.

Create Custom DVD’s - video powered by Metacafe

How-to video blogger Tinkernut covers burning customized video DVDs with graphical menus using only free software for Windows, including DVD Flick, DVD Styler, and UnderCoverXP to create the inserts and labels

Source: Video Demonstration: Create Custom Menu-Driven DVDs with Free Apps - Lifehacker

Getting ever closer to the Holy Grail of dumping Outlook all together. Read the post to see how it’s done.

Access Google Calendar Directly From Outlook

Rather than syncing Google Calendar with Outlook, reader Seth uses the “homepage” feature of Outlook 2003 to access Google Calendar.

Source: Microsoft Outlook Tip: Access Google Calendar Directly From Outlook - Lifehacker

This is post 100! Wow, this milestone came sooner than I expected. Keeping with my last post. I thought I’d share a great list of Podcasting resources to go along with the Blog resources. Enjoy!

Podcasting may not have lived up to the early hype, but with iPods and other MP3 players still selling like crazy, the potential audience for these audio shows is huge. We’ve compiled a monster list of 70+ tools and resources for podcasters and wannabes.

Source: Podcasting Toolbox: 70+ Podcasting Tools and Resources

This is a great collection of Blog posts for those wanting to take their Blogging to a new level. I’m not there quite yet, but eventually.

Link to 55 Essential Articles Every Serious Blogger Should Read | Entrepreneurial Blog of Matt Huggins

It’s never too early to start planning for retirement, right? I haven’t read all 30 of the ebooks, but they do look promising and you can’t beat the price.

A free personal finance eBook library

Mint, a free online money management system, has pulled together a fantastic list of the top thirty free eBooks on personal finance.

They’re categorized by topic: basics of personal finance, consumer awareness, credit, retirement planning, mortgages, and more.

Source: Money: A free personal finance eBook library - Lifehacker

Here is a list of posts that I missed posting over the past 14 days:
Fifteen ways to make Firefox do your bidding
Build a treehouse
Add tabs to Windows Explorer with QT TabBar
Make minor Windows tweaks with Pitaschio
Enhance Google Calendar with the Better GCal Firefox extension
How to e-mail yourself in the future?
Remove photo obstructions with PhotoWipe
The Freelancer’s Toolset: 100 Web Apps for Everything You Will Possibly Need
Mount any folder as a hard drive with Visual Subst
Record any audio with MP3myMP3 Recorder 2.0

 These looked really good and do spice up the screen shots.

If you’ve been hankering for some cool screenshot effects, then techie site Mezzoblue’s got your back with a very nicely detailed tutorial on how to achieve various sceenshot effects using Photoshop.

Screen captures on their own can be somewhat blah, and these effects add a nice

Source: Photoshop: How to apply visual effects to screenshots - Lifehacker

This looks like it can actually be cool for the kids. The guy who designed the castle is trying to sell his box of “reusable rivets” but I image duct tape works good too. Again, just so you don’t think we don’t love kids (of all ages).

Mr. McGroovy’s Box Rivets (I know - don’t you love it?) has a step by step tutorial on how to convert refrigerator boxes into a kickass cardboard castle.

Source: Craft: Weekend Project: Build a cardboard castle - Lifehacker

I’m a true believer in the idea of separating data from the primary Boot Drive. I have recently moved all of my data to a NAS (Network Attached Storage) drive. It has worked out very well for me since I have 2 computers (Desktop and Laptop) and now they each can see all my data (including Outlook pst file) without having to sync between them. Plus I have the added benefit of having everything out of the PC/Laptop so chances of heat damage, short circuit, etc. is greatly reduced. Also, the NAS has a built-in web server so I could assign it an IP address and have access to my files from the web too! Some will ask (as Z did recently at lunch) how do you work on stuff outside of the office then, if all your files are on the network. In that case, I use SyncBack to monitor the folders on my Laptop and then sync everything when I dock it back at the office.

There are some computer gurus out there (especially the Linux variety) who recommend you put your data on a separate partition from your OS, for easier backup, transfer and upgrades. Would this be a good idea with Vista, and how would I go about it?

Source: Ask Lifehacker: How do I store my data on a separate partition in Windows Vista? - Lifehacker