Get a free college education online

Not headed back to school this fall? You could be, minus the exorbitant tuition and without even leaving your chair. The web has made it easier than ever before to get a free education, and you'd join the ranks of great thinkers in history who were also self-taught, like Joseph Conrad, Albert Einstein, Alexander Graham Bell, Paul Allen, Agatha Christie and Ernest Hemingway. You, too, can be an autodidact; the breadth of free educational materials available online is absolutely astonishing.

Note: Many colleges and universities offer free courses online in the form of podcasts, lectures, tutorials and full-blown online classes. Most of these courses, while extremely smart-making, will NOT award any college credits or degrees.

Free online college courses
Grab some learnin' from the University of Washington's free online courses; Greek mythology, American Revolution, Heroic Fantasy are just some of the offerings. If you get tired of that, you can study economics at the University of Nebraska.

Teach yourself sign language from Michigan State University. Browse through the vast treasures at the Library of Congress. View free videos on all sorts of subjects from Annenberg Media, a major supplier to most distance learning universities, or read the core documents of American democracy.

Feel like a little light reading? You can study theology at Covenant Seminary; course offerings are delivered via a combo of free downloadable .pdf files and podcasts, and include subjects ranging from Church History to the Modern Reformation.

Learn mathematics with this extensive list of free online math courses from Whatcom Community College. Visit Carnegie Mellon University and take Biology, Causal Reasoning, Statistics, and more, all for free.

Penn State University offers a free Swedish language course, in addition to a free Hungarian language course. Or, you can take an Italian language and culture course from Brooklyn College. California State also offers a free Conversational Mandarin Chinese course, and you can learn Turkish via the University of Arizona.

The University of Washington School of Medicine offers free CPR classes online, complete with video and instructional guides. You can also take health courses from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; anything from adolescent health to population science.

Prepare for the US citizenship test from the Missouri Southern State University. Learn linear algebra from the University of Puget Sound. Learn about bioterrorism (really) and other hazards from the University of North Carolina.

Get free online mathematics textbooks, videos, and lecture notes from New York University. Take advantage of Tufts University's open courses on dentistry, medicine, nutrition, and more. Learn about cognitive science from Hampshire College.

Take eight different courses via the Sofia Project, a collaborative effort between select California community colleges. Brigham Young University offers independent study in subjects such as Family History, Family Life, and Religious Scripture Study. Get access to ten free seminary courses from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

Learn about human resources in 52 (!) different free courses from ERI. Browse a huge variety of materials in the University of Michigan's courses and seminars on Internet laws.

Ivy League
Take advantage of Stanford University's free CS education library. Go to college by taking free classes at MIT. Go to Berkeley with your iPod. The University of Pennsylvania has an extensive online library; over 25,000 books are listed here.

Just debuted, you can take free courses from Yale (funded by HP) on such diverse subjects as the Old Testament or Physics. Watch or read free online lectures in archival format from Princeton. Get a free Introduction to Probability text from Dartmouth.

Google tricks
Using the right keywords, find course syllabi (insert your own subject), lectures, tutorials, notes, podcasts, and various sorts of online books using Google.

As time goes on, I'm sure we'll see even more colleges and universities making even more of their courses open access.

Resource: Wendy Boswell

5 Social Media Secrets That Work Effectively For Offline Networking

Social media has created an Internet phenomenon and has taken online networking to a dynamic level. Do you ever wonder why social media is so successful? It’s viral and it spreads quickly – just like word-of-mouth spreads quickly in offline networking.

When you meet people for the first time, take a few lessons from the social media gurus and apply their secret tactics to your offline networking strategy.

Secret #1- Social means both talking and listening. Listening is just as important as talking

When you interact on a forum or leave comments on a blog, you first read what the other person wrote and then you comment. If you constantly leave comments about yourself and don’t interact and comment off-topic, you will make a bad first impression. Other members will ignore you.

This same philosophy applies when you are first introduced to people. You want to learn about them and ask questions. How can you learn about a person if you are constantly talking about yourself? Pay attention, listen and ask appropriate questions according to the conversation topic.

Secret #2- Widgets that instantly find thousands of followers don’t always give the best return on investment

Social media gurus always tout the benefits of handy widgets that automate Facebook and Twitter followers. Do you realize that the 5,000 people you just added probably won’t be interested in your products or services? You just wasted time and money adding people who don’t care about what you’re pitching.

Use this same social media approach when you attend networking events and collect business cards. Don’t just pitch your products/services to just anyone you meet. Talk to people who might actually benefit from what you offer. It doesn’t make sense to attend a networking event filled with seniors if you are a nightclub owner whose target audience is 21 year-old college students.

Secret #3- Freebies don’t always mean more subscribers, BUT worthwhile freebies make all the difference

Freebies don’t always mean instant success. Contests don’t always draw thousands of new members to your site either. In the social media world, if you make your prize too abstract or unappealing, you will drive away visitors.

This social media tactic also applies to freebies offered in the offline world. If you attend networking events and conduct raffles or contests, make your prizes worthwhile for guests. Target your audience and get inside their heads. You want your guests to actually use the product or service you’re giving away.

• How will this freebie benefit the contest winner?

• Will this freebie make them contact me for more services or products?

Secret #4- Don’t scare away others with the “me me me” syndrome

If you start every blog comment or tweet with “I did” or “I want” then you are headed down the “me me me” syndrome path. Social media is all about helping others. Being an expert in your field doesn’t mean acting like an egomaniac.


Secret #5- Always use professional Net-iquette

Don’t come across as rude or condescending in your Facebook or Twitter updates. You never know who will come across your updates in the cyber world, and how it can come back to haunt you.

This tip should always be applied to offline networking. Always remember to practice professional, ethical etiquette whenever you meet new people. Think before you speak, and remember that you represent your company/business. First impressions make a lasting impression, so always put your best face forward.

If you liked this article, tell all your friends about it. They’ll thank you for it. If you have a blog or website, you can link to it.

Source: John Boyd of MediaWave

PortableApps.com Suite and PortableApps.com Platform

PortableApps.com Suite and PortableApps.com Platform
your computer, without the computer™

PortableApps.com Suite™ is a complete collection of portable apps including a web browser, email client, office suite, calendar/scheduler, instant messaging client, antivirus, audio player, sudoku game, password manager, PDF reader, minesweeper clone, backup utility and integrated menu, all preconfigured to work portably. Just drop it on your portable device and you're ready to go.

Choose Your Download 1.5.2 for Windows
Starting at only 1MB Download Details


Included apps:
All versions of the PortableApps.com Suite include the integrated PortableApps.com Menu (pictured at right) and the PortableApps.com Backup utility along with a set of custom icons, an autoplay configuration, folders and a quick start shortcut. In addition, the packages include:

* Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition (web browser)
* Mozilla Thunderbird, Portable Edition (email)
* Mozilla Sunbird, Portable Edition (calendar/tasks)
* ClamWin Portable (antivirus)
* Pidgin Portable (instant messaging)
* Sumatra PDF Portable (PDF reader
* KeePass Password Safe Portable (password manager)
* Sudoku Portable (game)
* Mines-Perfect Portable (game)
* CoolPlayer+ Portable (audio player)
* OpenOffice.org Portable* (office suite)
- Writer (word processor)
- Calc (spreadsheet)
- Impress (presentations)
- Base (database utility)
- Draw (drawing)

* The Light Suite includes AbiWord Portable (word processor) instead of OpenOffice.org Portable.

Pioneer To Bring Pandora To Your Car In March

Look for it to get easier to listen to internet radio in your car as PANDORA has entered into a deal with electronics maker PIONEER CORP. that promises to get a built-in spot on dashboards for the new technology. "The development represents a direct challenge to broadcasters of satellite and traditional radio, who have long dreaded the arrival of Internet radio in cars," writes THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

PIONEER is set to sell a navigation and entertainment device begining in MARCH that will allow PANDORA users who currently stream the service on their iPHONES to easily access PANDORA in their cars. "The $1,200 navigation system, announced at the CONSUMER ELECTRONICS SHOW in LAS VEGAS, will detect iPHONES and iPOD TOUCHES that have PANDORA installed, and put the consumer's Pandora settings on the navigation screen. That will allow drivers to hear their favorite PANDORA radio channels."

"Maybe a year ago people would have said PANDORA is a computer thing," said co-founder TIM WESTERGREN. Now, "they're beginning to realize that Internet radio is an anytime, anywhere thing."

So how serious a threat is this to terrestrial broadcasters? Many in the business have long felt in-car Internet services as the real threat to AM and FM radio, because they will allow drivers access to an unlimited number of streamed radio stations. PANDORA's deal with PIONEER is the beginning of that future.