1,000 FREE Fonts For Windows & Mac

Tired of the off-the-shelf Windows or Mac fonts?  Grab some free fonts at 1001freefonts.com.  Here are just a few of their font categories:

• 3D
• Calligraphy
• Decorative
• Graffiti
• Handwriting
• Medieval
• Old English
• Typewriter

To install the free font, click on the appropriate button:  Download Win Font or Download Mac Font.  A small pop-up will prompt you to Open or Save.  I do not have a Mac so anything beyond this is for Windows users only.

Click Open then Extract All Files to a destination folder that is easy for you to remember.  Frankly, I put all my downloaded stuff to my Desktop first and move it somewhere else later. 

Next, go to the Control Panel (Start -> Control Panel).  If you have Vista, change the folder view to Classic View.  In the Control Panel folder click on Fonts. 

Right click anywhere in the opened Fonts folder and click Install Fonts.  If you saved the font on your Desktop go to C:\Users, then to whatever your username is, and then Desktop. 

The font installer will list the fonts available for installation from that folder.  Highlight the fonts and Install. 

You should be able to use your fonts from within Microsoft Word, Powerpoint, Publisher, and any other editor that uses the Windows fonts!

Cable and Satellite TV Alternative: The Computer

We do not have cable or satellite TV.

While this would have been enough to elicit a reaction years ago, the number of people getting rid of their cable or satellite TV subscription has been steadily increasing in recent times.  The most common reasons are:

• It costs too much.
• There is nothing to watch.
• To watch what you want when you want it, it costs extra.

A computer we purchased in December 2007 came with a TV tuner, and that has been such a wonderful device!  If you have a relatively new computer, check the connections in the back.  Find a port that has no cable connected to it yet.  Check out its labels.  My TV tuner card has “DTV Ant”, “FM Ant” and “Analog Ant” underneath the ports. 

This is the indoor antenna I have sitting on top of my computer.  It is a Philips High Performance Amplified Indoor Uhf/Vhf/Fm/HDTV Antenna.  I connected the antenna cable from that to the port on the back of my computer marked “DTV Ant”.  Then came the fun part of trying to get the right orientation.

My computer has Windows Media Player and it made setting up the indoor antenna so much easier by providing feedback on the antenna strength of each channel available to me.  Click here to check if your computer already has Windows Media Player.

Another thing that helped me find the right orientation is a website called antennaweb.org.  I entered my address (and made sure I unchecked any subscription opt-ins) and it gave me a listing of the stations in my area plus their compass heading, frequency assignment, and distance from my location. 

If you do not have a TV tuner card on your computer and you know what you are doing around electronics, you can get one like this Hauppauge 1128 WinTV-HVR-1800 Internal Hybrid TV Tuner/Video Recorder.  You will need to install it in your computer and set it up.  I recommend you get a techie to do that for you.  A computer is expensive and you don’t want to mess it up!

More “Cable and Satellite TV Alternative” articles to come.  Check back soon!

Get Legally FREE MP3′s For Your MP3 Player

This past Christmas was quite a desperate time for retailers, who tried their best to entice shoppers to part with their money by offering them deep discounts.  One of the most popular electronic purchases was an MP3 player.  Did you get one?  What kind did you get?  Did you get a great deal?

I did not have much money for gifts this year and told the kids so.  They are wonderful, understanding kids and for that I am thankful.  They only got one item this year:  an MP3 player.  Now they are busy ripping CD’s and downloading MP3′s.  Luckily, there are tons of legally available FREE MP3′s from digital download sites, and you can listen to snippets of the songs before you download them.

A note of caution about file-sharing websites:  the file-sharing service is legal, but sharing copyrighted files (such as songs and movies) on these legal file-sharing websites is still illegal.  Know the difference.

As of this morning, Amazon.com has 684 FREE MP3′s available for download.  If you sort the list by “Bestselling”, most of the songs in the top 25 are geared towards the holidays but that is just because of the season.  Browse through the list.  You might find an old favorite artist with a new song, or an entirely new favorite artist.

FREE Financial Software – Quicken Online

My new year’s resolution is to no longer be broke in America in 2009, and one of the steps towards that direction is to keep track of my finances better.  The late fees and insufficient fund fees were bleeding me financially, and I just got so tired of juggling the bills. The insanity has to stop.  I am not any good with paper, so I had to find a software that will help me do that.

It is past midnight and I had been asleep for over two hours when I was woken up and felt the urge to go online and search for Quicken.  This is very strange in itself as I know what Quicken is and where to get it, and had no reason to Google it at all.  The first website displayed by Google was Intuit’s Quicken site, and lo and behold, the word “FREE” caught my eye.  “Quicken Online – Now FREE”, it screamed.  I had to check for more information to make sure it wasn’t free only for the trial period.  As far as I know, it is not a trial account and there doesn’t seem to be any hidden charges.  If you have evidence that it isn’t so, please let me know!

So I signed up, all the while expecting to be accosted with “Aha! Now here’s the catch!”  So far I haven’t encountered any.  What freaked me out was it asked for the login and password of my bank account, and I had to make sure that I was still on Intuit’s Quicken website by checking the URL.  Once I provided that, Quicken contacted my bank’s server and loaded all my transactions.  Just like that, everything was in place.

I am excited with the Quicken Online.  I love that I can access it from any computer with internet connectivity.  It seems easy to use, and it has financial tools for budgeting and setting up financial goals.  I was also pleasantly surprised that Quicken Online comes with Quicken Beam, a beta service that sends alerts to your mobile phone.  It can send you your account balance, your last 5 transactions, when your balance dips below your set amount, etc. 

If you have never used a financial tracking software before, now is a great time to start.  Get your free Quicken Online account now!

Children are Getting Abandoned in Nebraska

Since the Nebraska Safe Haven Law went into effect this July 2008, 17 children have been given up at various Nebraska hospitals.  The Safe Haven law was intended to protect unwanted newborn children, but no age limit is specified in the Nebraska Law.   Recently, the following were abandoned at Creighton University Medical Center:

• Nine children aged 1 through 17 who were abandoned by the father after the mother died last year and he lost his job this year. He allowed his 18-year old daughter to stay at home.  His in-laws lamented that he should have approached them first and they would have been happy to help.  They are now fighting to gain custody of the children.
• A 14-year old girl from Iowa who was driven to and abandoned in Nebraska by her grandparents in to “teach her a lesson”.  The grandparents later changed their mind and got her back.

Read the entire text of the Nebraska Safe Haven Law  here.

Experts now say there is great potential for this law to be abused, and with how badly the economy is doing nowadays, they fear that many more children could be abandoned.

Image from Stephen & Karen Conn’s Nebraska Travel Tips.

Get Naked For Money

Would you?

In one of the blogs to which I subscribe, the author talked about a friend who “had a modest job yet always has the latest gadgets”.  Intrigued, the author asked the friend how she was paying for all that stuff.  The friend confessed to the author that she’s been selling naked pictures of herself on the Internet.

The post was astounding to me for several reasons:

1. 1. The blog was a money-saving blog and I was not expecting the authors to address ”less mainstream” ideas.
2. 2. The author had the nerve to ask her friend how she pays for stuff.  What would Miss Manners say?
3. 3. The author described the friend as “pretty but a bit pudgy”. Wow.
4. 4. A woman would want indecent pictures of herself all over the Internet.  What if a friend or family member saw it?

The blog post went on to say that there are adults-only auction sites where a girl can try to sell not only Playboy centerfold-type … umm … “spreads”, but also their high-heels, outfits and even underwear.  If it hasn’t been washed, would it fetch a higher price?  Hmmm.

That author’s friend claimed that her annual income from this online venture is around $6,000.  Not a bad haul. I sure could use an extra $6,000 a year, couldn’t you?  However, though not a prude, I don’t think I can do something like this.

How about you? Have you or someone you personally know got naked for money?

To read the blog post that inspired this, click here. The naked woman in the photo isn’t me. Some random woman can now claim that I bought her naked photo from here, which is NOT an adult-only site.

This article was originally posted at Single Scoop, where I am a guest blogger.

So, Which One Are You: Poor or Broke?

One of the most thought-provoking questions I recently encountered was this:  “Are you poor or are you broke?” 

Like many people, I use the two terms interchangeably.  I am, of course,  speaking exclusively of one’s financials.  One can have no money but feel rich in spiritual or other ways.  So let us not touch on the mushy “we are rich because we are healthy and we are together” stuff.  » read more

Woolite is a Struggling Career Woman’s Friend

As shallow as it may sound, your office clothes can influence others’ opinion of you.  This is especially true if you are angling for a management position.  The common advice from career gurus is that you must dress for the position you are aiming for.  Wearing faded, frayed and misshapen clothes to the office is not going to help your manager visualize you in a leadership position. » read more

A Class on How To Snare a Billionaire

I came across an article from UK’s The Sun titled “How To Snare a Billionaire”.  It was incredulously preposterous.  The GIF below is a screen capture of the article’s sidebar.

Moscow has a popular seduction school that teaches women in their 20′s and 30′s on how to get a man, preferably a rich one.  Wear a short skirt and bend over a lot seems to be the main advice.  I guess Elle from Legally Blonde wasn’t far off with her “bend and snap” routine! 

The students are graded on their perfume, manicure, and hair.  They role play.  They strip down to their bras and thongs and sashay all over.  They practice lapdancing to Shakira’s music. 

Shockingly, majority of the women taking this course are beautiful, educated and hold decent jobs.  What, I wonder, could drive such women to give up a weekend and pay good money to attend such a school?  It wouldn’t be poverty.  Greed perhaps?  The desire for luxury and maybe fame?  Maybe bragging rights for snaring a rich one?  It is hard to say.

I suggest the next class they take is a crash course on Law, preferably pertaining to prenups, divorce, alimony and, just in case, child custody.

Read the Sun Article here. | digg story

Clothes Shopping with $50 and a Coupon

My little girl is not so little anymore. She has grown so much that she has outgrown most of her clothes. She’s an incoming high school freshie, and is now starting to be very conscious about fashion. With school starting soon, we are starting to prepare her school wardrobe. The problem is, I’m broke.  » read more