Who's really selling you?

I may be the only person in the history of the internet who has ads on their site who will say: Don't click on Ads. What's more valuable than your time and your money? Nothing. So save yourself the time of clicking on ads to be brought to useless products that you don't need that will waste your money. I myself never click on ads (okay never may be too strong a word, I think I've clicked on maybe four or so ads my entire life - but only because those ads really appealed to what I wanted in the moment). But in general most ads are just false promises of what you need - that's why they're ads, right? It's just like when you see an ad on TV you don't just go out and buy whatever they're advertising unless you really actually want it.

So why are there so many ads on the internet? On every single person's blog and website?

You may think you're helping out the person who has the ad on their site, well ya they may make like 10 cents off of you clicking on the ad, but in reality who are you helping out - the major corporations who have more money than they know what to do with! And they're using the "little people" to sell their stuff for them! It's like Walmart only hiring part-time employees so they don't have to pay benefits to their employees.

Just because people are willing to put an ad on their page to hopefully make 10 cents by you clicking on it doesn't mean you have to click on it. It makes me think of people coming to your front door to sell stuff. If it's a grown man you "slam" the door in his face...but if it's a kid with dimples hocking cookies for $15 a pop (yes, I'm not making up this ridiculous price!) the odds of you buying goes up instead of down - even though you would never plop down $15 for cookies at the grocery store in a million years!

So they're using us to get you to buy their stuff. Don't fall for it. Like I've said before if someone's selling information online you probably can get it elsewhere for free. Do your homework - put in the effort and you can find that information for free.

That's why I created this blog, so people wouldn't have to search so hard, they could come to one place and find what they need for free.

So ads are basically shoved in everyone's face because some people are too lazy to do their homework and are willing to buy things on impulse.

And why is no one talking about how obnoxious ads have become? Why - because the people who are "talking" are the ones who want people to click on the ads so they can make 10 cents! For too long I've had ads within ads popping up and blocking my screens and driving me insane! I do not endorse those type of ads. Ads that block the page you're viewing are going way too far! You have to find that stupid X to close it. And then there's talking ads!

How many people had to learn the hard way to mute their computer speakers while browsing online at work? lol Has your boss gotten a little suspicious when he walks by your desk and hears:
"CONGRATULATIONS YOU HAVE BEEN SELECTED TO RECEIVE A FREE IPOD."

Whatever happened to people just writing blogs for fun - just sharing information? Now everyone is so self-conscious about "silently" promoting affiliate programs that they don't speak up about what matters any more! Instead they tailor their blogs to promote those ads without breaking the rules of "selling the ad."

We live in a country where we are allowed the privilege of free speech! So exercise yours. And...be conscious of the "clicks" you make.

I know this posting is going to piss a lot of people off - especially the people being used by the Conglomerates and it might even get me banned from Google's Adsense - but you know what? I couldn't care less because I think Freedom of Speech is worth more than 10 cents.

So if you want to avoid the pitfall of becoming guinea pigs or trained monkeys - just don't play their game. Simply lift yourself out of the mindset that you need to "promote" or "buy" in order to get what you want online.

Yours Truly,
CB Webmaster

Proud Owner of Chatblog - where "free means free"

If you seek you will find 4 FREE!

Alright everybody I've been using the internet for 13 years and in that time I have found free information on practically every topic out there! Yet all the time I see people selling information that is readily available elsewhere online for free! How can this be? Well, I figure they "get away" with it because people don't know they can get it online for free! So I've started this blog for everyone to share the best free information they've found online in one place! So now anytime you need to find something - instead of automatically forking over $$$ you have the choice to find it 4 free!


Let me list a few sites that offer free information:

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WHERE TO BEGIN:

Your first stop to search for anything:
Archive.org

Internet Public Library
IPL

Craigslist - find jobs, housing, local people to meet, free stuff people are giving away in your city, etc.
Craigslist

Wide variety of links:
DMOZ

Search Engine links to tutorials on how to do better searches, as well as links to best search engines, and searches by topic:
REF DESK

And of course:
Google
Yahoo

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COMMUNICATE WITH PEOPLE:

Chatblog - Free Chat and Group Blogging (yes, all blogs and chats are free!)
Chatblog

Off the top of my head there are 3 major free groups sites that have many many topics you can join:

Google Groups
Yahoo Groups
about.com forums - each topic on about.com has a forum - the link to the forum is under the guide's name/photo.
About.com Topics

Blogger.com - create your own free blog in just a few minutes!
Blogger

Find blogs on a wide variety of topics:
Google Blog Search

Find a forum - just use a search engine and type in the name of the topic along with the word forum - most have free membership and once you sign up you can post your questions for free and get free answers from the other members.

Yahoo Mail - absolutely free email account that has many nice features! I've had my yahoo account for 11 years and I love it!
Yahoo Mail

Play online games with other people for free:
Yahoo Games

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MUSIC:

Free online radio stations (listen to radio stations from around the world through your computer speakers! Really terrific especially if you live in a small town that doesn't get many radio stations!)

Shoutcast
Radio Locator
Radio Search
Sky fm
1.fm

Free podcasts: (music, news, etc)
Odeo
Podomatic
Podcast Dir
Pod Feed
Podcast Alley
Podcast Pickle

Free Legal MP3 Downloads (check the podcasts sites mentioned above - many DJ's list their hour mixes for free!):

Music Downloads
Amazon Free MP3 downloads

Project Playlist: (a search engine to find free legal MP3s)
Project Playlist

Top music charts for each genre:
Billboard Charts

Music References:
Music Resources

Free sound effects:
I love wavs

Free movie audio quotes:
Movie Wavs

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MOVIES, ONLINE VIDEOS, AND FREE TV SHOWS ONLINE:

Internet Movie Database:
IMDB

Find Movies
Yahoo Movies

Links to great movie sites:
Movie Sites

Watch TV Programs for free online! (Note: many station's official sites offer their TV programming to watch online for free! So just go to a search engine and type in FOX or NBC, etc. and then browse their sites)
TBS recently put all Seinfeld Episodes Online for free viewing! So you don't have to shell out hundreds of dollars for TV Show DVDs

13 Places to Watch TV Shows Online:
13 Sites

Tons of free videos, including rare musical performances:
You Tube

Yahoo Videos

Google Videos

Live streaming videos:
U Stream

Funny cartoons:
Flow Go

Strongbad cartoons:
Strongbad Emails

Find pictures of anything:
Google Images

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FIND STUFF HERE:

Free Online Articles on Health, Science, Education:
Essortment

132,811 Expert Authors Sharing Their Best Ezine Articles:
Ezine Articleds

Ask an expert a question (yep this is free!):
All Experts

Get a free mentor:
Score

Has links to every official sites for each state in America:
States

Reference links to Law, History, Libraries, Government, etc
References

Find local newspapers for many towns in every state and even around the world:
Free Press
Newspapers

Plenty of Library links:
Library Spot

Largest FREE resource in the world for declassified government records:
Black Vault

Librarians Internet Index:
LII

Find facts:
Facts

Weather.com - find out your local weather - or the weather for the town you're traveling to.
Weather.com

Consumer info:
Gov Consumer

United Nations Information for Kids:
School Bus

Find out medical information
Web MD

Check your symptoms to find out name of your illness and how to treat
Wrong Diagnosis

Free product reviews:
CNET Reviews

Online resources for many topics:
Purdue

Tons of links on everything from the bluebook value of your car to how to get your name on the do not call list from telemarketers:
Writers Reference

Tips on how to stop junk mail and telemarketers from contacting you:
Junk Busters

Find out what festivals are going on in your area or search for festivals around the world:
Festivals

Amazon.com - free reviews of books, cds, and movies - search for the title you're interested in and then scroll to the bottom to see reviews from people who bought that item.
Amazon

Links to Best Online Art Museums:
Arts Listings

Van Gogh Galleries - great images!
Van Gogh Gallery
VG Gallery

Free Translation of websites into many languages:
Languages

Free online greeting cards (my favorite is 123greetings.com):
Free Greeting Card Sites

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FREE ONLINE BOOKS:

Major site for Free online books:
Gutenburg

Links to Online Book Sites:
IPL

Online book search:
Upenn

Yet more Links to online book sites:
Free Books

Links to free online book sites:
Ref Desk Books

Free audio books:
Librivox

Find books online:
Bartleby

Online book database 14,000 books:
Alex

Read and Search Bibles:
Bibles.net

One of the best Free online Encyclopedias:
Wikipedia

Dictionary and Thesaurus:
Merriam Webster

Audio Interviews of best english writers:
Wired for Books

Free kids stories:
Candelight Stories

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LEARN SOMETHING FOR FREE:

Free Online Classes:
Online Sapiens
Public University Online

Free language classes:
Word 2 Word

Educator's Reference Desk 2,000+ lesson plans, 3,000+ links to online education information, and 200+ question archive responses.
Eric

Writing tutorials (from basic writing skills to resume writing!)
Purdue Tutorials

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FREE TOOLS:

Convert Measurements:
Convert Me

Get free updates of airfares to your desired spots:
Orbitz

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FREE COMPUTER PROGRAMS:

Download free programs to use on your computer:
Download.com

Tucows

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FREE RECIPES

All recipes
Cooks
Recipe Zaar
Recipe 101
World Recipes
Recipe Source
Whole Foods
Food Network

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LAST AND BEST OF ALL:

Donate to charities for free! Yep this is legit - I've been doing it for 8 years, you can donate once per day on each charity:
The Hungersite
Ecology Fund

Free Information Comes to You!

Your local library - in a search engine type in the name of your local library - they may have a website that allows you to search their collection of books, audio books, movies, etc. All you need is a library card!

What's even better - if your library allows interlibrary loans you have virtually access to an unlimited number of books, cds, and dvds to view for free! You make your requests online for the interlibrary loans and they will mail the materials to your branch where you can pick it up! To see what titles are available do a search here:

http://www.worldcat.org

Here's a tip: if you don't know a title of books, cds, or movies you're interested in just go to amazon.com type in a few key words/or browse their topics - you can look at the books and cd descriptions and read reviews for free and then if you like it you can search the interlibrary site and see if they have it available!

I did this when I was looking for a book on sauce recipes. I couldn't afford to buy it and my local library branch did not carry it - I applied online and very soon got to borrow the book for free through the interlibrary loan!