With the New Year, comes resolutions and a commitment or recommitment to goals. To keep all your new tasks organized requires a planner that fits your needs.

I’m organizationally challenged, which causes problems because I’m also a multi-business entrepreneur. I’m always on the hunt for the perfect planner system that fits how I work. My preference is to see the whole week at a glance and have all my to-dos (personal and professional) listed along side any appointments. I don’t want to have to turn pages to manage my day because I’m more likely to not turn the page and therefore miss something. The problem has been that I’ve never found just the right planner.

If you’re having the same problem, visit DIYPlanner which has tons of different planner styles…for free. These planner templates are created by DIYPlanner or its members and uploaded for anyone to use. Planners come in a variety sizes depending on your needs.

The site also offers articles and other resources related to planning. The best way to find the actual planner templates is to click on “DIYPlanner.com” or “Time Management” in the left hand side bar. But do take some time to read the articles and other information. There is an interactive community with lots of great tips and ideas.

To learn more, visit DIYPLanner.com

Screen capture is a helpful tool in business and education. The difficulty is finding a quality, AFFORDABLE screen capture software. One option is Jing, which provides a free and low cost option for screen capture video. However Screencast-O-Matic offers one-click recording from your Windows, Mac or Linux browser. The free version provides 15 minutes of video (Jing only offers 5 even in the paid version), hosting, YouTube upload, and exporting in MP4, FLV or AVI. For $9 per year (Jing is $15/yr), you can have the watermark removed, password protect screencasts, ability to screencast outside the browser and editing tools.

If you’re creating lots of videos and need a full range of tools, Camtasia may be your best bet, but at $299 it’s pricey. For the individual or small business owner with few screencapture needs, Screencast-O-Matic offers all the basics for an affordable price.

To learn more, visit Screencast-O-Matic.

Better Living on the Web does NOT receive any compensation from Screencast-O-Matic.

A couple of years ago I was checking my web stats and noticed that one URL seemed to making a lot of hits on one of my graphics. Visiting the site I discovered it was using my logo as its own. This was potentially very bad for me as my site was about finding legitimate work-at-home opportunities and the site that was stealing my logo was a scam. People who didn’t know better would think that I was promoting the scam or at the very least endorsing it. It could have ruined my credibility.

Copyright infringement is rampant on the Internet, and its hard to know what materials are being stolen and where they are posted. But at TinEye.com you can an least find out if your logo, image, or other graphics are being used somewhere other than where you placed them.

TinEye has an easy to use image search engine for graphics. Just upload the graphic or give the URL of the graphic and it will show you where else the graphic is being used. You may be surprised to find your pretty mug showing up on a different  site! Or your logo!

To learn more visit TinEye.com

Results of a search on my photo image. Sparkplugging has permission to use this photo.

Are you a fledgling artist, filmmaker, musician, writer or creative soul? Need some cash to pursue your creative project? Then check out Kickstarter, which touts itself as the largest funding platform for creative projects in the world. Don’t worry that investors will have part ownership of your project. Through Kickstarter you keep 100% ownership over your work.  Instead, investors are thanked or compensated in other ways such as copies of the completed project. Current projects include documentaries, game boards, comics, art app for iPad and more.

If you don’t have a project, but are interested in supporting artists, Kickstarter has thousands of project looking for your help.

To learn more, visit Kickstarter.

For over two years I’ve been doing a weekly podcast at Work-At-Home Success. I’d avoided podcasting for a while because the set-up to record the call was tedious and not always reliable. I had to use an old laptop, because my newer one didn’t work right with the equipment I had. I had to hook up my phone to the computer’s recorder through a little Radio Shack device. Using Windows Movie Maker to capture the recording, I’d then need to convert it from WMV to MP3, transfer it to my new machine and edit. Fortunately, Skype and Pamela have changed all that.

Skype allows me to call via my computer to anyone anywhere. Its free to other Skype users and just a few cents a minutes to call landlines. Pamela records the call and saves as MP3. All I need to do once the call is over is edit and upload. No converting or transferring. No extra devices…just my headset and computer.

Pamela features include:

• Skype Call Recording
• Skype Video Recording
• Skype Chat Recording
• Skype Call Transfer
• Rich Mood Editor
• Answering Machine
• VideoMail
• Mega Emotion Sounds
• Auto Chat Reply
• Birthday Reminders
• Email Forwarding
• Contact Personalization
• Auto Start Applications
• Skype Publishing
• And more.

Pamela has a free version with a time limit of 15 minutes of recording and a few other limitations. It also has standard, professional and business versions for a fee. I opted for the Professional version which has a 30 day trial and is $38.95 if you want to keep it (there are less expensive options as well). It includes unlimited recording and all the other features such as blogging and podcasting.

Visit Pamela Systems to learn more!

Its easier and easier to find places to work no matter where you go. Locations like Panera Bread and Barnes and Noble offer free wi-fi and in a bind you can get access at Starbucks if you’re a reward card member. But occasionally I still get stuck without wi-fi or at least free wi-fi. There are many online resources you can use to find free wi-fi and all seem to yield different results. None of the few I tried were able to find the free spots where I live. I know I have at least 2, but my area is rural so maybe its not worth listing on the map. Here’s a few resources you can try if you need free wi-fi:

Hotspotr can search using your address and will provide other nearby city options on a Google Map.

Jiwire can search worldwide although Paris wasn’t on the France list and I don’t remember enough about France to know what region its in. When searching my local area, it had a few options that didn’t come up on Hotspotr but was also missing a few that had been on Hotspotr. It provides results on a list with an option to click on a map for specific locations.

OpenWiFiSpot at first had no options when I searched the larger city near me. But then there was a list of other options that included the zip code I initially searched with. Clicking on that I got a list with some of the same options offered on Hotspotr and Jiwire. It gives an option to get results by list or on a map.

If you run a small business, keeping your receipts organized and accessible helps make tax time easier. If you run a business or freelance in which you need to pay estimated tax payments four times a year, you may want to check out Shoeboxed.com, where you can mail-in or upload your receipts to organize them and get rid of clutter. The information can then be transferred to programs such as Excel, Quickbooks, Freshbooks, Evernote, Quicken, and CSV formats. If you scan and upload your receipts yourself, the service is free. Or you can mail your receipts and Shoeboxed will scan them for you. You can even scan and upload using your phone. Fees for expanded services depend on how many receipts a month you upload. There is even an option to upload business cards.

To learn more or get started for free, visit ShoeBoxed.com. Also check out ShoeBoxed’s blog for great articles on personal finance, taxes and more.

Sometimes the hardest part of research is figuring out where to look. Patricia Pmerleau created CEO Express

…to be the executive’s interface to the Internet. The site’s peer editor recognizes that executives have precious little time to obtain all the information they require to conduct business. At the same time, much of the information that executives need is available on the Internet. CEOExpress takes all that information, and by employing expert human editors and “mind ergonomics,” pares it down to the 20% that is most critical and useful.

At CEO Express you can get up-to-date information from top news organizations, business and government organizations, and more. You get information on current events, statistics, health news, travel and weather updates, business tools, leisure information and more. Its like the Readers Digest of Internet information.

CEO Express offers a default (free) and membership services. The default offers only limited services such as Daily Polls, search capabilities, and daily editor notes. The upgraded services ($29/yr) offers extensive customization, RSS feeds and mobile access.

Visit CEO Express to learn more.

Here are some great tips and news on digital tools and resources.

• How to Get Better Battery Life from Your Android Phone [Android]
  Source Lifehacker
  If you have a modern Android phone, you know the pain of turning on your phone at 5 PM only to realize it's deep in a low-battery coma. Here are the simple manual changes, and clever automatic tweaks...
• Diagramly Is a Quick Online Diagram, Mind Map, and Flow Chart Creator [Webapp]
  Source Lifehacker
  There are plenty of apps for creating flow charts, mind maps, and other types of diagrams, but Diagramly is ready to go the minute you visit the site. It's remarkably similar to Microsoft Visio, but...
• Smartphones Are Local Search and Shopping Devices
  Source GigaOM
  There’s a reason why search companies, advertisers, payment processors and local merchants are so interested in smartphones. It’s because they’re turning out to be powerful and popular tools for people looking to search locally, act quickly and...
• Keepsy Brings Instagram to Your Bookshelf
  Source GigaOM
  Keepsy, the Menlo Park, Calif.-based scrapbook startup, has launched its first product, “Instant Album,” a way to order physical scrapbooks made from Instagram photo albums. Keepsy is just the latest in a spate of new startups, like Sincerely and...
• Google Docs Brings Native App with Editing, Optical Character Recognition to Android [Downloads]
  Source Lifehacker
  Google Docs has been available as a mobile-optimized webapp for a long time, but it always left something to be desired. Today, Google released a native app for Android devices that makes it easy to...
• Make Notepad++ an Even Better Editing App with Powerful Plug-Ins [Text Editing]
  Source Lifehacker
  You don't have to go hunting to find plug-ins for the excellent, lightweight text editor Notepad++—there are a whole bunch already installed, and the others are in one big pack. There are, however,...
• Avoid Frequent Discharges to Extend Your Phone or Laptop's Battery Life [Batteries]
  Source Lifehacker
  People spread a lot of information about smartphone and laptop batteries these days, but we get a lot of mixed messages, some of which are just incorrect. Here's how to take care of your battery for...
• TravAlert Wakes You Up Before Your Train or Bus Stop [Downloads]
  Source Lifehacker
  iOS/Android/BlackBerry: People fall asleep on public transit, whether intentionally or otherwise. Mobile app TravAlert keeps track of your location without killing your battery, and then wakes you up...
• How to Make a Web Site Part I: Understanding and Writing HTML [Video]
  Source Lifehacker
  Everyone lives at least a little bit of their life on the web, and whether you develop web pages for a living, want to create a nameplate web site, or simply want more control over how your comment...
• Keep Your Pickup and Confirmation Receipts at the Ready with Your Smartphone [Organization]
  Source Lifehacker
  When you receive an online confirmation for a movie ticket, an air flight, an in-store pickup, or anything else where you may need to present your receipt, here's a quick way of always having it easi...
• Use Multiple Online Cloud Storage Services for Free and Organized Backup [Backup]
  Source Lifehacker
  We recently reviewed a few popular cloud storage services in an attempt to help you choose the best one, but why should you necessarily have to choose just one? Instead, use them all to create an or...
• CalendarBar Keeps Your iCal and Google Calendars in Your OS X Menubar [Downloads]
  Source Lifehacker
  Mac OS X: CalendarBar is a really handy menubar utility that stores your calendars in your Mac OS X menubar. It syncs up with Google Calendar, works with iCal, and even Facebook. More »...
• Taskforce Adds Lists and Upgrades Its Gmail Task Management [Updates]
  Source Lifehacker
  Chrome/Firefox/Safari: Taskforce, the task management system that tucks itself neatly into Gmail or Google Apps mail, has grown up quite a bit since its beta. The webapp supports more browsers, has a...
• Plugin by C. Murray Consulting

According to I Write Like, my writing, at least for Better Living on the Web, is similar in style to Cory Doctorow. I kind of like that! After all, he writes for Boing Boing.
If you are curious about which famous writer you write like, copy and paste a snippet of your writing into the I Write Like Analyzer and click the “Analyze” button. Who knows, you could be the next Hemingway or Grisham!

I write like
Cory Doctorow

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!