Find Free Wi-Fi Spots

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.

Organize Receipts with Shoeboxed.com

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.

Too busy to research? Try CEO Express

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.

Better Living Link Roundup

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

Who Do You Write Like?

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!