Sifting through all of the free sites and services available on the Web, you’ve probably come up with some favorites, such as instant messaging tools or video streaming sites.
Those are great, but what about freebies that displace something for which you usually pay for? Some of these offerings, such as free services for making and receiving faxes, are for an introductory level of a paid product.
Others are Ad-supported or public services. But each one is a compelling way to get something, for free, that ordinarily costs you money. In many cases you’ll get just as much as what you used to pay for-or more.
Free conference call
Running a meeting on a low budget? Rondee provides free conference calls for up to 50 people, and it offers several great extras.
You can launch a conference call immediately, simply by notifying your participants and giving them a Rondee PIN. But if you plan a call in advance, the service will send calendar-compatible e-mail invitations (with all call-in details) and make a list of replies. It’ll even provide a non-speaking access code, too, so that you can invite people to listen but not talk.
You can activate voice recording for calls planned in advance, as well. After everyone hangs up, participants receive e-mail instructions for downloading the meeting as an MP3 file.
Send and receive
faxes for free
Qipit lets you send up to five faxes each week for free. You can upload JPEG images or even send them directly from a camera phone. Free faxes include a header banner that mentions Qipit.
FaxZero limits you to two faxes of three pages each day, and its transmissions include a FaxZero-branded coversheet. But instead of sending images, FaxZero takes PDFs and Word documents, making it a better choice for PC-based use.
You can even cancel your dedicated incoming fax line and have people send physical faxes to you online. eFax Free handles everything, digitizing faxes and routing them to your e-mail account. You get a free phone number that is connected to eFax and is always listening for incoming calls.
Send free text messages
Stop paying to send text messages. Several free options can transmit them from your PC or phone; just make sure to keep your messages under the 160-character limit.
Within AIM, you can send a message just by chatting with the country code and mobile number of a friend. For example, you can send a text to the number of a pal in the U.S. in the format +12223334444. Your friend can reply, and the text will route to your chat program. It works even if you’re chatting directly on a phone’s mobile client.
Store large files online for free
Most e-mail servers choke on messages that are 5MB, 10MB, or larger. You could sign up for a range of free sites that offer to host bigger files, but Drop.io beats all of those since it hosts files and doesn’t make you go through any sign-up process.
You can upload attachments of up to 100MB, and you can even customize the resulting URL. Afterward, simply send the link to your contacts so that they can download the files.
Bottom line – why pay extra cash for things that are just available for free? Enjoy!
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