image by d70focus

Your personal computer, combined with an Internet connection, is the ultimate information appliance.  I’ll show you 8 ways you can use the technology you already have to save some money, whether you’re looking to be more frugal in general or are planning a big purchase in the near future. Regardless, I bet you’ll find at least one tip in this list that you can implement today to save a bit of scratch tomorrow.

Shop Online and Compare Prices

Nearly every business that sells a product has a web site these days, and most at least list their products and prices online if they don’t offer a way to purchase directly.  It’s worth your time to do a bit of comparison shopping to get the best price on an item.  Where to start?

Google Product Search: Google has a search engine specifically for online shopping that helps you search for products for sale online and compare prices.  If you find what you’re looking for at a price you like, you can easily click through to the seller’s site.

Amazon.com: Amazon is a valuable shopping tool due to their huge inventory of products, easy to use interface, comprehensive product descriptions and user review system.  Keep an eye out for the “More Buying Choices” link on the product pages.  That’s a gateway to the Amazon Marketplace, where 3rd party sellers can set up a storefront inside Amazon.  You may be able to find the same product for less than Amazon sells it, or a used item, which is often perfectly acceptable for things like books, DVDs or video games.

eBay: If you’re trying to find used or hard to find objects, somebody might be selling it on eBay.  eBay has been making changes recently to give buyers more protection in their system.  Sellers on eBay have been complaining, but, in general, eBay is a safe place to shop as a buyer these days.

Travel: You can use these same techniques to find the best prices on airfare.  Use one of the online travel agencies like Orbitz, Travelocity, Expedia, or CheapTickets to compare prices.  Tip: decide which flight you want and then visit the airline’s website to book directly with them and you’ll avoid the additional fees the 3rd party booking sites charge.

Gasoline: Several sites exist to help you find the best price on gas for your car.  GasBuddy, MSN Autos, and GasPriceWatch are examples.  These rely primarily on user submissions and allow you to enter your current location to see a map of nearby gas stations and their prices.

Take it on the road: Do you have an iPhone? With Mobile Safari you can use any of these websites anywhere you go.  Beyond that, there are many specialized applications in the App Store designed to help you save money.  GasBuddy has an iPhone app, for instance.  Mashable has a list of 5 of the Best iPhone Apps for In-Store Savings, which includes a shopping list application, coupon finding apps, an app for unit price comparison, and more.

Sell Things on Craigslist

The free online classifieds site, Craigslist, offers a quick and easy way to buy and sell nearly anything in your local area.  Don’t spend money on a few words in tiny print in the newspaper classifieds that nobody reads any more. You can have as much space as you want on Craigslist for free, with pictures.  Even if you have stuff you think nobody else would want, somebody on Craigslist will, if you price it correctly.  Just be sure to use common sense and be aware of scams and Craigslist can be very rewarding to your pocketbook.

Give Something Away, Get Something For Free

If any price is too much to sell something on Craigslist, you could try Freecycle.  Freecycle is a email mailing list that people in your community post to when they want to get rid of something without putting it in the trash.  One person’s trash is another’s treasure, as they say.  We’ve used the service a few times in the past and it’s amazing how quickly the odd whatsit you figure nobody would want leads to an enthusiastic person looking to add it to their lives.

Are you an avid reader who enjoys book swaps and has read everything in the local library?  Non-profit BookMooch is an online book trading system that arranges book swaps between its members using a points system.  You send books to others, fulfilling their requests to gain points, and then spend points to request a book and somebody who has it sends it to you.  It’s a fun way to get new books without spending a lot of money, and you can find interesting books to read by interacting with other BookMooch users in their forums.

Like BookMooch, Goozex is a points based trading system for video games.  There can be long waits for titles that are in demand at any particular moment, but it’s great for catching up on older games you may have missed or for getting something out of that popular title that you just didn’t like.  Goozex is definitely a better value than your local Gamestop.

Take Your Television Viewing Online

Netflix: With broadband Internet access getting ever faster and ever more common, the age of streaming online video is upon us.  Most people Michelle and I know are Netflix subscribers.  If you are you should try their Watch It Now feature.  Netflix offers a large portion of their catalog for instant streaming, either to your computer or to a Netflix enabled device, such as an XBox 360, Tivo, or LG or Samsung Blu-ray player.  Some people connect a computer to their television.

Hulu: Initially a joint venture by NBC/Universal and Fox, and joined on April 30th by ABC (Disney), Hulu is an online streaming service offering content from those three broadcast networks and their related cable networks, often with fewer advertisements.  If you miss a show or want to watch it again, this is a great way to get it, and more content is being added regularly.  CBS doesn’t participate in Hulu, but offers its stable of programming online at cbs.com.

Plex: Software that turns any Mac into a set-top-box.  Plex is an interface similar to Apple’s Front Row that gives you an easy way to watch DVDs and video files, listen to music, and access the online video services I just mentioned in one easy to use interface.

How do these relate to saving money?  The services I’ve just listed are free, or included at no extra cost as part of another service in the case of Netflix.  If you start using them you may find that you don’t need that expensive extended cable package.  Why pay for more channels than you can watch when you can get exactly what you want through an Internet connection you already have?  Michelle and I live in an urban area where we can get all the broadcast channel over the air in high definition with a simple antenna.  Between that, Netflix and Hulu, we get all the TV we can watch at a very low cost.

Use Your PC’s Power Saving Features

Modern computers have many power saving features that can help you reduce their electricity consumption and extend their lifespan.  A modern desktop computer with an LCD monitor running 24 hours a day can cost you over $150 a year to operate.  Turn it off at night, at least, and you’ll reduce that cost by one third.  Instead of a screen saver, set your monitor to turn off after 10 or 15 minutes.  Set your hard drive to turn off after a few minutes as well.

Best yet, have your computer sleep or hibernate after a half hour.  When you return, the computer will start back up and return directly to what you were doing when you left.  You won’t have to manually turn it off and it’ll be saving electricity, and money, all by itself when you’re not there.

Take a look at this article at LifeHacker for more ways to reduce your computer’s consumption of electricity and other resources like paper when printing.

Cancel Your Magazine and Newspaper Subscriptions

Chances are you subscribe to a newspaper or magazine.  Many publications now put their content online, much of it for free.  You won’t be able to do this with every magazine, especially those in certain specific niches, but even one makes a difference.  Take a look at our recent tip about RSS feeds for an introduction to making things that you’re interested in online come to you.

Try Instant Messaging and Skype

There are many ways to talk to people over the Internet with streaming audio and sometimes video.  If you have a Gmail account, you have access to Google Talk which is Google’s instant messaging system.  The best part about Google Talk is that it works on pretty much any platform that has a web browser, and integrates into nearly every chat client, so you can use it from anywhere you can get online, even a smart phone.  Beyond just text chat, Google Talk has recently enabled video chat direct from the web interface.  If you have a webcam you can start using it right away to video chat with your friends or family.

Skype is an Internet telephony application with which users can make free calls to other Skype users and inexpensive calls to anybody with a telephone.  Skype’s rates compare favorably to metered long distance, especially for international calls.  Video chat is available for Skype to Skype calls if you have a webcam.  Skype works on Windows, Mac, Linux and a variety of mobile devices such as smart phones.

Drop Your Land Line

One in five households in the US now have no traditional land line telephone service, and for the first time ever, more households use only cell phones than use only land lines.  Between a cell phone, your Internet connection, and instant messaging and video chat services we discussed in the previous section, do you really need that (at least) $15 per month dinosaur on your desk?

But Wait, There’s More

Those 8 items are not the only ways to save money using your computer or the Internet, but they’re a place to start.  I’ve done all of the above, and continue to look for more value in my monthly ISP fee.  The web has innumerable resources designed to help you save money; consider this article a starting point.  Other blogs I read for money advice are J.D.’s very educational personal finance blog Get Rich Slowly, and The Consumerist, a blog dedicated to consumer advocacy.

Finally, comment on this article to tell us and other readers how you use your computer to make or save money.  We want to hear from you!

One of the most useful tools a computer offers is that of copy and paste, yet I discover many people I talk to don’t know how to do it, or have heard of it but aren’t aware of what it is.  If this sounds like you, keep reading.  Soon you’ll wonder how you ever lived without copy and paste.

What are Copy and Paste?

Copy and paste allow you to take text (or a picture, or virtually any object that supports the semantic) and move or duplicate it in another location. Think of it like cutting up a newspaper article with scissors and reassembling the pieces in a different order.  In practice, it’s indispensable in word processing.  I copy and paste the URL of websites I want to share with friends from the browser’s address bar to email messages.

When you copy or cut text, it is stored in a place called the Clipboard.  The Clipboard is invisible and can only hold one thing at a time.  If you copy some more text, it will replace whatever is already on the Clipboard.  When  you paste, whatever is in the Clipboard is inserted where your text cursor is.

Copy and Paste Illustrated: selected text is copied to the clipboard and then pasted into a report.

What’s the difference between copy and cut?

When you copy, the selected text is duplicated onto the Clipboard.  When you cut, the selected text is moved from where it is onto the Clipboard.  Cut is only available in contexts where you can edit text, such as in a word processor or a form field.  For non-editable text, such as this text you’re reading now in your web browser, only copy will be available.

That sounds great, how do I do it?

The first step is to indicate the text you want to copy.  You may have noticed that when you put your mouse cursor over some text, the cursor changes shape from an arrow to a narrow vertical I-beam.  If you haven’t noticed that, move your mouse cursor over the text of this paragraph and you’ll see what I mean.  In text you can edit, like a word processing document or the web browser’s address bar, if you click the mouse when the cursor looks like an I-beam, it will move the text cursor to that location, so that you can type there.

If you click and hold the button down, and then drag the mouse, you’ll see that background of the text between where you clicked and where your mouse cursor has moved will change color, indicating that it is selected.  You can experiment with the text of this article if you like.  When you have selected the text you intend, release the mouse button and that text will remain highlighted.

Now it’s time to copy.

Windows Notepad with selected text and the Edit Menu open

The screenshot above shows Notepad in Windows XP with some selected text and the Edit menu open.  On a Macintosh it is extremely similar, except that the menu bar is along the top edge of the screen instead of inside the window as it is in Windows.  Almost every application that has a menu bar at the top will have an Edit menu, and on the Mac, the Edit menu is a nearly universal feature of the menu bar.  The three items in the edit menu that we’re interested in are Cut, Copy, and Paste.  To copy, select Copy from the Edit menu.  The Cut and Paste commands are accessed the same way.

To paste, place the text cursor in the location you want the contents of the Clipboard to appear by clicking in that spot with the I-beam mouse pointer, then select Paste from the Edit menu.

The Edit menu is not the only choice you have.  These text operations are so frequently used that there are often three or four ways to do each, depending on the context.  It’s up to you to decide which method works best for you; there’s no right or wrong way to do it.

Sometimes, the Edit menu is unavailable, such as when working in certain dialog boxes.  In those cases you have a couple of choices.  Right clicking on the selected text will usually make a context menu appear that contains the Cut, Copy and Paste commands.  If the context menu isn’t available, you can use the keyboard shortcuts.

Many people find that the keyboard shortcuts for Cut, Copy and Paste are faster than using the mouse.  The keyboard method pretty much always works, even when the menu based methods are unavailable.  In Windows, Cut, Copy and Paste are Ctrl+X, Ctrl+C, and Ctrl+V, respectively.  The Ctrl, or Control, key is on the bottom row of your keyboard.  You probably have two, one on either side of the spacebar.  Pressing Ctrl and X, C, or V at the same time causes the computer to Cut, Copy or Paste.

On a Mac, the Command key is used instead of the Ctrl key.  The Command keys are directly flanking the spacebar (where the Alt key is on PC keyboards) and have the Apple logo and a sort of four sided cloverleaf glyph on them.

If you can’t remember the keyboard shortcuts tomorrow, they’re listed in the Edit menu next to the commands, as you may have noticed in the screenshot above.  This is a good way to learn other keyboard shortcuts for other commands.

Copy and Paste in Other Contexts

Did you know that cut and paste are not limited to text? You can also copy and paste other sorts of objects.  In Windows Explorer or the Finder on the Mac, you can copy and paste files from one location to another as an alternative to dragging them.  This is handy when you can’t see the source and destination folders at the same time.  Remember that copy will duplicate the file and cut will move it.

You can also copy and paste images or mixed text and images from one place to another.  The main thing to remember when copying and pasting complex objects is that the source and destination have to be capable of containing the same sort of content.  For example, Windows Notepad (pictured above) can only work with plain text. Nothing will happen if you have a picture in your Clipboard and you attempt to paste it into a text document in Notepad.  On the Mac, if you copy a file into a text document, the name of the file will be pasted.  This behavior can be unexpected or helpful, depending on the task you’re attempting.

That’s all there is to it! You now know the ins and outs of Copying, Cutting and Pasting.  Once you incorporate this into your day to day computer use, I think you’ll wonder how you ever used your computer without it.

We are both Macintosh users by choice, but have a wealth of knowledge of Windows and even–in Nik’s case–Linux. As an IT manager and web developer, Nik has in-depth technical skills in a wide variety of applications and programming languages. He has a strong interest in “big picture” computing topics, such as computer security, and helping people understand those topics. Michelle has similar abilities, but usually concentrates more on consumer applications, social media, and internet trends. She loves learning about the latest and greatest, and poking at them until she understands what they are and why someone might want to use them.

Computers are now as much a part of our everyday lives as televisions, but are seldom understood as well as the other common household appliances.  A computer is the most complex device most people will ever own, a device that can do nearly anything, so long as its programmer or operator is clever enough to imagine the task and program the computer to do it.

Before the invention of the computer as we know it, the word computer referred to a person.  Someone who computes, who performs mathematical calculations.  These computers might produce logarithm tables, or use those tables in the process of performing other calculations.  The electronic computer was invented to relieve human computers of this tedious and repetitive task, and to perform that task more accurately and quickly than any human could.

The purpose of the modern personal computer in your home or office is no different: it should make the things that you want to do easier.  Yet, for many people we talk to, computers remain a frustration.  They make easy tasks complicated, and they frustrate with their obtuse behaviors and mysterious errors.  Computers deliver email, but they also deliver spam, computer viruses, and headaches.

Our goal is to help you take better advantage of your PC by teaching you the basic skills you’ll need to make the best use of any application you encounter, providing useful and practical advice for keeping your computer in good working order, and illustrating new and exciting things you can do with your PC.  Many computer enthusiasts are interested in the computer for its own sake, but we know that the majority of people that own computers have other interests: your family, your friends, your job, your hobbies–all these things that make up your life can potentially be enhanced by the computer.  We’re here to help you do that.