Like I always say, if there is anything better than a discount it has be freebies! And since I discovered the internet radio or streaming audio I have a terrific source of free music listening and access to stations that I can modify, skip, and search for at will. Since I spend a lot of time on the net, I always have some or other music streaming the background and I thought that those of my readers who are not already aware of these sites could gain from this knowledge.

Just a little note of caution here – if you have a limited internet plan, or the sort that you pay for depending upon the amount of downloading or internet use in terms of megabytes or gigabytes, then audio streaming is not the thing for you – an unlimited plan is best. Also, if you still have that anachronism, the dial up modem and you don’t have broadband then this is also no use for you.

My favorite such site for audio streaming is Jango.com. You can select the genre of music, the artiste, and even create your own stations according to your personal preferences. Also when you do an artiste music search, you also get a bunch of options for videos of the artist you may want to watch and a short artist bio. What I like most about sites such as Jango is the fact that you don’t have to listen to any song that you don’t like, you can simply skip that track. The audio player is built into the site’s page so you don’t get a pop out player.

Radio Tower is another site I recommend, that offers all the genres (I am currently listening to some 70’s tracks and the song playing right now is Country Roads). Here you can pick the country you’re in and then play songs according to the language you want to listen to. some stations have a pop up station that will play the music you choose or will use Real Player, windows media player or Winamp (whichever one you pick) to play the music.

I have now switched to listening to the Salsa Stream (Latin) from the site Shoutcast.com, which is playing a lively, lovely track that I never heard before, but which is making me want to get up and dance! A neat little audio player at the bottom of the page can also be made to pop out if you want. You can stop but there did not seem to be the option of skipping.

So go ahead and enjoy these free music listening resources; as I do. All the time!

If Free Perfume samples are your thing then visit this site which offers a free Avril Lavigne perfume sample.   You are required to fill in a basic form with your email and street address and name, to order a free sample. And if you’re not interested in the perfume, you can still hang around the site and play a secret garden game, earn points and so on.

Wipes are something we can all use; right? They can help you feel cleaner than just dry wiping and these are the flushable variety from Cottonelle. To get a moist wipes free sample coupon (the coupon is redeemable for a free tub of Cottonelle Flushable Moist Wipes), all that you need to do is fill in the basic form with your details and you’re good to go.

If you are interested in the Arts and Crafts Movement, you’re probably interested in the story of Elbert Hubbard. So to get a free DVD of the full length film, Elbert Hubbard: An American Original, you again need do nothing more than fill out that standard form.

I love granola bars, and so this offer for a free sample of Fat free Fruit Granola Bar, sounds to me very promising. Thing is that they send out only a thousand samples each month, and who gets the sample depends upon their monthly draw. Then they send you a coupon and you pick up your sample from a retailer.

I have been meaning to try out one of these detergent things that promise not to let color run in the wash – you know the sort of product that means your whites will not end up pink because the red top got in along with them in the wash. So if you’re interested as well, then you can get yourself a free sample of this Shout Color Catcher product that promises that you don’t have to separate your washing.

So happy free sampling all, and don’t forget to let me have your experiences and reactions to all those freebies!

Now if you can get used to the whole idea of reading comics on the phone, then this one is for you. The Comics App for iPhone and iPad and has lots of free downloadable comics and you can buy more to read if you so wish.

Now this one is for the creative soul in you and at a pinch will keep the kids busy as well. Tone Pad has a musical grid set up that lets you create your own ringtones and loops. You can make melody by touching the screen and seeing notes light up. You can also share the tunes with others.

The social networking and chat applications are a must IMHO, so you should have the Facebook app which has a unique grid interface and is actually better designed than the browser version according to many. Then there is the Twitter app which offers real time top tweets, trending topics and maps. Skype is I think the best chat service and the Skype app lets you make international calls, send and receive instant messages and do all the usual skype stuff.

Around Me is a useful app for getting all sorts of information about services around where you are – ATMs, gas stations, coffee shops, bars, hotels, hospitals, movie theaters and at the top of the list is the Apple retail stores because you know that’s more important than hospitals. It tells you the location of the nearest one and then gives out the map for how to get there.

Words and language I find fascinating, so this Dictionary and thesaurus app is a must for someone like me.  And just in case you have a problem with a pronouncing a word (everyone has to look up soigné, don’t they?) you can hear the word as well.

For some fun edit options for pictures you take with your phone, you can try the Photoshop Express App. Be warned this is not the fully loaded version, but it gets a lot done.

So have fun with these and share some of your fave apps as well.

If, like me you like Peanuts, then the Peanuts site is a must visit for you. Read a months’ worth of comics, send a comic to a friend, or send an e card from here.

Now the Dilbert website I liked even more because you can sign up for a daily animation, daily strip, most popular, newsletter etc. What I also liked very much is the Dilbert Widget which gives you the option of seeing Dilbert in color every day; enjoy archives, rank and share with friends. The widget comes in different sizes.

This site offers you the option of free as well as paid subscriptions. If you sign up for the freebie, you get a comic strip delivered to your email inbox 6 days a week. If you want to go in for one of the paid subscriptions you get a lot of bells and whistles such as multiple strips everyday of the week, puzzles, access to archives etc. You can also purchase a membership as a truly unique gift for someone.

I love Garfield, Calvin and Hobbes and Dilbert; they have to be my fave comic strips and each of them are available on this site. Your favorite comics appear in your personal RSS/RDF feed, in your (optional) daily emails or on your own Comic Digest page.

Here you can read comics and post your own comments too. So if you are a serious comics buff it would be a really nice place to hang out, share opinions etc.

Arcamax.com is also a really neat site where you can read comics, jokes cartoons etc, and also have them delivered to your inbox for free. I don’t know about you but I like to start the day with a laugh so I think having comics and funnies delivered to the inbox is a great idea!

There are a lot of online resources that can help us to improve our vocabulary and language skills, all for free. Did you, for instance, know that you can improve your vocabulary by signing up to receive a word and its meaning everyday delivered daily to your email inbox? One word, along with its meaning, origin, usage, variations, pronunciation (including audio pronunciation) is emailed to you each day. You can sign up to receive the word of the day here, and also browse to find the meaning of any word. Wordsmith.org has a similar daily newsletter which teaches you a word a day and has an anagram server as well.

Reference.com is a great site which offers dictionary and thesaurus facilities besides a whole host of other features like a multilingual dictionary, games and puzzles, grammar and usage and other language dictionaries as well.

Another free English Dictionary with instant sound is this one, which is a great way to know exactly how to pronounce difficult words that we sometimes know the meaning of but are reluctant to use in actual speech because we don’t know how they are pronounced.

Now another way to exercise both your mind and keep your language skills up to date is to do crossword puzzles and I do a puzzle from here whenever I have the time. It is neither too difficult nor too easy and best of all if you can’t solve a clue, you have the option getting the answer instantly. Not ‘getting’ one can be really frustrating you know!

Of course you should do that which is best for improving language skills, read! Not only does reading increase the fund of your knowledge, it is the single best way to improve language. I have said it before, reading is perhaps the best habit that we can pass on to our children as well!

Now here, you can access to a whole lot of printable greeting for pretty much every occasion. They even have condolence cards and world’s best grand mom cards. They have templates in PDF format that you can simply open and print; very painless.

Print free.com is a site that gives you the option of printing not just greeting but also calendars, wrapping paper, business cards and other office stationery and other pictures and prints. You can customize and change whatever you want in the card enter the text of your choice and then print it according to the instructions given. They have detailed tips on how to print in a way that fetches the best results. Fairly idiot proof.

This site also had some very good quality cards and it offers you a one month trial period for free. You of course have to sign up for this one. Again you can customize or take their suggestions about what to say in the card.

This site has a good collection of cards; I especially like the birthday cards which are divided into his, hers, kids and funny. They have a fairly straightforward interface for editing the cards, you can even upload your own images to customize.

May I wind up with a small bit of advice for the men folk out there? Women love to receive cards for no reason at all. Have I given you a clue?

I thought the idea of online backup would make much better sense. Moreover, since the data would be available to me wherever I may be. I would not be hampered by having to carry DVDs and external hard drives. I looked around for a low cost solution and I found something even better. I found a free one. IDrive offers free Online Backup facilities for upto 2 GB of space for personal use. For requirements beyond that, there is a very affordable fee of USD 4.95 per month (or USD 49.50 per year) for unlimited storage space (read conditions on site) for personal use. There is a different package for Business Users with Storage space options of 50, 100 and 500 GB. The costs here are very competitive as well.

I have just finished backing up all my files, including the files of this blog. The entire process was pretty simple. Have a long way to go before I exhaust my 2 GB of free space. So I’m good with the free account for the time being. You can give it a shot too and save yourself a lot of potential trouble.

They add new coupon codes and discount information on a daily basis. The Hot Coupons page lists the selected few unbelievable coupons that are far more lucrative than others. Their coupons are divided into many easy to browse categories. All the information is very well organized. The coupons for Apparel and Clothing are too good to ignore. Also worth checking out are the Health and Beauty coupons. They have great coupons on office supplies too. Some worth checking out are the Vistaprint coupons for low cost promotions on custom color printing. The discounts range form 25% to 75% with some stuff actually being given away free. That’s one find my better half will be happy about. Not so sure about the Clothes and Beauty coupons though. LOL.

And I must add, the site is completely free to use, no free registration required either. Do check it out and let me know if you use a code that helps you save bucks.

I tried a different tack this time; I thought I would search for specific freebies: first I tried out free music. I’m talking legal music downloads not limewire and bootlegs. This site, has some cool music on offer; within seconds I had this nice track from the Buddha Lounge, but you need to buy most of the stuff. The Gibson Guitars site also has a quite extensive list of stuff you can download, but most of the stuff I found a little underwhelming. There is of course the famous Radiohead initiative where they gave their complete album for free download. Check out the remixed album here. There are other sites to be sure but they require registration.

Then I saw this advert for free Ben & Jerry ice cream cone sample! And I simply love Ben & Jerry’s ice creams, especially their out there flavors, so I really perked up but was rapidly crestfallen: that offer was for only one day: 29 April. Ah well, there is always next year.

Then there are Walmart freebies (I can see you’re thinking, finally this is getting interesting): John Frieda collection sample! Wonderful! I clicked on the get your sample link and Presto! I got the BROCHURE! You do however get free toothpaste samples and bedwetting shorts samples for the price of a few details and answering a few questions.

Since I love perfume, I thought let’s check out if there were any freebie perfume samples to be had (they spray it on really liberally when you visit any store that sells perfume, so why not samples). Apparently you can get a free Escada sample here for the price of a few personal details, but only if you live in the US, Spain, Germany or France. Here also, you get free samples if you fill in some details and answer some questions.

Be warned though, my skepticism is still rife, so I will trust all these freebie claims when I smell the perfume, so to speak! If you have had good or bad experiences with freebies, do let me know.

Freebies Archive is a site that claims to offer all manner of things free, including free laptops and free iPhones. Now that made me very suspicious so I delved a bit. Lots of pages regretted to inform me that the offers were no longer available or had expired; others redirected me to pages where I saw that in order to get the alleged ‘free’ iPhone you have to do all kinds of things and the rules stated:

“Please note Sponsor offers may require you to sample and/or purchase products of interest and/or take other actions such as applying for or obtaining a loan or extension of credit (including credit cards), transferring a balance, or similar steps. In order to remain eligible for your gift, you must complete all of the sponsor offers that require you to sample and purchase products of interest within 180 days of signing up for our service.”

Hmmm, not free after all. I looked with rather less suspicion upon the free samples sections. However a lot of these also redirected me. My desire to get 6 free toothpastes took me to a site called Brandrama (wonder if this one was named by someone hung up on the ghastly 80s band Bananarama) where I was firstly asked for my email address and the home page told me that the six tubes would be mine if I “took a survey and completed participation requirements where I sampled and purchased products of interest”. Most of the offers ominously informed me “Participation required”. Lots of strings there, and sounds like work to me.

Frankly disheartened I clicked on the free antivirus software, very hopeful that at least this would yield a genuine freebie? Nada, me hearties! The page offered zilch, it came up blank! Thoroughly dejected I ploughed on to the free Books and magazines section. A free magazine subscription offered me “the opportunity to participate in health surveys and polls.” And in all probability it will be an email subscription, so my ebbing enthusiasm evaporated entirely. Then there were free fonts to be downloaded, which I did, but my computer informed me that I would need to go and find the appropriate program to open the damn thing.

I hereby, most gloomily conclude that there is no such thing as a free lunch. But you know what, I am an eternal optimist and my quest for the freebie shall continue, I will bring you good tiding about it anon!