Category Archives: Save Time Online

Internet searching summarised

I just came across a search engine of sorts, one I hadn’t heard of before but really like for specific purposes now.

WolframAlpha calls itself a computational knowledge engine and what it appears to do is collect information on your search term rather than send you to a list of sites which may or may not tell you the whole story at one place.

For examples, see my searches on kangaroos, fiction and Melbourne.

I think it’s a great research tool – just to gather an overview of something of interest or a really good summary of key facts for serious research (such as for school work or background for writing an article or story).

It is of course still US-centric, but at least they clearly make those details as such (eg in definitions they give American pronunciation) and do include metric details (by default for searches about Australia).

Win a year’s subscription…

Are you looking for practical, useful information to help mums running a business? Do you want to read inspiring stories from business mums and WAHMs just like you? The Business Mums Magazine is what you are looking for.

You could win a 12 month subscription to this informative magazine simply by telling us how many categories there are in the articles archive – there are two subscriptions to win, valued at $30 each.

Note: Save Time Online Competition Terms are available here. This competition will be open for one month. Winners drawn 9th Sept and announced in the following newsletter. Giving your answer as a comment will not enter you in the competition and it will be deleted rather than published.

SEO games

SEO (Search engine optimisation) is time consuming but very effective for building the popularity of your website.

We came across a blog post that lists some SEO gamesto play – we haven’t tried them yet, but thought we’d share them anyway. We figure if you’re going to spend some time playing a computer game, why not make it on a topic that is useful and may teach you something? And the whole point of us saving you some time online is so you can choose to play games if that’s what you enjoy doing.

Back from the conference

As mentioned in May Madness, we both attended the Business Mums Conference over the weekend and had an awesome time.

We’d like to congratulate Karen (Time Well Spent) and Simone (Wellness, Fertility & Balance) on winning a door prize of a feature listing on Save Time Online for a year – we’ll post links to their pages once they have provided the information to go on their pages.

There were many great presentations over the weekend, including a session on web 2.0 and social media, and Tash’s presentation on promotional articles. Ally also shared her story in a forum, along with the Founders Award winner, Amanda Cox, Glenys Gijsbers and Bernadette Huysing.

We’d like to thank Melissa and her team for a great weekend, and highly recommend you diarise it for next year! And we may just offer another advertising deal if you mention us when booking (and we hope those people who took advantage of it this year benefit from their upcoming newsletter ads.)

Great deals

Our May newsletter has been sent out to subscribers and included a few special deals on top of May Madness so we thought we’d share them here, too…

Run a business as a sole trader? Then you need to be at THE small business conference of the year! Covering many topics relevant for running a small business, the Business Mums Conference (and Dads are welcome, too!) is in Melbourne on 20 – 21 June. We’ll both be there, and Tash is presenting on promotional articles, so make sure you say hello! Unlike most business events, this one costs  less than $500 – and if you mention Save Time Online when you book, we’ll throw in a newsletter ad for you (half day bookings excluded.)

Cleaning Mum Tee Light BlueReal mums is selling some fun ‘living the dream’ t-shirts for only $12 which is pretty cheap for a practical piece of clothing that is also funny! Or why not grab 5 t-shirts for a measly $50 – we think it’s a great opportunity to save time & money by starting your Christmas shopping early!


 Book Bargains offer massive savings on all titles – so much so that people usually save more than they spend! How cool is that!

 

If you would like to hear about deals like this first, plus see what’s new on our site and enter our competitions, why not subscribe? It doesn’t cost anything and you never know what it could save or win you!

Save time with less spam

Spam actually refers to unsolicited commercial emails – so ads that come to you via email without you having a (direct or indirect) relationship with the advertiser. In general use, it also applies to those emails that include a virus or spyware or try to trick information/money out of you (commonly referred to as phishing.)

It is a huge time waster when you’re online, even with spam filters that stop the majority of it reaching our inboxes. So you can really save yourself some time by reducing the chances of being spammed.

Here are some tips to help you:

  • if you don’t trust a website, don’t give them your email address
  • have a secondary email address to use for subscribing to newsletters and websites you aren’t sure of. That way, if you get spammed by them, you can stop that address without having to change yor main email. It can also save you time by having your newsletters separate to your important emails
  • if you have a website, don’t put your email address on the site as text – spammers have software that can scan the net for email addresses (called harvesting.) Use a contact form or show your email address as a graphic or in a way only humans understand (e.g. myname @ savetimeonline.com.au or myname@NOTTHISBITsavetimeonline.com.au)
  • don’t respond to any spam as that tells them your email address is real – and that even includes not clicking on links in their email
  • choose a complex email address that is not so easy to guess – for example, susan.brown@ and sbrown@ are harder to guess than susan@ or sue@

The Word Constructions blog gave more tips on reduing your spam and tips on keeping your emails away from spam filters.

Some May Madness…

The annual Save Time Online May Madness celebration is underway, but here are a few of the specials you can grab this month…

Save Time Online feature listings booked during May and quoting “May Madness” will get a 15% discount on the listing fee and any other advertising booked at the same time.
Precious Water will give a 10% discount for all custom-made water tanks sold to people mentioning May Madness when ordering. Offer ends 31 May 2009.
Every new project booked with Word Constructions during May 2009 will receive a free edit of the content of one webpage.
Business Mums Guides is offering the Easy Peasy Straight Forward Guide to Business Planning for only $5 instead of $12.50. Available via paypal only until the end of May.
The Business Mums Magazine is offering 35 word classified ads for only $5 if booked (enter the code MM-2009) by 31 May 2009.
Baubles, Bubbles & Bags is offering a $5 voucher to spend on our site.  Code to enter is BMNMAY. 
Just us kids is offering FREE delivery – enter the code BMNMAY at the check out.
Vista Print is offering 50% off various printed items – that is MAD!
Lifetime Health is offering a free Wombat Baby Snooze Mate when you place an order over $250 placed before 31 May 2009

 

More listings will be added throughout the month so keep checking for bargains! And if you run a business, you can join the madness*, too, as the more we offer, the more fun it is for everyone!

* Want to join May Madness? All family-friendly Australian businesses and websites are welcome to participate if they meet the following criteria:

  • make a genuine offer to people throughout the month of May

  • promote the May Madness promotion by linking to this page as often as possible 

May Madness!

Yes, It is the first of May and that means the annualMay Madness Save Time Online May Madness Mayhem!  

Every year, Save Time Online bring you offers from a collection of businesses so you can save money and time from one place.

To find out about the offers and specials, just visit our May Madness page. Find the specials that will save you time and money, and follow the link to that site to start saving.

Keep coming back as we add offers throughout May as more and more businesses join in the madness.

If you run a business, you can join in, too. Simply make a genuine offer to people during May, add it to your website with a link back to our May Madness feature, then we’ll add your offer to the collection.

Enjoy May!

Mothers Day

Yes, it’s almost Mothers Day again – have you thought about how to thank your Mum for everything she has done for you?

As always, we have a mothers day page brimming with ideas  for you, but thought we’d give you a few extras here as well…

International Woman’s Day

In the same month as Woman’s History Month(starting March 1), on March the 8th is International Woman’s Day. This day occurs annually and is a world wide celebration of the ecenomic, political and social achievements of women.

In some ways, the day has lost its political aspects, and became simply an occasion for men to express their love to the women around them in a ways similar to Mother’s Day (2 months away) and St Valentine’s Day (just 4 days away!) mixed together. In others, the political and human rights theme runs strong and political and social awareness of the struggles of women worldwide is brought out and examined in a hopeful manner.