Spotlight on Shutterstock

Shutterstock is a subscription-based stock photo agency and one of the largest online purveyors of stock photos. Founded in 2003, the company has grown to include more than 5 million royalty-free photos in its library. The services are available by subscription, a departure from other online stock photo agencies which often charge per image. Contributing photographers are required to apply and submit ten images for review before they become a regular submitter to the library.

We recently spoke with Jon Oringer, founder of Shutterstock.

What kind of features does your service offer as compared to other stock photo sites?

Perhaps the largest and most fundamental difference between Shutterstock and other stock photo sites is that Shutterstock is a subscription-based service, which means that our subscribers pay monthly or annual fees instead of paying per image. Many of our customers use stock images on a frequent basis and enjoy the flexibility of having a subscription because they know they always have enough images for their needs.

A pioneer in the stock image world, we were the first online stock company to implement the popular “25-A-Day” subscription plan. These subscription plans provide the greatest savings per image with 25 downloads every day, totaling 750 each month.

Shutterstock also offers On Demand subscription plans, which are lower-commitment plans that allow subscribers to download images anytime over a one-year period. The On Demand subscription plans are ideal for businesses and individuals who do not need the volume of images offered in our traditional 25-A-Day subscription plans but still want the savings a subscription provides over a one-time image purchase.

Shutterstock has a number of unique programs such as the Red Carpet Program, which gives press passes to Shutterstock photographers for a wide variety of celebrity and special events. Another popular service is Shutterstock Footage, an online collection of stock video that operates in a similar fashion to our stock image site.

What's been the key to your company's success?

The key to Shutterstock's success has been our commitment to both sides of our business: servicing both the submitters and the subscribers. We have made uploading to the site as intuitive and financially rewarding as possible, which in turn has helped us become the largest online stock photo agency in the world.

Our commitment to a user-friendly experience is also evident on the subscriber side. We pride ourselves on providing flexible and affordable pricing plans and an easy-to-navigate extensive library of high quality images.

What do you think draws the creative community to Shutterstock?

Shutterstock's appeal is simple: we provide the greatest selection of quality, royalty-free images and footage at the most affordable price points. With the largest library in the industry -- over 5 million images -- as well as appealing pricing plans, we have the best combination of quality and affordability in the online stock photo industry.

How does your payment plan differentiate your website from your competitors?

The nature of Shutterstock’s payment plan is intrinsically linked to our success as an online stock photo agency. While other companies have a "pay as you go approach" or a complicated system of credits, Shutterstock employs a straightforward, subscription-based price plan, which we pioneered.

What different types of payment plans do you offer?

Most users subscribe to one of Shutterstock’s 25-A-Day plans; you can subscribe for one month, three months, six months or one year, with the full year subscription providing the lowest cost per image. We also have On Demand plans, where you can purchase a fixed number of downloads for use any time you want over the course of a year.

How can Shutterstock submitters make money?

By submitting a lot of quality images. Shutterstock’s service is designed to reward frequent submitters of marketable images - the more accepted downloads you have, the greater your payout is likely to be.

How many stock contributors do you have to the site?

Shutterstock currently has over 120,000 submitters.

How much money does the average submitter make? How much do your top earners make?

Submitters earn 25 cents for each image downloaded, which goes up to 33 cents when they reach $500 in total earnings, with extra raises implemented when they reach the $3,000 and $10,000 total earnings milestones. Submitters’ images can be downloaded hundreds or even thousands of times. As a result, submitters have the potential to make a sizable income, and many do.

What are the guidelines for submissions?

Our reviewers judge potential images by two basic categories. First, the image needs to be technically sound. Second, it needs to be marketable. Ensuring a technically sound image consists of having appropriate framing, focus, lighting, and lack of noise. Taking a marketable image can be more difficult; it is important for first-time submitters to keep in mind that what makes a good stock image is not necessarily the same as what makes a good photograph. We encourage first-time submitters to spend some time browsing through other successful images before they submit to get a sense of what a stock photo should look like.

What kind of photographs are you looking for?

Shutterstock looks for technically well-executed images that have a strong central idea or concept.

What are the other ways to make money on the site?

Submitting is, of course, the main way. However, we also offer a bonus of 20 percent (up to $50) of a subscription price if you refer a stock image buyer. Also, if you refer another submitter, you can earn 3 cents each time one of their images is downloaded.

How do you feel about Getty Images and Flickr working together? What sort of effect do you think partnerships like these have on Shutterstock?

The Getty/Flickr partnership is an interesting concept, but it is not likely going to have an effect on our core business. Flickr users are not uploading their pictures with stock photography in mind. Further, whether Getty Images will be able to thoughtfully cull viable stock images out of a library of more than 2 billion photos is yet to be proven. This said, since online stock agencies are beginning to affect Getty’s business model, it makes sense for the company to implement partnerships and strategies to increase its online stock presence.

Where do you see the stock footage business going in the next few years?

The online stock image marketplace has grown dramatically in recent years, and we expect the same for stock footage.
Businesses are increasingly using online video content to design more aesthetic and interactive websites, and the economic downturn has caused broadcasters, production houses, and advertising firms to look for affordable alternatives to shooting original footage or buying footage from traditional providers. As a result, more and more companies and individuals are turning to Shutterstock to fulfill their footage needs without compromising quality. Also, since Shutterstock provides a new revenue stream for filmmakers and videographers, our footage library grows by almost 1,000 clips per week and we recently exceeded the 80,000 mark.

Shutterstock is offering a special discount subscription rate to Black Turtle Media members. Please use CODE: BTM10 when signing up at www.shutterstock.com.

Cool Tools: Inkscape

Open-Source software has reached a new level of excellence in the past few years. No longer do consumers have to pay for over-priced software, instead they’ve got a number of free alternative which carry nearly all the same features. Inscape is some incredibly useful open-source software for creatives.

Inscape is a vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, or CorelDraw. Instead of bitmap images, Inkscape stores its graphics in a vector format. Don’t let that scare you though, Inkscape can also import and display bitmap images. The software supports many advanced and the interface is nicely streamlined. It’s a nice little vector graphics package for the non-professional user.

A great benefit of the software being open-sourced is that there's a thriving user and developer community. If you’re having trouble with something, chances are someone has already had that same problem and developed a solution.

There are some areas in which Inkscape fails: there are a limited number of tools, there are limited exporting options, and text options are limited, even for an amateur. If you’re not an expert of graphic programs and you’re looking for a simple solution that won’t cost you a lot of dough, Inkscape is the solution you’ve been looking for.

Cool Tools: Digital Photography School

So you just got the latest, greatest digital camera and you’re ready to become the next Anzel Adams? Fantastic. There’s only one problem: you’re no Anzel Adams. You don’t know the difference between a lens and a flash and you’re completely incapable of framing picture without the top of someone’s head being cut off. Don’t worry; Digital Photography School is here to school you on everything from shutter speeds to aperture.

Digital Photography School is a blog that lets you learn the ins and the out of photography. Darren Rowse is the guy behind Digital Photography Blog. Advances photographers might find this site a little basic but it is a great resource for the beginning or intermediate photographer to hone their skills and learn what digital photography is all about.
Check it, soak up the tips, and keep on snapping!

Cool Tools: Blender

Imagine trying to create “Finding Nemo” with free software. That’s the concept of Blender in a nutshell.

Blender is a free open source 3D content creation suite, available for all major operating systems. It has robust features similar in scope to other high-end 3D software such as Softimage, Cinema 4D, Lightwave and Maya.

Among its capabilities are support for a variety of geometric primitives, including polygon meshes, fast subdivision surface modeling, Bezier curves, NURBS surfaces, metaballs, digital sculpting, and outline fonts. If you’re not into 3D design just yet, know that those features mean that Blender is a serious piece of free software!

Blender is full of features and it really puts to shame a lot of similar commercial software. Anyone who's ever been curious about computer-generated images should try playing with Blender. It’s a great alternative for students who might not want to fork over hundreds of dollars for software they may or may not enjoy.

If you’re looking to get started with Blender, you need to go through a lot of internet tutorials because the software is difficult to learn. Just Google the software and you’ll find numerous sites that provide tutorials for Blender. Tutorials are extremely recommended, especially to people new to this type of program.

Blender is a great 3D suite with a huge set of tools. A word of warning: using Blender is time-consuming. It is not software that’s easily learned and it takes a lot to learn the ropes. But for free software with this much power, it does not get any better than Blender.

Cool Tools:GIMP

For graphic designers on a budget Adobe Photoshop might not a viable option because of the high sticker price. GIMP, on the other hand, is a free program that’s very similar to Photoshop and it lets creatives do their thing for free.

GIMP stands for “GNU Image Manipulation Program” and that’s exactly what the program allows you to do-manipulate images. There is a bit of a learning curve when switching from Photoshop to GIMP because of the different menu layouts. But GIMP is powerful enough to accomplish pretty much all the same tasks you can in Adobe’s more expensive program.
The greatest things about the GIMP is that it’s expandable, extensible, and designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions which can let you do just about anything. The advanced scripting interface allows everything from the simplest task to the most complex image manipulation procedures to be easily scripted. Check it out for Windows, Mac, or Linux.

Cool Tools: Photoshop Lady

Adobe Photoshop is one of those creative programs that is easy to learn yet hard to master. Tutorials are a great way to teach yourself the intricacies of this photo-manipulating program and Photoshop Lady is a website that give you access to free Photoshop tutorials around the web.

The tutorials are organized into categories such as Drawing Effects, Photo Effects, Text Effects, Texture & Patterns and User Interface Design. The site aggregates all the tutorials from across the net and puts them into one place so that users can access them. So if you’re looking to find something, there’s a good chance that Photoshop Lady has it.

Check out the Photoshop Lady!

Cool Tools: Digital Photography Review

Deciding on a camera to purchase can be a daunting task. The types of cameras out there are numerous and the plethora of features available for them are intimidating. And then there are the questions of performance, reliability, and compatibility. If only you had a really smart friend that could tell you all this information. Well now you do, sort of. Digital Photography Review is a website that has in-depth reviews of nearly every major camera.

Heading to the site’s homepage, you’ll be provided with the latest updates to the site which include reviews of the newest camera models by the most familiar brands. In addition the new reviews listed, there are also news items relating to digital photography that give you early word on key features being implanted into future cameras.

If you know what camera you want, you can head to the archive of reviews and look it up by brand name. If you have no idea what you’re doing then there is a handy buying guide which lets you choose your preferences on things such as format, pixels, flash, and storage types. Enter various attributes and you will get matches which you can then compare against each other. It’s a helpful tool if you know which attributes in a camera you absolutely need and you know attributes that you don’t.

The discussion form at DPR is kind of a big deal. The forum is a thriving and vibrant community of photography professionals and amateurs who like to talk about all things photography. In addition to learning about the brands, the forum can also teach you about various aspects of photography production.

If you’re looking to purchase new equipment, DPR is a great place to start your research.

Cool Tools:FilmTools

Professional equipment for filmakers can sometimes be hard to find outside of Hollywood. Now there’s FilmTools, an online shop for filmmakers.

FilmTools is an online shop that offers grip, electrical, lighting, sound and video supplies. The equipment is top-notch and even the big studios purchase equipment from the company. That being said, the equipment can be quite expensive. A standard apple box will cost you about $30 and a director’s chair will cost you $100. Obviously lighting equipment and sound equipment will end up costing a lot more.

The site divides the equipment up by department: camera department, grip department, electrical department, lighting department, and sound department. For example, the camera department sells everything from lenses to camera shoulder supports. And the electrical department sells everything from cables to power generators.

In addition to the film equipment that is available for sale on their site, FilmTools also offers a book and DVD section where you can browse titles that improve your skills in film. Titles include The Complete Film Production Handbook and Documentary Storytelling for Video and Filmmakers.

FilmTools has been online since 1994 and it’s the only store dedicated to supporting the Motion Picture Camera Department. For those that are located in Los Angeles, they also operate a retail store where you can walk in and purchase. If you’re looking to find hard-to-find equipment FilmTools is a great place for you to start your search.

Cool Tools: Creativedocs.net

Need to create a document? Want to create one that stands out from the crowd? Check out Creative Docs; their free software may be just what you’re looking for.

Creative Docs is a vector-based graphic design tool. It can be used to create documents, manuals, posters, illustrations, schemas, plans, and more. The software is along the lines of Adobe Illustrator and Corel Draw. But since Creative Docs is free, the software isn’t nearly as powerful as the for-purchase software.

That being said, Creative Docs does offer some features that are usually reserved for commercial software - you can draw text along a curved path, merge shapes, and convert text into curves and color gradients. Some other uses of Creative Docs include creating optical illusions, drawing flow charts and writing manuals. Finished documents and graphics can be saved in image formats or as a PDF documents.

The software is co-developed by Epsitec SA, a 30-year-old Swiss company that is famous for learning software, and OPaC bright ideas, a Microsoft Certified Partner. Other software that the two companies developed have included Virtual Pen, which is pretty self-explanatory, and AutoWall, a wallpaper changer.

There is other software similar to Creative Docs available on the internet such as Inkscape but Creative Docs appears to be the strongest. The downside of the free powerful software is that there are restrictions that limit the commercial use of the product. To use the software, just head to http://www.creativedocs.net/ and download. You don’t need to pay anything but you can give a donation if you feel so inclined.

Cool Tools: Fix My Movie

Today’s technology has placed video cameras in all sorts of devices ranging from cell phones to laptops. It’s always great to have a camera on you; after all, who knows when you’ll find something worth filming. The problem is that the videos in cell phones capture in painfully low resolutions. They often come out blurry and unwatchable, with the Gordon’s Fisherman looking more like Big Bird. Now there’s a service that lets you take these videos and increase their quality. Fix My Movie!

It works like this. You transfer the video in your computer or cell phone to the website and within thirty minutes they will have upgraded the quality of the video. Fix My Movie claims that it increases resolution up to four times, brings out new details, gets rid of noise and compressing artifacts, and automatically brightens dark videos.

The examples on the website show definite improvement in the quality of the video clips. The images are brighter, cleaner, and details in the foreground are much sharper. Strangely, some details in the background aren’t quite as sharp in the fixed version. The bottom line is that images are much better after they are processed by Fix My Movie.

Fix My Movie was created by MostionDSP, a company which designs software for improving video from a wide range of sources including forensics. Fix My Movie is a natural extension of their work, with this one being aimed at the consumer market. While the service is currently free, the company will be launching a premium version which lets users do a few more things including grabbing super high quality JPEG files from video.

To get started you can signup for a free account and begin uploading video files. Make sure your videos don’t exceed 15Mb, that’s the maximum file size. The service also has an email feature where you can mail them the video at upload@fixmymovie.com. Once finished, you can download your enhanced video in Windows Media, iPod (Quicktime), and Flash video formats. An embed code is also available for sharing in blogs and social sites. Go fix your movie at http://www.fixmymovie.com/.

Cool Tools: Aviary

A look in the birdcage…

Aviary was created by creatives for creatives – a perfect complement, we think, for our members. So named because its products all refer to birds, Aviary offers an online suite of creative applications. Imagine having access to tools as powerful as Adobe’s Creative Suite at your disposal – at a fraction of the cost. Aviary’s products include an image editor, a vector editor, a video editor, a painting simulator, and a 3D modeler.

The complete applications suite interacts seamlessly, allowing a designer to import swatch from its painting simulator into its image editor, while doing complex bitmap processing of a 3D object developed in Hummingbird. Further more, Aviary offers collaborative tools and a marketplace where finished products can be offered for sale. The company’s blog, http://a.viary.com/blog features an impressive gallery of renderings and showpieces. Our particular favorite is the unzipping kitten.

Aviary is a private subsidiary of Worth1000, LLC, based in New York. The company is currently in beta and planning to launch in June.

Black Turtle Media members are invited to beta test Aviary’s products. The first 25 members to sign up at http://www.a.viary.com/ will receive early bird invitations.

Keep an eye on our site for upcoming information about Aviary’s launch and a new contest!

Cool Tools: Pencil

Animation can seem so intimidating these days. With companies like Pixar churning out high-quality 3-D films with a staff of hundreds, animating can appear a daunting task to the common man. But it doesn’t have to be and Pencil proves that with its free and simple-to-use 2D animation software.

Pencil mimics hand-drawn techniques and stays simple by doing so. You draw each individual frame as if it were a single animation cell. The great thing about this is that you are able to test out the animation by stepping through it frame-by-frame. You can even play through the entire sequence using built-in playback controls.

Drawing tools are limited to basics such as pencil, pen, paintbrush, polyline, eraser, and fill bucket. These tools allow you to draw at any scale and to any size you desire. Once your animation is complete you can export it as a sequence of PNG frames, as a flash video, or as a QuickTime movie. There’s even a basic sound feature which lets you add audio to the timeline.

Pencil, as with any other animation software, can be a challenge to use if you are completely new to the process. But it’s a decent piece of software to learn on. If you consider yourself to be rather experienced, you can enjoy this tool for the pure enjoyment of it but you might be bothered by its simplicity.

Whether you’re new to animation or a seasoned pro, Pencil is an engaging, though basic, piece of software. Pencil may not have as many features as other animation programs out there but with its hands-on feel it can be a lot of fun.

Cool Tools: Celtx

Screenwriting is a part of the filmmaking process that doesn’t get the respect it deserves. Screenwriting ensures that a story is put together with the correct doses of structure and style, that characters appear as three-dimensional beings, and that a plot comes to a logical conclusion. Screenwriting programs such as Final Cut Pro and Movie Magic has helped writers complete their scripts but at a costly price. Now there is Celtx, a free screenwriting program which carries nearly all the weight of its costly competitors.

Celtx allows users to write and format screenplays to meet submission standards set by the theater and film industries. With it’s plethora of features and dedication to the field of scriptwriting, don’t you dare call it a word processor. It’s put together by the same people behind Mozilla, it carries a similar interface, and it’s just as good a product as Firefox is.

The software comes with a number of templates. Upon opening the program you are prompted to select from film, audio-visual, theatre, audio play, storyboard, and text templates. Most commonly you’ll be using film but it’s nice to know that these other options exist. In addition to the standard scriptwriting templates there are a number of other features such as a production calendar, storyboarding capabilities, and elements that can be tagged to the project. These tagged elements serve as notes that can be embedded in your screenplay. For example, you can attach a sketch to a character’s name.

One area where Celtx thrives even more than its pricier competitors is in its collaboration tools. There is something called Project Central which allows users to upload scripts to a central server and then collaborate on them with other users of the software. Collaboration can be open to the public or open only to users that the writer selects.

As someone who spent over $200 to purchase Final Cut Pro a few years ago, I can truly say that I wish Celtx had been around. It is a great competitor to the expensive software programs and with the price difference being what it is, I’d say go for Celtx.

Cool Tools: Soundsnap

Looking for the right sounds effects to lend credibility to your video project? Want to add the sound of a creaky door for your horror film? Maybe you want a futuristic-sounding laser blast for that new sci-fi project you’re working on. You could get a tape recorder and search for those hard-to-discover sounds or you could head over to http://www.soundsnap.com and get those sounds for free and with little hassle.

What is Soundsnap? It’s a legal platform for finding and sharing free sound effects and loops. The sound library is made up of a collection of original sounds that were made or recorded by its users. So they’re not the same sounds or songs you would find in commercial libraries or on sample CD’s. There’s an archive of some 30,000 audio clips, ranging in length from seconds to minutes. Browsing the site you’ll be able to access various categories such as nature, science fiction, animals, and sports.

You can also search for sounds by typing in a keyword. Using my favorite animal as an example, there are four search results for chimpanzee including “Chimp-chattering” and “Chimpanzee in space talking over radio.” You can preview the sounds in a matter of seconds and if you find something you like you can download it as an mp3, a wav, or an aiff.

SoundSnap was originally started by a small group of sound people from all over the world. Users who have contributed to the sound vault are a diverse mix of sound designers, sound artists, web game developers, filmmakers and music producers. Members of the community are encouraged to add their own sound clips so they site can become continue becoming a strong resources for the creative community.

If you’re missing a certain sound for your project, try looking for it at Soundsnap. Alternatively, you can carry your sound recorder around with you on your daily errands and continue searching for a “chimpanzee in space talking over radio”.

Cool Tools: MyFonts

You work hard to get the right colors for your design, the right words to convey your message, and the right material and media to send that message – so why skimp on how that message is going to be viewed? Fonts complete the picture! Using the right font can strengthen and bolster your message while the wrong font can make it bland, boring or otherwise uninspiring.

Picking the right font is a key attribute that can make your project typical – or transcendent. Take a look at http://www.myfonts.com/

Most basic word processing and design programs come with built-in font libraries featuring standard serif and sans serif fonts. But MyFonts gives you access to an additional 59,532 fonts. The fonts are available for preview and purchase on the site and prices range from free to $60.

One of the site’s cool features is the font finder, which allows you to upload a font you like to the site for identification and purchase. Another useful tool is the font preview which allows you to see how your words will appear in that font.

MyFonts was one of the first font sites to emerge on the web when it appeared in 1999. Though there are plenty of sites on the internet offering fonts, MyFonts stands above the rest because of its ease of use and intuitive site design. Check it out next time you’re looking for a font.

Cool Tools: CafePress

You already create – so why not put your work out where people can see it? CafePress allows you to set up an online shop and produce everything from coffee mugs to t-shirts imprinted with your images.

Established in 1999, the company allows users to set up an online shop selling a wide variety of customized merchandise. The CafePress.com network includes over 6.5 million members who have created over 150 million products.

There are two kinds of shops you can open: basic and premium. Basic is free and gives you a minimal number of features. The premium membership costs as low as $4.99 a month and puts your listings ahead of other shops, gives you access to more items to sell, and lets you customize the layout of your shop. CafePress.com products are created as they are ordered, so there is no backlog of unused goods or inventory to worry about.

You can create a variety of products to sell at your shop. The most popular products are t-shirts, hats, and coffee mugs but there are also less obvious products like messenger bags, baby bibs, mousepads, pillows, bbq aprons, calendars, greeting cards, bumper stickers, and teddy bears.

The quality of the products varies depending on what is ordered. The most popular item, the t-shirt, has two options for printing methods: direct press or heat press. The t-shirt direct press method has received more favorable reviews than the heat press method with the quality supposedly being a great deal better. The main gripe with other products sold on the site is that logos that arrive more faded and less vibrant than expected.

If you’re looking for something to do with your designs and the thought of starting an online shop sounds appealing to you, take a look at Cafepress.com.

Cool Tools: Xdrive

Creatives need a few things to survive: some money, lots of energy (thank you Red Bull and Reese’s Pieces!) and hard drive space – as much of it as we can get our hands on!

Xdrive gives you 5GB of storage space for free, so instead of carrying around an extra zip drive or hard drive, you can save files to the site access them wherever you have access to the Internet.

A great feature with XDrive is the ability to share access with your friends, family, and colleagues. Say you’re working on a print advertisement with a colleague who is traveling – instead of sending files and revisions back and forth via email, your colleague can directly access, revise and update the files via Xdrive.

If 5 GB of space isn’t enough and you’re willing to put down some money, Xdrive offers 50 GB of space for a monthly fee of $9.99 or an annual fee of $99.50. Unfortunately there are no other storage plans for 10 GB or 25 GB: it’s either regular or Super-size.

Xdrive is a great collaborative tool – and a great resource to backup your most important documents. And it’s hard to argue with 5 GB of free space.

Cool Tools: Thought Equity

Stock footage is a great thing. It’s like having a professional, timely, and available tool that provides you with the missing elements to your project.

Thought Equity is the world's largest supplier of online motion content. The site takes the hassle out of trying to obtain video footage which would normally require a great deal of effort or cost. If you’re filming a documentary about beluga whales for example, you have two choices: you can log on to Thought Equity, do a search, and purchase the clips you’re looking for, or you can hire a ship, a crew, and head into the ocean for weeks hoping to obtain some usable footage. Unless you have aspirations to be Steve Zissou, I think the choice is obvious.

On-site registration is free and once you are a registered member you can check out all the footage available for purchase. A search function returns several diverse "sets" of clips from which to choose. When searching for “chimps” I got several sets including my personal favorite, a chimp getting a haircut.

Customers can instantly purchase and download footage in a variety of formats including motion jpeg and 10-bit uncompressed masters. In addition to traditional tape and DVD delivery, users can also convert master files to anything from streaming video to RSS feeds. This means footage can go anywhere, from your blog to your mp3 player.

Whether you’re looking for high definition or standard definition, for release or personal use, Thought Equity is a very useful site for completing your video project. It may not be as interesting as filming chimps and whales first hand but it is a lot more convenient for your project.

Cool Tools: Faxzero.com, K7.net

March 21, 2008.

As a former college student, I can remember moving nearly every six months and the stress of trying to find a fax machine for the scholarship applications, resumes, internship agreements, and other documents I was required to send and receive. Luckily I no longer have to run out of their house and search frantically for a fax machine.

FaxZero.com and K7.net are two websites that are making the need to own a fax machine seem obsolete. FaxZero lets you send a fax for free. Of course there are some restrictions. There is a maximum of three pages and only two faxes a day are allowed. And there is a FaxZero advertisement on the cover page. If you’re willing to pay a little more, you can use the premium version of FaxZero at a cost of $1.99 per page. Restrictions here are unlimited and there is no advertising on the cover page.

The process of sending a fax is simple. You can send a PDF, Microsoft Word (.DOC) file, or Excel spreadsheet (.XLS). You fill out a form online, a confirmation is sent to your email, and once you activate the link your fax is sent. You even receive an e-mail message letting you know when it's delivered.

Now, what happens when you need to receive a fax and you don’t have a fax machine? You don’t need to go to FedEx Kinko’s. You need to head over to K7 where you can channel fax messages directly to your email. The service works by assigning you a personal phone number. People can leave you voicemails and faxes at this number. K7 will forward to your e-mail address as attachments. Simple as that!

eFax.com is certainly the most known fax site right now, but if you’re looking for free service these two websites can provide a better solution. Unless you’re willing to fork over a monthly subscription fee, eFax does not let you send faxes by email, provide you with a local or toll-free number, let you receive voicemails, or provide wireless access. Using Faxzero and K7.net can give you these services at little to no cost.

So now that you have the power of fax without burning a hole in your pocket, you can fax all your friends and let them know how awesome you are, and you can even send a fax to yourself letting you know that very same thing.

Cool Tools: Zamzar

Okay, where the hell was Zamzar two weeks ago when I needed to convert some image files? Here all along and no one told me about it? Curse you all.

Need a PDF file converted to doc, html, odt, pcx, png, ps, rtf or txt formats and can’t do it yourself? Want to use jpgs as a Windows icon or a thumbnail? See a video on YouTube that you want to save to your computer in another format? Is it too time consuming to do it yourself (never mind that some of us have incompetence issues)? Zamzar does it for you – it’s a handy little tool which essentially serves as a translator for documents, images, music, video and other formats.

It comes in four flavors: free, basic, pro and business, each with escalating features. The free service gives you 100 MB and 5 free conversions; the pay services offer larger file size and file conversions, online storage, file management, security and customer service. You can use the service online or download a toolbar button (which is incredibly useful when surfing sites and finding files that need to be saved to your computer). Depending on the traffic on the site at any given time, uploads and downloads may take some time – obviously free service users aren’t prioritized as highly so it may take a little while for your files to be completed.

The site’s mascots are big, ugly multi-colored chameleons – very apt, and much nicer than the alternative. The company’s name, Zamzar, is based on Samsa (Gregor Samsa), the name of the character in Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” who transform into a cockroach.

Great service – check it out and let me know what you think.