Learn how to donate without paying!!

[Curt]

Sorry if I made you expect an instruction on how to commit something dodgy, but a special title was needed to get your attention! This is indeed not about cheating, but about "free charity"; how to do good deeds without paying!

http://www.loadandhelp.com

You can now download SoftMaker Office 2008 and a font package free of charge - and do good at the same time.

That´s because until December 31, SoftMaker donates 10 Euro cents for every download, supporting aid and development projects around the world.

Tell your friends and colleagues about our Load and Help 2010 campaign.
Our goal is to surpass last year´s donations of 6,089 Euro!

Find out more:
http://www.loadandhelp.com

[attachimg=#]

Load and Help 2010 offers three free software packages until December 31:

   * SoftMaker Office 2008 for Windows
   * SoftMaker Office 2008 for Linux
   * A collection of 80 premium-quality typefaces

   * You may use these packages free of charge permanently. You are even entitled to free tech support and to future upgrades at reduced prices.

   * SoftMaker donates € 0.10 for every successful download to well-chosen development and charity projects on betterplace.org

   *
     Download now and spread the word! The more downloads, the more we donate! Every download counts! Tell friends and colleagues about this campaign, post the news on Facebook, Twitter, in web forums etc. etc. ...

http://www.loadandhelp.com

[tomos]

That's pretty good, [the offered version -2008] cannot handle MS's most recent formats but still a very good app

The upgrade to 2010 version [ which can handle MS's most recent formats] costs around $50 at the moment ($80 full price)


[edits in square brackets]

[rjbull]

That's pretty good, cant handle MS's most recent formats but still a very good app

The upgrade to 2010 version costs around $50 at the moment ($80 full price)

You probably meant that Softmaker Office 2010 does handle recent M$ files, as it claims to?

Quoting Softmaker's e-mail to me:

You are registered as a user of an older "free edition" of SoftMaker
Office.

A new version, SoftMaker Office 2010, is now available.

You can now upgrade to the full-fledged SoftMaker Office 2010 at
a hefty 50% discount. Until December 6, we also include a free 4
GByte USB flash drive and have slashed shipping fees to just 1 cent!

The USB flash drive comes with a portable version of SoftMaker
Office pre-installed. You can take this flash drive wherever you go
and run it on any Windows PC without any need to install it.

That's a good deal especially if you got in by 6th December.

[tomos]

That's pretty good, cant handle MS's most recent formats but still a very good app

The upgrade to 2010 version costs around $50 at the moment ($80 full price)

You probably meant that Softmaker Office 2010 does handle recent M$ files, as it claims to?

yes, thanks rj, my post was unclear - I edited it (hopefully) for clarity


I took advantage of that offer (for a friend whos learning to use a pc!) - even got a comprehensive user manual, a rare thing these days!
The pre'installed' usbstick wouldnt work on windows 7 or XP (complained about being read only but is write-protected so cannot change... I can always format it and it's a 4gig kingston drive)

[f0dder]

I took advantage of that offer (for a friend whos learning to use a pc!) - even got a comprehensive user manual, a rare thing these days!

As in a printed version? That would be something!

[tomos]

I took advantage of that offer (for a friend whos learning to use a pc!) - even got a comprehensive user manual, a rare thing these days!

As in a printed version? That would be something!

damn, I'm not having a speak clearly day yeah, a printed version

[Deozaan]

Cool. Thanks!

[rjbull]

That's pretty good, [the offered version -2008] cannot handle MS's most recent formats but still a very good app

The upgrade to 2010 version [ which can handle MS's most recent formats] costs around $50 at the moment ($80 full price)

It's worth noting that Softmaker offer two free view-only applications that understand recent Microsoft file formats:

TextMaker Viewer 2010

Opens, views, and prints these document types:

.docx, .docm Microsoft Word 2007 and 2010
.dotx, .dotm Microsoft Word 2007/2010 templates
.doc Microsoft Word 6.0 up to Word 2010
.dot Microsoft Word templates 6.0 up to 2010
.tmd TextMaker 6.0 up to 2010
.tmv TextMaker templates 6.0 up to 2010
.odt OpenDocument Text
.ott OpenDocument Text templates
.sxw OpenOffice.org/StarOffice Text
.rtf Rich Text Format
.psw Pocket Word (Pocket PC)
.pwd Pocket Word (Handheld PC)
.htm, .html HTML documents
.txt Plain-text files (DOS, Windows, Unicode, UTF-8, many more)

PlanMaker Viewer 2010 (RC1)

Opens, views, and prints these document types:

.xlsx, .xlsm Microsoft Excel 2007 and 2010
.xltx, .xltm Microsoft Excel 2007/2010 templates
.xls Microsoft Excel 5.0 up to Excel 2010
.xlt Microsoft Excel templates 5.0 up to 2010
.pmd PlanMaker 2001 up to 2010
.pmv PlanMaker templates 2001 up to 2010
.pmw PlanMaker 1.0, 2.0, 97
.sdc StarCalc 1.0, 2.0
.slk SYLK files
.rtf Rich Text Format
.dbf dBASE files
.txt, .csv, .prn Plain-text files (DOS, Windows, Unicode, UTF-8, many more)

[Deozaan]

Google Chrome have something similar: Install an extension that counts how many tabs you open. The more you open, the more gets donated to charity:

http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/p/cause/

Only from Dec. 15th (today) to Dec. 19th.

[timns]

Or one could simply dip into one's own pocket, send a few bucks and get back to something productive

I cannot help feeling that these companies are using our charitable motivations to build a cheap marketing list for later on.

[tomos]

I cannot help feeling that these companies are using our charitable motivations to build a cheap marketing list for later on.

Yes, I'm sure that is the case.
I mean there's not much point in downloading this unless you actually have use for it -
but if you do, it's a good app

[timns]

I cannot help feeling that these companies are using our charitable motivations to build a cheap marketing list for later on.

Yes, I'm sure that is the case.
I mean there's not much point in downloading this unless you actually have use for it -
but if you do, it's a good app

It looks very good. I'm just old and cynical... it staggers me that folks would spend, say, an hour clicking some dumb tab to earn the charity 10c. The real winners can only be the fat cats behind the promotion. 

[Deozaan]

it staggers me that folks would spend, say, an hour clicking some dumb tab to earn the charity 10c.

I think you're missing the point of the Chrome for a Cause.

As I understand, if all you do is open a billion tabs then you will probably be "disqualified" for gaming the system. The idea is that you probably open and close a lot of tabs during the day during your normal browsing routine. So wouldn't it be great if by just doing what you do every day your actions could contribute to a charity? With no extra effort or money on your part (aside from installing the extension and telling it which charity to donate to)?

It certainly makes what is potentially otherwise meaningless and generally a waste of time do some good for once.

[timns]

it staggers me that folks would spend, say, an hour clicking some dumb tab to earn the charity 10c.

I think you're missing the point of the Chrome for a Cause.

Probably... I didn't look very closely since it reminded me too much of some 'pay per click' thing. Personally I'd rather keep my browsing to myself and just send cash