Goblinses wants nice Freebies.
11/03/2004 12:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
izmeinaOur evil masters at the Min of Fin have devised a most dastardly scheme to get us wannabee goblins to do our assignments.
Two units have questions, chapter summaries and stuff for every week. Three times per term, the tutor will RANDOMLY collect the assignments from everyone and if you ain't got it done then you've just lost yourself one third of the 20% of the unit assigned to this stuff. One unit has another 20% devoted to an essay requiring ridiculous quantities of research and the auditing unit has its share devoted to one of those dreaded group projects. In both cases the end of semester exam is worth 60% of the total mark.
But even if one was clever and lucky and happened to have the assignments prepared for precisely the weeks they got collected and none other, it would be a bit stupid as the whole point really is an incentive to actually do the weekly work necessary to know enough stuff to pass the exams. I guess the Goblin masters know that even with the best of intentions, it is so easy to fall by the wayside and get corrupted and sidetracked in Cyberia or the local pub.
It does help to have one continuous assessment subject without nasty examses at the end of term. And that one we had today. We have group presentations to do using Powerpoint with only one week's notice. The group Iz got invited to join wanted to volunteer to be first but Iz said she would not be able to for this week but would be quite happy for next week. We also let the tutor know that we would be volunteering for next week.
Iz took a sneak peek at the five questions that the tutor would choose from for next week. She wants to get through two groups each week and has five questions to pick from. Evil Iz asked the others what they thought of one particular question - and they seemed happy with it - as long as it wasn't nasty number five concerned with financial statements and disclosure on the Internet as opposed to the stuff in the annual reports.
Izzie then asked the lecturer which questions she would be letting us choose from. Iz was ever so shocked and amazed by the answer."Which one would you like to do?" And she actually let us do it!
Oh Iz has come a long way from sitting in the corner sulking - hoping she would get the good one and then having herself a pity party because she invariably didn't. Iz has gotten very pushy and cheeky.
The other group were peeved because that was exactly the question that they were hoping to get! But because we were first to volunteer, we got first choice. They got stuck with the stupid financial statements.
So what Izzie needs
Apart from the squillions of sites full of things you can find by visiting the Oracle and typing in "Free Stuff" What are the Izzie friendses favorite online freebies?
We need twenty sites to compare and to look at their business model - how they make money and who we think is going to survive and who will go the way of the dodo.
One of us is looking at free phone stuff, another at computer games, a third at free email services and Izzie has chosen to investigate free web hosting and the favorite Izzie freebie of all - LIVE JOURNAL!
So to save Iz wading through the waffle - Iz calls on the serpents, cats, spiderses and other assorted interesting creatures of Cyberia to point the way to the juiciest morsels on the web. It just so happens that Iz will be on the look out for a new home for her own personal Ministry of Misery as of next year and this is just the perfect excuse to go house hunting.
We doesn't like Geocities at all. Nasty intrusive pop up adverts everywhere.
Gopage.com looked OK but the map is not the territory and Iz has no experience with such stuff. Don't want to end up with snoops and sneaks spying on Iz or inadvertently end up as part of some internet porn page ring.
Two units have questions, chapter summaries and stuff for every week. Three times per term, the tutor will RANDOMLY collect the assignments from everyone and if you ain't got it done then you've just lost yourself one third of the 20% of the unit assigned to this stuff. One unit has another 20% devoted to an essay requiring ridiculous quantities of research and the auditing unit has its share devoted to one of those dreaded group projects. In both cases the end of semester exam is worth 60% of the total mark.
But even if one was clever and lucky and happened to have the assignments prepared for precisely the weeks they got collected and none other, it would be a bit stupid as the whole point really is an incentive to actually do the weekly work necessary to know enough stuff to pass the exams. I guess the Goblin masters know that even with the best of intentions, it is so easy to fall by the wayside and get corrupted and sidetracked in Cyberia or the local pub.
It does help to have one continuous assessment subject without nasty examses at the end of term. And that one we had today. We have group presentations to do using Powerpoint with only one week's notice. The group Iz got invited to join wanted to volunteer to be first but Iz said she would not be able to for this week but would be quite happy for next week. We also let the tutor know that we would be volunteering for next week.
Iz took a sneak peek at the five questions that the tutor would choose from for next week. She wants to get through two groups each week and has five questions to pick from. Evil Iz asked the others what they thought of one particular question - and they seemed happy with it - as long as it wasn't nasty number five concerned with financial statements and disclosure on the Internet as opposed to the stuff in the annual reports.
Izzie then asked the lecturer which questions she would be letting us choose from. Iz was ever so shocked and amazed by the answer."Which one would you like to do?" And she actually let us do it!
Oh Iz has come a long way from sitting in the corner sulking - hoping she would get the good one and then having herself a pity party because she invariably didn't. Iz has gotten very pushy and cheeky.
The other group were peeved because that was exactly the question that they were hoping to get! But because we were first to volunteer, we got first choice. They got stuck with the stupid financial statements.
So what Izzie needs
Izzie wants Freebies
Apart from the squillions of sites full of things you can find by visiting the Oracle and typing in "Free Stuff" What are the Izzie friendses favorite online freebies?
We need twenty sites to compare and to look at their business model - how they make money and who we think is going to survive and who will go the way of the dodo.
One of us is looking at free phone stuff, another at computer games, a third at free email services and Izzie has chosen to investigate free web hosting and the favorite Izzie freebie of all - LIVE JOURNAL!
So to save Iz wading through the waffle - Iz calls on the serpents, cats, spiderses and other assorted interesting creatures of Cyberia to point the way to the juiciest morsels on the web. It just so happens that Iz will be on the look out for a new home for her own personal Ministry of Misery as of next year and this is just the perfect excuse to go house hunting.
We doesn't like Geocities at all. Nasty intrusive pop up adverts everywhere.
Gopage.com looked OK but the map is not the territory and Iz has no experience with such stuff. Don't want to end up with snoops and sneaks spying on Iz or inadvertently end up as part of some internet porn page ring.
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some freebies
Date: 2004-03-10 12:52 pm (UTC)http://www.powerpets.com - also virtual pets site - no ads ! getting money from voluntary donations, but barely enough to survive. (its goal is not making money but rather it's a hobby of its developers)
http://www.rinkworks.com - entertainment site (humor, trivia, games)
http://slashdot.org - news/forums - in addition to banner ads, there are subscriptions but they are quite similar to donations because the subscribers do not get any noticeable benefits
http://www.kuro5hin.org/ - like slashdot
http://www.gentoo.org/ - the best Linux distribution ! :P donations, a bit of merchandise, money from sponsors
http://www.the-underdogs.org - an "encyclopedia" of old games - survives on banner ads and donations, it's also a hobby of its maintainer
http://herzeleid.com/ - Rammstein fan site (banner ads, links to shops)
http://cartoons.sev.com.au/ - Cartoon site (banner ads, selling merchandize)
http://sourceforge.net - free hosting for open-source projects (offers group development tools) - banner ads, donations, voluntary subscriptions
http://www.dw-world.de/ - German news, culture, courses etc - financed by the government ? dunno.
Hey maybe you need an example of the opposite business model - getting money but not providing any services or goodies ;) that would be the litigious bastards aka SCO, selling Linux licenses :)
no subject
Date: 2004-03-10 01:27 pm (UTC)For news/personal blogger, there's Moveable Type at www.moveabletype.org.
I don't recall any other freebies offhand at the moment. If I think of any, I'll post. :)
erm
Date: 2004-03-10 01:43 pm (UTC)From my previous list, only sourceforge could qualify as a hosting site, but it's a very specialized one. In general, I'm disappointed with the free hosting sites, because they all SUCK ! forcing stupid ads which you can't control, and not providing convenient interface for the maintenance. So I gave up on free lunch :/
But just for the record, besides yahoo I'm personally familiar (a little) with http://www.tripod.lycos.com/ and
http://www.host.sk/ . Do free forums count as hosting ? you can drop by the Rapidforum.com :) the search for "free hosting" would give you a lot of results but if you're afraid of nasty popups, you should do this research with Mozilla and disable popups. :)
Tripod stays in business for a few years and doesn't seem to go anywhere, maybe the freeloaders who are serious, eventually purchase the paid accounts... Host.sk used to provide a lot of resources for free (like 999 Mb disk space) but eventually they started to impose more and more restrictions such as decreasing the quota to 50Mb. also the site got slower and slower. Now, as far as I understood, the hosting is not completely free anymore - there's one time registration fee. If the tendency continues, the site will be dead in a couple of years...
Re: erm
Date: 2004-03-10 06:55 pm (UTC)Iz will pass on the addresses of the other stuff to the other group members. Powerpets is a definite since Iz hears so many of you folks drool about it.
Most free stuff has so many pop up ads and nasties that the customers never stay too long.
Will return to the Oracle today and see what tasty morsels are to be found. Oh and Iz will just have to find out some way of tossing in the comment about the SCO SCum who demand money for nothing
Re: erm
Date: 2004-03-11 04:01 am (UTC)