Thrifty Pages

€1,000 extra for your IT Training Budget anyone?

New Horizons, the IT Training company, have launched a new FlexiAccount system that offers a way to combine HR and IT training budgets to earn bigger discounts when booking training courses.

If you open a FlexiAccount with New Horizons Ireland - Dublin & Galway, you will receive discounts on all courses they offer including:

• Microsoft Office Applications
• Microsoft Technical
• Adobe Creative Suite
• CCNA
• Onsite Training
• Cisco
• Floor walking
• Private Classes
• eLearning
• Online Anytime
• Online Training – ICT WebTV

In addition if you sign up in January they will “top up” by €1,000 any FlexiAccount opened. Find out more here. Better be quick and grab that free money!

Sell your old mobile for cash

Photo by ndrwfgg

Why didn't they have mobile phones in the 1920s?  Think how many misunderstandings in the world could have been avoided.  - Sophie Kinsella

If you have an embarrassing old mobile phone from 1825 sitting in a drawer at home, looking like a large plastic brick, what can you do with it?

• Use it as a paperweight
• Pretend to be a baddy from the A-Team or Knight Rider (I was a 1980s child and all baddies on TV had huge mobile phones in the 1980s).
• Sell it for cash.

Now, suggestion number three sounds a bit strange, but there is somebody out there willing to pay cold hard cash for old mobiles. The good people of MobileRecycle.ie have a website where you can actually value your old mobile, send it to them and then they send you money in just seven days!

I can see all those old TV villains looking through the garden shed for that old mobile phone from 1825. But it won't be there because BA destroyed it using it as a weapon to take out a few henchmen.

On a more serious note, some mobile phones can contain dangerous and hazardous substances like cadmium, lead, brominated flame retardants and beryllium. These metals are relatively harmless until they find their way to landfill sites where they degrade and can cause serious damage to the environment.

So recycling your old Mobile with MobileRecycle.ie is good for the environment and your pocket!

Link:  http://www.mobilerecycle.ie

Thrifty Pages Community opens its doors

It has been a while in testing (and a big thank you to the dozens of Thrifty Pages readers who helped) and now a new section has been added to Thrifty Pages. 

There is now a place where our readers can share their own thrifty tips and stories, ask questions, tell us about bargains and anything else related to living well in the recession in Ireland.

You can access the forums here:

http://community.thriftypages.ie/

We encourage all our readers to join and introduce themselves!

Free (and legal!) music on the Internet

If you fancy some music while you work, there are plenty of legal ways to enjoy any and all musical tastes. The great thing is that you don't necessarily need an iPod or even an mp3 player. There are a few options for just getting the music 'streamed' to your computer. Streaming media is defined by Wikipedia as 'distributed over telecommunications networks'. That means it is just audio from the 'net. You will need broadband for this :)

Here are some options;

• LastFM - http://www.last.fm/

Last.fm is a music service that learns what you love...

I am listening to this as I write. You download a simple player (or a plugin for an existing player) and you put in some music artists names. It then streams a radio station with music you will like. Excellent and all free. You need to login and set up an account, but well worth it.

• SomaFM - http://somafm.com/

SomaFM is independent, commercial-free internet radio, with 14 unique channels featuring underground electronica, chillout, ambient, downtempo, lounge, space music, indie rock and alt.country/americana.

One of my favourites! You need to download a media player such as Winamp (free download).  You can use Winamp to open one of the 14 playlists (a .pls file) that they publish on the website, each one is a 'radio station' with different types of music. My favourite one is Groove Salad :)

No login needed.

• SHOUTcast - http://www.shoutcast.com/

SHOUTcast Radio is a free-of-charge audio homesteading solution. It permits anyone on the internet to broadcast audio from their PC to listeners across the Internet or any other IP-based network (Office LANs, college campuses, etc.).

This one is the Big Daddy of internet radio lists. You can be your own DJ or listen to other peoples 'radio stations' . There is some wonderful stuff here - alterative, jazz, pop and classical. Again, you will need Winamp to listen to this by clicking on the 'Tune In' button and opening the playlist file in Winamp.

See the Shoutcast help pages for more information.