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Recently in Salon Technology

Books
Legends in their own minds
Two new books try to lionize warrior-entrepreneurs battling in Microsoft's shadow, but leave us wondering where high tech's heroes are.
By Thomas Scoville
[12/16/99]

Microsoft, Mahir and money, money, money
A software superpower is declared a monopoly, free software rakes in billions and money makes the world go round: The year in tech.
By Janelle Brown, Mark Gimein, Andrew Leonard and Kaitlin Quistgaard
[12/15/99]

Review
MP3: Here, there, everywhere
The latest digital music players let you play MP3s on your home stereo, in your car or on the run -- but are they any good?
By Janelle Brown
[12/14/99]

Technology: View from the top
High-speed Net access that's out of this world
John Koehler retired from a career at Hughes Electronics and the CIA to build fast Net connections on satellites already in orbit.
By Mark Compton
[12/13/99]

21st Challenge
The perfect e-gift
What should you order online for Bill Clinton or Bill Gates, George W. Bush or Jesse Ventura?
By Charlie Varon and Jim Rosenau
[12/11/99]

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Now there's a cornucopia of free stuff I can get without even leaving my desk. As the Cool Freebies site puts it: "One of the best things about the World Wide Web is the availability of cool free stuff. There are more freebies out there than most of us will ever find." With a little work -- and a lot of luck -- you could lay your hands on a free DVD player or even free Pokémon cards.

There are tons of Web sites devoted to nothing more than helping me find great giveaways. With their help I set off to find what I could really get for nothing online. Of course, almost no one is giving stuff away without expecting something in return; I would have to fork over time and information about myself: my age, income, weird facts like whether I own a cat or how many movies I see in a month. Luckily, my electronic persona, Olivia Lee, doesn't mind divulging a bit of personal info. In fact, she's downright casual about giving her e-mail address out. She's got an account at a discount ISP; I figure that makes her a bit more respectable than a persona whose identity is confined to a free e-mail account.

As a persona and not a person, Olivia is not the least bit embarrassed about ordering samples of facial hair remover, say, or lingerie catalogues. She doesn't care if every marketer in the country knows how much money she makes and what she does for a living. I enter Olivia's name, e-mail address and other data for the AutoFill feature in my browser, Internet Explorer 4.5 for the Mac. AutoFill is the main reason I switched from Netscape to IE -- you just hit a button and AutoFill plugs your data into online forms, AKA requests for freebies.

Some freebies require a self-addressed stamped envelope to send me coupons or samples. So, I sought out free postage to start with -- and found it at Postage4Free, which gives out envelopes stamped with advertisements as well as stamps. I ordered some, but the envelopes never showed up and I had to buy a book of stamps.

Next page | Where the freebies are