Free Stuff on the Internet

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There is a wealth of free resources on the internet.  This page list just a few of these, such as free web pages and email, free-trial copies of software, and online support groups and newsletters.

Free Email Web Pages

There are hundreds of companies which provide free web pages in exchange for displaying and advertisement on your page.  They hope that you'll create content and people will browse to your site and their ad.  There are hundreds of companies providing these services. Two  of the oldest are HotBot (from Wired magazine) and HotMail (now owned by Microsoft). HotBot provides free E-mail service as well.  Sign up for their free services at: 

http://www.hotmail.com (Email)

http://members.hotbot.com/ (Email and webpage)

Just point your browser at the above website and follow the directions. You will be guided through the process step-by step. Creating your free web page is fairly straightforward and painless. I created a web page in about 25 minutes without using any knowledge of HTML (the format used for web pages). Its fairly basic, just a few links and a resume, but it gets the job done. From within Microsoft Word, I converted a resume to HTML (web page format) and then edited it a bit. If you have Microsoft Word 97 or later, you can do the same thing by going to the File menu and selecting "Save as.." and for the Save As Type choose "HTML". 

HotBot's File Manager

 

Free Software demos

These free demos are valuable in a number of ways:

  1. They give you a chance to test  the software to see if its appropriate.
  2. You can keep the demos on-hand for for those patients who might benefit from it.  We have a software recomendation which you can 'fill out' for your patients.  We'll send them the appropriate demo disk to try out at no risk to them or to you.. This accomplishes the seemingly impossible goal of increasing your value (to the client) without increasing your costs.

Generic shareware of use to SLPs and their patients can be found at: 
HTTP://www.BungalowSoftware.com

Some companies provide free demos of their software, downloadable over the internet. Bear in mind that this is a free trial. Once the trial is over, you’ll need to pay for the software to continue using it.

Free demos for aphasia, memory, and cognitive therapy.

Bungalow Software has fully functional demos of aphasia and cognitive therapy software that you can download.

 

Free demos of Report-writing software.

Datamorphosis has a "virtual tour"  of their report-writing software which can be downloaded and you can order a demo disk from the same website.. :

Free demos of software for articulation training or speech pacing

Language Vision, Inc. has a free demo of a program which provides articulation training. You can read descriptions of the software and download a demo (Windows 95 only) at:

Bungalow Software has free demos of their SpeechPacer product downloadable

AVAAZ provides software for treating children's articulation and phonological disorders. To encourage the child, the software is disguised as a game.

 

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Speech/Language Pathology Email newsletters

Tip: Some email discussion lists (sometimes called "list servs" because they are run by automated computer list servers) have heavy traffic, so don’t go hog-wild and subscribe to everything, or your mail box will be flooded. That doesn’t cause any problems, but it clutters up your mailbox.

"The huge quantity of resources on the internet can be a bit overwhelming, and this list is only the tip of the tip-of-the-iceberg, but there is a wealth of valuable resources in the iceberg. Just take it a step at a time and remember to breath. "  - Clay Nichols, Advance (11/30/98)