MacHeist is back!

The MacHeist Bundle is back! It costs $39 and contains 10 applications plus an extra 3 that will be unlocked when a certain amount of money is raised for charity (25% of each sale goes to charity). Furthermore, if you refer a friend you will get an extra game, and if you refer 2 friends you will get the Koingo Utility Package which contains another 13 applications! There are only 5 days left, so don't miss out ;)

50% off all Big Fish Games

Use the coupon springfever at checkout to get 50% off all Big Fish Games. Expires March 23rd, 2009. Enjoy! :)

Get 10+ commercial games FREE for Mac and Windows

Big Fish Games is a website that has many games for both Mac and Windows users, with an optional subscription service that lets you pay as little as $6.99 per game! At the moment they have quite a few sponsored promotions in which they are giving away games and giving 50% discounts on others. I got the following 9 games free for my Mac: Fairies, Magic Vines, Atlantis, Build-a-lot, Mahjong Towers Eternity, Mystic Inn, Mystery Case Files: Huntsville, Mystery Case Files: Madame Fate, and Mystery Case Files: Ravenhearst. Some of the promotions let you choose from a selection of games, so you can get the games you like best (try the demos first if you're undecided).

HOW TO REDEEM YOUR FREE GAMES

1. Sign up for a free account and make sure you are logged in
2. Enter your info on the following Game Redemption Centers:
   - Verbatim (2 free games from a selection of 5)
   - Borders or 6pm (free Huntsville and Mahjong Towers)
   - Roush Fenway (1 free game from a selection of 4)
   - Barnes & Noble (free Haunted Hotel)
   
3. Send a Hallmark card: 1, 2, or 3 (free Sudoku and 1 game from selection of 3)
4. Complete this quiz (2 free games from a selection of 5)
5. Add your chosen games to your cart
6. Add Build-a-lot and Ravenhearst to your cart
7. In your cart, deselect the checkbox next to the backup CD that has been added (unless you want it of course, but it's not free)
8. Insert your coupon codes (check your email for them)
9. Coupons for Build-a-lot and Ravenhearst are FREEBUILD and HOLIDAYRAVEN
10. Once the total is $0, complete your order

Before completing your order you could also add any other games you would like to get, for example the discounted games that you received coupons for - the sequel to Ravenhearst is among them.
Once you have completed your order, you will receive an email with your registration licenses and download links. Enjoy!

P.S. Once you have signed up you can become an affiliate and earn rewards for referring friends and family! I think right now they only offer cash rewards, but soon there will also be an option to get free games if you prefer ;)

Free Games from Mac Games Arcade

Mac Games Arcade is giving away a game for free each day until Tuesday! Yesterday they gave away "Pangea Arcade", today they are giving away "Bullet Candy", and over the next 3 days they will be giving away "Rocket Bowl", "Platypus", and "Nanny Mania". Read this post for instructions, and enjoy your free games! :D

Free Mac apps from the Mac Giving Tree

The Mac Giving Tree is giving away several commercial apps for free this Christmas! Right now only 2 apps are available for download - Synergy and Enigmo 2 - but 2 more will be unlocked on Christmas, and another 2 can be unlocked by referring your friends. I'm really excited about getting Enigmo 2, and I can't wait to start playing! I think Synergy will also be very useful - the addition of global hot keys to iTunes means I will probably be using it much more often. I'm also looking forward to finding out what the other apps are going to be! :D Hop on over to the Mac Giving Tree to get your free gifts too! ;)

Stunning vector images at Designious

In a previous post I linked to sites where you can buy and sell vector images. Those sites have big collections of vector images made by many different artists, but this means that the quality of the illustrations are not always the best. But there are also sites dedicated exclusively to vector images made by one person, team, or company. Designious is one such site, and they have a huge selection of beautiful vectors to choose from.

Designious sells dozens of $15 themed packs with many vector images in each one. The categories include Floral, People, Nature, Buildings, Skulls, Scrolls, Halftones & Grunges, Wings, and more. These packs are also available in Mega Packs and Giga Packs, which are great if you want to buy multiple normal packs, because you can get them for half price! They also have dozens of striking T-shirt designs for $10 each.

If you want to try before you buy, you can go to their free downloads page, where you can find free vector packs, T-shirt designs, icons, and some stunning illustrations.

My favorite floral design is "Floral vector pack 19", which is filled with beautiful vines and flowers! Most of them are meant to be used as abstract silhouettes, but you can still color the vines and flowers separately with a little more work. Just copy and paste your image, and remove the part of the drawing you don't need (for example everything except a flower). Repeat until you have separate images for each part you want to give a separate color to.

I have also tried the "Cartoon girls vector pack", which contains 17 vector images of women in different poses, with different hair and clothes, and of different nationalities. My first thought when I saw them was that they would be perfect to use in personal websites and blog designs! I really love using vectors instead of bitmap images, because it's so much easier to change the colors to my liking. I had great fun changing the colors of their hair, skin, clothes, and even their make-up! Try doing that so easily in Photoshop :P

Users who don't have Illustrator might have some problems with the parts of the images that are colored with gradients - I use VectorDesigner, and some of the girls from this pack were missing clothing or hair! :P Luckily I also have ZeusDraw, and was able to get around this problem by importing the EPS file as a PDF, and then converting the PDF to objects. But if you're lucky enough to have Illustrator, you shouldn't have any problems ;)

Browsing through the Designious vector packs has given me a lot of ideas and inspiration for new designs, and I can't wait to get started! :D

To enroll or not to enroll - that is the question!

I'm not sure how it started, but these last few days I've been going from one "make money online" site to another, subscribing to newsletters and downloading a few dozen free ebooks. I've got so many now that I don't know where to start reading them!

I've also found quite a few offers for courses or software to make money online with affiliate marketing and niche stores, and they look so good! But with my recent experiences (that's not the only one, but I'm hoping the other will still work out before I post about it), I'm hesitating to enroll. It's also difficult to find honest reviews on the internet - everyone is promoting the products because they want their cut of affiliate sales!

The thing is, the 2 offers I'm most interested in are both on sales that are going to be ending soon (like in a few hours or less), and while I know many people say that and then don't actually put the prices up, these 2 seem to have a solid reputation, and so will probably keep their word.

I've decided to wait until my parents come home and talk it over with them; after all, if I do decide to go for it, it will be their money I'll be spending! :P And if the offers aren't available anymore by the time they get home, then it just wasn't meant to be.

Either way, I think it's a good idea to learn more about affiliate marketing and niche stores, and I've downloaded a lot of ebooks on these subjects now. If I find any good ones, I'll let you all know! ;)