10 OpenCourseWare Sites for a Free Education

Going back to college is a reminder that tuition can cost more than a house. But what if you could access almost the same education without the charge? MIT's OpenCourseWare, while not an exact replica of a college course, is the closest thing you'll get to going to school for free.

Since 2002, OpenCourseWare has published and digitized course materials from private and public universities. Materials vary from complete syllabi and lecture slides to video lectures and assignments. Unlike MOOCs, OpenCourseWare lets students learn at their own pace and have more control over their areas of study. It typically has structured lesson plans, too, so students register the material as they would in an actual classroom setting.

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Mynd Makes Sure You're On-Time and Ready for Anything On Your Calendar

iOS: Most calendars just show you upcoming appointments, but Mynd gives you a complete picture of your day, alerts you when you should leave for an appointment, shows you who'll be there and how to get in touch with them, and can even pull in Evernote notes for the meeting and dial into conference calls for you.

The video above does a good job of walking through Mynd's biggest features. We're seeing more apps go out of their way to get traffic and travel information for your meetings and appointments so you're never late getting there, but Mynd takes it a step further. It'll alert you so you're never late, but it also puts transit time on your calendar so you don't book over when you should be driving or on the train. Similarly, it shows you who'll you be in that meeting with and pulls up their LinkedIn profile or contact card on your phone so you can call, email, or text them to let them know you're on your way.

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Boost Your Credit Card Rewards by Learning Merchant Category Codes

One perk of using credit is that you can accumulate rewards like airline miles and cash back. However, those points vary by where you go, and the same store in two locations can be classified differently. If you learn a store's Merchant Category Code, you can maximize the rewards you get when you shop.

Financial Ramblings explains that because many rewards cards offer different types or levels of bonuses based on the types of purchases you make (for example, you'll get two points for grocery purchases but one point for regular purchases with some cards), it's helpful to look at the places you shop and learn their Merchant Category Code (MCC). The MCC is the code used to determine whether those purchases earn you standard rewards, double points, or other bonuses.

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Aussie Recruitment Marketplace RecruitLoop Closes $500,000

Aussie Recruitment Marketplace RecruitLoop Closes $500,000 Seed Round To Fund American Expansion

In its mission to democratize the recruitment industry, Australian start-up RecruitLoop has just closed a $500,000 seed round to establish its hiring marketplace in the United States.

Believing that there should be an easier, and more affordable, way to use recruiters to fill job vacancies, in January, 2011 Michael Overell quit his job as a McKinsey & Co analyst and, with Denis Zubkov, Paul Slezak, angel investor Garry Visontay, founded RecruitLoop. Their vision has received its first major financial validation from a geographically and professionally diverse group of investors; consisting of boutique Russian VC firm The Untitled VC, Singapore-based Microsoft executive Todd Forest, and a recruiter. Leaving his native Australia, Overell recently re-located to Silicon Valley to promote the platform to independent and freelance recruiters in America.

Overell claims the site offers recruitment services at 10 percent of the traditional cost, and undercuts the incumbents by using a series of tools and processes to commoditize the hiring process. This includes a zero-commission model where services are instead charged by the hour; the ability to pay for what you need; provide feedback on recruiters; and video-screening candidates.

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OFF Pocket Is A Privacy Pouch For Your Phone That Blocks Cellular

OFF Pocket Is A Privacy Pouch For Your Phone That Blocks Cellular, Wi-Fi, GPS To Defy Spies

The OFF Pocket is the latest privacy accessory from the creator of the spy-drone blocking stealth hoodie. It’s a water-resistant metal-fabric pouch designed to hold a smartphone and block all wireless signals — cellular, wi-fi, GPS etc — so you’re no longer carrying a personal location tracker in your back pocket. The OFF Pocket Kickstarter project has impeccable timing, given ongoing revelations about mass government surveillance programmes.  It remains to be seen what airport security will make of it however.

The OFF Pocket’s New York-based creators say the pouch beats other shielding alternatives such as sticking your phone in the fridge — a la Edward Snowden — or repurposing a cocktail shaker. It has a shielding score of over 100dB for frequencies between 800MHz and 2.4GHz. It’s also a better option than just turning a phone off which may not block all signals, plus not all phones let you remove the battery to kill traceability entirely. Add to that, turning a phone off and removing its battery takes time — versus just slipping the device in a fabric case.

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LinkedIn Now Lets Jobseekers Apply For Positions Directly Via Its Mobile Apps

Last month, LinkedIn introduced the ability for users of its social network for the working world to search for jobs via its iOS and Android mobile apps. Now it will let jobseekers seal the deal, so to speak: from today, users will start to be able to actually apply for those jobs via the apps as well, with the option of using their LinkedIn profiles as resume proxies. LinkedIn says the service is rolling out globally, starting today with English-speaking members.

The ability to apply without resumes is an interesting development for LinkedIn. Vaibhav Goel, a mobile product manager, notes that one of the drawbacks of applying for jobs via mobile devices up to now had been the pain of uploading and editing resumes on a small screen. LinkedIn’s job application service does therefore does a couple of things. It has created a way for you to use the profile you already have on LinkedIn itself to effectively become your resume. And perhaps more importantly, it raises LinkedIn’s own profile as a repository of information about you: if you use LinkedIn for job searches, there is a chance you may end up now uploading more and richer information about yourself for that profile to become more usable as a resume in itself. LinkedIn is still offering businesses to link out to their own sites to complete job applications, but offering a service like this is one way of trying to get them to push more activity to LinkedIn’s platform.

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9 Professional Tips for Entrepreneurs for Using LinkedIn

LinkedIn is more than a handy way to sort through connections and make introductions — it's also a powerful platform to supercharge your content marketing efforts (even if you're not a LinkedIn Influencer just yet).

9 Tips for Entrepreneurs for Using LinkedIn

To find out exactly how other founders are using the network to get more eyeballs on their content, we asked a panel of successful entrepreneurs to share their best tips and tricks. Here's what they had to say:

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