Rupert Murdoch shakes his fist at news ninjas who avoid his paywall. (Photo Credit: CC BY-ND/Jason Wilson/New Matilda)

If you’re an online news addict with limited funds, the move toward news paywalls could be horrible news. Without information, you could end up choking in the digital dust. Thankfully, there are some tricks you can use to circumvent digital news paywalls and continue to enjoy your daily information fix.

Google News: A news aggregator escape from the paywall

Google News links to news websites across the Web. It’s a great place to get your daily news fix. As it is arranged in a clear, easy-to-digest format with top news, local news and news categories, it’s easy to take care of your digital news jones.

Newspapers app: An iOS portal to publications across the US

For $1.99 in the Apple Apps store, Newspapers is an app that provides users with a directory of links to literally every online newspaper website in the country. Read articles on your iPod, iPhone or iPad in Safari. If you prefer to download a story for later, send it to an app like Instapaper.

Reeder: A smarter RSS reader

RSS feeds are a great way to keep up with the news that’s important to you, and Reeder does it the clean and easy way. It has a newspaper-style interface, and the iOS app cuts the ads and reformats the page for optimal reading pleasure. Get it for your Apple device for only $2.99.

The Zite-geist of iPad news

The free iPad app Zite acts as a kind of “personalized magazine,” says Business Insider. It recommends news you may like, via connections to your Twitter and Google Reader accounts. However, simply picking articles to read from within the app can also drive your customization experience.

Free Associated Press and CNN apps

Mobile apps by the Associated Press and CNN are great iOS and Android options for world, national and local news. Users of the AP app can even choose their favorite local and national broadcasters and follow their stories in print and video. CNN’s app presents streaming video in a polished fashion, and allows users to submit their own photos of news events via the iReport feature.

Jobbing the system: How to obtain free access to NYT and The Daily

Twitter users have been able to create a list of each NYT Twitter feed. Clicking the links via Twitter or blog postings don’t count toward the 20 articles per month limit the Times has imposed, so this amounts to free access. A similar process work with The Daily, which is indexed by the blog The Daily: Indexed.

Peter Kafka of MediaMemo reports that the NYT will limit free referrals via Google to five per day, although using other search engines like Bing may not have the same restrictions – for now.

Why did the Times put up a speed bump for Google? Because users could simply Google an article headline and get into the article without going through the front door, so to speak.

Sources

AP Mobile app
Business Insider
CNN Mobile app (iPhone)
The Daily: Indexed

What to expect with the NYT paywall

Erick Erickson image from Flickr.

It’s amazing how far political pundits will go to talk a  little trash. Today, Erick Erickson, founder of the conservative blog RedState, said on CNN that it’s the late Senator Ted Kennedy’s fault, basically, that the healthcare reform bill is in danger of not passing. According to Politico:

“If Ted Kennedy had decided to resign, or retire, when he found out just how bad his health was, instead of wanting to be a martyr for the cause, the Democrats wouldn’t be in this position,” Erickson said.

He says Democrats would have held onto the seat if the Massachusetts special election had been held at a different time, specifically before the healthcare reform bill debate was in full swing.

Is Erick Erickson retroactive-psychic?

I may know more about online cash loans than I do about what would have happened in Massachusetts if they’d held a special election earlier. Nevertheless, I would like to present the following argument in two parts. *Clears throat*

1. You don’t know that
2. Even if that is true (see 1), that doesn’t mean you have to be a jerk

Unless Erick Erickson has some sort of special powers that allow him to know what would have happened in the past if certain events were different, he has no idea what the political climate would be like right now if Ted Kennedy had resigned when he found out about his health problems.

Why the low blow?

So, keeping in mind that there is no proof that the Republican victory wouldn’t have happened if Ted Kennedy hadn’t died while in office, let’s say he’s right. Let’s say his retroactive psychic powers are spot on. I do think that it’s a fair enough reverse-prediction to make. I’ll give him that. If the Massachusetts election had been held before the healthcare reform bill debate heated up, that senate seat would probably have gone to a Democrat.

This brings me to the second part of my argument: What is his point? Is he trying to send a message to all senators with health problems that they should immediately vacate their seats or something catastrophic will happen to their party? I highly doubt it. The only logical conclusion is that he just wants to be on record as saying that the current healthcare reform bill debacle is Ted Kennedy’s fault. He’s just using a Dead Kennedy for political ammunition. Jerk.

Image from phillyburbs.com.

The other day I read that Alpine, NJ, despite being the most expensive place to buy a house in the country, has the among the lowest property taxes. When a city official was questioned about this, he said they were able to keep property taxes down, he said they focused on “not becoming a full-service town.

Of course, being on the lower end of the wealth scale, I thought “That isn’t fair that these people who own $4 million homes and obviously have tons of money get to pay less in property taxes!” Today I came across an article about property taxes on CNN Money and discovered that there’s a way for the common folk to get lower property taxes, too.

Dispute property’s assessed value

Beth Braverman from Money Magazine says the only way to get your property tax decreased is to get the estimated value of  your property decreased. You’ve got to come up with a good argument for why the property assessment amount should be decreased, and you must win.

This won’t be as easy as getting an online cash advance, but it sounds like it can be done. Home prices have dropped 27 percent since 2006, so it makes sense that if your property value has dropped, you should not have to pay as much property tax.

Learn the rules

First off, you must appeal your  tax bill within 30 to 90 days from when you get it, depending on where you live. Find out the rules in your area regarding how long you have to make an appeal as well as how much your assessment has to be off by in order to file an appeal.

Make sure you carefully read over your official property record and check to make sure it is accurate. Then, check out zillow.com and compare your homes value to similar homes.

The faster the better

The sooner you file your appeal, the closer to the front of the hearing line you’ll be. Most areas require that you show up in person for your hearing. Braverman recommends sitting in on a property tax hearing to prepare for your own hearing.

If your hearing is after your taxes are due, you will have to pay them. However, if you win your appeal you will get a refund.

If you lose your appeal on the city level, you can appeal at a state level. States usually won’t take appeals from people seeking less than a few thousand dollars.

Be nice!

Braverman emphasizes that property assessors are bombarded with angry people demanding their assessment be changed. If you nicely, pleasantly and informally discuss your property value with the assessor, you’ll stand out.

Never underestimate the power of being nice.

Ephren Taylor

Recently CNN interviewed Ephren Taylor, 27, the youngest-ever African-American CEO of a publicly traded company in the U.S. He talked about starting his own business at age 12 and shared tips on being an entrepreneur and starting a business.

One thing Ephren Taylor pointed out is that a recession can create the opportunity in many cases to start your own business. This is a great point if you think about all of the people who are collecting unemployment. People who have gotten laid off and are eligible for unemployment still have a steady stream of income and plenty of time on their hands. So instead of putting all your time and energy into finding another place of employment working for someone else, why not dedicate yourself to starting your own business?

Be persistent

Another tip Ephren Taylor shared was that you have to be very persistent when asking for cash advance loans to get your business started. Ephren Taylor says starting his business at such a young age was an advantage for him because he was fearless and he could use his age as a marketing tool when trying to secure funding.

Ephren Taylor taught himself how to create video games and program computers when he was young and he started his company when he was 12. He said he asked about 80 different people for financing, and his young, fearless idealism kept him from getting discouraged.

Read, read, read

Ephren Taylor’s path to learning to create video games started with a book. Ephren Taylor points out that there are books on just about every subject out there, including starting a business.

Ephren Taylor has also written his own book, “Creating Success from the Inside Out: Develop the Focus and Strategy to Uncover the Life You Want.” He also has a web site, “Ephren Taylor The Social Capitalist” that offers business and finance advice.

Don’t overanalyze

Ephren Taylor cautions people against over-thinking opportunities, because that can lead to fear and giving up before even getting started. Ephren Taylor has become so successful at such a young age because he started working on his goals when, he says, he was still “dumb enough to believe” that he could do anything. And it paid off.

On his web site, Ephren Taylor offers advice to churches to help them prosper. He says he is passionate about financially empowering people. He particularly encourages college students and people who don’t have kids and mortgages to start their own business because they are in a better position to take risks. His web site says:

Beyond his unprecedented accomplishments at an early age in business, Taylor is an author, inspirational speaker, and real estate mastermind. His first book, “Creating Success from the Inside Out”, is published by the world’s number one business publisher, Wiley and is an Amazon and CEO Read best seller. The book serves as an expose of the mindset of today’s multi-millionaires while defining success as not only attaining wealth, but how to utilize it.

Check out the video of Ephren Taylor on CNN.