You just have to look around a bit, and marvel about the great scores you’ll find. Classical music lovers will feast on Scorpio Fire, and have I mentioned the Tetris song yet?

Other games come with a complete soundtrack for you to appreciate. Final Fantasy IV is one of those games. Composed by Nobuo Uematsu, these are amongst the most popular video game music in the world.

Whether you’re a fervent Final Fantasy fan yourself, or a proud audiophile, this music can be enjoyed by nearly everyone. The majority of the songs are on the classical side, with a flavour of rock, but other styles get thrown in the mix as well.

Final Fantasy IV : Echoes of Betrayal, Light of Redemption

There have been numerous reproductions of the Final Fantasy IV soundtrack, but none could’ve been as notable as this one.

Thirty-five members of the video gaming music site, Overclocked ReMix, worked on Echoes of Betrayal, Light of Redemption; all of them half musician, half gamer. Together they played the 46 arrangements of the soundtrack, each artist giving his or her personal touch to the score.

“[The] album is divided into three acts: Betrayal, Strife, and Redemption. We aspire to recreate the journey from darkness and evil to light and redemption, a recurring theme of the game. (…) The tracks are not arranged in chronological order of release in the game’s original soundtrack, but appear in a new order, to further heighten the drama of the music.”

The result is a wonderful soundtrack, with 46 fan-made songs. A complete double-CD, as well as a work of art.

Sample

Below is a sample, to whet your appetite and awaken your curiosity. This is the first song of the soundtrack, the opening of the Betrayal act — Full of Courage, arranged by Nutritious.

Full of Courage is based on the Nobuo Uematsu original song, The Red Wings.

Free Download

The complete soundtrack of Final Fantasy 4 : Echoes of Betrayal, Light of Redemption can be downloaded for free. That’s right, you don’t even need to sign up!

The easiest method would be to download it via the Torrent file. Due to the participation of the community, the torrent is more than well-seeded, and even though you’re looking at a total of 413 MB (if you prefer mp3) or 1.3 GB (if you’d rather have lossless flac), downloading should go past in a flash. If you don’t know how to use torrents, check out The Big Book of BitTorrent by Saikat Basu, an extensive PDF manual featuring everything you need (actually, really ought) to know.

If you don’t like torrents, you can also download the mp3’s straight from your browser. There’s a page on the website here, featuring http links (and mirrors) to all the individual tracks. This is however not recommended. Although you might avoid torrents, you’re looking at the tedious task of downloading each song individually, or having to deploy a site grabber on the mirror directories.

If you used the above torrent link, be sure to pay a visit to the site as well. There’s a lot of interesting stuff on there, including cover art and more information on the subject.

Any questions or comments you have can be directed to the comments section below. Don’t be shy, we’d love to hear from you.

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So, as I grew up I was shocked to learn that my parents were wrong – you really can get free stuff with no catches! I remember, in college, being offered a free T-shirt just for signing an application for a credit card.  A very good college friend of mine who was working as a movie theater manager once handed my girlfriend and I complimentary movie tickets for absolutely free.

Then a few years later, we stayed at a Howard Johnson’s Hotel, had a miserable time, complained and ended up with a free hotel stay.  Oh yes, some things in life really are free.

Get a Free Hotel Stay With Very Little Effort

The way the story goes, we asked the hotel for a crib and then upon arriving at the hotel, discovered that there wasn’t one reserved for us. We were furious, of course, and we were awake all night trying to make sure the baby didn’t roll her way right off the edge of the bed. We slept in shifts, trying to keep her between us. The next morning, with bloodshot eyes and a huge coffee in hand, I cornered the hotel manager and yelled at him for ten straight minutes. The next day I hopped online and fired off one of the most carefully crafted letters condemning Howard Johnson’s and vowing not only never to stay there again, but also to inform everyone I knew how horrible the hotel chain was. To my surprise, in less than two weeks after sending my letter, we received an envelope from Howard Johnson’s corporate headquarters with an apology and a voucher for a free hotel stay.

Every major hotel chain has a customer service section where you can submit comments about your recent stay. I would never advise anyone to become a habitual complainer – in fact, I’ve heard of folks getting banned from staying at a hotel chain because they complained dozens of times in a row. However, be aware of every nuance of your stay, and if anything is significantly wrong with your room or your stay, complain to the hotel staff (ask for and note their names), and if it’s not resolved, submit your politely written complaint, and you’re almost guaranteed to receive a free hotel stay for your efforts.

Earlier, James offered some great methods to find the best hotel deals. Of course, another perfect way to get a free hotel stay is by choosing a favorite chain and sticking with them to earn loyalty “points.” These work just like frequent flier miles, and they add up quickly. Every now and then, just for electing to stay at the same hotel chain, you’ll build up enough points to stay a night at the hotel for free. One of my favorite rewards programs is GoldPointsPlus.

If you use the system often enough, you get an “Elite” status, which means more points per stay, and more free rooms more often. It’s true – just stay loyal to a hotel chain, and eventually you get a free hotel room with no catch. Now that’s sweet.

You Can Get Lots of Free Stuff With No Catches – But Free Groceries?

Think about it – what’s the one area where families usually spend the most money every week? That’s right – groceries. Now, what if you could start eating out for free, or getting groceries without paying a dime? Sound too good to be true? While you probably can’t get all your groceries for free, what you can do is cut down significantly on your grocery bill by getting some of the more expensive items for free. A few of the best sites for this includes the constantly updated free sample page at the Kroger store website.

And of course, you can’t talk cheap without talking about Wal-Mart, which also has it’s own free sample section on the Wal-Mart website.

Yes, I know – for some reason the free samples are often of “women’s products,” but hey – women need free stuff too, right? And don’t forget to use all of those awesome grocery coupon websites I wrote about earlier to save even more on the groceries you do have to buy.

Eat out for free

Oh, and remember what I said earlier about eating out for free? Okay, it’s really true – you can get a free entree or appetizer at most restaurants on your birthday if you sign up for either a newsletter or for a free loyalty “club” membership, such as the deal from Red Lobster where you get a free “gift” (it’s a free appetizer) on your birthday for joining the “Seafood Lovers Club.”

Just search the web for your favorite restaurants and sign up for their “club” memberships (almost always free), and on your birthday you could eat breakfast, lunch and supper for absolutely free!

Becoming a Free-aholic – It Really Is An Addiction

One of the worst things about getting started down the “free stuff” road is that once you realize you can get stuff for free, it’s easy to become obsessed with looking for “free stuff” opportunities. Trust me, they are everywhere. Unfortunately, the web is also overrun with “freebie” scams and adware/malware filled websites that offer free stuff. MakeUseOf offers a long list of great options for bargains and coupons, like Aibek’s review of Freshbargains,  or the MUO reviews of RetailMeNot and WoW-Coupons. But if you’re looking for not only cheap stuff, but free stuff with no catches, then you’ll need a good selection of valid freebie sites. One of the only directories I check out often is TheFreeSite.

While the site itself isn’t the prettiest design in the world, it really does the trick. There are categories from “Fun Freebies,” to “Family Freebies,” to “Seasonal Freebies,” and everything in between. The offers throughout the site are legitimate and real. Now if you like the idea of getting items for free from folks in your local community who simply don’t want their stuff anymore (there are surprisingly many people like that), then two of the hottest sites you’ll want to check out are GumTree, a popular U.K. based free classifieds site with a huge “freebies” section.

And there’s also the ever-popular FreeCycle.org, where millions of folks across the world are just trading stuff for free every single day.

FreeCycle.org has really developed a worldwide cult following, and if you join up you’ll quickly see why. There’s nothing so cool as being part of a community where folks want to give you something for absolutely free just to keep it out of the world’s landfills. After a while, you’ll find yourself giving stuff that you don’t want away for free too!

Do you have any favorite freebie websites? What are your tricks for getting free stuff? Share your opinions in the comment section below.

Image credit: Adrian Purser

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It’s way cheaper, faster, safer, and has a far bigger active community than Windows, so why aren’t you on it?

Don’t worry, we understand. Like many things, venturing of into a completely unknown world can seem rather scary, and also be pretty difficult in the beginning. It’s while adapting to the unknown, that one needs a guiding, and caring hand.

MakeUseOf is proud to present to you A Newbie’s Initiation to Linux! In this free ebook you’ll be introduced to the basics of the Linux operating systems. Get to know what it is all about, and familiarize yourself with the practical side. Basically, if you’re a complete Linux newbie and looking for a quick and easy guide to get you started this is it.

Let Stefan Neagu from TuxGeek explain to you how to get Linux running on your computer, introduce you to Ubuntu desktop and get you familiar with Linux alternatives to popular Windows programs. This guide will tell you all you need to know in 20 illustrated pages, helping you to take your first steps.

Let your curiosity take you hostage and start discovering Linux today, with this manual as your guide!

Don’t let us keep you any longer, and download the Newbie’s Initiation to Linux here in PDF.

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1. Ebook Search Engines

These are simple Google-like search engines but for PDF files. I usually start my ebook search using one of these sites. Type in the title of the document or book name you’re looking for and click on the search button. Find your book in the search results and click on download link. Done.

So far my top 3 ebook search sites are:

www.pdfgeni.com (MakeUseOf review)
www.pdf-search-engine.com (MakeUseOf review)
www.data-sheet.net (MakeUseOf review)

2. Scribd.com

In case you have never heard of this one before, the simplest way to define Scribd would be to call it Youtube for documents. People can upload whatever text documents they want and easily share them with others.

You’ll find lots and lots of free ebooks here. You only need to know what to look for. For instance try searching for George Orwell, Leo Tolstoi, etc.

And obviously it gets copyrighted ebooks much like YouTube gets copyrighted videos. I am not sure if they are doing anything to deal with them, but the fact is there are plenty of them on Scribd.

Oh and as we have mentioned before, Scribd is also an excellent resource for free document templates.

3. Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg (aka PG) has the largest collection of public domain books. These are the books that out of copyright and available for anyone to use for any purpose. Lots of books from the world’s greatest fiction authors such as Dickens, Joyce, Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Anton Chekov and Edgar Allan Poe fall into this category.

This site is the oldest producer of free ebooks on the Internet. PG is an extremely popular site and now has over 20,000 works. If you’re not sure where to start check out their Top 100 page.

4. Free Ebooks For Your iPod, PDA, Smartphone, Blackberry etc.

For those of you who like to have ebooks on their portabe device we got some sites as well. Below are what I believe the best websites for books that can be read on mobile devices.

www.gutenberg.org
www.manybooks.net (MakeUseOf Review)
www.feedbooks.com (MakeUseOf Review)
www.booksinmyphone.com (MakeUseOf Review)

For iPhone users in particular there is a website called TextOnPhne. It’s a great ebook site that comes with its own ebook reader app. There are over 30,000 free books for your Apple device. Check out the demo video here.

5. Free Tech Ebooks

These sites are mainly for tech books, covering everything from computer science, engineering and mathematics to programming and web development.

www.freecomputerbooks.com
www.freetechbooks.com
www.onlinecomputerbooks.com

(Bonus) DailyLit

DailyLit is a bit different from the rest but I really like what they’re doing there. DailyLit can deliver a small excerpt from the book of your choice to your email on a daily basis. One excerpt per day, and so untill the book is finished.

The reason it wroks so well is that it only takes around 3-5 minutes to read each excerpt. If you feel like reading more you can request a next excerpt with a click of a button.

While more than a half of all books cost about $4.95 per book others are free. There are plenty of good titles among the free ones as well, some of my favorites include My Life and Work (by Henry Ford), Siddhartha (by Herman Hesse) and Random Reminiscences of Men and Events (by John D. Rockefeller). Check it out.

Are you aware of any other cool websites for ebooks? Share them in comments.

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Just a short post today to let you know about a really cool site that we should all probably be watching.

“Giveaway of the Day” literally gives away a real, fully-licensed software download every single day. Some are really cool…some are “not-so” (to me, anyway…but hey…that’s why they’ve got chocolate, strawberry and vanilla, right?)

For you game-players, they also give away one Game every day!

I’m guessing that updates and support might be limited on these free downloads, but…you know the old saying… “you get what you pay for”… and I’m ok with that when it’s really cool and it’s free.

UPDATE: Please note that each listed program / game available for free only during the first 24 hours.

Enjoy!

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