Hitting the random button directed me to the RMV page. The first entry was Registry of Motor Vehicles, so I took it. My photo search for the whole name showed nothing. I then moved to Motor Vehicles and received 20 hits. Woot, our first go at this!

I  settled on the following photo by Alfred Palmer:

Imagine being a young, talented man. Your talent comes out in painting. Your creations inspire others, and cause a wellspring of emotion to flow from your family. The war is on and it's time to do your part. The army has the perfect job for you, painter. Will you be creating portraits? Will you be documenting history's finest moments?

Well, you have a website, your original idea falls through, so you come up with another one. I've wanted to do something related to the public domain photos in the Library of Congress, but could never come up with an idea. Until now. 

The best thinking happens in the shower, and this time was no exception. I thought it'd be a great mashup to randomly select a wikipedia article and then search for a photo in the Library of Congress online archive.

The random page will probably not have a corresponding photo, so I will move from left to right in the title and keep searching. One word has to hit, right? For instance, let's say I randomly get the Blue Widget Loving article. I would search for Blue Widget Loving, then Widget Loving and finally Loving. If I don't get a hit I will move on.

I stopped by the site and there were 200 or so spam comments. Yeah.

We're in the middle of deciding what to do on the book front. For now, I'm going to update the site with the latest websites that offer free services.

Since we're starting the book 102 Free things for your Computer, we need to decide on which areas to focus on. There were two questions we needed to answer:

1. Are we going to include online and offline resources?
2. What subject areas should we cover?

The first question is easy to answer. Most computer users have some sort of access to the internet , whether it is at home or at work. This means that we can offer online resources to help people. We're going to ensure that the resources work well with dial up users, since not everyone has broadband yet. 

Welcome to 102 Free Things. This site will be unlike anything you've experienced before. The goal is to show you 102 Free Things you can do with your computer on the internet. The twist is that we'll be writing a book as we go along. Each of the entries will be the basis of an upcoming book and will feature information, demonstrations and more.  

We're looking to try something new in the publishing space by bringing the paper and technology together to increase the value to readers. Wouldn't it be great to experience more out of a paper based book? We think so.

102 Free Things is a production of For the Info, Incorporated .  For the Info will publish the book using self-publishing and marketing methods. Click over to their site to see the trials and tribulations of a self-publisher.