10 Free Tips To Maximize Your Firefox Experience.

With over 465 million downloads to date, open-source Firefox is the next most popular browser after Internet Explorer. Packed with nifty features, Firefox received a string of accolades like Best Software Application from the Usability Professional's Association, Forbes Best of the Web, Softpedia's Users' Choice Award and PC Magazine's Best of the Year Award.

An easy to use browser, Firefox is not only faster than Internet Explorer but is also much safer as it comes with security features like phishing protection to guard against malicious and fake websites, and prevention against malware from installing or executing programs without your say-so.

Famed for its tabbed browsing, which organizes multiple sites into a single window for clutter-free surfing, Firefox is also highly customizable with thousands of tiny software called add-ons to ramp up its functionality. Be it speed, security or functionality, Firefox is fast becoming the browser of choice. And to further enhance your Firefox experience, here are 10 free tips to get the most out of Firefox :

The Outer Limits Season One

1. Ramp Up Functionality
To get the most out of Firefox, soup it up with thousands of add-ons or extensions like controlling your favourite media player to downloading videos from video-sharing sites to suggesting new websites to visit based on your interests, and even tracking prices on Amazon.com. Installation of extensions is simple and you can browse the many categories at :
addons.mozilla.org

2. Customize Your Firefox
Just like changing the skins on your gadgets, fit your Firefox with new clothes or Themes. There's a theme to suit every taste - from designs to please the cat lover or Harley Davidson rider to emulation of Mac OS X and Internet Explorer. Personalisations are a one-click installation affair.

3. Populate With Your Favorite Search Engines
For convenience, populate the search bar on the upper-right corner of the Firefox browser with your favorite search engines like BBC, Amazon.com, eBay to YouTube and many more. Install them simply by clicking on the link of the search engine listed.

4. Use Tabbed Browsing To Enhance Your Surfing Experience
Instead of opening a separate window for each website you visit, Firefox tabbed browsing feature, which organizes multiple sites into a single window for clutter-free surfing, is a delight to use. Use Ctr-T to open a new tab and Ctr-Tab to cycle through the tabs. Shift and click on a link to open it in a new tab in the background or press Shift, Ctrl and click to bring the new tab into the foreground.

5. Skip Typing Whole Domain Names
Tired of typing whole domain names with the "www." prefix and ".com" suffix into the address bar when you surf? You can save time and keystrokes by just typing the bits in-between, for example, enter "yahoo", then hit Ctrl+Enter. The complete "www.yahoo.com" address will be formed and loaded automatically. For websites with the suffix ".net", use Shift+Enter.

6. Speed Up Site Navigation
Instead of clicking on the Forward or Back buttons, navigate web pages by holding Shift and turn the scroll wheel of your mouse forward or backward.

Dr.Who 1st Series
7. Assign Keywords To Bookmarks
Assign keywords to your bookmarked sites by right-clicking on the bookmark and click properties. You can load the keyworded bookmark quickly by entering the keyword in the address bar.

8. Search Faster For Text On Web Pages
Skip the usual way, Ctrl-F, for searching for text on a web page by using this shortcut : Under Firefox 's Tools : Options, select Advanced : General, then check "Search for text when I start typing". When you type a string of text, Firefox will automatically look for it on-the-fly.

9. Search Smarter With Smart Keywords.
If you regularly visit certain websites, for example Amazon.com, you can configure Smart Keywords, which lets you search the websites from the address bar. Go to the webpage with the search field, right-click the search field and then choose "Add a Keyword for this Search." The Add Bookmark dialog will pop up. Give the bookmark a name, for instance, "Amazon Search" and a keyword, for example "am" and save the bookmark. The next time you want to search for a book on Amazon.com, just enter "am (name of book)" into the address bar of Firefox and hit Enter.

10. Protect Your Passwords.
If you let Firefox remember your passwords, make them safer by configuring a master password. Select Tools : Options, then Security. Under the Passwords section, check "Use a master password". Ensure that you are using a master password that cannot be easily guessed by other people.

*Related posts :
- Free Web Browsers.
- Flock - The Social Web Browser.

Tech News - Microsoft Buys Fast Search And Transfer.

Here is this week's round-up of the latest tech news and what is hot in the Web :

1. Microsoft Buys Fast Search and Transfer.
With all the recent buzz over Microsoft bid to buy Yahoo, its purchase of Fast Search and Transfer, a Norwegian search engine company, for US$1.2 billion went largely unnoticed.

With the purchase, Microsoft is hoping to improve its enterprise search capability and have indicated that Fast's search capabilities will integrate well with its Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. Unlike Google and Yahoo, enterprise search engines are usually customised to search for information within corporations, and with companies digitizing their information like documents and drawings, search is the fastest way to get and share corporate data.

Alias 1st Season

With Fast, Microsoft wants to help workers within businesses quickly locate information that are kept in different types of files and databases. Using the Fast software, businesses can build customised applications like industry-specific search engines or websites that provide content in real time.

Together with its bid for Yahoo, Microsoft's purchase of Fast indicates that the software giant is stepping up its efforts in increasing its search capabilities and presence in a Web that is currently dominated by Google.

2. Google Partners Panasonic.
TV manufacturer Panasonic is working with Google to build television sets that comes with access to YouTube and Picasa, allowing users to watch videos and photos directly from their televisions sets.

Expected to be launch in the US by the middle of this year, the Panasonic Veira PZ850 allows for direct downloading of content from YouTube and Picasa with just a simple click on the remote controller. The tv is likely to be connected to an Ethernet port or comes with Wi-Fi capababilty.

For Google, the partnership is a chance to experiment with new services and acknowledges changes in consumers' habits as user-generated content becomes increasingly popular.

Inaugural Edition
3. Summize That Review
Always got confused by the many conflicting reviews of a particular movie, book or product? Then try Summize, a free web service that goes through the thousands of blogs and review sites, analyses their opinions and aggregates the results into an useful colour-coded chart. One look and you will be able to tell how reviewers feel about a particular book, movie and gadget.

Simply type in the name of the product you want to find out about, and the search engine will help you organise all the reviews, with star ratings, making it especially easy for you.

4. Lenovo's Facial Recognition Idea PCs.
Instead of typing in long alphanumeric passwords, Lenovo's new range of IdeaPad notebooks and the IdeaCentre desktop PCs comes with facial recognition capabilities, allowing you to just smile to log in.

For notebooks, there are the 15.4-inch IdeaPad Y510 notebook PC and the 11-inch IdeaPad U110, both powered by Intel Centrino processors. The desktops - K200 and Q200 - both comes with anti-bacterial keyboards and one-touch data recovery.

*Related Tech News :
- Apple Launches MacBook Air
- Google Challenges Wikipedia With "knol"

Get SkypeOut and Connect
For Free With Other Skypees!

Numbr - Get A Free Disposable Phone Number.

Always value your privacy and do not want to give out your phone number when you are selling or buying online? Then grab an anonymous and disposable phone number from Numbr, all for free.

Numbr, available in 23 cities in the US, lets you create free, anonymous and disposable numbers that can forward all incoming calls to any landline or mobile number of your choosing. It is an ideal way to protect your privacy when advertising your services, buying online or when networking online.

Complete Series

Besides forwarding all your calls to your home or cellphone, Numbr also comes with the following features :

- Record your messages through voice-mail which are then sent to your e-mail.
- Allows call screening and you can choose to accept or reject the call.
- Built in filters to block off nuisance marketeers, spammers or anyone else.
- Complete access to your call records at all times.
- Available round-the-clock with 24x7 reachability.
- Set your number to expire in an hour, day, week or months.
- Embed your message in your blog or site through the iNumbr widget.
- Parental controls to protect your kids privacy.

Especially useful when listing in personals or classifieds, Numbr basic package is free and is the ideal way to conduct your business without sacrificing your privacy.

*Related posts :
- Create Your Own Ringtones For Free.
- WatZatSong & Other Free Quirky Online Tools.

Get The Best Keywords With WordTracker!

Download Accelerator Plus - A Free Download Manager For Increasing Download Speed.

Have you ever wish that your downloading of media or data files can speed up just a little bit faster? Download Accelerator Plus, a free download manager, promises to do just that - increase your download speed.

Developed by SpeedBit, the 7.6 MB utility can improve download speed by up to 300 per cent and is particularly useful when you are downloading multiple files. It accelerates download speed by first searching for mirror sites and the most responsive servers using a proximity test, then dividing the downloads into several segments and finally downloading them simultaneously from the fastest servers it can find, resulting in optimal utilization of your dial-up or broadband connections.

Make Money
From Your Blog

Through its AlwaysResume feature, Download Accelerator Plus also has the ability to recover and resume a download which has been interrupted by a broken connection, an extremely useful feature for those who have experienced the frustration of starting a download all over again due to a broken connection. It also provides users with the ability to see previews of their downloads while the downloading is in progress.

Besides increasing downloading speed, Download Accelerator Plus is also a full-featured download manager that can help you organize your file downloads. It keeps track of all your downloads and provides a handy history of what you have downloaded and when. Password Manager, scheduled downloads, auto-Internet disconnection and shutting down of your PC upon download completion, are some of the other nifty features that comes with Download Accelerator Plus.

And through its integration with the anti-virus software in your Operating System, it comes with automatic anti-virus scanning of downloaded content and a file security check, provided by ZoneAlarm, will also alert you that you are about to download or run a potentially dangerous file.

With a user-friendly interface and about 150 million users worldwide, Download Accelerator Plus is compatible with most Windows platforms and Mac, and supports browsers like Firefox, Internet Explorer and Opera. It is also multi-lingual and is available in 10 languages including German, French, Italian and Chinese.

* Related posts :
- Free Specialised Software For Your Desktop.
- Free Desktop Utilities & Applications.

Albums For Only $7.99

Tech News - Apple Launches MacBook Air.

Here is a round-up of this week's tech news and what's hot in the Web :

1. Apple Launches MacBook Air.
Apple unveiled a new super-slim laptop at the recent Macworld trade show. Dubbed the MacBook Air, it measures 0.4cm at its thinnest and 1.9cm at its beefiest and is being hailed as the world's thinnest notebook computer. There are two models : A US$1,799 1.6Ghz version with an 80GB hard drive and a 1.8Ghz 64GB version with a flash-based solid state drive for US$3,098. The laptop, however, does not comes with an optical drive for reading CDs and DVDs, a feature that Apple says will unlikely be missed as movies and music can be downloaded over the Internet and optical drives can be access from other PCs.

X-File 1st Season

The MacBook Air thinness and light weight of about 1.5kg have upped the cool factor for notebook design and is causing ripples among notebook makers such as Dell, Sony and Lenova as design is how these companies differentiate themselves. It will be interesting to see what the rest of the pack will come up with if they want to capture consumers' dollars.

2. Facebook Sues Over Alleged Hacking.
The popular social networking site is taking Istra Holdings, a Canadian operator of pornography websites, to court for allegedly trying to steal its users' personal information. Facebook claims that Istra tried to hack into its servers 200,00 times in June last year.

Being repositories of personal data ranging from e-mail addresses, dates of birth to users' preferences, social networking sites are attractive targets for data thieves and this case echoes what security experts have been harping on - that publishing to much information on social networks is dangerous. And with 55 million members, Facebook is the perfect mining ground for spammers, hoping to compile e-mail lists, and criminals seeking to steal identity.

Star Trek 1st Season
3. Sony Dumps Copy Protection.
Good news for music lovers. Sony BMG has announced that its entire catalogue of music will be available for download - without DRM - at Amazon's digital music store by the end of January. The record label had all along resisted selling tunes without DRM which prevents songs from being copied and is the last of the big four major music studios to finally give up copy protection.

The tie-up makes Amazon the only online music store to offer protection-free downloads for all its tracks from the big four music labels and makes them a much stronger competitor to Apple's iTunes store who has cornered 70 per cent of the digital music download market. With music downloaded from Amazon playable on all types of music players - unlike iTunes music downloads which are playable only on iPods - together with the limited selection of tracks from iTunes that are sold without DRM, the tie-up sets the scene for a battle for music lovers' dollars.

*More Tech News :
- Google's "Knol" Challenges Wikipedia.
- Members Blast Facebook.
- Google Opens Up Orkut.

Flock - A Versatile Social Web Browser.

Everyone is familiar with web browsers like the ever-present Internet Explorer, popular FireFox and others like Safari and Opera but here is a little known, but fast gaining in popularity browser called Flock.

Called a "Social Browser" by its creators, due to its ability to interact and share content with popular social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and various blogging and news aggregation services, Flock is a web browser based on fast, secure and open-source Mozilla technologies.

Social Web Marketing

Even though Flock was actually released about two years ago, the latest version is decisively different and increasingly relevant, considering the heavy social bent that is evident in today"s Web. Flock makes it very easy to share content, publish to your blogs and connect with your friends at the same time. Here are some of the cool features that makes Flock a strikingly different browser from Internet Explorer, Firefox or Safari :

1. YouTube, Flickr and Photobucket Integration.
With the in-built Photo Uploader, you can edit and upload up to 1,000 photos at any one time to Flickr and Photobucket and through the Media Minibar, instantly find, stream and view photos and videos from YouTube, Photobucket and Flickr, and also get informed when your friends post new media content. Built-in quick links allows you to embed images in blogs and bookmark content streams that you like so that you can return to them in the Media MiniBar without having to go to Flickr.

2. Facebook Integration.
For fans of Facebook, Flock's superb integration features with the popular social networking site allows you to keep tabs on your Facebook life without ever having to go to Facebook. A left sidebar list all your Facebook friends, allows you to browse their photos, your invites, messages and other Facebook stuff. Updated profiles and any change in information from your friends can be easily seen at a glance.

Make Money With YouTube
3. Superior Bookmarking Feature.
Flock's Favorites, with the ability to add tags and descriptions, has to be the best bookmarking feature among all the browsers. In addition to being able to save offline, it has a built-in ability to
save your favorite sites to ma.gnolia. or Del.icio.us, enabling you to access them from any browser on any PC. The favorites manager also comes integrated with a favorites and history section.


4. Flock's My World.
Keep up-to-date when your friends post new photos and videos or content from your favorite sites with Flock's custom homepage, "My World". It comes with a Yahoo search box and allows quick access to all the favorite sites you have visited recently together with your favorite feeds.

5. Easy Blog Publishing.
Flock's Blog Editor makes blog publishing easy. Draft online or offline or drag items from the Web Clipboard to put them in your posts and post them directly to blogs on Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, Wordpress and many other blogging platforms.

6. Web clipboard.
This feature allows you grab your favorite images, text and links from the Web and save them in the sidebar for later use.

Besides the nifty features, most Firefox extensions like Google Toolbar and Greasemonkey work well in Flock and it is available for Mac, Windows and Linux operating systems. It is truly a social browser and essential for those who participate in multiple social networks.

*Related posts :
- Free Web Browsers
- Free Media Players
- Alternatives To YouTube
- Free Specialised Software For Your Desktop

Get The Best Keywords With WordTracker!

Protect Your PC For Free With WinPatrol And Avast Anti-Virus Software

If you are tired of paying through your nose for security suites that are expensive, RAM-hungry and requires new subscription fees every year, there are plenty of free and tested anti-virus and anti-spyware tools in the web that do the same, if not better, job at protecting your PC as compared to paid versions. Besides well-known free security software like AVG, Spybot and Ad-Aware, here are two more free security tools that protects your PC while saving you money at the same time :

1. WinPatrol
Voted Tool of The Month by PCWorld for June 2007, WinPatrol's Scotty the Watch Dog monitors and alerts you whenever an unwelcome program tries to add itself to the set of applications that start up automatically whenever Windows boots. It detects, blocks and allows you to remove spyware and malware that make changes to your registry without your permission and helps to keep your system tray free of clutter.

The intuitive program comes with a cookie remover and through the Startup Programs function, provides a detailed list of each program that your PC launches at system startup. A smart feature, The Delayed Start, lets you delay the launch of non-essential programs for up to an hour after the system boots, enabling Windows to load faster. WinPatrol increases your PC speed and system performance, and by letting you know what programs are and should be running at all times, puts control of your computer back into your own hands.

2. Avast! Anti-Virus Software
A complete anti-virus package, Avast! Anti-Virus Home Edition is free for home users and has everything you need in an anti-virus tool. Providing real-time protection against nasty viruses and malware, Avast! also comes with an e-mail scanner for detecting web-mail borne viruses and through the P2P Shield, protects against virus attacks spread through peer-to-peer file sharing networks like Kazaa.

Additional features includes automatic updating of the virus database and the Network Shield, an intrusion detection system, which provides protection against known Internet attacks and worms by analysing all network traffic and scans it for malicious contents. Easy to use and highly customizable, Avast! comes with two interfaces - simple for novices and advanced for experienced users - and is compatible with all Windows operating systems.

*Related posts :
- Free utilities for computer security
- Free desktop utilities & applications


Get
Mousepad from
Zazzle.com

The Top 10 Freebie Posts For 2007

Looking back, it had been a remarkable journey since the launched of this blog in July 2007. With the original intention of searching for open-source and free software and web services, and sharing it with readers, I was amazed at the amount of free software and web tools that I have been able to unearth in the short six months of this blog existence. From free security suites, free desktop utilities and productivity tools to free web services and even home entertainment freebies like free music, videos and games, the journey has been an extremely fun and fruitful one.

Web Design
and Development

Besides the obvious savings in turning to open-source and free software for my computer needs plus the benefits of not being tied down to unwanted and costly updates of propriety software, this blog have also expanded my horizon and opened my eyes to the many innovations available in the Web, and I hope that readers found the content in this blog as useful to them as it was to me.

And as an indication of this blog popularity, it is in fact the fastest growing in terms of traffic among the three hobby blogs that I have launched in 2007 and also has the unwanted distinction of having its content stolen and reproduced, thrice, at other sites by unscrupulous content thieves.

In thanking loyal readers and closing what had been a most rewarding year and hoping for a equally fruitful 2008, here is a recap of the top 10 posts, in terms of traffic, for 2007 :

1 - Linus - A Free Alternative To Windows.
2 - Free Specialised Software for Your Desktop.
3 - Google's Suite Of Free Utilities & Web Services.
4 - WatZatSong & Other Free Online Quirky Tools.
5 - Tips For Downloading Freebies - When "Free" Isn't Really Free.
6 - Free Keywords Suggestion Tools.
7 - Free Graphics Software.
8 - Free Utilities For Computer Security.
9 - Tech News - Google Challenges Wikipedia With "Knol".
10 - Free Online Nostalgic Games.

WordTracker - For The Best Keywords

Create Your Own Ringtones For Free

Are you tired of navigating through websites, with loads of fine prints, looking for ringtones for your mobile phone and paying major music labels for copyrighted songs? Or being saddled with a phone bill that burns a hole in your pocket for that supposedly free ringtone you have downloaded because you failed to read the fine print?

Well, here are two recently launched web services that allows you to create your very own ringtones for free without needing any downloading of ringtone-making software or surprise users with hidden fees:

X-Files 1st Season

1. Cellware
Positioning itself as a mobile social networking site, Cellware has one of the largest selection of content for your phone on the Web and allows users to upload and create their own ringtones for free. Simple Flash tools allows the uploading of entire MP3 sound tracks, edit them into 20 seconds clips and send them to users cellphones as ringtones. It also allows users to mix several tracks together into a mashup and being a networking site, tag and share them with friends and community members. All brands of mobile phone, except Apple iPhone, work with Cellware. And the kicker - you can even earn money when you share the stuff you have uploaded !

2. Tonebee
Similar to Cellware, Tonebee is another recently launched web service that allows users to create their own personalized cell phone ringtone for free by simply uploading their favorite Mp3 songs onto the “Mp3 ToneBee Ringtone Maker." In just 3 simple steps - uploading, selecting the portion of the song (30 seconds or less) you want and saving it on your PC - users will have the desired ringtone for their cellphones. The stored song can be transferred onto any cell phone as long as the phone has Mp3 capabilities. Beside creating ringtones, Tonebee also has videos, photos and news from around the world related to almost any artist, band, album or song you can think of.

*Related posts :
- Free music downloads
- Free online nostalgic games
- WhatZatSong & other free online quirky tools

Tech News - Goggle Challenges Wikipedia With "Knol"

Here is this week's round-up of tech news and what's hot in the Web :

1. Google Challenges Wikipedia With "Knol"
Google has announced that it will be launching a new Internet encyclopedia, a concept called "knol"- a shorthand for a "unit of knowledge"- that will see it competing with the highly popular user-supported Wikipedia.

The Googlepedia, as some netizens are calling it, will consist of material submitted by users but unlike Wikipedia, there will be no cloak of anonymity and all submissions will be identified. There will be no editing of entries by Google but instead, visitors will rate and comment on them. For now, submissions are by invitation only but will eventually be open to all comers. The resource is free to use and Google will monetize it by placing contextual ads related to the topics covered on each page.

CSI - Complete 1st Season

With more than 56 million US visitors eye-balling Wikipedia in Oct alone, making it the eighth most popular website, the concept will definitely pose a challenge to non-profit Wikipedia which has emerged as a widely used reference tool. While lifting the cloak of anonymity to submissions is a step in the right direction, unless it has its own editorial team to vet the entries, Google's "knol", in allowing visitors to rate and comment the submissions, will open it to the same sort of uneven content and the many abuses that Wikipedia has.

2. Flickr Launches "Places"
Flickr, Yahoo's online photo-sharing site, will soon unveil a service called "Places" that identifies on a global map, the latest hot spots for photo contributions and allows users to browse photos from millions of geographically located photos uploaded onto its site. With many of the world's cities, states and countries having their own featured pages, "Places" also allows users to search by geographic location for photos that might interest them.

With more than 40 million monthly visitors to Flickr, the feature will be especially appealing to prospective travellers seeking to go beyond photos of landmarks for places they plan to visit. "Places" will be available in the eight languages that Flickr currently offers - English, Spanish, German, French, Portuguese, Italian, Korean and traditional Chinese.

3. ScanR Revolutionises Scanning, Copying And Faxing Industry
Convert an image of a document, business card or a whiteboard message, captured on your camera phone or digital camera, to a PDF file or vCard format and get it emailed or faxed to you through ScanR, a new US-based startup.

The free-to-use web service is set to revolutionise the scanner, copier and fax industry with its technology that identifies keywords during the conversion process and assigns them as tags that make the file searchable on ScanR or any desktop search software. ScanR also works with any mobile phone.

4. Ultra-Mobile PC - Asus Launches Eee PC
While ultra-mobile laptops, which weighs below 1kg and have screen sizes of 7 inches and below, have been around for about a year, the price tags of the initial releases were quite exorbitant, considering their limited capabilities, costing over US$1,300 each. Not anymore.

Law & Order - 1st Year
Asus has just launched the Eee PC, an ultra-mobile laptop that hit the sweet spot with its low price of around US$400. Designed for affordability, it comes with a Intel Mobile Celeron ultra-low voltage 900 MHz processor, 512 MB RAM, 3 USB ports, LAN port, built-in webcam, SD card slot, 800 x 480 seven-inch display, stereo speakers, Wi-Fi and an impressive 5200 mAh battery which supports 3.5 hours of use.

There is no hard disk drive but has instead, 4GB of solid-state flash memory and while using flash memory means that you get less storage, you get better power efficiency, faster boot times and less heat instead. The launch was so successful that over 300 pieces were snapped up within a day or two at the Sitex show in Singapore recently.

The Asus Eee PC, which stands for easy-to-work, easy-to-play and easy-to-learn, uses Linux instead of Windows and the user interface is extremely well-designed and divided into Work, Play and Learn tabs for easy access to applications. The icons are large and at 920g, decked out in a crisp pearl white body, is aptly suited for students and professionals on a budget, and is likely to be a benchmark for all other ultra-mobile PCs to follow.

*More Tech News :
- Google Opens Up Orkut
- Members Blast Facebook

GET SKYPEOUT & CONNECT FOR
FREE WITH OTHER SKYPEES !

7 Free And Boss-Pleasing Things You Can Do With Facebook.

Bosses hate Facebook as they consider it a robber of productivity and worker hours. A recent study of 3,500 companies by UK employment law firm Peninsula found that an estimated 233 million hours were lost every month as a result of employees "wasting time" on networking sites such as Facebook. Many companies and even governments have already banned the site, for example the Ontario government in Canada.

However, with the right applications and used correctly, Facebook can actually help improve productivity at work. Here are seven free and boss-pleasing things you can do with Facebook :

1. Sell Your Company's Goods Online
Great for small companies who want to move their products online, the Marketplace section is where all Facebook users post items they want to buy or sell. Unlike eBay, listings are free but the listing will be available only to others in the same network in Facebook as you. But by paying US$1, you can publicise your listing to other Facebook users, in the form of online advertisements on their Facebook pages. (marketplace.jpg)

2. Raise Capital For Business
If you are residing in the United States, raise capital by joining the Lending Club, a community where you can borrow and lend money to fellow Facebook members. Members lend and borrow money directly to and from each other online, bypassing the banks and enjoying better rates. All members' identities and bank accounts are verified and borrowers credit-checked by the Lending Club. Lenders are also provided with a borrower's credit history and only borrowers with credit scores of above 640 are accepted. To-date, the Club has already passed US$3.7 million in loans to Facebook users. Great alternative fund raising avenue for companies intending to set up office in the US. (lendingclub.jpg)

3. Track The Stock Market
If your job or company dabble in stocks and shares, get real and updated stock quotes with the Simple Stock Quotes application which is updated every 15 minutes. (stock.jpg)

4. Read the Latest News
Get the latest news relevant to your business with the Simply feed application which allows you to read the latest happenings in your industry on Facebook. You can also share your feeds and shared items in Google Reader with friends. (rss.jpg)

5. Store And Share Office Documents
If you use the online office suite Zoho to create and edit office documents and spreadsheets, you can upload and share them with colleagues on Facebook using Zoho Facebook. (zoho.jpg)

6. Send And Get e-mail
Facebook's e-mail application lets you send and receive e-mail within the networking site. Choose your own e-mail address, and if the recipient replies through the web-form provided in the link in the e-mail, his reply will be displayed as a thread. (e-mail.jpg)

7. Make a Statement
With the Groups function, rally the troops to stand behind your boss vision and business direction or make a statement to meet your company's key targets for the year.

*Related post : WatZatSong And Other Free Online Quirky Tools

WordTracker - For The Best Keywords

WatZatSong And Other Free Online Quirky Tools

Once in a while we come across certain unique situations where we wish there were software or web tools to help us with these quirky stuff. Well, here are some free web tools that are not common but will certainly come in handy for those rare occasions :

WatZatSong
You have just heard a great tune on the radio but the DJ does not identify it and goes on to play other hits. The tune gets stuck in your head, refuses to go away and you end up a bit looney, humming it to friend after friend, hoping to find someone someone who is able to identify it for you.

Well, can the humming with WatZatSong, where you can easily get the answer to that lovely but nameless jingle. Just give as much information as you can about the song, like male or female singer or a group and genre, and record a short sample of it online - yup, sing a little of the jingle into your mike and the site will automatically record and upload it. Then, just wait for the community to ping you for an answer to your nameless jingle. And don't worry about being tone-deaf as it is an anonymous recording.

Drop.io
Anyone working can easily identify with the disconnect between the e-mail quota we want and the amount company IT administrators think we should have, which is usually much smaller. So, what do you do if you need to send and receive large files?

Share them online with Drop.io and you'll have the gratitude of people whose inboxes won't be clog up and save yourself the hassle of having to break up large mail attachments too. As the name suggests, just drop your files online, tell your friends where to look and share them. No account sign-up is needed and there is a 100 MB upload limit for each file but you can use the service as often as you like. With no irritating pop-ups and ads, a clean and easy-to-use interface, Drop.io promises that all files uploaded stay online forever and can be downloaded as many times as you need them to be.

OnlineConversion
Tired of having your system bog down for hours while you are downloading a file that was supposed to take only minutes? Check your download time before you hit the download button at OnlineConversion Download Time Calculator. Just enter the size of the file you want to download and the calculator will quickly estimate the amount of time the download needs based on its size and the speed of your Net connection ( DSL, 56kbps modem, etc).

ReadPlease
Eyes glazed and tired from all the proof reading of your articles? Let your computer talk to you and do all the proof reading with ReadPlease, an easy-to-use and excellent text-to-speech software. ReadPlease never gets tire and reads exactly what's in the text, no more and no less. Hearing the text spoken out loud allows you to find subtle errors that you might overlook like bad phrasing, missing words, doubled words and poor punctuation. An excellent tool for writers and a godsend for people with vision or reading problems.

Portable Apps
Put your entire computer in your pocket and be productive while on the go with PortableApps, an open-source software that allows you to store your favourite applications and settings, including passwords and bookmarks, in any storage device like your iPod or thumb drive. Your PC productivity tools, web browsers, video player and games are just as welcome with PortableApps. Just plug in your thumb drive at any public PC at the airport or a cybercafe and you can access all your favourite applications without leaving any trace of your personal data behind.

WebWasher
Get rid of bandwidth-hogging online ads and surf faster with WebWasher, a 1.2 MB utility that eliminates pop-ups, banners and jumbo-sized ads that increase the time it takes to view Web pages. This nifty tool also crushes cookies and prevents companies from profiling your surfing habits and protects you from bugs and invisible graphics hidden in documents that trigger the sending of messages to third parties.

*Related post : Free Specialised Software For Your Desktop

Tech News - Members Blast Facebook.

Ever since i started a new category on technological news to keep up with the rapid changes in the Web, traffic had bumped up and it seems to be well received by readers. So, here is this week's update on the latest tech news :

1. Members Blast Facebook
Users of Facebook are up in arms over the social networking site's decision to make money from its success by plastering users' photos on advertisements for products that they like. Discussion groups have sprung up lambasting the company for selling out its users to the highest bidders, like Coca-Cola, Sony and Blockbuster.

Alias-Complete 1st Season

The site, started in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg as a way to keep in touch with his classmates, has exploded into a global social networking phenomenon with more than 54 million users. The 23-year-old is now trying to turn those users into dollars and had sold a 1.6 per cent stake to Microsoft for US$240 million, valuing the site at a staggering US$15 billion.

His latest "social advertising" strategy will turn its users unwittingly into cyber ambassadors for commercial brands. The new strategy will allow businesses to build custom-designed "pages" and users can become "fans" of a company's page which means any interaction with that brand will be broadcast to their Facebook friends. Users are upset because they know about the site's plans via a very brief blog posting only when they logged in.

Privacy experts says what Facebook is doing amounted to massive invasion of privacy with some indicating that users can sue Facebook for damages if their photos are being used for advertising purposes without their consent. My take is that Facebook is cashing in on its popularity with minimum consideration for users who have made it the success it is today. It has also broken the illusion that online activities are not being monitored and might just face a rebellion from users.

2. Twine
The buzz words today are "Google it" and "Facebook me" but in future you might say "Twine it". Twine is a new online service that promises to automatically collect and organise all your information, like contacts, e-mail and even YouTube videos in a way that makes sense.

Complete series
Using Semantic Web - Web 3.0 technologies, Twine is now in a closed beta trial now and promises to manage your personal data better than say, Facebook does now. These technologies have the ability to sieve through all the information, sort out the relationships between them and then display it in a manner useful to you, all without your intervention.

As an example, Facebook currently reminds you of birthdays and hooked you up with people of the same interests but Twine promises to be smarter, for example, it can tell the difference between J.P.Morgan the person and J.P. Morgan the firm. Being one of the first to launch a commercial application using Web 3.0 technologies, watch out for the name "Twine".

3. Amazon e-Book Reader
Online book retailer Amazon has recently launched its own electronic book reader called Kindle. The paperback-sized device can stored up to 200 books and sells for US$399. Kindle comes with a 6-inch black-and-white display with a memory of 256 MB that allows users to download e-books onto it. At present, more than 90,000 titles including bestsellers are available for Kindle.

With its steep price, the reception for Kindle might be luke-warm as it has only one function - reading and does not allow for surfing the Web or organising your address book like a personal digital assistant, which can be brought for about the same price. And most PDAs can already download and read electronic books. Kindle also lack international appeal as it currently supports the EVDO wireless broadband network which is available only in America which means all transactions must be done within the United States.

There are also issues with users comfort and avid readers like me, would prefer the touch and feel of a book when i read and e-readers are at best, cold comfort.

Dr.Who-Complete 1st series

4. Spidey Climbs Onto The Web
Here is something for fans of Marvel Comics. In a major move to go digital, Marvel Comics is putting up Spiderman and Captain Planet comics on the Web, with back issues of popular comics like X-Men and Fantastic Four slated to go online soon.

Subscribers can access Marvel's library from the comfort of their homes and using a Flash player, read the comics on their PC screens. The service is expected to cost about US$9.99 per month but new comics, however, will only be available 6 months after they hit the shops and fans can only read them, not download them. Their rival, DC Comics, already has Batman and Superman online.

Just like what is happening in the music industry, it is inevitable that comics move from paper to the digital realm and will be appealing to a whole new generation of wired-up kids who do everything online. A bit of romance is loss though for the many fans who grew up collecting rare copies and storing them in acid-proof containers for posterity.

5. Eye For A Spy
Recruitment of spies has just enter cyberspace with British intelligence service, GCHQ, the high-tech surveillance arm, saying it will embed job ads within video games in a bid to attract Internet-savy graduates. Ads like "Careers in British Intelligence" will be place in games like Enemy Territory and Splinter Cell Double Agent and will be fed to computers and Microsoft Xbox consoles connected to the Internet. Guess what? The advertising agency responsible for the ads is New York-based Massive, which was brought over by Microsoft last year.

*Related post :
- Tech News - Google Opens Up Orkut To Developers

Gift Certificates for
Wonderful Gifts

Video-Sharing Sites And Alternatives To YouTube.

Everyone have heard of the video-sharing site YouTube and the site has been such a success that a price tag of US$1.65 billion was put on it, dwarfing the US$649 million that Rupert Murdoch paid for MySpace. The wide variety of footage available, from music videos, homemade videos, comedies to drama serials has grown YouTube's American user base, according to AC Nielson, by a whopping 297 per cent for the first half of 2006.

Along with that success came competition and an explosion of other video-sharing sites, which offer options that many users felt have better video quality and more features than YouTube. Revver, for instance, share advertising revenue with creators of video clips and this strategy seems to be paying off - it has managed to attract some of YouTube's top producers including the makers of the popular Lonelygirl15 comedy series. So, here are some alternatives to YouTube :

Eyespot
If you cannot tell the difference between JPEG and FLV or the word "video-remixing" sounds like something from Mars, then Eyespot is the perfect video-sharing site for you. With a user-friendly and easy-to-use interface, Eyespot editing features allows you to trim the beginning and ending of your footage, add effects and even re-order the timeline. Through ISend, you can even send your cell phone video to your account via MMS and due to its partnership with music labels, users can add music to their clips from artistes like Five for Fighting without having to worry about copyright infringements.

IFilm
IFilm is one of the leading streaming media networks on the internet and provides video producers with their own personalized MyIFilm page, Clip of the Day and many other cool features. Their extensive library of music videos, short films and the popular "viral videos" is just the right thing if you found yourself bored stiff in a seminar or a presentation. This video-sharing site has also joined forces with MTV to let you catch their latest programmes and users not looking for any particular video would like its dedicated video channels like anime and horror. These channels screen random videos from selected genres so that you can enjoy an array of videos. iFilm also allows you to send your footage directly from the site to Flickr, MySpace and del.icio.us.

Veoh
Veoh is a diverse, virtual community of independent filmmakers and content producers and is the video-sharing site for all pop-star wannabe as Veoh have partnered United Talent Agency to talent spot The Next Big Thing through footage submitted by users. It also boasts of a great variety of user-generated Internet drama serials like the popular homemade horror drama Buried Alive.

Jumpcut
Part of Yahoo, Jumpcut makes video publishing fun and easy. Its features-rich editing tool allows users to easily create their own version of someone else's movie, create effects, re-order the timeline and even undo all the effects if you have gone overboard with the editing. Unlike Youtube, however, the videos do not play automatically, which is a bit of a hassle if you are streaming videos from your mobile phone.

Revver
Other than the standard YouTube features like tagging and rating videos, Revver's list of video categories is also impressive, with dedicated channels for DIY and Celebrity News. It is the only video-sharing site that shares revenue with creators of video clips and this strategy has attracted some of YouTube's top producers like the popular Lonelygirl15 series to switch camps. The site has promised to pay 20 to 50 per cent of their advertising dollars to video producers if people watch their videos.

Google Video
Google video may looked clean and boring but what Google Video lacks in design, it more than makes up for in features. And it even lets you sell your clips to viewers. Uploading your videos is a singe by either using their web-based uploader, for file size under 100 MB, or through a Video Uploader client software if your video is over 100 MB or if you want to upload multiple files at once. The only bugbear is that your footage is subjected to review and approval before it is posted on the site.

*Related posts :
- Free Video & Movies
- Free Media Players

Get SkypeOut & Connect For
Free With Other Skypees!

Free Specialised Software For Your Desktop.

Always wanted desktop extras for some specialised tasks like managing your cash flow or printing a CD or DVD cover but unwilling to pay a bundle for them? Well, the following specialised desktop utilities for those difficult tasks are totally free and will allow you to manage and organize your life and most importantly, save money at the same time :

1. Organize Your Tasks And To-Do List With Easy To-Do
A simple but powerful program from Xanadu Tools, Easy To-Do helps you to manage your To-Do lists and is a great tool for anyone with too much on their mind. With Easy To-Do you can become more efficient and get more things done in less time. Easy To-Do can also function as project-management software, letting you assign tasks to a resource, e.g. a project or a person responsible for the task. With an easy to use interface, features like the ability to categorize tasks, customized reports, creating recurring tasks and sound and speech reminders make Easy To-Do a nifty tool for organizing your life.

2. Manage Your Cash Flow With Easy Cash Manager
Easy Cash Manager is a great tool for managing your finances and is extremely user friendly. Unlike Excel, there is no need to create a spreadsheet of columns and cells or rack your brains to come up with complicated formulas to crunch those numbers. You simply input your expenses and income day by day and the software will generate graphs to help you track your finances by month and year.

3. Read Out Your Text Files With SmartRead
A nifty tool that makes your PC seem loaded with artificial intelligence, SmartRead will read out your text files if you get tired of reading long documents. Simply load a text document - those files that end in ".txt" or ".rtf" - and the software will read it out. Imagine your daughter's surprise if the computer were to read out a text greeting you have prepared for her birthday!

4. Make Movies For Your iPod With Free Video to iPod Converter
Here is a great utility for the many who own an iPod that can play video files - a software that lets you convert almost any video file into one supported by your iPod. Without having the need to spent hundreds of dollars for video editing software to convert those files, the Free Video to iPod Converter also works for the Sony PlayStation Portable and mobile phones. Simply point the software to the desired video file, which can be in formats like MPEG, QuickTime or Windows Media Video, and it will happily produce a new iPod-friendly version for you.

5. Print CD or DVD Cover With UndercoverXP
A very handy free software for creative souls who cut their own music and want their own personalised CD or DVD covers. With UndercoverXP, simply drag and drop the desired images into the template's slots and once the design is done, print it out with your photo printer.

6. Manage Your Photo Library With PICASA 2
PICASA may be old hat but it still one of the most useful free software for managing the thousands of photos in your PC's hard drive. Together with simple editing tools for enhancing photos like the Fill Light tuning tool, PICASA 2 should be the choice as long as you have photos that need sorting.

7. Convert Image Files With Irfan View
If all you want is to view and convert those picture attachments that your friends sent over e-mail, put aside an expensive and complex software like Adobe Photoshop and opt for Irfan View. Irfan View converts images into various file formats - from RAW or EPS files to, say, JPEG - and can even create quick slideshows.

*Related post : Linux - The Free Alternative To Windows

WordTracker - For The Best Keywords

Getting The Right Mortgage Leads With Red Clay Media.

With more than 1 million foreclosures in the US arising from the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the spectacular collapse of more than 100 mortgage lenders including US investment bank Bear
Sterns and Northern Rock in UK, the resultant turbulent market makes finding suitable mortgage leads an uphill task for mortgage lenders.

And it is times like these that mortgage lenders should adopt currently available marketing intelligence services such as those offered by Red Clay Media, who generates premium mortgage leads of people who can actually afford to take out a mortgage. Rather than adopting aggressive marketing campaigns that push interest-only products and homes at people who actually cannot afford them and contributing to defaults and foreclosures, Red Clay Media's targeted marketing results in mortgage leads that need and most importantly, are able to afford a mortgage loan.

Red Clay Media provides a range of solutions specially tailored for mortgage lenders, from acquiring exclusive mortgage leads, live transfer mortgage leads to online mortgage lead generation. And with all the screening work done by Red Clay Media, all the leads come pre-qualified and are ready to buy. Their online mortgage leads can also help mortgage lenders set up multiple internet marketing campaigns to drive leads directly to their sites. Red Clay Media's highly targeted mortgage lead generation programs and extensive network of websites that generate quality leads for re-finance, debt consolidation and new home loans can also lead to cost reduction per funded loans of up to 40 per cent.

With lessons learned from the sub-prime mortgage crisis, adopting targeted marketing intelligence services and exclusive mortgage leads generation offered by Red Clay Media is the
prudent way to go for mortgage lenders.

Tech News - A Round Up Of The Latest News.

With new software releases and advances happening so rapidly in the Web, I thought it will be a good idea to start a new category on technological news to keep up with the rapid changes. I hope readers will find this informative and useful. Here is a round up of what is hot :

1. Google Opens Its Social Networking Sites To Developers
Google recently opened its social networking site, Orkut, to third party developers by making available a tool kit for writing user applications, an initiative called OpenSocial. Echoes of what Facebook is doing but Google is going one extra step by making its software interface workable on other social networking sites like Friendster, LinkedIn, Ning and Plaxo.

Space - Complete Series

Great news for developers because this allows them to develop applications that can be used across the various social networking sites thus making it more efficient and productive. Google is playing catch up with Facebook who already have this facility which has attracted over 21 million users and the accompanying advertisers.

2. MySpace Opens Up
With increasing competition for users, online social network MySpace will finally open its code to outside developers. MySpace CEO Chris Dewolfe has announced that he is seeking to create a far more lucrative environment for outside developers than currently exist on Facebook, by providing advertising opportunities for independent application developers.

After witnessing the effects of Facebook's open invitation to developers, which resulted in more than 6,000 independent applications for its sites, MySpace plans to give developers control over advertising that runs on the webpages they create to host new services.

3. Google's New OS For Mobile Phones
Google recently announced that it was going to build software for mobile gizmos. Called Android, the software is expected give Microsoft's Windows Mobile and the Nokia-backed Symbian software, common on smart phones now, a run for the money. To push Android's adoption by users, Google also tied up with 33 partners through the Open Handset Alliance, which includes phone maker HTC and German cell phone maker T-mobile. Will Google's entry in the mobile phone market and more choices in devices for users be a good thing? We will have to wait and see.
Dr.Who -Complete 1st Season
4. PDF Files Contains Malicious Code
A warning, released last week by IT security firm F-Secure, indicated that pdf files are not as secured as once thought. According to F-Secure it has recently seen tens of thousands of such malicious pdf files being spammed via mass e-mail messages. When such files are viewed on vulnerable machines, PCs get infected. The malicious files exploit a recently discovered frailty in Adobe Acrobat and Internet Explorer 7 and downloads vicious malware from a server in Malaysia with the aim of setting up a network of zombie machines.

The malicious e-mail contains subject headings like "Your credit report" and "Personal financial statement" and has no content in the main body except for the pdf attachment. Adobe has advised users to upgrade to Adobe Reader 8.1.1 or Acrobat 8.1.1 as it affects versions 8.1. My advice is to arm your PC with the necessary firewalls, anti-virus and anti-spyware software and get them updated regularly and not to open suspicious e-mails.

5. Internet Mapped Out
An attempt was made recently by the University of Southern California's Information Science Institute (ISI) to create a map of the Internet. Over two months, ISI computers sent queries to about 2.8 billion numeric Internet Protocol addresses that identify individual computers on the Web. Replies came from about 187 million of the IP addresses and researchers used that data to map out where computers exist on the Internet. At one dot per address using a regular printer and with only a portion of replies, the resulting map was about 2.7m by 2.7m.

The map will help show how densely populated the Internet is and could help the researchers study the spread of computer viruses.

*Related posts :
- Free firewalls, anti-virus and anti-spyware programs.
- Google's free web services.

GET SKYPEOUT & CONNECT FOR
FREE WITH OTHER SKYPEES !