PCWorld.ca had an article about how to do things faster on your computer:
22 smarter, more efficient ways to make short work of common tech tasks–from reinstalling Windows to crushing spyware to setting up a Web site.
security4web has a nice list of suggestions to protect your child online (follow the link to read the entire 19-point list):
- Be aware of cyberspace threats! Learn about all risks children may face while surfing on the Internet and start educating them on how to protect themselves online.
- Talk to your children about dangers they can encounter as long as they are online. Do not be reluctant to subjects such as sexuality, pornography or pedophiles. Do not consider them taboo.
- Make sure your children know that not everything they read on the Internet is true and accurate.

I heard about YouGetSignal.com from Chris…
The best way to learn about the tools is to visit the site and try them. The reason why we came across the site is that we were trying to determine what sites were on a web server (to determine how loaded or overloaded the server is). The tool is the “Reverse IP Domain Check”. For instance, I did a search on my PCIN.net domain, and found that the IP address of my server (66.98.222.18) has 177 different sites hosted (seems excessive to me!).
Google Operating System has a great post about a new layout to iGoogle, the customizable Google portal:
The new version of iGoogle, currently available for a small number of randomly-selected users and for developers, will bring together all the Google services in a single fluid interface. At some point, iGoogle was a part of an initiative called Fusion that allowed users to combine content from across the web. The next major iteration of iGoogle goes further and it lets you actually access the full content, monitor the updates and share them with your friends.
I followed the instructions at the end of that post to use the new interface, and I love the new look!

I heard about e Boo Boos from Pat, a co-worker:
e Boo Boos is a unique search tool used to hunt down misspelled auction items listed on eBay. eBay does not contain a spell checker and many auction items go unnoticed because nobody finds these items when searching using the correctly spelled word.
PC World has an article about neat things you can do with Google:
Every time I turn around, Google’s come up with something new, cool, or innovative. It’s no wonder it has Microsoft on the run.
PC Magazine has a huge collection of tips:
Crafted by our analysts and editors and tested in PC Labs, our vast list of tips starts with the fundamentals of computing and then moves on to multimedia, mobility, business, and online solutions for maximizing your digital life.
In what has become a yearly tradition (see 2006 and 2007 here), PC World has compiled a list of 101 Fantastic Freebies:
Free. It’s the magic word for an ever-expanding wealth of downloadable software and online services. Free doesn’t necessarily mean good, however, and hunting for freebies can mean sifting through a lot of junk.
That’s where we come in. We surfed, clicked, and installed to find sparkling free gems capable of planning your time, keeping you in touch, and tuning and securing your PC, not to mention glitzing up your desktop, helping you stay productive, and entertaining you with music, videos, photos, and games. We paid special attention to programs and services you may not have heard of before.
We also singled out two free offerings–one download and one online service–as the best of the bunch.

There are a lot of online productivity suites out there these days. Google has probably made the biggest news as they have put together a collection of them (word processor, spreadsheet, presentation software, etc) after buying several companies. But Google certainly isn’t the only one. I have previous mentioned a basic collection of similar programs by AJAX13. A more full-featured collection is from ThinkFree:
The award-winning ThinkFree Office is a Microsoft® Office compatible application suite comprised of word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation graphics software-all usable online and off.
I haven’t done much other than signing up for a free account and then playing around a bit, but it looks promising. Check it out for yourself.
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