2006 Columns

By Bob and Joy Schwabach


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	2006 Highlights
	December 2006, Week 4 -- 1. Almost free conference calls. 2. Printing labels. 3. E-mail in context. 4. Internuts: BobVila.com 5. Spam by the numbers. 6. Games: Ultima Online December 2006, Week 3 -- 1. Talk is cheap, and getting cheaper. 2. Ah, that golden software. 3. Internuts: vetusware.com and epocrates.com 4. A musical education. December 2006, Week 2 1. A freebie from Symantec. 2. Tiny music box. 3. Team business cards. 4. Internuts: spymac.com and onlineidols.com. 5. Books: "The Cult of Mac." 6. Games: "Murder on the Orient Express." December 2006, Week 1 1. Highlight this. 2. The slide show. 3. Samurai software. 4. Grab that video! 5. Save that video. 6. Free video postcards. 7. Internuts: greentortoise, hostelworld, blogfotolog. November 2006, Week 4 -- 1. Whose life is this, anyway? 2. Frag that disk. 3. Backing up needn't be hard to do. 4. It's news to you. 5. Internuts: Worldbook.com, timeanddate.com, and Mercora.com. November 2006, Week 3 -- 1. Mysterious error message? Just Google-it. 2. You're on the Air. 3. From IE to Firefox to Maxthon. 4. Free online training. 5. Free scrapbooks. November 2006, Week 2 -- 1. Shopping advice: DigitalAdvisor, CNET, Amazon, and Epinions . 2. Kaboodle gathers your web shopping info into one place. 3. Dealio helps you find the best deals. November 2006, Week 1 -- 1. Instant photos on all your devices. 2. Internuts: Eurekacode.com and Spotpitch.com 3. Tip: Get rid of unwanted programs running in the background. 4. The Hollywood look at home. October 2006, Week 5 -- 1. Three on a Cell Phone. 2. Free Phone Calls from Cell to Cell or Landline too. 3. Using a WebCam to chat? Add a Crown or Alien Face. 4. The Fantom Strikes 5. Numbers Report: Over-Blogged. 6. Game: Nancy Drew and the Creature of Kapu Cave. October 2006, Week 4 -- 1. This email will self destruct. 2. Hide inside a flash drive. 3. Fake email addresses. October 2006, Week 3 -- 1. Jazz up your eBay. 2. Snip snip. 3. Internuts: wiredberries.com and mybraintrainer.com. 4. Book: "Googlepedia: The Ultimate Google Resource." October 2006, Week 2 -- 1. Move over GeekSquad. We got help from HelpMeRemote and ComputerOverhauls. 2. Internuts: Make a cool toy at scitoys or figure out the real estate market at trulia. 3. High cost of ink. 4. Free conference calls. October 2006, Week 1 -- 1. A great choice for color printing. 2. Use a second keyboard you build yourself. 3. Find anything in Shakespeare's works fast at clusty.com 4. Free service helps you get online during DNS outages. 5. At www.americancraftexpo.org take a look at America's most prestigious craft show. September 2006, Week 4 -- 1. JobKite.com lets you put up a free, colorful online resume. 2. Create a phone number to give out when you want to keep your real one private. 3. Corel Snapfire is a nice free photo editing tool. 4. Install new fonts, like the Addams Family font. 5. Book: "Sandy Berger's Great Age Guide: Online Health & Wellness." 6. Game: Playfirst.com "Connect 4 Cities." September 2006, Week 3 -- 1. Leave your laptop at home. Take a flash drive with portable programs instead. 2. Now online: Google books. 3. Worldwikia.com tells you where to go and what to do when you get there. 4. Game: Nancy Drew's "Danger by Design." September 2006, Week 2 -- 1. Virtual keyboard for use with your computer or PDA or cell phone. 2. New router streams video, music, games and phone calls all over the house. 3. Two new PDF converters make PDFs editable and create PDFs out of any file. September 2006, Week 1 -- 1. Reply.com might become the Amazon.com of real estate. 2. Get an online store at Shopster.com, and they furnish the goods to sell. 3. Mozy.com, a free online backup service, backs up automatically. August 2006, Week 5 -- 1. Google calendar simplifies sharing appointments online. 2. New Logitech G15 keyboard for gamers works great for business too. 3. A quick way to get rid of temporary file junk. August 2006, Week 4 -- 1. GreenBorder puts a barrier between you and the bad guys. 2. Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 is the best yet for controlling a computer by voice. 3. Internuts: phillybyphone.com and talkingstreet.com 4. Book: "101 Spy Gadgets for the Evil Genius." August 2006, Week 3 -- 1. Publish your book at www.lulu.com or Cafe Press and pay only the cost of printing it. 2. The Sansa MP3 player rocks. 3. Berlitz software lets you immerse yourself in a new language. August 2006, Week 2 -- 1.Google Reader -- a handy way to keep up-to-date. 2. IrfanView - Free photo converter and editor. 3. Microsoft Student 2007 is a great homework helper. 4. AskMeHelpDesk.com -user forums on many topics. 5. LaLa.com - Buy CDs for $1 each if you trade some of your own. 6. Numbers Report -- a third of online Europeans are looking at job sites. August 2006, Week 1-- 1. New surveillance camera: Safe Scout tells you when employees or family come and go. 2. More surveillance camerasL Some let you chat with the people you are monitoring. 3. Internut: photron.com is the place for high-speed photography. July 2006, Week 4 -- 1. Soundclick, a musician's community where you can listen or buy. 2. Three new programs from Cakewalk for making your own music. 3. Send video and other large files as an encrypted email attachments, up to a gigabyte. 4. Game: "The Movies, Stunts & Effects." July 2006, Week 3 -- 1. Stumble upon interesting websites automatically. 2. Google trends show you what people are searching for, all over the world. 3. New "Store It' drive has your name on it. 4. Acronis True Image Workstation can clone your PC on machines with different hardware. 5. Portable PictureMate printer now lets you view images before you print. 6. Good photo deals at snapfish.com. 7. Books: "Statistical Hacks." July 2006, Week 2 -- 1. Ewido scans your system for free and removes trojans and malware. 2. The new Zone Alarm Security Suite protects without a lot of intrusive warnings. 3. New mobile, very lightweight scanner from Plustek does full size scans at high resolution. 4. Books: "eBay Price Guide." July 2006, Week 1 -- 1. TUT finds what's slowing down your computer. 2. PCMover - a slow way to move programs from one PC to another. 3. Numbers Report: how people use their free time. June 2006, Week 4 -- 1. Create your own comic book. 2. Travel site Schmap.com has a free interactive travel guide. 3. Edible inks create digital photos on top of cakes. 4. Leave a video comment instead at grouper.com. June 2006, Week 3 -- 1. Durafon cordless phone reaches out of the building and down the street. 2. iBoss stops employees from visiting chat rooms, etc. on company time. 3. Games: Auto Assault, Tycoon City: New York, X-Men, the Official Game June 2006, Week 2 -- 1. Your customers can now sign legal contracts online at your website or by email. 2. SmartDraw has templates for drawing just about any kind of chart, graph, or diagram. 3. Avatax integrates with QuickBooks to automatically figure sales taxes for local and state. 4. Greeting Card Factory and Photo Explosion have great art. 5. Books; "It's Never Done That Before!" June 2006, Week 1 -- 1. Take your portable applications with you on this tiny flash drive. 2. Internuts: Do-it-Yourself network, now with woodworking, and "FreeWebs." 3. Scandoo.com: search with Google but know in advance which sites have bugs. 4. Books; "Creative Computer Crafts" - personalized candy wrappers and more. May 2006, Week 5 -- 1. Dymo LabelWriter Duo prints stamps and labels. 2. Surf the web and beam the info from your laptop to a projector with this device. 3. Skype users can call regular phones for free in the US and Canada. 4. Internuts: kbears.com for kids, allsafetravel.com , pictureitpostage.com 5. Get plugged in when you go abroad. 6. This ordinary-looking picture frame shows slideshows.
	May 2006, Week 4 -- 1. Amiglia.com helps you build an interactive family tree online, with photos, music and stories. 2. VoSKY call center lets you make a Skype call from any phone. 3. Dotster hosts web sites real cheap. 4. Internut: KOLjunior.com , a great new children's website. 5. Numbers report: More Americans playing games, number of websites worldwide double.
	May 2006, Week 3 -- 1. Cell phones with GPS show you where you are, CatTrax shows you where your kids are. 2. Ojo video phone makes talking on the phone feel like visiting. 4. Books: "Fixing Windows XP Annoyances."
	May 2006, Week 2 -- 1. Free Opera 9 web browser has "widgets" and built-in "torrent" downloader for large files. 2. Free online word processor at thinkfree.com . 3. Free word processor at openoffice.org 4. Free online dictionary at askoxford.com
	May 2006, Week 1 -- 1. Nab that eBay auction item with FinalBid. 2. This toolbar for Internet Explorer has dozens of things Google doesn't. 3. Portable hard drives are handy: just plug them into the USB port. 4. Book: "Fotolog"-- highlights of a photo blogging site.
	April 2006, Week 4 -- 1.Easy backup program for home users. 2. Easy backup program for business. 3. How to eliminate cell phone dead spots in your home. 4. How to run Win 95 programs on an XP machine. 5. Are online banking transactions safe? 6. Books: "Visual Basic 2005 Express."
	April 2006, Week 3 -- 1. PC World's "101 Fabulous Freebies." 2. An unabridged dictionary that guesses what word you meant. 3. Treat your CD or DVD drive like a giant floppy disc with InstantBurn. 4. Here's a nice photo album that holds CDs or DVDs. 5. Internuts: www.craftypc.com 6. Books: "Google, the Missing Manual." 7. Games: "Arcade Treasures."
	April 2006, Week 2 -- 1. Businesses gain new logo-creation and brochure tools with CorelDRAW X3. 2. Internuts: annualreports.com and switchdiscs.com 3. Game: "A Force More Powerful." 4. Book: "Simplified Microsoft Office."
	April 2006, Week 1 -- 1. Send files hidden within pictures. 2. CDs that are automatically encrypted. 3. Camtasia Studio creates knock-out video tutorials. 4. Turn up the volume on your computer, from a distance.
	March 2006, Week 4 -- 1. Keep track of appointments with Mediabee. 2. Get that Kodachrome effect with Exposure. 3. Turn your cell phone into a VoIP phone. 4. Internuts: 43things games.lycos, encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org .
	March 2006, Week 3 -- 1. Connect your old hard drive to your new computer, with this kit. 2. Secure your laptop with a lock. 3. Making text on the web larger. 4. Internuts: a search engine for science sites and a site for sending business contracts. 5. Book: "Perfect Passwords."
	March 2006, Week 2 -- 1.Vlog It! helps you create an online video journal. 2. Talk about fancy organizational charts, and they're easy to make too. 3. CDs and DVDs look much better with these stick-on labels. 4. Books: "Creating Games in C++."
	March 2006, Week 1 -- 1. SnagIt screen captures can now include hot spots. 2. A two-ounce portable scanner for scanning on the go. 3. Internuts: IwillKot.com and GeekGirls.com 4. Why computers get messed up.
	February 2006, Week 4 -- 1. Get the Internet in your living room by plugging a small Ethernet switch into a wall outlet. 2. Photo Finale brought back the fake magazine covers we liked so much. 3. A ruggedized laptop you can drop 26 times. 4. Visistat tells you who's clicking on your web ads. 5. Internuts: free graph paper, author interviews and info on privacy. 6. Books: "RFID Essentials."
	February 2006, Week 3 -- 1. 25 GB of free online storage for your videos, music and photos. 2. New Printshop 21 makes great marketing materials, labels, etc. 3. Three cool ways to make photo contact sheets.
	February 2006, Week 2 -- 1. How long do CDs last? 2. Power Registry Cleaner gets rid of junk, and speeds up your computer. 3. Mach 5 Analyzer figures out how many website visitors you're getting. 4. Quickbooks "Simple Start 2006" is real easy. 5. Book: "How to Program."
	February 2006, Week 1 -- 1. GoodSync keeps your laptop and desktop in sync. 2. Small portable scanner for business cards or photos. 3. Computer monitors fall in price. 4. Internuts: skyvector.com for sky maps and cristina.org for recycling. 5. Books: "Word Annoyances.:
	January 2006, Week 5 -- 1. Share your videos online for free at Tagworld. 2. Create a free digital diary or notebook on your computer. 3. Online business library at jjhill.org. 4. Anti-Executable stops the worst kind of spyware. 5. Internuts: truelocal, powerleap, pictureal and www.totalvid. 6. Book: "Geeks on Call PCs, 5-Minute Fixes."
	January 2006, Week 4 -- 1. Collaborate on documents over the web with HyperOffice. 2. With the free Clipmarks, cut pieces out of a website and email, save or print. 3. Internuts: johnhaller.com has free portable versions of software for your flash drive. Bagborroworsteal.com lets you rent expensive purses. 4. Book: "Windows Hacks and Mods for Dummies."
	January 2006, Week 3 -- 1. Roboform remembers passwords for you, logs on automatically. 2. The six best photo editing programs --three are free. 3. Ben Franklin would have been 300 this month. Clusty.com has a Franklin treasure trove. 4. The best web book ever has crossword puzzles, wit and excellent HTML instructions.
	January 2006, Week 2 -- 1. With this 8 GB compact flash drive, your camera can keep taking pictures practically forever. 2. Point & Click OpenOffice.org. A very readable book on this MS Office competitor. 3. Use your own images to make animated characters for games, screensavers, etc. 4. Numbers Report: Blogging is everywhere.
	January 2006, Week 1 -- 1. Xara Xtreme renders illustrations faster than any program we've seen. 2. Acronis Privacy Expert Suite erases tracks: credit card numbers and stuff you type in. 3. Internuts: regrettheerror.com, homepages.com, freeboatingcharts.com, askart.com 4. Books: "Makers," the story of some weird and wonderful inventions.

2007 Columns