Writing posts, no matter how creative, may not be the magic bullet that will win the audience. Plug-in and widgets are crucial in attracting more traffic to your blog. Some of the most important plugins via wordpress that will help increase hits to your website include:

1. Related Post Plug-in

People have unique needs when it comes to web content material. A visitor searching for real estate would certainly want related information such as mortgage or homes for sale. This is where a related or similar post plug-in comes in handy.

It will assist in displaying related articles on the website. The plugin has special spiders that assist in bringing together web content based on characteristics such as similar titles or close meaning. This goes a long way in getting more hits for your website.

2. Casual Post Plug-in

This plugin is the direct opposite of the related post. Casual or Random plugin outlines articles that are different from the one that the user is searching. This assists users to explore other topics in the blog that may be of interest in future.

Blogs that are updated quite often usually contain huge volumes of data that may go unnoticed by a casual blogger. The random plugin assists in bringing to the fore other information that may be bypassed by the user.

3. Ajax Comment Posting

This plugin helps to make a blog more interactive and easy to use. The basic purpose of a blog is for users to post their views. If they cannot do this easily and conveniently then they will most probably run. The commenting plugin assists users to post their views without having to reload the current page. It also assists in ensuring that the postings are done in a correct manner.

An opportunity to post comments makes a website livelier and easier to connect with the reader. Easy posting of views in a website is a sure way of retaining users who use a website.

4. The Smart Archives Plug-in

This plugin assists in putting content in the archives in a fashionable and easy to read manner. Material in the archives is crucial; the smart archive plugin assists in creating links to this material.

This makes it easier for users to refer to any material they may need for their immediate use. This plugin is also easy to upgrade to the current wordpress without risk of loss of any information.

5. Post Match Search Query Plug-in

Once in a while users are directed to a blog courtesy of search engines like Yahoo, MSN or Google. The search query plugin assists users to locate the precise information they are looking for.

In a blog, related content is always as good as the searched word. That is why this plugin assists in presenting related content which could ultimately be very useful to the user.

The plug-ins above are few but they go along way in increasing traffic to your blog. Using them is sure bet of increasing hits to your blog.

Winners and Losers

Let's face it; there can be little doubt that both sides (the bad guys and the good guys) want to be on the winning side of the cyber security tug "o" war game. To complicate matters even more the speed at which the whole cybercrime and cyber attack situation evolves can at times become a bit overwhelming; even for the seasoned professional.

Fortunately there are a number of simple, easy to implement steps that you as an individual can take to reduce both your individual personal risk/threat impact levels as well as those of a large organization and everyone in between.

I will now present a number of simple but effective long standing “tried and true” strategies that have shown time and time again their capacity to reduce or mitigate your risk and your exposure to the most common attacks of today. Also note that reducing the impact and consequences of an attack; should it become a reality, and the measures and countermeasures available to you will be dealt with as well.

Realization and Understanding - Security Awareness

The first thing that we need to acknowledge is that there is always somebody (individuals and/or groups) out there looking to make a fast buck. Denial of this and you are destined to be perpetually on the losing side.

We also need to address such factors as “insider” or “insider” collaboration attacks, scams, social engineering, hacking, cracking, phishing etc. In addition; attacker motivations need to be determined, understood and recognized as this will allow us to construct more specific targeted responses and proactive countermeasures along with custom preventative initiatives.

Some of these motivations include: fraud, identity theft, malicious intent, revenge, financial greed, scams (e.g. Nigerian 419 attacks), extortion, thrill seeking and espionage etc.

Importantly however; most attacks are not perpetrated mindlessly and without any predefined purpose. The attacker always has some goal in mind when perpetrating the attack. This comes as no surprise when one considers the amount of effort that goes into the planning, design and implementation of many attacks.

When we understand what it is that the attacker hopes to achieve through the attack we can implement both reactive and proactive initiatives that will negate a particular type of attack. Using attack specific countermeasures means that the defenders will need to implement and maintain a considerable number of strategies in order to meet most threats head-on. Most current antivirus software is effective against considerable numbers of potential threats.

Password/Pass Phrase Policy

The development of a suitable password policy is always one of the first tasks that you should undertake whenever assessing, planning, implementing, administering, maintaining, documenting and updating your authentication methods and credentials. Passwords/pass phrase are no exception to this most basic of authentication rules.

• Policy Contents - Your password policy should outline and detail all requirements concerning and about passwords and their usage by yourself or within your organization. Consistency across the board is always one goal that a password policy should address.
• Policy Documentation and Enforcement - Thorough documentation and enforcement of your password/pass phrase policies are factors critical to the attainment of the goals and directives set forth in your password/ pass phrase policies.
• Assessment - Be a realist and assess your current password security procedures and status honestly. Do not let anyone else know the details of your self-assessment. The primary purpose of a password security assessment regime is to identify areas of weakness so that you can put them right.
• Logon Password Dialogue - Always reactivate the logon password dialogue if it has been disabled
• Logging, Accounting and Auditing - With logging turned on you will be able to identify such events as attempted, successful and unsuccessful system and network logon attempts. Here you can glean considerable information that may very well point to the presence of an intruder or even attempts by an insider attempting to access system and network resources for which they do not have the necessary account privileges.
• User Education - Through continual user education and updating it is possible to create an environment with a high level of user security awareness. This goes a long way toward the establishment of a security aware culture. The benefits of a security aware culture include a considerable reduction in exposure to potential attacker(s).

Users are less likely to become victims of phishing and social engineering attacks and so enhance an organization's overall resistance to these types of attacks. Remember that it is breaches of user security that is the most common means by which attackers gain authentication credentials including logon account names and password pairs.

Password Complexity

The more complex a password, the harder it is for an attacker to crack. Most attackers will simply move on to easier targets. It is strongly recommended that you ensure that any passwords that you use comply with the following guidelines:

• Minimum Length - Make sure that your passwords are 8 characters or greater in length. The more characters in a password/pass phrase the better so using 14 characters provides immensely better password security than using 8, 9, 10 or 11 characters.
• Case Sensitive, Mixed Case, Numbers and Symbols - Ensure that all password authentication mechanisms are case sensitive and that they use a mixture of upper and lower case characters along with at least one numeral and one non-alphanumeric character (symbol) in every password
• Dictionary - Try not to use any real words that can be found in a dictionary
• Social Engineering - Try not to use names or dates that are associated with you as a person. This means that you should not use your address or birth dates or the names of family, friends or pets either.
• Defaults - Change all default authentication credentials at the earliest possible time. This will include the default administrator account and password. Also disable the Anonymous and Guest account access privileges. Do this for every device including your modems, switches, routers, workstations, firewalls, mobile devices etc.
• Retry Attempts and Retry Rate (Time-to-Wait) Limits - You can use Local Users and Groups > Passwords policy to limit the number of retries available to a user when logging on to the system/network.

Setting the maximum number of retries permitted before the account is locked-out to two or three will go a long way to preventing most password cracking attempts. It also makes brute-force dictionary attacks much harder and for most attackers impossible or undesirable to implement. They won't bother wasting their time on you when there are a lot easy fish to be had.

You can also severely restrict the retry rate. Setting the time that the system waits after an unsuccessful password logon attempt (mismatch) is registered before another password retry will be permitted to 5 seconds will thwart most “brute force” password cracking tools.

• Pass Phrases - Use pass phrases rather than passwords
• Password Renewal - Regularly change authentication credentials including passwords and passphrases

Security in Depth

Surprisingly many systems today still rely on password only authentication. Thus, defending yourself and your organization against the ravages of breaches of password security becomes of heightened importance.

• Single Point of Failure - By using password only authentication you are introducing a single point of failure/attack (the logon name/password combo) into to your network. There is little doubt that this situation does make you considerably more exposed to the efforts of cybercrime.
• Multilevel Authentication - In short; a security-in-depth strategy entails the implementation of more than one authentication mechanism at all points of your system/network. If an attacker can penetrate one authentication mechanism they will still not be granted access to your system and network resources as they are yet to successfully complete all required authentication mechanisms. More often than not the casual attacker (attacker of opportunity) will simply move on to the next potentially easier to “crack” system or network. In this way much of the potential damage that an attacker might cause is averted.

For example; your defenses may be based around the use of user entered passwords to; once authenticated to permit the user to gain access to the next level in your authentication process. Here they will need to correctly complete this element of the authentication process. Once logged into the system or network the user may be required to supply additional authentication verification in order to gain higher levels of privileges. This can of course be as simple as the user being required to enter another different password in order to proceed any further.

Multilevel Password Only Authentication - Here is an example to illustrate the security-in-depth approach using password only authentication systems:

The user logs onto the network using one password, which in association with that account's logon user name will, once authenticated, grant the user access to basic network assets, services and resources.

At a later time the user needs to access a higher privilege level asset or resource; such as a database or administrative capabilities, the user will be prompted to supply another user account name along with a different password for authentication before the user is permitted to go any further.

In this way, we now have implemented a two-tiered hierarchy of access privileges to specific resources. Although; still solely password-based, it is immeasurably more secure than would be the case for all system(s)/network(s)/resource(s) that require just the one logon user account and password to accesses all system/network assets and resources.

If the user needs to have access to assets and resources including the personally identifiable information contained within the customer database they will need to provide an additional different user account logon name and password. In this way we have built a three-tiered password-only authentication system.

Most operating systems, including Windows, Linux and Apple MAC along with specialty application software (MS Word, Open Office, security suites etc), will support this strategy natively out of the box.

Multifactor Authentication - When implementing a multifactor authentication system many different types of authentication mechanisms are used jointly. This means that in order for a user to gain access to system/network resources and assets they will need to provide many different types of information for authentication validation. For instance a user may be required to supply a password as well as a smart card or thumb print, retinal scan or even a voice sample to the authenticating system.

Password Hard Copies

The best advice concerning the practice of making hard copies (paper) of authentication credentials is DON'T DO IT. Physical hard copies of your passwords are liable to the additional risk of physical theft. Here are some more practices you should not do if you feel that you must make a hard copy of your passwords and keep it near to hand:

• Do not leave a hard copy of your passwords in close association and physical proximity to your computer e.g. on your desk or beside PC or monitor.
• Do not maintain a hard copy (paper) of your passwords and keep them locked in your desk drawer. You cannot guarantee that nobody will attempt to break into your desk. The locks on most desks are merely a trivial inconvenience to those with a little know-how and a flat-edged envelope opener. It usually takes no more than five to ten seconds to open the majority of desk drawers. Forgetting to lockup your desk compounds the crime.
• Do not make a hard copy of your logon and password details and leave it in open public view
• Do not write your logon name and password on a post-it-note and attaching the post-it-note to the PC or monitor. This is probably the worst password hard copy security practice of all.

Electronic, Magnetic and Optical Password Copies

While not as risky as maintaining hard copies of your authentication details considerable care needs to be taken when storing electronic, magnetic or optical copies of authentication credentials.

• Encryption - You should always encrypt authentication credentials data; or any other data for that matter, when storing it in an electronic, magnetic or optical format.
• Physical Security - As with paper hard copies, any physical copy of any data is liable to additional risk of theft. Many thieves find it easier to steal physical objects compared to electronic objects. They may consider your PC too big to put in their pocket but CDs, USB flash drives, floppies disks and external hard drives are another matter all together. Do not leave any of these devices lying around or in a position where they may be stolen.
• Physical Security Measures - Protecting electronic, magnetic and optical physical copies of your data always begins with physical security measures such as using data vaults, lock and key and off-site storage etc.
• Password Protection - Always use a password to add an additional layer of protection to the encrypted data which you need to store. This includes all electronic, magnetic and optical storage media. You should also encryption and password protection for all folders and files including those on your computer.

Maximum Protection

Always afford passwords and other authentication credentials maximal protection and spare no effort in these endeavors, as they will deliver heightened levels of security across the board to your entire system/network.

• Nondisclosure - Never disclose account authentication credentials such as logon names and passwords to anybody. This means your account's authentication credentials as well as those of other users which you may be managing or administering.
• Confidentiality - At all times and under all circumstances you must ensure that authentication and authorization credentials remain known only to you.
• Need to Know - The only exceptions to this being the user in question, your security personal, administration and support personal and then only on a need to know basis.
• Secure Communications - Always assume that you are being tapped or your networking and communications traffic is being “sniffed”. Thus; wherever and whenever possible opt for the highest level of secure communications. Never transmit “plain” English passwords are to be transmitted over publically access networks and transmission media such as wireless networks.
• Hashing Algorithms - Hashing algorithms; such as MD5, should be used to ensure the integrity of files as they will help you to identify that a file has been tampered with. This should be applied to all data that you store as well as your password data.

If you include the file attributes in the hash then you will be able to tell if someone has attempted to open the file. This works best on NTFS systems such as Windows XP, Vista, Server 2003 and Server 2008.

By knowing that you are under attack the attacker loses the element of surprise. Furthermore; they will most likely be unaware that you know that somebody has been there.

Human laziness, carelessness and a casual attitude toward security, particularly where user accounts are concerned is one of the most pervasive issues facing security on an ongoing basis. It is through the development, documentation and implementation of a rigidly enforced password/pass phrase policy that you have the greatest chances of overcoming these issues.

Firefox Has The "Restore Session" Feature

In the event of a power outage, or if your computer stops responding, you can just exit and restart Firefox (don't restart your computer). When you relaunch Firefox, you will be given a choice to "Restore Session". When you choose this option, you will be taken back to any webpage you have been browsing before(including password protected pages).

Easier Access To Browsing History

With Internet Explorer, finding the 'browsing history' section is like finding the Holy Grail. I mean it! With Firefox, there's a highly conspicuous, separate tab fully devoted to your browsing history. In case you get lost while browsing 10,000 pages in an hour, you can just visit the 'History' section and toggle between pages that you have visited before. And yes, with Firefox it's easier to delete your history archives.

The Mozilla Firefox Interface Is Less Cluttered

Have you noticed that Internet Explorer sometimes takes longer to load than Firefox? This is because Explorer has more tabs/features/add-ons, and this is not necessarily good. When users browse online, majority of them don't care how many features are available on the browser. They just want to check their email, watch some Youtube videos, read the news etc...whatever they wanna do, they wanna do it faster!

Another thing, the Internet Explorer interface takes up too much screen space. Firefox is a breath of fresh air. It is less cluttered with features that you don't need anyway. There's more room for the webpage itself. (To be fair to computer geeks, Internet Explorer has more features to spend time with and explore on).

Firefox Automatically Opens .PDF Files -- No Need To Download

Online reports and e-books are pretty much popular online. These kinds of files frequently come in .PDF format (a file that can only be opened with Adobe Reader). With Internet Explorer, you cannot read .PDF files online. You need to download them before you can read them. That means, if the PDF file has some sort of viruses or malware attached to it, or if the source website is malicious, then you acquire those dangerous elements into your computer as well.

With Firefox, you can open PDF files online without having to download them. It's safer, faster, and it saves disk space. Ain't that convenient?

So, tell me, which browser are you using right now?

1. Do not promote you Propeller link in other social bookmarking sites like Digg or StumbleUpon but especially in StumbleUpon. I attempted to do it in SU. When I first submitted my article, I had no read and prop. After I waited for more than two hours, I checked my stats again. There was no change in stats and there was nothing to do but a small cheat. I submitted my Propeller link to Stumbleupon. Ten minutes later,I had only three props and more than 200 reads and my rating increased to 5.0. After one hour passed, my rating increased to 7.5 with more than 1500 read and only four props. At the end, my article was in the frontpage. However, in the next two hours, my submission in Propeller was removed then I was completely banned from the system. This was a great experience since I am not cheating anymore.
2. Join the groups but send related contents to them. I was joining every group I saw. As far as I remember, I joined more than 50 groups before my ban. When I submitted an article, I was sending it to all groups and doing this continuously. This might be one of the reasons for my ban. You should send related contents to the groups. Try to become an active user in the gropus.
3. Make a lot of friends. Follow their submissions and prop their articles if you like. You can always follow your friends' submission from the “Friends' submissions“ part.
4. Check it frontpage articles and try to understand their main properties. Try to learn what active propellers want to read about and what they prop.

Every article has only 24 hours to come to the frontpage. After 24 hours, even if your submission has been rated to 10.0, it will not come to the front page. It will stay as a passive submission in Propeller. So, you should be as fast as you do. Otherwise, your article will pass away without seeing the front page.

The Poster List is a in-house design and poster distributor. The posters are unique, edgy and different than any you've seen before. From custom Barack Obama political posters to posters paying homage to super 8mm film cameras, this is a favorite and a must see.

Threadless

Threadless is a user submitted tee shirt and hooded shirt website. The great thing about Threadless is that all the shirts that get printed have to be voted on, so what you can order are usually the best of the best. You can submit your own designs to threadless, and if it gets printed, you get a nice little chunk of cash and could see others wearing your shirt!

Threadless has some great shirts, with vibrant colors, comical messages, or simplistic style. Many of the submitters are freelance graphic designers, leaving most of the shirts looking fresh and new, instead of the rehashed tees we see on most websites. If you see a design on Threadless that you like, order it quick because they tend to sell out quickly.

Cafe Press

The advantages of cafepress is that anyone can submit almost anything! Tee shirts, posters, stationary? Not hard to find on Cafepress. There is an enormous database of almost any style or design. Political, Avant-Garde, Humorous, Design oriented and so much more.

Cafepress is also a great way to share your art with others and make some money doing it. On cafepress you don't have to worry about printing up your shirts or shipping, you just design them and take a cut.

Vimeo

Vimeo also has a much better community and you will find less of the video bloggers and more art.

I wrote a full article comparing Vimeo to youtube, if your interested in learning more about vimeo or the differences between the two, check out the article

Deviant Art

I feel like Deviant Art has been around since the internet began. I've submitted to Deviant Art for probably ten years. DeviantArt is a great place to show off your design skills and a great place to catch new trends on their way out of the underground.

It's easy to spend hours browsing the gamut of different styles of graphic design, from realism to vector. You can even order prints!

Uneetee

Uneetee has some of the coolest tee shirt designs on the net. They are all original, extremely edgy shirts you won't find in stores. Most have a powerful and strong message or are heavily thematic.

The shirts are prices well and they are user submission based. If you think your designs are great, submit a shirt, you can get $1500 and $2 royalty per shirt sold!

Triond

The site publishes articles to it's affiliate sites, has a great standard of excellence and is a constant source of new material coming out on the internet.

Users can also post videos and audio to Triond's affiliates, so don't think it's just writing! And if you would like to be more than a passive consumer of art, try writing for them, it's extremely easy to use and they have great support, oh and did I mention you get paid?

User submitted art is great. Seeing real people, not a group of advertising gurus, coming up with and distributing real designs over the internet, thats a technological pinnacle. Enjoy these sites and others, because Nike and Gucci aren't the only designers making apparel.

An application called Instant Messenger (IM) has attracted more and more attentions from the internet users around the world lately. It is said that IM has provided them a brilliant platform to communicate using PC with a relatively lower cost as compared to other medium of communications. Anyone can use IM regardless where he or she came from. The borderless form of communication has enabled a close relationship emerging between friend, relative, family member, and even entrepreneur to deliver their messages instantly and effectively. Some of the IM platforms even allow for using video and sound instead of the text itself.

Below I listed some of the services provided by the IM that are used extensively anywhere and anytime by the internet users.

AOL Instant Messenger

AOL became the most well-known IM ten years ago. Its popularity particularly dealing with its excellent services has successfully attracted many users which later leading the company to release stand-alone official AIM client called AOL Instant Messenger or AIM. AIM uses TOC protocol and OSCAR instant messaging protocol which was released by AOL on May, 1997 and it permits registered users to communicate in real time. The new version was specifically designed for WindowXP to enable the internet users to use video and sound, sharing files and other attractive features which are added from time to time.

AIM is always regarded as the most popular method of sending instant message as it has the largest group of registered users as compared to other IM interfaces listed here. Indeed, it is a user-friendly tool that is easily manipulated by the users to communicate with each other. AOL also offers an AIM client software which can be used for Mac OS X, Mac Os, and Linus.

Yahoo Messenger

The application of Yahoo Messenger enables its users to communicate each other by using the provided current Yahoo ID to sign in. It comes with an attractive emoticon, direct communication via video, fail transfer and so forth. Its front page appears to be more attractive as compared to other IM platforms but its users are lesser than AOL. It is a user-friendly communication tool and thus it is more appropriate to be recommended for a newbie who wishes to communicate friends, relative and family members.

The interesting feature of Yahoo Messenger is that the users are allowed to share photos easily and effectively. Instead, you can choose the theme to indicate your mood or feeling via its excellent feature called IMVironments. Indeed, it is the best IM client and hence it is worth using it. Its new version, Version 8, comes with the added Voice to make the communication sounds more attractive and impressive. This version also enables the users to include “Widgets” into the new messenger. With this added feature, you can exchange message with other users who use MSN Messenger and Window Live.

Google Talk

Google is the search engine favored by the most internet users as compared to Yahoo, Ask, Netscape and other search engine sites. Google provides its web-based application for instant messaging and voice over internet (VOIP) called Google Talk or simply known as Gtalk. Gtalk enables its users to make calls instantly and effectively without paying a single cent. It also allows the communication of other XMPP (eXtensible Messaging and Presence Protocol) clients with Google Talk users with its open protocol, XMPP. Now, BlackBerry is available to use within Google Talk which can be downloaded at Google Talk's blackberry. There is also an Add Friend button, a “Search all contacts” field to enable searches in both Google Talk and Gmail contacts.

Google has made the communication more convenient by introducing Google Apps Team addition to enable talks among co-workers or classmates taken place in a friendly environment. With this add-in application, anyone can obtain Google Docs to create and share documents, spreadsheets and presentations. As Google Apps Team addition recognizes the connections to co-worker or classmates effectively, their contacts will automatically be added in your contact list. To try this, try visit Google Apps Team Addition Homepage.

Google Talk is a good platform to choose for an instant messaging and open communication as it can be used for many languages. To do this, you just add any of the 23 other translation bots. They are all named by two-letter language abbreviations as "[from language]2[to language]@bot.talk.google.com", and the supported language pairs are: ar2en, de2en, de2fr, el2en, en2ar, en2de, en2el, en2es, en2fr, en2it, en2ja, en2ko, en2nl, en2ru, en2zh, es2en, fr2de, fr2en, it2en, ja2en, ko2en, nl2en, ru2en, zh2en. So, French to German translation, talk to fr2de@bot.talk.google.com.

On June 4, 2008, Google has added many other languages with the aims to reduce the language barriers with automated chat translations many people have been experiencing. The new bots speak Bulgarian (bg), Croatian (hr), Czech (cs), Danish (da), Finnish (fi), Hindi (hi), Norwegian (no), Polish (pl), Portuguese (pt), Romanian (ro), Swedish (sv) and Traditional Chinese (zh-hant). Basically, there are 26 new bots: bg2en, cs2en, da2en, en2bg, en2cs, en2da, en2fi, en2hi, en2hr, en2no, en2pl, en2pt, en2ro, en2sv, en2zh-hant, fi2en, hi2en, hr2en, no2en, pl2en, pt2en, ro2en, sv2en, zh-hant2en, zh-hant2zh, and zh2zh-hant. To check out the full list of supported languages, simply log in to supported language combinations.

ICQ

ICQ is an instant messaging commonly called “I seek you” which is regarded as a stand-alone IM client since it was first released in November, 1996. It was also the first to have features like “Buddy” and an interactive communication platform. This application has become portion of family AOL Time Warner, but unfortunately it is not advertised extensively like AIM. It is an application compatible with the PC operation of OS which includes cell phone and Symbian OS. That is why it is not surprising to find that its usage is growing.

ICQ provides many excellent features which make it stands firmly among other IM platforms. It has marvelous features include spelling checker, file transfer, “Push to talk” (PTT) service, video messaging and e-mail integration. Not only ICQ let you communicate with friends and colleagues in real time, but also you can play many online games to entertain yourself. ICQ is definitely the best choice for anyone who wishes to search for an attractive and entertaining IM platform.

MSN

Like other leading websites, Microsoft provides its excellent IM plug-in known as MSN Messenger. If you wish to use the services provided by MSN Messenger, you should first have a registered Hotmail to access this type of IM platform. It offers many interesting features such as video messaging, voice communication, emotion icons and many more.

MSN Messenger also comes with a facility to enable you to search via IM to obtain your desired findings. That means you can use it as a web search without opening another window. This feature is very unique as it is not available at other IM clients. MSN is an ideal web-search and IM interface for entrepreneurs, organizations, institutions, administrative and the home users as well. The other amazing feature is that you can leave a message or send a note even you are offline. Despite a large number of people are engaging with PC Windows every day, it is undeniably that this platform has improved the searches, instant messaging and real-time communication in a wide coverage.

Jabber

Jabber is an excellent XML-based protocol to enable real-time instant messaging for e-business. The protocol is added to include Voice over IP and file transfer signaling. It is unique that it integrates the existing e-business into a more personal and dynamic environment. Despite of this excellent feature, Jabber has enabled the communication with other IM platforms to be taken place at the same time with AIM and MSN. Nevertheless, it is not suitable for a newbie who is not familiar with the interface of IM. Once you have familiar with Jabber, it could be a marvelous tool used specifically for an extensible messaging and presence information (buddy lists). Unlike other IM clients, Jabber is an open system that requires its users to use their domain name and a suitable Internet connection to access the server and to talk to users from other IM platforms like Google Talk, Pidgin, Miranda IM, Gizmo Project, Psi and iChat as well.

iChat

iChat is an AIM client by Apple Inc. that allows users to integrate MSN, Yahoo and Google Talk contacts into the Jabber pane. This client provides an excellent facility to enable its users to communicate with either users from Mac, AIM or Jabber. With its new features of video backdrops, Photo Booth effects, Keynote presentation and photo slideshows making iChat a fun and live on-line messaging tool to connect people around the world.

The most unique feature of iChat is that it enables a full-screen personal video conference over thousand miles away via any type of broadband connections. Besides that, an application of iChat provides an interesting client to be integrated with OS X. Therefore, Mac users who are using AIM should give iChat a try.

1. Mozilla Firefox

   If you haven't already, get Mozilla Firefox. Mozilla Firefox is a world away from internet explorer in ways that you can't imagine unless you've used the application before. Firefox is the foundation upon which you will build your own mechanical composition of add-ons and themes so that you'll be able to browse safely and efficiently.

2. AdBlock Plus

   AdBlock Plus is a firefox extension that does, well, basically just what it's name says. It is extremely good at weeding out any lingering advertisements and annoying marketing jibberjabber right before the page is loaded, and all without corrupting the layout of the page.

3. Sxipper 

   Sxipper is a firefox addon that basically manages forms. If you've ever heard of Roboform, compare it to that; it's only better and free.

4. Stylish & Greasemonkey

   These two are so great that when combined they have the potential to create an entirely new 'look-like-you-want-it-to' internet. The two extensions allow the code of any selected page to be modified to what is specified, as well as improved and changed. Stylish uses 'userstyles' and greasemonkey uses 'userscripts', and they use them well. In order to incorporate one, all you have to do is click the button on the website and voila, you can check out the new look or functionality that's been added to whatever website you chose. One style I highly recommend is Gmail Redesigned (by Globex Designs).

5. ScrapBook

   Ever want to save a web page on your hard drive and not have to deal with the risk of the page eventually turning into a 404 error page? ScrapBook has your answer. Scrapbook allows you to save a webpage quickly and effortlessly with a click of the mouse. It operates almost exactly like the bookmarks menu, all of your saved pages are stored in a menu right above your address bar.

YouTube is a great gateway, but as video's evolve and grow, the demand for a better engine to run them on increases.

Here comes Vimeo. Vimeo is a Video sharing site, but much more. Vimeo allows users to play videos in High Definition, where YouTube's “High Quality” boast much less significant improvements.

Vimeo also resizes the actual video screen, allowing for native resolution over squeezing or letter boxing YouTube standard 4:3 aspect ratio. Vimeo users have the ability to password protect videos for viewing, letting the creator control the audience that sees it.

Best of all, users can allow their video to be downloaded from others, enabling growth within an artistic community and facilitating an incredible way to store and transfer videos of your own.

From the nicer looking page layout to the broader support of video resolutions, Vimeo takes the digital cake. Investigate Vimeo for what it has more of, people expressing themselves, and less about people posting video replies.

AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 7.5.524

AVG is anti-virus software developed by Grisoft Company. It is the best free anti-virus software which has much improved design in terms of its usability, stability and highly impressive detection feature that has gained popularity among the computer users. In other words, millions of home users trust on its high level of detection capability to protect their PC from the attack of unknown and weird viruses. Due to its high detection on almost all the wild viruses, Grisoft has awarded VB100% Award by Virus Bulletin in February 2008. Not only that, AVG was rated as the second highest rating for user satisfaction for its free edition. Additionally, its quality assurance has been announced as the top downloaded program on CNET Download.com.

AVG anti-virus free edition is permitted for a home user and not for a commercial use. The software provides real-time protection and it is updated automatically so that you will be provided with a rapid virus database to alert you for any infected files. It handles the infected files safely and it never gets your PC slow down. It is indeed easy to use this anti-virus software that protects your PC against viruses, worms and Trojans besides protecting your PC against spyware, identity-theft, Adware, hackers, network intrusions, and sophisticated rootkit attacks. It is also furnished with an anti-spam feature to help filter out any junk electronic mails. It is by far the best free anti-virus software I have been using so far.

PC Tools Antivirus 3.6 Free Edition

This software is very useful to protect your PC against the latest fast-spreading worms and virus, such as Netsky, Mytob and MyDoom which can seriously infect your PC as they can be transferred to other person's PC who accesses your email contacts and computer's network. Additionally, these infections may allow hackers to steal your database from your PC, and later use it to launch threats against other computer's users or website or to send large numbers of SPAM mails. Therefore, it is always safer to use this software to keep alert of infected files.

Its real-time protection is trusted with rapid database updates and it is essential to keep your PC safer against any online threats and malicious infections attempting to gain an easy access to your PC by stealing your personal details. The suspected viruses, Trojans and worms will be quarantined, disinfected and destroyed thoroughly. It is worth using this software as it is free to use plus it has no time-limits.
For a direct download, please click here.

ThreatFire Free Edition 3.0.8 (Beta 4)

The chart clearly shows that ThreatFire's Active Defense feature has proven to provide up to 243% more protection when combined its usage with the traditional anti-virus products. ThreatFire is powerful software to detect and to stop any malicious and cyber-threats which include known and unknown spyware, adware, keyloggers, viruses, buffer outflow, Trojans, rootkits, worms and malware as well. This is its unique feature as compared to the traditional antivirus products as virus threats are sometimes remained undetected and thereby infecting your PC.

As of September 11th, 2006, Facebook was already widely known throughout the world, usually basing its population towards those in high school and colleges or universities. Nowadays, as of October 2007, Facebook has a total of around 42 million users!

This article will guide new Facebook users to learn how to use Facebook, have fun with it, and join the rest of the 42 million who do! By the way, I have Facebook. Therefore, by the end of this article, you should add me. :) My real name is not Nik Fall, by the way.

Basic

First of all, Facebook is a social interactive network that bonds you and your network of friends (or strangers) together. You can check out their lives, and they can check out yours.

The Home Page & News Feed

Firstly, we have the login screen. So make an account and we can get started. Login using your confirmed email address and password. The first window you will see is usually called your Home. At Home, the most part is your News Feed. You can view updates and have a basic overview of what's happening with your friends and their lives. The News Feed loads up every time you login so you won't have to miss anything important.

This, however, might not be true all the time. The News Feed summarizes only some activities that occurred. You can edit the Preferences of what you want your News Feed to display simply by clicking on Preferences. It should be pretty straight forward.

Left Hand Side of Home

In the left-hand corner of Home you will see a search bar. You can type in a friend's name, a stranger's name, or a group name, whatever. Say you wanted to find a co-worker named John X. The search engine will lead you to pages where you have the eligibility of browsing through many John X's in Facebook and also groups, events, and applications that have the term “John X” in them.

Going back to Home (which you can access in the Blue Bar in the top right hand corner), you will see, under Applications, a total of about 5-6 applications. Applications in Facebook are mini-programs that can function if you add them. Some applications will allow you to check out your daily horoscope, raise a pet, or throw a pizza at a friend.

You can add an application by simply knowing its application name, typing it into the search bar, pressing on it, and adding it…You can choose to display it on your profile or not. Displaying an application on your profile will enable many users to see your application and IMHO, if you have too many, it can get annoying!

Right Hand Side of Home

The right-hand side of Home can have many subheadings. You might see Requests. Friends can Request you to join an event, a group, or an application. Non-friends can send you friend requests. You will see Notifications. I don't access this usually, because it's a list of what you've done with Facebook lately, and it's not like it matters. There can be Pokes. It's a function where anyone can “poke” you. A poke is nothing more than just a way for someone to nudge you for attention basically. It has no special purpose, and no meaning - but you can come up with one.

If you poke a non-friend back, they can see some parts of your profile even if you don't want them to. You will see Status Updates. Yes, you can input a “status” here. A status will begin with “Your name here is ________ (e.g. fishing, hungry, wanting to bathe in bubbles)”. You can fill in the blanks with whatever. If so, you might also see Birthdays. Facebook is awesome because it helps notify you every friend(s)'s birthday who is coming up a couple days before so you don't forget! Then you will see Invite Your Friends. Do so if you'd like. Other things are straight forward.

The Profile/Your Life

Alright! Now we can finally get to the more interesting part. Go to the Blue Bar and click on Profile. Your profile is basically your life. This is like your front page when somebody finds you on Facebook. If they decide to add you, or if they're in your network (I'll explain networks later), they can see your profile. Or, if you'd like, you can set privacy levels to low and everyone on Facebook can check you out…

Facebook accounts can have multiple uses. For advertising a company/business, for uploading photos, for chatting, etc. You can upload photos to Facebook simply by going to the Photos application on the right side. You can edit your information by clicking edit beside Profile on the Blue Bar. You can see and browse your friends. You can do a lot.

Hey, you can change your status here too.

There is a small section called the Mini-Feed, similar to the News Feed at Home. Mini-Feed is not an application. It publishes some things you do on Facebook. You can choose what to publish, and what not to publish. Below it should be the Wall. This is the main feature of Facebook. It simply allows for friends to write/comment on your “wall” and communicate with you. There is an application called the SuperWall which will allow you to input videos, photos, music, and loads of other stuff to your wall or a friend's wall. Using the wall is easy, it's common sense. Somebody posts something on your wall, and you post back on their wall.

You can also comment on photos, or notes that friends create or you can create.

Friends & Networks

The reason for Facebook is usually to keep in touch with old classmates, co workers, friends, family, or random people from halfway around the globe. Sometimes the only way to see somebody's profile is by adding them as a friend.

To add a friend, you have to know their first and last name. If you know their first name, it will be pretty hard to find somebody, now wouldn't it? But then again, this is where Networks come in. Joining a network allows a user to contact other people in the same Networks or view their profiles. You can browse throw a network. You can join a regional network. It is a geographic network. You can also join a business network, if it exists on Facebook. You can create a network. Or you can join a school network. Simply go to Networks and get started.

You also have an Inbox, which is like a message centre. You don't have to add somebody as a friend to send them a message, but you do have to add them as a friend to post on their wall.

Have Fun! Honestly, that's what you should do. You will be addicted to Facebook in no time!