The Mozilla browser “Firefox” has many hidden text and graphics message stored internally within a “dynamic library list" (the file will have a name ending with “*.dll”) that if the savvy user types in the correct command on the addressbar and hits ENTER on the keyboard, this calls up the image, program or user message.

One of the ones I enjoyed in an earlier version of Firefox, was typing in:

About:kitchensink

And you would be shown an ASCII image of what appeared to be a large stainless kitchen sink basin. This ‘Easter egg’ seems to be absent from my current version of Firefox (3.x). I think that “about:kitchensink: still worked in Firefox v. 2.x

Mr. Roboto

Here is an Easter egg that works in v3.x of Firefox that is really nice.

About:robots

This is an ‘active window’ and if you click the gray “Try Again” button on the bottom-left, you get another message…

I like the “And they have a plan.”, -this taken straight from the new (albeit imho, over-hyped) “Battlestar Galactica” TV series. Which by the way I should add that despite my being an avid fan of the original series back in the late 1970s even with it’s laughable plots and uber-bad acting, I can’t seem to get my head around the new series despite it being leaps and bounds better than the original. That shaky shoulder-mounted handi-cam thing has GOT to GO! It's just too scary and unnerving. I mean, it makes me want to puke! -It's a commercial TV series you idiots, not "The Blair Witch Project"!

And if you are epileptic, you should probably avoid “CSI:Miami” for they are the WORST show that I can name at the moment for bad use (read: overuse) of split-second splicing and faux digital toaster effects. It’s a superfluous SPFX that is supposed to draw-in viewership to 'the busy-ness' of their work, the way the great theme music successfully did for “Miami Vice.” It's just a hook. Except in the case of Miami Vice, that show was at least, viewable. Even entertaining, - for what it was.

The Granddaddy of Easter Eggs

Of Course(!) I have to mention the biggest most important Firefox Easter egg if for nothing else, to benefit the truly uninitiated:

About:mozilla

A warning about ‘the beast’ is presented when you enter “about:mozilla” which is a parody play against Internet Exploder opps, -I means Explorer, the quintessential Microsoft browser product. Various versions of Firefox (and Mozilla) use varying themes of text, but the messages are clear.

Turnabout is Fair Play

This by Firefox/Mozilla supposed to be a retaliatory poke at Internet Explorer for it’s previous inclusion of a similar Easter egg in its browser. Whereby typing “about:whatever” and then next try “about:mozilla” you are shown different results. They were apparently trying to poke fun at chief rival Netscape Navigator (a "Mozilla" product) with a suggestive BSOD, -the so-called “Blue Screen of Death.” This clearly to imply that Netscape ‘crashes browsers.’ Most of this was going on unbeknownst to me at the time as I was still learning how to use a computer.

But for IE to suggest that 'another brand' of browser causes BSOD… -that is a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black if you know what I mean! “BSOD” is like entirely an IE-thing, imho. Windows ME was the messiest, most unstable browser of its time. That is, until VISTA came along last year. Whew… what were they thinking there?! I tried typing "about:whatever" and then, "about:mozilla" in my current version, IE-7, but nothing happens. This must have been removed from the later upgrade. I have just read that Microsoft formally stopped using added 'Easter Eggs' in its programs as part of its "Trustworthy Computing Initiative" in 2002.

Yet they are about the repeat themselves again with yet another 'broken by design' release...Windows-7 They just keep going 'round and 'round like a moron trapped in a revolving door, -repeating their errs, hoping against hope for a different outcome! Sheez!

If You Forget the Past, You Are Doomed To Repeat It…

I just read a report at PCWorld.com about Microsoft’s ‘new’ OS called “Windows 7” (formerly codenamed Blackcomb and Vienna) and early reports on it are looking even worse than VISTA! Things that worked in VISTA now don’t work in “Windows 7” it seems. Yeah, -what are they thinking, -indeed!

I tried an anagram server to generate new words from the imputed “Blackcomb and Vienna” and while I did get over 1000 possible outputs, none of them were outstandingly helpful nor useful. I suspect that the same will be prevalent in Windows 7. Their Operating Systems browser was, is and probably shall continue to be a full 10+ years behind Standards. -A Generation-4 browser in a Generation-7.x/8 world. But enough Windows bashing (hey, -THAT was kind of clever, eh?)

Shiny New Google Chrome!

Have you tried Google’s “Chrome” browser?” It is amazing, for me it loads up from double-click to useable in just about 5-seconds! Okay, -I am amazed here. And Like Mozilla’s Firefox, Chrome also has ‘Easter eggs’ too!

About:internets

Note the “s” at the end. You will need this.

You get, well, “internets” I guess you could call them. Intertwined tubes that are also called “pipes” in other operating systems/browsers. Somehow though this is still fun to watch. Note the "Don't Clog the Tubes!". And sometimes though, if you get no animation you get instead a message that says "The Tubes Are Clogged." These both are probably Google’s way to slamming a snicker at something Sen. Ted Stevens said regarding the Net Neutrality Bill… he said something to the effect of "The internet is a series of tubes!" Yeah, -uh-huh. Not the brightest bead on the Rosary, is he? :(

Have You Ever?

Have you ever read the FAQ/TOS and User Agreements of the sites that we submit content to? Sometimes they are just plain funny! From MIXX, a social networking site, comes this:

Mixx General Terms of Use

By using the Mixx site, you are agreeing to play by our rules, which will govern your use of Mixx on what some Senators describe as "a series of tubes," or what we just call "the web." If you don't agree with these rules, we're sorry to say that you have to leave now....

Additional Chrome Stuff

Here are some additional Chrome ‘Easter Eggs’ to crack open and enjoy;

• about:memory
• about:stats
• about:internets
• about:histograms
• about:dns
• about:cache (this one takes a moment to load)
• about:plugins
• about:version
  

There are more, of course. And oh, -while this is not “Easter egg” but in keeping with the underlying theme of bad/better/best browsers and platforms, here is a video of awesomeness that you need to see and enjoy!

Hi, I'm a Mac! Hi, I'm a PC! Hi, -I'm LINUX!

(Static images are screenshots taken directly from my computer, by thestickman. -That's me)

This is the strangest clock/calendar I have ever seen. It's really cool!

Cool!!

This is the coolest handwritten clock/calendar that is very impressing. You may want to keep this in your PC. But, if you want an ambient clock, you should authenticate with Google to connect your Google Calendar to your clock here.

10,000 Coins Topple

There's a cool youtube video showing you 10,000 coins topple like dominoes. Those coins appear to be thicker than American nickels. Some of the motions may be a bit unnatural from the point of physics. It sounds boring when the coins move up and down the ramps made of stack of coins to the end. You may scream, “Coins, c'mon, move on!”

Greeting Hello in over 800 Languages

Now, you've no problem to greet the world “Hello” in more than 800 languages. But how accurate is it? I am doubt of its accuracy. I think some of the “Hello” phrases in Japanese are no longer used in everyday conversations. Of course, “konnichiwa” is always heard, but the dialectical phrases, particularly the “Kansai-ben” will probably appear awkward to the local people there as they are rarely used for conversation these days.

Get Lose in this Game!

This is claimed as the world's most addictive game. The U.S. Air Force Academy uses it to train its pilots. They've to stay alive in this game for as long as 40 seconds. The first couple milliseconds are the hardest part, but it will eventually become easy to pass through. Once you get passed 10 seconds, it'll go very fast. Its speed generally varies accordingly with your network connection or computer.

Can You Spin the Pen Like This?

Now, follow the music, and start spinning your pen as shown in the video. It's interesting, right? Can you do most of the tricks shown to pass your time?

What Codes are These?

These codes appear to me as ASCII art, and this website seems to be very odd and pointless. It was the weirdest website created in 1995 and its HTML source code reveals a detailed diagram of a hydrogen bomb. It is said to be a diagram plan for 2 types of nuclear form which can be found here.

What s Your BMI?

This is a type of BMI calculator used to measure your ideal weight. It requests your height, and frame size but does not ask for your gender. It will then give you a simple way to decide your frame size. You might have shocked at what you should really weight! But, I recommend the other website for an accurate calculation. Give yourself a try here!

Have This Website to Waste Your Time!

These are by far the most interesting and fantastic flash games to waste your time. There are a variety of games here to kill your boredom. These games are awesome, I particularly like “Turbo penguin”.

Very Funny Video Clip!

This is a funny youtube video clip. One yoga guy fights with 2 Kung Fu fighters in the movie called “Kung Fu vs Yoga”. Can a Yoga guy behave like this way?

Beware of TeenScreen!!!

TeenScreen is part of Bush's National Mandated Mental Health Screening program. This test takes 10 minutes to diagnose the mentality health of the kids. When it was done in Colorado, America, 71% of the kids who involved in this test were diagnosed to have a mental disorder. I am wondering how Bush would do on this test…Below is what I quoted from Wiki:

"This has become a source of controversy as some have alleged that TeenScreen is merely a scheme to market psychiatric drugs. [10] In addition, some of TeenScreen's executives and advisory board members have ties to pharmaceutical companies. [11] Some of the symptoms that TeenScreen uses as indicators of mental illness can also be caused by physical illnesses, allergies, poor nutrition, lacked of sleep, drug abuse, and toxic exposure. [12] TeenScreen refers students flagged by the screening process to psychiatric professionals."

Music GenreVisualization

This is a very cool but awesome website that you should give it a try. It's an iPod-like radio which enables you to listen to songs from many genres. There's a huge variety of music to suit your needs. Just click somewhere in the matrix: energetic/clam and dark/positive. The more on the right you click on, the more music to satisfy your ears. One unique interesting feature is that you can choose which years you wish to listen.

Build Your Own Search Robot!

This awesome website sounds great to you, right? Now, you can build a Search robot to place in search engines like Yahoo, Google, and other Web 2.0 sites. It'll also continuously scour social bookmarking sites like Del.icio.us, Digg and even other websites. Your searchbot is brilliant enough to search the web by color and the mood as well. Why don't you give it a try?

And You Thought Your Eyes are Good?

How good are your eyes? Can you find the “C”? I think this website is good for checking your eyesight too. If you can't spot the alphabet, then you've to get a pair of spectacles. Now, try this below, can you spot the “O” hidden among the “Q” alphabets? How many "O" did you find?

QQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQ
QQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQ
QQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQ
QQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQ
QQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQ
QQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQ
QQQQQQQQQQQQQQOQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQ
QQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQ
QQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQ
QQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQ
QQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQ
QQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQ
QQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQ
QQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQ
QQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQ
QQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQ
QQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQ
QQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQOQQQQQQQQQQ
QQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQ
QQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQ
QQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQ
QQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQ

300+ UFO Photographs

Do you believe in UFO? By browsing through these photographs, you can feed your eyes with over 300+ photographs at your fingertips.

Creating the Stuff of Your Dream

This is a pretty odd, cool and weird website. Just click on the image and it'll change from a random set of images. Sometimes, you'll get the same combination of images for several times. There are 15625 possibilities to create your dream. Give it a try! Enjoy!

Also read

• Eight extremely powerful interactive websites to blow your mind
• Nine crazy and hilarious websites that went far away from the internet application

Flickr

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Flickr has been around over years and has grown more fun. It helps that the digital photography's gone towards its milestone over many years. It is hard not to favor of Flickr as it is more interesting and an easy service to use. It is owned by Yahoo. Now, the Yahoo's Mail account has become much better than its crappy Yahoo! Photos!

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It is easy to sign up for Flickr. As long as you are a member of Yahoo, you are given an opportunity to sign up here unless you aren't averse to join Yahoo. At your first attempt to sign up, you will be acknowledged that Flickr is a member of Yahoo's happy family. Hence, you are asked to sign up for a Yahoo account first. I mean, if you are not a member of Yahoo but you already have a slew of other accounts, it just simply means irksome for you. However, once you get pass this hassle, Flickr appears to be a breeze for you. You don't have to get annoying to start venturing this website as there are helpful little hints here and there to get you started, and since there are so many people on Flickr already, it is likely you will have someone to bug for tech support.

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Flickr makes uploading and posting your digital images very much hassle-free. The Flickr Windows integration makes uploading as simple as a right-click. By installing the Flickr app, there will be an additional "Send to Flickr" command in the right-click menu.

It is all very easy and very streamlined but you need to accustom with the terms Flickr uses for its photostreams. Or else, once you have uploaded a few photos, you will very soon get hang of it.

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Flickr has an outstanding social aspect. You get to see the latest pictures from your contacts on logging in. Its start page is relatively simple, fast-loading mix of your pictures, your contact's pictures and recently uploaded snaps. It is certainly popular with third-party app makers - you can embed Flickr feeds onto your websites, access Flickr from your desktop or Facebook.

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For most users, they are satisfied with the services provided by a free account at Flickr. However, for serious snappers, they should consider about going Flickr Pro which is offered for a reasonably low price at US$24.95 a year as compared to pay a Webshots. Flickr Pro's account allows you to store high-resolution versions of your photo online. Apart from that, it gives you unlimited storage and photosets as opposed to a Free account's three photosets and 100MB per month bandwidth.

Flickr is arguably the most advanced in its features as far as integration with other services. All in one, fast interface, quick loading and community feel with a huge variety of other supports and services for third party apps are indeed hard to beat by other online photo sharing sites!

Picasa

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When Google bought Picasa, they decided to make it fully a part of the Google family by adding the overly documentations into its Google Wikibase. As a comparison, when Yahoo bought Flickr, they didn't make it more Yahoo alike as Frickr still has the authority to maintain its own friendly identity that is separated from the Yahoo family. And it seems that, Flickr works well for Yahoo as it has emerged as one of the famous photo sharing sites. For Picasa, though its download site is 5.8MB which is not too big by any means but its instructions just to learn how to use it is sometimes appeared to be annoying.

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Though I am half declined to use this website immensely, it deserves my interest to visit this website. It is wonderful enough to insert pictures to its database while creating new images even while Picasa is opened. Certainly, it makes a wonderful computer organizer for your photos. The good thing about Picasa is that it has a fantastic photo-editing feature, making you forgive it for its troublesome which is particularly dealing with its overly wordy documentations.

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With Picasa, you can preview and see every image on your PC by folder in a quick and easy manner. That means you could view them in selected batches and in slideshow formats. You can crop, correct red-eye, alter color, straighten, fill light as well as fix contrast with its more-fun-bit effects! This is all done by simply pressing at the various pretty buttons. The neutral color pickers, color temperature, highlight and shadow pickers are other innovative features that Google gives away for its users.

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Apart from the above features, Picasa also permits you to post up your Web albums as part of Google services, certainly. With these services, Picasa allows you to email your photos, print them out, make cool collages, order prints as well as post them on Google. If Google fixes its troublesome tutorials and makes its Web Album more attractive and appealing, I'm sure that Picasa will just be something you can't live without.

Pikeo

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Pikeo is not a newly-invented website as it has been around for quite some time. Its name tells you that it's quirky thing that has albeit limited, appeal and an unusual stuff the internet users could expect for. However, it is fundamentally a photo sharing website. It means a lot for the travelers to share their travelling experiences via photos and geotagging with the world. The feature of geotagging allows you to easily tag your photos with locations and keywords to identify them quickly when you search through the photos which will definitely save your time from the hassle of browsing a large image file. The integrated slideshow and trip daily are pretty interesting features you will find when using Pikeo. In fact, Pikeo shows your photo location in the map in the most interesting and attractive manner.

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The start page of Pikeo is packed with the wonderful stuffs that might have intrigued you to give it a try. It gets you some time to load and timed out before you are prompted for a registration. When you log in, you will be greeted with your user dashboard and a fairy interesting site. You will see a nice sidebar with a scrollable view of Pikeo's blog and urging towards Orange's users to access this site via the mobile interface on its left.

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Well, this very mobile-friendly website is currently in a beta version. As long as you could surf through your mobile, you will find Pikeo usable. It has two facets- the Web experience and the mobile experience for Pikeo. However, I found the latter is fun, the former less so.

Webshots

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Here, you will first see the promising name and the cute icon. Its member starting page gives you a great pick of what everyone is taking photos of and a close-up of featured photos as well. You might now love the person who invented the digital camera as you can have so many spectacular pictures at your fingertips even if you just have a glimpse of moment.

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Webshots is cute, cool and fairly straight to the point. Thankfully, its sign up procedure is relatively simple as compared to Frickr. Currently, Webshots has over 584 million photos, which is considered a huge amount, come to think of it.

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If you choose to pay US$29.88 a year for stock photos that aren't the usual boring bits of stock, you get unlimited downloads of the available Pro Shots. Nevertheless, when you download the photos for your own use or for other commercial purposes, you have to contact the photographer individually. Most people find this to be troublesome and indeed, if you are asked to contact the photographers themselves, sometimes it would be a shame for certain persons, really.

Like Pikeo, Webshots is all mobile support. Its mobile version is pretty simple and faster to download as compared to OVI. This is certainly a plus for those who want to have an easy and a quick mobile experience.

OVI

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Formerly, OVI was called Twango. Then, Nokia has rebuild it into more features from being merely a photo and video sharing space to an all encompassing space to push its N-Gate and music platforms.

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As OVI is powered by a Java app, you are requested to have Java installed on your system prior to the use of this website. The upload speed will depend utterly on your internet connection. You can email your photos to your OVI account, but prior to this, you need to add the originating email address to your address book. If neither of these options appeal, then Window XP users can use the Window XP Web Publishing Wizard.

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OVI is a website that you can upload various types of media. They don't limit users to merely photos or video, and perhaps, this is the beauty feature of OVI. That means you can share anything here, but its drawback is that you can't post anything larger than 100MB. With the 100MB limit, OVI makes its website less likely to be a dumping site for an illegal file sharing. Some users may have cried foul to find such limitation. Apart from this small catch, OV1 is the wonderful website for you to upload as many files as you desire and as often as you wish. You can even upload every RAW still on your camera, which is obviously a photographer's dream.

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Nokia N73, N95 and N82 users will also be able to make use of Nokia's Share Online 3.0 that matches the users' need to access to OVI interaction in a relatively simpler manner. If you are not a Nokia user, then you can use the Shozu app on your phone to upload to OVI instead.

OVI has made its website simpler to embed your images from your channel onto web pages. These channels mark the strength of OVI- it is easy for you to create more channels as you wish, even it allows designating privacy options for your media channels. OVI offers its users with the widgets and various means to display the media files, including tickers, Flash, JavaScript and slideshow, which are obviously trying to persuade you to make use of it. OVI also offers tons of features besides its little fault for an incredible price- free of charge!

Needless to say because of the title of my article I did indeed beat my boredom but then once again it struck me down today, hence this article and my first point!

1. No summer job for me so, on the internet searching it for techniques on how to make money online. Found a few sites that were pretty good where you get paid per click and so on but there were also some scam sites! (E.G. AWsurveys.com) Anyways that was all good early on in the summer but last night by accident I clicked www.triond.com on my bookmarks instead of going to another site! “What's this?” I asked to myself and when I got there I remembered. Straight away on to my old content, there it was, only one article but making me money while I did nothing! So first tip for beating boredom? Make money!
2. This one is actually quite fun. I use my imagination to come up with something like an event I have to organise or a party I have to go to, then I set myself a budget, say £100 or £3000, whatever! Then I go on something like ebay and I try to make an outfit for the party using my budget. It's also fun doing it with friends like who can find the weirdest thing for sale online! Once I found gorilla boogers and human toenails! Or you can just imagine you won the lottery and look at things you'll never get….. :'-(
3. This one is a no-brainer! Go find games to play online! There is the obvious such as MiniClipbut then there is the real jewels of the gaming world where you have to find the games yourself on random sites! I won't spoil the fun by naming them!
4. Build a website! I use FreeWebs but there are many others you can use! You can make it about anything you want like dedicate it to a sports team or movie. Maybe a place to chat to your friends? YOUR website, NO limits!
5. Share your knowledge! Go to www.yahoo.com/answers and answer questions that people have asked with your own knowledge or ask your own question you just can't answer!
6. Ok so once again this one is one of them “DUH!” ones but still, it beats boredom and that is watching movies online, funny clips and listening to music. Told you…DUH!
7. Join a chat room or a blog! Don't listen to all these people telling you to not go on chat rooms, most of them are family friendly and full of nice people!
8. Visit bored.com Trust me! You will not be bored after going there!
9. Learn some simple magic tricks, riddles or jokes and then tell your family and friends. The looks on their faces will make you feel better and learning them will occupy you for a while!
10. Last but not least! Don't get bored! If all these suggestions don't work then get outside my friend, your skin needs to see sunlight and your underwear needs a change!

To help us all in our daily activities concerning the Internet, I would like to share this great find I encountered: 14 Internet Downloadable Tools (most of them freeware).

Ad-Aware (Free)

Security is a main concern when we go online, that is why Ad-aware is here to offer you protection from PC threats that includes viruses and spywares. It allows you to scan your PC and alerts you when it has detected threat(s). It also allows you to put these threats into quarantine and/or delete them. It is a good idea to have more than one protector, becuase not all scanners find all threats -- just make sure they are all compatible.

Advanced Lan Scanner (Free)

If you have a network at home or at work and is sharing a single Internet connection, this downloadable freeware is for you. It has a powerful scanning capabilities. You can use it for troubleshooting Internet connections, network configurations and even security purposes when connected to the Internet.

Bandwidth Monitor 2 Lite (Free)

Are you a fan of downloading and/or uploading files? Bandwidth Monitor 2 Lite is for you -- it allows you to check your current bandwidth usage over time by displaying that usage in a constantly changing chart (it can also be displayed in text).

Comodo Firewall Pro (Free)

Comodo Firewall Pro protects your PC from inbound and outbound threats. It also protect selected files and folders so that malwares cannot get into them nor alter them in any way.

Digsby (Free)

Communication is very essential from the very start and with different types of messenger popping up, we can't be thankful enough. Digsby is a universal instant messenger that allows you to interact with friends and family who uses other types of instant messenger (eg. YM, AOL IM). It also surpasses these other types of IM because it allows you to check your social networking sites and even emails from web-based mail site not associated with your IMs.

eMail Tracker Pro (Price: $29.95 (15-day free trial))

Unsure if the emails you're receiving are legitimate or not? eMail Tracker Pro gives you a set of tools for examining any email messages that pops into your inbox -- tracing back to its true point of origin and showing you the IP address and location of the sender, thus allowowing you to trace whether the email has been tampered. It also provides contact information for the domain from which the message was sent to that you can report any abuse.

Prompter (Free)

Are you the type of person who has multiple web-based mail accounts, just like me? Oh, yes! And it really takes my time opening one type of email to another -- I got Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Windows Live Mail (it's kind of required in my field of work). Well, ePrompter neatly solves our problem. It allows us to open all our web-based email accounts, check for new mails, compose and even deletes messages; and also tells us how many new messages we got from each emails.

FileZilla (Free)

Many individuals and businesses continue to use file transfer protocol (FTP) as a way to share files because it does not block large file transfers. FileZilla is an excellent FTP client that combines simplicity with a robust feature set and it's interface is easy to use.

FlashGet (Free)

Are you a fan of downloading? FlashGet is for you -- a great download manager that speeds up the process because it uses multithreading, keeps you safe and helps you organize your downloads, allows you to find downloads via many different protocols.

Foxit Reader (Free)

Most of online documents are in Adobe Acrobat format, thus you need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open such documnents; but Adobe Reader takes much time to download and is also prone to crashes. To help us with this, Foxit Reader is here -- it's small and loads much faster, thus doesn't take up much memory when used; it is also not prone to crashes.

Free Internet Window Maker (Free)

Familiar with cache files, browser history, auto-complete information, cookies? These are traceable trails you get to leave behind after an Internet activity, which might be critical in terms of security purposes. To ensure security and privacy when using the Internet, Free Internet Window Washer allows you to remove these traceable trails; it also removes traces of application activity, such as which files and/or folders were recently opened.

PingInfoView (Free)

Pinging a website is like contacting this site to check if it's alive and responds to the ping request. PingInfoView allows you to ping multiple web sites simultaneously; on any schedule you set and displays the results in a graphical interface.

SMTP Diagnostics (Price: $12 (30-day free trial))

Are you handling SMTP servers? Are you encountering problems about it and have no idea what is wrong? SMTP Diagnostics is for you -- it performs a complete set of diagnostics on your SMTP connection and provides an in-depth report about any errors.

VisualRoute 2008 Lite (Free; also with for-pay versions)

VisualRoute 2008 Lite is a command line tool which allows you to display the route you take to contact a web server or other Internet device in a visually appealing way. It also shows a map of every hop, and graphs it accordingly against a background that shows reponse times. Highlighting a hop allows you to see important details, such as pachet loss and speed.

What are you waiting for? Why don't you try these Internet downloadable tools and see how it can ease the burden of everyday encounter with technology. Just make sure to take the necessary actions to ensure the security of you and your PC. Happy downloading!

LucastArts

LucasArts is a multifaceted interactive entertainment company which have created many inspiring, and challenging games for its players. Their videogames have achieved many notable commercial success and awards, including multiple awards from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences. In recent years, they have released many best-selling games. Those games include LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy, Star Wars: Empire at War, Mercenaries, Star Wars: Episode III, Star Wars Battlefront II, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, Revenge of the Sith, Indiana Jones, Star War Republic Comando, Star Wars Galaxies: Jump to Light-speed and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

Konami

Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc. (KDEI) is a famous global developer and manufacturer for home videogames. Konami has designed many interactive games from a range of Action, Adventure, Sports, Simulation and many more. Their recent released games are Silent Hill Origins, Pro Evolution Soccer, New International Track & Field, Hellboy The Science of Evil, Deca Sports, Target: Terror, Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles and Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.

THQ

THQ is one of the fastest growing PC and home videogames developers featuring games for Sony PlayStation 2, Microsoft Xbox, Nintendo's GameCube and Game Boy Advance, personal computers as well as wireless devices. Since its establishment, THQ continues to innovate and evolve the interactive entertainment medium. Their best rated games are The Polar Express, MotoGP 2, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, UFC 2009 Undisputed, Battle of the Bands™, Dancing with the Stars, Zoo Tycoon DS 2 and Age of Empires: Mythologies.

EA

Electronic Arts (EA) is the world's leading interactive entertainment company for advanced console systems, online games, PC games and mobile phone devices. They offer games featuring from a wide selection of sports, racing, simulation, puzzle games, and other platform game genres. Their top-rated selling games are The Simpsons, Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix, Need for Speed Carbon, Rock Band, FIFA 08, Madden NFL 08, and Need for Speed Pro street.

Sierra

Sierra is a multi-platform interactive entertainment software developer which offers multi-player online games as well as games for PC, console systems and mobile phone devices. Their latest released games are Sea Life Safari™, Gin Rummy, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor™, and Aces of the Galaxy™.

Atari

Atari is one of the global interactive entertainment company featuring games for the whole family, with a catalogue that includes franchises and many international licenses. Their best games are Alone in the Dark, Dragon-shard, Demon Stone, Sid Meier's Pirates, Act of War: Direct Action, TimeShift and DRIV3R.

Activision

Activision is one of the rapidly growing interactive companies featuring for online and console games. Their best selling video games include Guitar Hero®, Call of Duty®, and Tony Hawk, Spider-Man™, X-Men™, Shrek®, James Bond™ and TRANSFORMERS™.

Blizzard Entertainment

This is one of the most popular and well-designed computer games makers. Their selling games include blockbuster hits such as World of Warcraft®, Diablo®II, StarCraft®, and Warcraft®III: Reign of Chaos®.

This is an awesome new image locating tool that uses Web 3.0 technology to find and locate images and graphics that have been stored and published on the Internet. Unlike Google,Picitup makes locating the exact images that you need or are looking to see a whole lot easier to retrieve from the millions and billions of images published on the worldwide web. The Advanced filtering options allows users to filter images by categories, color, shape, layout, and size or you can retrieve images by visual ranks.

Jumpcut

This website offers an incredible and unique opportunity for anyone interested in making and creating videos, rich multimedia content and share it with the world or narrow it to only those people that you want to see your finished creation. Jumpcut allows its members to make movies, music videos and even produce their own movie remix. Do everything from collaborating with the user community to using editing tools that makes making movies as easy as 1-2-3.

Eyespot

The world of accessing the Internet has become more than just logging in on a PC or laptop and exploring the world of information. Now, it includes mobile phones, portable players and other connected devices and being able to share you favorite videos that you create to this broaden market increases the opportunities to let your star shine more brightly. EyeSpot provides video editing and sharing software that is easy-to-use, intuitive, and accessible to all end-users.

Chihuahua

The Internet is a fantastic place to find and play all kinds of new word games, but Chihuahua is a game that challenges the skills of the finest wordsmiths from around the world. Players must makes as many words as possible 4 letters or more (plurals and verb forms ending in S are not allowed) and at least one word using all 9 letters. Each and every word must incorporate the middle letter on the game board in each of the words. Players can play alone or compete against the world by putting their names on the scoreboard.

Campfire

Campfire is a web-based, password-protected chat room that users can employ to collaborate, chat and communicate with up to 60 people at once. Users can share files, images, chat privately or even browse previous chats by person, room, or date given them more communication capabilities than any other chat room of its kind.

BlogLines

BlogLines is an easy-to-use blog and news feed search, online subscriptions, news reader, blog publishing and social sharing tool that allows users to organize and stay up-to-date with all of their favorite web content from a single location. There are numerous features that users can employ to customize their own unique experience and way too many to detail in this article.

Blummy

Using Blummy users can add small widgets called “blummlets”, which will provide rich functionality to the bookmarks that they choose to save or share with others. JavaScript is used to provide the blummlets, so if you do not like using JavaScript, then you might want to steer clear of this tool.

Notifyr.org

This is an amazing free tool that allows its users to stay notified any time their favorite website, blog or news feed is updated from around the world. It works with any website and the updates are sent via email.

TravBuddy

This is an excellent website to visit any time you are in the mood to travel, because this user-generate, content-rich Internet travel resource contains travel tips, suggestions and information that are shared among other world travelers like you. Discover the best places to visit, the best places to dine or shop and much more, before you even leave for the airport. TravBuddy is like a personal assistant that makes scheduling your trips a breeze.

Omnidrive

Omnidrive allows users to aggregate not only all of their desktop files, but all of the user's files and data from different web applications within a single storage space. Users can access all their files and data from anywhere and share with other users or by email. Users can publish music, video or photos to the web or link to them from within forums, blogs or websites, thus making this the perfect desktop organizers for the information junkie or office professional that demands the best organizing tool on the market.

Thousands of computers are enrolled every day into a botnet. It is estimated that a fourth of all computers online are a part of various botnets.

A few years ago only a technically adept person could create and deploy botnets. Not so today. A cyber criminal without any technical knowledge, can now buy a botnet kit online for a few dollars. These applications offer point and click functionality. With the click of the mouse a criminal can get information on the geographic location of his newly enrolled bot, the windows patches installed, the browsers used and even encrypted communication between bot operator and the zombie computer.

These steps illustrate how a computer is enrolled as a zombie and then used to send spam, spyware, and conduct other nefarious activities:-

• The Bot operator sends a virus or worm usually through email to an unsuspecting user
• The user opens the mail and clicks on a link or opens an attachment; the virus activates its payload which in this case is the bot
• The bot immediately contacts a control server set up by the Bot operator and announces the success of its mission
• The owner of the bot then monetizes his army of bots or zombies by selling access to the botnet to spammers. The spammers then send thousands of emails to the control server which in turns directs the infected PC to send spam.

These tips will help defend your computer from being enrolled into a zombie army.

• Try not to visit undesirable sites such as those involving sex, nudity, criminal skills, warez, pirated software, and illicit drugs. If you share your computer with other people you can create a firewall rule to prevent access to such sites. Check with your ISP if they offer a content filtering service, if they do sign up for it.
• Since must systems are infected by means of a Trojan, virus or worm it is wise to have a good anti virus program installed with the latest virus definition files
• Emails are favorite medium with cyber crooks for enrolling systems on to their botnets. Be suspicious of every email you receive even if it is from a known person. It is a simple matter for these criminals to spoof an email. Never click on a link instead type the link on your browser address bar. Open attachments only after you have downloaded and scanned it for threats.
• Consider changing your browser to Firefox. Most exploits center on the security flaws of Internet Explorer. You can reduce the odds of your system being turned into a zombie by simply replacing your browser.

If you suspect your system is infected with a bot you can use this excellent free tool RUbotted from Trend Secure (http://www.trendsecure.com) to detect the presence of a bot. Because Bots are typically worms you might want to remove it with an anti-virus tool. Make sure to update your anti-virus with the latest definition files before you attempt to clean the infection.

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.