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Okay, so we love Skype. The IM client/P2P VOIP client has been good to us. Today, they deliver yet another small token, as they present their first Free SkypeOut Day. In actuality, you only get 10 free SkypeOut minutes, so it is a bit misleading. To score your free ten, log in to Skype, and head to the My Account page. Do it quick, as you only have until the end of the day.
Read More 
| Skype
Gallery: First Free SkypeOut Day
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I can’t tell you how many times I have been in the midst of a quick blog entry or post on a forum, only to discover that my session had timed out. For me, I can honestly say this is one of the most frustrating occurrences that can happen on the Internet. Enter Scribe. This is an excellent Firefox extension which ads quick save functions to web forms. This means you can save any web form text you are currently filling out – including blog entries and forum posts. It even supports the CTRL – S command keys so you don’t have to take your hands off that keyboard. Go ahead and give it a download and ponder how you ever managed without it.
Read More | Scribe Homepage
Gallery: FireFox Must Have Extension: Scribe
Some day our kids will look back on the Internet as something primitive. Heck, if something has a museum dedicated to it, then it’s no longer cutting edge, right? In 1996, a group of people in San Francisco decide to start the most extensive Internet library. Internet Archive is just that: an Internet archive that continuously records website information. What’s the purpose? Well, future generations will be able to benefit from sites that are long gone through their archives - a lot like how we can read books that are far out of print. While this is a fantastic humanitarian effort on its own, you must try their “Wayback Machine.” Indeed, it takes you way back. Be careful, it’s highly addictive.
Read More | Internet Archive
Read More | Gear Live - through the Wayback Machine
Gallery: The Most Extensive Internet Historians: Archive.org
The Google Toolbar is now available for the Firefox browser on Windows, Mac, and Linux in 10 different languages. While it’s great to see Google finally jumping on the Firefox bandwagon, giving it support for what is arguably the most popular toolbar out there, I am really not all that excited. Firefox ships with a built-in pop-up blocker as well as a built-in Google search box. Does anyone really use all the rest of the features on the Google toolbar?
Read More | Google Toolbar for Firefox
Gallery: Google Toolbar For Firefox Now Available
Firefox got a few mentions in the news today. Firstly, Google announced they would be releasing a version of their popular Google Toolbar for Firefox. This would of course come out as an extension for Firefox, bringing some additional Google functionality to Firefox’s popular cross platform browser. Secondly for anyone who is addicted to Microsoft Internet Explorer’s user interface you can now make Firefox look and act very similar to IE. By installing several extensions and a theme you can make Firefox act almost entirely like Internet Explorer.
Read More | Google Toolbar for Firefox
Read More | FirefoxIE
Gallery: Google Toolbar for Firefox, FirefoxIE
Gear Live Podcast: Participatory Culture’s Tiffiniy Cheng
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Features, Internet, Podcasts,
Get ready for a new way to present your work. Peer-to-peer publishing with BitTorrent means file size and cost are not issues anymore, so you can offer fullscreen video with no bandwidth costs. That is the midset behind the Participatory Culture project. We sat with Tiffiniy Cheng of Participatory Culture to discuss bringing the media back into the hands of the people, publishing video on the Internet, and President Bush’s pirated music. Click here to download the MP3, or you can just subscribe to the Gear Live Podcast feed. Conversely, you can now subscribe to us directly from iTunes - be sure you have version 4.9.
Voices: Andru Edwards, Tiffiniy Cheng - Participatory Culture
Length: 40:28, 23.2 MB
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Listen | Participatory Culture Interview
Gallery: Gear Live Podcast: Participatory Culture’s Tiffiniy Cheng
So, a few weeks ago I made a post where I discussed the Netzero HiSpeed 3G commercial that I saw while watching TV. I called out NetZero for the way they were promoting the service, saying that you won’t believe it isn’t broadband. I then searched their site for the Terms of Service, and posted them to Gear Live. I pointed out how it basically sped up text transfer and images. Basically, none of the things that people get broadband for in the first place - multimedia streaming, downloads, VOIP, etc. - had any different on NetZero 3G. I also stated that the 3G term was misleading, as many understand it to be a truly broadband way of transferring data. Well, Peter Delgrosso took offense to the post. He works with NetZero, and pointed out his stance on the situation. I responded, offering to review the service and give an honest opinion - he never wrote back. Below you can read our email exchange:
Hi Andru,
I would just like to clarify two points in yesterday’s NetZero HiSpeed 3G review you wrote. #1, NetZero’s claims as the fastest dial-up service on the market today have been validated by the leading software testing lab VeriTest. As a result, it does give users a broadband like feel. #2, you mention we’re only caching text, which is not accurate, the technology has been developed over the years to utilize caching and compression technologies along with other various proprietary techniques to accelerate
Web pages (HTML markup and JavaScript), graphics including JPEG and GIF images, Text, and email including POP3 and Email on the Web. If you’re interested in a trial account so you could try out the service for yourself, please just let me know. I’d be happy to arrange it. Thank you.Peter Delgrosso
VP, Corporate Communications
United Online, Inc.
My response followed:
Hi there Peter,
I was specifically referring to the terms from the NetZero HiSpeed 3G site. Looking at it, it disqualifies just about everything that people expect from broadband. Most people don’t get broadband service so that it speeds up the loading of text. It is for the music, video, and other multimedia aspects, which 3G does not support. Now, even if it isnt just caching and pre-fecthing, it still is only limited to text and images. Are the images downgraded in quality to support the higher speeds?
I would be happy to make corrections and/or let people know exactly what they can expect with the service. Heck, I would even be willing to give it a test if you would like me to. I will give it a fair shot.
Also, what does the 3G stand for? I can see many confusing that with the broadband 3G term.
Andru Edwards
Editor-in-Chief
Gear Live
Since then, I figured out that 3G stands for Third Generation. Anyone use NetZero HiSpeed 3G yet? Any thoughts?
Gallery: NetZero HiSpeed 3G Email Conversation
China is the latest country to join in the anti-spam movement started by the US and UK. The Chinese government committed to UK/US-led international efforts to combat spam by adopting the London Action Plan on Spam Enforcement Collaboration, a plan which was created in October 2004 from the first international forum that focused solely on spam. China is the second biggest source of spam, with as much as 20 percent of unsolicited emails coming from within the country.
Read More | Slashdot
Gallery: Chinese Government Joins In The Fight Against Spam
A research group form the University of Alberta is reporting that a “steady diet of spam” can actually be good for you. Researchers split more than 2,100 Canadians into two groups, with half receiving a steady stream of emails promoting a healthy lifestyle, and the other receiving none at all. After 12 weeks, the subjects receiving the “spam” saw their mean body mass index (BMI) go down, meaning it improved, while the others saw their BMI grow. The results will be published in the July/August 2005 edition of the American Journal of Health Promotion. I don’t know about you, but most of the spam I get has nothing to do with a healthy lifestyle, but either way, I’d rather just not receive any spam period. Unless of course, those “IncREa.se Y0ur sEx DrYvE!!1!” ones would produce similar…never mind.
Read More | Live Science
Gallery: Email Spam Good For You?
12 Minutes Is All It Takes To Infect A Windows Computer
Posted by Devin Categories: Internet, PC / Laptop,
The speed at which your computer can become infected has now decreased. If you’re running on Windows without the proper protection, London-based security company Sophos says 12 minutes is all it takes. The company reports 7,944 new viruses in the first half of this year, that’s a 59-percent increase over the same time last year. IBM also reports that phishing incidents have increased 226 percent. IBM’s May Global Business Security Index attributes the increase in phishing attacks to the rise of zombie “botnets” being used to pump out massive volumes of the scam e-mail used in phishing attacks, as cyber-criminals attempt to increase their profits.
Read More | Real Tech News
Gallery: 12 Minutes Is All It Takes To Infect A Windows Computer
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