Now this is just what the doctor ordered, a free program, Belarc Advisor,  that "builds a detailed profile of your installed software and hardware, including Microsoft Hotfixes, and displays the results in your Web browser". Pretty neat. A listing of all installed software and hardware you have on your computer. Go ahead and run it and print out the report. Prepare to be amazed at the power of free Internet software!

If you don't use Windows Update, why not? Well, maybe you've downloaded the new Microsoft Update, which does everything Windows Update did plus adds in updates for Office, Word, Excel and other Microsoft apps. Much better than the old system of getting all the various program updates separately. Download it today to replace your old Windows Update.

While on vacation I ran across Gizmo, a free Internet phone service. It is a program pretty much like Skype, which I had been planning on trying out, but Gizmo got to me first. From what I've tried out so far, the program runs pretty darn good for being in a beta stage. I've  talked from Honolulu HI to Detroit MI and Detroit MI to Tucson AZ with nary a blip. You can use speakers and a mike or even better, get yourself a headphone to wear (this is the one I have but there are ton's of different ones out there). One neat thing about Gizmo is the ability to leave a voice mail, which doesn't appear on Gizmo, but is instead sent to the recipients e-mail address as a simple wav file, that you just click on to hear. Pretty neat. Give it a try and give me a call.

Google has released a beta version of their Google Toolbar for Firefox. This is the official Google version, which is not the same as the Googlebar Firefox extension that has been available for quite a while (and works flawlessly). They are both googlyicious and foxylicious :)