Have you looked into the Firefox web browser yet? It’s free, so why not try it? I have been a diehard Netscape user for years, but I have to admit that Firefox is slowly winning me over. It seems more stable, a little bit better formatted and print jobs come out looking a lot nicer.

You may also want to read this interesting story about the creators of the program.

In relation to what I said the other day about the rising eBay fees, there is a petition online now to protest the fees going up. Is doubtful it will do any good, but it doesn’t hurt to try! So please go sign it if you have a moment.

In the continuing randomness of the things I post about, I thought today I would tackle spyware. We have all heard about it, we should all be concerned about it and all it does is eat up valuable computer resources.

Recently I paid for a tech support visit by our local computer guys because my main computer was slowing down and I was concerned I was headed for a serious problem. He came in, looked at it, downloaded a program, and boom, my comp was fixed. I had several hundred spyware programs running all over my system and it was screwing everything up.

By far, the best spyware removal program I have found is the free personal edition of AdAware. It’s free and it works…what more can you ask for? Just download it, run it and you will be amazed!

Anyone who knows me, knows that since I replaced my Commodore 64 with my first 286 12 mHz computer, I have been a die-hard PC man. Over the years though I have come to respect Apple for some of their very forward thinking. Yesterday though, they blew me away with two announcements.

I have been on the fence about the iPod since it first came out. The iPod Shuffle might very well change my mind in a hurry! Small, efficient, easy to use….oh momma! Yes, I know it’s just basically a flash stick, but man, there’s just something about it.

Then came the big one though….the Mac Mini (although I can’t stop calling it Mini Mac). $499 for the low end, $599 for the high end? DVD burner with Bluetooth fuctionality? *drool* *slobber* AWFULLY tempting I tell ya…awfully tempting.

I have been meaning to write about VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) for awhile, and decided it was finally time.

For those of you who have never heard of it, let me explain. VoIP is the method of being able to talk over the internet via your internet connection. Let me just say, if you are on a dial up connection, don’t even bother pondering this. If you have a good broadband connection though, there is no reason why you shouldn’t be looking into this! I am sure you are now asking yourself “But why should I care?” and that has an easy answer, it is dirt cheap phone calling.

There are a few different ways you can go about using this. There are pay services you can go through with either Vonage or AT&T CallVantage. These services will act like an actual phone line and have a monthly fee for having them. They will, however, give you free local and long distance phone calls and they will give you killer low rates for international calls. They also will allow you to either use special internet phones or use adapters to use your current phones.

To me though, the most exciting program is through the oddly named Skype.com. It works like an instant messenger program, but will also allow you to talk via voice to whoever else has the program. You can either use your computers built in microphone and speakers, or get a headset to use. To talk to someone else with the program is 100% free! This has been heaven sent for me as of late as I am setting up a new company with partners in various locations. It has worked like a charm for us. And if you want to call someone’s normal phone, you can do that also for about $.03 a minute. I have made numerous phone calls to regular land lines and cell phones with it, and they work with no noticeable problems. If you are going to use this program, I *highly* recommend as your headset the Plantronics DSP-100 Headset. I have purchased one for home and one for work I am so happy with it.

So do some of your own research, see what will work for you, but I really think this is the future of telephoning. Traditional land lines are going to become rarer and rarer as time goes on.

Haven’t had much to say lately…just been busy. I may geekgasm tomorrow though…NAS box! (Network Additional Storage) If we aren’t careful we may start to look like a real company!

Here’s the info on the webhost I was just talking about if anyone was interested

*steam rolls out of my ears* I love and hate Yahoo all at the same time. I have a store in their shopping mall, which I love (animeusaexpress.com), but then I have my normal website hosted by their web hosting. What an over loving nightmare that is!

Without any warning they discontinued my multiple domain names pointing to the site. All of a sudden all my advertised domain names were useless. No wonder my business was down! Then I started looking around…boy was I being ripped off something fierce! A friend (Thanks Melissa!) recommended IPowerWeb.com, wow! This looks nice! Let’s take a look at the two:

Gee….Which should I go with? And there were just the highlights! You can see the whole package deal for IPowerWeb here.

One thing I do like about blogging for sure…I can do it from anywhere. I can’t wait for my next trip to Japan so I can do updates from there instead of trying to fill everyone in when I get back.

I know, how sad, I go to Japan and I still can’t tear myself away from the computer. When you spend as much time working with one as I do nowadays, it almost feels like an extension of yourself. Luckily the hotel I stay at provides free internet hookups in a little office center with 8 comps. So I just stop in, plop myself down and get to do all my work really quick. Trust me, I don’t spend much time in there, and do spend quite a bit of time outside the hotel:)