Out of the Woods

Time to work on your decision

If you have managed to ignore all talk so far about the upcoming presidential election, I commend you from a particular standpoint. How on earth can you tune out something as important as that? Do you have the new Bose BodyPhone, which enables a person to completely shut off the real world entirely? I thought the BodyPhone was only in prototype?

Anyway, now is your chance to get back into the mix. Even if you know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about who you want to vote for, rest assured that I can help. Er, I guess I won't help as much as Know Your Vote will.

The site is a great place to start because of its organization. There are separate pages for important issues, separate pages for the candidates and also links to sites with additional information. In 10-15 minutes, you may not know everything about every candidate, but you should at least have a start for who should be in office in 2008.

Put the BodyPhone away until 2009 ... there will be plenty to ignore after the election.

Kung-Fu your way to presidency

It's election time again, and this is a big one. I'm not just talking about the Big Mac/Whopper taste test (Who won that vote anyway?). Americans will elect a new president in 2008, and the caucuses have already begun. But there's another way that you, a citizen of the United Internets of the Galaxy, can participate.

Check out AtomFilms' Kung-Fu Election, which pits each primary candidate against one another. Each player comes equipped with his/her own special weapon, moves and in the extreme cases, a hat. Besides an obstacle course, this might be the best way to have each contestant compete in an overall contest. "Running Man," anyone?

Oh, that's right, Arnold is the Governator. Don't forget to vote when that time comes, and don't forget to crush your opponents in Kung-Fu Election.

This just in ... everything on the Internet is NOT TRUE!

Have you ever used a search engine to find medical advice? I have plenty of times. I'm not sure too many people who can read this article haven't used it, whether it be for checking flu symptoms or making sure you don't have the Bubonic Plague.

But checking for health answers on YouTube? It seems to be a stretch, but according to a press release from the University of Toronto, people do it, with surprising results. The release reports that 45 percent of 153 analyzed videos contradict the 2006 Canadian Immunization Guide on a range of childhood vaccinations.

Without having all of the videos or the immunization guide handy, it's hard to say what this means. Furthermore, if the videos were created for entertainment purposes or spoofs, then this wouldn't be shocking anyway. And the main message behind this is that people should look elsewhere for medical information.

But seriously, who would even think that looking on YouTube would be a great way to find answers about an illness? My general theory behind self-diagnosis is to check multiple sources via Google, possibly the Wikipedia, and make judgement on what's right and what's wrong. And if I'm feeling bad enough, I'll schedule a doctor's appointment.

You can't get all of your answers online, but do you think that every doctor knows everything about medicine? But there is a definite distinction between doing your research in a library and doing your research in the circus. For the sake of humanity, I would hope that people know this, and that the University of Toronto is making much ado about nothing. It's making me sick just thinking about it.

Book review: "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair

Nearly everyone I have talked to has heard of Upton Sinclair, a muckraker at the turn of the 20th Century. And more often than that, people have heard of "The Jungle," one of his masterpieces. Yet I have not encountered a single person who has read the book, nor anyone who knows more about the book than its focus on the meat-packing industry.

True, Sinclair goes into vivid detail regarding one of the main meat production plants in Chicago in the early 1900s. Many of his descriptions are too grotesque to start to explain here, although I'm sure you can gather what the general gist of his writings may have contained. In fact, the novel led to new legislation for checks and balances between the government and the food industry with the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906.

Even still, I do not think this is the primary reason the book is not read more often than it is. The last third of the book is devoted to Sinclair's ideas on So******m and the reasons this could cure America's problems. His information is biased, no doubt, but it is valuable nonetheless. Unfortunately, with the capitalistic society that surrounds the U.S., any evidence that a strong government is the sole answer is sure to be thwarted by nearly everyone in charge.

Is this a good thing? It depends on who is answering the question. Corporations should not be allowed to take advantage of its employees. Governments should not be allowed to take advantage of its citizens. Both do, in more respects than can be described here. It's coincidental that the problems exposed in "The Jungle" are eerily similar to those of many large corporations today. You may argue they are completely different because the meatpacking plants were obviously endangering society.

And you don't think 100 years from now, the same things will be said of numerous businesses today?

Check out Ben's book, The Developers (The easiest thing to find on the Internet: crazy people.), which is now in stores across the country. Send comments and suggestions to info@benwoods.com.

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Government ordered to save emails

Remember that email you sent to the random senator about spending money to build igloos in the desert? The bad news is that I don't think the interest groups can raise the $200 million you need for research funds. The good news is that the email could be read again 60 years from now and will never be deleted.

I should say that it's not supposed to be deleted, as a federal judge has ordered the White House to keep every email it receives, including, obviously, real estate e-newsletters and many other spam messages. Maybe they should just save the important emails. But hey, who is in charge of deciding which emails are important?

The government could potentially create a new division called the Electronic Communication Consortium, where a handful of individuals use the Email Importance Ranking Quotient to determine is all emails in a specific mail box could be thrown out. Since many officials surely receive hundreds, maybe thousands of emails a day, each state representative should be assigned a person dedicated solely to weeding out spam messages, as well as archiving communications that should be saved for further use.

Not only should they create electronic backups on a regular basis, but each constituent will need to print out hard copies of any email determined to be "Meaningful," as defined by the ECC. These particular messages should be filed away in binders by person, each year, and kept in a safe storage location, just in case the backups fail.

In the event of disk failure for the backups, we will also need to create backups of the hard copies. While using a Xerox machine may do the trick, second-generation copies could easily become unreadable. the government could also hire a set of e-scribes to copy, by hand, all of the communications that are captured within the e-binders. The newest duplicates need to be kept in a humidity-controlled room so that the integrity of the original document will remain intact.

Of course, besides typed emails, it's feasible that government officials will receive numerous attachments, images, videos, etc. These items will be captured by a select group of artists who will also be hired to maintain the library.

Luckily, there's a decent chance that the scribes and artists will not need to be hired, assuming that the backups do not fail. To counteract a possible failure, a hire of computer technicians and security officers will be in full control of the email storage location. The only people they are allowed to let near the computers where the backups are being created are those individuals who are in charge of the backup drives and DVDs to be used.

The storage facility of the email hard copies will probably be located away from D.C., perhaps in the Southwest. Experts say that by storing in a remote location, there's a greater chance of keeping the e-vault concealed by anyone who would want to obtain such important documents as real estate e-newsletters. The proposed structure for the warehouse of electronic communications will have thick, segmented walls, which may resemble an igloo.

Book review: "Return from a Comatose Mind" by Jason Deierlein

In general, I'm not a huge fan of inspirational books. I think that people have become enamored with novels like these because they need motivation to make something out of their lives. But, more times than not, once they've put the book away, they revert back to their usual lives and don't make any changes. Not only that, but many inspirational books are too shallow and bland to reach the surface of giving people hope.

Enter Jason Deierlein and his new book "Return from a Comatose Mind." Deierllein doesn't need to convolute his story by embellishing the novel topic. He was in a horrific automobile accident, after which he was stuck in a coma for a few months before finally waking up. His book chronicles the journey before, during and after the coma, complete with as many honest descriptions as possible.

There's nothing overly complex about the novel. The proverbial moral of the story is to enjoy the life you have, instead of being happy about the things you do not have. While it's easy to just say something like this, it's not always practical to live this way for some people. It's a shame that tragedies oftentimes are the only things that help people realize how to live life to the fullest. Jason Deierlein wants people to learn from his experiences, without going through a similar ordeal that he had to endure.

Check out Ben's book, The Developers (The easiest thing to find on the Internet: crazy people.), which is now in stores across the country. Send comments and suggestions to info@benwoods.com.

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Friendster automatically re-inviting your friends

I have joined a fair number of social networking websites, primarily to see how each works differently. I rarely send invites through these websites, although I did a number of years ago when I initially joined Friendster.

Now I realize why that was a bad idea, because Friendster re-invites those individuals on an automated basis. It's clearly spelled out in the privacy policy:

Friendster stores this email address for the purpose of: (i) automatically adding the respondent to the "friends list" of the Member sending the invitation; (ii) sending reminders of the invitation and (iii) sending emails on recent updates by the Member on Friendster to the Member's invited friend.

To me, Friendster is stepping out of bounds with this. If I invite a friend, I don't think they should be inundated by continued emails. If I send you an invitation to a party, and don't respond, do you think you would respond after I send another three or four? Furthermore, the emails sent to your invitees appear to be coming from YOUR email address, not Friendster, which makes it seem that you are spamming your friends with Friendster messages.

The biggest surprise is that even if you just imported your address book to send invites, but never actually sent them, Friendster sends them on a periodic basis. I know this because I have support@palm.com in my address book. Would I ever invite this email address to join Friendster? I suppose if I were really desperate for friends, maybe. I know that Friendster is sending emails on my behalf because I received an auto-response from support@palm.com that contained the original Friendster auto-invite. Another friend who I never invited to Friendster also forwarded the recent email she received.

"If you invite someone to join your friends network on Friendster, they'll receive an email invitation," says Jeff Roberto, Friendster's director of PR and marketing, in a recent email. "If they do not join Friendster, they'll receive two email reminders over the next 60 days (and they can opt-out at any time). Additionally, if you are active on Friendster in a given week (updating your profile, adding a photo, updating your blog, etc.), they will receive a "What's New with You" email sharing your recent activity with them (remember, these only go to people that you know - you have invited them to join you on Friendster - and that have a "pending invite" still active in your account on Friendster). They can opt-out of that email at any time, and you can delete their "pending invite" to also stop the process."

Roberto also states that if you upload your address book and do not invite specific individuals to join Friendster, nothing will ever be sent to those users. I've requested additional information regarding why some of my uninvited email addresses have been sent automatic emails, but Roberto still says that those addresses must have been invited at some point.

If you have a Friendster account, you should remove everyone from your invite list. Also, I think it's worth putting pressure on Friendster to change its privacy policy to not send out automatic invitations. I'm surprised no one has experienced this issue before, but I have a feeling that if the company doesn't address it, they won't have a site much longer worth inviting people to.

I've sent my email to Friendster. Click here to send a similar email to the social networking site.

Check out Ben's book, The Developers (The easiest thing to find on the Internet: crazy people.), which is now in stores across the country. Send comments and suggestions to info@benwoods.com.

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Congrats, my book is now in your Amazon shopping cart!

I've been a computer programmer for quite some time now, but I've never actually been to a programming conference of any sort. That has changed now that I'm attending the DC PHP Conference on Nov. 7-9. The first day of events went about as I expected, considering that there's a lot I need to learn about the tools I use at my current job.

And to top it off, the first speaker, PHP and web application security expert Chris Shiflett, talked about an Amazon.com bug that is easy to exploit. It's a pretty simple one: without doing a thing, you can add a book to someone's Amazon shopping cart.

You don't believe me, do you? Assuming you have an Amazon account, go check your shopping cart. It's a pretty safe bet that you will see "The Developers" in your cart. I bet you're wondering how I did it? Well, I guess you'll have to go to the conference to find out ... maybe next year.

The funny thing is that Shiflett noticed this error more than a year ago and contacted Amazon about it immediately. They chose not to fix it, so he decided to post it on his website. Even still, the company hasn't fixed the issue, as evidence by the script on this page that adds my book to your shopping cart.

This should teach you two important lessons. First, if you shop online, make sure you check your shopping cart before checking out. Secondly, some companies don't care as much about programming concerns as they should. Pretty sad, but I'm guessing Amazon assumes that if someone wants to exploit the problem, the company will profit, as it will be an additional sale.

And trust me, Amazon makes a lot more off you buying my book than I do. But I like trying new ways to sell books.

Book review: "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave"

They say that if you believe enough in something, and have enough persistence to see it through to the end, then regardless of the circumstances, it will be accomplished.

I have a hard time indisputably believing this. However, after reading "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave," it's tough to deny the plausibility of the above statement actually being true.

To put it bluntly, Frederick Douglass had virtually zero chance to survive. He was intended to be a slave for life. Through a series of events, however, he came to the conclusion that by receiving an education, he may have a chance, albeit slim, to lead life as a free man.

To achieve learning at all costs, Douglass made his way through various terrains, people and incidents, any of which could have ended his life, or at the very least, his crusade. Instead, he somehow managed to adapt and succeed at nearly every turn. And even when he was knocked down, he found a way to have the last laugh in the end.

I could go into specific details, but in such a brief column, it would be impossible to do them justice. There are multiple reasons I would recommend this book. First, if you've ever felt as if you could not do something, you should put yourself in Douglass' shoes for an instant. You would be hard-pressed to be in a more difficult situation than he.

Second, and most important, is the emphasis on education that Douglass cherished during his lifetime. Being able to grow through learning is such a critical item for every human being, yet many of us take it for granted, or even worse, have the notion that it really doesn't matter. It's not just about answering questions on a test or about a passing grade in school, though. What it's really about is reading or observing a person and/or a situation and understanding what is occurring.

Once you start to collect the knowledge of the world around you, there's no limit as to what you can do. Frederick Douglass was an example of this, and to take him for anything less than an example of a great human being would be a completely injustice.

Check out Ben's book, The Developers (The easiest thing to find on the Internet: crazy people.), which is now in stores across the country. Send comments and suggestions to info@benwoods.com.

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Build and share your virtual bookshelf

You can learn a lot about people by finding out what types of books they like. In the past, that meant grilling them on what they had read, what they own, etc. Maybe they remember every book they have ever seen, but most likely, unless you come up with a title and/or author, they'll have no clue if you spout off about a book they love.

Enter Shelfari, a quasi social networking site that does some of the hard work for you. The co-founders, Josh Hug and Kevin Beukelman, explained at the 2007 NYC Book Expo that having a virtual bookshelf allows a person to show off your own library to anyone who wants to see it. The best part, I think, is that you don't have to give people tours of your living quarters to do it.

You can add books by searching on the title, author, subject or ISBN. You can tag books, create a top 10 list and even put your self on a blog or other social networking sites (I've included my shelf here). The interface is pretty intuitive, although I have run into a few glitches here and there.

Shelfari is a fairly new site, and with new sites, there are always new things being added. The nice thing about adding books to your shelf is that you can instantly see what other users are saying about those books. Maybe a friend mentioned that you should read a certain novel, but your friend couldn't give too much more information about it. True, you can do a web search for the particular book, but how will you remember to come back to it, when you're actually ready to read?

There are some things on the site that could be improved. From what I can tell, you really don't have the ability to change which four friends appear on your home page. A search probably shouldn't pull up every record at once, but maybe group them by 10 or 25 at a time. Overall, though, there's not a whole lot I would change to the functionality, at least, at this stage.

The only reason I mention this is a quasi social networking site is because the main objective isn't to collect friends. Your goal is to collect books. The more books you have, the more friends you'll have, right?

Check out Ben's latest book, The Developers (The easiest thing to find on the Internet: crazy people.), which is now in stores across the country. Send comments and suggestions to info@benwoods.com.

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Using a keyboard without using your hands

Typing is obviously an essential part of utilizing a computer. Without it, a person would have a difficult time accessing websites, creating documents and sending email. Fortunately, those individuals who cannot use a standard keyboard now have an alternative.

The lomak, which stands for Light Operated Mouse and Keyboard, allows people to type by moving a sensor attached to either their hands or heads. All of the normal keyboard options are arranged in circular fashion, giving easy access to letters, numbers, arrow keys, etc. A "Confirm" button resides in the middle of all three keystroke circles. To operate, a person would point the light sensor to the key of choice, then also point to the "Confirm" button.

The idea seems intuitive enough, although maybe a bit cumbersome. Then again, so does attempting to type messages on a cellphone, which some people have no problem doing, either. Whether or not the lomak catches on as the definitive standard for fingerless keyboards is difficult to determine. However, there's no question that it can be seen as a viable to solution for individuals who do not have the capability of finger typing.

Book review: "The Joy of Work" by Scott Adams

Dilbert has been one of the funniest comics for as long as I can remember. The reason, in my opinion, is that creator Scott Adams combines everyday work situations with unexpected conclusions, at least, in the eyes of a staunch businessperson. What it comes down to is that you can find humor in anything, especially those things where the people who are the most funny are the ones who either have no sense of humor or have no idea that anything humorous is even taking place.

Some of these answers appear in The Joy of Work gives in-depth knowledge regarding how Adams derives his daily comics. Not only that, but it gives insight into how you, too, can get more out of work without doing much work, or in some cases, no work. You'll also find anecdotes from others trapped in the corporate world who have taken matters into their own hands to find happiness in their respective cubes.

Adams isn't just a good cartoonist; his writing keeps readers entertained, and like the Dilbert strip, he relates to a wide variety of individuals. What I like most about this book is that he really does lend a hand to those people who may be humor deficient. Following his array of ideas and instructions could potentially make your work environment tolerable!

Then again, some of that depends on what type of people you have as upper management in your company. If they are funny and likable, you are set. If they are completely clueless, you'll be OK as well. If they are smart and mean, then ... why are you still working there in the first place?

Mix your music with GarageBand

Attention Windows shoppers: You may want to glaze over the next few paragraphs, because this isn't for you.

It is, however, for music lovers who wish to create your own beats on a Mac. I have been using GarageBand for a month or so, and I'm pretty confident that I have the next album to go platinum stored right here on my machine. OK, maybe it's not that good, but at the very least, it's fun to make your own mixes.

The best thing is how simple it is to get started. You can select a few background beats and also hit a few notes on the keyboard. You can transform your basic keyboard into an actual piano keyboard (well, at least a little more than an octave), or you may choose to just bang out a few notes with the mouse.

Also, you can import your existing songs and/or sound bytes to create new music. My latest hit, "Dolphins at Work," combines Men at Work's "Down Under" with dolphin sounds. I know what you're saying: "Huh?"

Unfortunately, this program is for Macs only right now. There was talk a while ago about making it available for the PC. But according to this website, nothing new has been accomplished. This is yet another reason to trash that PC and get a Mac! Or you can definitely find mixing software for your machine ... but I have no idea what is good and what isn't. I'm too busy looking for more dolphin sounds to finish my song.

Check out Ben's latest book, The Developers (The easiest thing to find on the Internet: crazy people.), which is now in stores across the country. Send comments and suggestions to info@benwoods.com.

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Censoring live concerts

If you're AT&T, and you want to convince the American public that you can be responsible for handling the bulk of broadbrand traffic, cutting out parts of live music might not be your best idea.

But that's exactly what happened during the recent Pearl Jam's "Blue Room" Live Lollapalooza Webcast. The event monitor muted anti-George Bush lyrics, which left fans no option but to listen to a censored version of the concert.

Because AT&T had exclusive rights to the performance, the company could do what it wants to do. But blocking political speech to listeners probably isn't the best way to make friends in America, considering that it's guaranteed in the Constitution.

AT&T has apologized, but something like this just perpetuates the importance of Net Neutrality. If a handful of large corporations are in charge of Internet connectivity, Big Brother will be in control.

Computer programming is not just for geeks anymore

Instead of saying, "Look at this cool thing I found on the Internet!" what if you could say, "Look at this cool thing I made on the Internet!"

On top of that, you don't have to have an extensive history with programming languages, either.

Introducing Scratch, which allows you to create interactive stories, animations, games, art, etc., through what amounts to a graphic user interface. The program, developed by MIT, is designed for children ages 8 and up to learn math and computers, but at the same time, develop the ability to understand the idea of how programs work.

I will be taking a test drive of Scratch in the upcoming future. Until then, try it out for yourself, and if you do anything cool, let me know and I'll add your work in my next article. It works on both a PC and Mac, so there's no excuses for not giving it a chance.

Book review: "Ficciones" by Jorge Luis Borges

When I read a bad book, I finish it, even if it takes me forever. If I read a good book, I want to keep reading it, as much as possible, until I'm at the ending.

Somehow, Ficciones, by Jorge Luis Borges, didn't persuade me to do either of the above, but rather, it makes me want to read it again. From that perspective, I guess I'd have to call it a book better than good.

But to quantify what I liked, however, might be somewhat difficult. When I first started reading it, I thought the short stories included were true. But as I dove deeper into the content, I realized that would be impossible, primarily due to the nature of said context. The stories make you think about things that you have either never thought about, or that you may have accidentally dreamt before. For instance, would there be a way to create a book that contained every possible combination of words? Or, what if a book were really a labyrinth, and it were feasible to get completely lost within the pages?

I cannot do Ficciones justice by even attempting to discuss it. The compilation of short stories isn't too long, and it's definitely something that I'll read again, especially the parts that both tickled my brain and also the sections that complicated life even more so then it already is.

Compromise might be in store for Internet radio

The deadline has past, but Internet radio is still on. Maybe it will stay that way for a little while longer.

Negotiations are still rolling since SoundExchange, which is the overseer of recording industry royalty fees, agreed to continue searching for new rates. The biggest issue, it seems, is coming to a suitable compromise between large and small webcasters. It appears that some of the major players, like Time Warner and Yahoo! will have to pay the royalties, just like everyone else.

Whether or not it plays out that way, it is definitely too early to tell. At the very least, there is a hope a deal can be reached in the near future. This means that the music may continue to play yet another day.

Take a break, paint and dance!

It's late in the week. You are probably fretting even starting work today. Sounds to me like you need a little break. What I'm about to show you may mystify or confuse you. But remember, it's for your own good.

Time to visit ROXIK | PICTAPS. If you click on the "Paint!" button, you will have the ability to create an avatar that dances. Or, you can just watch some of the samples the site already has available. Regardless, make sure to turn up the music as load as possible.

If this doesn't make you relax and escape real work for a moment, you could be beyond help!

Check out Ben's latest book, The Developers (The easiest thing to find on the Internet: crazy people.) , which is now in stores across the country. Send comments and suggestions to info@benwoods.com.

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Microsoft outdid the others again ... with cheesiest promo videos ever

I am not considered a big fan of Microsoft by any stretch of the imagination, so if you are, I hope you will realize I'm trying to be unbiased as I talk about one of the lamest things I've ever seen online. And no, I'm not talking about the Internet Pizza.

Back in the '90s, Microsoft apparently made promo videos for its products. What exactly they were thinking when they made the videos for MS-DOS 5 and Windows 386, I have absolutely no idea. I can think of no time during the history of our planet where either of these videos would have been acceptable.

Then again, Bill Gates does have more money than me, so maybe he does know what he's doing.

How to make a website

Really, it's not that difficult anymore! I thought about putting together an entire list of things that you need to remember. But that won't be necessary anymore. I can just link you to this short movie, and you can get started immediately.

Arcade games are bad! Well, at least the ones that break arms

If you ever had grandiose ideas about becoming a professional arm wrestler, and defeating numerous arm-wrestling machines in the process, you should probably put your dream on hold.

Since three players recently broke their arms playing Arm Spirit, Japanese game maker Atlas has decided to remove all 150 of its machines from arcades.

I'm sure your parents are reminding you on a daily basis the evils of video games. I'd have to say that playing the Wii or even the arcade version of Galaga probably would not result in a broken arm.

If you are interested in arm wrestling, try against a friend, or maybe arm curls at the gym. Just don't drop the weights on your toes.

Book review: "Baseball Between the Numbers" by The Baseball Prospectus Team of Experts

We are inching closer to the pennant chases, and we have already seen Barry Bonds break Hank Aaron's home run record. Still, there's a lot more to solve in the world of baseball right now.

How can some teams spend a ton of money for a cellar-dwelling result? How do other teams build a thrifty team and manage to thrive?

Some of these answers appear in Baseball Between the Numbers, which contains a compilation of studies regarding different game facets. There are chapters devoted to relief pitchers ("Are Teams Letting Their Closers Go to Waste?"), managers ("Is Joe Torre a Hall of Fame Manager?"), situational hitting ("When Is One Run Worth More Than Two?"), high school draft picks ("What Happened to Todd Van Poppel?") and many more.

As a lifelong baseball enthusiast, I thought the book was a great look at some of the more intriguing items that happen inside and outside a game. The novel is chocked with stats, so if you are into that sort of thing, you'll get the maximum out of it. However, you don't need to be a math genius to enjoy the book ... you need to be only a baseball fan.

Check out Ben's latest book, The Developers (The easiest thing to find on the Internet: crazy people.), which is now in stores across the country. Send comments and suggestions to info@benwoods.com.

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Photoshop is not a verb

Photoshop is not a verb!

I've photoshopped a few files in my time. What? I can't say that? Oh great. I've just used the term "Photoshop" illegally.

According to Adobe Systems Incorporated Terms of Use, there are specific ways to use Photoshop. No, not the actual program, but just the word for it. Yes Adobe, we understand that trademarks are important for corporations and the identity of products.

Unfortunately, you do not have control over terms, if they become generic enough. If I say, "Can I have a coke with my meal?" that could refer to a number of carbonated beverages. Coca-Cola may be happy or sad that the name of its biggest soft drink is used in that fashion. Apparently, Adobe is going to try to stop its Photoshop app from the same fortune.

And I'm going to guess that the company will fail at this.

Naming your new company

Do you have a great idea for a new invention? Do you have the perfect business plan to make millions? Do you have the means to bring peace to the world and bring a fortune to yourself?

I have good news for you: You don't need any of that to start The Next Big Thing. The only thing you need is a name for your new company. And here's the better news: You don't even need to come up with that on your own. Just try the Web 2.0 Company Name Generator. In mere seconds, you'll have the greatest selection of names since the advent of the Internet.

Of course, you will need a bit more than just a name. You'll need a domain name as well. Guess what: You don't have to come up with that on your own, either! The Dot-o-mator can create a domain name for you.

So basically, I have just given you the tools you need to become the next Bill Gates. Don't forget to look me up when you strike it rich.

Free phone for your computer?

A large portion of people, including me, have tossed away a home land line in favor of just using a cell phone. Of course, that can be problematic on occasion, especially if your cell phone service is bad.

There might a remedy available, even without going through on of your local telecom companies. Gizmo (not to be confused with the little guy on "Gremlins" touts itself as a free phone for your computer.

Saying that it's free is a bit of a stretch, unless you are placing calls to others using the system. There are different plans to utilize, but the only thing that doesn't cost a dime is a call to another Gizmo user.

I suppose that means if everyone is using it, then it would, indeed, be free. I've signed up and played around a bit with it, but it's not really viable if no one else I know is on it.

Maybe I'll just wait until that occurs. Until that time, I'm stuck with my cell phone service, which isn't to bad right now anyway.

Learning the guitar made easier

Let me stop you first before you begin reading this brief story. This isn't a tale about how a 6-year-old became so good at the video game "Guitar Hero" that he is now joining the Led Zepplin revival tour.

While "Guitar Hero" is an option for someone who is mildly interested in the guitar, it's not going to be a "Stairway to Heaven" and teach actual chords and music. A Fretlight Guitar, however, could be the answer to teaching yourself how to play.

From the website, the product is a real, six-string electric guitar that uses an interactive light system, which enables the player to learn notes, scales, chords, etc. It comes with initial software to get started, and there are numerous other applications (both PC and Mac) that work with the system as well.

A video game is much, much cheaper, as the guitar models run $400-900. In the end, it comes down to whether or not you want to learn the instrument, or you just want to play around. If you're ready for the real stage, Fretlight might be your next step.

Check out Ben's latest book, The Developers (The easiest thing to find on the Internet: crazy people.) , which is now in stores across the country. Send comments and suggestions to info@benwoods.com.

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