Web Sites:

Facebook
This social networking portal is a great way to stay connected with your friends and family.  It lets you build a profile page, upload photos and videos, post blog entries and join groups based on your interests, all for free.  It also has some fun online games you can play to collect points which you can spend on "virtual" stuff.  Be fore-warned, however: It's very addictive.

Click on the following buttons to check out our profiles: *
  

* You'll have to create a free account first

QuickTime Movie Trailers
I thoroughly enjoy movies, and what better way to check out the coolness factor of films coming out than to watch trailers?   This site has fresh content all the time, and allows you to view the trailers in multiple sizes and resolutions.

Kids-In-Mind.com
Movie reviews that give the candid, straight-forward skinny on offensive content (sex and nudity, violence and gore, and profanity) using a 10 point rating system. This web site has been invaluable when deciding which movies are acceptable for viewing in the theater and which ones to avoid entirely.

Del.icio.us
Delicious is a social bookmarking service that allows users to tag, save, manage and share web pages from a centralized source.  The site emphasizes the power of the community and greatly improves how people discover, remember and share on the Internet.

Specific things you can do with Delicious include the following:

• Bookmark any site on the Internet, and get to it from anywhere
• Share your bookmarks, and get bookmarks in return
• Discover the most useful and interesting bookmarks on the Web

Pandora
I love to listen to music while I work, but I hate commercials.  This web site ROCKS...  It allows you to specify your favorite musical genres and artists, and streams tunes based on those preferences with limited commercials.  It also has a feature which allows you to indicate whether or not you like a specific song, and plays new music similar to those artists and songs you've previously rated favorably.  It actually learns what you like, and responds accordingly.  You can set up "stations" based on your chosen genre, and even create a "QuickMix" combining different genres for variety.  Best of all - it's 100% free!  How cool is that?!?  Check it out...  It's a must-use site for every music lover.  If you want commercial-free music and even higher-quality sound you can purchase an annual subscription to "Pandora One" for just $36 per year.

Flash Games Arcade
I've scoured the Web for fun, classic Flash games.  Click the link above for a list of games you can play right from this web site!

Products/Services:

ClearPlay
Seeing a trend here?  Yeah... I really do like to watch movies.  What I don't like is all of the inappropriate junk that most of today's motion pictures contain.  During the last couple of years the Holy Spirit has really been convicting me about how important it is to fill my mind with wholesome things.  (Read Philippians 4:8 for more on this).  ClearPlay is awesome because it lets you have your cake and eat it too.  It's a DVD player that uses a removable USB hard drive containing filters based on categories of objectionable content (violence, sex and nudity, and language).  These filters skip or mute all such material based on how sensitively you've configured the device.  It's completely customizable, and the filters are regularly updated.  This allows you to download the updates to your USB drive, plug it into the ClearPlay DVD player, and watch the latest titles without violating your conscience.

Redbox
I used to swear by Hollywood Video for all my video rentals.  Then I moved and it was no longer convenient, so I switched to using Blockbuster.  $4.00 to rent a movie for 5 days, with a great selection of new releases and a few oldies.  At the time I thought that was pretty cool...  Then they put a Redbox machine inside the Albertsons right near my house, and I converted.  New release films on DVD for only $1.00 per day, and you can return them to any Redbox machine in town.  What a great deal!  Now I can rent four movies for the price of one "traditional" rental.  Not only that — you can check availability of the movie you want by location, then reserve it online using their web site and pick it up when you get there. Very cool.

Microsoft LifeCam VX-5000
If you want to do any instant messaging or web conferencing then you will need a nice webcam.  We research the dickens out of everything before we buy it and never buy junk.  This webcam is the best product of its kind on the market for its price point.  The camera has really high quality video that auto-adjusts for low-light conditions (a problem with most webcams).  It also has a built-in, unidirectional microphone with acoustic noise cancellation and echo cancellation that puts out crystal-clear audio.  You simply cannot buy a better webcame for less than $50.  Click on the link above to buy it from Amazon.com at an extremely good price.  If you want even better audio/video you might be interested in the VX-5000's cousin, the LifeCam Cinema.  It boasts 720p HD widescreen video with ClearFrame Technology for smooth, detailed video and an aluminum body for durability.

Software (All Free!):

AVG Anti-Virus
I can not under-state how important it is to have good anti-virus protection for your computer.  If you use the Internet  at all  then you must have software to protect yourself from viruses, spyware, and malware.  AVG is among the best software of its kind available, and they offer a free version for non-commercial use.

CCleaner
Your computer is just like a car in that it requires routine maintenance to keep it running at peak efficiency.  Even the most high-end computer, if neglected, will eventually run like a slow dinosaur over time.  CCleaner is an incredible PC-tuning and diagnostic tool that will keep your computer running like a well-oiled machine.  Once you've installed the software download my PC Tune-Up Maintenance Checklist for Windows XP to make your PC run like new.

KeePass Password Safe
These days it seems like we have a million different passwords we have to remember... A password for every web site we purchase products from, a password for our computer, a password for online banking. The list is endless. If you're a responsible  computer user then you don't just reuse the same password for everything. Doing so negates the point of having a password in the first place, because if someone finds out what it is then they have access to EVERYTHING. I don't know about you, but my memory isn't good enough to remember all of my passwords (I literally have dozens of them). What is the solution? KeePass! It is open source software (100% free) and it acts like a secure safe for your passwords. It stores all of them in a database that is encrypted with the highest level of security available. You enter all of your passwords into it, and set a "master key" to lock it down. Then, when you want to open it you just type the master key in and all of your passwords are available.

OpenOffice
Most people are familiar with Microsoft Office because it is the standard office productivity software suite used by almost everyone with a computer.  If your machine doesn't come with  Microsoft Office, however, then you must purchase it.  Depending on which combination of programs you need, this can be expensive.  There is a free alternative!  OpenOffice Sun Microsystems includes all the same components without the price tag: word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, drawing and database capabilities. It is capable of producing and opening Microsoft Office files and it works great!

CutePDF Writer
Portable Document Format (PDF) is the de facto standard for the secure and reliable distribution and exchange of electronic documents and forms around the world.  This software allows you to create PDF documents from any other file format quickly and easily for free.

7-Zip
The ZIP file format is a data compression and archival format.  A ZIP file contains one or more files that have been compressed and packaged into one file to reduce the overall size of every file in the package.  People use this format in order to share multiple files easily, and it comes in especially handy with e-mail attachments.  There are several different programs capable of creating ZIP archives, including WinRAR and WinZip, but they aren't free, while 7-Zip is!

Skype
How would you like to have a conversation — including audio and video — with a family member or close friend in another state and not have to pay for long distance?  Well now you can!  For free!  Skype uses your Internet connection and allows you to make calls (using your computer) to any other Skype user.  The software is free and so is the service.  I've used Skype to call my parents-in-law several times and the quality is unbelievably good...  Even better than MSN Messenger.  To get the highest benefit from Skype you should have high-speed, broadband Internet service.  Most areas have this available for $50/month or less and it's well worth it.  Skype also allows you to call regular numbers like cell phones and landlines for a small fee.  If you have contacts in another country you can also make international calls for pennies on the dollar of what it would cost you to use a traditional phone.

PhotoScape
If you have a computer and take photos you have GOT TO download this software.  It is like a Swiss Army knife of software for photo editing and management.  It allows you to view photos, create slideshows and collages, batch edit multiple pictures and retouch photos or edit as needed to improve them...  Specific photo-editing features include resizing, adjusting color and brightness, backlight correction, cropping, applying filters to create artistic effects and even red eye removal.  This program is a real gem that my wife discovered when searching for software to help manage our thousands of family photos.  It includes an impressive set of features for software that's free.