The Best of Everything in Tech (2009 Edition)

Reader's Choice: The Best in Service and Reliability

Editors' Choice

Best of the Year

Technical Excellence

Best of the Decade

Top 100 Free Apps for Your Phone

The Best Office Printers

The Best Business Networking Products

Best Projectors for Under $1,000

The 20 Best Free PC Games

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE

 

Gizmo's Freeware 2009 Product of the Year: Our Users' Choice

Here at Gizmos Freeware we have been selecting an annual freeware product of the year for the last five years. Normally we make the selection ourselves but this year we have also asked our readers to nominate their choice for the BEST FREEWARE PRODUCT of 2009.

How the New Facebook Privacy Settings Work

If you don't know, as of today, Facebook will automatically start plunging the Earth into the Sun. To change this option, go to Settings --> Planetary Settings --> Trajectory then UN-CLICK the box that says 'Apocalypse.' Facebook kept this one quiet. Copy and paste onto your status for all to see. We must all work together to save the world.

Yes, big changes have come to Facebook, but not quite this profound. You should have noticed by now prominent notifications that privacy settings on the social network have changed.

The 20 Dumbest Questions on Yahoo Answers

From startlingly ignorant PC questions to appalling displays of sexual confusion, people have some pretty strange problems--and the depth of their cluelessness is nowhere more evident than on the pages of Yahoo Answers.

 

The Top 100 Tech Products of 2009 - Computer Shopper

The past year was an eventful one in technology. We saw laptops continue to shrink and reduce in price, with netbooks taking over a huge part of the market. And standard laptops reacted by becoming slimmer, lighter, and cheaper. And speaking of cheaper, just about every category of tech went though a budget overhaul. 

The Top 100 Tech Products of 2009
Laptops, netbooks, all-in-one PCs, and way more: Our editors pick the best tech they tested this year.
Click to see the whole guide.

Click to see the best desktops.
Click to see the best laptops and netbooks.
Click to see the best software.
Click to see the best printers.
Click to see the best PC components and upgrades.
Click to see the best PC peripherals and LCD monitors.
Click to see the best networking products.
Click to see the best cameras and HDTVs.
Click to see the best mobile gear.
Click to see the Product and Technology of the Year.
Click to see a full list of the winners.
 

Luggage Limits

FREE Search Tool for Flight-Specific Baggage Information

Detailed baggage allowance information is available on all routes and ticket classes for over 100 airlines! All of the information you need to avoid expensive airline luggage fees is provided along with helpful airport specific links.

Free Online Photo Editor

Get creative with the FREE online photo editor and do your quick fix with the image express! Jump in and get going within 2 seconds! 

 

Perfect songs for Christmas

The music is one of my favorite parts of Christmas. There are so many classic songs. When you hear your favorite, you can’t help but smile. It’s the best way to get in the spirit of the season.

I’ve found some great Christmas performances. I love every one of them. But there’s at least one song here for everyone.

Create Your Own Website

The cost and complexity of creating your own website depends on what you want to do with it, and how well you want to do it. Let's start with what you want to do.

New Google Features Cut Down on Search Time

Google on Friday added a few new search features intended to provide you with the fastest possible access to your queries.
Universal search has been added to Google Suggest. Type in "weather in nyc," for example, and Google displays the weather for the next few days in the drop-down suggestions box. The company also provides answers to certain types of queries, such as flight status (type "delta 140"), city capitals, and weight and money conversions. More features will be added soon.

Best Free Firewall

No other freeware product causes as much angst to users, whether in installation or day-to-day use, as a firewall. To find a stable and high quality firewall for windows often involves a process of trial and error. Firewalls should protect while not being too intrusive or too complicated to handle. This article gives you a selection of the best free software firewalls available.

You'll Shoot Your Eye Out

Star in one of the greatest stories ever told about Christmas! You won't believe your eyes, as long as you don't shoot them out!

Should you let your child use LimeWire?

The parenting handbooks don't say much about LimeWire. This is a peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing program. Hardcore geeks consider it obsolete. But it is still heavily used by kids.

Strictly speaking, LimeWire is safe and legal. In practice, it often is neither.

"Grandpa/Grandma Mode" for PCs

What we need is software that acts as a “mask” and sits on top of, for example, Gmail. Its main function would be to hide all the options that aren’t relevant. All you would see is very large buttons labeled READ, WRITE, and OTHER. Seniors should never see more than three large, clear choices on the screen at one time.

Beware of scam e-mails on H1N1 virus

Scam artists have turned to the Web again, this time using the concern over H1N1 to lure users into making their computers vulnerable to a virus.

Federal and state health officials are warning consumers to be aware of fraudulent e-mails that reference a CDC-sponsored State Vaccination Program for the H1N1 virus.

In short: It doesn’t exist

eHow

eHow is an online knowledge resource with more than 337,000 articles and videos offering step-by-step instructions on "how to do just about everything". eHow content is created by both professional experts and amateur members and covers a wide variety of topics organized into a hierarchy of categories.
Through a proprietary social networking platform and user-generated content tools, eHow maintains an online community of users who publish how-tos, images and video clips and receive a percentage of profits earned from traffic and advertising. eHow members can network and collaborate by building a personalized profile, creating friend lists, commenting on articles and interacting in an online forum.