StumbleUpon is a smart browsing application for finding great websites you’ll like.

The system works by recording user submitted websites against pre-defined categories. Each user specifies the categories of their interest and relevant sites are served to these users along with the ability to rate the site. This process means that the users of the system share their recommendations and qualitatively review them before they get to you.

This new way of finding and sharing interesting sites is fast and extremely entertaining. It has certainly changed the way I use the Internet.

Oringinally, the system worked on Firefox only and was, for a while, one of the best reasons to use the Firefox browser. It is now also available for IE7, allowing more people to participate.

This great 2D physics sandbox application would have made a lot of school physics lessons a lot more interesting.

You can find out more about the system here.

A lot of people complain about Open Office. These people just haven’t spent the few hours required to untrain themselves from the Microsoft Office way of working. There is actually very little difference between the two and, if cost is taken into account, there is only one option.

Open Office has been around for quite a while now and is obviously a very mature and professional tool. “But everyone else uses Microsoft Office! We won’t be compatible!”, is shouted an awful lot. Here are some very simple instructions to make that problem disappear:

1. Launch any OpenOffice.org application such as OpenOffice Writer.
2. Click on Tools and then Options.
3. Expand the Load/Save section in the left pane by clicking the + (plus sign).
4. Click on General under the Load/Save section.
5. In the area labeled as “Default file format” near the bottom of the dialog window, select the type of document you want, for example, Text Document for Writer files, in the Document Type drop-down list.
6. To the right dropdown list labeled as “Always save as”, change or select the format as “Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP”.
7. Repeat the above 2 steps for other documents such as spreadsheets or presentations that you want to save in Microsoft Office file format, and select the appropriate default save as format for them.
8. Click OK to save the settings.
9. From now on, whenever you want to save a document, the default format will be .doc, .xls or .ppt and other Microsoft Office file formats

If you want to thank me, send some of the money you saved in not buying MS Office!

Looking for a freee and easy to use ftp client? I was, and I found one and I didn’t bother looking any further because it did all I wanted. It’s called Filezilla and if you want it, you can have it too!

So, there it is.

If you haven’t heard about Last FM, where’ve you been??

This UK based internet radio and music community website is the world’s largest social music platform with over 20 million active users based in more than 232 countries.

If you have several instant messenger accounts to keep in touch with all of your friends/colleagues/clients then this could simplify your situation.

Pidgin offers a free, simple to use, single application that will allow you to communicate with all your ‘buddies’ (I have never liked this term) regardless of their account - gmail, AIM, Yahoo IM et al.

Click the screenshot above to visit their site and download the Instant Messenger Client and configurator.

If you’re looking for a new wallpaper for your desktop then this is the site for you. Social Wallpapering puts a web 2.0 spin on the usual wallpaper sites allowing users to upload wallpaper and vote for their favourites. In itself this is not that amazing but the content they have on this site is great and well worth a look. Check it out by visiting the site by clicking on the pic below.

The Google Pack is collection of free software applications recommended by Google. This article will take a look at the recommendations and, where applicable, recommend alternatives.

There was quite a lot of speculation about Googles motives in promoting this pack when it came out, with one critic calling it a ‘ragtag package‘. Whilst I appreciate that many users are already well aware of all of the software listed here (and some better alternatives) it is still a very helpful offerring for the great many PC users that aren’t advanced enough to know what they can get for free on the web. When a company of Google’s prominence makes such recommendations they reach many people. These recommendations go a long way to helping new (and older) users of the Internet save money that would otherwise be taken by the Microsoft, Dell and PC Worlds out there and for that reason we will help promote it by discussing further here.

Google Desktop

Google Desktop is a multifunctional sidebar addition to your desktop that lets you search your home computer in the same way you would the web. Search all documents, images and emails and receive the results in the usual Google format. This is a very customisable and useful addition but it can impair the performance of your system. Definitely worth a try as it may speed up your productivity but if you find your system sluggish because of it I would recommend remoiving it and improving your filing instead!

Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer

If you must use Internet Explorer and I don’t recommend it, this is the only toolbar that you will need even though you may have thousands!

Picasa

An image viewing tool, not a bad one, but I am suspicious of anything that sits in your systray waiting to take resources. Try it, if you don’t use it more than three times in the first month, remove it.

Google Photos Screensaver

Not really worth having as Windows has this as a built in feature.

Mozilla Firefox with Google Toolbar

If you don’t have this already, you should. It’s by far the best browser and is almost limitlessly extensible due to the huge number of easily installed add pons you can get for it. An absolute must.

Adobe Acrobat Reader

Essential yes, interesting, no.

Norton Security Scan

You will detect that your system is now running very slow. Forget this and get AVG Free instead.

Spyware Doctor Starter Edition

Spyware detectors are essential but there is no need for this one. You can use Adaware and Spybot which are much better for free.

RealPlayer

A great looking media player but one that wants to take over your whole computer. This was once one of the best media players out there, now it spends all your resources and bandwidth talking to ‘Real Network’. A ‘Real’ shame if you ask me. As intrusive as iTunes without the kudos. Stick with Windows Media Player or go for the perennial favourite Winamp.

Skype

If you need a Voice Over IP (VOIP) phone then shop around, Skype is the most well-known but may not suit you best.

GalleryPlayer HD Images

There are ten free HD images with this but you can find free HD images on the web if you want them so please leave this out of your Google Pack.

This is an interesting site for anyone who likes to have their own customised homepage. Your Minis offers a glossy user interface that allows you to customise a page with many different widgets that you can then set as your own personalised home page. The advantages of this are that you will see all that you want (news feeds, world times, wallpapers) as soon as you log on to the internet rather than having to navigate to each individually.

It’s fun to set up and will ipmpress your friends (if they are in their teens). Not so useful if you have Windows Vista and the new sidebar…