Must-haves for the technoholic in you.OK WE'LL ADMIT IT. WE DON'T ALWAYS SPEND OUR TIME DOING "BUSINESS." Sometimes we happen upon a Website or a tech toy--er--business tool that has us whiling away the hours. Here's a look at some of the tech we just can't get enough "Just Can't Get Enough" is the third UK single by Depeche Mode originally released on September 7 1981. It was also the band's first single to be released in the United States, on February 18 1982. of:Google Earth A 3D mapping program from Google that covers the entire globe from satellite images. Requiring a download for Windows, Mac and Linux desktops, a street address can be searched, and the views can be zoomed down to the individual building all the way up to a satellite's view of the globe. (www.earth.google.com; free). Jules Verne wrote about an 80-day world trip; with Google Earth, you can do it in about 80 seconds. This free application lets you tool around the globe, view maps, satellite, 3-D images, and geographic terrain. You can search addresses, chart your own course, and create points on a map and share them with others (called content overlays). Upgrade to Google Earth Plus (a $20 annual subscription) to add real-time GPS tracking See vehicle tracking. , or Google Earth Pro ($400) for business use (you can try it free for seven days). [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Meebo.com (www.meebo.com; free). If you're tangled up in multiple IM accounts (and who isn't these days?), Meebo provides a great way to cope. The site lets you consolidate AIM, Yahoo, Google Talk Google's instant messaging (IM) service, which provides text messaging and voice calling. It provides a link to the user's Gmail account as well as displays the number of unread messages in the inbox. , MSN (1) (MicroSoft Network) A family of Internet-based services from Microsoft, which includes a search engine, e-mail (Hotmail), instant messaging (Windows Live Messaging) and a general-purpose portal with news, information and shopping (MSN Directory). , ICQ ("I Seek You") A conferencing program for the Internet from Mirabilis, Tel Aviv, Israel (www.icq.com). It provides interactive chat, e-mail and file transfer and can alert you when someone on your predefined list has also come online. , and Jabber An open standard for instant messaging (IM). There are tens of thousands of Jabber servers on the Internet, most of which are privately run within a company or college campus. There are also hundreds of public Jabber servers that any user can register with, Google Talk being the largest. IMs in one location so you can chat to your heart's content. Cool features include Meebo Map, which shows worldwide IM conversations in 15-minute slices, and Meebo Me, an embeddable IM window you can drop onto your personal Web page and use to chat with your site's visitors. [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] Logitech MX Air "AirMouse" (www.logitech.com; $149.99). The minute we saw the MX Air, we were hooked. The rechargeable, cordless device is designed to run on Windows XP and Vista-compatible PCs and is perfect for media center junkies who like to lounge, look, and listen to their favorite media with minimal labor. The sleek black device is as light as a, well, mouse and requires no line-of-sight or surface contact to work. Slight movements--a wrist flick here, a tiny wave to the right or the left there--are all you need to skip tracks or adjust volume. It's a couch potato's dream. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] |
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