When you install Prey, you set up an email address and optionally a URL (i.e. http://mypage.com/stolen_laptop).

Prey runs at a specified interval and checks the URL you previously defined. If the URL exists, Prey will gather the information and send it to the email address you set up. You can also not define a URL and in that case the program will send the data every time it runs. If the Laptop has a webcam, it takes a photo of the Thief and a screenshot of the desktop.

Of course, Prey needs to have an active Internet connection to send the information. If the computer isn’t connected, Prey will attempt to connect to the first public Wifi access point available.

Prey is available for Linux, Mac, and Windows.

Picnik.com is an online photo editing tool. Picnik comes with some great special effects, and can be used with a bunch of community photo sharing sites (Flickr, Imageshack, Photobucket, etc). It’s not as powerful as Photoshop, but for a free browser-based image editor, Picnik does a great job.  

Here are some photos I modified using the Picnik tool: 

Upload a photo and tweak to your heart’s content, then get creative with the effects, fonts, shapes, and frames.  Pretty cool.

For you non-techies, here’s a quick and easy online image resizing tool (site).

Not sure why you would use it, but if you needed to resize an image and have nothing to use…resizeimage.org

Give it a try: www.resizeimage.org

The name Xobni, is the word “inbox” spelled backwards. Xobni is the Outlook plug-in that saves time finding email conversations, contacts and attachments.

The Xobni toolbar appears in Outlook and your Outlook information becomes easier to manage. When a new email arrives, the sender’s full communication history appears in the Xobni sidebar, including past conversations, attachments and contact details. Xobni also includes a blazing fast email search tool.

I’ve been using this tool for the past year and swear by it’s usefulness. The tracking of attachments by contact is my favorite feature.  It does require a bit of memory, so if your computer is at the minimum specs it won’t live up to it’s reputation.

If you are an avid Outlook user, this is a must have.

Vlingo is a (free) voice-powered user interface that unlocks access to mobile phone wireless data services. vlingo for iPhone™ and vlingo for BlackBerry smartphones allows users to speak into their device and have many popular applications carry out their respective functions. This includes dialing your phone, sending an email or SMS, creating and saving a memo or task, opening a web browser and performing a web search, composing a social-networking status message and more.

You can use the vlingo™ software for the following tasks:

• Searching the Web

• Sending Email

• Sending a Text Message

• Using Voice Dial

• Opening Other Applications

• Updating Facebook Status

• Updating Twitter Status

• Creating a Note to Yourself

I started using vLingo and I find it better that the pre-loaded voice command software that comes installed on my Blackberry. I really like the internet search capabilities. By just saying “Google Movies Irvine California”, vLingo launches a Goolge search showing movie results. Starting in 2009, CA law states no text messaging while driving.  I’ll let you know about my experience in a couple of weeks.

These movie clips make good ringtones too.

And my favorite.

To load the rigntone onto your blackberry, just point the blackberry internet browser to the ringtone on the web site above. When you hear the music on your blackberry, scroll to the third icon (1-play, 2-pause, 3-options) and click on scroll button and save it to default location.

Now go to your phone’s ring options and select the new ringtone.

http://www.pdfdownload.org/

Firefox, Flock and Internet Explorer users every day. The browser extension removes the pain you can experience when encountering PDF files online, and now lets you quickly convert your Web pages into high-quality PDFs that are ideal for archiving, printing and sharing.