SPEAK UP

Spokeo regularly checks 36 social networking sites for people who are on yourSpokeo e-mail lists and posts their current social site activity and photos on your screen. (Joy discovered one of her nephews this way.)

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TO DO OR NOT TO DO

The charmingly named RememberTheMilk.com provides a to-do list you can share with others. It’s so easy to use you don’t even need to read the instructions.

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KEYBOARDS

This column is being typed on a Merc Stealth keyboard made by Ideazon.

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POKER THROUGH HISTORY

Here’s a novel twist: It’s Texas Hold-em poker played against famous historical figures like Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Dracula, Abe Lincoln, Stalin, Cleopatra and many others.

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WOW! SOMETHING THAT ACTUALLY WORKS

We got a Virtual Phone Booth noise-canceling headset from Plantronics, and to our utter amazement, it worked.

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BOOKS: GRAPHICS

“The Essential Blender,” edited by Roland Hess; $45 from Blender.org.

Blender is one of several high-end graphics and animation programs that are available free.

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SORRY, WRONG VUMBER

A Vumber is a phone number from any area code you select that is then linked to your home, work or cell phone.

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BY THE SEAT OF YOUR PANTS

We’ll look next at a ridiculously priced device for playing with your Microsoft Flight Simulator X. (It also works with other flight simulator software.)

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ORGANIZE IT ON A MAC

FileMaker has released Bento, a $49 version of the FileMaker database for the Mac’s Leopard operating system. FileMaker is a really great database program, and this is an easy-to-use version for people who don’t have severe database demands (which is most of us).

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INTERNUTS

A podcast is a kind of Internet broadcast that you can hear and watch on your computer, an iPod, MP3 player or a number of similar devices.

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