THE BUZZ WORD

ord processors are at the top of any “must have” list, and there are plenty to be had for free.

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THE DATABASE

After having a word processor, the most important program you can have is a database. There’s one called Blist that is a blast.

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GETTING INTO TECH SUPPORT

There isn’t a tech support person in the world who knows how to solve all the problems that come up in Windows. But somebody, somewhere, probably knows the answer to your particular problem.
There’s a new community of more than 7,000 helpers gathered on a web site called CrossLoop.

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INTERNUTS

Spacetime.com and AddOns.mozilla.org

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BOOKS

There’s a lot more to the social networking site Facebook than meets the eye and it’s all here in “Facebook, the Missing Manual,” by E.A. Vander Veer; $20 from MissingManuals.com.

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VIDEO THE EASY WAY

We finally broke down and bought the world’s best-selling video camera: the Flip. It costs $150 for the regular version, but we went wild and sprang for an extra $30 to get the “ultra” version, which has higher resolution and more memory.

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QUICK TO DISK

We looked at Samsung’s new “TruDirect” external hard drive, a natural for people who like to quickly burn videos and movies to DVD.

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TV OR NOT TV, THAT IS THE QUESTION

Adobe has just introduced a free player for watching TV shows available on the web. Go to Adobe.com/go/mp to download the software.

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SIMULATE THIS!

Wow your friends, impress you boss, be a tech support hero.

We can’t possibly provide tech support for the hundreds of problems that plague PC users, but we found a simulation program that can turn almost anyone into a professional trouble shooter. It’s “Windows Simulator, Exam Cram” from Que Publishing.

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IPOD FACE-OFF

MiShare quickly solves the sometimes balky task of transferring tunes from one iPod to another.

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