File sharing is a big deal these days, especially when it comes to promoting yourself or your friends’ music, and Soulseek 157 is one of the best programs out there when it comes to free music exchange. This program has tons of options and it all comes free when you download the program.

First off, this program makes it possible to search for specific file types or users. Plus, Soulseek comes with its own special chat rooms so you can talk to the people you are sharing with and even create a contact list with all of your favorite file-sharers. This way you can stay in contact with the people you like, and not have to worry about searching for them over and over.

Another great part of this program is the fact that it supports all Windows operating systems so you don’t need the most up-to-date version to stay in touch, and it allows you to share all kinds of different file types so you don’t need a specific media player to open your files.

Many people are saying that Soulseek is the best new file-sharing program around, which say a lot considering how long some of the other programs have been in development. The only real complaint about this program is that it does not have a particularly attractive look to it, but it is possible to change the screen if you have the Windows XP operating system.

It is important to note that file sharing programs must connect to thousands of other computers to do what they do, and depending on the speed and performance of each particular computer you connect with, the performance of the program may go up or down. Not to mention the fact that it will generally be easier to download more well-known files because you will have more downloading options than if you are looking for a band that no one else has heard of.

Ultimately, Soulseek has been deemed one of the best new programs to hit the computer world. It is already very well developed and gives you many of the options that the expensive file-sharing programs do. Plus, it allows you to share files from almost any PC rather than having to update to a newer operating system. If you are looking for a good way to meet new musicians and hear new music, Soulseek 157 is probably the easiest, cheapest way to go about it, and there is no limit to how much sharing you can do. Aside from the slightly outdated look of the screen, there are no big complaints about the functionality of the program itself.

To get your free download of Soulseek and start sharing music now, go to: http://www.slsknet.org/

If you want a simple and fast way to share a file with a friend or friends, you might wanna checkout YouSwap.com. The site layout is foolproof to use with a neat and tidy design that’s easy on the eyes. You can also choose more than one file at once, you can do this simply by holding down the control key as you’re selecting multiple files, and it allows you to send up to 1 GB.

Upon uploading, you’re taken to a screen where you can copy the link to the file and share it with your friends, this page also tells you how many times the file has been downloaded.When uploading, you’re also given the option to enter your friend’s email address, this will then send them a link they can download the file from, additional optional choices are to include your email address and a message to your friend.

This site is pretty basic but does as it says, although some more details such as the length of time the file remains shared may have been useful to include. Check it our for yourself here.

With the recent boom of the internet, one thing that has become a whole lot popular is the concept of online chat. However, the concept of online chat has really evolved from what it used to be.  Chat used to be IRC and rooms on different internet sites with little more functionality than being able to type in something and then have that something appear in the chat room.  And while a lot of people enjoyed that and in the case of IRC still enjoy it, many others thirsted for more.

Well, MSN got things started and with MSN’s live chat feature allowing for the first time a lot of great video chatting features, what people eventually saw was that there was demand for such a thing.   And this is the demand that ooVoo fills with its presence.

One of the best things about this program is that it can actually support up to six users at the exact same time.   In addition to that, you can also send video files back and forth between ooVoo users and even send such files to people that don’t have the software installed!  It is simply an amazing piece of software and because of its free status, it is one that people have really embraced.

More information can be found at http://www.oovoo.com/

Do you wish you were doing a little more to help the environment? Here’s an alternative to the regular white homepage of Google. Its a black google page!

The idea behind it is that a black page background will use less electricity than a white one. So mathematically speaking, if lots of people were to use blackle.com as their homepage instead of the default google homepage, a lot of eletricity could be saved, ok maybe not a lot but every little helps, right?

Its a good first step I guess, but the page could do with some extras such as the “advanced search” link etc.

Check it out for yourself at www.blackle.com

KoolIM is a site that allows you instant access to your instant messengers. There’s no extra software to download or anything, you just go to the KoolIM website. It’s perfect for when you’re at an internet cafe computer that doesn’t have your usual IM client installed, or maybe you’re just a neat freak and you don’t really wanna bother installing several IM clients to clutter up your pc.

You can easily sign on to AIM, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, and ICQ using your existing screen names and passwords. So if you use different computers a lot and just want to use the regular basic features of instant messaging, its worth checking out.

Go here and see for yourself. It even works from behind firewalls or proxy servers!

Scribd is a very interesting site for anyone who likes to read a lot! So if you are the type of person who spends a lot of time at the library or reading stuff at magazine racks without actually buying anything, this site is something you’ll love spending time at!

Scribd enables anyone to upload any kind of document for easy online browsing by visitors to the Scribd site. Multiple document formats are supported. There’s a lot of interesting and random documents to be viewed ranging from photos, ebooks, classic books, serious stuff, humorous stuff and random things of almost any subject you can think of. The site also has several different language versions.

The simplest way to describe it is that it’s like the YouTube of documents. Check it out for yourself, but be warned, you could be there for quite a while once you get stuck into something!

It’s common knowledge that having an anti virus program is a very important part of computer security. If you want a second opinion for peace of mind in knowing that your computer is virus free, F-Secure online scanner is an online anti virus scanner that does exactly this without the need for installing yet another program (Installing multiple anti virus programs can cause conflicts with each other anyway).

You simply go to the webpage and follow the instructions to allow the ActiveX control to load (supports Internet Explorer only right now). Then it begins downloading the necessary scanning stuff (around 22 MB).

When it’s done scanning, it will give you the option of cleaning anything bad it finds and/or sending it for further analysis.
I almost forgot to mention that it also scans for spyware and rootkits.

It’s a useful online tool and second opinion on the security of your computer. Check it out here.

Bindex media manager is software for indexing your DVD,CD and MP3 disc collection. A cool feature is the ability (at least in theory) to scan the barcodes of your dvds, also known as UPC codes. This is done by using your webcam!

This unique feature didn’t work for me even after a while of trying, but they explain that you need very good lighting and a very good web cam, so I was a little disappointed. When I entered my movie manually, I was again disappointed that the dvd cover picture appears so small and where’s all the cool details I was hoping to see about the dvd?

There are none apart from only the most basic…Year, Widescreen, etc.

To sum it up, apart from the novelty value of scanning with a webcam, this software is a little disappointing, at least where dvds are concerned ( i didn’t test MP3 discs or CDs). It has a lot of potential but right now i’ll pass! Although maybe it’s suitable for those who require less detail and have a huge collection to index,but thats my opinion anyway.

As for the webcam thing, you better have a good one or it’ll be more like Blindex!

Check it out for yourself.

Think digital presentation – think Chimpfolio. Chimpfolio is basically an artist’s portfolio generator for the discerning artist who needs to make the transition to digital slides without knowing anything about computers. It is a program that generates cross-browser compatible web pages with valid xHTML and CSS. Web pages generated by Chimpfolio have a standard set of Introduction, Bio, Statement and Contact pages along with an indexed portfolio page that has individual pages for each image. Each individual page can have additional optional information like title, size, medium and date of creation of image. It can have a separate section for any other additional information.

This is one of those rare tools which make you feel that computing can be natural rather than robotic. A must –have program for image-portfolio generation.

(more Info and Download)

MySpace is acquiring Photobucket for $250 million in cash. TechCrunch is reporting that there is also an earn-out for up to an additional $50 million.

Photobucket has been looking for a buyer since March, when they hired Lehman Brothers to help sell the company. They were looking for $300 million or more, but may have had few bidders other than MySpace.

The companies have been in serious acquisition discussions for the last couple of weeks – A dispute that involved Photobucket videos being blocked on MySpace led to acquisition discussions, and the block was removed.

Photobucket generated $6.3 million in revenue last year and planned on hitting $25 million or more this year. They have 40 million registered users and add another 85,000 per day. (more…)