Worldwide Free Calling - Coming

I think most people reading this already know about Skype and the wonderful - and free - things possible using Skype.

Coming soon (the makers say May 15th) is a new hardware device that has a new angle: internet speakerphones that allow free international calling over the web. The device is the Snap Personal Internet Communicator. Worth checking out if you're spending a bunch of money on standard international long-distance fees.

Photoshop for Free - Kind of

Just a quick note for any shutterbugs out there. If you've been looking for some good photo manipulation software and don't want to pay the full-boat price (~$900) for Adobe Photoshop, Adobe recently announced their online Photoshop Express version.

I'm definitely going to try it out. This sounds interesting: "Do what you want with your photos. Give them cartoon colors. Distort them . . . Pop Color, Sketch, Hue, Black & White, Tint, and more."

I normally use MS Picture Manager, which is a great-but-little-known utility included with Microsoft Office Suites. If you own either Office 2003 or 2007, you might need to dig for it on the CD (doesn't install automatically), but it is there . . . and it doesn't cost any extra.