April Fool’s Day is tomorrow, and to help you celebrate, we’ve got a list of the top 10 tech pranks you can pull on your friends and family. These high tech high jinx will keep your family bewildered as you laugh when their desktop goes haywire or their speech recognition software only responds to Klingon.

Next, some of the biggest names in cable television, wireless phones and the internet are talking about joining forces to fund Wi-Max, a wireless high speed internet network to link phones and computers – as fast as DSL. The big talkers include Google, Comcast and Sprint and the group plans to invest $3-4 billion in the joint venture, according to the AP who’s bringing Washington-style leaks to Silicon Valley. All this according to an anonymous source who asked not to be named because he or she was not authorized to discuss the talks. Well heck, don’t let that stop you. Where would 24 hour news and information overload be without leakers?

And the music industry was turned on its head when two major music groups decided to move the free line themselves – this was the year that both Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead offered all or portions of their newest albums for free. We have a link to a great overview of how both of these groups have offered free music online throughout the years, and what led to their ground breaking offers. This is an excellent Real World case study of how moving the free line pays off.

And WordPress has released a brand new update, making the editing and administration of a WordPress blog easier than ever before. The Wordpress dashboard now has widget features kind of like MovableType. Other additions include multiple file uploads, one click plug-in upgrades, built in galleries and better search. They also claim more code friendsly WYSIWYG editing – that would be great. In fact, I’ll let you know in a couple days. In the meantime, we have a link to a free video with a demo of the new WordPress features.

And finally, the One Laptop Per Child Project, which sells very inexpensive laptops to the developing world, has accumulated over 8.5 gigs of free music that anyone can download, use or remix. The music is licensed under Creative Commons and comes from the likes of the Berkley College of Music and electronic superstar BT. The music can be used in any project, even ones that have nothing to do with OLPC laptops.

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明天就是愚人节了，为了庆祝，我们为大家准备了10大可以对家人朋友开玩笑的科技谣言。这些超级捣蛋的程序会使你的朋友们迷惑不堪，直到你笑话他们那些被搞乱的桌面和只能识别克林贡的语音识别软件。

接下来，一些有线电视、无线电话和互联网领域里的巨头们正在开始考虑联合起来资助Wi-Max，后者是一个可以令电脑和电话工作在一起的高速网络，与DSL一样快。其中主要成员包括Google，Comcast和Sprint计划共同投入30到40亿美元的风险投资，而这次的消息是由美联社悄悄泄露给硅谷的。全部消息来自于一位不愿透露姓名的人士，因为他本来没有被授权说出这些秘密。我说，不要让那些规矩约束你，哪天的新闻不是充斥着各种小道消息呢？

当两大主流音乐团体决定让他们的作品免费的时候整个音乐界迎来了轩然大波——今年九寸钉和电台司令乐队开始向大众免费开放他们的全部或部分最新专辑。我们找到了一个不错的链接解释这些团体这些年是如何在网上免费发布音乐，以及他们是怎么做到的。这是一个现实世界中一个学习免费是如何赚钱的好案例。

WordPress刚刚发布了最新的升级，这极大简化了WordPress用户对博客的编辑和管理。而WordPress的面板也被增添了新的特性，类似活版印刷术。其它的改动包括多文件上传，插件的一键升级，内置图库和更好的搜索。另外它们还改进了的所见即所得编辑，这太好了。事实上你很快就能亲身体会到了。与此同时，我们这里还有一个免费的WordPress新功能展示视频。

最后，那个”每个孩子一台电脑”项目，也就是向发展中国家出售低价电脑的项目，已经拿到了8.5G的免费音乐，任何人都可以下载，使用或混音。这些音乐来自诸如伯克利音乐学院和电音BT的地方，并通过知识共享的方式授权。它们可以被用在任何地方，甚至不用跟OLPC电脑有任何的关系。

Remember the days of mix tapes? Back when you could create a compilation for a friend or loved one, using just your stereo? Well, those days are back again, and pushed into the next generation with MuxTape. This handy website let’s you create Mix Tapes with MP3’s, and then allow anyone to view them in your web browser. It’s free and easy to use, all you need is the 80’s spirit and collection of MP3’s you want to share.

On Wednesday FotoFlexer released a snappy new interface to compete with it’s main opposition in the web based photo editing field, Picnik. This interface is far easier to use, looks nicer and supports many new features like typing text directly onto a photo and adding animations.

A group of monks looking to grab a record contract with Universal music sealed the deal by uploading a video onto Youtube. Universal was very impressed, signing a deal right away, with a recording set to start in April.

We’re all about free stuff here on the Free Line Report, and this week we have a link to the top free things you can get online. This list is massive, giving you tons of great tools like free office software, free file storage, free hard drive backup tools and tons of other fun stuff that should keep you busy for hours on end.

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今天我们来谈谈80年代，我想知道，有多少人还记得混音磁带？回溯到那个年代我们会用一个磁带机去录下自己的音乐合集，通常是为了心仪的女孩。那些日子又回来了，不过变成了下一代的MuxTape。通过这个小网站你可以用MP3去创建混音磁带，然后发布在网上供朋友们欣赏。它免费且简单易用，你需要的只是一点80年代的精神，一些你想分享的MP3音乐，和一个女孩儿。

上周三FotoFlexer发布了一个新的程序界面，以在“在线图片编辑领域”里面与另一个主要对手Picnik相竞争。这个界面比以前简单了许多，看起来更漂亮而且多了很多新功能比如在图片上直接编辑文字及动画效果。

下面一则新闻是关于一个音乐团体如何利用YouTube去吸引最大的唱片公司环球唱片的注意的。这次是一个僧侣团体希望能和环球唱片签约，并把他们的视频传到了YouTube上。环球公司非常感兴趣，立刻跟他们签了约，并计划在4月开始录制第一张专辑。

在FreeLineReport上全部是关于免费的东西，所以这一周我们献给大家一个免费的热门网络工具大集合。这个列表应有尽有，你能找到好多有用的工具，比如免费的Office软件，免费的存储空间，免费的硬盘备份工具和无数其它你将来能用的着的和用不着的好玩的东西。

Microsoft Labs debuted PhotoSynth in a jaw dropping demo at the TED conference. This software, set to revolutionize the way we look at digital photos, can take collections of images (from Flickr or any other online source) and then project it into 3D space. You have to see this to believe it! And of course, you can do so for free. Beta testing is open to the public, all you need to do is visit the Photosynth page, install the web browser plugin, and then prepare to be amazed.

In other digital photo news Facebook had a serious snafu with their latest privacy update. It turns out, photos that users uploaded to the social network they thought were marked private really weren’t, and a small bug allowed any hacker to get around the security measures. It didn’t take long to fix this problem- the minute Facebook found out they had it fixed within the hour.

And thanks to a tip from Oliver Taco in the comments on the Free Line Report website, we learned that the maker of the cool tool Digg Friend Finder have released several more SEO based web tools, including a downloadable list of social networking sites and a Yahoo Store SEO tool. Thanks, Oliver!

Google rolled out a new feature to it’s popular search platform-search within a search. Which allows you to search entirely within a site that your first search brings up, allowing you a faster access to Google’s already powerful site search tool.

In more Google news, the web giant is now petitioning for the “white space” spectrum of Television airwaves. It seems that this might’ve been the target all along in the FCC auction. What does Google plan to do it with these radio waves? Use it for web access, of course. They call it WiFi on steroids, and all ready have the backing of Microsoft and Intel.

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微软实验室在TED会议上初次展示的PhotoSynth震惊四座。这个革命性的软件改了我们浏览数字相片的方式，它可以把从Flickr等网站搜集来的图片投射成一个三维空间。你必须亲眼目睹才会相信！而当然，它完全免费。测试版对公众是开放的，你只要访问Photosynth的主页，安装一个浏览器插件，然后准备好吃惊吧。

有关数码相片的另一则新闻，Facebook最新的隐私问题带来了很大的反响。原因是有些用户发现被他们标记为隐私的照片被没有起到作用，而且黑客也可以通过一个小的bug轻松突破安全设置。不过很快这个问题就被解决了——事实上他们在发现问题的第一个小时就进行了修复。

另外多亏了Oliver Taco在我们网站上的评论，我们得知Digg Friend Finder的制作者又推出了几款的SEO网络工具，包括一个可以下载的社交网络站点列表和一个Yahoo商店SEO工具。多谢了，Oliver！

Google被添加了一个最新的特性，它将允许你进行二次搜索。现在你可以对第一次搜索的结果进行整站搜索，这也为功能强大的Google站内搜索提供了一个更快捷的方式。

另外一则Google新闻，这个网络巨人正在申请电视转播频率的“白光波段”，看起来同FCC竞拍一样这这也是他们的目标之一。Google打算用这些无线频率做什么呢？当然是用在网络访问上。他们把它叫做“WiFi on steroids”，而且已经得到了微软和因特尔的支持。

Google Analytics is now the de facto standard for free web analytics, from how many visitors you’re getting to what search engine keywords are bringing in the most traffic. Even though it is popular, a lot of its power isn’t getting tapped by most users. We’ve got a link to the top 20 resources – just for Google Analytics. Sometimes it’s amazing what you get for free.

And you may know that Amazon has been offering fulfillment services for business owners and other online merchants for some time. But until now, any business using Amazon’s fulfillment service had to go through a series of complicated and manual steps to ship anything. With the new Amazon API, this is all history – so if you’re selling physical products online, you might want to take another look at Amazon’s fulfillment service.

Ever wanted to share your iTunes music with your friends, but found out that’s harder than it should be? Well, check out the the free iTunes utility, Mojo. With Mojo you can easily share your iTunes library over the internet, and give your friends access to your songs.

If you use iTunes on Windows, you might be greeted with a surprise automatic installation of the new Safari web browser. The Mozilla Foundation, creator of Safari’s competitor, FireFox, is complaining, saying that users should at least have the choice whether or not to install Safari.

And finally, Google Doc’s has opened up its API, allowing users to add Google Gadgets inside of documents – for example, now you can create stunning reports for your Google Spreadsheet using the Visualization API. Developers will be able to really leverage the two technologies, which is great for people that use Google’s free online alternative to Microsoft Office. You know, it’s getting harder and harder to compete with Free.

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Google分析现在实际上成为了免费网站分析的标准，从了解你一共有多少用户到哪些关键字带来了最多的流量。尽管它很流行，但是很多用户还没有物尽其用。我们为专门大家准备了关于Google分析的20个顶级资源。有些时候免费的东西也出乎你意料。

你也许知道亚马逊为企业主和网络零售商提供商品配送服务已经有一段时间了。不过到目前为止，任何想使用亚马逊进行商品配送的企业都必须办理一系列复杂而繁琐的手续。而通过最新亚马逊的API，这些都将成为过去——如果你在网络上出售实物商品，你也许需要对亚马逊的配送服务有新的认识了。

你是否曾想过和朋友分享你iTunes里的音乐，却发现实际情况要比想象中的困难？来看一下这个免费的iTunes工具，Mojo。通过Mojo你可以轻松的在网络上与朋友们分享你iTunes库里面的音乐，并且让他们进行下载了。

如果你使用Windows版的iTunes，也许你会发现某一天你的电脑里突然多出来一个新的Safari浏览器。而Mozillia公司，这个Safari的竞争者FireFox的创建者，不是很高兴，他们认为至少用户有选择是否安装Safari浏览器的权利。

最后，Google Doc开放了它的API，这将使用户可以在文件中添加Google Gadgets。比如，现在你可以通过图形API在Google电子表格中加入漂亮的图表了。开发者们一定会充分利用这两项技术，从而造福那些用Google文档作为微软Office替代品的用户们。你知道，与免费竞争越来越费力了。

Google has always been a fan of pranks, ones that usually only uber geeks think are funny. But today, we have a link to the top 17 hidden gems and jokes that Google has scattered across the web — and I’m sure anyone will enjoy these.

Mozilla announced that FireFox 3 is finally ready for public consumption. Until now they have cautioned users to stay away from FireFox 3’s beta, claiming that it was not ready for use and to wait until June for the official, final release. Now, they’re telling us the latest FireFox is ready to use — stable, fast and free of memory leaks.

Ebay has layed off 125 of its workers in both the US and Europe during its massive reorganization, in a move to centralize customer support and other administrative functions. Still going strong, the auction giant plans on hiring more workers within the next year.

And last but not least, Apple Insider says that Apple is finally in talks with music companies over their own music subscription service. Until, Steve Jobs, who sells music on iTunes, has dissed the idea as only “renting music” but now the Nokia/Universal deal (called “Comes with Music“) — allows Nokia cell phone users to download as much Universal’s library as they want – and keep it at the end of the period. Currently Real Music and Napster are the only providers with subscription services – after Yahoo Music dropped its subscriptions earlier this year. Now, it looks like Apple may be next to offer all-you-can-eat music for a flat monthly rate. That’s big news – and by the way, if you’re on iTunes check out the Free Line Report podcast. It’s in the Business section, under Management and Marketing.

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你知道，Google可是个恶作剧的行家，比如那些复活节彩蛋，和那些隐藏在各个程序中的小秘密——很多玩家都觉得非常有趣。今天，我们找到了17个Google隐藏在网络上的宝物和玩笑。一定要看一下！

Mozilla宣布火狐3浏览器终于可以供大家使用了。以前他们总是警告用户不要使用火狐3测试版，声明说现在还不成熟请耐心等待今年六月份的最终版。现在，他们告诉我们最新版本的火狐可以使用了，稳定，迅速而且无内存泄露。

Ebay刚刚因为结构重组在美国和欧洲解雇了125名员工，此举是为了加强客户服务和其它管理功能。 这个还在持续增长的拍卖巨人计划在明年招入更多的员工。

最后，苹果的内部人士说它们终于和音乐公司展开了关于它们自己的音乐订阅服务的对话。其实，Steve Jobs，这个通过iTunes卖音乐的人，最初只是冒出了“出租音乐”的想法，现在却做成了诺基亚/环球的这项服务（叫做随音乐而来）－－它允许诺基亚的手机用户随意下载环球公司发行的音乐，直到订阅期截止。目前Real Music和Napster是唯一两家提供音乐订阅的公司，而雅虎在去年早期放弃了类似的业务。现在，看起来苹果将成为下一个月租无限量下载音乐的服务商。这可是大新闻，顺便说一句，如果使用iTunes的别忘了关注Free Line Report的广播节目。