Is participating in social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook just a “phase” that people seem to go through? A new video by user “Super Josh” on Current.com claims just that. In his satirical animated short “Networking Wars,” cartoon representatives of MySpace, Facebook, Friendster, and Second Life vie for the attention of an average user. Very funny, and perhaps, very true.

Sometimes, running a brand new, top-of-the-line operating system isn’t possible. Systems made to run Windows 2000, for example, will not be able to properly support Firefox 3.0, as one of our commenters has already figured out. But fear not. Don’t let those old legacy systems die in the basement. Get WattOS instead. Based on Ubuntu Linux, WattOS is designed to get the best out of older, more “time tested” machines. It can do almost anything that its bigger brother can do, just in a smaller package. WattOS is completely free to use and is covered under the GNU public license.

Moving to the world of telecommunication devices for a moment, there’s TokBox. Powered by Adobe’s innovative “Air” development platform, TokBox is a Skype-esque way to keep in touch with family and friends. TokBox can be used from a variety of diverse places, from their website to Facebook. While the little upstart might not have the features of Skype at the moment, it is definitely one program to keep your eye on.

Those who own an iPhone are no doubt familiar with Apple’s MobileMe, a handy little service that syncs up all of your media devices. If you like the idea of everything working together, but don’t think that perfect harmony is worth $100, give Mail2Web LIVE a try. Mail2Web does everything that MobileMe does, from playing nice with your Blackberry to updating Outlook on your PC, only it’s free. And the kicker? The service is built upon Microsoft’s Hosted Exchange Platform. So give Mail2Web LIVE a try. We promise not to tell Steve Jobs.

These days, staying mobile doesn’t mean that you have to leave your social networking habits at home. For example, check out Moblog. It works kind of like Twitter, except it allows you to post pictures and video you’ve taken with your phone as well as text. And the best part? The Moblog team builds your private space for you. All you need to do is send a text message. Moblog makes networking on the road simple and easy.

If you’re a Firefox user, then you no doubt know that Mozilla has released a small update to its popular web browser. Firefox 3.0.1 delivers everything that 3.0 delivered, only slightly more bug-free. It’s not a major change - you probably won’t see a difference in performance - but anything that improves stability is welcomed by us.

Firefox 3.1, on the other hand… now that’s an entirely different story. Mozilla’s next major update will reportedly contain several new features that were left out of the 3.0 release, including better tab switching. As you can guess, Firefox 3.1 is nowhere near ready to be used by the general public. Still, if you’re the adventurous type like I am, Firefox 3.1 Alpha 1 pre-release is available on the Mozilla FTP.

For those who would like to try the new tab switching scheme but are wary about loading anything with the word “alpha” in the title, then the Ctrl-Tab add-on is for you. Ctrl-Tab allows users to see snapshots of their open tabs, similar to Alt-Tab in Windows. I’ve been using Ctrl-Tab for awhile now. It’s an extremely handy way to keep track of your tabs. As with all Firefox plug ins and add-ons, Ctrl-Tab is completely free.

If creating new “skins” and themes for Firefox is more your thing, then Personas is definitely for you. It lets anyone theme, skin and modify Firefox on the fly. No actual coding knowledge is needed. All of the changes you make are applied instantly and are easily undone. While Personas helps with the creation of new themes, it doesn’t actually give the user more artistic skill. Darn… still out of luck.

Ah… the clipboard. Best friend to the trio known as “cut, copy, and paste.” If you want to expand your clipboard’s horizons past your desktop, we suggest giving the Clipmarks extension a go. Clipmarks takes the text that you have designated for your clipboard and posts it directly to their site. The new clips are then available to a variety of social networking and blogging applications, such as Facebook and Wordpress. Handy and fun, Clipmarks just might be the clipboard upgrade that you didn’t know you needed.

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If there’s one thing that we know around here, it’s search engine optimization, or SEO. The Firefox add-on Niche Watch Tool knows a few things about SEO as well. It allows you to track everything SEO, from backlinks to keyword appearances to page ranking. It also has the added bonus of comparing these results to the results of your competition. Despite the unassuming and, frankly, boring name, Niche Watch Tool is perfect for those who want to bring a little “SEO” into their lives.

Ah… the homemade “tribute” music video. What better way to show your love for a celebrity, professional wrestler, or animated series from Japan than to commit low-level copyright infringement in their name? If this is a racket that you want to get in on but believe that your video editing skill are lacking, check out Animoto. Simply upload some images, upload a song of your choice, and Animoto does the rest. The results are surprisingly good.

Say that you’ve graduated past the random “still” image. Maybe you want to incorporate actual video into your tribute or business video. Don’t worry, because MuveeMix has it all covered. MuveeMix takes in your music, throws in some video of your choice, and then edits it on the fly. The result? A professional quality music video. As always, MuveeMix is completely free of charge.

Some of us, however, might not be as content letting a website do the work for them. For all you control freaks hands-on types, there’s JumpCut, from Yahoo. JumpCut is like a web-based iMovie, allowing you to edit, splice, overlay, and more, all from your browser. One of the coolest features is that you can import media directly from your Facebook page or your Flikr account. You also get a special email address, that your friends can use to send you clips from their mobile phones. All you need is a Yahoo ID (those are free as well) and a video camera.

If you want more out of a video editor than what JumpCut can provide, but at the same time not willing to take out the small bank loan it takes to afford Apple’s Final Cut Pro, then EyeSpot might be for you. It’s not as powerful as Final Cut Pro, but it has more bells and whistles than JumpCut. And for an added feature, it even allows you to embed the video editor into your website, allowing other people to come in and mix up and edit videos that you put on your website. A 100 MB upload limit doesn’t get you very far with video content, though. Hopefully, they’ll up this limit soon. If not, someone will. There’s no stopping the Free Line.

And now for the big one. Are you ready for this? Your not…there’s no way. What we’re about to show you is going to change the very meaning of online video. Kaltura is a…wait for it… a free and open source VIDEO PLATFORM! Well, what does that mean, you ask? I thought you might. It means that now anybody can add a full featured video solution to their website for free! Functionality includes uploading, transcoding, remixing, annotating, sharing, search, and just about anything else you can think of. A plugin has just been released that let’s you add Kaltura video to a wiki and a WordPress plugin is coming soon. Keep your eye on our own Free Line wiki. We’ll be implementing this very soon. Its just too cool.

Last May, we reported on the French government’s complaints about privacy issues with Google’s StreetView system. Apparently, they weren’t the only ones concerned. Google has now removed a grand total of 51 specific locations from their Google Maps Street View. Many of the deleted images are considered to be of a “sensitive nature,” such as research labs and nuclear reactors. Non-military sites being blocked or blurred include the Playland Amusement Park in Rye, New York, the homes of Vice President Dick Cheney and actor William Hurt… and the entire continent of Europe. Google has yet to comment publicly on this matter.

Bookmarks. RSS feeds. Downloaded files. General social media. Despite what you be thinking right now, throwing everything onto the digital equivalent of your bedroom floor is not being organized. Don’t worry, because Secondbrain is here to help. Secondbrain is like a giant file cabinet, keeping all of your links and files safe and accessible in one central location. It also makes it easy to share your private collection of web bits with the world. After a few minutes, you’ll see what how great true online organization is. It’s better than the bedroom floor approach.

One of the harder things to do in life is deal with a cat. One second, it’s rubbing up against you affectionately. The next, it’s taking its claws for a spin on your new sofa. In many ways, writing HTML and CSS code is the same exact thing. To calm the raging feline that lives within your web server, we here at the Free Line suggest trying HTML Playground. HTML Playground allows you to see the changes you make to your code in real time, allowing you to view and anticipate any problems as they occur. If something doesn’t quite work, just undo it. No harm done. While it’s not necessarily suited for everyday use, HTML Playground is perfect as the “catnip” needed to keep your site in line.

Sometimes, all it takes is one picture to turn your website from beautiful to an eyesore. Site colors that clash with the colors of a picture can not only ruin your site’s ascetics, it could scare potential clients away. One way to prevent this from happening is by using a “color match” service like the Color Palette Generator. The Generator analyzes your picture files, and offers up a few appropriate colors that will match nicely. Simple and easy to use, the Color Palette Generator is one way to make sure that the your site is not an eyesore.

In the world of digital photography, keeping everything deep and meaningful isn’t always appropriate. There are moments where you just need to lighten up and explore your inner “Andy Warhol.” Cameroid takes webcam-based digital pictures and turns them into an over-the-top experience heavy on visual delight, but light on thinking. All of the classic filters and options are present, from pop art to the head of Frankenstein. While it won’t guarantee you your “fifteen minutes,” the free Cameroid service does provide some mindless fun. And sometimes, a little mindless fun is exactly what the doctor ordered.

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Yahoo has gone open source, in a way. The brain trust behind the second biggest search engine in the world announced the creation of BOSS, a service that will allow perspective search moguls to roll their own search engine. BOSS users will able to perform a wide range of functions, from re-ranking search results to removing all traces of the distinctive Yahoo logo. Yahoo will eventually allow BOSS users to advertise their specialized engines on the Yahoo site. At press time, Yahoo’s web, images, and news engines are available for tinkering, with video search coming soon.

Anyone who has used the Internet in the past ten years should be familiar with the concept of “mirrors” - one website located on several different and independent servers. Doing this with blogs, however, can be the very definition of “headache inducing.” Copying and re-copying the same data on several different platforms is not the easiest thing in the world to do. This is where switchAbit comes in. SwitchAbit takes away the frustration of blog mirroring by automating the entire process. Copying your WordPress blog into your Facebook account is as easy as logging into a website. While the service is still working through a few bugs, the switchAbit team promises that everything will operational in the first stable.

Hot water is for squares, man! Well, not really, but it isn’t a necessity when washing your clothing. According to the lovely people at Seventh Generation, ninety percent of all the energy used in one load of laundry goes to heating up the water. If facts such as that bother you but still aren’t keen on giving your boxer shorts an ice bath, have no fear. They are here to help. All you have to do is take their “cold water” pledge and you get a copy of their book Naturally Clean: The Seventh Generation Guide to Safe and Healthy, Non-Toxic Cleaning absolutely free. Free reading material telling you how to save both money and the environment… sounds great to me.

Believe it or not, your cell phone can do more that take calls, send text messages, check emails, download music, and surf the web. It can now also record and stream video online. Qik is a handy little service that turns your average looking Windows or Symbian-based cell phone in miniature HandyCam. Just connect using your cell number and within seconds, you will be recording and streaming video for the world to see. The video output will then be available from either the Qik website or from previous Free Line all-star PicLens. A bit of warning though: Qik can eat up its fair share of bandwidth. So unless you subscribe to unlimited data plan, I’d think twice before starting production on the cell phone remake of Gone With the Wind.

To finish up the week, we have Plurk. Now on the surface, Plurk seems to be just another Twitter clone. Look closely, however, and you will see that it is much, much more. Utilizing a horizontal layout and cute graphics, Plurk is perfect someone who enjoys microblogging, but wishes to have a little whimsical fun while doing it. And honestly, everyone needs a little fun in their lives, even those towing the Free Line.

On the July 8th edition of the Free Line, we reported that media giant Viacom was forcing Google to hand over the personal records associated with YouTube users. Tech blog Gizmodo is now reporting that this might not be the case after all. While Viacom is still set to receive the information from Google, all personal information will be replaced with a so called “arbitrary identifier.” This latest change came about after privacy groups protested the move. Neither Google nor Viacom have any comment concerning this latest development.

Around the world, widespread disease is still a serious problem. Keeping track of the diseases used to be a painstaking and not too reliable proposition. Thankfully, that is about to change. Healthmap is a project in which top researchers use Google Maps to keep tabs on the various viral nasties that populate the planet. According to their website, their ultimate goal is to provide a “unified and comprehensive view of the current global state of infectious diseases and their effect on human and animal health.” On behalf of the Free Line, I wish you nothing but good luck on behalf of your cause.

To some of us, text messaging is a necessary evil. For those of you who feel that texting is a gigantic waste of time but still have a need to use the service, there’s GizmoSMS. Unlike most texting services, Gizmo is based from a website. Not only can you avoid the normal texting fees that come with sending a message, you can use your keyboard to write full sentences. Ah… the simple joys of the properly punctuated sentence. As always, Gizmo SMS is a free service.

There are many of us who believe that a cell phone is not a proper replacement for a regular digital camera. Sadly this is not true, as most phone are obscenely underpowered when compared to nicer cameras on the market. Still, that doesn’t mean that your pictures automatically have to look bad. Download the Mobile Photo Enhancer and clean those pictures up. The Mobile Photo Enhancer removes noise, JPEG compression artifacts, and more from cell phone imagery. What you’re left with is nicest looking picture possible. Even cell phones can capture the beauty of the world around us. They just need a little help in the clutch.

Despite what Huey Lewis might have told you, it’s not hip to be square, especially when it comes to CSS bounding boxes. RoundedCornr delivers what it promises - nice rounded edges for all. Just choose your colors and your height and off you go. It’s not flashy, but it’s functional. And sometimes, functional is all you need.

The Republican Party is now on Facebook. No, this is not a joke. The Republican Platform Committee recently has launched a Facebook application in order to find out what “average people” care about. Topics listed include national security concerns, gas prices, judicial nominations, and tech policies. If you wish to give them a “piece of your mind to feast upon” yet don’t have a Facebook account, have no fear. The GOP has also set up a traditional website as well. While Democratic nominee Barack Obama is embarking on a similar campaign, the party on a whole has yet to implement such a measure. So go on and vent. It’s the American way.

Mozilla, the development house responsible for Firefox and Thunderbird, is in the Guinness Book of World Records. Firefox 3.0 was downloaded a staggering 8,002,530 times on the day of its launch, easily setting the new world record for most downloads in a 24 hour period. Mozilla now finds themselves rubbing elbows with such luminaries as Stephen Carter (world’s fastest pumpkin carver), Claudio Castagnoli (longest held non-submission wrestling maneuver), and the Tivoli Lovelies (world oldest chorus line).

Needless to say, this stunt still has people talking. ZDNet recently talked with Paul Kim, the Vice President of Marketing with Mozilla. According to Mr. Kim, his company has social networking to thank for setting the record. “Since Firefox is all about the online experience, it’s a natural fit for folks who are open to social networking. We announced Download Day with a very concerted plan to leverage multiple social networks and to seed content on those networks that would drive traffic to the download site.” For the complete interview, feel free to visit ZDNet.

Sticking with Firefox for a moment, our colleague Jason Bartholme has a list of the top eleven power plugins for Firefox. Our current favorite is CodeTech, it allows you to edit web pages while viewing them. Think Dream Weaver or Front Page, but without the external program. Very handy in the moments when a page needs to be debugged now.

Everyone needs a little help finding something new from time to time. Enter Similicious. Similicious is sort of the “helper monkey” of social websites. Instead of a plain old web search, Similicious uses Del.icio.us bookmarks as a way of finding websites related to the ones you like. Oh… and it’s free as well. Can’t beat that.

To finish things up, I have a simple question for you: have you ever lost Post-It Notes. I’m not talking about the pad. I am talking about the actual, filled out notes. If this is you (it’s definitely me), then we here at the Free Line suggest giving UberNote a try. UberNote is a completely free alternative to Microsoft’s OneNote application, allowing you to take notes, bookmarks make lists and clip portions of the web all from your browser. It’s easy to use, completely free, and best all, can’t be lost.

The new iTunes store was launched last Thursday, and with it came all of the new portable applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Out of the roughly 550 applications hat have been released, 125 of those applications are completely free.

And of course, the best way to choose what to install on your new iPhone is by seeing it in action. Tech blog TechCrunch has a fantastic feature showing off eight of the new apps.

Our friends at Lifehacker a nice little piece detailing the best free applications the iPhone has to offer.

And it just wouldn’t be the Free Line if we didn’t put our two cents into it as well. So without further adieu, we give you the Free Line’s top five free applications for the iPhone.

Remote: Control both iTunes and Apple TV using your iPhone. Simple idea, but it’s executed well.

Pandora: Internet radio has invaded the iPhone. Not only does Pandora stream your favorite music, it actually customizes its play list based on your preferences. Perfect for those who want to listen to something different, yet don’t want to shell out the $12.95 a month for satellite radio.

Mobile News Network: Powered by the Associated Press, the Mobile News Network allows you to keep up with the latest goings on in the world around us. Easy to use and a wealth of proven, credible sources, all for free. Can’t beat that.

SpeechCloud: A helpful little tool that adds voice dialing. Simple? Of course. Not everything great has to be complicated.

Wordpress: The sheer power of blogging has hit the iPhone. Keep in touch even when you’re away from your computer. Fun and useful… seems to be Wordpress’ M.O., doesn’t it?

We all know that WordPress is a great tool for creating a website. It’s much more than a blog platform, it is an essential tool for anyone that wants a website that is easy to maintain and update. But as an essential marketing tool for social networks, a lot of added features for WordPress often get overlooked or ignored entirely. We’ve got some great plugins that can be leveraged easily in any social marketing campaign.

The key to get the word out about your website this day in age is posting about it on social networks. For every social network out there, someone has created a cross posting tool in WordPress. Our current favourites are the MySpace, Twitter and Facebook plugins, that take any post you put on your WordPress website and posts about it on the respective Social Network.

And of course, you want to make sure that your fans and readers have a chance to do the same thing. Check out the Sociable plugin- it makes it a snap to tell anyone and everyone about one of your web pages. It automatically supports Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Mixx, Email, Facebook and lots of others. Its like the swiss army knife of social bookmarks.

Once you’ve got the word out, you’ll need to take advantage of the social aspects of social networks. If you just cross post your WordPress site without having an extensive list of friends you won’t be taking advantage of the social media platforms. Finding and adding friends can be time consuming. But it can go by a lot faster with the Yoono plugin for FireFox.

And of course, while we’re talking about social networking and WordPress, we might as well return to WordPress MU, also known as WordPress MultiUser, the version of WordPress that lets multiple blogs be hosted on the same website. Automatic, the creators of WordPress and WordPress MU just bought BuddyPress, a plugin that turns WordPress MU into a full fledged Social Network. This means that future versions of WordPress MU will contain all the stuff that BuddyPress added in, giving your WordPress install all the power of MySpace of Facebook.

Just when we think we know all the answers concerning Internet marketing, Google changes the questions. Internet marketing expert and StomperNet faculty member Ed Dale is reporting that Google has altered the way that the AdWords Keyword Tool reports keyword search volume. Each report now accurately states how many times keywords or strings of keywords were searched, all using real numbers. Thanks to the new update, the end user will be able to know whether or not a keyword or a string of keywords are worth pursuing. We are currently testing the system for accuracy ourselves. We will keep you posted on the results.

For those of you who still want a bit more out of your data than what Google is giving, we suggest giving Woopra a try. From all reports, the featuring list on thing is nothing short of “massive.” According to developer iFusion Labs, Woopra is designed to do everything a developer would want, from tracking hits to sending real time notifications. Although still in beta, Woopra already has those “in the know” talking. Woopra, like most of tools featured on the Free Line, is completely free.

With the popularity of social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, the term “social media marketer” has become the Internet’s new buzzword. But as those of us in the business know, a real social media marketer is more than just a person with a smattering of SEO knowledge and a passion for friend’s lists. On Techipedia, journalist Tamar Wienberg talks about what it takes to be the very best with the people who know it best: actual social media marketers. “A social media marketer’s job never ends,” says media strategist Reem Abeidoh. “They usually work 70 hour weeks and need to be extremely flexible. There are days when marketers may have to serve as internal evangelist by introducing key stakeholders to social media. There are other times when marketers may have to launch a multi-platform outreach campaign. It just depends on the needs of the client.”

The practice of using social networks as a business tool are not limited to the “social media” kingpins mentioned above. Lawyers are now using Twitter as a way to find prospective clients. The key, according to Law Firm Web Strategy blogger Steve Matthews, is to remember that Twitter is based upon “pure, personal reactions.” By staying personal, the marketer or lawyer will have an easier time “exposing one’s practice and expertise online.” Great words to live by, no matter if your product is legal services or or web developing.

As many of you already know, hosting and maintaining a blog can increase visibility of your website. Hosting several blogs on varied, yet still relevant topics could be huge for your business, but could also cause massive headaches for either you or your IT team. Our solution is simple: WordPress MultiUser, or “MU” for short. WordPress MU makes it easy for users to host, track, and update several different blogs hosted on the same website. It also makes it a breeze to start new blogs when needed. So start blogging. The world is waiting to hear what you have to say.