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.

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.

你知道社交网络是一个强有力的工具，它促进改变并把大家比以往更紧密的联系到一起了。· 美国共和党在Facebook上新推出的程序就是一个好的例子，它提供给大家一个讨论党内事务的平台。GOP创建了这个程序，希望能以此引发大家的讨论，并唤起大家对油价，国家安全和其它问题的重视。·

另一个驾驭社交网络力量的好例子是最近火狐浏览器打破吉尼斯世界记录的事件。人们至今还在讨论它，下载它，就在你我说话的时候。ZDNet·最近采访了Paul Kim，Mozilla的营销副总裁。他告诉了我们许多Mozilla大规模社交网络营销和病毒传播活动幕后的故事。·欲知详情请访问Freelinereport.com

但是如果火狐本身不是好东西的话不管它有再牛的营销活动也是无济于事。 下面就让我们来一下最热门的11款火狐插件。这些插件能让你的浏览器变成一把瑞士军刀，甚至可以替代你每天使用的程序。·CodeTech插件是我们的最，它可以让你浏览网页的时候编辑它，就像DreamWeaver或FrontPage，而且就用你的浏览器·。很酷吧。当然，毕竟火狐本身毕竟只是一款浏览器。如果不是先有好的网络程序的话也不会有它的成功。你将会爱上我将要为你介绍这两款免费的网络程序。·第一款叫做Similicious，它能通过从Delicious的书签中找到你可能喜欢的网站·。你可以把它看成一个书签版的亚马逊推荐系统。

今天为大家介绍的最后一款程序·叫做UberNote。它是一款完全可以取代微软OneNote的免费程序·，你可以记录笔记，存储书签，创建列表，或者从浏览器中截取网页片段，全部都免费。

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.

Quick quiz: which insanely popular social networking browser is on top right now? Well, that is all depends on who you are asking. At the end of May, it’s Facebook. The scrappy little fighter in the blue and white trunks has officially surpassed MySpace in the number of unique visitors worldwide - 123.9 million to MySpace’s 114.6 million. Facebook detractors, however, are quick to point out that while they are in the lead worldwide, MySpace still has the edge in the United States. Roughly 73.7 million Americans visited MySpace last May, compared to the 35.6 million that stopped by Facebook. The US is still considered to be the number one advertising market. So who is on top right now? We’re not really sure, but it will definitely be interesting to find out.

So what could possibly be better than being number one in the world? Changing the Internet, of course. According to the people at Take Back the Web, Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg is one of the Top 15 people who changed the Internet. Zuckerberg placed number three, ahead of such luminaries as Shawn Fanning (Napster), Kevin Rose (Digg), and Bram Cohen (BitTorrent). Two notable absentees are Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson, the creators of MySpace.

Controversial site stats and an oddball snubbing aside, there is plenty for the MySpace faithful to get excited about, like the movie. Yes, that’s right. Many MySpacers are in the midst of making their own movie. Called Faintheart, the movie is a comedy taking place in a battle reneactment club. The director, actors and much of the music were chosen via MySpace, all pulled directly from the producer’s Friend List.

Moving “off line” for a moment, we’ve got news that Google Docs has Gears support. This means you don’t have to be connected to the internet to get all the functionality of Google Docs. This puts it in direct competition with Adobe’s Buzz Word Processor, which has the same technology, as well as all the other offline Word Processors (Word, AbiWord) and Office suites (Office, OpenOffice) that clog our desktops.

And of course, if you want to take that web 2.0 feel offline, no one is currently doing it better than Adobe. The multimedia giant’s development platform Adobe Air is currently taking the Flash Development community by storm, and it’s time for the end user to reap the benefits. Productivity blog Lifehacker has a list of ten Air-based applications that are definitely worth looking at. Give it a shot. You’ll be glad that you did.

Microsoft is getting serious about taking more of the online ad revenue market. Called Microsoft Advertising, the software giant is out to advertise to the masses. Redmond’s new marketing division differs from Google AdWords in execution. Instead of being one solid service, Microsoft Advertising is actually an amalgamation of several services purchased over the years, such as Atlas and Massive. Despite the intense competition, the computing giant remains confident that they will be able to compete with the search engine king. We here at the Free Line wish Microsoft the best of luck. Having another place to advertise is never bad thing.

Have you ever thought it would be cool if you could combine the social networking powerhouse Facebook and download king BitTorrent? Now you can, thanks to Morrent. Morrent works hand in hand with popular client uTorrent, allowing users to monitor and control their downloads from their Facebook profiles. Think of it as a high-tech way to stalk your torrents when you’re away from your system. Just remember: the law is still the law.

Sometimes, editing Wikipedia can be a real pain. Who has all of that time to deal with that wiki code? If this is you, and you also happen to have the Free Line favorite OpenOffice, then you’re in luck. SunWiki Publisher is an OpenOffice add-on that allows users to work with the MediaWiki system the same way they tackle their word processing files. Simply put, Sun Wiki Publisher… is wikid cool. So go out there and edit, whether it’s Wikipedia or our own Free Line wiki… which, by the way, is superior to Wikipedia in every way. (Citation needed.)

The True Share Internet File System is your personal digital self storage box, allowing you to store almost anything and access it anytime. Many users praise True Share for its general usability, its simplicity, and its ability to blend in with any desktop color scheme. While the service isn’t exactly free, it’s worth it for those who need access to their data at all times or want to avoid physical drives.

If you’ve ever wanted to  tap into the marketing potential of MySpace, but you never quite figured it out, MySpace Marketing Manager is here to help. Based upon Microsoft Excel, MySpace Marketing Manager provides prospective business people all of the tools they need to make the social network powerhouse work for them.

微软正在加足马力希望在网络广告领域里面抢占更多的份额。－他们刚刚成立了微软广告，准备成就一番作为。而Redmond新营销部的执行不同于Google AdWords－。其实它不是并单项服务，而是由很多个之前购买的服务组合在一起的整合部门，比如Atlas和Massive。尽管竞争很激烈，这个软件巨人依然保持着能够与搜索大王竞争的信息。我们Free Line在此向祝微软好运。打广告时有选择总是好事。

你是否曾经想过，如果能把社交网络巨人Facebook和下载之王BT下载结合起来会是一件很酷的事呢？－多亏了Morrent，这个想法已经实现。Morrent与uTorrent紧密合作，终于实现了在Facebook上检测BT下载情况的能功能－。你可以把它看作是一种当你离开电脑时实时跟踪BT下载情况的工具。不过别忘了：不该下的别下。

有时候，编辑Wikipedia会是很痛苦的。谁有时间去学习那些讨厌的wiki代码？如果你同意，并且你正巧拥有我们最喜欢的软件OpenOffice的话，那么你走运了。－SunWiki Publisher是一个OpenOffice的插件允许用户就像使用文字编辑器一样使用MediaWiki系统－你需要做的……只是打字而已。所以只要登陆和编辑，无论是Wikipedia或是我们自己的Free Line Wiki，也就是www.freelinereport.com/wiki。我觉得它比wikipedia强多了，虽然只有我这么觉得……

想象一下世界上最大的U盘的样子，它从来都不会被装满并且对所有人都有无数的空间，另外何时何地都可以使用。不用再yy了，这种东西是存在的，也就是我们的True Share。这个True Share网络文件系统是一个个人文件存储系统，它允许你随时随地都可以存储任何东西。很多用户都夸奖True Share的可用性，便利性，和其综合各种桌面工具的能力。虽然服务并不是完全免费的，如果你总是需要在各地读取各种文件且不想携带U盘的话它还是值得的。

最后如果你曾经想过去开发MySpace的商务功能，却不知所措的话，MySpace商务管理器也许能帮忙。MySpace商务管理器是建立在微软的Excel上的，它能把MySpace变成一个商务人士喜欢的场所。

Google is not making any friends in France right now. The computing giant has started to give its StreetView treatment to Paris. Streetview uses hidden cameras to add real views of the actual streets to Google Maps. Some citizens are upset at Google’s tactics, citing several breach of privacy issues. Google still may have an out, however. According to French law, the pictures might still able to be posted. All Google has to do is make sure that the faces of the citizens are blurred before the site goes live. We will keep you updated on this developing story.

Twidox takes the Wikipedia concept and gives it an academic makeover. Each article is longer, more focused, and is completely peer reviewed. Though it has a definite academic bent, Twidox is a great resource for anyone wanting to learn something new.

Jimdo is the latest in a long line of services promising the end user easy site creation and free hosting. Just log in, use the specialized tools to creat a web-powered masterpiece, and save. While the user might not be able to make, say, Yahoo.com with Jimdo, it more than fits the needs of those who wish to share family photographs or artwork. Jimdo offers its services free of charge.

Locr is a new photo sharing website with a focus on geo-tagging. It enables you to use your smart phone to upload photos to an interactive map. There’s also a manual function that allows you to place non geo-tagged photos on the map by hand. Then, the cool new thing is that as you roam around the planet, Locr will automatically display photos from anyone taken nearby.

Facebook has posted some new details on the up and coming change to user profiles. The new profiles will now look more like they currently do on the iPhone. According to the reports, all the information needed will be found on five tabs. This new “tab structure” should cut down on the clutter (applications, tools, add-ons) that most Facebook profiles seem to accumulate. Expect these features to be incorporated in the near future.

If you’re confused as to what Web 3.0 is, or rather, will be, we’ve got a link to a great article that explains what Web 3.0 is and how you’ll be able to reap the benefits of this future technology.

Following on the heels of MySpace’s announcement to allow websites to bring in profile data, comes Facebook with an almost identical feature. They’re calling it FaceBook Connect.  Although it won’t actually launch for a few weeks, it will be, essentially, an overhaul of their 3rd party API which will give outside applications access to the same data that Facebook applications have now.

Google has just released an new tool called Friend Connect, which will allow you to do exactly the same thing Facebook and MySpace are planning on doing with any Open Social network. It looks like we’re about to see the full realization of Web 2.0. Pretty soon, meeting up with your friend’s online will be even easier than meeting them offline — and soon, whatever third party site you’re on, all your friends can come with you — automatically.

Fans of Twitter with latest Mac OSX are in for a surprise–included with the development tools is a hidden treat! A screen saver that displays all of your Twitter friends, built right on top of the operating system. Running the screen saver is simple: just drag and drop and away you go. When it’s done loading, it shows a wheel with your Twitter friends and their tweets.

GeoGraffiti turns your cellphone into a web 2.0 tool, enabling you to leave voice message details for free about any place you want. Verbal tips, tools, reviews of a restaurant, description of scenery, or even directions to a specific place, and then save it all so that other people with GeoGraffiti accounts can find it for free.

In the next few weeks MySpace users should expect the ability to quickly and easily share videos, profile details and images to web sites operated by Yahoo, Ebay and others, including websites like Photobucket and Twitter.

OpenOffice 3.0 is now ready for public beta testing. We have some visual changes- new and better icons, a pretty start screen, as well as some pretty heavy changes under the hood. You can expect a better install process for Mac machines with complete look and feel that jives with other aqua apps.

Facebook finally reached an agreement with the attorney generals of 49 states and the District of Columbia concerning stricter safety standards. Facebook pledged to develop age verification technology in addition send warnings to anyone under 18 giving out their own personal information as well as restrict a vast majority of what they can do on the website.

Facebook plans on lifting that cumbersome 5,000 friends limit in the near future. Different reasons for the limit have been bandied about for keeping the upper limit on friends to five thousand, but the real reason is scalability issues.

FullFillment Central is giving away 100 free full color flyers. That’s right- free. All you need to do is pay a small shipping and handling fee to get them delivered to anywhere in the US. A great example of pushing the Free Line.