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 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?

欢迎来到免费帮的iPhone专辑。首先，新的iTunes商店上周四上线了，随之而来的是为iPhone和iPod touch设计的全新手机程序。到目前为止有超过550个程序发布，`这个数字也超越了以往任何一个新上线的系统。乔布斯也称这是他职业生涯最重要的产品发布。我们也非常欣慰的告诉大家乔布斯深喑免费之道，因为当中的125个程序，相当于全部的25%，是完全免费的。当然，在那么多免费的程序中挑出来一些值得安装的也不是件容易的事。所以我们为大家献上最热门的iPhone程序列表。我们的最爱？是那个可以把你的iPhone变成iTunes和Apple TV遥控器的程序。加油啊乔布斯，我们期待着更多的免费程序。另一个超牛又免费的程序就是新的iPhone版的潘多拉。·潘多拉是一个免费的在线音乐试听网站，并有独特的根据用户喜好提供的推荐系统。iPhone版的潘多拉完全免费，而且它几乎也是你能在网上找到的最好的音乐试听网站了。它的基面完美的整合了iPhone的特点，几乎与原生的iTunes界面无异。不过当然了，判断一个新的程序最好的办法就是亲自去体验它。· TechCrunch上周五发布了一份特别的报道给程序开发者提供了一个展示的舞台·。网站的链接就在FreeLineReport.com。最后，那些特别想随时随地记录生活的Wordpress玩家注意了，·看一下最新的iPhone版的Wordpress。没错，现在不论在什么地方你都可以登陆wordpress并发布博客了！

Well, this Sunday is Father’s Day, so we’re going to show you how to honor it, Free Line Style.First, nothing brings a smile to a dad’s face like pictures of his kids. This father’s day, Shutterfly, a website dedicated to putting photos on just about anything, has a special offer for dads. Get 10 photo book pages for free - giving your dad a nice and glossy, high quality book of memories.

Or even better, why not take him on a trip instead? You can use TravelMuses’s new Inspiration Finder for ideas. Completely free, the Inspiration Finder can give you ideas for great trips that you never even heard of before. You can even plan you travel and book the whole trip without leaving the website. While the Inspiration Finder is completely free, the actual trip costs are up to you.

And what if your family is scattered across the country, like many are these days? You can always use PalTalk Express to talk to your dad and get your brothers and sisters together online. It’s got free video chat, right in your web browser. No downloading required to connect you and your family one more time. Or just give your dad a Mac and use iChat.

And off course, who doesn’t want their own webpage? You can build one for dear old dad completely for free using the Weebly website. You don’t even have to know how to make a web page to do it, since that’s where Weebly comes in. And it now supports Ad-sense in their custom websites, so you can get your dad some cash to boot.

And even though you can’t get him an iPhone 2.0 in time for Father’s day, make sure he grabs a copy of Apple’s new Mobile Me. It will help keep his Computer, laptop and iPhone all in sync. Calendars, address book, and email, all connected. It works natively with both Mac and PC’s, using the software that he’s already got installed plus there’s a 60 day free trial.

这个星期天就是父亲节了，所以今天我们来看看如何庆祝它，免费帮的方式。首先，没有任何东西比孩子的微笑更能带给父亲微笑了。·Shutterfly这个可以使你把照片放在任何东西上面的网站在这个父亲节有特殊的折扣，·10页免费的相册。它能给你父亲一个高质量、漂亮的回忆。

另外你不妨可以带他出去转转。·你可以用TravelMuses的找灵感功能计划一下，它完全免费，并且能为你安排一次你前所未闻的绝妙旅程。更好的是你甚至可以仅在这个网站上就把所有的票全部搞定。虽然这个网站是免费的，但是买票和定旅店的时候还是要些银子的。·

也许你的家庭是像现在很多人一样分布在全国各地的，你可以通过使用·PalTalk Express和父亲聊天或是把弟弟妹妹们聚集起来。它支持在浏览器里的免费视频聊天·。现在你再也不用担心老爸老妈不知道QQ是何物了，能用IE就能视频是我们一贯的宗旨。

另外，谁不想拥有自己的网站呢？· 你现在可以为我们电脑白痴的老爸们免费的建立一个网站了。如果你也是个电脑白痴那就更好了，Weebly就是为这些人设计的。另外它还支持Google的Ad－sense，·所以这样还可以给老爸赚些外快。

尽管你不能在父亲节及时的送给老爸一台iPhone 2.0，你还可以送它一套苹果最新的Mobile Me。·它会自动同步老爸的台式、笔记本和iPhone里的日程、电话本和email·。它同时完美支持Mac和PC，你可以试用60天而且不需要其它特殊的软件。

今天差不多了。如果你和我一样也是爸爸的话，祝你父亲节快乐。

Ever wanted to talk to Martians on MySpace? That future could be a distinct possibility soon, if NASA has its way. They’re bringing all the details and goals of the new mars mission online. They plan on providing real time images of the space craft landing. This will allow millions of people across the world to experience the Martian landscape first hand. And if we see any little green men, we’ll make sure to let them friend us on MySpace and Facebook.

If you believe you are one of those people who have already met a little man from outer space, then Spielberg’s new venture should be right up your alley. It’s a website called The Rising, and it’s out to create a Facebook style social platform for UFO abductees. ET no longer needs to phone home- he just has to post a bulletin on his profile.

For those of us still trapped here on earth, we’ve got a link to Wired’s new How-To section, about using the internet to live green. It’s set up in a wiki format, so if you know anything about living with a low carbon footprint, you can go and share your knowledge with the world.

Earlier on the Free Line we showed you several free online applications that let you add Geo Tags to pictures, including one that used your cellphone. Looks like someone at Apple watches these videos and knows what the public wants. The next version of iPhone, 2.0, will have geo tagging for photos built in directly. Take a picture with your iPhone, and the geo tags automatically pop up.

While we’re on the subject of tags, we’ve got some startling news about the next version of FireFox. It will not have microformat support after all. Microformats are a form of semantic web browsing, a technology now used in Yahoo and Google searches and one that will be used in Digg in the near future. This new technology is hailed as the future of the web, and it seems sad that Firefox won’t have them built in. Fear not, though, for you can always download the Operator plugin and experience web 3.0 first hand.

你是否想过在MySpace上认识火星人？这个想法也许很快就会实现了，【如果NASA有办法的话。他们正打算在网络上公开未来火星计划的细节。计划中包括提供实时的探测器着陆图片。这可以让世界各地的人们第一时间体验到火星的景色。另外如果你看见了火星人，我们会确保把它在MySpace和Facebook上加为好友】。

如果你确信你是一个曾经遇到过外星人的人的话，那么斯皮尔伯格最新的作品一定正适合你。【这是一个叫做The Rising的网站，它是一个类似于Facebook的UFO爱好者在线交流平台。外星人不再电话回家了，因为它只在博客上写日志。

对于我们这些只关心地球的人，大家可以看一下【连线杂志的最新板块，教大家如何使网络更环保。它很像一个维基网站，所以如果你知道如何用一种更环保的方式生活】，你就可以去跟世界分享你的经验。

我们之前在FreeLine中提到过如何利用免费的在线程序给照片添加地理标签，包括一个在手机上使用的软件。看起来苹果公司的有人看到了这些视频并了解大家喜欢什么。【苹果在iPhone的2.0版中内置了地理标签系统。用你的iPhone照张相片，地理标签系统就会自动弹出。好玩极了。

说到标签系统，让我们来看一则令人吃惊的关于新版本火狐的消息：【它竟然完全不支持微格式！微格式是语义互联网络的一种，目前正被雅虎跟Google使用，另外Digg也在计划中】。这项新的技术被推举为网络的未来，可以看起来火狐并不打算内置这项技术。不过不用害怕，你可以随时下载Operator插件并第一个体验Web 3.0Until next time, for the freeline, I’m Brad Fallon.

/p>
Loyal MySpace users can rest a bit easier tonight, knowing the two biggest threats to their accounts have been dealt with. Notorious MySpace spammers Sanford Wallace and Walter Rines were fined a record $234 million by the US District Court for the Central District of California Friday. Wallace and Rines reportedly sent over 700,000 pieces of spam to unsuspecting users, using both newly created and hijacked accounts. The judgment was passed under the guise of the “CAN-SPAM Act,” a roughly four year old law aimed at cracking down on various annoyances.

On the browser front, the Mozilla Foundation released the latest version of Firefox on Friday. “Firefox 3.0 r c 1” features everything beta testers have come to love in the new browser, while dropping a few of its “less-admired” bugs and conflicts. It is well worth the download, but be warned: some of your extensions might not function within the new browser.

New to cell phones last week is Opera Mini 4.1, the latest in the company’s “Opera for mobile devices” line. New features include file transfers, text search inside a page, and auto-completion of web addresses. While the browser doesn’t compare with those found on more “advanced” devices like the iPhone, it is definitely better than the “bare bones” setup most phones come equipped with. As always, Opera Mini is totally free.

If you own an iPhone, you have a new option when it comes to music downloads and file sharing. iSlsk is a new program that taps into the Soulseek network at pretty decent speeds. You’ll need your iPhone to be Jail Broken in order to use the new program. Jail Breaking an iPhone lets you install 3rd party applications onto an iPhone that have not been officially approved by Apple.

And if you don’t know how to do it, we’ve got a link to a quick and dirty tutorial showing you step by step instruction on how to get this done. This is not a simple procedure, so take caution before doing it and back up everything on your iPhone before starting. Oh, and it will probably void your warranty, so there’s that to consider, too.

And finally, we’ve got a great website for you to check out and bookmark. It’s called Archive.org, and it has a ton of free, public domain videos you can watch online. Since the videos are all public domain you can also download them, mash them together or use it as stock footage in your podcast. All for free.

忠实的MySpace用户今晚可以轻松一下了，因为对它们帐户的两大威胁终于被清除了。臭名昭著的MySpace垃圾散步者Sanfor Wallance和Walter Rines在上周五被加州联邦地方法院处以2340万美元的罚款。Wallance 和 Rines被指通过使用自己建立和盗取的帐户，向用户发布了70万条垃圾信息。这项裁决是基于“反垃圾邮件法”做出的，该法案在4年前推出，旨在消灭多种垃圾骚扰。

浏览器方面，Mozilla基金会在上周五发布了最新版的火狐。火狐3.0rc1保留了测试用户们喜欢的所有功能，并解决了一些不该有错误和冲突。它非常值得去下载，但是要注意：你的一些插件在新的浏览器中可能还是不能使用。

上周关于手机的新闻是Opera Mini 4.1，目前它是移动设备Opera产品线的最新版。新的功能包括文件传输，页内文本搜索，和网址的自动填充。尽管这个浏览器还不能和其它像iphone这样先进设备上的相比，但是它的功能已经完全超越了许多手机自带的浏览器。和以往一样这款软件是免费的。

如果你有一台iPhone，现在你有了一个新的方式去下载音乐和共享文件。iSls是一个可以快速连接到Soulseek网络的新程序，而为了使用它你需要把你的iPhone进行破解。破解iPhone将使你可以安装第三方软件但是目前还没有得到苹果的许可。

如果你还不知道如何破解的话，我们这里有一个快速上手的傻瓜教程帮助你一步步实现这个愿望。这个过程并不简单，所以千万留意并备份好你iPhone上的所有东西。噢，另外你的保修可能也会失效，所以这一点也值得考虑。

最后，我们这里有一个非常值得浏览和收藏的网站，叫做Archive.org。它上面有无数免费，公共领域的在线视频。因为这些视频属于公共领域所以你还可以下载它们，收集起来或作为将来可以使用的脚本素材。完全免费。

The usual fun and general frivolity of Twitter was put on the back burner Monday, as students used the micro-blogging service to report on the China earthquake. Twitter users casper o d j and In walked bud posted eye-witness accounts of both the quake and its aftermath, providing a point-of-view not usually seen in traditional journalism. While it isn’t exactly “a hard news source,” Twitter has proven instrumental in time of tragedy and uncertainty. During the 2007 California wild fires, for example, members used a combination of Twitter and Google Maps to directs victims to emergency shelters.

Turning our attention to Redmond, Microsoft announced a new social video initiative on Monday called “Messenger TV.” The new service is centered around giving Windows Live Messenger users YouTube-like functionality at the touch of a button. The service has already launched in twenty countries not called the “United States,” such as Canada, Australia, and Singapore. Curious Americans can try out the service by switching Internet Explorer’s default language to “Canadian English” and logging into the proper Windows Live site. Not a bad tip, eh?

Ever feel a twinge of jealously at the guy on the bus watching “Chocolate Rain” for the billionth time on his iPhone? Ever find yourself yelling desperately at your media device of choice, hoping that it will “get the hint” and allow to peer into a bit of that YouTube goodness? Don’t get angry. Get CorePlayer instead. CorePlayer is a media player designed to run on nearly any gadget thrown at it, from desktop systems to smart phones to even a few GPS devices. The developers are even working on iPhone, iPod Touch and Google Android support. Arguably its best feature, however, is its capability to stream YouTube out of the box. All of that user-generated content in the palm of your hand can be a powerful thing. But please, on behalf of everyone, refrain from doing the “Numa Numa Guy” video dance while driving. It demeans us all.

In other phone related news, the digital art gallery known as deviantART has announced compatibility with the iPhone and iPod Touch. Users from around the world are now able to look at deviantART’s interesting mix of fan art, anthropomorphic animal sketches, and a host of things that normal users would be ashamed to show to their mothers. The feature set is rather “basic” at this point, but the deviantART team promises to tweak and upgrade it in the near future.

Our final stop on the tour brings us to our old friend, peer-to-peer file sharing. For all of those who have been burned by the Napster debacle and Kazaa’s treasure trove of spyware, we here at Free Line suggest giving Alliance P2P a try. Unlike the others, Alliance works on a private basis - the user shares with his or her invited friends only. Alliance P2P is a great way to transfer materials from work to home, pass around home videos to family and friends, or even give those old “Fair Use” laws a good workout. But remember: share wisely. The law is still the law.