LinkedIn, the social network with a distinct “marketing” flavor, is getting into the survey business. The new LinkedIn Surveys will allow researchers to contact and poll LinkedIn members — thirty million, at last count. In return for their time, registered users will be offered a variety of “rewards,”, ranging from McDonalds and Starbucks gift certificates to donations to charity. LinkedIn Surveys is up and running now.

Last week, the fine folks at Google Labs unleashed MailGoogles, a tool designed to curb instances of “emailing under the influence.”  This week the team has released something a bit more useful. Called Canned Responses, the new tool aims to turn your Gmail account into an automated response system. Each “canned message” is completely customizable and controlled via email filters.  Simple to use and set up, Canned Responses makes dealing with difficult messages (and, by extension, messengers) as easy as a setting an email filter.

Elsewhere, online retailer Amazon has purchased Reflexive, a firm best known for their free, site-based computer games. Many analysts believe that Amazon might use Reflexive’s unique talents to create a series of gaming/Amazon tie-ins. Others within the industry speculate that this purchase is the first step in adding gaming functionality to Amazon’s ebook reader, The Kindle. Although Kindle’s slow refresh rate makes gaming pretty much impossible at the moment, future editions of the device could possibly feature game-ready specs. At press time, the exact terms of the deal have not been released.

In browser news, Mozilla Camino has been updated. For those unaware, Camino is the Mac-only browser project designed to give users an alternative to Safari. The big news this time around isn’t what was changed, but what was kept the same. Despite the rumors to the contrary, the Camino team decided to stick with the Gecko engine, the same development backbone used in Firefox. Other updates include an “overlay mode” which allow users to see thumbnails of their tabs, and a revamped history section complete with a “recently closed tabs” list. Camino “preview edition” is available now for all Mac users.

And to finish off the week, we have AppCompactor. AppCompactor compresses unnecessary and unneeded program files, making your portable device or flash drive run as efficiently as possible. While it doesn’t work all of the time–anti-virus and spyware programs routinely get looked over — the program is perfect for anyone who demands the absolute best out of all of their devices. While AppCompactor is only officially available for Windows, it is being reported that it works well with the Linux emulation service WINE.

According to Mozilla, only you can prevent boring and ugly web browsers. Yes, that’s right. If you ever wanted to have something to say about what the future of the Internet looks like, then now is your chance. It’s called Mozilla Labs. The web browsing company wants you to come in and suggest how a post-Firefox web browser should work. Anyone can participate. Just send a suggestion or idea, and Mozilla will look into it.

But Mozilla Labs is more than just suggestions and conversation. The Labs also feature mock-ups of a few of their “more promising” ideas. These short videos walk through some really cool new ideas that would completely change how everything works. Each of these demos are highly visual, and they’re difficult to describe. Thankfully, with the power of the web, I don’t have to. Isn’t the Internet wonderful?

So what is my personal favorite? Hmm… that’s a tough one. Honestly, I would probably go with Aurora, from the Adaptive Path design firm. Aurora is based upon the idea that the “web” can go beyond the average “browser window.” Want to drag sport scores to your desktop? With Aurora, you can do that. Want to follow your stocks? You can do that as well. Aurora also allows the user to see their bookmarks in a highly innovative, 3D view. Unfortunately, Aurora isn’t available for download… yet.

Of course, we can’t just sit around and just wait for the cool stuff to come out. Some of us, like yours truly, want to play with the new, interesting web functionality right now. As an example of the bleeding edge of browser technology, check out the new Snowl plugin for Firefox. Snowl lets you bring all your messaging platforms into one location — Instant Messaging, email, RSS/Atom Feeds, Twitter, FriendFeeds, and so on. At first glance, aggregating all your feeds is nothing new, but being able to handle all your messaging from within one web browser, as well as search and cross reference each one, could prove to be a very powerful. Snowl is available now.

It appears as if the folks at Digg have joined in the Mozilla rush as well. Google’s favorite social news service is finally compatible with Firefox 3.0. With that comes a host of cool new features, including notification messages that pop up in the right hand corner of your browser. The rest is all pretty much standard fare for social network plugins - a tool bar, a “Digg this” button, and instant notification if you have any new messages. If you are stillusing Firefox 2.0, have no fear. The old pugin is still available.

如果你曾想参与创建互联网的未来，你的机会来了。Mozilla实验室新的动员项目允许你参与并建议下一代火狐浏览器应该如何革新。不管你是不是工程师或程序员，每个人都有参与的机会，而Mozilla也会认真的查收你每一条建议。Mozilla实验室其中最棒的项目之一，就是未来互联网的概念设计原型，这些以视频方式展出的非常酷地彻底颠覆传统上网方式。每一个视频都非常生动形象，且不可言传。当然你只要点击午餐帮的链接地址便可立即观赏。在此帮主我特别推荐其中一个非常出众的原型视频：名字叫Aurora。他设计了一种非常独特有趣的在线互动方式。帮主我都有点等不及他的发售了。当然，我确信这一切只是时间问题。当然，这些太酷的东西有点遥不可及。很多人现在就想要个很酷的浏览器功能，立刻、马上就需要！那么你不妨试试Snowl─这是一个火狐3.0的插件，他可以让你所有的信息服务平台功能结合到一起───包括及时聊天，email，RSS，Twitter等等。虽然他本身没有提供新服务，但是加上跨平台的搜索与操作，Snowl仍然是个非常强大使用的工具最后，Digg的家伙们已经给火狐3.0制作了全新的Digg插件，包括Digg消息弹出提醒在内的各种新功能。还有，一个全新的Digg工具栏，提供了全部Digg网站的提醒和投票功能

好了，这就是今天的午餐帮每日播报，我是帮主Brad。别忘了明天继续观看我们的”2.0分钟之内，搞定每日的Web2.0新闻”。Bye

Social networking fans should head right over to the Flock website and download the new Flock 2 Beta 2. Built on a solid foundation of Firefox 3, the new update has all of the security and speed improvements that one is looking for in a modern browser. Flock users are still unable to log in to multiple networking accounts at once, but this is just a minor issue. The Flock beta is available now.

If you would like the advantage of having a social web browser but only use MySpace, then BuddyWave is for you. You can edit your profile, post messages and more, all directly from the web browser. Easy to learn and fun to use, Bubby might just make visiting MySpace a thing of the past. BuddyWave is currently only available for Windows.

Despite what you might have heard, social networking isn’t just for browser-based applications and sites. eMusic, the online music company that pioneered the “MP3 album” concept, is taking steps to insert itself into the social networking structure. Subscribers now have the ability to embed sound clips and album art into no less than thirteen networking sites, including Digg and Facebook. Subscribers will find that many of the album pages are now linked to appropriate YouTube sites.

Innovation is really nothing new to eMusic. On July 19th, indie rock pioneers They Might Be Giants released the first full-length MP3 album, “Long Tall Weekend,” through the service. eMusic also garnered praise for its use of DRM-free MP3 files and its extensive collection of vintage jazz recordings.

Of course, not everything on the Internet is associated with social browsing. Take Sleipner, for instance. This star of the Japanese computing scene a lot of the same functionality as Netscape Navigator 6, including the ability to allow users to choose how to “properly” view a website. Sleipner also has option of running in both Gecko (Firefox) and Trident (Internet Explorer) modes, similar to the “IE Tab” Firefox plugin. Sleipner’s developers, the Osaka-based Fenrir Inc, has promised that English, French, and Spanish versions will be released shortly.

And finally, if you love Firefox, but hate downloading all those plugins just to get it working exactly they way you want it, try downloading the Orca browser. The appeal of browsers like Orca and its Internet Explorer counterpart Avant are that many of most downloaded extensions, including ad blockers and tab editors, are built into the browser. It’s blazingly fast and ultra customizable , allowing you to change the color scheme and toolbars on the fly. Like the previously mentioned BuddyWave, Orca is a Windows-only application.

社交网络的粉丝们应该蜂拥到Flock的网站并下载最新版的Flock 2 Beta 2. ·新的Flock构建于火狐3浏览器之上，并提供了其它现代浏览器所能提供的速度和安全性·。Flock用户们目前还是不能一次性登陆多个社交网络平台，不过这也影响不大。Flock beta的链接就在我们的博客上。

如果非常喜欢社交网络浏览器但是你却只喜欢上Myspace，那么BuddyWave正适合你。·你可以直接通过浏览器实现主页编辑、发布帖子等其它功能。好学易用的BuddyWave可能会使直接登陆Myspace变得过时·。不过BuddyWave目前还只有windows版。

·eMusic，这个曾经提出Mp3专辑概念的网络公司最近提供了在社交网络中嵌入音乐的功能·。用户们现在可以把音乐片段或专辑嵌入到至少13个社交网络网站中，包括Digg和Facebook。另外现在许多专辑的页面也被连接到了相应的YouTube页面当中了。你可以通过我们的网站了解更多关于eMusic的过去和最新消息，网址就在freelinereport.com。

·Sleipner这个日本的浏览器之星现在提供了很多跟Netscape6一样的功能·，比如它允许用户选择用合适的方式去浏览一个网页。Sleipner现在还提供了Firefox和IE两种浏览模式，这跟火狐的IE Tab插件很像。Sleipner的开发者，也就是大阪的Fenrir公司，透露说其英语，法语和西班牙语版也正在开发中。

最后，如果你喜欢火狐，却不希望下载很多插件来让它按你喜欢的方式工作，那么就试一下Orca吧。·跟它的IE兄弟Avant一样，Orca的最大特点就是把那些热门的插件融入到了浏览器当中，如广告过滤器和标签编辑器·。速度奇快是它的另一特点，并允许用户随时更改工具栏和主题颜色。可惜跟之前提到的BuddyWave一样，Orca目前只有windows版。

祝你周末愉快，周一回来我们会带给大家更多的web2.0新闻。

首先，Google又要扩充自己的大军了。根据Tech Crunch说，Google正在购买大牌网站Digg的最后阶段。·如果这项交易成功的话，Google打算把Digg归到自己的Google News旗下。而目前Digg签有3年广告协议的微软，在去年也曾提出购买意向。·我们会继续跟踪报道这个大新闻的。

而正当微软被各种合并收购搞得焦头烂额的时候，微博客始祖Twitter这边则好像进行的非常顺利，·宣布他们收购了搜索引擎Summize。虽然有了新名字叫”Twitter搜索”，这项服务和被收购之前的Summize并没有什么不同·。如果想知道更多关于Summize的消息，或是想了解之前关于它的新闻，就请访问我们的网站freelinereport.com.

·Jing是一款小巧的可以轻松录制并分享桌面活动视频的免费程序，它刚刚度过了它自己1岁的生日·。为了庆祝成立一周年他们也推出了很多改进的新功能，最让人感兴趣的是它的容量从之前的200兆升级到了2G之多。多好的生日礼物啊！

·接下来，Twhirl刚刚加入了对免费帮之星Identi.ca的支持·。 Twhirl目前支持的其它程序有Twitter, Seesmic和Friendfeed。由于Identi.ca并不是一个家喻户晓的名字，他们也希望通过被Twhirl所支持来让更多主流的用户来认识它。

最后呢，除非你是一个设计师或者是一个在想办法能把一页的论文两页的大学生，我猜你从来没在字体的问题上下过功夫。不过你知道，一个好的字体总能使网页变得更加活泼起来，而无聊和过度使用的字体可以让你的空间变得，很无聊。在市面上种类繁多良莠不齐的字体软件当中，我们向大家推荐Fontspace。·Fontspace为那些性感的字体的存储提供了一个性感的价格—免费·所以试一下吧，反正不用白不用……除非你这辈子非用Times New Roman和Arial不可。

这里是免费帮，我是Brad Fallon。多谢观看。我们明天会为大家带来更多关于Web 2.0 的实用新闻！

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.

And finally:

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.

The Mozilla foundation has created a new roadmap for its email client, Thunderbird. This free alternative to Outlook and Eudora is getting some major advancements within the next year, including VoIP support, RSS feed support, instant messaging support as well as calendaring.

Toshiba announced Tuesday that they will no longer build HD-DVD players or software. They will continue to provide support for all HD-DVD products. This was decided after the recent market report, showing HD-DVD’s lagging far behind Blu-Ray in sales.

The hostile take over of Yahoo by Microsoft just got more hostile. Microsoft hired a proxy group in a plan to oust the Yahoo’s 10 member board, all of who are up for re-election this year. There are rumors of Microsoft approaching the shareholders directly, and asking them to sell their stock to Microsoft directly. In the meantime, Yahoo has taken precautions to protect their employees, in case Microsoft succeeds.

Double Twist is a new, free desktop application that allows you to share any music, video or audio file no matter what format it’s in. Want to get those songs off of your iTunes and onto your cellphone or Facebook page? Just drag and drop and Double Twist does all the work for you. Currently there is only a windows version, but a Mac version is in the works.

We’ve got news that Samsung plans on releasing two Google branded Android phones later this year. These phones will not carry the label Samsung, but instead will say gPhone on the front. The first model will be a high end, expensive blackberry replacement and released around October. The second model will be released in December and will be moderately priced under 100$.