Ian M.

RSS Feed Search Engine is a fantastic tool. The best way to avoid spam is to be careful who you give your email address to. We often want to keep up-to-date with the latest news, or subscribe to a newsletter. Many will put in their email address without considering the risks.

Just because you believe a site is safe doesn't mean you should enter your email address into their mailing system. Why? Because hackers for instance could penetrate their security system and steal all email addresses, and worse sell them to marketers. With RSS Feeds, you don't have to worry about that.

This site makes finding RSS feeds easy. For example, type down "Google" or "Firefox" to subscribe.

What do you love is a recent Google initiative.
It works like Google search, but in a completely different way. Enter something you love, then you can get further information on it. For example, Firerfox will return the web ranking, books about FF and even how to pronounce Firefox in 57 different languages. Nothing too flash, but some may find some use out of this.

This is the ideal website to see if your desired username is still available. All you have to do is write down your username, click "chk" and it will give you the results of which websites you can use your username on.

The Australian Communications Media Authority (ACMA) is the place to go to report digital crime in Australia. Complaints in regards to online content, spam, radio and even TV complaints can be made to the ACMA. The site is relatively easy to navigate and make reports. I have made several complaints through them and they dealt will all matters in a very short amount of time. Highly recommended.

I have been testing GMX e-mail over time, and have found it to be a positive experience. The e-mail supports SSL and for added protection, I recommend the Firefox extension HTTPS Everywhere.

GMX has 2GB free storage that works in a similar way to Dropbox. In addition to this, GMX has a built in antivirus scanner that will go through all your emails to make sure you're not harmed from malicious scripts. I am however giving this website three stars because after looking at their Facebook page, their was many complaints. For example, complaints of people losing accounts, or not being able to access them. But from my personal experience - it was positive.

This site is an initiative by the Federal Trade Commission, as stated below. It's goal is to teach and promote online safety. For example, OnGuardOnline.gov has a large database of resources to protect you from scams and how to prevent viruses and malware. But that's not it. Social networking and identity fraud are also big in today's world, so this has also been covered on the website.

"Is your browser configuration rare or unique? If so, web sites may be able to track you, even if you limit or disable cookies". Basically, Panopticlick tests your browser to see how traceable your browser really is. Give it a shot! I found the results interesting.

Interesting website. Lets say you were out on Sunday and didn't get the chance to look at all the photos your friends put up, or you want to read your comments? But the problem is - you're at work and you don't want to get caught. What do you do? Install Excellbook. What is it? Basically, it makes your Facebook appear in an excel like way. Pretty sneaky, uh?

PrivacyChoice maintains a database of companies that track you. It offers solutions to prevent yourself from been tracked online. It also offers advice on how to opt-out of search engines like Google and Yahoo! Search. This site seems to be safe and genuine.

Moved to a new location in Australia and not sure what school to put your child in? What to compare schools in your local area through postcode? Want to know the school's academic rates? Maybe you're into politics and want to know how much Government's funding is going into each school? Well here is a perfect website for you! The reports aren't written by the schools themselves, thus the reports aren't biased. Recommended site for Australian parents.

Drop-box is well-designed and an encrypted service. In total - anyone can add up to 8GB of free storage. This is large compared to most other services that offer free secure online storage. The biggest benefit about having online storage is that when your computer decides to retire, or you accidentally delete something, you have this backed up on a secure server. Just as simple as 1... 2... 3 to recover it!

BUT - here comes the down side. I recommend that no one store personally identifiable information with this service. This includes email addresses, phone numbers, street information or even your medical information. Basically anything you don't want the world to see, don't put on Drop-box. I say this because their recently was a depute over their privacy policy how they were promising more than they can deliver. Their privacy policy was in fact promising more then they could deliver. For example, it was said that when under investigation they unencrypted all your files. This means anyone in the world can see your unencrypted files and publicly release it. The last thing you want is your entire medical history posted over the internet. So - overall - my warning is not to trust this service with personal information. I would recommend VeriSign PIP for that sort of information.

This website will make your life easier when you want to delete an account. They don't have instructions for all websites, but they have a large range of sites listed. They have set out three colour coded groups: white, grey and black. The white ones are easy to delete, the grey are moderate and can take some time while the black groups are permanent accounts you cannot delete.

I was reading through my Google feeds today and came across this interesting website. I have found a number of interesting tools, in particular Qualys SSL Labs. It gives a fantastic and detailed report about the SSL certificate. For example, I looked up the report for 'encrypted.google.com'. It gives an overall rating, the Cipher Strength, veiled from, veiled to and whether the certificate is from a trusted source.

Have an interest reading over 14,000 emails from former Governor Sarah Palin's personal account? Well - this site gives you the real emails in a gmail-style way. I haven't read all, nor do I intend to, but still found this interesting. The site SarahsInbox.com is a project by the Sunlight Foundation and the emails were released under the FOIA.

This is rather an interesting, detailed and informative site that I found today. DarkGovernment is like Wiki-leaks, by providing up-to-date news what isn't usually found on the media. The difference between this site and Wiki-leaks is that this site isn't compromising secret government documents. It also has a very welcoming home-page, very well designed.

Developers often create codes, e.g. HTML, CSS snippets, etc. Developers will then often reuse these in their other projects. Do you want life a little easier when managing your codes? Well then - look no further! MyCodeStock stores them remotely for easy access.

Skype is a great instant messenger to keep in contact with friends. It has better video quality then other instant messengers, e.g. Yahoo and MSN. The problem with Skype however is that in recent times it keeps going down and can be down for up to hours.

Do you have a hard time figuring out domain names, then find out they're already taken? Well look no further! Generate some free to use domain names in seconds then register it! A useful tool indeed.

This travel planner is still in Beta mode, but really does make life that much easier by providing you with directions by plane, trains and cars. It is pretty accurate and you can search for over 670 airlines across the world.

After spending some time sniffing out Diagnosia, I found the site to be both professional and user-friendly. Its the premiere European source for medical drug information, as mentioned on the website. I think this site is a good idea as it can provide patients with more information about their medication. The website was designed and written by Doctors, so I would assume it would be quite accurate.