Broadband Advisor

Just as the U.S. is in its last weeks of a heated presidential campaign, Microsoft's Live Labs group has launched a Web-based application that surfaces what it considers the recent political articles and documents that are getting the most attention and discussion among Web users.

YouTube this week is moving to step up its efforts to generate revenue by adding e-commerce links that let users buy music and video games from the site.

Google Tuesday launched the first of a series of debates on Knol -- its version of Wikipedia -- that aim to help voters during this election season by gathering expert opinions on a variety of economic issues.

IBM Monday opened the online door to a service that merges some of the best features of social networking with business collaboration tools.

Friday's false report on CNN's iReport site that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had suffered a heart attack is a strong example of potential pitfalls posed by so-called citizen journalists.

As we get older, we realize what a surprisingly big part of our happiness simple fitness and health habits play. A growing number of sites help people to manage their diet, exercise, and health issues, and give them a way to rap with others doing the same. Following are the best health sites we know of.

With the advent of Web 2.0, news sites have changed, and stayed the same. "Social news" sites like Digg and Mixx let members aggregate their own favorite lists of stories, and vote stories up or down. Also included are some traditional news sites that deliver news faster, and in more compelling fashion than any newspaper ever could.

You know the old cliche, a picture is worth a thousand words? Turns out that pictures have been deeply undervalued: A single photo can cost you your reputation, your job, even your freedom -- if you post it online.

Facebook, since its mistakes with the Beacon advertising incident, has rolled out one of the most robust security systems for any social network, which allows users to control who sees what information about them with great specificity. Take a look at Facebook's privacy features and how to set yours.

Anyone who says their business "runs itself" probably owes a great debt of gratitude to a small army of software applications and Web services that tirelessly feeds the machine from behind the scenes. From creating and storing documents and staying on top of e-mail to keeping the books and getting teams working together, it takes a lot of code to run a business, or at least to run it well. But setting up your company isn't as easy as just fishing apps out of a barrel. You want the best you can get, and at a price that isn't through the roof.

These days, you can find a blog for just about anything. Looking for affordable art prints? Weheartprints.com has them. Interested in Craftsman, Mission, and Prairie furniture? Check out Hewn & Hammered.

Howard Schmidt was reluctant to hop on the social networking bandwagon - a byproduct, he says, of the paranoia he internalises as a security professional. Eventually, though, Schmidt - the one-time cybersecurity adviser to President Bush and itinerant CISO turned consultant - decided the positives outweighed the negatives. He joined not just one social network but three: Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace.

Transform your network to enhance your personal and professional life

Put the 'you' in YouTube with this hands-on guide to shooting, editing, and uploading your own movies and mashups

True or false, the information people find about you on the Web can have a big impact on your life. Here are five techniques to make sure that what people read about you is good (or at least true).

For the majority of those looking to upgrade to broadband Internet for the business or home, it's all about the extra speed.