Introduction:

Filehippo.com is an online software download site where you can find various free and paid software and tools for your needs.  There are very many software and tools available at File Hippo for download, which will be of immense use one way or another.  The best part of using Filehippo is that it actually filters out many of the software which has spyware, adware, popups and other malware and has only uploaded quality and clean software to download for our needs.  The software or tools available here are updated regularly and hence you get the option of downloading all the latest version of the respective software and tools without needing to wander around different sites to find them.  The main advantage of Filehippo.com is that you get to download all the software and tools at one place rather than searching them everywhere.

Features:

The best feature of Filehippo is that you get the option of finding the latest updated software or tool on their home page itself and hence you can immediately get update to them easily in a click of a button.  This is applicable for all the software and tools available for download at File Hippo.  There is also another added and exclusive feature available here and that is the most popular downloads section.  Here they have segregated all the top downloaded and most popular software.  Thus for those who are finding it hard to choose the right software on various categories can get to choose and download the popular ones.  Unlike other popular software download sites or portals, this site has a very easy to navigate and use option where almost all the categories and the popular software are put up for download on their home page and thus saving us time from searching them.

Tips & Tricks:

One very useful feature that is available here is the update checker software.  You can download this software for free on your PC and this will automatically scan all the software and tools available in your PC and give you a report of all those software which are outdated, so that you update them to the latest version.  While some sites offer this option for a charge, File Hippo offers it for free, so you can make use of it and get yourself updated to all the latest software and their respective versions at a click of a button.  One other trick or option you can find here is that you can find even the old versions available on each and every software tool that you download.  This would be useful if you did not like or could not use the latest version of a particular software.  One trick you can use for faster download is to use the alternative or mirror sites to download your softwares faster as sometimes the regular server for downloads would be too busy making it harder for you to download.  You can also subscribe to their site through RSS and get yourself updated on any new software or latest version released.

Newbie Friendly Rating:

Filehippo, apart from minor hiccup of slower downloads, can be given a rating of 7 out of 10.

Introduction:

Ancestry.com is a site wherein one can find the world’s largest collection of the Jewish family history records. They have different records of all time categorized into photographs, holocaust, immigration records, memorials and many more. It features the collections of the family trees which have been submitted to them by across the world. Their collections includes Jewish family History, African American Family History, U.S Immigration collection, U.S Military collection and International records. The U.S. Census collections will take you way back in to the history of year post 1700. It also showcases the Birth, Death and Marriage records for anyone belonging to these family trees.

Features:

Best search features available on this site is that of type-ahead tool which has all the records saved and memorized, so if you type a particular name it will give you a list of options even before you finish typing. It has a very simple and easy to read format layout. One can save the already viewed content so that without wasting time you know if you are heading for the right content. One can also network on this site and stay connected to your long lost family members and relatives. One can merely find their ancestors by keying in simple facts about their family. It provides you access to the historical records of over six billion people all over the world. They are constantly making improvements on the site so that the search person has a pleasant experience searching for the information.

Tips & Tricks:

One can easily jump to the specified categories available on this site without wasting time. There are easy links available to help you find specific data related to your search. One can make use of links likes ‘The best way to find historical record’, ‘what to do after finding a historic record’ and many more. You can maximize your search by just keying the abbreviations or nick names as well. Make use of the categories which defines the content available in it like Newspapers & Periodicals, Court, Land, Will and Financial data, Immigration and Emigration and more to select from. All these categories have further sub categories and titles which will enhance your search.

Newbie Friendly Rating:

Ancestry.com is a published in a simple format and easy to understand. There are no slang words or usage of jargon on this site. It is a very helpful site which will provide you details on your ancestors. Ancestry.com is a very informative site and can be given a rating of 8 on 10.

Introduction

Neopet.com is a virtual pet website that was launched about ten years ago and eventually purchased by Viacom. Neopet.com essentially allows a user to create and play games with an online “virtual pet.” The pets travel through their online world, Neopia, and encounter various challenges along the way, including fighting with other Neopets. The site is filled with games such as puzzles and general chance contests. Primarily a children’s site, it also includes educational word games. The site is packed with features that will brighten any child’s day.

Features

Neopet.com is flooded with various components, from games to pet creation to shopping to a section featuring Neopet videos. To create a Neopet, a user must first complete a simple registration process. Creating a new pet is quite easy and the user is given a multitude of options to choose from. Children will certainly enjoy this feature.

One excellent feature of the site is the Neopedia, a Neopet Wikipedia of sorts. It contains a vast collection of articles, poems, short stories about Neopia and the virtual animals that inhabit it. The section can be found under the explore tab on the homepage.

Neopia Central, located under the “shops” tab on the homepage, is a one-stop shopping center for all things Neopia. There, users can purchase various items for their Neopet.

Tips and Tricks

Users will want to check out the “explore” tab located at the top of the homepage. A list of definitions is there that introduces the beginner with the world of Neopia and the various playing options.

Parents looking for the educational components of the site can check out the games section at the top of the homepage. From there, look for the educational section and click on “Spell or Starve,” a simple word game that incorporates the Neopet characters and spelling.

Parents will also want to check out the site’s safety tips at the bottom of the homepage which discourage users from giving away personal information to other users.

The new user’s best bet is to take advantage of the navigation bar at the top of the homepage. Everything you will want to do can be found there.

Newbie Friendly Rating

The site is rather congested and users will quickly notice the array of colors and general disorganization of the homepage. Finding exactly what you’re looking for can prove to be a bit confusing at first. The site is also filled with imbedded advertising, which distracts from the primary features of the site. Overall, we give Neopet.com a Newbie Friendly Rating of 5.

Introduction

Shopping.com, a subsidiary of Ebay, is a one-stop center for all your shopping needs. The site is beautifully laid-out with user-friendly navigation. Essentially, the site is designed to allow online customers to comparison shop with a click of their mouse. Another valuable feature on Shopping.com is the product reviews, which give customers straight feedback on the products they’re interested in from people that have purchased them. The site is one of the top ten ecommerce sites on the Internet. Taking a look around the site, it’s easy to see why. The site is loaded with every imaginable product with price quotes from dozens of reputable companies.

Features

The homepage provides the shopper with everything they’ll need for some online window shopping. A search feature is the quickest way to locate exactly what you’re looking for. If you prefer to check out the various products, they are organized into categories on the left side of the homepage. The middle of the homepage shows the shopper the “hottest” items on the site, with links that will quickly take you to the products.

Site speed is extremely quick and you are instantaneously taken from page to page. If you know what it is you’re looking for, you can be in and out of the site, with the product purchased, in five minutes.

Shopping.com also offers gift cards and a children’s section.

We took a look at sports equipment and were amazed by the selection. Searching “baseball bats” we found hundreds of bats being offered by dozens of stores. The shopper simply scrolls down to see the prices each store offers.

Tips and Tricks

The site index, located at the very bottom of the homepage, gives a complete one-page layout of all the products on the site, with quick links to each of them. It’s an easy alternative to the search feature that allows you to read through all the Shopping.com products.

Newbie Friendly Rating

Shopping.com is an attractively designed site that is extremely easy to use. Products are organized by category along the left side of the homepage and a search feature at the top of the page lets you find anything with one click. Once you find your product, it’s easy to compare prices among the brands. Navigating the site couldn’t be easier, it’s a new users dream site because it’s just that easy to use.

We give Shopping.com a Newbie Friendly Rating of 10.

Introduction

EBay is an American company and an online auction and shopping website. It opened in U.K. in the year 1999 and is now the leading auction site. With eBay’s country specific sites, it is now possible to trade almost anything from any where regardless of the location. It is an online market for the world. EBay community has millions of users across the globe in around 25 countries. For eBay UK all transactions take place in British Pound. The fee structure on the UK site is different than the USA site.

Features

Almost anything can be put for auction if it is not illegal and against the law. There are thousands of items listed on eBay under various category heads like collectibles, computers, furnishing, home décor, jewelry, coins, mobiles, pottery, sporting goods, boats, cameras, vehicles and their parts. Big companies sell their latest products and services here. EBay motors is the biggest automotive selling place where you can trade in anything from cars to motorcycles and used cars also. Many restricted items on eBay are firearms, alcohol, tobacco, drugs etc. there are seller tools on eBay like sell your item, turbo lister which can save your time and manage and track the status. There are eBay stores also where a seller can showcase his merchandise. There are three levels; basic store for those starting out on eBay; premium store for medium sized sellers and Anchor store for the high volume sellers. EBay community has EBay blogs, discussion boards, chats, reviews to share your opinion with others. There general chat rooms and some are product specific chat rooms. EBay pulse gives the latest information and inform about the most popular items. EBay has a feedback forum which allows users to rate their experience after the transaction. Both buyers and sellers are expected to leave a feedback within sixty days of the transaction. Buyers give a rating to sellers which are called seller ratings. They are rated from 1 to 5, where 1 is lowest and 5 is the highest. The Power sellers are those which have a rating of 4.5 and above across categories for a period of twelve months. Their feature EBay for charity provides an option for sellers if they want to give away their proceeds to a charitable organization of their choice.

Tips

While logging in and becoming a member choose a username which is nice to sound and people can easily remember it later. If you are a regular user, you can download eBay toolbar as it will save your time by keeping you updated about any auctions, present in your watchlist, which are going to send soon. Bid for only those items which you are intending to buy. Before bidding always do price comparisons check on other such sites. It is a good place to market fake goods. For a naïve person, it can be difficult to distinguish between genuine and fake. In case of doubt or if you have any query, ask the seller.

Newbie friendly rating

It has become an online medium between buyers and sellers. It has had its shares of scams but that has not damaged its popularity. It is user friendly and eBay has a strong business model to sustain itself. Our rating has to be 10.

Introduction:

Addthis.com is one of those very many social networking or sites built around social networking or sharing site. This particular site deals with social bookmarkings and sharing them. Addthis.com is nothing but a too or a button which you can use to subscribe to a particular blog or blog post or anything or any sites for that matter.

This site or tool was born out of the need for a single tool or button to access all or the famous social bookmarking or sharing sites. This came as a boon for the blog owners and site owners so that it saved them a lot of space on their page as this button occupies very little space and can hold as many social bookmarking sites for everyone’s needs. This also made the life easier for the readers who find it hard to bookmark a particular blog or site of their interest to their favorite social bookmarking or social news sharing sites from a single point console and Addthis.com made it possible.

Within a short span of one year Addthis has become the number one social bookmarking and sharing button or site.

Features:

One important feature with Addthis is that you get to choose any social bookmarking site that you like and they have them in their button, so that you can use any one of them and proceed. It is easy to use and bookmark and share. It helps in promoting ones blog or website from their perspective. From the webmaster’s perspective this helps in increasing ranking or popularity of their blogs or sites. Apart from helping in bookmarking and sharing, Addthis.com has the option of giving the detailed statistics for both the webmasters and the end users. It is very easy to install and use.

The best part of Addthis.com is that using this you can easily add any page found on the net to your favorite site sharing or bookmarking sites like Digg, del.icio.us, MySpace, Facebook, Google Bookmarks, Yahoo Buzz, etc.

Tips & Tricks:

For the webmasters you can easily install them by customizing it according to your needs and add them to your blog or website with just a push of a button. For others you can just look for this button and choose the bookmarking site that you use and proceed. If you want to have an extensive collection of sites and blogs to subscribe or bookmark to use the most popular ones as you can easily bookmark them through Addthis in a single click, else you will have to proceed to a new page and search for the bookmarking site and then proceed, this will save some extra time for you. Sometimes you will also not find the bookmarking site that you use, here and hence making it tougher for you to use Addthis.

Newbie Friendly Rating:

Since Addthis has made life easier for both the webmasters and the readers together by removing a lot of clutter and saving time and space, Addthis.com can be offered a rating of 9 out of 10.

Introduction

Ultimate-guitar.com is the guitar enthusiast’s dream Website. The site was the brainchild of Russian student Eugeny Naidenov and contains over 20,000 guitar tabs. The site claims to be the fastest-growing guitar enthusiast’s page on the net. Upon loading the homepage, the user is greeted with a dark page literally filled with links containing tabs, the latest rock news, musician interviews, music reviews and guest columns. The site is a bit overwhelming to the beginner in that it is loaded with options. To unlock all the features of the site, users will need to complete a simple free registration.

Features

The first thing you notice on Ultimate-guitar is the sheer volume of guitar tabulations. The tabs are arranged in alphabetical order, but due to the huge number, it takes a few minutes to find your artist. We checked out Eric Clapton and found well over 600 tabs for “Slow Hand” alone. Dozens or versions of his popular hit “Layla” were readily available. The site seems to have almost every song by every artist covered.

The articles section contains some great writing on guitar advice and the music scene in general. We were amazed at the quality of the writing in the section – this is a terrific feature of the website. New articles are posted everyday and users spend time in the forums talking about them.

The forums are fantasic. Dozens of topics are in play and there’s even a songwriting and lyrics forum where users can participate in a songwriting tournament. One forum – guitar basics – contains helpful playing instructions from seasoned artists to the newest guitarists among us.

Tips & Tricks

Since the site is flooded with information, we’d suggest checking out the site map at the very bottom of the page. Clicking on that gives the user a less intimidating list format of where everything is located on the site. When looking for a band or individual artist, use the search bar at the top of the homepage. Clicking through the vast library manually is far too time-consuming.

Music lovers will want to check out the news section. It’s packed with up-to-the-minute rumors and hard news from around the music world.

Newbie Friendly Rating

Ultimate-guitar can be a bit congested with information and somewhat confusing to the new user. Additionally, the site is filled with pop-up ads which become annoying quickly.  Many sites wouldn’t be worth the aggravation, but Ultimate-guitar certainly is. It might not be an overly friendly site, but we must recommend it based purely on its vast wealth of content. Overall, we’ll give Ultimate-guitar.com a Newbie Friendly Rating of 5.

Introduction:

Openoffice.org is a business network site wherein one can outsource projects as well as seek projects. It is an international office suite which can be run on any operating system platforms. It is highly sponsored by the Sun Microsystems who maintains the code of projects online. Some of the other contributors are RedFlag, Novell, RedHat, IBM and Google. This software was founded in Germany in mid 1980’s and later was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 1999 who further released it in year 2000. This site is governed by the Community Council who is responsible to solve any conflicts and disputes and provides a forum for authenticating the issues related to the projects.

Features:

All the projects are widely distributed in any of the 3 categories – Accepted Projects, Native – Lang and Incubator. Accepted projects are the ones who have voting rights and incorporate the well being of the communities. There are technical as well as non-technical projects under this category. The in-house native languages projects fall under this category. Incubator are the community sponsored projects, usually has experimental and small term projects. One need not register on this site to get information on the ongoing and new projects posted; however one can subscribe to the mailing lists and can get this information on a regular basis. If you have your own site it let you link to the openoffice.org site thus making it accessible to different community members. To get more information related to this site one can check the useful links available on it.

Tips & Tricks:

The titled tabs make it easier to browse what you are actually looking for.  One can browse the projects category wise or even project lead wise. Most of the projects displayed on this site are hard core technical ones and require good programming ability. One can download the software by selecting the different themes and clip arts available as per your like. To keep you updated with the recent events on Openoffice.com, one can check the News tab and avail all the details. It is very simple to register on this site and ne can save the project details or the pages browsed in their personal folder. There is a dedicated community available if there are any issues related to the project you are working on so that you can report abuse and or any discrimination. One can also make use of the different supports like training, communities, books to further enhance your growth ability on the Openoffice.org

Newbie Friendly Rating:

Though it is a very innovative and aggressive platform available for the techies, the site overall looks plain and crafted only with words. It does not have graphical interface which could have made operating more interesting. With so many business networking sites available online, there is nothing outstanding or exceptional about this site. The only fact which can come handy is that one can find each and every kind of technical project on this site. Openoffice.org can be given a rating of 6 on 10.

Introduction-

This is the most popular online social networking site in UK, New Zealand and Ireland. It allows users to share photos and videos, listen to music and staying connected. Launched in the year 2005, it is also very popular in USA. It s number three in popularity there just after myspace and facebook. This year in March, bebo was acquired by AOL. There are plans to expand bebo in various other languages like German and French, after the Polish version was launched recently. Not many know but bebo is an acronym for “Blog Early, Blog Often”

Features

Users can register for free at this site. Their profile may be public or private depending on the user’s preference. The customized background of the profile page is called Skin. Users can post blogs, connect with friends and stay connected to college friends. After registering you can share videos and photos, upload music and music albums. On the home menu, users can see who the recent visitors on his page were. They can see their friend’s updated pages in terms of any new videos or photos.  Bebo music, originally called bebo bands, permits bands to create profile and provides them a platform to showcase their music. It has the band member list, and their songs which can be clubbed together into albums. These songs may be added to any user’s playlist also.  Just last year, Bebo Authors was launched. Here authors can upload their chapters and get them evaluated. Books are not displayed on the profile page like bands. Groups were added to pages lately. Members have an option to choose and join a group which they relate to. These groups may be educational or just general.  

Bebo mobile allows the users to make changes in their profiles through heir mobile phones, upload photos using MMS and receive texts. Bebo nation has a virtual map and it allows the users to buy a ‘land’, in other words, pixels and they can put their picture or any other image of their choice on that area. If any other user clicks on that picture, he can visit your profile. The cost of a 10×10 pixel is $0.10!

Further there are a number of applications like ‘who likes you’ and MindJolt games for the users to join in.

Tips

It is imperative to choose a privacy option as soon as you begin because by default the ‘public’ option is saved. Bebo has three privacy options; public, private and fully private. Public profiles can be seen by anyone, private ones are accessible to friends and contacts. Fully private option limits the viewing to your direct friends only as these profiles are not part of any group. Bebo also allows the users to set the photos as private so that nobody can copy it. Bebo account is not for young children that are below thirteen years of age. Have only one bebo account as remembering passwords for many will be difficult and there are more chances of hacking.

Newbie friendly rating

With rivals like facebook, MySpace, tagged, bebo has still made a place for itself and the future looks brighter. Bebo gets our newbie rating of 9 on 10. as navigating through the site is a little difficult.

Introduction

Tripadvisor.com is a site dedicated to providing travel tips and advice to people preparing for trips all over the world. The site consists of online database of information and opinions from fellow travelers. Tripadvisor prides itself on providing “unscripted and honest conversation between travelers.” The site delivers by providing users with advice, opinions and helpful information to meet all their travel needs.

Features

The site layout is simple. A search bar at the top of the homepage allows the user a place to direct any general inquiries concerning their travel objectives and needs. The central feature of the homepage is the “Plan the Perfect Trip” box in the middle of the page. The box prompts the user to select one of six trip categories: hotels, flights, restaurants, things to do, cruises and forums. For an example, we checked out hotels for a trip to Buffalo, New York assuming we were heading for a football game. Ten hotels popped up, complete with Tripadvisor rankings, rates and user reviews. With one click, a user can obtain the current rates and contact information for the hotel they are considering.

The “things to do” section is another great feature of Tripadvisor. After typing in your destination, you’ll find an array of links to the most popular activities in the city you are reviewing. Travelers with children will certainly want to consider this feature to determine how “kid friendly” a city is. Overall, the site is very simple to use, even for the computer novice. Homepage use is self-explanatory and well constructed. Subsequent pages are very similar to the homepage with the exception of additional advertisements.

Tips & Tricks

One feature that is a must-see is the user forums. The forums are divided up by country and state or province. In the New York forum, users can be found discussing topics like the best pizza in New York City to the best ticket deals for Broadway tickets.

If you have a travel question, check out the “ask a question” feature under the “quick links” at the bottom left of the homepage.

Newbie Friendly Rating

The site navigates easily, but frequent pop-up ads are quite annoying. The other drawback to the site is an overload of information. Tripadvisor is filled with links to the point that the user is almost overwhelmed with information splashed all over the page. On the other hand, the wealth and quality of feedback from fellow travelers is invaluable. Users can learn about other people’s experiences firsthand and get helpful information that will make their trip more enjoyable. Tripadvisor does exactly what it promises and earns an overall Newbie Friendly Rating of 8.