Users

WHOLEFOODSMARKET.COM/SECRETINGREDIENT "Secret Ingredient" is a weekly video podcast from Whole Foods that provides step-by-step recipes featuring a particular ingredient. Users can learn culinary techniques and tips, and the video podcasts are also available on iTunes.

GADGETS: Foreign phone calls The new National Geographic Talk Abroad Travel Phone lets users receive incoming phone calls without charge in 65 countries, including all of Europe. Rates begin at 90 cents a minute for outgoing calls in Europe, according to Cellular Abroad, the company that is distributing and servicing the phone. The phone, which has the National Geographic name and logo on it, works on a pre paid plan, so users do not have to sign a contract. It can be rented starting at $49 a week and purchased for $199.

DALLAS --Computer users can start thinking outside the box. Traditionally, if you wanted to use a new software application, you had to drive to a store and buy a boxed version of the product or download the entire program off the Web and install it on your machine. But that model is being replaced with a concept known alternately as "hosted software" or "software as a service." You don't buy or download the entire program; instead, you go to a Web site, log in, and access the program's functionality through that online portal.

cookthink.com At this site, users can enter ingredients, dish types, cuisines and moods in a search engine to find a recipe that best fits what they're craving. Each recipe has reference tips and suggestions for accompaniments. Users also can read blogs and an ingredient-focused newsletter called The Root Source.

Some users of MySpace feel as if their space is being invaded. MySpace.com, the Web's largest social network, has gradually been imposing limits on the software tools that users can embed in their pages, like music and video players that also deliver advertising or enable transactions. At stake is the ability of MySpace, which is owned by News Corp., to ensure that it alone can commercially capitalize on its 90 million visitors each month. But to some formerly enthusiastic MySpace users, the restrictions hamper their abilities to design pages and promote new projects.

BOISE, Idaho -- Idaho Water Resources Director David Tuthill issued orders Friday to farmers, food processors, dairies and 13 cities in six counties to shut off their water pumps July 6. The order, if carried out, would dry up 16,600 acres of farmland planted in crops including corn, sugar beets, potatoes and hay. Tuthill issued the curtailment order under the state's first-come, first-served water law to meet the demands of two spring-fed fish producers...

One persistent problem that I have is the annoying Symantec Norton Antivirus renewal pop-up. I am not sure which version it is, but it has a red background, versus the yellow on the version that I renewed online for 24 months. I have been hesitant to uninstall what looks like the right one (red color) for fear it would impact the updates. The same thing is occurring at work, and they are not sure how to get rid of it, either. - John Jennings It's easy to stop the Norton Nag, as I call it. All you need to do is float your mouse over the icon that the antivirus software puts in the system tray at the bottom right of the screen and press the right button.

Call it the personal touch. Below a recent banner ad touting the Food Network's popular Ace of Cakes, cake maestro Duff Goldman walked onto the computer screen to have a chat with visitors to VH1's Web site. "I'm Duff, from the hit reality series Ace of Cakes on Food Network nighttime," the owner of Baltimore's Charm City Cakes said. "Me and my friends make cakes with blowtorches and airbrushes." Goldman's video is one of many that have shown up on VH1.com and other Web sites to promote television programs or products.

The warning arrived in Wayne Ribble's electronic mail Oct. 25. A new computer virus capable of erasing a user's entire hard drive was on the loose, it said, riding in e-mail with the subject line "It Takes Guts to Say Jesus."Ribble quickly passed the word to dozens of colleagues, friends and relatives, who, in turn, sent it to hordes of their e-mail buddies, who rocketed it on to thousands of cyberspace correspondents. By week's end, millions around the world had seen the warning, which is still circulating.

It's close to midnight, you're exhausted and just want to quickly get online, go to iVillage.com to research information on your baby's rash, then sign off.Suddenly, from the computer comes that familiar chime along with a pop-up screen with the letters AYT (Are you there?) next to your sister's screen name. Do you ignore the intrusion or do you take the extra time to start an instant message conversation?It's one of many quandaries that the 63 million users who send more than 750 million instant messages a day find themselves in. As instant messaging grows in popularity and reach, users and manners experts say it's time for ground rules.

Considerable uproar could be heard earlier this year when officials at the Maryland Transportation Authority announced that beginning in July, E-ZPass subscribers would for the first time be required to pay a $1.50 monthly fee on top of what they're already charged for tolls. Protesters made two predictions: first, that many people would drop Maryland E-ZPass accounts; and second, that the result would prove counterproductive as more people paid tolls manually, and the backups at Baltimore area tunnels, bridges and other MdTA facilities grew worse.

While Facebook took a few years to grow from adolescent chat site to its current broader appeal (no doubt to the displeasure of the college kids), Twitter has leaped into the public consciousness in a much shorter time. About a year ago, the free micro-blogging service got about 100 mentions in all media in a given week. Maybe a dozen or so of those were in major newspapers and magazines. Last week, by comparison, Twitter was mentioned more than 1,000 times in all media, and more than 200 times in major publications.

Nice try, Facebook. This month, the social network quietly changed its terms of service in a way that many of its 175 million users felt gave the company unfair control over information posted on its Web site. Once the change was revealed, it didn't take long for Facebook users to respond in large numbers, using Facebook's own tools, to let the company know they were not "fans" of the new terms. They were in the right, and last week the company acknowledged this by agreeing to rescind the changes and to seek input from users before making any such modifications.

Facebook Inc.'s latest capitulation to offended users offered another reminder of the social network's power for self-criticism. The Palo Alto, Calif., company rescinded a controversial change to its terms of use late Tuesday after thousands of members protested that Facebook was claiming ownership of all photos and other material posted to the site. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said that wasn't the intention. But Facebook reverted to a previous version of its legal user guidelines that didn't include the disputed clause.

David Sturgill has posted his cell phone number, personal e-mail address and work information on his Facebook page and now wonders whether that was a good idea. The 32-year-old, who lives in Fells Point, has been using the social networking Internet site for two years, but since he learned this week of the company's change in its terms of use, he worries about what Facebook could do with the information. Facebook quietly changed the terms this month but users became aware of it - and some were outraged by it - when the popular Consumerist blog posted about it this week and got tens of thousands of hits.

Four defendants accused of running an illegal "scareware" business that supposedly stole more than $100 million from duped computer users narrowly avoided arrest warrants yesterday through a series of late-day legal filings in Baltimore's U.S. District Court and an agreement with the Federal Trade Commission. Last week, Judge Richard D. Bennett promised to file arrest warrants if the defendants, who were sued by the FTC earlier this month and failed to appear at a Friday hearing, did not explain why they shouldn't be held in contempt of court for ignoring earlier orders.

A Baltimore federal court judge ordered six absent defendants yesterday - including one from Maryland - to shut down Internet businesses that the Federal Trade Commission claims are part of a vast $100 million "scareware" scheme that tricked more than a million people into purchasing useless security software by making them think their computers were under attack. "The evidence in this case is quite overwhelming," said U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett. He also extended a freeze on the defendants' assets and signed an order requiring them to show why they shouldn't be held in contempt of court for missing the hearing and ignoring an earlier restraining order.

Lime Wire LLC announced a new version of the popular LimeWire file-sharing software last week, advancing the company's vision of its software as a platform for services. Clearly, the major record companies' lawsuit hasn't stopped the company from trying to develop its business - or pushing p2p to higher levels of functionality. One of the main upgrades in the new version - due later this year - is the addition of social-networking features. Users will be able to create their own private file-sharing networks with friends and/or family members, with greater control over what gets shared with whom.

On the Web * myshape.com aims to help women shop for clothes online based on their body type. Users type in their measurements and the site recommends clothing that fits and flatters. Click on the letters M-Y-S-H-A-P-E, for example, to view a clothing image for each shape. * sortprice.com recently launched The Wishlist, a new shopping application on Facebook. Designed like a traditional gift registry, the application allows users to browse and compare prices on millions of products on Sortprice and then post their favorites to their Facebook page.

SAN FRANCISCO - A federal judge has ordered Google to turn over to Viacom its records of which users watched which videos on YouTube, the Web's largest video site by far. The order raised concerns among YouTube users and privacy advocates that the video viewing habits of tens of millions of people could be exposed. But Google Inc. and Viacom Inc. said they were hoping to come up with a way to protect the anonymity of the site's visitors. Viacom also said that the information would be safeguarded by a protective order restricting access to the data to outside lawyers, who will use it solely to press Viacom's $1 billion copyright lawsuit against Google.