If you have a small business, you know that software can be expensive. Surprisingly, only 6% of people have ever used software alternatives to Microsoft Office. But our Free and Cheap List has no-cost options like OpenOffice.org, which is now offering the newest version of its office suite-style software for free. Clark's not an anti-Microsoft person, but he'd rather you save the dough. OpenOffice is inter-operable with Microsoft Word if it's used correctly. What if you're a small business owner burdened by the hassle of making appointments? You might want to check out GenBook.com for free online appointment scheduling software. That way you can focus on making money, instead of playing phone and e-mail tag with clients.

Many people would like to have a website, but it's either too expensive or they're techno-idiots like Clark professes to be. Well, now Google has launched a new website -- Sites.Google.com -- that allows you to easily build a website for free. Google's new tools can be used for non-commercial purposes or as a shared internal resource in a small business. They provide all the servers for free and store all your information offsite. Some people may get creeped out by that, but increasingly this is how things will be done.

This business model really takes us back to how networks used to be built, where you had a computer hooked up to a mainframe. Google is playing the role of the mainframe. The neat thing is that economy of scale becomes possible so they can provide you with a webpage for almost nothing. There's always the chance that Google may just be yanking Microsoft's chain with Sites.Google.com. Microsoft launched a similar initiative, but it isn't free. So the competition between the 2 leaves you as the ultimate beneficiary.

People tend to think that e-mail at work is private. But Clark recently read about a company that uses software to temporarily detain every e-mail leaving its network. The outgoing messages are reviewed by an artificial-intelligence program during the hold time. The program looks for keywords -- such as a competitor's name -- and flags suspicious e-mails for review by an actual person. What if you use third-party e-mail accounts like Yahoo! or Gmail at work? You still don't have any privacy rights if you access them through your employer's network. So make sure you're not sending anything that could get you in trouble. Speaking of compromised e-mail security, have you heard about the Spirit Airlines CEO who received a customer complaint forwarded to him internally by a colleague? Instead of just replying directly to the colleague, the CEO hit "reply all" and sent a curt reply back to the already disgruntled customer and others. The gist of the reply was that the airline didn't owe the customer anything for his troubles and that he would be back again when the airline saves him a penny. Clark thinks people should start treating e-mail like they would a party line or message board. Know that what you e-mail can be seen by unintended people. Meanwhile, Yahoo! has launched some new technology that combines IM, text messaging and e-mail capabilities into one. So for example if you get an e-mail, you can respond to the sender via text or IM; if you get a text, you can respond by e-mail or IM and so on. This is great for people like Clark who use all three platforms regularly.

If you have kids, you probably know that Facebook is big among teens. This social networking site is becoming one of the main ways that young people communicate with each other online. But the problem is that if you want to use Facebook, you have to list info about yourself on a public page. This makes you a target for identity theft. A recent study found that nearly 50 percent of Facebook users put enough info -- things like birth date, hometown, family information and more -- to aid ID thieves. Kids don't understand the risks inherent in using some of this new social networking technology. It should be up to parents to educate themselves so they can have an intelligent discussion with their kids about the issue. Clark advises parents to sign up for their own accounts and figure out how these things work so they can safeguard their kids.

Have you been receiving phony e-greeting cards in your inbox lately? If you open these, you might get spyware and others kinds of malware on your computer. Clark is really upset about this trend because e-greeting cards should be a pleasant thing. Unfortunately, something so innocent has been corrupted. The latest incarnation in this rip-off scheme works in the following way: Criminals send out bogus e-greeting cards and if you open it, you download a program that steals e-mail addresses from your contacts list. Once the criminals have those e-mail addresses, they send out another fake e-greeting that appears to be coming from you, staring the cycle all over again. The worst part is that when you opened the initial e-greeting, you probably also unknowingly downloaded a key logger program. This program tracks every key you type, including usernames and passwords for your bank, brokerage or mutual fund accounts. Under the law, you are protected if money is stolen from your bank account, but not from your brokerage or mutual fund account. Some brokers have issued their own policies that allow for customer protection. But the bottom line is that you must run anti-virus and anti-spyware software on your computer. Clark likes Spybot - Search and Destroy, a free program that will eliminate key loggers and other spyware on your system. Hopefully the legitimate e-greeting businesses will find a way to regulate their industry so people can again have faith in their products.

Here on the show we always give out free advice to you, the consumer. But did you know that we also get it back from our dedicated listeners? After receiving a tip from one such person, we've put up a list of FREE software that you can download from the internet. It's divided into dozens of areas of interest, so you can surf around easily to get software, books, games, free conference calling and so much more. While the quality of stuff that's free is all over the board, you can rest assured that none of it will cost you one thin dime. Bookmark the page...it just may come in handy.

The internet can be a difficult thing to navigate. You start to type in an address of the site you are looking for and you end up going to a site that you definitely did not want to go to. This can make things very scary for parents who don’t want their kids to go to adult content sites by mistake just because of a mistype. There are now fantastic services available that help parents monitor and control what their kids see when on the internet. Parentalcontrolbar.org, Parentpresent.org, and Kidrocket.org are three of the best tools out there for you to check out what your kids are viewing when on the internet. These sites are great for not allowing your kids to see things you don’t want them to see. So try them all for free.

Do you have an old computer monitor lying around the house? Maybe it’s in the back of a closet somewhere, taking up space because you don’t know what to do with it. No one wants the big monitors anymore because people now use flat screen monitors. So, people don’t know what to do with the bigger, older monitors. Well, Staples has a solution for you. You pay $10 and Staples will erase the hard drive and properly dispose of it. You can erase the hard drive yourself by removing it and then smashing it like Clark does. But that may be a little too much work. There may be some free programs in your area, so do some research on the topic. Just be careful of how much “e-waste” you’re creating.

People have been asking Clark for awhile when he will start offering podcasts of his show. Well, that time is fast approaching. We are working through the details with our host company, but our launch date for offering podcasts and archives of the show is now December 5. We’ll keep you posted on this as we get closer. But as of now, you’ll be able to listen to previous shows on your computer or download them automatically to your Mp3 device. We’re also going to collect scam alerts and our favorite calls so you can hear those too! There will be a new section added to the left navigation on our site called "Audio Archives." Look for it soon!

Think about how much free stuff you can get off the Internet, yet people don’t take advantage of it very often. People pay for Microsoft Office because it’s the “de facto” program, but there are tons of similar programs out there that are free. One of these is new from Google. It’s a word processing program called "Google Docs & Spreadsheets" and it has the equivalent of the Office programs for free. Now, often these programs aren’t compatible with other programs. So, when someone sends you something in Word, you can’t open it in another program. But Google’s program is supposedly “inter-operable,” meaning it can read anything in Word. And if you send something in Google’s program, someone who uses Word can still read it. In addition, it's supposedly Web based, meaning you can check and change your docs from anywhere. Christa is going to check it out and let us know.

Let’s say you need to do some research online, but you’re about to get on an airplane. Well, there is a new service called “Webaroo” that allows you to collect information from Web sites and then view it while you’re in the air. You can store information from newspapers, magazines and other sites on your laptop. Then you can browse the Web without being connected to the Web. It works with other devices as well, and Clark thinks the idea is ingenious. Better yet, it’s free!

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In other technology news, there is now a program that allows you to shut down your computer and access to anything on it if it’s stolen. If you carry a laptop with sensitive information, you should consider this service. It’s called “CompuTrace” and it costs $35 a year. There are also programs that you can install that will track your laptop if it’s stolen. Laptops are not such hot commodities anymore because they’ve gotten pretty inexpensive. Decent laptops are in the $299 range, so criminals aren’t really interested in them. So, unless you’re doing a very specialized function, there is no need to reach the $1,000 mark.

A new scam alert from TechWeb.com warns about a new phishing scam involving phony telephone systems designed to steal your banking information. These criminals have somehow been able to duplicate your bank’s phone system exactly. It’s the first of its kind and apparently the message sounds identical to the one your bank would leave. So, if you get a message from someone claiming to be your bank and asking for account and PIN information, do not call back. They will leave a toll-free number for you to make it easier for you to call back. But it's not your bank's number. Check in the phone book and call your bank for real to let them know. In other tech news, Microsoft's Internet Explorer is the main gateway for the phishing e-mails out there. That’s why Clark uses Firefox as his browser. But Microsoft has released its latest version – No. 7 – and it supposedly has spam protection. Check it out at msn.com. Lycos is also offering a free security bar, which uses “anti-phishing” technology. Even better, Lycos is coming out with free inbound fax service. Instead of paying a fee to computer fax services, you’ll get the service for nothing. Keep your eyes open for these services.

You’ve probably heard of Google, the company that has established itself as the best search engine in the world. The company has been so successful that the company has started its own e-mail, discount merchandise site and more. Now, Google is getting into the online auction industry. That’s right; Google is working on a free alternative to eBay. Word leaked out recently that Google is testing a free seller’s service that will compete with eBay and its partially owned company, craigslist.org. The company would be called Google Base. The company is also creating a payment service that would compete with PayPal. We’ll keep you posted on this.

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Along those lines, Skype – the free phone calling service – is growing by leaps and bounds. A million new customers are signing up every 6 days. It took Vonage about four years to get 1 million customers. So, there is so much content for free on the Internet and so many alternatives. Clark thinks every one of these innovations is going to be hugely successful.

Two music chains – FYE and Coconuts – have come up with a very effective advertising technique. These two music stores use Bluetooth technology to send people messages on their Bluetooth phones as they walk into the store. You may see special deals or hot items in the store because you allow the companies to send you these messages. You have to agree to accept the messages first. So, you’re not just going to get spammed all of a sudden. Sending private messages to people is also the idea behind DING, an airline technology currently being used by Southwest. DING lets customers know when an airline sale pops up. It even sends those people customized airfares based on the typical prices they pay and their travel patterns. In other words, airlines are able to offer one-person sales instead of sales for everyone. It’s all done through data mining and it’s going to get bigger. Northwest is also experimenting with a system that sends people special, private deals. We’ll keep you posted.

It’s a little late in the game, but Yahoo is now offering a subscription service for music. Customers pay $60 a year for an unlimited amount of music that can be loaded onto select music players and basically “rented” for a year at a time. Yahoo needs market share and they decided to try this. So, Clark decided to try it for his wife, Lane, and it worked up until about three days ago. He can’t get the device to play and it took three days to get an answer from Yahoo. The response he got was highly technical and it didn’t help fix the problem. He’s gone back and forth with Yahoo for several weeks now and nothing seems to work. The device miraculously started working again, so maybe Clark helped them fix a bug. But it should be easy to use the devices and to get help. If Yahoo is trying to compete with iPod, the company needs to get more customer oriented.

Clark has been on the air since 1987 and he just started getting calls from retirees about three years ago. They want to know how to handle money in their retirement years. You don’t want to spend too much because you’ll run out of money before you die. And you don’t want to spend too little because you’ll live a very frugal life unnecessarily. So, basically you want to spend just the right amount of money. You might have a couple IRAs, some 401ks and some small pensions. Now what do you do? Fidelity Investments may have the answer for you. The company has just spent about $75 million developing software programs that provide support to people in retirement. It allows you to take all of your retirement plans and then customize how much you can afford to spend from each one. More than one in four people are going to retire in the next five years, and many of them are not sure how to spend money. Odds are that one member of a couple will live until 92. So, you need to parcel out the money so that you don’t outlive it. Check out Fidelity’s plan. The good news is that you don’t have to be a Fidelity customer to use it.

Downloading and installing software off the Internet and onto a computer can be pretty difficult for most people. If you have a dial-up connection, it can be even more frustrating. It’s much easier to pop in a software disc and let it do the work. But not every computer store or retailer has every software program or patch out there. So, Comp USA has come up with a new way to give people the software they want on an easy-to-install disc. A couple dozen stores now have an ATM-like machine that allows people to enter the name of the program or patch they want and the machine spits out a disc. It’s called “Software to Go,” and it has the most immediate updates on hand. You’re able to get the latest version by punching in what you want on the ATM. You are handed the disc at check-out and you’re on your way. It’s a great way to give customers exactly what they want.