Seven Best Forums

Web discussion boards are a great source of freebies, bargains and money-saving tips. I am going to reveals seven best forums.

Get Free Things

The ‘Get Free Things’ forum at competition website Loquax is full of free trials and ways to get free samples online. The friendly community lists free offers currently being advertised in magazines and news papers, shares new discount codes and even gives away unwanted tickets to shows and gigs. You can view all posts without registering, but to reply you’ll need to sign up.

My Voucher Codes Forum

In this forum, you will find bargains from all over the web that don’t feature on the main site. If you need a discount code for certain website, or area searching for a saving on a particular product, you can ask fellow forum members in the ‘Voucher or Deal Wanted?’ forum. And if you want to know about th latest sales, both online and on the high street, browse the ‘Shopping & Sales’ board.

How to Forum

The ‘How To’ forum at Saga Zone features lots of useful money-saving advice. Topics covered include cutting down on your heating bills during the winter months, having a DIY funeral and the most energy-effective doorbells. The money tips are mixed in with other practical and household advice, so you need to browse to find the best ones. You will have to register to post a reply and share your own tips, but not if you’re only looking.

Money Expert Advice Forum

The forums at Money Supermarket site include an excellent ‘Ask an Expert’ board, where you can post financial queries for the site’s team of money specialists to answer. You can get advice on everything from mortgage repayments and interest rates to loan agreements and banking problems. You need to register to ask a question, but you can browse the forum and search for answers to similar queries without having to sign up.

Money Saving Expert Forum

The forum has a ‘Freebies (no spend required)’ forum, which lists deals that don’t require you to spend any money, as opposed to free offers with purchases or free gifts with subscriptions. It’s a brilliant means of finding out which sites are giving away free samples and it also lists free alternatives to paid-for software. Among the many threads, there are discussions that offer advice about claiming freebies, as well as reviews of the best survey and cashback websites.

Merchant Cashback offers and Merchant Discussion Forum

It is great place to find out which retailers offer the most generous and reliable cash deals. Many of the threads describe members’ success stories and discuss how to make the most of cashback offers, as well as warning about those that are not worth bothering with. The forum helpfully lists any high-street or online deals that are offering cashback as an insensitive to buy. 

Manage your finances Online Forum

The motley Fool’s ‘Managing your finances’ forum lets you discuss any legal or contractual problems you may be having with a company, and the terms and conditions of offers and deals. Members pose specific queries they have about services, and others share advice or their own experiences. It’s also a good place to compare mobile and broadband deals, as well as financial products such as credit cards and loans. You’ll need to sign up to post messages.

Google Latest Changes and Criticisms

Google has made changes to the way it indexes web pages so that searches produce newer and more relevant content. More emphasis will now be put on ‘fresh’ content, such as up-to-date news stories about a particular topic. For example, when search for an event that occurs at regular intervals, such as the Olympics, Google will assume you want  information about 2012 London Olympics rather than a previous Olympics, unless you specify otherwise.

Similarly, if you search for a topic where information changes regularly, such as mobile phone reviews, for example, sites with the most recently updated information will be pushed towards the top of the rankings so you can avoid reviews that are out of date.

While this move sounds like good news for everyone who uses the web, it’s possible that it could be abused. Website owners desperate to attract traffic could potentially re-post existing pages about a certain topic, adding just small amount new information or a few new keywords, to try and push their site to the top of the search results. This could mean that instead finding useful informative articles, searchers will see only hastily written articles containing little valuable information. 

However, Google insisted that freshness wasn’t the only quality it was looking for in search results. It would also take topicality and quality into account, although it didn’t outline how exactly these are assessed.

Google has come under fire for changes it’s made to Google Reader. Earlier this month, it introduced a new design and let users share content on the Google+ social network.  However, it also stopped users writing comments and becoming ‘friends’ with and following each other. Dozens of threads complaining about the changes sprang up on the Google Reader help forum, prompting Google software engineer Alan Green to write on the official Reader blog: “Retiring Readers’ sharing  features wasn’t decision that we made lightly, but in the end, it helps us focus better experience across all of Google.”

Windows 7 Desktop Customization

Windows XP lets you set websites as your Windows wallpaper. Simply right-click a blank area of the Desktop, selects Properties, click the Desktop tab and then click the Customize Desktop button. Go to the Web tab and you’ll be able to use your current homepage or enter a different site address.

Windows 7 users don’t have this option because Microsoft removed the feature for security reasons. The good news however, is there are plenty of other ways to add web content to your Desktop.

Windows Gadgets

Windows 7 and Vista come with built-in gadget engine that lets you display movable apps on top of your wallpaper. Just right-click the Desktop and select Gadgets from the context menu. You can display any of the available choices or click the ‘Get more gadgets online’ link to find new ones.

Plenty of companies produce compatible apps, including A3 Labs, which offers a range of gadgets. One of the best is FB Dashboard, which lets you update your Facebook status and view friend activity., notifications, messages and invites, as well as ’like’ items in your news feed.

Keep Track of Important Events

This Calendar is a transparent calendar that sits at the top of the screen and shows the current moth at a glace. It doesn’t require installation; you simply unzip it and run the EXE file. Right-click the System Tray icon, select Preferences and enter your Google account details. When you restart the application it will pull your schedule from Google Calendar and mark days with important events in different colors.

Display RSS feeds

LiveRSS displays the latest headlines from your favorite sites in a tiny scrolling line that’s ideal for positioning in a Windows title bar. You can add as many feeds as you like and adjust the scrolling speed. It’s available as Windows gadget or a standalone program.

Desktop Ticker

Desktop Ticker is a similar program that adds a larger, longer ticker to the Desktop. You can dock it to the top or bottom of the screen, set the update frequency, and change its opacity and scrolling speed. Newer stories are shown in red and older ones in black, but you can easily changes the color scheme if you wish.

Feeding’s Approach

If you like to see lots of news headlines at once you’ll probably prefer Feeding’s approach. When you run the program it will add an icon to the System Tray, Right-click and select Configuration to add your feeds. It will display the latest stories from each feed in separate widget-like blocks, which can be stacked together to make a sidebar or tiled so they take over your entire Desktop. You can change the typeface, font size and color of each feed too, to make them easier to identity.

RainMeter

Finally, if you fancy giving your Desktop a major makeover, try Rain Meter. This superb tool adds a sidebar packed with customizable widgets to the Desktop, including a clock, system, disk and network monitors, a Google search bar and, of course, RSS feeds. You can tweak the design and settings to suit your preference, and there is a wealth of different skin designs to pick from.

Google Games

Google Pac-Man

Google's 30th anniversary Pac-Man doodle proved so popular last year, its now available permanently. Guide Pac-Man around a Google-logo maze using the arrow keys, scoffing ‘Pac-dots’ and avoiding ghosts. Eating large dots makes the ghost edible for short time while collection all dots moves you to the next level. Also, if you click the Insert Coins button twice, the game switches to two-player mode. You can control Ms Pac-Man using the W, A, S and D keys on your keyboard.

A Google Day

Test your general knowledge with A Google a Day, which poses daily quiz questions such as ‘ What is speed limit in the most western US town?’ and ‘How many inches has man sailed if he has two swallow tattoos?’ If you type the wrong answer, Google shows you how to search for the right one. You can get questions sent to your Twitter and Facebook accounts, and challenge friends using the Share option.

Chrome Fastball

The Youtube-based game Chrome FastBall invites you to race across the internet, completing challenges that test your knowledge of languages, facts and even public transport using Google tools. The game involves five timed challenges-as you complete each level you move a ball bearing through an obstacle course, and skipping questions incurs a 60-second penalty. You can see how your surfing skills compare on global leader board of around 160,000 players. Despite the name, Chrome FastBall also works in other browsers.

Google Image Labeler

This interesting game matches you with a stranger to see who can create the most tags for Google images. Over a tow-minutes period, you and your partner are shown the same pictures and you earn points for any labels that match theirs. The more you play the higher up the leader board you go. The game also has practical benefit because Google uses the most popular tags for each image to improve its search results.

Streetview Zombie Apocalypse

Using Street View in Google Maps, this addictive game takes you into a location of your choice where you have to escape a zombie invasion. Stay alive for as long as possible by running through streets using the onscreen navigation tools in Street View. Zombies are shown as place markers in Standard-view map, so there’s no horrible zombie graphics or gory violence! You can even set the difficulty from ‘Easy ‘to ‘I am Death Incarnate’. The game works best in Chrome.

Google Image Quiz 

Like an online Version of pub-quiz picture round, this time waster asks you to identify images taken from Google’s library. The more you play the more obscure the pictures get, ranging from films and actors to animals and places. You get three guesses each round and lose points for incorrect answers.

The Google Adventure

If you have ever enjoyed an adventure gamebook, you’ll love this scenario-base game, which takes you through a day in the life of a Google employee. Granted, it’s not a exciting as having to decide between slaying a dragon or bargaining with an ogre, but there’s a secret that you need to uncover and you must make the right choices in order to get the bottom of what’s going on in your office without getting fired.

Dating Site Scammers

I read with interest the article in issue 266 about web scams. I like to think I am pretty savvy and avoid most of the nasty stuff that’s out here, but I would add dating sites to your caution list, especially the free ones, which are often riddled with scammers waiting to relieve you of your cash.

The worst in my experience is Match doctor- nearly all the messages I have received from people on the site seem to be blatant scams. Messages from alleged members come from various foreign locations (I recently received dozens from members claiming to be from all over the US). There is invariably no picture or occasionally one that looks too glamorous and professional to be true. The language is one extreme or another, either extremely flowery or with bad grammar, spelling and punctuation. The age range people claim to be looking for is often ridiculous.

It’s common for the profile to read exactly the same as the message, with certain phrases repeated over and over. Most times, an email address or Messenger contact is offered far too readily, and the tone is really OTT and way too gushy for a first genuine contact. I imagine theses scammers end up asking an unsuspecting member for many to fund a visit, Said by David perriman through email.

We asked Matchdoctor to reply to claims of David. The company said, “Spammers / Scammers are an unfortunate part of online dating sites. However, we do not support them. They in fact hurt our business. We have safety warning on our site to inform people of scams. We allow users to report scammers to us directly and have background tools that help us catch the scams quickly. We are also adding CAPTCHA to our website this month to help prevent spam / scam emails and sing-ups.”

4G Phones and Digital TV

Fourth generation phones and tablets known simply as 4G devices could cause interference on digital TV sets and set-top boxes for three-quarters of a million people in the UK. Ofcom has warned. 4G services are due to be switched on in 2012 or early 2013.

The problem is predicated to arise due to the closeness of the bands of spectrum used for 4G services and digital TV. Viewers living close to 4G base stations could suffer interference to digital television services.

Ofcom is investigation potential solutions to the problem, including issuing special filters to fit onto TV’ or set-top boxes that will block 4G signals while letting through TV signals. Ofcom also mentioned fitting filters at the base stations, though didn’t explain how these would work.

Ofcom will also launch an education programme warning viewers of the possibility of interference when 4G services are switched on, and recommending ways to reduce it. Broadcasters will be expected to contribute to the cost of this scheme.

BT has said that it will start trails of 4G services to a limited numbers of customers in Newquay, Cornwall. The trails are part of BT’s plan to get the whole of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly connected to super-fast network by the end of 2014. Though 90 per cent of homes and business in the country will be able to connect to fixed-line, fibre-optic services, BT plans to connect the remaining 10 per cent to 4G networks. The trails will begin in September. 

The government hopes that 4G will be one of the technologies use to bring super-fast broadband services to remote areas where laying fiber-optic cables is too difficult, through 4G will also be available in towns and cities. 4G services are theoretically capable of speeds up to 1Gbps (gigabits per second), through in practice speeds are more likely to be around 100Mbps.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon Review

The latest 3D Movie Transformers: Dark of the Moon is directed by Director Michael Bay. The standard of this movie is far better than those previously released movie like Revenge of the Fallen. After the success of Blockbuster movie Avatar, the Hollywood now focuses on 3-D movies.

It is basically a science fiction movie with light touch of comedy and action. The major highlight of the movie is practical story, brain scrambling action, killer CGI, good sound mixing and superb climax. The movie has some plot holes, lack of growth of some latest robot characters and overlong run time.

The story of the movie revolves around the old conspiracy of half century: the 1960 space race. It was in fact a reaction back in 1961 when a downed Autobot ship The Ark crash-landed on Earth’s moon. In upcoming movies Dark of the Moon serves as a prologue with the same name. The story of the movie is about evil deceptions dreadfully searching something.

The war for Cyberton and actual cause behind the US-soviet space war in 1960s is prologue of the movie. The movie next scene is about the present, where Sam Witwicky (LaBeouf) efforts to get his first post-college job. Two team created for working for  tandem to takeout the remaining  decepticons around the world, NEST team of US military’s led by Lt.Col.Lennox (Josh Duhamel) and Autobots led by Optimus Prime. However, the evil 'bots start an assault from Chicago as Ground Zero to conquer the world and finally catch the superior hand in this final war between the Autobots/humans and Decepticons. It is good to see the climax of the movie in on-screen.

All the actors in this movie have performed very well. The leading actors of the movie are John Turturro, Shia LaBeouf, Patrick Dempsey, races McDorman, John Malkovich and Josh Duhamel and seem to be a tough competition among all the actors. Rosie Huntington-Whiteley creates an outstanding case for the come back of Megan Fox in the next installment. The script of the movie is comparatively thin to allow much character improvement.

Transformers: Dark Of the Moon is the best movie of Michael Bay's to date. This movie is even better and excellent than its previous releases and shows huge development. If you seen Inception than you will feel better for watching Transformers 3. So watch it on big screen.

Super 8 Movie Review

The 2-D Movie Super 8 is fantasy-adventure movie directed by JJ Abrams. The movie has an original story with full entertainment. The movie is about conspiracy of science fiction, reverting, adventure, coming of age, young love and buddy. The special effects are superb but not used according to scene.

Abrams scenario operates on a predictable rate. The film tinkers dozens of movie references, but not enough emotion. The director brings an element of the biography of Super 8 by exploding on the scene of the late 70s and early 80s.

Super 8 is set in 1979 and was shot full of such pop-cult secrets. It also allows for a well-deserved dose of nostalgia when it comes to music, clothes, attitudes and technology. The movie contains several ideas that populate the films of Spielberg's family-oriented. But it is a little faster, more accurate and incisive than the films of Spielberg.

Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney) is a 14 year old boy who lost his mother in an accident at the steel plant. Father of Joe (Kyle Chandler) tries to send it to the camp for the summer, but Joe refuses to go. He wants to help his friend (Riley Griffiths) Charles ends their Super 8 movie project, a zombie movie they plan to enter a local competition. Joe, Charles and three of their friends are filming a scene at an empty train station one night when they witness a spectacular train wreck and inexplicable. Over the next few days, strange things start to happen to Lillian: All dogs are fleeing the city in packs, and microwave and car engines disappear overnight. Soon, swarm of armed military police of the city, closing the investigation of deputy sheriff with menacing non sequitur.

The debutant actors bring credibility to the film without luggage. The one with the most experience is Elle Fanning and Super 8 will improve its reputation. Joel Courtney shows quieter than one might reasonably expect. Ryan Leehas delivered outstanding performance and offset representation provides comic relief.

Super 8 title refers to a movie format that Spielberg used off as a kid. The movie can be a good entertainer for children and their parents.

Bodyguard Movie Review and Wallpapers

After Successful releases of Wanted and Dabanng, now Salman Khan rocks again with yet another smashing movie “Bodyguard’ released in this Eid Festival 2011. Although the latest movie Bodyguard is a normal entertainment movie but director Siddique tried to continue the legacy of his direction. The movie is definitely attracting the audience with its romantic-action captivating story.

Salman Khan's Bodyguard 2011 is remake of “Bodyguard” Malayalam movie which is also a romantic action film. The rocking performance of Salman Khan sure attracts the audience. Music of the movie composed by Himesh Reshammiya and Pritam’s. Sejal Shah Cinematography, Rajat Rawali’s comedy timings and mainly vijayan’s action sequences along with attractive costumes are the highlight of the movie Bodyguard.

The story of the movie Bodyguard is a simple and engaging and the first half of film is normal as other Bollywood movies. But at the end of second half movies turns with a serious twist and director Siddques has shown his best part of Direction. The movie has Shocking and unexpected twist in the per-climax scene. Watch the exclusive trailer of movie on Youtube.

The story of the movie Bodyguard revolves around Lovely Singh (Salman Khan) who is very prompt and ideal in his duties and becomes bodyguard of Divya (Kareena Kapoor), daughter of a business tycoon Sartaj Rana (Raj Babbar). Lovely singh follows her to college campus but divya becomes menace for her over protective nature and decided to avoid him by becoming his fake lover. What will happen next are the rest of the story.

In this movie Salman Khan started out with the story. The viewers surely rocks with his sentimental, action, music and comedy sequences. Kareena Kappor also play very well in this movie and shown her acting skills. Other supporting actors,Raj Babbar, Aditiya Pancholi, Mahesh Manjrekar, Asrani, Hazel Keech and Vidya sinha has delivered best performances according to their roles.

Bodyguard movie soundtrack already rocks in the audience. Specially ‘Teri Meri…’ the title track is superb melodious song. You can download Movie Bodyguard songs over the internet. The other soundtracks are also catchy as Himesh Reshammiya and Pritam’s fit well with the genre.

Overall, Bodyguard is a perfect entertainment movie for Salman Khan and Kareena Kapoor Fan’s and audience surely enjoy on this Eid Festival with this movie.

Bad Teacher Movie 2011

Elizabeth Halsey (Cameron Diaz) has somehow ends up as a school teacher in his life when all she wants to do is get a man with a lot of money that can support herself. With her former boyfriend after working on the truth and landing, Elizabeth has to return and teach for another year at school, much to his frustration. Not only did it to teach children but also to keep the principal (John Michael Higgins) and Goody two shoes teacher Amy Squirrel (Lucy Punch) from his back while all the time pushing the gym teacher Russell (Jason Segel) of advances.

Things begin to search for and then when she finds out the new alternate teacher Scott Delacorte (Justin Timberlake) is sitting on a family fortune. But Elizabeth has contest from more energetic / Amy emotionally wobbly, therefore sets about getting money for a boob job that will make sure Scott and his money. Confrontations get even more extreme when Elizabeth discovers that there is a cash prize for the teacher who achieves the highest academic results.

Timberlake shows once again that it is more relevant in the role as a dorky geek with transitions to the screen much more impressive than some other pop star players want to be there. During the film, there was a time when I thought they were going to sing properly, but luckily, he knows how to rip on himself very well. I'm still not sure that most of its laughs from the fact that the public knows it's Justin Timberlake and he does weird things or if it's because of his character. I am inclined to say the old but still got the laughs.

Others have done their job but nobody impressive failures either. Unique glory goes to Phyllis Smith who plays Professor Lynn a shy person who is always pressed around and that Segal's show earned screen time. He also would not be a movie if Diaz was not a point at which she lost a few layers, and in spite of being just under four O, she knows exactly how to remove a scene car wash.

The Soundtrack of the movie is awesome. It well-matched with the mood and gave the feeling that was apparent from plots or Punch Diaz was on the screen.   

Bad Teacher impressed more than I thought it was going over with a mixture of the characters that play out over each well and recoil admirable moments more principal the way in issues of laughter. Of course there were some jokes that did not really make the cut for me and return to toilet humor emerged a couple of times, but these cases are few and far between. It is certainly better than the long list of mediocre comedies that have been shown so far this year (Hall Pass, Part II Hangover, the dilemma) and is certainly worth a watch.

Haunted 3D Movie Review and Wallpapers

Vikram Bhatt have managed to add the illusion of depth in each image of Haunted with modern 3D technology, but its history remains hollow.

It could have its credit India stereoscopic film first, but unfortunately he can not avoid stereotypes in its storytelling.

The story of the movie begins when a real state broker Rehan (Mahaskshay) has to come to sell an old haunted house on his father directions, situated in a secluded hill. The old style of movie, Ramu kaka goalkeeper is substituted by an alternative dresser, whose first words on seeing Rehan is "bahut der kar di Aane Mein Tune beta '. Lights flashing, doors creaking, falling chandelier, a former photo, piano rustic hanging corpse screams in a song number inviting 3 clock cycles, the ghost is trying every trick in the trade for make its presence felt. Unfortunately, his attempt does not have the "spirit".

The story of the movie revolves around the Tia Bajpai (Mera), an 80 year’s old latter, still survives in a state, and reveals a fast flashback and how she was cruelly raped by the spirit of his piano teacher (Arif Zakaria). The whole movie is controlled in a haunted house. Even though the lack of contact staff, Rehan is still adequately inspired by the simple communication centenarians, to help Meera.

To add a little variety to the "dead" story, Bhatt brings time travel picture as Rehan back in time and flashbacks all repeats. With that, the memories of the recent real horrible action movie Replayy strikes your mind, but fortunately Bhatt not spoil things too badly.

So, Vikram brings you reverse to 1920 or some time like to revive the romance superfluous. In this movie director uses the theme of time travel a bit too literally and brings basics of horror where primitive ghosts were half-burnt rubber masked zombies or "blue-eyed boys" movies Ramsay. Caches, magic potions, scary ghost comes across in everything you can associate with that time.

No Problem Movie and Wallpapers

The latest movie with a bunch of Bollywood actors in No problem is a giant farce directed by Anees Bazmee. The man has truly gone bust with ideas, if a non-sense is the story that even a grade three student can achieve something clever and funny. One might ask why make this film, if it is meant to make people laugh, the jokes fall flat, is trying to tickle your self as the plot goes for a draw and returns in the final scenes should be dismantled and deconstructed.

Sanjay Dutt looks like he has done a favor Bazmee acting in this game called comics, Anil Kapoor would have continued to watch his Slum Dog Millionaire DVD and should not have come out of retirement. Sushmita Sen who plays the wife of Anil Kapoor, suffers from a split personality on the fact that each scene and each term and when it does nothing, it ends up looking like a tree more dressed Christmas throwing sickles, hammers and what you have to unsuspecting husband and tolerant.

Kangana Ranaut has apparently gained weight, trying to make a Barbie with her ​​false eyelashes and a fringe, Neetu Singh in her frightful costumes short few attempts waterfalls, across a large group of actors making fun of themselves. Try not looking for a story as there is that you understand that there are some people trying to steal the diamonds, there are cops trying to catch them. The setting is in Durban, and all wild encounter with a gorilla do the impossible and the landing of diamonds in the belly of the fish.

No problem has no soul, no structure, bad music, but the beautiful cinematography. Spoil yourself by plugging your ears and take a good sleep of winter bite.