Meet Stinky Teddy, a gossip fuelled real-time search engine. As Read Write Web says, Stinky Teddy "reinvents meta-search for the real-time web".

Okay so what's with the silly name?
It sounds a like a joke student project, but was actually developed by one David Hardtke formerly a physicist at the University of California Berkeley Space Sciences Lab. His search engine was named after his daughter's "trusted (and abused) stuffed bear."

Meet the web service that wants to become your new extra brain. Like a long personal blog - or perhaps a memory... it stores all the random shit you come across in real life or on the internet and lets you remember it.

Then search for it later.

Evernote wants to help you organise your life.

"We're trying to make an external brain," the CEO of Evernote tells Robert Scoble "- your one brain is just not enough these days - too much to remember. Whenever something happens that you want to remember, online or in the real world, you'll be able to relax because you can remember it."

With those words echoing in my ears, and fellow iphoners exclaiming that evernote was their new best friend and god-how-did-they-organise-their-lives-without-it, I tried it, expecting a revelation and immediately got a bit fed up.

Of course like anything else you have to sit down, set it up and keep coming back to it for it to get useful. You don't need an extra brain to work this extra brain, you just need about an hour and several video tutorials. And as several of our Twitter friends mention below: you then need to remember to use it.

Follow on after the jump

FriendFeed has been getting flak in some quarters for simply copying banal trivia from one part of the internet and putting it in another part of the internet.

I think we all know by now that the human race likes banal trivia. If the existence of small talk hadn't sufficiently proved that, then Twitter certainly has.

A more serious allegation against FriendFeed is that it just duplicates information from elsewhere, and that if you wanted to read your friend's tweets, you'd go to Twitter. However, FriendFeed's ability to collate information then re-present it clearly, make it a valuable addition to all those individual sites and better than similar little aggregators out there. At least until someone else starts doing it better. In the meantime though:

I've just spent three hours plugging sites into other sites and pinging content all over the internet. It's been quite wild, and I still don't quite know how all of it got where it did. But, I think I've worked out some things you can do on Friend Feed that I like and you might:

To say that Google runs the biggest most successful search engine on the world wide web is so obvious it's slightly ridiculous, so when Microsoft launched its search engine Bing I didn't really envisage myself using it beyond the odd curious poke-around.

But having Binged (Bung?) for a few months now, I'm going to recommend Bing for anyone interested in visuals and graphics. It's not just that the wallpapers on its home page are pretty pictures of seahorses and rainforests, it's that the image and video searches are genuinely better.

Apparently several Bing functions are only available in the US, but we'll compare the mutilated version we've got with Google in a quick run-down of key services.

Follow on after the jump

Now Photoshop has long since been the favourite programme for those who like to try their hand at image editing, but credit crunch times means you can't always justify forking out £70 odd quid just to remove red-eye. Sure, if you're job revolves around editing images you're going to want to buy this (plus Quark/ InDesign etc), but if you're one of the masses who just need a good imaging programme for cheap what do you do?

I've compiled 4 great Photoshop looky likeys for you to try- and they're all free! Two are online, two are downloadable, it;s up to you to pick which one best suits your needs.

Number 1: Sumo Paint

This is the first free Photoshop style programme I worked with, and it still holds a special place in my heart. OK it doesn't do everything you want, so if you're really into editing collages and fine tuning and framing pics this may be a bit too basic, but it sure beats your basic Paint round the head, cuts it into little pieces and issues of it at four secret locations. You get a floating toolbox, huge colour palette. Loads of brush editing tools and you can even upload images from your desktop or a URL. You do need to be online to use it though- which also means you'll have it wherever you go, and not tied to one computer.

So you're thinking of buying an HDTV? Congratulations, you'll be entering the world of hi resolution imagery, and getting a picture so sharp it will make you want to start attacking your old TV with your fingernails .

But what should you buy? With three main technologies on the market, you're entering a confusing world of LCD, Plasma and OLED, not to mention pixel ratios, bezel size, and of course... price. Well we aim to clear up the confusion, and we're going to use short little words to explain all those baffling terms.

Every time I travel I always seem to spend more than I plan. And why is this? It's not because I go seriously crazy in Marc Jacobs USA (well, not that crazy), it's because every time I withdraw cash I get charged a withdrawal fee; and extra money gets taken because they're translating the currency from UK to USA or Europe.

You used to be able to get around this by using the infamous 'free withdrawal' Nationwide card, but seeing as they're stopping this, and no longer absorbing the authorisation fee charged by the Vis , what's a girl to do? Currency rates keep changing as well, so one day you're getting a great deal and next you find that it's cheaper to hang out in Bond Street than in Europe.

The FairFX card may be a useful solution, as it's set FOREVER at the currency rate you buy it at.

Windows 7 is now available to download, months on from the announcement at CES.

You can now play with MAC like icons and a moving toolbar along the bottom of your screen- but will you be trying it?

Let me know!

Try it here.

More software news here

It seems pretty much everyone has a blog nowadays but if you're one of the shrinking number that has never quite got to grips with web 2.0, I'm here to simplify this process for you. It doesn't have to be baffling talk of mySQL and server accounts, I'm going to break down the tools you need to create a site online in five easy steps.

First it's a good idea to plan the kind of site you'd like to create. Do you want a site that's a personal blog, where you just update it occasionally with images and ramblings on topics of your choice? Or would you rather have a professional looking site which will act as an online portfolio to show off your talents? Then there's creating a commercial site which allows you to sell products with PayPal buttons, and there's also the option of creating a website for a company. If you're opting for the most basic option, you'll most likely want to stay within a small budget, whilst if you anticipate heavy traffic to the site, it's worth splashing out a bit more.

Goodness those Googlers have been busy little bees recently (mainly because they're all allowed to spend 20% of their time on these fun labs side projects). The latest labs product is Multiple Inboxes, which will create separate panes for different filters or labels. So, you can see your inbox, all messages containing the word 'pub', and all those half finished drafts from one screen. You just need to go into 'settings', enable the labs feature, and then check the box next to multiple accounts.

I tried to create you a screen grab of my inbox, but eventually gave up because I couldn't create one that wasn't incriminating in some way or the another. I don't want you knowing that I'm subscribed to the Lindsay Lohen fan list emails, after all. Also, when I tried it, it looked like someone had thrown up emails all over my screen. The creator (Vivi) has a much more attractive inbox.

Google blog

OK, we've now discovered the world DOESN'T end when it snows. Yes, a day at home was a wonderful experience, but I'd say the majority of the workforce is back at their computer screens now. The snow however, looks like it may be here to stay for while, and now the initial shock has been overcome, you'll want to work out how to capture this winter wonderland.

Taking pictures of snow differs from your usual snapping of friends in drunken poses as the whiteness is so bright, the auto setting can leave you looking rather washed out.

Here's my guide on how to take the best snow pics ever!

I have found something that has changed my life, and it doesn't involve any visits to any places of worship. It's not new, but it is awesomeness personified in a little piece of software. I'd heard about Remember The Milk (RTM to its loyal followers) but it was only with the 2009 Get Life Organised, Stop Forgetting Important Stuff resolution that I decided to take a look at this service, which is essentially an online To Do list.

I freakin' love lists, so the opportunity to tag, prioritise and share the mindless activities I'd be indulging in in 2009 is too much to resist. Using Remember The Milk, you can set deadlines for your tasks, get email reminders, tag tasks and search using those tags, set locations and be reminded of certain tasks when you're in that location and more.

Our Secret Santa Solutions are hopefully helping you out with gift ideas, but what if you're the poor sod who's been left to organise the whole thing? Trying to ensure everyone's picked a name, has bought a gift and hasn't just gone through the crap they've accumulated over the year in their desk drawer, can be a nightmare.

Enter ThinkSecretSanta. It's the site you always thought should exist, and thank god, it does. You can enter the details of each person involved in the Secret Santa, and the site does the rest.

You know when you have one of those days when you're just feeling all 'Wow, technology is really really really really great'? I've had one of those today. Things have worked, there's been lots of cool announcements, and no one has said anything twatty on YouTube. Technology *is* great.

Specifically, today I discovered Songbird, which has just been released as a full version by Mozilla (creators of Firefox). It's an alternative to iTunes, and what an alternative. There is so much cool stuff you can do with this programme it seems only fair to break it down, point by point. And let's face it, that might justify the fact that I've spent the past two hours discovering it, point by point.

Vlingo: Worst, idea, ever.

Imagine being able to update your Facebook status and your Twitter ramblings by speech. Now imagine not even having to enter an application on your phone to do so. Imagine assigning a convenience key on your phone, so all you have to do is hit it, say 'Twitter/Facebook status is...' and have it auto-update.

Now imagine having your phone in your bag, unlocked, and being mystified as to why your Facebook status is 'Susi is yeah, can I get a skinny caramel grande latte please' and your Twitter says 'To be honest, I always thought Jamie was gay anyway...'. 'Zacly.

Still, you can try it here.

If you've got Outlook, you should probably get this. When I first heard about this application, which primarily is a search for your inbox, I was unimpressed - after all, Outlook has a pretty good search if you've got the 2007 version. But then I installed it, saw that it had an orange and purple colour scheme, and I was sold.

In addition to brightening up the look of your Outlook, it actually does so much more. After indexing your emails, clicking on one particular email will bring up a profile of your contact - it'll automatically grab the phone number, show you previous conversations, list the files exchanged and even supply a handy little histogram showing at what time of the day you get the most emails from them.