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from "Developing Critical Thinking  through Web Research Skills", an ebook by Bing/Microsoft

 a tough piece of software that allows you (and law enforcement) to both track your computer and remotely delete sensitive data before a thief can use it.Once downloaded, the software maintains daily contact with a monitoring center in Vancouver whenever your computer is online. If the computer is reported lost or stolen, contact increases to every 15 minutes. This allows the company's investigators to determine where the computer is and any activity that has occurred post-theft, at which point law enforcement is called.Regardless of recovery status, you can remotely delete applications, photos, bookmarks, browser cookies, financial information and stored passwords. The software is embedded in such a way that it continues to work even if the hard drive is reformatted.  And, in some cases, the company is willing to pay up to $1000 if the computer isn't found as part of their service agreement.Lojack for Laptops costs $39.99 a year (or $94.99 for a three year subscription).  But compared to losing your computer (and all the data therein), it's a small price to pay.

Geni, a free genealogy service that works by tapping the collected wisdom of your relatives.To begin, simply add information about yourself and at least one of your parents. (You can enter photos, birthdays and a myriad of custom facts for every person you add).   To increase the size of your tree, include as many people as you can. (Since the entire application is Flash-based, reorganizing your branches is as simple as dragging and dropping). Whenever a family member is added that person is invited to view the tree and--this is the key part--supply details about themselves and other relatives.   This collaborative aspect is one of the site's main strengths. (You can also merge trees when you find a common ancestor). When you've built your genealogical base you can share it via the site's social networking tools. One feature we like is their Statistics app, which turns family data (oldest and youngest members, age distribution, life expectancy, most frequent birth months, political views, etc.) into colorful nerdy pie charts.

a service that organizes your flights, car rentals and hotel bookings, storing them all in one easy-to-access place (i.e. your phone).Just sign up for a free account and begin adding your upcoming trips. You can either input information manually or simply forward travel confirmation emails to the site and they'll do it for you. (We like the latter route since we're a tad lazy).   While the site is useful, what really makes this service sing is the iPhone app, which features a host of additional features, including maps to get you to the airport and seat plans of the plane you'll be flying. In other good news, TripIt recently teamed up with Yapta (as covered in Netted, Yapta helps assure you get low-priced airfares). Now when you forward flight confirmation emails to TripIt,Yapta can track your for lower ticket prices or refunds with a single click. If your airfare dips they'll help you get a refund for the difference. You can also share travel plans with friends (when you register it searches your address book and Facebook account for other TripIt users). That way, if somebody you know is also going to be in, say, Maui, you'll be able to connect with them, and you'll know their itinerary (and vice versa).

a great new service called GoodGuide, which reveals what's really beneath the labels of 70,000 products, including food, toys, personal care items and household products.The site offers a massive database of product reviews, expert advice and brand rankings, evaluating supposedly healthy products based on their personal, environmental and social impact.  You can search for a specific product or browse by category. Dive into a sub-category-household cleaners, say-and you'll see a ranked list of all the products they review (every product is given a ranking out of 10), starting with the top ranked.   Click on a specific product and you're taken to a page that has detailed ratings, information on the ingredients, user reviews and a host of details about what goes into the overall ranking.In addition to these thorough reviews, the site has relevant articles and issue guides. They also have a free iPhone app that allows you to scan the barcodes of various products when you're at the store for health and environmental ratings.