Opera has been among the three most popular browsers for many years already. Having a rich version history (the latest one was 9.5 at the moment when this article was written), this web browser has gained a lot of fans (and enemies) and thus proved its right to exists. Since not long ago, Opera has become a completely free browser without advertisement and any limitations.

The peculiarity of this browser is that it is ready to be used right after you install it and you do not have to download additional plug-ins.

OpenOffice.org is being distributed completely free of charge. The cost is not zero, of course, as you have to somehow pay for downloading it, but it is nothing in comparison with what Microsoft wants for its products. All updates and new versions of OpenOffice.org are also free of charge.

If you have a router between you and your modem then goto Start > Run... (in Windows XP) type "cmd". Now, in command prompt window you need type and execute follow commands:

• ipconfig /release
• ipconfig /renew

I think that any of you have experienced the following situation at least once in your life. You download the DVD image of a Linux distribution package or some rare game (it's not that I'm not for piracy, but things happen) with some download manager like FlashGet or Wget and the image does not work - the checksum does not match.

Remember your feelings? Even if you have a good bandwidth, it will take a lot of time to download the ISO image again. But fortunately there is a way out. All you have to do is turn to torrent clients, for instance, BitTorrent or uTorrent.