Check out a demo of this cool new search engine here . When most of us want something from the internet we simply type into Google a search phrase. It then returns thousands, often millions of results. Even Google doesn't think you'll want to sift through all of their results, they only give you access to the first 1000 or so results. The sheer volume of information Google spits at you can make it tough to get exactly what you want.

Wolfram Alpha, a new search engine from Wolfram, tries to simplify the searching experience by giving you only information. Say you are trying to open a new branch of your business. You can search demographics of a particular area, such as population in an area. For Anaheim you would search "anaheim population 2000, anaheim population 1980" . Or say if you wanted to compare sales taxes in different markets where your product was sold, simply type in: "sales tax Pasadena, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles." What you get back are condensed, easy to read charts and graphs which tell you exactly what you want to know, without having to search through several different websites.

Besides creating easily readable results, the website can also do most of the functions of Wolfram's Mathematica program, allowing you to use statistical and other interpretations of data. Say you have a commodity that you buy regularly, paper let's say, and you want a rough estimate of the trend of its price. Type in the data points and it will give you an equation, which you can then use to see ballpark future costs. Although the website doesn't know everything it has a wide array of everyday functions that you can easily use, try it out here.

Brent, my business has started to digitize documents to save on space and reduce paper costs. The PDF files I am getting are huge though. Can I make them smaller?

Digitizing documents is one of the best ways to get your business organized. Instead of giant file cabinets full of paper documents, you can instead have all of your documents at your fingertips. The most obvious way to do this is with Adobe PDFs, the industry standard. They preserve the document completely and almost everybody has the reader. A problem that many of our clients have is trying to save documents with a lot of images or fonts in a small enough size. When trying to email or to archive a substantial amount of files they run into some trouble with disk space or for emails, size limitations.

Adobe has compiled some tips for you on their Website . Here is a quick run-down.

1. Use Save As:
When you re-write a file using save as Acrobat can compress it as efficiently as possible. It completely resaves it, as opposed to when you use the Save, when it just appends the changes you made.

2. Audit the Space in the File
When you audit the space in the file it will give you a breakdown of the amount of space used in each section of the file. This can help you identify areas to optimize in the file. It breaks down the number of bytes for each part of the document, such as fonts, images, bookmarks, forms, and comments.

3. Optimize Images
You can lower the compression of the image file when you don't really need that high of compression. To do this you need to go into the PDF optimizer located in the advanced tab of Adobe PDF professional in the section marked "images." For each type of photograph, black and white, monochrome, or color, you can choose the compression rate and file type. Tweaking these settings can help remove unnecessary pixel data. For a document that is mostly color images you would want to use JPEGs. For illustrations and areas with flat colors you can use ZIP files to decrease file size. If the document contains transparencies you can flatten them to reduce their size.

4. Un-embed Fonts
If you know that the person reading your document has the fonts that are used in your document already installed on your computer than you can un-embed the fonts from the PDF capture. This is in the section of the PDF optimizer labeled "Fonts"

5. Remove unused options.
When a document has gone through many incarnations there may be things leftover from previous users that you no longer need.There is a tool that can help with this located in the clean up tab of the PDF optimizer. It can get rid of all the document links and other links that you no longer need.

6. Save The Changes
Once you have selected all of the options you want press ok. The document will prompt you to save the changes you have made.

Google Image search makes finding images a breeze. Although you may already be adept at finding pictures of Tom Seleck or whoever your favorite celebrity is. There are several features that you may not be aware of that can make searching quicker.

Often when searching for images you probably notice that they are often all very small. Whether you are looking for an image to spruce up your website or maybe one for your desktop, you probably want the image to be a lot bigger. To search for an image of a specific size type in "imagesize: Length × Width". Here is an example using forest pictures.

Another cool feature that may have slipped past your radar is Google Swirl. Type in a search term and it will give you an image and a map of images that is related to it. Click on one image and an entirely new web of images will appear, grouped by how similar they are. This example shows a tree.

Are you worried about people snooping around in your office when you are away? Catch thieves and snoops with this free program for your webcam. Although webcams have been around for years, recording from them hasn't been worthwhile, since it can rapidly fill up your hard drive.

This software from Vitamin D reduces the amount of video recording and the formerly daunting task of sifting through all of the video. It does this by allowing you to trigger recording only if the object being viewed is of sufficient size or enters a specified area. This prevents small objects from being recorded, like pets or insects. For example, if you don't want someone getting into a cabinet, you can set it up so that only that area is selected for monitoring. Or if you wanted to see if someone tries to crack the code to your company's safe, set up a camera in your office and monitor only the area that encloses the safe.

The free version lets you use one camera and all of the above features. The two camera system costs $49.00 and lets you use higher resolution cameras and trigger other events in your household, like lights coming on if someone enters the room. For $149 you can set as many cameras up as you would like. While you are away your computer, normally idle, becomes the hub of a relatively inexpensive security system. Check it out here.

The debate over cell phone radiation rages on, with each side vociferously protesting that the other one is wrong. In our country, where there are few non-telecom funded studies the prospect of cell-phone radiation is a laughing matter. In Europe, where several studies have linked Cell Phone usage to an array of brain ailments, it is not. France has even recently introduced tough new restrictions on the sale of cell phones to children. While the dust settles it might be prudent to take a few precautions: we have laid out five below.

1) Get a phone that emits less
The amount of radiation that your phone emits is measured by the SAR rating. Your phone's specific SAR rating can be determined by checking the testing report on the FCC's website. It allows you to look up phone's FCC ID, which can be found by checking behind the battery or on newer phones it is often simply printed on the back. Some of the latest and greatest phones now seem to have very high radiation as well, with the iPhone 3Gs and the Motorola Droid topping the charts

2) Use a Protective Cover
Cell phone radiation is typically let out of your phone in all directions. Pong research has created a phone case that can help at least mitigate the effects of cell phone radiation. It doesn't block the radiation; instead it redirects it away from your head, where most of the noticeable effects of cell phones have occurred. Right now they only have cases for the iPhone 3G and the Blackberry Curve, but they are working on new case for different models, like the iPhone 4.

3) Don't Use Your Phone in Poorly Covered Areas
The reason you have poor coverage when you are in the middle of nowhere is that there are no towers nearby. Your phone then has to transmit a more powerful signal to reach these distant towers. This increases the amount of radiation the phone emits. You probably notice this effect already but in a different way, having a dead battery much quicker.

4) Phone Keep Away
The best way to keep radiation away from your body is to keep the source as far away from you as possible. The most obvious way to do this is by using a headset, something you should be doing already, especially here in California. If you don't have that another option is to put the phone in speakerphone mode. Finally you can simply keep your phone in a holster, even if it looks geeky.

5) Text Instead
Text messaging keeps the phone in your hands, at least a little further from your head. There are many phones that offer full keyboards which make texting a breeze. You can also use social networking services, like Facebook or Twitter to keep up with friends.