The safety and security of our laptops—and all of the important and sensitive information they hold—are of the utmost importance. Let's take a look at several free and cheap methods you can (and should) use to keep your laptop safe, secure, and out of the hands of thieves. We'll also take a look at software that tracks and even snaps pictures of the thief in the event he did get away with your precious gear. Photo by presta.

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Despite the fact that it ships with a DVD drive, for whatever godforsaken reason, the Nintendo Wii doesn't support DVD playback—until last week, that is, when a homebrew hacker released a tool that enables DVD playback on your Wii. The best part? You don't have to crack open your Wii or disturb your hardware in any way to install it. Let's take a detailed look at how to softmod your Wii with the Twilight hack to run homebrew apps. Then I'll show you how to install the Wii port of the open source media player, mplayer, to turn your Wii into a DVD (or should I say WiiVD?) player.

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For a cool $1000 or so, you can buy the Sonos Bundle 150 and wirelessly play music from a single remote control in two separate rooms in your house. On the other hand, for a whole bunch less if you've already got the right equipment, you can get the same functionality from your iPhone or iPod touch. Let's take a closer look at how to use the iTunes Remote application for the iPhone 2.0 with inexpensive equipment you may already have to remote control music playback wirelessly in any room in your home.

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As of yesterday's announcement of CalDAV support in Google Calendar, you can now sync your Google Calendar with virtually any popular desktop calendar for free. Not only can you enjoy your favourite desktop calendar software and still get the benefit of the web interface, you can also sync any desktop calendar with any other across platforms using GCal as a go-between. Let's take a comprehensive look at how to set up bidirectional syncing between Google Calendar and your favourite desktop calendar—from Outlook and iCal to Sunbird and Thunderbird—for free.

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If there's one thing geeks and non-geeks alike all share, it's an aversion to exercise. No matter how much you'd like to slim your waistline and lose the belly, it's difficult to find a workout routine that not only works, but one that fits your needs and is easy to stick to. Over the years we've covered several fitness plans along with free and cheap technology to help you get in shape and stick to a training plan, and I've used many of these tools to help run two marathons. Read on for a look at the most simple yet effective plans we've covered—along with the best tech tools to help you get and stay in shape. Photo by luiginter.

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One of the coolest features available in the new iPhone 2.0 software update is the ability to get new email messages, contacts, and calendar events pushed to your device automatically. The catch: If you don't want to shell out $US100 for MobileMe and you don't have a Microsoft Exchange server lying around, you're stuck pulling data or manually syncing it to your computer. But, if you're willing to roll up your sleeves, you can set up push email and wireless contact and calendar syncing using the free Microsoft Exchange service Mail2Web.

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Millions of homes have an Xbox 360 sitting in the living room, but if you're only using your 360 to game, you're missing out. With some free tools and a little elbow grease, that compact, networked PC sitting under your television can offer a whole lot of useful media functionality. The fact is, your 360 is capable of so much more than just gaming. Let's take a look at a few ways you can get more from your Xbox 360. (We covered some of this territory in our recent guide to what to do with your new cheap Xbox 360, but there's plenty of extra goodness to be had.

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Cross-platform media player VLC is often referred to as the "Swiss Army knife of media applications" for good reason: Not only does VLC play nearly any file you throw at it (you even voted it the best desktop media player), but it can do so much more. From ripping DVDs to converting files to iPod-friendly formats, let's take a look at the four coolest things you can do with VLC and start you on your way to becoming a VLC ninja. Photo by R'eyes.

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Mozilla released Firefox version 1.0 to relative obscurity in November of 2004, and four short years later, the much-anticipated Firefox 3.0 will hit the streets with ambitions of setting a new world record tomorrow. In honour of the nearly here 3.0 release, let's take a look back at a visual history of Firefox, version 1.0 to 3.0.

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You've been talking to (or screaming at) your Windows PC for years, but unless you were willing to shell out hundreds of dollars on pricey software, chances are it wasn't listening to a word you were saying. With Microsoft's new freeware tool, Windows Speech Recognition Macros, the days of you talking into your computer's unsympathetic ear are over. Not only is it listening, but it's up to the task of doing whatever you want it to.

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