Lauren Barnard

New contests surface every day on Twitter, with a large variety of prizes up for grabs. Recent contests have given away everything from netbooks to gas cards to $25,000 for a new car. Twitter giveaways are like the lottery, only your odds of winning are dramatically higher, and you can enter as many contests as you want without spending a dime. With some strategy and a little patience, you’ll soon discover how addictive Twitter contests can be--especially when you start winning cool prizes.

Even with recent studies showing that Twitter’s growth is slowing, Twitter contests aren’t going away anytime soon. Most of the contests are from companies looking for you to mention their products or brands in your tweets. If you've got some time on your hands and don't mind some mild spamming (we'll explain how to do it without causing your friends to unfollow you), you can take advantage of this growing marketing phenomenon. Follow this guide and start winning prizes while you tweet.

College Gadgets Then and Now

It's been a year since the Wind U100, the "big" sibling to the MSI Wind U123, came out--and the similarities between the two netbooks are eerie. Both run Windows XP Home Edition, and both carry 1GB of RAM, a Webcam and mic, and essentially everything else, except the U123 features a bulbous nine-cell battery and the 1.6GHz Intel Atom N280 processor (versus the U100's N270 CPU). In short, same stuff, different day.

That CPU upgrade doesn't amount to much of a difference. Oh, sure, the U123 will finish tasks a hair faster, but it's still in the same ballpark. While the U100 earned a mark of 36 in WorldBench 6 (about the average), the U123 barely edged ahead with a score of 37. As for the U123's large nine-cell battery, however, the PC World Test Center found that it lasted for 4 hours, 34 minutes under constant use, whereas the three-cell battery on the U100 survived for a little over 2 hours less--that's an obvious improvement over last year's model. (Of course, netbooks with longer battery life and more features, like the Toshiba NB205-310, are on the market too.) The only drawback to the U123's beefy battery is that it makes this netbook weigh as much as an ultraportable laptop--3.6 pounds, to be precise.

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Join PC World editors Ginny Mies, Tim Moynihan and Robert Strohmeyer in the short-but-sweet 31st edition of the PC World Podcast. The group sums up the big week in the world of cell phones, and Ginny gives us some news from the Google Developer Conference where she scored an HTC Magic.

This week on the PC World Podcast, editors Tim Moynihan, Darren Gladstone, Melissa Perenson, and Nick Mediati discuss the results of recent Windows 7 Speed Tests, why some Windows 7 CPU's can't run XP mode, and they also give us their take on the new Kindle DX.

Nick Mediati has looked over the results the PC World Test Center's benchmarks on the release candidate, and looks like Windows 7 may not be too much faster than Vista after all--find out what else the editors have to say about the results. Also, listen in to hear why Windows XP won't work on some newer computers.

Like most tablet PCs, Fujitsu's LifeBook T2020 caters to business folk. This laptop may shy away from sex appeal in favor of getting the job done, but it's angling to be a useful, lightweight (3.6 pounds), compact (11.7 by 8.6 by 1.3 inches) package. While it doesn't deliver in speed, it sure is ready for the long haul.

The LifeBook T2020 retains virtually all of the physical features of its predecessor, the sober, professional-looking LifeBook T2010. The only thing about the T2020 that screams "2009," however, is its flawless 12.1-inch screen. The 1280-by-800-pixel panel looks exceptional, with much brighter and more-vivid colors than a typical matte laptop screen produces. Graphics, photos, and text are all very sharp and well defined, and the screen maintains its visually appealing contrast and intensity indoors and out.

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Join Robert Strohmeyer, Tim Moynihan, Lauren Barnard, Zack Stern and JR Raphael in the 27th edition of the PC World Podcast--which is, to say the least, chock full of goodness.

This week, Zack fills us in on the 57 fun, novel, and unexpected things your tech can do--and yes, there are some things you probably haven't tried yet! JR brings his opinions to light about why so many people fall off the Twitter bandwagon shortly after signing up, and Robert expresses his tempered loyalty to Twitter. Lastly, Tim and Lauren discuss the gadget of the week--Blue's Eyeball Webcam Mic--and decide whether it's worth forking out $100 for.

Sound quality can make or break an online video chat or VoIP phone call, and sometimes a built-in desktop or laptop microphone just doesn't cut it. Blue Microphones' Eyeball is a golf-ball-size, retro-style microphone with a flip-out HD Webcam that delivers great sound and slick looks--for a relatively high price ($100 as of 4/21/09).

Blue is known for making high-quality microphones, so it's no surprise that the one on this device is the product's most redeeming feature. In other words, even though the Eyeball's Webcam is an "HD" Webcam, you shouldn't expect your video chats to look like something you'd see on Discovery Channel HD or in an IMAX theater. The image quality is fairly vivid, but colors appear dark and dull when the subject isn't perfectly lit.

Great Performance or Energy Savings: That Is the Question