Logan Kugler

Illustration: Michael Byers"There's a sucker born every minute." That quotation, widely attributed to P.T. Barnum, originally referred to deceptive carnival sideshow attractions, but it's just as relevant to online scams--in particular, Facebook scams--today.

None of the common Facebook frauds--the "Facebook dislike button," the "stalker tracker" (which purports to tell you who's visiting your profile), and "watch this video" tricks, for instance--are new, says Chris Boyd, senior threat researcher for UK-based GFI Software. "You'd think that people wouldn't continue to fall for them," he says. But of course, they do.

Good news for network administrators, tech support staffers and other IT pros who use Android smartphones: There are hundreds of Android apps designed to help you get your work done faster, better and -- best of all -- remotely. Do a little searching and you'll find tools that enable you to remotely access desktops, monitor servers, tether your laptop to your phone and more. And the vast majority of these tools are free.

The only hard part is wading through the sheer number of options available in the Android Market and other app collections. So we did the groundwork for you, asking seasoned IT professionals for their picks. Here's a roundup of 10 Android apps that IT pros will find useful. (Of course, you should always go through proper channels and approval processes before using any of these tools with your company systems.)

From coffee shops to planes, trains, and cruise ships, we've become accustomed to having ready access to the Internet just about anywhere. The problem is, it's easy to forget how vulnerable that makes us to security threats.

I learned this the hard way recently when traveling from San Jose to Tampa, passing through four cities along the way. Even though I'm well aware of the potential for others to hack into my devices, I'd never had any problems previously. Unfortunately, there's always a first time: When I got back home, Facebook alerted me to some suspicious activity. I had been "Firesheep'd"!

Over half a billion people use Facebook around the world. It is the single largest phenomenon of human connection in history, not to mention the biggest thing ever to hit the Web, and a source of enjoyment for millions. But it's becoming more and more of a love-hate relationship. We love using Facebook and other online social networks, but we hate the ever-increasing privacy and security concerns.

Those concerns about privacy on Facebook have caught the attention of the U.S. Government: Congress recently sent Facebook an open letter asking the company to explain the disclosure of user identities to third parties (as originally reported by the Wall Street Journal), and how the company plans to address this issue. James Clarke, senior consumer technology analyst at Mintel International, makes very clear what's at stake: "It's in Facebook's own interests to provide a safe environment for users to enjoy; the value of their business depends on it."

Following in the footsteps of Firefox and Chrome, Apple this summer began allowing developers to create extensions for its Safari 5 Web browser and more recently launched its Extensions Gallery. The idea is to allow users to customize Safari in ways that make Web surfing more efficient and fun.

The gallery, a curated collection of extensions submitted by third-party developers, is similar to the company's App Store for iPhone and iPad software. As in the App Store, Apple picks which extensions get listed in Extensions Gallery based on how well they perform and the functions they add to Safari. Any developer can submit one, but if you look through Extensions Gallery, you'll notice many come from major media outlets or social networks.

In today's infinitely connected workplace, the iPhone's popularity and usability make it a powerful platform for collaboration. With a few downloads from Apple's App Store, you can be managing projects, updating your team, tracking progress and sharing documents from anywhere you can get a signal.

These 10 apps, all of which are compatible with iOS 3.0 and higher, are among the best out there for working with others. Best of all, most of them leverage the cloud to let you shift seamlessly between your phone and your desktop as you move in and out of the office.

They say privacy doesn't exist on the Web -- but that doesn't mean you can't try to safeguard your personal information. Our computers are loaded with details about our personal and business lives, and it's definitely not acceptable to reveal them haphazardly. With hackers becoming ever more sophisticated, you have to take precautions.

One threat to privacy on the Web is the use of cookies and other technologies to track your browsing, clicking, searching, social networking and buying habits as you move from site to site. These tracking technologies build up an online profile of you that can be used not only to send you ads designed to appeal to you (useful to some, intrusive to others) but could also be used for identity theft if the information fell into the wrong hands.

In the almost 20 years since Linux was first released into the world, free for anyone to use and modify however they like, the operating system has been put to a lot of uses. Today, a vast number of servers run Linux to serve up Web pages and applications, while user-friendly versions of Linux run PCs, netbooks, and even Android and WebOS phones.

One incredibly useful way that Linux has been adapted to the needs of modern computer users is as a "live CD," a version of the operating system that can be booted from a CD (or a DVD or, in some cases, a USB drive) without actually being installed on the computer's hard drive. Given the massive RAM and fast CPUs available on even the lowest-end computers today, along with Linux's generally lower system requirements compared to Windows and Mac OS X, you can run Linux quite comfortably from a CD drive.

Artwork: Chip TaylorCollaboration is a key component to success in today's business world. Workforces are increasingly dispersed, with remote workers, offshore contractors and global partnerships making the job of coordinating your team's work harder than ever.

Fortunately, a wide range of services has emerged that take advantage of the Internet to tie vastly distributed teams together in ways that were unheard of a decade ago. And, of course, people in the same office can benefit from online collaboration too.

Google is nearly everyone's best friend. But have you ever stopped to think about just how much Google knows about you?