It seems like every time we turn our backs, there's something new and cool out there on the Internet. Below are three free tools to make your life a little easier:

Microsoft Virtual Earth: www.maps.live.com

We've by now seen or at least heard what Google has done to mapping, recently completing a street view of the entire city of Madison and surrounding areas. Now, Microsoft has launched version 2 of what it calls "Virtual Earth," with several exciting features. Of course, there's the standard satellite images and traditional map view.

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In addition, there's also two new features, one of them being bird's-eye view, which lets you see traditional satellite shots not from the top down but more of an angled view.

Then, there's 3-D view where many buildings are rendered in 3-D so you can tilt and zoom and see a building from all sorts of different angles.

The maps are constantly being updated and as of this week, there are four cities with Las Vegas being one of them. In these cities, the buildings don't just pop up as 3-D boxes they also look like their facades in real life, even the trees pop out and line the streets. Of course, you can scroll down as if you were driving down the street. And like Google Maps, you can search for a hotel or restaurant and be taken there.

A word of note: to use these new features, you do have to download free software and you'll get the best use out of a computer that is new within the past two years.

Free 411 Service: 1-800-GOOG-411

If you're needing a number on the go, 411 is always an option, but you'll pay about $1 a call. Another option that's free is from Google called Goog 411. Just dial 1-800-GOOG-411 and you can look up anything from the yellow pages using your voice: get numbers, addresses and also connected for free. Also, if you don't have pen and paper handy just say "map it" or "send text" and Google will text your cell phone with the information.

Free Conference Calls: www.freeconference.com

Ever have a need to gather more than three friends on a phone call? Or maybe you want to have a family discussion or a small business meeting. You can only have a three-way phone call if you use a landline or cell phone, but now, there's a free Web site that lets you have up to 150 people on a call at once.

It's called freeconference.com. Simply register for a user name and password, then log in and you can set up a conference call by choosing a time and date. You can have the site send out invites or you can email your family or friends with a call in number and passcode. Then, at the appropriate time, they dial in, input their passcode and the conference begins.

The service is free, however it's a long distance phone number to dial in on. There's also the option of getting a 1-800 number for your guests to call in on but then you have to pay 10 cents a minute per user on the call.

In addition, if you want to show off a Powerpoint presentation for instance or a website, or maybe you're working on a Word document. You can do free desktop sharing much like what you get out of WebEx via this site as well. Just select that as an option when you're setting up your call. Then, your friends simply click on a link and when your conference begins they'll see what's on your computer.