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Whether you’re an employer trying to research a sketchy job
candidate, someone suspicious of the show-off date they found online,
or trying to research sex offenders in your area, there are a number of
free Web tools to turn you into an amateur private eye. Check out our
list of 50 totally free services that will let you dig up the dirt on
anyone.

All-in-One Services and Public Records Search

Searching through public records is easy when you turn to these free
sites that connect you to databases of court records, jail records,
corporate records, and more.

1. Free Public Records Finder: Search free public records by state, view corporate records, court records, criminal records and more on this site.
2. Net-Investigation.com:
   Search by state to look up court records on almost anyone. This site
   also provides a background check crash course and tutorials for how to
   find the most relevant information.
3. Public Record Finder:
   This site uses “the largest public records search database on the World
   Wide Web” and pours through public records from the U.S., Canada and
   even Mexico.
4. Abika:
   At Abika, you can verify licenses, do a criminal records check, find
   contact information, dig up marriage and divorce records, do a license
   plate search, trace e-mails, and more.
5. Dates and Love: Run a background check, reverse cell phone number lookup, employee screening or people search on this site for free.

Criminal Background Checks

To find out if anyone has a criminal history, perform a free criminal background check on them using one of these tools.

6. Zimbio: Here you can run a free criminal background check by searching “millions of records at blazing fast speeds.”
7. CrimCheck.com: CrimCheck.com connects users to over 1,330 public records and websites to help you with your search.
8. eFindOuttheTruth.com, Inc.: If it’s your birthday, you are eligible to perform a free background check using this site’s quality search services.
9. RecordCheck.com: Conduct your search on this site, and if you don’t get any results, you won’t be charged for the search.
10. Detective Unlimited:
    This site connects users to a free version of the Intelius service.
    Results bring up addresses, lawsuits, sex offender information,
    property ownership, relatives, neighbors, marriage records and more.
11. Instant Background Report:
    Type in the name and state of the person you want to search, and you’ll
    find out approximate ages and cities where people who have that name
    live. You do have to pay for more specific information, though.
12. Direct Pass:
    Non-subscribers to this service receive a description of each database
    used in their search plus access to the public record locator.
13. Public Records Information:
    Search by state and county on this site and get links to investigation
    records, judicial organizations, sex offender registries and more.

Contact Information

Verify addresses and other contact information by going to one of
these free search sites, from the White Pages to the more elusive
Internet Sleuth.

14. White Pages: The White Pages is a perfectly free way to find addresses and contact information for individuals.
15. Free Address Lookup: Browse by state or just type in a name to find out where someone lives in the U.S.
16. The Search Advisor: Search the U.S. database on this site to find missing people, do a quick address verification or find your birth family.
17. Addresses.com: This website offers a White Pages search, Yellow Pages search, cell phone caller ID and e-mail lookup.
18. AnyWho: To find a person or a business through this site, you need to type in their land line phone number.
19. MelissaDATA: You can verify and look up addresses on this website, which prompts you to type in a street address, zip code or city.
20. PhoneNumber.com: Conduct a people search or business search on this site, where you can find and verify addresses and phone numbers.
21. Superpages.com: Look up addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses on Superpages.com.
22. Internet Sleuth:
    Internet Sleuth searches databases at Addresses.com, Whitepages.com,
    SmartPages, 411.com, Anywho and Yahoo! to bring you contact information
    for your people search.
23. 411.com: At
    411.com, search the white pages or yellow pages, do a reverse phone
    number check, reverse address check, look up an area or zip code and
    more.

Marital History and Genealogy

Has your date secretly been married before? Find out by digging into marriage and family records by state or county.

24. GeneaLinks:
    The free marriage records database lets you search ancestors’ records
    and link up to marriage records on other sites to maximize your search.
25. A - Z Marriage Records: Look up marriage records in the US, UK, Canada and Ireland on this site.
26. FamilySearch.org:
    This site lets you do a basic look up of named family members within a
    specific year range, country. You can choose a certain life event, too,
    like a birth, death or marriage.
27. Census Diggins: Browse marriage and divorce records by state and county from the 1700s to the present.
28. I Dream of Genealogy: This site is another service that provides free marriage records organized by state.

Employment Screenings

Employers need to be careful about who they hire, and there are
several free services that allow you to verify contact information,
past work experience, and even driving records.

29. Free Employment Screening:
    This site offers a “comprehensive employee screener search engine” that
    lets you search by name or combine a name with city, zip code, employer
    and birth year.
30. BackgroundSearch.com: Do a pre-employment background search by typing in a name and birthday. Using a SSN to narrow down your search is optional.
31. DatabaseRecords.com: Sign in with your name and e-mail address to get access to a free employee screening report here.
32. Switchboard: Verify that an applicant’s past work experience is legitimate by verifying their business here.
33. Driver’s License Search: Find court records and driving records by looking up your applicant’s driver’s license here.

Real Estate and Rent

Run a tenant check on a seedy looking applicant to find out if they’ve been blacklisted on one of these sites.

34. LandlordOnline.com:
    When you sign up for a free basic membership on this site, you’ll be
    eligible for two free credit reports and three free industry reports.
35. Deadbeat Tenant: Start by selecting your state and then conduct an eviction check or criminal record check on applicants.
36. Bad Tenant: This site offers free membership and a search to find out if an applicant has been blacklisted in the database.

Sex Offender Sites

Protect your family and your neighborhood by looking up sex
offenders by name or zip code. Some sites even offer photos of each
offender.

37. National Sex Offender Registry: The family watchdog on this site directs users to a search by location or search by name.
38. FBI Crimes Against Children: Click on a state to conduct a sex offender search from the FBI’s website.
39. MapSexOffenders.com: There are over 300,000 sex offenders listed in this database. You can view maps of the offenders and search by name.
40. Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Registry:
    On this site, you can type in a name, zip code, county or city to
    perform your search. Results include a photo, names and aliases used by
    the offender, registration information and address.
41. Free Sex Offenders Search: Perform a sex offender lookup by state and get public access to criminal records and jail records.
42. SexOffender.com Database Search: Look up sex offenders and anyone who has a history or record of violent behavior towards children.
43. US-Sex-Offenders.com: This site can search information and addresses for sex offenders in 27 different U.S. states.

People Searches

To conduct a general people search on someone, use one of these
sites, which feature search options like reverse telephone number look
up, e-mail addresses, online profiles and more.

45. Zaba Search:
    This free people search and public information search engine features
    search options by name, phone number or social security number.
46. Free Public Records Directory: Find death records, court records, marriage and divorce records and a lot more on this “absolutely free” site.
47. Yahoo! People Search: Conduct a U.S. phone and address search, reverse phone number check or e-mail search here.
48. Bigfoot: Find individuals or businesses through this site, which can reveal e-mail addresses, phone numbers, addresses and more.
49. Peek You:
    Peek You is “the smartest way to find people online.” You can find out
    if someone has any risque pictures or information on their online
    profiles, on any site.
50. pipl: pipl is
    another online people search site that brings up social networking
    profiles, public records, mentions on blogs and the Web, and even
    customer profiles on sites like Amazon.com.

Check out these 15 Internet screw-ups that will live in infamy.

1. Dreamhosts’ $7.5 Million Billing Mistake:
   Due to a “fat-fingered” error, Dreamhost accidentally overbilled almost
   all of their customers, charging them for nearly a year in hosting
   fees. Large charges appeared on customers’ credit and debit cards, but
   Dreamhost promised to make good on refunds, and even said they’d pay
   for any overdraft fees they caused.
2. iTunes Leaks Stargate Atlantis:
   On iTunes, Apple offered what it thought was the season premiere of the
   sci-fi TV show Stargate Atlantis, but actually sold the fourth episode
   instead. It didn’t take long for the episode to be uploaded onto
   BitTorrent and other P2P networks, so there was no way out of this
   screw up. To make up for it, Apple offered the actual season premiere
   and an iTunes credit for $2. The mistake was caused by a production
   number mixup.
3. Viacom Issues a Takedown For its Own Pirated Video:
   In the midst of a copyright battle with YouTube, Viacom revealed
   themselves as video pirates themselves. They tried to get a clip
   removed from YouTube, but they hadn’t yet received permission to use
   the source video in the clip. Viacom even sent a DCMA takedown notice
   to the owner of the original content, asking him to take down the clip.
4. AOL Releases Search Data for 650,000 Users:
   In an effort to provide research tools to the academic community, AOL
   accidentally released search data on more than 650,000 users. Although
   it was anonymized, it showed searches for murder, incest, and other
   unpleasantries. You could also find names, Social Security numbers,
   addresses, and more.
5. Google Deletes Their Official Blog:
   Google accidentally deleted their official blog, which was picked up by
   a well-intentioned college student. It could have been used to send out
   misinformation or even malware.
6. Google Mistakes Own Blog for Spam, Deletes It:
   Google didn’t learn from past mistakes. Blogger’s spam classifier
   accidentally marked the Custom Search Blog as spam, the bloggers
   overlooked the notification they received, and the blog was disabled as
   a result. This made the URL available to the general public, and was
   squatted by a person named Srikanth.
7. Nevada Governor Accidentally Posts Outlook Password:
   On the Governor of Nevada’s website, an instruction guide was posted
   that told aides how to send out an email on behalf of the governor.
   This of course included his email, which was a not-very-secure
   combination of his first and last names. The files were quickly taken
   down, but still available for some time through Google’s cache.
8. Google’s Spider Deletes a Website:
   One of the website’s users accidentally left an “edit” hyperlink
   open-and somehow copied this on to every page-which allowed deletion,
   and the Google spider found these pages, which consequently deleted
   them. They were able to restore the site with backups, and resolved to
   never copy and paste content again.
9. Capcom Links to Hardcore Porn: On the game box for Capcom’s Killer 7, the official URL is listed as www.killer7.com, which is a hardcore porn site. The site should have been listed as www.killer-7.com.
   Apparently, the porn site was originally registered to Capcom and was
   the official site when the game was released, but they lost the URL.
10. The Morris Worm:
    Although the Mooris Worm gave Robert Tappan Morris fame as a hacker, it
    was actually one big mistake. His intention was to use the worm to see
    how large the Internet was, but things went bad when the work
    replicated itself excessively and slowed down computers.
11. Blogger Can’t Quit AOL:
    This blogger taped his conversation with AOL in which they did just
    about everything possible to keep him from canceling his account.
12. The Department of Homeland Security Fails its Own Cyber Attack: Homeland Security simulated a cyber attack, called Operation Cyber Storm, and revealed that we’d fare pretty poorly.
13. Best Buy’s Secret Website:
    A few customers have found that Best Buy’s in-store website reflects
    higher prices than the one widely available on the Internet. This is
    apparently an attempt to convince customers that their in-store price
    reflects any web specials they may be offering. They are identical,
    except for the prices.
14. Symantec Kills the CyberSitter:
    In a Symantec Security Response update, a program called CyberSitter
    was tagged as a virus. This led to a number of customers losing both
    their operating systems and Internet access, including schools and
    libraries.
15. BBC Mistakes Cabbie for Internet Download Expert:
    A BBC reporter thought she was interviewing Guy Kewney, editor of
    Newswireless.net, but she was actually interviewing a local cabbie. In
    this case of mistaken identity, the men looked nothing alike, and Mr.
    Kewney actually saw the taxi driver being introduced under his name.
    Although the driver knew nothing about the main topics of Apple, online
    music, or the Beatles, he said he felt the interview went well, “but it
    was a bit rushed.

Here are five popular ways to capture desktop screencast for Linux

1) Istanbul: Istanbul is one of the more widely used desktop recording software out there. You can download Istanbul from here.
Debian and Fedora users should be able to install it from the repo.
Istanbul has a very simple interface (or lack of). When you first start
up Istanbul, you will see a small red button on your desktop panel.

Right click on the button and it will give you options and ways to
record you desktop by window you choose or desktop area you select by
mouse.

You can stop recording you session by left clicking on the record button, and it will prompt you save the screencast:

By default, Istanbul saves your video in Ogg format.

2) Wink: Wink gives you more control over you
Screencast than any Linux screencast software I have tried, and the
fact that it doesn’t actually takes videos in the conventional sense of
taking videos of your desktop screen, it gives you more control over
your video. Wink takes video by taking screenshots of your desktop in
frames per second. If you set your Wink to take 20 frames per second
and take one minute worth of screencast with wink, it will have roughly
1200 screenshots of your desktop in one minute, which you can edit one
screenshot at a time giving you more control over the video. Wink saves
the video in shockwave format which you can later convert into whatever
format you wish to.

You can download wink from it’ website here.

Wink will not work with newer distros of Ubuntu 8.04, or any Linux
distros with libexpat.so.1 file located in /usr/lib/. A temporary
solution that worked for me was to simply rename the file to
libexpat.so.0, even thoughI didn’t have any problem with my system
after doing this and everything worked ok, it is not highly recommended
as it might effect other program using this file. You can rename it
back to it’s original format when you are done. A permanent solution
would be to recompile the program and link it to the new libraries; or
wait for it to be officially updated by the author.

To start doing screencast with Wink, start a new project with File
–> New, and select the screen size you would like to record.

(click for larger view)

You will see that by default it capture 50 frames/second in Time capture Mode.

After selecting OK a window will pop up giving your shortcuts for video capture.

Select “Minimize To Tray”. From the desktop panel right click on the
icon and select “Start Timed Capture”, to start capturing your desktop.

You can select “Stop Timed Capture” whenever you think you are done
with your work. It will tell you how many frames have been captured.

To get your video you have to render all the image files into a video file. And now you have a video of your desktop.

Render Images:

Save file options:

3) Xvidcap: This is a nice little video capturing
app that does the job, however for me it was a little too buggy for my
liking. You can download xvidcap from here.
When you start xvidcap, it will give you red square to work with, which
represents the space that will be captured, you can drag the square to
your liking, depending on how much you want to capture. To start
capturing just click onthe red button. Other options including the
ability to choose a screen area to capture and detach the frame area
from the video capture selection. However if you select the whole
desktop screen or large portion of the desktop screen, this will slow
down your computer to a crawl.

4) vnc2swf: Another popular, but inconvenient, way
to screencast desktop is to use vnc2swf to record desktop sessions.
vnc2swf works by connecting to vncserver and recording sessions. Debian
users can use this program by installing sudo apt-get install pyvnc2swf. Others can download from it’s website: http://www.unixuser.org/~euske/vnc2swf/

To start recording, assuming you have vnc server installed, just type this command in the terminal vnc2swf -o test.swf -N -S localhost:0 and it should pop up a simple window for recording purpose.

For more options check out the official documentation.

5) Recordmydesktop: Another fairly widely used
desktop recording application which runs in command and has a graphical
frontend, debian user can install both with apt-get, sudo apt-get install recordmydesktop gtk-recordmydesktop, others can download from their project page: http://sourceforge.net/projects/recordmydesktop.
Recordmydesktop works the same way as Istanbul and has almost the same
look and feel down to the desktop panel shortcut. But RMD has more
advanced options that are missing in Istanbul. the options are
self-explanatory and should be fairly easy to configure.

Mozilla’s Firefox 3 release event yesterday was an epic success. The
servers logged over 8 million downloads during the 24-hour download
day, and Mozilla has declared victory after exceeding its initial goal of 5
million downloads.

Read More

In a year when making a straight-to-DVD sequel of a 24-year-old comedy (replacing Tom Hanks with OH-Face from “Office Space”) and a 2008 version of the eightiesest movie that ever eightiesed are both somehow acceptable, I feel it is more prescient now than ever to examine a list of Ten Sequels That Came Out Way Too Late in the hopes that history stops repeating itself again and again:

10. Caddyshack 2

Original: 1980

Sequel: 1988

All right, who do we have back? Only Chevy Chase? No problem. We can replace Rodney Dangerfield with any Jewish one-liner comedian. Jackie Mason? Great. Who can we get to replace Ted Knight’s legendary blue-blooded straight-man performance? The host of “Unsolved Mysteries”? Perfect. Finally, no Bill Murray? Just get anyone from SNL in the 70s. Is Garrett Morris not available? Fine, just throw in Dan Akyroyd and have him do a stupid voice. Wait a minute — this movie sucks! What the hell went wrong?

9. Son of the Mask

Original: 1994

Sequel: 2005

“The Mask” may have spawned an Oscar-winning soundtrack and a series of never-tedious catchphrases, but a sequel wouldn’t have been an act of sacrilege, except for the fact that “Son of the Mask” is the worst movie of all time.
Not “one of the worst” — THE worst. I used to doubt it too, refusing to
believe a movie could even be on par with “Master of Disguise” or
“Rollerball,” until I finally watched it at a friend’s insistence, and
immediately recanted.

8. Live Free Or Die Hard

Original: 1988, Part 2: 1990, Part 3: 1995

Part 4: 2007

This movie’s not nearly as egregious as the others on this list, but
it perfectly embodies all four signs that a sequel is truly, truly
desperate: 1) Traditional R-Rating traded in for a
PG-13 to appeal to a wider audience, even if it means covering up the
film’s catchphrase with a gunshot sound effect; 2) Title weirdly rephrased so it doesn’t involve the really high number of the sequel; 3) Lead actor now stylishly bald to mask the fact that he’s fifty-two; and, of course, 4) Waaacky Sidekick!!!

7. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

Original: 1984, Part 2: 1991

Part 3: 2003

We need a plot for this new “Terminator” installment. Why don’t we
have the machines send a robot back in time to pre-emptively stop John
Connor before he grows up to be the leader of the human resistance, but
have the humans also send someone back in time to try to protect him?
Wait — that was the exact plot of movies One and Two, which were both
groundbreaking and surely cannot be improved upon? Fine. Make the
villain a hot naked chick.

6. Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd

Original: 1994

Sequel: 2003

I remember the first time I saw the teaser trailer for this film,
which consisted only of titlers and a voiceover, then I turned to my
friend and said “oh my God… they’re making a ‘Dumb and Dumber sequel! I
can’t wait!” My friend then pointed out that the preview showed no
scenes from the movie or mentioned who was in it, meaning it was likely
some treacherous studio-mandated sequel in name only, and I immediately
foresaw nightmarish visions that pretty closely resembled this.

5. Basic Instinct 2

Original: 1992

Sequel: 2006

It’s one thing for a sex-related movie to not be hot enough to
masturbate to, but it’s quite another for a sequel to be so
horrifically unsexy, it makes you angry that you were ever the
slightest bit aroused by the original, causing you to simultaneously
punch your crotch and your brain as punishment. I hope to God they make
the third one earlier than 2020.

4. Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights

Original: 1987

Sequel: 2004

Yes! It’s about time they remade a movie that embodies everything
great about the eighties… for the NEW MILLENIUM! Who cares if none of
the original cast members, writers, or any humans who were in the same
country as the people who worked on the original are involved — it has
the words “Dirty” and “Dancing” in the title! Plus I’ve always wondered
how the discipline of dancing dirtily changed in the aftermath of
September 11th.

3. Sylvester Stallone, 2006-2008

Previous ‘Rocky’ Installment: 1990, Previous ‘Rambo’ Installment: 1988

Rocky Balboa: 2006, Rambo: 2008

I recall Stallone on his 2006 talk show run for the
mostly tolerable “Rocky Balboa” saying how the Rocky character’s
desperate stab for one last moment of glory mirrored that of his own
personal career, which was actually kind of poignant, if clearly
smacking of self-rationalization. I’m not sure how the Rambo
character’s desperate stab through the throats of a whole bunch more
Southeast Asian terrorists mirrors anything in his personal life, nor
do I have any idea how he’s going to justify that 2010 “Over The Top”
sequel…

2. Blues Brothers 2000

Original: 1980

Sequel: 1998

The Simpsons pretty much summed up this film (and Jim Belushi’s
career) in the episode “Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo” when Belushi,
filming an in-flight movie on the plane itself, walks by yelling “Toga!
Toga! Toga! 2000!” as a crew films him.

1. The Godfather Part III

Original: 1972, Part II: 1974

Part III: 1990

Gentleman, we’ve done the unthinkable — we won an Oscar for a
sequel. Nobody thought we could equal “The Godfather,” but we’ve taken
the story in a new direction and proven that sequels don’t just have to
be obligatory, superfluous extensions of the original designed to coax
some cash out of a public that craves the familiar. Well done, all.

[SIXTEEN YEARS PASS]

Hey, forget what I said — let’s do a sh*tty sequel to that sequel.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Jason X, Freddy vs Jason, Alien
III, Alien Resurrection, Alien vs Predator, The Evening Star, Before
Sunset (good, just weirdly late), The Star Wars prequels (which don’t
technically count as sequels, but whatever, f*ck ‘em), dozens more