Compiled by JOHN COLLINS

Book accommodation from a real person

Airbnb has been recommended here before and now looks set for the big time after a $112 million injection from investors, which values the website at $1.3 billion. While we’re not sure about that valuation Airbnb is a great service that allows you rent accommodation around the world directly from their owners but with lots of social networking features to help you find that quirky spare room that meets your needs. Now listing properties from 16,695 cities in 188 countries.

airbnb.com

Facebook offers small businesses an online education centre

Just a few short years ago few would have predicted it but Facebook has become the premier online sales and marketing tool for business. Reflecting that reality, Facebook has launched an online education centre to help small businesses get the most out of the social network. If you don’t know your pages from your ads, your sponsored stories from your apps, this is the place to jump in and get started.

facebook.com/business

MS-DOS celebrates its 30th birthday

Thirty years ago this week Microsoft decided to rename the product QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System) it had purchased from Seattle Computer Products. MS-DOS was born and for the next 25 years PC users struggled with command line interfaces and put up with sneering from Apple users. Not much changes but this article from The Register, complete with nostalgia-inducing screenshots, recounts how DOS became such a large part of hundreds of millions of people’s lives.

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