02:36 PM CDT on Thursday, May 25, 2006

By WALT ZWIRKO / WFAA-TV

Everybody enjoys a good laugh.

Back in the day, the best funny stories or pictures would find their way to the photocopy machine, and they'd be posted on the office bulletin board or maybe faxed to a friend.

The modern method, of course, is to use e-mail to distribute humorous content. But now there's a new Web site dedicated to keeping your funny business more organized.

Jokebox.com comes to us from the creators of JibJab—whose unmistakable musical political cartoons (remember George W. Bush and John Kerry trading barbs while singing This Land is Your Land?) changed the face of satire.

Jokebox attempts to catalog humor the way Google indexes the Internet.

Need a blonde joke? Take your pick:

"She was soooo blonde, she thought a quarterback was a refund; she thought Meow Mix was a CD for cats; she tripped over a cordless phone."

How about this translation for Southern drawl:

ALL (noun) - A petroleum-based lubricant. Usage "I sure hope my brother from Jawjuh puts all in my pickup truck."

But there's much more content contributed by Jokebox users (although not much of it appears to be original), including humorous photos and offbeat video clips—all of it rated on a five-star system by users.

Visitors can check out a sampling of what Jokebox has to offer, but registration (it's free and open to anyone at least 15 years old) is required for unlimited access.

Members get their own "Jokebox" area where they can save their favorite funny business and even share their "playlist" with friends and family members via e-mail.

Not everything you'll find in Jokebox is rated G, but accounts can be tailored to limit access to content that might be considered offensive.

The Web site is supported by advertising. JibJab also helps pay the bills by offering their own clever short films for download to an iPod or a computer for $1.99 each.

Unfortunately, most businesses don't see Web sites like Jokebox as being very funny.

It can be downright non-productive when employees are sharing funny stories and pictures instead of crunching numbers.

Salary.com estimates that American employers lose $739 billion a year on time-wasting activities—and unauthorized Internet surfing is far and away the biggest time-waster.

If you are a digital worker, beware.

Some employers arm themselves with software and hardware products that can inspect every word you type, every photo you display on your workplace desktop.

These monitoring devices can trigger alarms (or maybe even make notes in your Permanent Record) when certain words or phrases are typed or when blacklisted Web sites are accessed.

If you work in a medium-to-large company, chances are the rules for your workplace prohibit frivolous use of your employer's assets—including the Internet connection.

So if you're not keen on some shadowy figure electronically peeping over your shoulder when reading e-mail or browsing the Web, you'd be smart to limit your on-the-job computer use to the tasks at hand, and save the eBay bargains and stock market deals until you're off the clock.

Watch Computer Corner every Wednesday on News 8 Midday at noon, or online any time.

E-mail askwalt@wfaa.com