It's not exactly the Oscars, but who knows how much influence and prestige this first-time award from a high-profile Web site could bring to the winners?

YouTube, the online video sharing phenomenon, has been in the news a lot recently after being sued for a billion dollars by a company that claims copyright infringement.

But YouTube wants to remind you that there's a lot of original content on the site, and what better way than to have a contest to provide a showcase?

The YouTube 2006 Video Awards serves up a total of 70 clips—ten entries in each of seven categories, including Most Adorable and Best Comedy.

I was riveted by a piece in the Most Creative category with a title that precisely describes its contents: Noah takes a photo of himself every day for six years. It's a 5-minute and 45-second montage of a young man who manages to retain the same moon-eyed expression in a rapid-fire montage as clothing, hair styles and backgrounds change at a dizzying pace.

The winners of the contest will be determined by YouTube users, who can interactively vote for their favorites by using a ranking tool online. The results are updated every hour.

But hurry up if you want to vote—the deadline is 4 p.m. CDT on Friday, March 23.

YouTube says winners will get a "fancy trophy."

It's been a couple of months now since we gave you a gentle nudge about your income taxes.

With the April 17 deadline (yes, you have two extra days this year!) looming just weeks away, we have a timely reminder from your pals over at the Internal Revenue Service.

Their official Web site— IRS.gov—can answer all your Form 1040 questions.

No need to schlep down to the post office for a Form 1040 or some obscure IRS document; they're all online and ready to print out at your convenience.

But many taxpayers are also eligible to do their taxes at no cost (and without all that paperwork) using the online IRS Free File program.

"There is no 'gotcha' in FreeFile," said Bert DuMars, the agency's Director of Electronic Tax Administration. "For people who've used it like yourself, we had very high customer satisfaction rates: 94 percent. And 97 percent of the people we surveyed actually said they would recommend it to a friend or a family member."

More than half of all taxpayers qualify for Free File, and you can learn more about it in our January 19 article on the topic.

Did you know that a growing number of Web sites offer special versions for mobile users?

Using your cell phone, you can gain access to news, maps, movie and restaurant listings—even live streaming music—in an on-the-go format.

Frog ( www.getfrog.com) wants to be your new mobile home page. It's a new and free service that offers up a simple and customizable "home page" that comes pre-loaded with five default links, including Google, the travel site Orbitz, movie times, restaurant reviews and weather.

There's room for four "custom links" on your Frog home page, and the configuration process—which you must initially set up from a desktop or notebook computer—offers almost 40 other sources and four other default links... and provides almost 40 other sources in six categories, including news, sports, tools, shopping, entertainment and business.

When finished, click to send your Frog link to your phone. Save the link as a favorite and you're ready for some mobile surfing.

At this point, Frog is designed to work only with a limited selection of "smartphones" with full keyboards like the Samsung Blackjack, Motorola Q, T-Mobile Dash and Treo 700 series.

There's nothing to stop you from bypassing the Frog home page and directly bookmarking the sites it recommends. But if you're looking for a handy way to extend the utility of your cell phone—or even if you just want to check out the range of good mobile sites—Frog is worth checking out.

We should point out at this juncture that WFAA.com also has a special mobile edition, and it's usable with any cell phone that has access to the Internet. Just point your handset's browser to www.wfaa.com/mobile for news, sports, weather, and the anywhere edition of Computer Corner.

While fewer than one percent of WFAA.com users currently check in from a mobile phone, we're at the vanguard of a major online growth area as handsets get more sophisticated and gain the ability to connect to the Internet at blazing speeds. You will see more and more Web sites that cater to mobile users.

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

E-mail askwalt@wfaa.com