Copyright and DRM issues notwithstanding, downloading music off the net is one of the most popular web trend. As Google says, two of the top 10 queries in the U.S. are music-related. That’s probably the same around the world. So where do you go in search of your music?

Do you carry out a generic search using one of the search engines? Do you use a specific MP3 search engine? Maybe you picked out one from our Free MP3 Downloads: 7 Websites That Make It Really Easy post. Or you just like to stream it over the waves using the online music players. Thank God, there are options galore for the music lover.

Songr is a desktop search software that will not only search out the right song for you but also downloads it for you.

But why a desktop alternative to download songs, I ask?

Music can be downloaded via P2P software too and you can also use MP3 search engines on the web. P2P software to download a single off the cuff track is bit of overkill and MP3 search engines are great but they might have a bad server day. Also, Songr offers some features that bump up its appeal in my ears. Songr has three noteworthy features which make downloading a single click affair.

1. Meta-search with 10 online MP3 search engines

Give Songr a song title in its search box placed on the top right and the software taps into 10 MP3 search engines to get the song. It gathers the results, removes duplicates and displays it all on its frugal interface.

Take your fine-tooth comb and go through the results which can be bracketed according to Duration, Bitrate, Size and Relevance (just click the column heads to arrange). The low bitrate results are grayed out and usually, you will find the songs with a higher relevance on top of the heap. If you choose to buy the tracks, you can check them out at Amazon and Rhapsody using the shortcut from the menu.

The search engines used by Songr are displayed in the screenshot below taken from the Songr features page.

2. YouTube audio extraction

Songr plucks out audio tracks as MP3 from YouTube videos using some sort of a FFmpeg converter. Songr uses JusthearIt.com’s engine to tap into YouTube’s resources. You can see it in the results as a little video icon. You get two options with a right click – Play it as a video directly on YouTube or download it as an MP3 audio track, an AVI video or a MPEG video to your computer.

You also get to choose between the HQ version and the slower but better HD version (if available).

3. Search by lyrics

Songr uses Bing as a search service to get you the songs when you type in a few words from the songs. According to the software’s FAQ – Songr searches the words you typed in Bing plus adding “lyrics” to the query, reads the titles of the results, filters those using heuristic techniques and tries to restore the original case.

Well as long as I get the results! I got some hits and misses with this one. I guess it boils down to Bing’s penetration and the lyrics with the song’s search engine indexed existence.

If I could add a number four, it would be its simple ad-free interface. That’s what I liked – no glitz, no glamour but just focused on the job. There isn’t anything by way of settings. It uses the system’s default music player to play the track. Such basic software should be light on resources, which it is – consuming about 3.5MB of memory at its peak YouTube conversion job.

We had covered a desktop app for searching MP3 ditties before too. You might like to try out Clickster and look at it against Songr’s performance.

Does this simple software deserve an encore?

Songr (v1.2) is a measly 452KB download and it plays along with Windows XP, Vista and 7. It only asks for the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Free MP3 Downloads: 7 Websites That Make It Really Easy (20)
• Find A Song Title Just by Humming The Lyrics (19)
• Yahoo Searchmonkey Expands with Playable Music Tracks (3)
• Use Rapidstack To Find Favorite Rapidshare Download Links (14)
• The Top 5 Sites to Find Song Lyrics Online (26)

But then there are considerations of not wanting to be seen tweeting while at work. Now we surely encourage you to do your work with all the required zeal, but it is always nice to know a tool or two that may be used in such a situation or are simple and plain fun to use otherwise as well.

Here are two of the ‘Undercover Twitter clients’, which give you an interface that people don’t generally associate with Twitter.

SpreadTweet

SpreadTweet gives you a Microsoft Excel-like interface to access Twitter. Your tweets are nicely listed as the contents of the spreadsheet and you can use the ‘formula bar’ to send out a tweet.

There are different versions available to match the look of Excel 2003, Excel 2007 or to match the Office OSX look and feel. Most of the buttons and options of the ‘Excel interface’ are non functional, but you can check replies, direct messages or refresh.

The desktop version of this Twitter client requires Adobe AIR. There is also a web version which defaults to Office OSX look. With all the browser toolbars around, it may not be the best disguise ever, although full screen mode would look convincing if you are on a Mac. Overall – SpreadTweet looks convincing and does a good job at replicating the Excel interface, although the taskbar button gives it away easily.

Quitter

Next up in line is Quitter. Quitter is a Twitter client that’s like tweeting from the command line. While this may seem archaic, Quitter offers some really cool features:

First and foremost, its only 43 KB in size and you don’t need to install it (though it requires .NET framework). Just double click the file and you are ready. Quitter then creates an XML file containing the configuration details. Quitter requires you to grant access to your Twitter account, it would take you to the Twitter page and generate a pin should you choose to allow it. Enter that pin in Quitter and you are ready to tweet.

Quitter can do most of the things that you would expect from a Twitter client. It allows you to:

• Read, post, reply and retweet.
• Organize the people you follow into groups and read tweets by group.
• Filter tweets from specific users or that contain certain #hashtags.
• Shorten URL’s
• Easily open tweeted links from other users in your default browser (no copy/paste needed)
• Send and receive direct messages
• Follow or unfollow other users

All this is of course achieved via simple commands like:

Quitter is surprisingly functional and fun to use, although I am still wondering why it was named Quitter. Any guesses?

Both SpreadTweet and Quitter are handy applications that don’t look like Twitter clients. While SpreadTweet gives you an Excel-like interface, it offers limited functionality. Quitter offers nice features and a geeky command line interface that some of us cherish better than others!

Do you know of other Twitter clients that offer unconventional interfaces?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Tools, Apps and Bots to Improve your Twitter Experience (31)
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Flickroom is the new Adobe AIR kid on the block that will change the way you interact with Flickr.  Flickroom lets you browse Flickr in a beautiful charcoal colored interface that is soothing to the eyes, allows easy photo uploads and downloads, gives you real-time notifications for comments and faves on your photostream, and more. The app is still in beta and new features are being added at a rapid pace.

Flickroom Setup

Download and install Flickroom from here. When launched, it will allow you to connect with your Flickr account or create a new one. The application requires a simple one-time authorization process via Flickr so that it can work with your account. Your credentials are cached locally so you don’t need to login again in the future.

Browse Flickr with Flickroom

Users of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom will feel right at home since the interface to browse Flickr is very similar. The bottom filmstrip shows your (or your contact’s) photographs. The center area is where you view photos, edit photo data, and chat with other Flickroom users.

You can choose the display size and background color of the photo viewer, and click Details to view photo information like description, comments, tags, and EXIF data.

At the top right, you can navigate between your photostream, contacts, groups, etc. The application commands are in a toolbar at the top-right of the window. From here, you can view the latest photos from your contacts, upload, chat, search and set default settings. Hover your mouse for a popup description since it may get some time to get used to the command buttons.

Viewing recent uploads from your contacts is very easy. You can see the recent photos in the right sidebar or launch a separate filmstrip view. In this separate window, you can flip between your contacts to see their recent uploads in a filmstrip.

Upload Photos

There are three ways to upload photos using Flickroom:

• When your photostream is visible, drag and drop any photo into the app to add it to your photostream.
• When viewing one of your sets, drag and drop any photo to add it to the set.
• For powerful upload functions, use the Upload Manager accessed from the top-right toolbar.

I was very impressed with the simple yet powerful Upload Manager. You can select a batch of multiple photos, choose privacy settings, use tags and existing sets, create new sets, and add to groups, before the actual upload.

Download Photos

At present, you can download only one photo that is selected and displayed. For batch downloading, do checkout the two different apps we have previously covered on MakeUseOf.

Edit Photos, Add Comments and Notes

For any photo you are viewing, the action buttons below the photo on the right allow you to edit information, make comments, add notes, mark as favorite and so on.

Search Users and Photos

Flickroom allows basic searching for photos and users at present. You can search for users by email address or username. The photo search searches tags to find matches. Though the search is basic, the best part is that you can add users as your contact from within the application.

Preferences

The application preferences allow you to set the default photo size (useful for slower connections to use smaller display size), background color, initial view, and a ‘signature’ for all new photos.

Live Feed, Chat and Tweeting

The most unique feature of this app is the ability to get real-time notifications for any activity such as comments and favorites on your photostream. You can tweet about a photo from right within the application.

If you’re in a social mood, you can jump right into the Chat room, where you can chat with other Flickroom users currently logged in.

Do you like Flickroom’s interface to browse Flickr? Does it make your photos come alive? Let us know in the comments!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Tonido: Cloudless Computing On Your Desktop (19)
• Stay In Touch With Your Old Flickr Photos With Photojojo’s Time Capsule (3)
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• How To Tag Your Friends In Photos On Flickr (0)
• DestroyFlickr – An Amazing Flickr AIR App (13)

The Twitter website is rapidly improving, but there are other applications, both Web-based and desktop-based, that come with more features, more usability, and more fun.

TweetDeck is definitely the most popular of these apps, and it’s the one that I’ve bee using for a long time. But not anymore – I’ve officially, once and for all, switched over to Seesmic Desktop. It’s a new product from Seesmic (a company that used to be known for its social video network) that is taking the Twitter world by storm.

Seesmic Desktop is a small application that runs on Adobe AIR, the ever-popular runtime environment for apps that could, and often are, Web apps converted to run more conveniently and powerfully on your desktop. It can manage multiple Twitter accounts, plus your Facebook account, all seamlessly within the same window.

Seesmic Desktop, at first glance, looks a lot like TweetDeck (or any of a number of other apps) – it’s got a bunch of columns with all your tweets in them. On the left side of the window is your navigation – one click opens up your Direct Messages, or your Replies, or even the tweets you’ve sent recently. Having these separated makes it easier to find everything directed at you, instead of weeding through the masses of tweets.

Nothing unique so far, but now it gets interesting. Seesmic Desktop lets you create “Userlists,” groups into which you can put various people on Twitter. For instance, I’ve got a “Personal Contacts” list that’s all the people I know personally, and their tweets all get filtered into their own column.

That way, instead of having to go through my whole timeline to find the people I’m interested in, I can sort them into their own space. The number of groups you can have is limited only by your imagination (and attention span). Setting up these lists takes a little time, as you have to do it manually, but they all get saved, and can be accessed or edited at any time.

There’s also a section for saving searches, if you want to track a particular phrase or topic. Every time someone tweets and matches your search, it shows up whether you’re following them or not. Searches can be overwhelming, but they’re a great way to track what’s happening on Twitter.

Seesmic Desktop, feature-wise, is a lot like TweetDeck. TweetDeck without the crashes, the massive resource hog, and with better multi-account management and tons of customization, gets pretty close to Seesmic.

But recently, Seesmic Desktop stopped being just Seesmic Desktop, with a Web-based version released. Now, you can get all the great columns and interface points of Seesmic, but on the Web, wherever you have an Internet connection. Even if you don’t have the desktop version, simply logging in to Seesmic through your Twitter account lets you immediately take advantage of the better application.

There’s also an iPhone app coming soon from Seesmic, which will do even more to make your Twitter information and contacts ubiquitously available, all through one application. There’s also the promise of a way to take pictures and videos straight from your webcam, and immediately upload them to the Twitter-sharing service of your choice.

Seesmic Desktop is already the best Twitter app I’ve ever used, and it seems to get better and better every week. If you’re following a lot of people, being followed a lot, and want to make the most of life as a Twitter power-user, make the switch to Seesmic. You’ll be glad you did.

What’s your Twitter app of choice?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Two Undercover Twitter Clients That Don’t Let Others Know You Are Tweeting (17)
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• Find Tweeters in Your Area with TwitterLocal (7)
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• Track Your Twitter Popularity With TwitterCounter (10)

The concept behind Tonido is simple. Instead of storing all your data on a third party site and worrying about your privacy, you can instead keep all your files on your local hard drive and use a web server to connect to your computer. There is no need to worry about your data being lost, and you are able to have access to your files, be it online or offline.

In fact, if you take the extra effort to try out Tonido, you will find that it is more than just a web server. It is more of a desktop suite that comes with various extensible applications to allow you to organize your photos, music, project collaborations and a Personal Information Manager (PIM) to manage your personal life.

When you first install Tonido, it will prompt you to create a profile. This profile will be the account that you use to access your desktop, both online and offline.

Once you have logged into the dashboard, you should see all the applications line up on the left pane.

Jukebox

The Jukebox module is where you can import all your music and play them over the Web.

Photos

Instead of uploading all your photos to Flickr or Photobucket just to share them with your friends, you can easily create a share group and share all your photos with others within this Photos modules. You can also tag and comment on other people’s photos.

Thots

Fancy a personal blog but do not want others to see it? The Thots application serves as a diary or a personal journal where you can post random thoughts to it.

Several things that Thots allows you to do: keep a personal journal to record the events in your life, Twitter support to share individual thots, bookmark webpages and clipping text from the web (with Firefox plugins) and many other things you can do with a blog.

Webshare

Whenever you need to share a file or folder from your desktop, there is no need to zip it up and upload it to the web anymore. With Webshare, you can easily add your folders and share them with your friends.

Workspace

Tasks, Calendar, Contacts, Notes and Files all in one place. You can use the Workspace to enter your appointments of the days, the tasks that need to be done and all the contacts you have. On the front, you will be able to see a quick summary of all the appointments for the day, to do list and so on. There is even a feed module that you can subscribe to so you won’t ever forget anything.

One thing that I find lacking is an email module to access your email.

Remote Web Access

By default, the remote web access is disabled. Luckily, you can quickly turn it on without much fiddling around. On the center of the dashboard, you can find a link “Run Web Access Setup Wizard”. Click on that and follow a few steps. In as little as 5 minutes, you will be able to get a connection to the web and access your data anywhere with Internet access.

Tonido runs on multiple platforms (Windows, Mac and Linux) and it is free for personal use. There is no mention of pricing on the site, but it seems that there will be a premium version in the future.

Overall, Tonido is a great software with plenty of useful applications for web workers. I certainly find myself using it very often on my Linux computer. What about you?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Browse Flickr In Style On Your Desktop With Flickroom (9)
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With this app you can eliminate all the steps of having to load the Twitter site and enter your login credentials every time you want to visit your account or send someone a message.

Avoid the Extra Clicks with Twittastic

Twittastic (compatible with Windows platforms Win98 and up) drastically increases the improvement of your Twitter experience by allowing you to update your personal profile, follow your friends or sites, and send messages all from the comfort of your desktop.

Twittastic features a clear-cut and simple GUI (graphical user interface) and arrives at your desktop with a few interesting tools. For example, you can take a screenshot and instantly share it on Twitter by uploading the file to Twitpic (through Twittastic) and pasting the corresponding link in the text field. This same process can be applied to photos, webcam shots, and any other sort of file on your PC.

Another nifty feature that comes with Twittastic is the ability to flip your text completely upside-down. This feature isn’t absolutely useful, but it can be a bit interesting for your followers at times.

You can also insert small graphics into your tweets as well.

After the image has been uploaded:

The End of our Fan(Twit)tastic Journey

Twittastic lets you control your Twitter account directly from your desktop through the use of various features allowing you to save time and blend creativity with your Tweets as well. Not only are you able to send messages and update your account on your desktop, but you’re also able to share unlimited amounts of files with other users.

A quick drawback I came across was that Twittastic only supports one account; hopefully in the future the developers of this app will allow the use of multiple accounts at once.

Do you use Twittastic?  If so, what do you like / dislike about it?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• How to Use Twitter with Multiple Accounts with Seesmic Desktop (10)
• Fill the Space Between your Blogs with Posterous (4)
• Who’s Following You on Twitter and are You Following Them? (11)
• Two Undercover Twitter Clients That Don’t Let Others Know You Are Tweeting (17)
• Track Your Twitter Popularity With TwitterCounter (10)

One of the best features of Evernote is how easy it is to add things to it, and how many platforms Evernote supports. It’s awfully close to ubiquitous, with some the best and most availability of any application I’ve ever used.

Of the many ways to do so, here are six easy ways to add things into Evernote:

The Web

Evernote is, first and foremost, a Web application. Using the Web interface from Evernote, you can create and edit notes, as well as upload files and images to go along with your notes. There’s a Web Clipper for clipping web pages and snippets, and Evernote’s interface can serve as everything from a writing tool (with a lot of styling options) to a total file-manager, all right from the Web interface.

Desktop Version

Evernote offers downloads for desktop versions of the application, with Windows, Mac, and even portable versions available. Once you’ve downloaded the application, in addition to your notes always being available offline, adding notes becomes even easier.

You can easily create notes, add files, and organize all of your notes. The desktop versions even let you take screenshots and save them into Evernote, where they then become searchable (one of the coolest features of Evernote).

Windows Mobile

Not always at your computer? Me neither. Luckily, Evernote has you covered, offering a bunch of different solutions for your phone.

My phone, as well as many others’, is a Windows Mobile phone – with a great application available from Evernote. Once the application is downloaded to your phone, you can add notes by text, by recording voice notes, or by uploading pictures from your phone’s camera. You can even upload a file from your phone (great if you get your email on your phone), and have it available right from Evernote.

iPhone

The iPhone application is a new, but fantastic, application from Evernote. Once installed on your iPhone, you can create notes right from your iPhone or iPod Touch and have them uploaded to Evernote.

You can upload pictures, or even take voice notes (much like the Windows Mobile version, but native to the iPhone).  Notes can be marked as “favorites”, making them available to you even offline.

One tip I really like? Taking screenshots of the iPhone, and then uploading them to Evernote is easy, and great for explaining iPhone applications like this one.

Email

For those who aren’t carrying smartphones or iPhones, but still want to use Evernote, email is the solution for you. Every Evernote account comes with a dedicated email address, to which you can forward emails, send files, send notes, and anything else you can think of to put in an email. It’ll all be available to you in Evernote, and easily manageable and searchable.

Instead of letting your Inbox fill up, try pushing everything to Evernote, and keeping your email clean. To find your Evernote email address, go to “Settings” and look under “Emailing your Memories.”

Any Phone, Anywhere

It seems a fairly safe assumption that most of us have cell phones, or at least are near a phone most of the time. If that’s the case, you can add notes to Evernote using only your voice. There are a number of applications (Dial2Do and Jott are two of the best) that will let you add notes to Evernote by saying a few words. Just pick up the phone, call a number, say your piece, and let one of these applications transcribe them for you and add them into your Evernote notebooks.

Anytime you need to remember something, there’s bound to be a way for you to put it into Evernote. If not, just write it down or take a picture – Evernote takes those too.

How do you add your notes into Evernote?

Photo Credits: rscottjones, JonJon2k8

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Securely Organize Your Notes Online With 3tags (7)
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Sadly, that feature is no longer implemented. What’s worse, DivShare finally set an upload limit at 5GB and a 10GB monthly download transfer limit.

Since then, quite a few contenders arose. DropBox, one of my favourites was a viable challenger. Although it isn’t exactly a file-sharing service primarily, it can be used to share files – and quite easily too. It has the one thing missing from DivShare, a file sharing desktop client. Well, things are about to change.

I came to know of ISUploader a few weeks ago. It’s still a very new application with a lot of room for improvement but as of now, it’s more than I can ask for.

At the moment of writing, the application is only capable of displaying a list of your files hosted by DivShare, retrieving some information about the files (uploaded date, size, number of times downloaded etc.) and grabbing the download links. And yes, it does support uploading to DivShare, naturally.

However, there’s a one file maximum limit per upload. Future versions of the application will support multiple-file uploads. Phew. And another thing, file deletion is yet to be possible.

ISUploader works great but as I’ve said: it still has a lot of room for development. And here’s the good news: I’ve been working closely with one of the developers of ISUploader to come up with a more fantastic 2.0 version. I’ve also been given a very early beta version of the new ISUploader to play around with and I can honestly say that it will be mind blowing when it is released.

Here’s a little sneak preview:

Support for multiple DivShare accounts

Easier setup

New Sidebar

ISUploader 2.0 won’t be available until sometime next month. And since I’ll be working alongside the developer, MakeUseOf readers will have the inside scoop before it hits the public. So watch this space!

For the time being, the current version should be capable enough to satisfy your uploading needs. You can find it over at inventiveSoft. ISUploader works on Mac OS X and is free but donations are always appreciated.

What features would you like to see implemented in the next version of ISUploader? Say it out loud in the comments and it might get added into the final product!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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But any hesitations about going back to my ex were finally swept aside when it was announced that a new beta version of TWhirl was in town with snazzy new features. I foam at the mouth like a rabid dog for snazzy new features! Hold me back!

It has to be stressed right away that the new version is NOT on the TWhirl homepage but rather here and you have to put your name and email address in the required boxes. You will then be immediately emailed the download link. Yes, you are signing up for an email newsletter list but you can easily unsubscribe afterwards.   But you might want to stay subscribed because a couple of days after I subscribed, they came out with a new improved version of TWhirl with some bugs removed and another download link.

So after using the new version for a few days, let’s take a look at some of the new features, which I have to say are extremely impressive.

An Easy To use Search Tool That Keeps On Searching

This was the feature that really struck me about the new TWhirl as I do a lot of searching on Twitter to see what people are saying about MakeUseOf stories and this really is a remarkable feature.

Let’s say I enter the search term “makeuseof”

Once you get the results, you can then “activate” a tab at the top of the app.

Doing this, you can make a line of tabs at the top of the app for various search terms.  I made a few, one for MakeUseOf, another for Open Culture (a favourite website of mine) and another for my own blog, Better Than Therapy. You can then easily click between tabs to see the new Twitter search results coming through for those search terms. If you want to make more tabs, just expand the app by dragging it with your mouse.

What’s even better is that you will be notified by TWhirl when a new Tweet comes through which matches your search term. So it constantly monitors your search terms for you and returns results, just like Google Alerts.

Post To Ping.FM And Jaiku

I don’t see why Twhirl added the Jaiku option since Google recently announced that they were trashing Jaiku.  But there is the “post status updates to Ping.FM” option for people who use that.

Since I don’t use the service, I don’t really have much to say about this aspect of TWhirl but I’m sure that people who do use it will find it useful. As for the Jaiku part, I’m sure it will disappear pretty soon once Google gives the service the ol’ heave ho.

Add Other Accounts To TWhirl

As well as Twitter, you can add four other accounts to your TWhirl app (see screenshot above). I briefly added my Friendfeed account but I swiftly removed it again because there was too much noise and I was unable to keep up with all the updates pouring through the app.

With Seesmic, you can record videos from the app itself as well as view your inbox, listen to videos, follow people and look people up.

All in all, this is a pretty sweet app and I think I am now firmly back in love with TWhirl. Oh and in case you think that lime green is totally gross (or “watermelon” as they like to call it), you can change the colour to a variety of others including black, orange, purple, blue, grey and red. So don’t fret about the decor, luv.

So goodbye TweetDeck and thanks for all the tweets.   I’m now sticking with TWhirl and I recommend you to switch too if you’re into Twitter. This little baby is one hot app. Remember, it lives here, NOT on the TWhirl homepage.

If you decide to give it a go, remember to come back and let us know what you think about it in the comments!

UPDATE (31 January): there is now a new version of TWhirl (8.8 K) which has a spell checker built in. So if you previously subscribed to the mailing list, downloaded the older TWhirl and then unsubscribed again, you’d better sign up again to get the new download link!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Two Undercover Twitter Clients That Don’t Let Others Know You Are Tweeting (17)
• Twittastic Desktop Twitter Client With Nifty File Sharing Tools (11)
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• Scoopler – Cool Real Time Search Tool for Twitter (12)

So prepare to be surprised by Scrapboy, a desktop client for some of the popular social networks like Facebook, Orkut, and MySpace.

Common sense says that ’social networking’ is synonymous with the web. But a little jiggling of the senses and a desktop app does have a certain appeal.

The first benefit that comes to mind is that Scrapboy helps to provide a common interface to handle multiple sites. No more logging in individually.

I downloaded and configured Scrapboy for my Facebook and Orkut accounts (I don’t have a presence in MySpace).  I then dug in and took a closer look at whether Scrapboy is worth a shout.

Logging into Facebook

I must say I really liked the interface – clean cut and cute. The log-in is straight through with the respective social accounts. For instance, as soon as I logged into my Facebook account, the social network asked for my permission to let Scrapboy access my data. With a yes, a small floating slideshow featured the profile pics of my circle of friends.

From the Scrapboy chat box, you can see your wall posts, check your inbox, view your pokes, events and check out your groups. Checking the inbox and your groups though involves logging into Facebook through the browser.

Now I could use this single window to access my circle of friends simultaneously. Chatting with Jane, spying on John’s wall posts and looking at Jim’s tagged photos – all at the same time!

Scrapboy not only transforms social networking into a chat box-like environment, but also takes it a bit further…

• Instant notifications when friends sign-in or when they send a message or receive news.

• Go offline into a stealth state.

• Use Facebook emoticons to add ‘emotion’ to your messages.

• See what you were gabbing about with saved history.

• Be peer to peer and exchange files with friends who have their own Scrapboy installed.

• Setting personal preferences for the notifications (pokes, group invites, new photos etc) thus allowing for selective control.

• Instant check of their profile and current status.

• A tiny checkmark in the chat window also reminds friends that the user is typing and hasn’t fallen asleep on the keyboard.

• View photos in a slideshow.

• Also view wall posts, including the deleted ones on your friends’ walls.

• Scrapboy serves you reminders about a particular event. Get reminded when you want with the option of a time function. Facebook events are automatically stored in an event viewer.

• Behind a proxy server? Configure it to work seamlessly with the settings in the options tab.

Logging into Google Orkut…

Scrapboy’s other face is its sync with Google Orkut. The interface shows your own and your friends’ scraps. The interface allows you to format and post your scraps, although it does not allow you to delete any offending scraps you might receive or send. Through the interface you can subscribe to the friend updates you want thus filtering the alerts you receive. You can also view your pals – by who is online, who visited you recently or who has an upcoming birthday, etc. Scrapboy allows you to open multiple windows for your friends and view their scraps and photos at the same time.

Scrapboy has its own take on privacy (or lack of it for your friends). You get notified whenever someone deletes a scrap or a photo…and more, you can see it too.

An end critique

Here is where I noticed a flaw in the program. If I logged in directly into Facebook and/or Orkut, instead of using Scrapboy and deleted my scraps or checked my events, Scrapboy did not reflect those updates and deletions.  An inability to update my status message also was a bit irksome.

But…the final note

Scrapboy did a good job of bringing all my fairly large collection of friends from two social networks into a single window. It also saved me the bother of manually logging into their ‘online’ lives through its frequent alerts. If I have to pick one standout feature over all the others, it would have to be the chat-styled interface.

Call Scrapboy a marriage of instant messaging to scrapping and of course, poking.

Scrapboy is a 7.6 MB download compatible with versions of Windows.

Have you tried Scrapboy for yourself? Let us know what you think with a scrap in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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• 3 Gadgets To Help You Get Social In Gmail (7)
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If you have just come out from hibernation and have no idea what Digg means, allow me to shed some light. Digg is a website created by Kevin Rose which allows users to submit news and links of interests; and promotion of those submissions by voting or “digging”. If a link is heavily “dugg”, it will end up on the front page of Digg and thus, brought to fame.

Any story on the front page of Digg will carry a huge influx of visitors to the submitted links, slowing the website down to a crawl or decapitating it altogether – what we now know as the “Digg effect”. MakeUseOf is a common victim of said effect and we’re proud of it.

The front page of Digg is traversed by many links in a very short period of time. So, it’s very difficult to keep up with every little bit of news that comes through – unless you have the right tools under your belt. I recently found one excellent Digg tool – and it’s a keeper.

DiggUpdater is a tiny menu bar application which scans the front page of Digg and sends those submissions right to my desktop, making it a million times easier than browsing through the website for anything that could catch my eye.

When I first start this application up, it asks me for the kind of style I’d like my updates to be presented in: a Classic Digg window, a Slim Digg window, using Growl, or without any windows. I chose the Slim window since reading the titles of the submission is enough to tell me if I’m interested in it. Plus, I wouldn’t want the limited screen-estate of my 13″ MacBook to be hogged by Digg notification windows.

After choosing my notification style, the application launches properly and the 5 most recent front page stories are sent to my desktop. Wicked. Clicking on any one of them will lead my browser to the corresponding page on Digg.

Many users will stop here saying “Oi, this means I can’t digg a submission right from my desktop? This application is rubbish”. Hold your horses with the dissing. How do you know which links from Digg are worth digging unless you view them first? Do I make any sense?

Carrying on, DiggUpdate is pretty configurable. You can choose how many stories you’d like to display each time it refreshes, the refresh interval (I’d suggest a longer interval because the stories on Digg take a while to rotate, so searching for new stories every minute is a waste of time), you can even enter your Digg username to retrieve stories which were dugg by your friends. If you’d like to monitor only certain categories from Digg, you can select the ones you want from the story categories drop-down list. It gives you the option to choose a whole category group (e.g. Technology) or specific categories (e.g. Apple news).

When I first ran DiggUpdate, I constantly checked Digg and wondered why some stories have yet to reach my desktop. I was pretty irritated with it and started tweaking the refresh interval. Indeed, I realised that the stories will eventually come to my desktop. That’s when I learnt that I had to set the refresh interval slightly higher to get the best out of this application. Currently, I get a few new stories for me to sift through every now and then.

The Digg icon on the menu bar is pretty awesome. The “board-like thingy” beside the man figure turns yellow indicating that there are new stories which I haven’t taken a look at.

Like I said before, DiggUpdate is a keeper. It’s available for free on both Mac and Windows. Give it a go and let me know what you think of it, especially the Windows version. I have no idea how the Digg notification windows look like on XP, so please let me know in the comments.

If you’re an avid Digg submitter, check out Mark’s article about monitoring your own submissions; and if you’d like to rise to fame in the Digg community, Mark will show you how.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Monitor your Digg Submissions with Digg Alerter (5)
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• Facebook’s New Toy – Desktop Notifications for Mac OS X (6)
• Facebook Updates sent to your Desktop via Subsume [Mac Only] (4)
• Ways to Stay on Top of The News (13)

So I figured it deserved a follow-up article to show you what the Livestation team has been doing. I have Livestation running on my desktop virtually all day every day while I am working and I am amazed at how much this app is improving.

Here are just some of the improvements they have done since I last reviewed it :

They have removed the need to have an invite from another Livestation user so anyone can now download the software.

They have now introduced versions for the Mac OSX and Linux.

You can watch the TV channels online from the website, inside your Livestation account. So you don’t have to install their desktop client if you don’t want to.

The desktop app stays on top of all other windows so it can stay in the corner of your screen while you are surfing the internet. This is a huge plus to me.

You can configure the desktop app to send messages to your Twitter account. So if you’re watching something really interesting, you can Tweet about it!

But it is the huge number of TV channels that really makes it stand out. They are available on the Livestation website and all you have to do is simply go down the list and click on the ones you want. They are then added to your desktop app by refreshing the app and they will then appear in the drop-down menu. So you can custom-make your own television channels!

To begin choosing your channels, you start by logging into your account on the website. You then navigate to My Livestation->My Channels and from there you can start to browse through the 1,275 channels available :

Before you get all excited and say “wow! 1,275 channels!”, let me bring you back down to earth and assure you that most of them are total crap! But there are a few good ones worth watching and Livestation is adding new ones all the time – plus it’s free and you can never argue with free, can you?

The channels are heavily tilted towards news and politics but there ARE others. But let’s start with the news and politics first. As well as the default channels – BBC, Euro News, Al Jazeera, Bloomberg TV and France 24, they are also now showing other channels such as CNN, CSPAN, Deutsche Welle, Russia Today, NBC News, and many more.

Other channels that you can now pick up include the Discovery Channel, British people can pick up the four ITV channels, there’s also the four BBC radio channels, NASA television, quite a few music channels (including two MTV channels), cartoons, the sci-fi channel and many more. Oh and don’t forget the many foreign language channels from Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, France, you name it, it seems to be there – with more being added all the time.

I highly recommend you download and install Livestation if you like watching television on your desktop. The screen is resizable so you can easily move it and shrink it if it gets in your way.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Why do you need to use this? Well if you need to use contacts in more than one program or service (like email, IM, Skype, or others) or use a desktop app and need it on more than one computer, it’s difficult or even impossible to automatically keep everything in sync. The solution that iContact proposes is to have Gmail contacts as your central repository for everything having to do with people you know. When you need to look up one of them, instead of opening a full browser you open this small stand-alone contact manager to find or search for the person you want. It keeps everything in the cloud in your Gmail contacts, so they’ll still be available on any device with internet access and a decent web browser.

To get iContact, you can download it as a zip file with a portable executable and accompanying files, or an msi installer package (although the msi doesn’t seem to do anything special except extract the files and create a shortcut…um, I guess it’s good for people who don’t have unzip software?) and then run the executable.

Enter your Gmail credentials (if you’re using an @gmail.com account, you can just enter your username; if you’re a Google Apps user, enter the full email address, i.e. your_name@your_domain.com), and then watch as it loads your contacts. Certainly a lot faster than opening a web browser, signing into Gmail and navigating to the contacts!

You can edit your contacts by selecting one and clicking ‘edit’ at the bottom, add or remove contacts by clicking the (+) or (X) buttons, and all changes you make are made directly to your online Gmail contacts. I noticed, however, that if you modify your contacts in iContact, it won’t show up in Gmail until you refresh the page. The reverse is true for anything you do in Gmail, you have to sign out and sign back in to iContact in order to show the changes.

When you click a contact, you can then do a few things. If you have their email address stored, you can click the email category next to the address (Home, Work or Other) and click ‘Send Mail’ to open your default mail program and begin a new message to that address. For phone number, click the category (Home, Work, Mobile, Other, etc.) and you can choose ‘Call with Skype’ or display in large text. For addresses you can drop down the category and choose ‘Show Map’ to map it on Google Maps, and for any piece of information you can click ‘Copy’ to copy it to your clipboard. This solves the problem of having a separate contacts list in every program!

iContact currently doesn’t work with contact groups (in Gmail/Google Apps you can add contacts to a group, enter the name of the group in the To: field when writing an email, and send to all addresses in the group at once).

Also, unlike the Gmail contacts manager, there are no “actual contacts” and “suggested contacts” for people who you’ve communicated with but haven’t explicitly added as contacts. They all just show up in the same list.

These limitations aside, iContact does its job well. It’s certainly a convenience for people who use a desktop mail or chat client (especially Skype) and who wants all their contact information in one place without having to sync.

[rating=3]

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Among all of the FriendFeed applications I have tested out, Feedalizr is definitely one of the coolest and most unique. It allows you to post updates to Twitter, FriendFeed, and Jaiku and you can even share pictures and videos. You can also use your webcam to snap a picture or record a video right through the Feedalizr application, which you can then share as well by clicking on “start camera”.

The one thing I don’t like though is that you can only post updates to one service at a time, as opposed to posting to all of them at the same time like Posty. I’m hoping that’s something that will be integrated in the near future.

Of course you can also reply to messages, leave a comment, watch videos and “like” posts just like on the actual FriendFeed website. Feedalizr will auto-update whenever there is a new post but you can also manually refresh it as well.

Unfortunately, you can’t set a certain time for it to check for updates though. Personally, I’d much rather prefer being able to set a certain amount of minutes to check for updates because the constant auto-updating can be too much at times.

Feedalizr does support popup notifications, which are called “toasters”. These notifications can be disabled if you’d rather not receive them. As you can see in the left screenshot, if there is more then one new post then they will all be shown on the screen together, instead of each being shown separately.

Right now Feedalizr only brings FriendFeed to your desktop, but I have a feeling that they will be adding more in the future. Feedalizr supports FriendFeed rooms as well so you will receive messages that have been sent to a room directly in Feedalizr and you can post directly to any room that you’re a member of.

One of the most unique things about Feedalizr is the tab support. For instance, if you only want to see your Twitter messages in a tab or, if you want to see all messages from a certain user in a tab, you can. Plus, you can have as many tabs open as you want. If you’re wondering if each tab will auto-update with new posts related to that tab, the answer is yes.

The filter system on Feedalizr is pretty extensive as well. As you can see in the next screenshot, you can filter by all of your FriendFeed services and you can even filter by users you’re subscribed to. This is a feature that FriendFeed doesn’t even include without the use of a Greasemonkey script.

So even though Feedalizr is not a Twitter app, you can still use it as such by monitoring your tweets in a separate tab. As far as Twitter is concerned, Feedalizr allows you to reply to a tweet by simply clicking the “reply” link below the post. You can also send a direct message to any user by clicking the “direct” link below one of their posts. Whether you send a reply or direct message, you can rest assure that it will be posted directly to Twitter. If you want to leave a reply on FriendFeed, there’s a separate reply box for that as well.

With all of the features that Feedalizr provides so far, I definitely see it as a better alternative to Twhirl. Besides, who wants to have two separate windows open (for Twitter and FriendFeed) rather than just one window with two tabs? Feedalizr is definitely the better choice if you’re looking to optimize your desktop space.

What do you guys think? Is Feedalizr giving Twhirl a run for their money? Would you consider switching from Twhirl (or any other app you may use) to Feedalizr? Please let us know in the comments.

(By) Charnita is a social media addict & Internet junkie. She blogs about internet & blog tools, website & blog promotion, web 2.0 & social media at her Social Web Tools blog.

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These desktop clients make uploading and sharing files so much easier without having to leave your browser open for the transfer to finish. Browsers are notoriously unpredictable because they can freeze or hang and then you’ll have to start uploading all over again. You know what I’m talking about, right? You’re uploading a file and you leave that browser window alone and open another one. Then you stumble onto a site that crashes your browser or renders it unresponsive. You have no choice but to press the magical keys Ctrl-Alt-Del to kill the browser. And start all over again.

I’m not saying never to use them, just like everything else – I’d like an alternative method. The clients just go on doing their thing in the background. When it’s done, some even automatically copy the public URL onto your clipboard. Talk about being efficient!

So in a randomized fashion, here they are:

1. Pando

Pando is not a new service, they started back in 2006. Mark wrote an article explaining how to use it so I won’t really venture deeply into it. I do have to mention its main features, though:

• 1GB File Limit (for free account)
• Hosted for 7 days
• Share via email, IM or Web
• Instant start – No need to wait until the upload is complete in order to download it
• Files are uploaded to Pando’s server

Let me elaborate on the third feature: Pando’s desktop client can send an email to your recipient containing the packaged download trigger file (.pando). It can also do the same for your IM clients, doesn’t matter which instant messenger client you’re using because it’s a simple copy and paste of the download link. Although, if you’re using Skype or Yahoo Messenger with Voice there is a little extra for you. Lastly, your file can also be shared via the web. Pando will package the whole download as a web widget for you. All you have to do is copy the code and embed it into your website.

If you’re a geek and would like to find out more about how the Pando client works, check this page out. Pando is one of the clients available for Windows and Mac. Great start wasn’t it?

2. DropBox

We’ve covered DropBox before. This client is so good that Dave took the time to interview its developer and got us 100 free invites!

DropBox is neatly integrated into the operating system. In Mac, we automatically get a DropBox shortcut in the sidebar. Everything that we throw in it gets shared. We also get a menubar icon which shows our usage and when it’s uploading files, it shows the progress.

DropBox syncs the files in my “DropBox” folder with my account in the cloud. So, if I change something within the folder, it is automatically detected and the change is then reflected online. You can also track the changes you made in your DropBox Web Interface once you log in. But because of this syncing feature, you can’t really use DropBox to purely store your files online because once you delete the files from the “DropBox” folder on your computer, the files are also deleted from the server. But then again, the function of DropBox is file-sharing not online backup. Karl did write about a method where you could technically use DropBox to backup your files from one computer to another on a multi-computer setup.

Its main features are:

• Neatly integrated into the OS
• Automatic synchronization of the shared folder
• 5GB storage without any bandwidth limitation
• Automatic photo album creation

Any folder of pictures that you drop into the ‘Photos’ shared folder in DropBox will immediately be created into a beautiful photo album which you can share with your friends. Who needs Flickr and their 200MB limit?

DropBox is available for both Mac and Windows however, they’re still in beta and you’ll need an invite to get started. I have 10 personal invites which I’m more than willing to give away so that you can try and see how great DropBox is. Just let me know in the comments if you want one.

3. Civil Netizen

Civil Netizen doesn’t technically fall into “online” file-sharing because it doesn’t upload to servers online. Remember Podmailing? Civil Netizen is a similar application used to send large files to friends. The only drawback is that you’ll need to be online while the transfer is taking place. But this client has the upper hand when you’re trying to send a file which is larger than 100MB or 1GB which is the file limit for most online file-sharing services.

With Civil Netizen:

• You can send files up to 4GB
• Tracking the file download progress is possible
• No account is necessary

Files which are about to be sent are packaged in a parcel. Like Pando, the recipient will receive a download trigger in their email called a pickup slip. Once the recipient starts to download the file, you can track the status in the client. All very reminiscent of DHL or Fed-Ex.

Civil Netizen is available for both Windows and Mac.

4. DropSend

DropSend is one of those services which gets ignored because of its limitations. It’s only capable of sending 5 files per month, of which they can be up to 1GB in size; and an online storage of 250MB. But with a desktop client, there’s a sparkle of hope for this forgotten service.

Since you only get 5 sends a month, you really should maximize your file limitation. Make sure that the files that you’re sending are packed to the brim. Zip up all the files you want to send and push them out at once.

Features of DropSend include:

• Uploads to server
• 5GB bandwidth limit per month on free account
• 1GB file limit
• 250MB online file-storage

The free account doesn’t sound that attractive but again, with a desktop client to make life easier, why not give it a go? I’m trying to take a slightly negative product and putting a positive spin on it because, let’s face it: life isn’t always a bed of roses.

Again, DropSend can be used on both Windows and Mac.

5. steekR

Bet you haven’t heard of this guy before. SteekR provides an online storage of up to 1GB with no file or bandwidth limitations. The cool part is, steekR is a clone of the popular online backup service Mozy. You can use steekR to select certain folders on your computer and schedule it to backup to the steekR server at any time you find most convenient.

You can then browse through your backup online after logging into their website or if you’re a Windows user, here’s a little treat for you. You can use steekR DriveDrive (don’t ask me why it’s called that) to browse your online backup directly on your computer as though it’s mounted as a physical drive, much like Gmail Drive

SteekR is made by the French (I’m guessing because the installation process was entirely in French) and so you’ll see some funny, nonsensical sentences in the application, which adds to the fun if I may say so. SteekR is available for Mac and Windows, with a little extra lovin’ for Windows users.

6. Dockdrop

Ahh finally, an application just for Mac. Dockdrop supports multiple protocols i.e. Flickr, WebDAV, SCP and FTP so you can easily “drop” your files and send them away. Dockdrop resides on the dock and uploading files is as easy as dragging them and letting go on top of the icon. If you have several protocols subscribed, it will ask you where you’d like to send the files. I suppose just reading about it won’t do it justice, watch this screencast.

So in a nutshell, Dockdrop is a FTP client, Flickr uploader and a desktop client for WebDAV and SCP. Uploading to Flickr has never been easier. Transferring files to an FTP server is as painless as a drag-and-drop.

Which services have you been using? Any other preferred desktop clients? Also, if you want one of the 10 invites to DropBox, holler out in the comments.

(By) Jackson Chung is a full-time medical student attempting to perform a juggling act with relationships, studies and his future.

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Weather Watcher Live is your personal, real-time Windows desktop weather station. View real-time weather conditions in your neighborhood from WeatherBug weather stations, or as reported by NWS.

Weather Watcher Live is able to automatically retrieve current conditions hourly forecasts even severe weather alerts. You can even always view the current conditions by hovering your mouse over the Weather Watcher Live system tray icon.

Like most weather applications you can set it up to automatically retrieve weather data at set intervals and even change what you’re system tray icon shows at any given time. This great application even has a ton of contributors livening up the interface by supplying icons and skins.

Weather Watch Live currently only works on later builds of Windows. 98 and above.

Features

• Weather as reported by WeatherBug and NWS
• Forecasts available for thousands of cities world-wide
• Current weather conditions
• 60-hour forecast
• 7-day day/night forecast
• Severe weather alerts from NWS (US only)
• 700+ weather maps
• Easy access to weather news, cameras and photos
• 18+ weather unit conversion choices
• Locally export and log weather data
• Skinned interface/forecasts
• Customizable system tray icon/tooltip
• Dual tray icons for temperature and condition image
• Proxy server support

You can check on skins, plugins and random support by checking out the forums on The Singer’s Creation website.

What other good weather applications do you use? Let us know…

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New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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I am located in Fayetteville, Arkansas which is a small town, and I want to find all of the people that are Twittering around me. In order to do this, I typed in my town and selected the option to cover the largest geographical area. If you were in a large city, you may only need to search the surrounding blocks. Having the option to select the distances caters to people in different locations.

Once I put in my location, I am given the option of viewing the latest tweets, subscribing to the local tweets via RSS, or viewing the XML feed. By viewing the latest tweets, you are able to easily find people that frequently update and would be interesting to follow. The RSS option will allow you to keeps tabs on your local friends and updates through your RSS reader.

I want to look at the latest Tweets, because I want to know what is going on around me. I also wanted to find a few local people to follow on Twitter to inform me about local events. In my opinion, it is always great to network with at least a few local people even if it is just to round out your network.

In addition to the website, there is a TwitterLocal Adobe AIR application. This application would provide you with the same information as the webpage above, but it allows you to access that information from the comfort of your desktop.

The AIR application is very limited in its options when compared to something like Twhirl or Slandr but it does get the job done as far as allowing you to keep up with local tweets and to post your own tweets.

P.S. If you are on Twitter make sure to add yourself to MakeUseOf Followers list.

(By) Kyle Judkins is a 24 year old marketer and part-time tech blogger. He is the author of LostInTechnology where he talks about some basic technology tips and tricks that everyone can use.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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