This can take a while because the Android Market, which is the Google equivalent of the Apple iTunes store, has lots of good stuff. Granted not as much stuff as the Apple iTunes store, but it’s slowly getting there. So, just like a kid in a candy store, you are likely to start installing everything to see what it is all like.

But in the long term, you can’t install everything you find (phone performance would take a serious hit if you installed the kitchen sink) so finally you have to scale back to the best, most essential apps.

To help all you fellow new Android users out, here’s the ones I personally consider to be keepers. After less than a week, I am still looking and refining my phone but the following are ones I will find really hard to get rid of. To find them, just go to the Android Market on your phone and search for them.

Meebo

As someone who makes his living online, being able to chat to my colleagues and other contacts is a must. Pidgin is my favourite IM app but until they make a mobile version of their software, Meebo seems to be the best option for multi-client instant messaging.

An online account from the Meebo website doesn’t seem to be needed for this app. Just add your instant messaging ID’s and passwords and log in. You may be asked to confirm all your contacts again (it asked me to confirm 5 of my contacts who have been on my Pidgin IM list for over a year) and then you will see everyone in a neat vertical list.

If you are more of an AIM fan, check out the Android app Hi AIM. Yahoo Messenger fans can download Hi Yahoo, ICQ users have ICQLive (does anyone still use ICQ?) and Windows Live Messenger users can use Hi MSN Beta. But honestly, if you use more than one of these apps (and who doesn’t these days?) then Meebo is an easier tidier option.

Skype Lite

Another of my requirements, when buying the Android phone, was that it had to be able to run Skype. Not all mobiles can run the Skype Lite app (my partner bought a Palm Pre phone last week and then discovered that it doesn’t run Skype. Boy is she unhappy!).

The Skype Lite app (as it name suggests) is a slimmed down bare-bones app that allows you to call your Skype contacts via your mobile (so very useful for national and international calls). You can also instant message your contacts.

But what Skype Lite will NOT do (at least for me here in Germany) is allow me to send SMS messages, which is rather inconvenient as I am a big SMS sender.  You also can’t receive video.

Nevertheless Skype Lite is an extremely useful app to have on your mobile phone and absolutely essential if you need to make a national or international call (and you don’t want to pay your mobile company’s extortionate standard rates).

Twidroid

The next essential thing I needed on my phone was a good Twitter app. As someone who is really getting into the swing of twittering, I needed something other than visiting the mobile version of the site.  I needed a proper app which would allow me to follow / unfollow people as well as do other things such as make changes to my Twitter profile. I found it in Twidroid.

Twidroid allows you to do virtually everything you can do on the regular Twitter site, as well as give you a nice clean easy to navigate interface to read and respond to tweets. You can also read peoples profiles and follow / unfollow them.

If that wasn’t enough, you can also be notified on your Android desktop when new tweets have arrived (and you can choose what notification tone you want). But having this one is actually a battery drainer so I chose to switch it off. As well as a battery killer, it is also a productivity killer. I don’t want to be looking at my phone every 5 minutes reading the latest tweets. I can easily wait a couple of hours and then scroll through them all in one go.

Facebook

I am not THAT much into Facebook but every now and then I like to visit the site and see what my friends are saying. Android has a nice Facebook app which, like the Twitter app, puts everything into a nice compact easy-to-read format.

You can like / dislike entries, write on peoples walls, comment, upload photos, poke people, send friend and invite requests and much more.

One of the things I really like is that, to refresh the app, you just need to shake your phone! That’s right, find out who has just poked you by shaking the Droid.

Again you can be notified on the Android notification bar at the top when new updates come in (as well as get an unique sound to alert you). But once again, these features are battery drainers and if you have a battery which runs out after a day, then it would be best to switch off all the instant notifications.

Last.FM

The phone shouldn’t only be for work but also for play.  It should be able to relax you when you’re feeling a bit stressed out. Until Android develops a back massage app, then Last.FM is the best app for you to close your eyes for 5 minutes and unwind.

Just like the website, the Last.FM app allows you to

• Log into your account and listen to music.
• Choose a radio station (or start a new one),
• Say who you like listening to and the Last.FM app will find similar artists and play them.
• Like / dislike the currently playing song
• Skip to the next song

The quality of the music sound will depend entirely on your phone speakers but my Android phone came with headphones and the Last.FM music sounds fine through them.

In the next post, we will discuss the next 5 free Android apps you should be putting on your Android phone. In the meantime, what do you think of these 5? Do you have these ones or do you prefer better free alternatives? Let us know what you think in the comments, and stay tuned for part two.

[Update: 10 Free Android Apps For Your New Android Mobile (Part 2)]

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But that’s just first impressions. To make that tall claim stick, I need to go deeper into the new Trillian and take it around the block a few times.

A multi-protocol chat client will be judged by the services it supports. Using Trillian Astra you can connect to manage – Google, MySpace IM, Skype, AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, and IRC. With that you get support for POP3 and IMAP email lookup for your email accounts with a single click logon. RSS feed updates add to the keeping track features of the multi-chat client.

But the thick icing on the cake is that that the latest version has sunk its fangs into Facebook and Twitter. Two places where we are doing most of our social schmoozing these days.

With the whole cluster of features, where do I start? Let’s start at the beginning.

Quick and easy Install

Sometimes the way a software installs itself says a lot about the work that has been put into the program. Trillian doesn’t disappoint. The 14.6MB download is all in one go. The installer gives you the option of installing a bundled Ask.com toolbar. Uncheck to say no (if you want) and continue.

The first active step involves the registration of a new Astra account. It’s the first part of a three step process –

To configure the IM and web services, you have to put checks against the services you want to include followed by their log-in details.

That’s more or less it…Trillian Astra launches in all of its thematic glory.

The look does draw a ‘wow’.

I guess for now only Digsby comes close to the sleek skinnable interface of Trillian (are you looking at the Trillian Cordonata skin?). The interface can be designed on two default skins – the ultra modern one I mentioned and the other more sober and lighter Cobalt. Skins can be changed to different colors and without a restart. Support for Windows Vista Glass and Windows 7 effects is provided. Custom windows (like a new contact list) with a new look can also be done.

Trillian comes with a huge emoticon pack and more can be added. Emoticons and other objects are also arranged around compatibility with Yahoo and MSN.

There are two versions…is the free version a poor cousin?

Just when you are starting to enjoy the goodies, you see the notice that the installed Pro features will go away after 29 days. The truth is the Pro version offers some extras but it does not in any way take away from the standalone appeal of the free version.

The differences in brief can be glimpsed in this screenshot taken from the site –

Trillian Astra (Free) still offers a very rich set of features…most of us which I am sure the avid chatter would find more than adequate.

Trillian Astra and features galore (400+ actually!)

I don’t think you are expecting me to discuss all the 400 plus features here. Especially when, the full features page does a neat job if listing them very systematically. You can sort the features by type or alphabetically. More importantly, you can filter the features by – All, Show Premium Features Only, or Show New or Better Only. All premium features on the page and in the software Preferences settings are marked out by a little gear icon.

Also check out the page detailing all the screenshots for the chat client.

What’s really great about Trillian Astra

Straight out, I would say the support for Facebook and Twitter. These two are the cool places to hang out these days and Trillian does a great job at integrating then within all the chat services.

For Facebook – you get notification alerts with any new message, Facebook contacts become a part of your Trillian contact list and you can have real time chat conversations with them. Trillian also lets you update your status and access all Facebook feeds instantly.

For Twitter – follow and respond to tweets from Trillian. Re-tweet and follow Tweeter trends directly from your contact list. The TinyURL shortening service is an automatic service too. Put someone in your ignore list if they are Tweeting too much.

We shouldn’t forget Skype. Trillian doesn’t substitute Skype but becomes an integrated interface for Skype, if you have it installed. It includes your Skype contacts and receives incoming Skype calls through its own notification system. Thus, it acts like a call assistant to Skype.

Basic video support has been brought into Trillian. Though it’s not full screen view in the free version, you get what Trillian calls the Movie View. The window dims when a call begins and text feeds in just like onscreen subtitles.

A lot of widgets also add entertainment value (Flickr, Videogame console, My Sport etc) and functional help (World Time Clock, Business Card, Weather etc).

The full features page is worth a dekko. You are sure to find a host of other features to like.

Does it connect and deliver?

The feature set is in place and as far as first impressions go, Trillian seems light on its feet. It’s fast to start up and doesn’t seem to hog much of memory. Trillian says a lot of memory and bandwidth improvements have gone into the latest version. For now, I believe them because it does feel slick. The only con could be that the bundle of features might be a bit too complex for a section of users. And like all multi-protocol services, how nimble would Trillian be when updates start rolling in.

Trillian Astra (ver.4) is supported on Windows XP, Vista and 7. (The Mac OS X and iPhone versions are in the works.)

So is Trillian Astra the best multi-protocol instant messaging client yet? My own vote is theirs…what about yours?

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

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The Unique People Focus

While handling all your email and social networking communication from one place is a no-brainer, there is a tremendous benefit of using Threadsy that is not readily apparent before you use it. Imagine you’re responding to a friend or colleague’s email discussing a specific topic. With your regular webmail, you will simply respond to the topic being discussed in the email, right?

Now, in Threadsy, while you are replying to her via email, you see her Facebook status or recent tweet – “Just got tickets for the U2 concert!” – and you just might add something to your email. Threadsy makes this possible via the automatic Profile View, which you shall see below. In this way, Threadsy lets you focus on people, not the medium of communication you or they might prefer. You don’t miss a person’s recent status updates just because you don’t use Facebook or Twitter often enough.

The Integrated View

Threadsy keeps it simple by showing all your email and social networking communication in two columns or streams. The Inbound column has messages specifically addressed to you. This includes Email, Twitter @replies and Direct Messages, and your Facebook Inbox. The Unbound column shows feeds that you follow, such as your Twitter stream and Facebook friends’ status updates. You can adjust the width of the Unbound column using the arrow sliders in between the two panes.

Note that Threadsy is not a Personal Information Manager. If you want calendar, notes, RSS feeds, etc. all in one place, check out Life.io. Threadsy focuses on communication and excels by keeping it simple. At present, you need to add a webmail account to use Threadsy, so for example, you can’t use it with just your Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Adding Accounts

Adding your email and social networking accounts is as easy as pie, but you do need to provide your login credentials to Threadsy. Twitter OAuth is coming soon and you can use Facebook connect after you have logged in. For webmail accounts, Threadsy supports AOL, Gmail (and Google Apps), Hotmail and Yahoo! US.

Inbound: What’s Sent To You

The Inbound column shows all your messages in a chronological sequence, whether they are email, Twitter replies, or Facebook messages. Icons at the right of each message help you quickly identify the type of message. You can quickly filter messages by type using the tabs at the top for your webmail, Facebook, and Twitter.

Simply hovering your mouse over a message without actually opening it gives you options to quickly reply, retweet, delete, favorite or archive it. Click an email or Facebook message to open and read it.

Unbound: What You’re Following

The Unbound column displays your Twitter and Facebook feeds also in chronological sequence. You can filter the stream using the Facebook or Twitter tabs at the top. You can post your own Facebook status updates or Twitter tweets from within the box at the top.

The Chat tab in the Unbound column allows you to use Instant Messaging with your IM contacts.

Twitter Stream

The Twitter stream in the Unbound column shows pictures and videos inline. This allows you to play videos without leaving Threadsy.

Hovering your mouse over a tweet brings up quick Reply, ReTweet, and Favorite buttons.

Facebook Feed

Like many desktop clients, Threadsy has inbuilt support for interacting with your Facebook stream – without installing anything. You can like items, view comments and enter your own comments.

View Profiles Automatically

Whenever you click on a tweet or view an email message, Threadsy shows you a profile snapshot of the person in the right Unbound column. I found it a quick and easy way to connect with people on other networks. For example, here is a profile view of Kristen, one of our new writers at MakeUseOf:

Threadsy collects information from dozens of sites; and shows you a bio, recent photos, and recent status updates on Facebook and Twitter. This is incredibly useful as it provides the context for you to respond appropriately to the person. You can directly jump to the person’s profile on any of the listed networks to connect.

Want to start using Threadsy right away? Click this link to get an instant invite, exclusively for MakeUseOf readers. Don’t forget to give us your feedback in the comments!

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

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This information was cause for a lot of indignant responses regarding whether Digsby is secure, which in turn led to a somewhat startled reaction from the Digsby team. In a few days, they had explained everything in several blog posts, and took serious efforts to clarify matters with their current users, as well as making the avoidance of these ‘unwanted features’ easier.

Personally, I’m siding with Digsby here. They’ve done some great things for us so far, but such a support – understandingly – can’t be kept up and running without the income of at least some money. As such, I didn’t think a moment about switching, and am still a fervent Digsby supporter.

However, I can understand that not all people are as focused when installing a piece of software. Most people just flick through an install, clicking yes and accept where ever it’s necessary. For those people, it’s important to know what they are doing — more specifically, where not to press ‘Accept’ if they want a secure ad-free install if Digsby.

In this article we’ll highlight the ad-ware placements in the installer, as well as tell you how to disable certain revenue features afterwards to make Digsby secure.

1. A Safe Installer

Digsby normally tries to install using InstallQ. This is an installer container which downloads Digsby and tries to install several other applications. The easiest way around is to use the additional installer.

This installer – which can be used to install to a USB drive (or if you’ve got trouble with InstallQ) is located bottom-right on the download page. If you can manage to ignore the big download button, you’ve avoided most of the problems already.

Contrary to InstallQ, this installer does not ask permission to install third-party software. You’ll have your lovely chat-application, and that’s that. Just make sure to uncheck the browser modifications at the end if you’re happy about your current homepage and search engine.

2. Keep a Look Out

As said before, the easiest way to keep clear of any ad-ware is to use the additional installer. If, however, you want to keep using the InstallQ package, this is where you have to tred carefully.

To install the application, it’s necessary to agree upon their terms. That’s 1 accept.

On the three succeeding screens, however, you can decline without stopping the installation process. Accepting here will install ad-ware, third-party applications that will bother you with (amongst other things) shopping notifications.

After a few declines, you’ll be safe from ad-ware harm. Just choose which search engine you’ll want to use (actually, both are good, so there’s no harm there) and you’re on your way to enjoy Digsby.

Disable Digsby ‘Research’

Another source of Digsby’s income lies in their ‘research’. They use your idle processing power (when you haven’t touched your computer for a while), to conduct research (e.g. testing out AIDS models, or optimizing grain molecules).

This is actually a pretty non-intrusive way for them to earn money and I would advise you to leave it on.

Nevertheless, people should have the benefit of choice, and might even have a reason to decline participation if they’re on a low-spec computer, or are trying to keep the electricity bills down.

Turning this off is as easy as navigating to Tools -> Preferences -> Support Digsby and hitting Disable. I urge you to read the other options as well, and do everything you can agree on to support a great, free application and keep it free.

I hope you’ve learned something from this article, and will be able to benefit from it. If you’ve got anything to say, or got a remark to make, you can do so in the comments section below. We’d love to hear your stance on alternative monetizing techniques.

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Although this seems to work fine (and I used it all day today for searches), you seem to be limited to the first four search results only.  So this wouldn’t be something that you could use for deep searching.   But if you are looking for the correct URL of a website, the Wikipedia entry for something, basically anything that would – in theory – show up in the first few results, then you could use these bots instead.   No different from Google’s “Are You Feeling Lucky?“.

The bots are for Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger and Windows Live Messenger (so no AIM love it seems).   But a lot of people now have a Google account so the lack of AIM shouldn’t be a hindrance.

Just add the following chat bot depending on what service you use :

Google Talk – sbot@bot.im
Yahoo Messenger – searchbot@ymail.com
Windows Live Messenger – searchbot@live.com

As soon as you’ve added the account to your contact list, it should go online virtually right away and then you can start searching.

Searching is very straight forward.   If you want to search Twitter, just type t and then your search term.   So :

t makeuseof.com

and this will give you :

I think for Twitter, 4 results is not really enough. You need probably at least 10-15 to give you a better overview. 4 is just too random.

For Google, type g followed by your search term.   For Bing, precede your search query with b and can you guess what it is for Yahoo?   Yep, you guessed it!  y.   I know, it’s tough to follow but I’ll try and not get too far ahead, OK?

So searching Google for MakeUseOf :

And you get pretty much the same results with Yahoo and Bing.

There’s not much more you can say about it – it’s just a no frills search function for your IM program which will give you the first four results for any given search query.  I am personally finding it very useful because if I am in a Firefox tab and I don’t want to break the writing flow by opening up a new tab for Google, I can just quickly open up my Pidgin program with a keyboard shortcut and quickly type a quick search into one of these bots.

I look up all my dictionary definitions using Google using the define search parameter and I thought for a moment that I could use this bot to make all my dictionary lookups without having to open the browser.   THAT would have been REALLY useful. But the define parameter doesn’t work with this bot.   Strange.  I hope the bot writers can fix this little glitch.

Make the define parameter work so you can do dictionary searches and increase the number of search results to between 10-15 and these bots will become even extremely more useful.   What do you think?  What else could they add to make these bots even better?

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

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One of its most important features is the seamless integration of real-time collaboration tools. It’s actually fairly complicated to explain what it is, because a proper definition would have to encompass both developer and consumer aspects of the product and we have yet to receive invitations to the service.

I don’t particularly appreciate sensationalistic titles, either in print or online media but today’s title accurately reflects the content of this article. By adding support for Etherpad inside their already comprehensive communication web app, Tokbox just created the ultimate online communication tool.

Let’s take it one step at a time and take a look at Tokbox, a San Francisco start-up with some very smart people at the helm;  Tokbox is an online video chat application that implements basically all the functionality of Skype minus the mobile and landline phone support.

It’s free, it’s got an awesome interface and supports more concurrent video streams than your bandwidth can handle (more than 20 people in a conference call according to the Tokbox homepage). That alone is a great product, but there’s more; it’s got a multi-platform chat client, just type in your Yahoo!, GTalk, MSN or AOL credentials; free video ‘voicemail’ and integration with all the web services you might want: inline YouTube videos, Picasa & Flickr picture slideshows, Slideshare presentations, and notifications for MySpace, Facebook and Twitter.

You’d expect a feature-rich application like that to be destined for your local hard drive, but the fact is that it works amazingly well online. If someone paid attention to past reviews of web applications – it’s these developers. Not only is the interface simple and intuitive, it’s also got power – detailed privacy settings, an Adobe Flash helper for guiding the user to the necessary steps to enable the webcam and microphone and a task list that takes the guessing out and walks the user through the available features.

Etherpad on the other hand, was created by a group of former Google employees with some support from Y Combinator and a couple of fellows from FriendFeed. It started out as “what might be both the ugliest and most useful group productivity app”, at  least that’s how  TechCrunch put it back in November 2008.

Now, Etherpad is all grown-up and its design, while it still remains rugged, is considerably improved. If you’ve seen the Google Wave demo, you’ll immediately catch the grip of Etherpad: collaborative online text editing, all happening live and with different color highlighting for each participant.

Now imagine a video conference call with your friends, planning a vacation and writing down the itinerary; discussing features and design with a client; proofreading an article with your editor; or collaborating on a project with someone from school. That’s what this amazing web app duo achieves.

This functionality is basically what we all expect to see coming from Google Wave. Although you might think the opposite, these two start-ups already have a leg up compared to Google’s vertical solution; they already integrate with existing web services and user habits: pop in a Slideshare, a Flickr slideshow or integrate a chat window in Facebook. If these two have an Achilles heel, it’s the brand awareness and sheer number users Google has in its grasp. Until Google Wave proves me wrong – I’m declaring Tokbox+Etherpad the best web applications of the year.

Check out Tokbox and Etherpad, then remember to come back and share your impressions. For more cool reviews of web applications visit the category page.

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It’s called Aardvark, and is a brand-new application that just came out of the SXSW conference this year.

The site was in private beta for a while, then was invite-only. Recently, it’s become publicly available and is now open for questions. It’s available to anyone who logs in through Facebook Connect (If you have a Facebook account already, you’re all set. If not, Facebook accounts are free to everyone!). The Facebook implications of Aardvark are pretty impressive, but even logging in with Facebook is a great tool. If you haven’t had the privilege of owning a Facebook account, read on — we have exclusive invites and we’re giving them out to MakeUseOf readers!

Signing up for Aardvark is simple, as is getting it running – just add some information about where you are, the IM client and username of your choice (as long as it’s Google Talk, AIM, or Live Messenger – for now), and the types of questions you’d like to answer for other people. You can also use the service by email, but I’m going to focus on IM because it’s so much cooler.

Once you’re set up, Aardvark lives in your IM window, and anytime you want to ask a question, just IM Aardvark with your question. Aardvark parses the question to figure out what it’s about – which it does a remarkably good job with – and then sends it to someone who it thinks is able to answer your question. You’ll get an answer back quickly, and be able to have a brief chat with the person who answered your question.

From the other side (the answerer), Aardvark is even more ingenious. When you sign up, you choose how often you want Aardvark to ask you questions; I chose “a couple of times a day.” When that time comes up, Aardvark sends you an IM saying “So-and-so has a question about ‘Some Topic You Can Answer.’”

You can respond one of a few ways – “Sure” to see and answer the question, “face” to pass it on to a Facebook friend who might be able to answer, or “pass” to just make the question go away. If you pass, you can then mute a given topic to not get any more questions based on that topic.

The cool thing about Aardvark is that the questions are limitless. For instance, I’m listed as able to answer questions about New York City, where I live. I periodically get a question like, “Where should I go for dinner near Union Square?”, and I’m able to offer a recommendation. The questions I get rarely require factual answers, and that’s one of the fun things about Aardvark – it’s a great way to find out what other people are into that I might like as well.

One of Aardvark’s sample questions is, “Where’s the best place to buy running shoes in San Francisco?” It’s this kind of question, one that Google wouldn’t know but an actual local person might, that gives Aardvark awesome potential. Instead of services like ChaCha, which essentially just replaces a Google search when you can’t do one yourself, Aardvark goes beyond the capabilities, and sets you up with an expert in their field – even if that field is running shoes in San Francisco.

As you use Aardvark more, you get a sense of people who are able to answer certain questions for you – maybe you have a friend in Utah who you trust to answer such questions. You create these connections, and Aardvark uses them to narrow down your respondents even more, to try and get you the best possible answer. From the get-go though, Aardvark’s always done a good job of finding me the right person to answer my question.

Once you set it up, it’s incredibly simple to use. It’s unobtrusive, and lives right in your IM window; nothing to install or download, or remember to run. There was a lot of buzz around Aardvark as SXSW got underway, and a few minutes using the app makes it easy to see why.

As a MakeUseOf reader, you can now sign up to Aardark without using your Facebook account. Just hit this link and sign up! It’s now open for questions, but there are only 300 invites so grab one quickly!

Is there anything else like this out there? Can Twitter do this better? What do you think?

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

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Without wasting any time, let’s start it off! Here are 10 really cool free Blackberry applications.

1. Pandora Mobile

Pandora, reviewed in the past by MakeUseOf, has a great free Blackberry application which allows you to do almost everything you can do on the desktop version except right on your phone. You can create new stations, listen to already created ones, rate songs and more. Download it from your Blackberry’s browser here: http://www.pandora.com.

2. Neosistec CarFinder

Can’t remember where you parked your car in that large parking lot? When you leave your car, open CarFinder’s simple menu and mark your location through your Blackberry’s GPS. When you need to find your car (or another specific point) again, pull up CarFinder and it will guide you back via a compass or the Blackberry Maps application. You can also send your marked location to a friend. Download it from your Blackberry’s browser here: http://www.neosistec.com/carfinder.

3. Qik Mobile

As I’ve reviewed before on MakeUseOf, Qik, which allows you to stream live video from your phone to the internet for free, has a great mobile application for Blackberry. With it, you can stream video online from your device for anyone to see, or limit access with a password. But as the service implies, your Blackberry must be a model with a camera for Qik to work. You can download Qik by going to their website on your Blackberry’s browser here: http://qik.com/m/dl/brands.

4. Google Maps

Just like the popular online maps site, Google Maps offers a great Blackberry application which allows for most of the same features on their site, except again, its running on your phone. You can get directions, get maps in satellite view and watch traffic and see your location (which can work even if your Blackberry doesn’t have GPS, but works better if it does). View a real-time online demo of Google Maps Mobile here or download it from your Blackberry’s browser here: http://m.google.com/maps.

5. Palringo

If you like instant messaging, you’ll love Palringo. It is a mobile instant messaging client which supports AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, Google Talk and more, all in one piece of software. You can also chat with other users of Palringo (on a desktop, Android, iPhone/iPod Touch, Windows Mobile or Symbian phone) via text chat, voice or pictures. Palringo’s voice capabilities make it a great almost push-to-talk (PTT) software and a great piece of software to talk to your friends online or on their mobile phones due to its wide compability. Download Palringo from your Blackberry’s browser here: http://www.palringo.mobi.

6. Boopsie

Through way of different “channels”, Boopsie lets you intelligently search for content or articles on sites like IMDB, Wikipedia, Amazon and more. When you use the application, you can pull up your favorite channel and then search for content on it and live results will appear on your screen for the content you selected. You can view an online demo at their website, or you can download Boopsie from your Blackberry’s browser by going here: http://www.boopsie.com.

7. Viigo

Viigo is a feature-rich application which lets you view news & RSS feeds, audio clips & podcasts, stocks & money data, weather and more. From the one application, you can do a lot of things and browse many blog RSS feeds, see sports scores, view local weather, and even read books. Viigo also bills their software as “the one app you’ll never want to be without” because of its wide range of features it makes available to you. You can download Viigo from your Blackberry browser here: http://www.getviigo.com.

8. Blackberry Appworld

Made directly by Blackberry, Appworld allows you to browse through a wide variety of many other Blackberry apps and download and install them on the spot from the application. Many different developers contribute their applications to the library that’s available for download. The limitation to this application is that you must have a free PayPal account in order to get through checkout of some apps. You can download Appworld from your Blackberry’s browser here: http://www.blackberry.com/appworld

9. Facebook For Blackberry

We all know what Facebook is- the online utility which lets you share pictures, messages and online applications with friends.  Well, now they have a handy Blackberry application which lets you do almost anything you can do on their desktop site, on your Blackberry. A really neat feature of this app is their recent update which allows you to automatically link Facebook profile pictures of your friends with their contact entry in your Blackberry’s address book. You can download Facebook for Blackberry on your Blackberry’s browser here: http://www.facebook.com/blackberry.

10. Twitterberry

If you use Twitter and have a Blackberry, then Twitterberry is for you. With it, you can send out Twitter updates quickly and easily as well as see your friends timeline, view replies to your Tweets and direct message your friends. Download Twitterberry here: http://orangatame.com/ota/twitterberry/.

Almost all of these applications require an unlimited data plan from your Blackberry data/phone provider due to the amount of bandwidth they consume while in use. You may also read other MakeUseOf posts on Blackberry here.

Do you have a favorite Blackberry App? Let us know in the comments, or share your experience with any of the ones posted here! MakeUseOf also has a mobile site where you can view this article and more at http://m.makeuseof.com.

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First, we need to install the microblog-purple plugin. While you can simply download, install and start using the plugin, you need to do some additional work to ensure that any updates to the plugin are delivered to you automatically.

Open System > Administration > Software Sources. Navigate to the Third Party Software Tab and add the following to your software sources:

• deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/sugree/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
• deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/sugree/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

Next, we need to import the key for the software source that we added. To do so, open up a Terminal and type the following:

sudo apt-key adv –recv-keys –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 0cf459b8df37ed8b

Once this is done you can install the plugin using the following command:

sudo apt-get install pidgin-microblog

Now just add a new account to Pidgin, choose Twitter from the protocol drop down menu, provide your username and password and you are all set to start tweeting from within Pidgin!

Note that this plugin supports Twitter and Identica. While the instructions above is the preferred method to install any third party software in Ubuntu, if you run into any problems you can simply download the deb package (or a binary package for you preferred distribution) and install it like any other software.

Windows users can also download the exe version of the plugin and install it alongside Pidgin.

How do you tweet from your Linux desktop? Do you use Gwibber? Adobe AIR based applications? Or would you prefer to stay with one software and manage everything from within Pidgin? Let us know in the comments.

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• [Quick Tip] Stop Pidgin Spam in Its Tracks with Bot Sentry (26)
• Update all your Social Status Messages with Ping.fm (14)
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The idea of OrSiSo is to organize, keep track of and communicate with all your friends across all these networks. I certainly have been looking for a program which does just this.

As an instant-messaging client, OrSiSo doesn’t offer many options or frills, but does well as a chat client, especially with a combined buddy-list from all your networks. It’s worth noting that hyperlinks aren’t yet supported in the chat; I hope that this is fixed in a future release.

Pop-up alerts are per network, and are treated like pages which you can flip through if you wish. Hyperlinks work here, and updates can be paused if and when you’re busy.

Photo albums can be viewed from within the program; there’s no need to open a new browser window or tab. That’s definitely convenient.

The best and most unique features of OrSiSo are so-called the Social Craft and the Social Firewall. These settings let you organize your various “circles” of friends through drag-and-drop lists, and then customize which updates you see. In the example above, I’ve organized everyone into one of four circles, with the fourth circle reserved for persons from whom I don’t particularly care to hear from (I find myself regretting the mass-follow I did a couple months ago). You can filter received messages and updates by social circles just about anywhere in the program.

OrSiSo’s makers promise that their program will let you Organize, Simplify, and Socialize. I’ve found it easy to learn, use and is very well-rounded with features. Does it do the trick for you? Let us know in the comments.

For more cool Adobe Air applications, check out these posts:

• 8 Adobe AIR Apps that DON’T Suck
• 5 More Cool Adobe AIR Applications
• 8 Useful Adobe AIR Applications That Work In Linux
• 4 Adobe AIR ToDo List Apps For Managing Your Tasks

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• 5 Reasons Digsby’s A Must-Have IM Client (30)
• Trillian Astra – Is It the Best Instant Messaging Client Now? (16)
• Threadsy – Integrates Your Email and Social Networks (+Invites) (24)
• Stay Socially Connected Online With Yoono (18)
• Why I’m Digging Digsby (31)

At the outset, let me confess that machine translation usually sucks. You’re much better off with human translators any day. But what do you do for real-time chat? Till now, one had to use a different IM client like MeGlobe, to chat in a foreign language. Now, you can use Microsoft’s TBot. No installation required!

Microsoft has an impressive array of translation tools for users, webmasters, and developers, like Live Translator, but the release of Windows Live Messenger Translation bot (TBot) last year is still not widely known. Using TBot, you can chat with others in up to 13 foreign languages, or even chat with TBot itself to practice learning a foreign language. What’s more, you do not actually need to use Windows Live Messenger. You can use any IM client you like, as long as it supports the MSN protocol. Let’s see how you can use TBot in 3 easy steps to chat in a foreign language.

Step #1: Add TBot to your Contacts

To get started, you will first need to add TBot to your contact list.

From the Live Messenger toolbar, select the ‘Add a contact’ option as shown above, and add ‘mtbot@hotmail.com’ as the contact address.

Click ‘Send Invitation’ on the next screen to add TBot to your contact list. There is no need for any personal message. You should now see ‘Translator’ as one of your available contacts as shown below:

That’s it. You are all set!

Step #2: Invite TBot to a Conversation

When you want TBot’s translation services to help in a conversation, click the ‘Invite’ menu in the conversation window.

From the contact list that appears, select ‘Translator (Available, Agent)’.

TBot enters the conversation and asks you to select the target language.

I chose Russian as an example, and typed ‘12’:

To check out the list of TBot’s commands, you can enter ‘TBot ?’:

Step #3: Chat in a Foreign Language

For the sake of this post, to imitate two people chatting, I used two different IM clients – Windows Live Messenger and Pidgin. Let us suppose I’m English Dude with Live Messenger, chatting with Russian Gal who is averse to installing any Microsoft software and thus uses Pidgin on Linux. Russian Gal uses the ‘TBot change’ command to select Russian as her Source Language:

With TBot all set to translate at both ends, both of them now chat. This is what English Dude sees in his Live Messenger:

While Russian Gal sees the following in her Pidgin client:

As you can see, English Dude and Russian Gal are having an engaging conversation with the help of real-time translation by TBot.

TBot has his own profile in Windows Live Spaces, where you will also find a mini-FAQ. If you’re traveling in a foreign country, add TBot to Windows Live Messenger on your Windows Mobile device to get a free Translation Assistant with you!

Have you tried any other real-time translation software? How was your experience with TBot? Do let us know in the comments!

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• Turn Your IM Program Into A Productivity Tool Using Imified (23)
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Especially in a business environment, unsecured IM installations are creating backdoors for hack attacks. This threat has increased manifold because nearly all IM’s allow for exchange of files, images, songs and even peer to peer sharing of entire folders.

Spam, worms, Trojans and viruses are familiar email foes. They are no friends of instant messaging either. So how do we pick our friends from our foes? Perhaps by following what Benjamin Franklin said – Distrust and caution are the parents of security.

Also, by putting these 10 habits in place.

1. Don’t give out your identity

Every IM client asks you to create a screen name. A screen name usually refers to your email ID. Create a screen name which does not touch upon personal information or your real identity. For instance, my screen name is ‘Braniac’ and not ‘Saikat’. And NEVER provide any personal details including credit card numbers and social security number over the internet.

2. Don’t chat with people not on your contact list

Always vet your contact list with people whom you know something about. Talking with Mr. Anonymous at the other end of space may be fraught with risk. It is possible to discover your computer address (i.e. your IP) from an instant message and that usually is the first requirement for a remote hack attack.

Don’t believe everything you read and always verify any information or request for information.

3. Don’t click on spam links

This is what a spam link might look like –



This is probably what you will be bombarded with first. A link tempts you to click it just for the lark. A lot of these links take you to websites which can install spyware stealthily on your computer. For e.g. Viruses and worms with colorful names such as W32.Yalove or W32/Spybot-MQ are potential threats to Yahoo users.
Ignore them.

4. Don’t share files with your chat partner

An IM client like Yahoo allows P2P file sharing. Do not share unknown content even if the person is known. P2P files, like email attachments can carry viruses, Trojan horses, and worms. They are engineered to seed themselves to other members on your buddy list. Be especially cautious when someone sends you an .exe or a .zip file.

5. Don’t let potential hackers reach you

Yahoo has an Ignore user or Report as spam so that he can’t disturb you once again. GTalk has a Block user option. Using this option allows you to keep out the unwanted from repeatedly messaging you. The default security settings in chat software tend to be relatively lax. Thus making you open to attacks. Check the settings and preferences of your chat client to apply stricter permission controls.





6. Don’t Neglect Encryption

Most IM clients lack encryption features. That essentially means that your messages can be tracked and read by eavesdropping hackers using technologies like packet sniffers or similar ones. Passwords are also a security loophole with hardly any client using strong password encryption.

The subject of encryption and strong password protection would require another post by itself. So I hand you over to Tim’s excellent post on How To Secure & Encrypt Your Instant Messaging Chats. Here at MakeUseOf.com we have a lot of posts tagged as ‘passwords’. Why not take a look at ways to set strong passwords.

7. Don’t use an older version of IM – Update

IM client companies spend a lot of effort behind doors to prevent backdoor threats. Newer versions come with bug fixes and enhanced security. For instance, the latest version of Yahoo IM is better integrated with anti-virus solutions like Norton Internet Security and Norton Anti-Virus.

So, always update your IM client as soon as one becomes available. If the chat client does not automatically prompt for an upgrade, go to the website and check your version number with the latest available. You can note the version of your particular client by clicking on Help – About…

8. Don’t download third party plug-ins from unverified sources

A lot of third party plug-ins are available for download which enhance the chatting experience. It is safer and advisable to always download from the IM client websites themselves or from verified sources.

9. Don’t forget to log-out completely

It is an oft repeated habit to click on the [X] button and exit. But this action does not close our IM client completely. Most often, they continue to run in the system tray leaving it ‘open’ for a third person to access it. IMs also have a nasty habit of broadcasting your online presence even if left to run as a background task. Especially in public computers be mindful of logging out and exiting completely. Also, never click on any Remember My Password checkbox during log-in as an added safeguard.



For Yahoo Users: Before you get up, delete your Yahoo Messenger profile. It is located by default at C:\Program Files\Yahoo!\Messenger\Profiles.

10. Don’t forget the value of a good browser, a good firewall and an even better anti-virus

Sometimes we will click a link; sometimes we will download a file. All the precautions in the world will not be able to protect us if we don’t have a secure browser, a good firewall and an anti-virus updated with the latest virus signatures. These three not only protect us from IM attacks but they are the must-haves for any system. Check out our recommendations for security programs in our article about Essential Security Downloads. Or check the MakeUseOf Polls to find out what’s more popular among MakeUseOf readers.

Chatting as against emailing is a real time activity. It is in that sense more social than any other form of web communication. The danger is that chatting can lull us into a false sense of security. Just a few fundamental forethoughts help us to turn that false sense into a more conscious sense of security.

Have you been hacked? Perhaps, you share the concern for a rigorous defense against hackers? Let us know what safety measures you personally use…

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• How To Secure & Encrypt Your Instant Messaging Chats (19)
• 8 Ways To Enhance Your Instant Messenger (11)
• Why I’m Digging Digsby (31)
• Turn Your IM Program Into A Productivity Tool Using Imified (23)
• Translation For MSN: Auto Translates Messages While Chatting (17)

Today, I’m going to put in my own plug for Digsby, an application I use every day, by showing you six things Digsby can do that will save you time, energy, and RAM space.

Digsby has come to replace my use of several other applications – no longer do I need a Gmail window, Twitter window, Facebook window, and IM window open all at the same time. Instead, I just use Digsby!

Here are five features that make Digsby the only application you’ll want to always be open, besides just being the best multi-IM client out there:

Email Checking

Got a POP or IMAP email? Of course you do. That means you can use your email with Digsby. Setting up Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo with Digsby is incredibly easy; others are a little harder, but still entirely possible.

Once you set it up (under “Digsby” and then “My Accounts”), Digsby lets you check, read, and respond to your email without ever leaving your IM window. Mark emails as read, write them, or just head over to your Inbox to check them out- all using Digsby. I used to always have a Gmail window open to make sure I never missed critical email – now all I need is Digsby.

Twitter

After spending forever looking for the perfect Twitter client, I’ll tell you this- it’s not Digsby. But what Digsby is perfect for is reading Tweets. It’s a great way to stay on top of your replies and direct messages, as well as write tweets quickly. Digsby’s not the solution for power Twitter users, but it’s a great way to stay on top of all the Tweeting you do on a daily basis.

Facebookery

Just for the record, I love the new Facebook layout. But that’s beside the point. Using Digsby, you can do just about anything you would on Facebook, from right within the Digsby interface. You’ll be alerted when you have a new message, wall post, alert or notification. One click in Digsby, and you can see all the things waiting for you on Facebook. One more, and you’re sent right to a Facebook window within the Digsby application. Update your status easily, answer your wall posts, and stay on top of your social networking, all from within Digsby.

One of Digsby’s newest features is the addition of Facebook Chat. Now, you can chat with all your online Facebook friends from within Digsby. I love the idea of Facebook Chat (being able to connect in real-time with your friends on Facebook, which I have more of than IM buddies), more than I like the execution on the Facebook site itself. Digsby does a great job of using your friends list, and integrating it into its fantastic IM client to make chatting with your Facebook friends better and easier.

Socializing

Digsby’s options for social networking go far beyond Facebook. You can use Digsby to check your LinkedIn or MySpace account, and receive notifications, send messages, and interact with your network right from within Digsby. Each account gets an icon in your Windows system tray, and one click brings up a pop-up window letting you manage your social networks just as you would in a browser.

Got a new message? Digsby tells you about it, then lets you respond to it all without leaving the Digsby interface. It’s simple to use, not a memory hog, and an awesome way to manage multiple online identities from one place.

The Little Things

My favorite thing about Digsby is that its team pays such close attention to the little things: the small features that you never noticed before, but can’t live without once you start using Digsby.

My personal favorite is the pop-up notification box: when you get an IM, a pop-up comes up. Not exactly revolutionary, but what IS awesome is that you can respond from within the popup. No switching back and forth between IM windows and other applications – just type in the popup, and it goes away once it has been idle for a few seconds.

There are tons of features like this within Digsby: mass-changing of your status and away message, easy hiding and showing of the application, and endless customization of how it looks. I spent a while getting my Digsby to look exactly how I want it to, and big props to Digsby for giving you so many options.

What’s your IM client of choice? Why?

Photo: BigBlue

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• Stay Socially Connected Online With Yoono (18)
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• Update all your Social Status Messages with Ping.fm (14)

Here are some of the top tips and tricks that you can use to get more out of Instant messaging.

Set up an Answering Machine

Need an answering machine for your IM network to automatically respond to messages when you are offline? Well you can hack out a bot and have it running, monitoring the incoming messages and replying appropriately or you can simply sign into your account and set response messages.

Answer.im allows you to do just that. You are not even required to register. Log in with the IM credentials of the account you want set up answering for, set the status that will be shown to the users and then type the autoresponse text that will be sent back to the users in case someone happens to ping you while you are offline.

Use a multiprotocol client

These days everything needs to be talking to everything else. You have plants tweeting you when they need to be watered, you can update Twitter using an number of ways, then why not have a single client for all your IM needs?

You shouldn’t be running Yahoo Messenger and GTalk separately and then switching between windows when all kinds of notifications are flashing on your screen. Try something like pidgin. It might lack the occasional feature or two (like voice calls) but it more than makes up for it with tabbed interfaces, a rich set of plugins, customizations, availability for Windows, Linux and Mac and of course the price -> “free”.

Ditch desktop clients altogether

Using a netbook? Or don’t have permissions to install your favorite IM clients? Look towards the web and you won’t be disappointed. There are plenty of choices to help you get that joke across to your buddies even if that nasty admin has all sorts of ‘permission thingys’ going on!

Check out Meebo, ebuddy or imo.im. Each has its pros and cons and David recently did an amazing article on just that.

Encrypt your chat

There are good people like you (yes, I really meant YOU) and then there are bad people. Bad people like to spy on other people, perhaps steal some personal information that can then be used for all kinds of weird stuff.

While the occasional Hi there! types of conversations are fine, there are times when you want to protect your chat and history from prying eyes. Why not encrypt and secure your chat? You can encrypt your chat using both web based clients and desktop clients.

As for encrypting the chat log, you just need to find the location of log files and encrypt them on your computer using something like Truecrypt or just move it to a private directory if you are using ubuntu with ecryptfs.

Recover forgotten passwords

It often happens that you remember a password if you keep entering it often. If you instead set your client to auto-login and remember the password, chances are soon you will forget the password. If that has happened to you, you can recover such remembered passwords that appear as asterisk on the screen. Check out messenpass and other softwares that help you do so.

Create IM hyperlinks

IM hyperlinks allow people to quickly send you a message when they click on the link. All you have to do is format the “href” attribute of the <a> tag according to the IM network you want to add the link for. Check out this article for details.

Read RSS feeds

Try out ZapTXT (ZapTXT on MakeUseOf) and IMfeeds (IMfeeds on MakeUseOf) which allow you to get RSS updates within your chat client.

Use imified

Yeah, we bloggers have the habit of saving the best for last. Imified is without a doubt going to be the best buddy in your buddy list! Imified allows you to access web services, manage to do lists, ping domains and much more all from within your IM client. Mark did a great article on this fabulous tool.

Do you know of anything else you can do with instant messaging?  If you have any good ideas, let us know in the comments.

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• Instant Messenger Hacks: 10 Security Tips to Protect Yourself (6)
• How To Secure & Encrypt Your Instant Messaging Chats (19)
• Why I’m Digging Digsby (31)
• Turn Your IM Program Into A Productivity Tool Using Imified (23)
• Translation For MSN: Auto Translates Messages While Chatting (17)

Most IM clients, or at least most good ones, require a downloaded client in order to work. That’s fine and good, unless we’re on a different computer, or don’t have administrative privileges on our work computers, or just don’t like extra clutter on our hard drive.

If you fall into any of those camps, here are five totally Web-based, totally free online instant messaging services that you might want to check out.

Meebo

Meebo is the most popular of the Web IM choices, and with good reason. This online instant messaging service works with AIM, Yahoo, MySpace, Facebook, MSN, GTalk, ICQ, Jabber, and even Flixster.

Meebo also offers group chat, a great mobile version (for iPhones and the like), and even access in your Firefox sidebar. There’s support for file-sharing, video chat, and much more – it’s as fully-featured, if not more so, than most desktop IM clients.

My experience with Meebo was that it works best with Facebook chat, and is definitely one of the simplest to use. It’s also incredibly well-funded, which means it’s likely to stick around for a while.

Whether you use it on the site or embed it on your own website, Meebo’s a terrific IM client.

Nimbuzz

Meebo’s not my favorite, though; that prize belongs to Nimbuzz. Nimbuzz is mostly making a name for itself as a client for your cell phone or iPhone (and it’s a great one), but it offers a fabulous Web-based messaging client as well. You can make calls, group chats, send files, and do anything you’d want to do with an IM.

Instead of logging in each time to every one of your networks, you can put them all into an account with Nimbuzz instead. Then, every time you log in, just enter one username and password, and log in to all your IM networks. You can put your buddies into groups, view them by network, or just lump them all into one list.

Though Nimbuzz only has a couple of unique features – like the friend locator, to see where people are – its simplicity of use and gorgeous interface make it my IM application of choice (on every platform – but let’s stick with the Web for now.)

The feature that really sold me, though, was Skype integration – nothing else has it, and Nimbuzz does it very well. It’s a great VOIP client, a great Instant Messenger, and the application to start with in my opinion.

imo.im

imo is a relatively unknown player on the Web IM scene, but is beginning to make some waves, and with good reason. My favorite things about this online instant messenger are within your buddy list, you can star buddies you talk to most, re-name and re-order buddy lists, search through your buddy list, and even upload pictures of your buddies to the imo interface.

There’s support for voice and video chat (fingers crossed for Skype soon), some great keyboard shortcuts, and a simple-to-use interface.

If their project list is any indication, there’s some spectacular stuff coming soon from this already-great client, so keep this one bookmarked.

KoolIM

KoolIM is the niche-IMr’s tool of choice. In addition to the standards (Yahoo, MSN, AIM, GTalk), it supports ICQ, Gadu-Gadu, Xfire, Jabber, and more.  If you’re a user of a small network, KoolIM may be your best – or only – choice.

KoolIM offers two options for chat – an embedded client, available right from within the browser window, or a popup client, which looks and feels a bit more like a desktop application, acting outside of your browser (but still as a browser window).

You can log in to one account at a time, or all of them by creating a KoolIM account. KoolIM also claims fame as functioning behind a firewall, which some other applications can have trouble with.

KoolIM’s simple, not particularly feature-rich, but is uniquely network-friendly among IM clients.

eBuddy

eBuddy supports a huge number of IM services – MSN, Yahoo, GTalk, ICQ, MySpace, and promises Facebook is coming soon.

When you load eBuddy, it opens a new window for you to chat in. Your chats and contacts are tabbed, and there’s even a chat history for your recent conversations.

eBuddy offers a bunch of client versions, including great ones for your cell phone. Much like Meebo, you can also embed eBuddy directly into your own website. eBuddy’s feature list really explodes when you create a free “eBuddy ID,” which gives you tons of fun and useful features – faster login, more emoticons, saved settings, and access to other premium features.

All of these applications and others do the basics well – they send and receive messages, notify you of new ones, and generally remove the need for a desktop application. If all you want to do is chat, any of these five will do – pick the prettiest one.  Each one though, has a few unique features that make it the winner for specific people.

Try one or a few of these – which web-based client do you use for messaging?

Photo Credits: gonzalo_ar

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• Turn Your IM Program Into A Productivity Tool Using Imified (23)
• 3 Web-Based IM Clients For Chatting The Night Away (14)
• Translation For MSN: Auto Translates Messages While Chatting (17)
• How To View Passwords Hidden Behind Asterisk Characters (14)
• How To Add Google Talk to Your Webpages (14)

Well, we can’t exactly condone corporate espionage (We’ve had enough of that, thank you very much!). However if you are, as an example, a newly-elected U.S. President, named… I don’t know… Barack (I just pulled that out of nowhere, honest!), with secrets to keep just between you and a friend or sweetie (let’s call her…um…Michelle) over IM, you’re likely going to want some form of encryption between the two of you.

There are several ways to secure instant messaging, but here are the two absolute easiest ways. The first is web-based, because we just adore web-apps.

You will likely have heard by now of Meebo, the instant-messaging app that only requires your browser. It’s handy for when you’re on, say, your brother’s computer (as I am right now), and you need to get at your contact list. While your IM passwords are always sent through encrypted, secure means, accessing the site via the secure HTTPS protocol like so encrypts your messages as well, allowing for tighter security.

As an alternative to Meebo, I suggest Imo.IM, which supports MySpace IM and Skype, forces HTTPS, and is Firefox-sidebar-friendly.

For the easiest and tightest security possible for Barack and Michelle, we’ll need total encryption of all messages and file transfers, between the two chatters.

Time for a favorite download of ours, the Pidgin client. You need not do anything fancy yet; Just download, install, and then run the program, adding your IM accounts with the wizard. Your friend must do the same, and then you both must install the Pidgin-Encryption Plugin. Then enable the plugin from Pidgin’s Tools menu (you may need to restart Pidgin for the plugin to be available and show up in the list).

I’m sure that you’re in a hurry to get to your spy games, but relax, we’re almost done! Go ahead and hit Pidgin’s Buddies menu to start a new IM conversation with your friend. Here’s the most important part. You see this padlock icon at the top of your IM window? You both must click on this to enable the encryption.

Pidgin will handle the exchanging of encryption keys, making the secure connection, and other nerdy stuff. Messages sent via this method are fully encrypted from your end to the other, including when routed through your IM network. I call it “Really Simple Security.”

Presented above are just two ways to encrypt and secure your instant messaging chit-chat over just about any IM network. We’re always open to other options, so please feel free to post a comment and clue us in on your favorite encryption method.

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The Meebo Firefox Extension

The Meebo Firefox extension adds some nifty features to Meebo. Improvements include “toaster” style notifications, a sidebar to access your buddy list, and auto-login. Unfortunately, this extension requires the Meebo tab to still be present, meaning that your conversations don’t carry on in the sidebar, but the actual Meebo tab.

The main addition of the extension is the sidebar, which allows you to see your buddy list in that sidebar – with no need to switch tabs. However, when you want to IM someone, clicking their name in the sidebar will automatically switch your Firefox tab back to Meebo – where you can chat there. This means that you can’t browse and chat at the same time, which is often inconvenient.

The second main addition of the extension are the toaster-style notifications, which tells you about certain events (can be chosen in the options panel) without having to be focused on the Firefox window.

Meebo’s Mobile Interface As A Sidebar

The mobile interface – while sub par to the actual interface, is a convenient way of accessing Meebo from the Firefox sidebar.  It allows you to carry on conversations in the sidebar without switching tabs. However, the Firefox extension doesn’t work in tandem with this method – so you’re stuck between the Firefox addon that depends on the Meebo website interface, or the less than stellar meebo sidebar.

It displays recent messages from contacts (listed in order of recent messages), which you can click on to chat with, and also click back to the buddy list through an icon next to the input area. An apparent bug is the status picker, which makes it impossible to see the options without highlighting over them. Sound is absent.

To use this interface, create a Firefox bookmark for http://www.meebo.com/mobile/ and set it to load in the sidebar.

Greasemonkey Scripts

Change the Background Image

Meebo offers a selection of background images you can use (if you like product placements) through the preferences – appearance menu, but to use other images, you’ll need the customize meebo backgrounds Greasemonkey script. It allows you to choose a URL to grab a wallpaper from (sorry, no local options) and makes it the background for Meebo. Make sure you choose dark wallpaper (as link text appears in white for all themes) and the gray theme tends to look best with all images. (Note: I had to add http://www*.meebo.com/#* to the includes of the script to make it work).

Meebo Control Panel Script

This Greasemonkey script has a number of options that change Meebo features including hiding various elements of the page and adding the ability to sign on while invisible.

Unfortunately, it sticks an ugly blue link on top of the Meebo logo to access the “control panel” (presumably because it hasn’t been updated to keep up with Meebo’s design; the author states you can change line 91 of the script to reposition the link).

Do you use Meebo for IM? Maybe some other online instant messenger? If so, do you have any tips, tweaks, Greasemonkey scripts or any other hacks that you would like to share with the readers? Please share them in the comments!

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Let’s also say that you have a major update to do and you can’t get a hold of the web host to change the password, because it’s 4:59pm on a Friday. What on earth can you do?

Well, let me point out a few tools that will allow you view passwords behind asterisk characters and let your employers know they have the übergeek for the job!

View One Hidden Asterisk Password at a Time

Most of the programs I came across worked the same way – open the locked program, open the password revealer, click on a button called ‘password reveal’ or some similar thing, then get the password.

Asterisk Key from Passware is one such solution. It will run on Windows 2000/NT/XP/2003/Vista and requires 64MB of RAM and at least a Pentium 300 processor. Seriously, if you don’t have at least that, send me a self-addressed stamped envelope and I’ll print you a copy of this article. You’ll get it faster.

What you’ll notice at first is that this is a piece of loss-leader software from a company that would like to sell you their other wares. Nothing wrong with that.

Once you have Asterisk Key open, open up the application you wish to recover a password from. In my case it was FileZilla. Once the locked program is open, you simply click on the ‘Recover’ button in Asterisk Key, and voila!

That’s great, but what if you have several applications from which you need to recover and view password fields? That’s where I find this next piece of freeware to be most useful.

Reveal Multiple Hidden Passwords

Asterisk Logger from NirSoft makes the process of recovering multiple passwords that are hiddent behind asterisk characters very easy. It works on Windows 9x, ME, 2000 and XP and with a little tweaking it will work on NT. I’m not sure about Vista, since I never made that leap.

The feature of Asterisk Logger that puts it above other asterisk revealer freeware is the fact that it logs the passwords AND shows the password in plain text right in the program you are using. Simply open up Asterisk Logger and start using those programs that you forgot the password for. Below you can see how Asterisk Logger reveals the password right in the program you are using as well as in Asterisk Logger.

You can see in the screenshot below that I opened FileZilla and Quicken to show you how it logs the passwords.

After a session on the computer with Asterisk Logger open, you can save the log to a text file to refer to it later. But remember to not tell anyone where the list is – that’s called job security!

Asterisk Logger does not work well with instant messenging applications though. But NirSoft has a pill for that too.

Reveal Instant Messenger Passwords

Yes, I am a NirSoft fanboy. If it works, it works. I searched for and tested others specifically designed for instant messaging (IM) software. They either weren’t really freeware or seemed sketchy.

MessenPass works.

“How well, Guy?”, you inquire. Well, I hate instant messaging so I haven’t used mine in about a year or so. I installed and fired up MessenPass and it not only found the password I was looking for, but an account I forgot I even made and its password as well.

Well, now you know my MSN username, so go ahead and add me. I probably won’t respond though. I am to IM what the old guy with the shotgun full of rock salt, sitting in a rocking chair, is to meddling kids. Get off my IM! Dagnabbit!!!

Got any other leads on cool freeware apps that reveal what’s behind those asterisks? Love to see them. Any stories about getting snookered by hidden passwords? I’d love to read those too.

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That’s why I’m still on Windows Mobile, along with a massive portion of the rest of the world. Windows Mobile is one of the most-used mobile operating systems, but it’s been largely pushed aside as the iPhone has become more popular. The iPhone has all its great applications, but there are a number of fantastic, useful, fun and plain cool Windows Mobile apps as well.

Here are five free applications for Windows Mobile, many of which have iPhone counterparts, but that do their job at least as well as they do on that Apple-thing.

Evernote

My favorite “external brain”, Evernote helps you remember everything. With Evernote for Windows Mobile, all you’ll need on you is your cell phone. Just fire up the app, and you can create notes from pictures, text or voice. Search and browse your notes, share and edit them, and manage your head right from your Windows Mobile phone.

Unlike the iPhone (as best as I could tell), there’s also a link to upload a file, which means you’re able to send files to and from your Windows Mobile phone. It’s perfect for when you need to remember to buy something, how much something costs, something you need to do, or just about anything that comes into your head that you’d rather not fly right out.

Fring

Fring is the mobile IM client to end all mobile IM clients. It connects to most major instant messaging networks- AIM, Google, Yahoo, MSN, and the like. If you’ve got a Wi-Fi enabled phone, there’s even another killer feature- Skype. You can make VOIP calls with your cell phone, using Fring’s Skype support, and not use your minutes or plan, but simply by picking up a wireless signal.

Even without Wi-Fi, though, Fring’s a killer application for instant messaging, and can even update your Twitter status for you.

Tiny Twitter

Even though Fring can update Twitter for you, odds are Twitter users will want a bit more. That’s where Tiny Twitter comes in. It’s a Twitter cleint for Windows Mobile that also works on any Java-enabled device which covers some serious ground. Using Tiny Twitter, you can tweet without hitting your SMS bill (though you will incur some data charges without a data plan).

Tiny Twitter allows full access to your Twitter timeline, makes replying and messaging easy, and the “Inbox” view gives you a simple way to see and respond to tweets directed at you. Tiny Twitter’s the perfect Windows Mobile app for tweeting on the go, and is actually better than anything I’ve found for the iPhone.

The Core Pocket Media Player

TCPMP, as The Core Pocket Media Player is known, is the best way to watch movies and listen to music on a Windows Mobile phone. You can use it to stream media (again, watch the data charges), or to play a huge variety of formats of both video and audio. It’s a no-frills application with a small memory footprint that’s dead simple to use, and one road warriors won’t want to be without. Especially when you add the use of a memory card, TCPMP works with your phone to make it a killer media player- small screen or no small screen.

Kevtris

What fun is a phone you can’t play with? The iPhone has a ton of great games, but let’s be honest – there’s never been a game as wonderful as Tetris. The blocks, the twisting, the narrow misses that leave you tearing your hair out – it’s just glorious.

If you have a Windows Mobile phone, you needn’t ever be without Tetris again. It’s a free download called Kevtris, and is a blast to play. There are three levels of play, and several different games you can play as well – all similar to Tetris. It’s a fantastic time-waster, and a game I like better than anything the iPhone’s thrown at me.

I’ve been a Windows Mobile user for a while now, and thanks to these applications and more, I don’t plan on changing anytime soon. There are applications to do everything that I need, for free, and plus – I just love having an actual keyboard.

Are you a Windows Mobile user? What applications do you have, and which do you envy of the iPhone?

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

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• The Mark Pack – The Essentials On My Computer – Part One (31)

So here are the contents of the Mark Pack. Due to the nature of my job, the contents of the Mark Pack are always changing as I discover new stuff. But here’s what it contains right now. This is part one of the article, part two is tomorrow.

1. Mozilla Firefox

Obviously! (you didn’t think I was going to say Internet Exploder now did you?!) Although I have to say I have been flirting with the idea of going over to Google Chrome for a while now but I am put off by the things it lacks and especially its lack of privacy. Firefox has been rather unstable for me recently with constant crashes and this is not good in my line of work.   Thank God for its session saver feature otherwise I would keep losing all those porn sites I keep finding. Oops, did I really say that out loud? Damn, damn, damn…..

So to quote Darth Vader, “come with me to the Dark Side”. But right now, I am still doing my impersonation of Luke Skywalker on the Death Star in front of the Emperor resisting with all his might. At the moment, Firefox is still my browser of choice but it really needs to get the stability issues fixed if I am to resist Darth Google and his overtures (“the force is strong in this one”)

2. Pidgin Skype

I put these two together because I use them together as my daily online communication tools. I tried using Digsby for a while but it just didn’t click with me for some reason. So I went back to Pidgin. The only thing that annoys me about Pidgin is the very small message window that can’t be resized. It used to be much bigger but when they brought out an upgrade, they shrunk it down (no dirty jokes please!). I am hoping they will reverse that and soon. I don’t like typing in a microscopic window.

What I really love about Pidgin are all the plugins that are available for it. I’ve previously wrote about Bot Sentry which nuked all the IM spam instantly and there is also gSMS which sends you SMS’s whenever someone tries to contact you on Pidgin (although this one is apparently a bit unstable for some people).

Skype is just wonderful (despite all the spam that comes through it). I do a lot of my phoning from it, especially my international calls, saving myself a ton of money in the process. The video calls are just sweet and I surprised my grandparents on Christmas Day with a webcam call (even though they didn’t understand how it all worked!).

I also like the tweaks and upgrades that the Skype team have brought out recently – the improved audio and picture quality, the tighter interface (including the ability once again to separate the contact list from the chat window – which is a huge plus).

But the thing that makes Skype totally invaluable is the ability to assign a phone number to it (giving yourself a business phone number) and also being able to forward calls to a mobile phone.   So if you have to go out, you can forward all your Skype calls to your mobile phone and then take off to Starbucks for that double latte. Meanwhile, your Skype callers are none the wiser where you are.

3. Winamp

I’ve tried a LOT of audio and media players over the time. Windows Media Player, CrystalPlayer, VLC Player, you name it, I’ve tried it. But I have ALWAYS come back in the end to Winamp. It’s like an old lover that I can’t stay away from. I tell her I’m leaving her and she says “yeah right, you’ll be back you good-for-nothing S.O.B!” and she’s right. I’ll flirt with another media player but a couple of months later, I’m back at Winamp’s door, begging her to take me back.

What do I like about Winamp? Well you can minimise it to the top of the monitor as a thin bar (as you can see above). So you can surf and type and do whatever and still have your music playing. You don’t have a media player in the middle of the screen in the way of things. There are also LOTS of colours to choose from so if blue is not your thing then choose whatever colour floats your boat (although I think bright pink is going just a LITTLE too far!).

I also use Winamp as my default video player. The picture quality on Winamp is fantastic. Below is a screenshot of “Family Guy” on Winamp :

4. Launchy

We’ve covered Launchy many times before on MakeUseOf and if you haven’t got it installed yet on your computer, I strongly recommend you do so right now. It’s one of those things that you don’t realise its full worth until you actually have it installed and you start using it.

I used to be a big mouse person, using it for EVERYTHING, but Launchy has made me realise that I can get a lot more done with just using the keyboard. By bringing up the app, I can just type in the first few letters of an app and Launchy will then….well, launch it for me. No need for a mouse, no need for clicking, no need for lots of links and shortcuts on the desktop and shortcut menu.   Everything can be started and done with a few types of the keyboard.

5.  WinPatrol

I wrote about this previously on MakeUseOf and I think this is a valuable addition to any computer. WinPatrol basically monitors your computer for any covert and sneaky additions to your computer and then warns you about them.

When you install a program or upgrade a program, some of them try to hijack your system by taking over your system preferences. Big example – iTunes. Every time I upgrade that program, it tries to override Winamp and take control of all my MP3 files and video files. If I didn’t have WinPatrol, it would succeed and later I would have to tediously change all my file associations back to Winamp.

But thanks to WinPatrol, as soon as iTunes tries to do anything like this, I get a big warning sign flash up on my screen asking me if I approve of what iTunes is trying to do along with a YES and NO button.   By clicking NO, WinPatrol will immediately block iTunes from changing anything.

WinPatrol also allows me to easily control my startup menu options so my computer boots up faster.

This is a MUST-HAVE program for everyone. The pro version of the program gives you a few more features but the free version is more than enough I think.

6. FileZilla

If you have a website domain and you need to do regular file transfers from your computer to your domain (or vice versa) then FileZilla is the app to do it. No other FTP client comes near FileZilla in terms of ease of use and speed.

The FileZilla team also bring out regular new beta releases of the app so this is very much a constant work in progress.

That’s the end of Part One. Part Two of the Mark Pack will be tomorrow. In the meantime, why not tell me what is in your pack? What essential apps are on your computer? Are any of the apps on this page in your pack? If not, why not?  If not, what equivalents do you have instead and why?

Make sure and come back tomorrow to see what other apps made it into the Mark Pack!

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

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The Google Talk chatback badge allows people visiting your webpages to chat with you with what is essentially a specialized version of the Google Talk gadget. The chatback badge will display your Google Talk online status, along with a customizable message, and a link to open a chat window with you. You can opt to use a nickname in the chat, if you wish to remain anonymous or pseudonymous.

You can also create different badges if you wish. This can be useful if you have multiple personalities as many bloggers and webmasters do. When someone clicks the link in the badge, you will receive a message from chatback@talk.google.com with a URL to chat to the guest. When you click the link, the chat begins! The guest doesn’t even need a Google Account to chat with you!

Setting up your Google Talk chatback badge is easy:

1. Go to the Create a Google Talk chatback badge page (log into your Google Account if prompted).
2. Click the Edit dropdown and change the badge to your liking.
3. Click the Update badge button.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until the badge looks the way you would like it to look.
5. Copy the code in the text area at the bottom of the screen and paste it into your webpage(s).

If you are putting the badge into a narrow column on your webpage, you may find that 200px is too wide. If this is the case, you’ll need to update the code by changing the value 200 to the desired width. There are two places in the code where you’ll need to provide the new width. See the highlighted sections in the screenshot below.

Do you primarily still use Google Talk? What do you think of the Google Talk chatback badge?

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But the best feature of Notify.Me is being updated about specific keyword articles – more on that later though.

To get started with Notify.Me, head on over to the website and click on ‘Register’. Give them a username, password and an arm and a leg … oh sorry, your email address. That should do it. You’ll get an email from Notify.Me with an embedded link. Click on the link to verify your email address and you’re good to go.

Once you’re logged in, you’ll have to set up your Notify.Me account. From here on, the process involves following a simple wizard and giving the website some information.

The first screen asks you for your mobile number so that Notify.Me can send you notifications over SMS. I don’t know if you’d like to be SMS’ed every time Techcrunch posts a new article but for news and similar stuff, I can definitely see the use.

Did I tell you that you can also configure Notify.Me to send you updates over IM ? The next step in the account setup wizard shows you how to do exactly that. They have instructions for working with Pidgin, Google Talk, Adium and Jabber, so they’ve got pretty much all operating systems covered, although personally I’d love to see MSN and Yahoo messenger also on that list.

The next screen asks will let you enter all the feeds that you’d like notify.me to keep a track of.

The best part is that you can even filter the kind of notifications that you want to be, well, notified about.

For example, suppose you only want to hear about Gmail related articles on MakeUseOf. Just head over here to MakeUseOf. In the search box, type Gmail and press enter. Now, copy the URL from the address bar and paste it in the Notify.Me text box marked ‘Feed’. That’s it.

Now, every time there is an article mentioning Gmail on Make Use Of, you’ll get a notification. You can even filter the source further by specifying keywords in the filter text box. Click on the IM, SMS or email icon to set the method by which you want to get your fix … err, feed.

This can also obviously be done for any other blogs too where you would like to only be notified about articles on particular subjects.   Just go to that site, enter the subject into the blog’s search engine and copy the URL into Notify.Me’s text box.

So, you’re all set now? What if one day you’re surfing your blues away and come across a really interesting site and would like to see that added to your notify list?  Well, Notify.Me has you covered there too. With the bookmarklets that they provide, you can add new sources to your account as fast as you can click the bookmark button.

I can definitely see myself using this service to keep myself abreast of the latest news and blog posts. Are there any other similar services that you guys use ? I’d love to hear about them.

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

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To recap, Digsby is a messaging application which lets you talk to people on all of the major instant messaging networks such as MSN, AIM, Yahoo, ICQ, Gtalk and even Facebook Chat. More than that it also lets you connect up email accounts and social networks accounts including Myspace, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. It also supports customization, skinning and even synchronizes your account details and Digsby skins between computers.

Steve Shapiro is the project manager for Digsby and he took the time to answer a few questions concerning this project:

Tell us about the ‘Digsby’ logo/mascot…

We wanted something that was a mascot and not just a logo so that it would “be Digsby” – we felt this would be a good way to brand it as a consumer friendly product. Another important aspect of it was that it needed to look good as a 16×16 or 32×32 icon since it is used on the desktop and in the tray.

How many people do you have working on this project? Is this purely a hobby project or do you hope eventually Digsby will provide some kind of revenue stream?

Digsby is developed by a company so we do need to pay the rent and keep the lights on.

What about this project aren’t you currently happy with? Is any part of the application frustrating you feature-wise?

We would love to finish stabilizing the Windows build so we can release for Mac and Linux!  We’ve had tons of requests.

What Instant Messaging application did you use before Digsby?

I used AIM 5.9 + Gtalk.

What is your personal favourite feature?

The email integration.  It’s nice not to have to keep checking my inbox through out the day.  If I get an email that’s important I can open it right from there.   If it’s spam, I can mark it appropriately without ever going to my inbox.

I’m interested to hear your comments on the whole ‘perpetual beta’ a lot of companies have going on these days. Are you working towards an actual version 1.0 release, or is Digsby going to do a Google for the next few years?

It’s a little more complex than that.  There will never really be a 1.0 or a 2.0 but it will also not stay in beta for years.  We adopted a development cycle that is more typical of a website than a software product. A software product typically releases version 1.0 and then there is a massive effort to release 2.0. You need to then convince people to start using 2.0 because it is better while also providing support for 1.0.

With a website, every time you visit the site you see the newest version.  Digsby auto-updates each time you run it so you are always running the latest release. We release new versions almost every week.  Check out http://changelog.digsby.com.  Once it is a bit more stable we will remove the alpha or beta tag that we put at the end of each release but the fast release cycle will remain unchanged so there won’t be a version 1.0 and version 2.0…..just constant builds that keep making Digsby better and better.

Any hints you’d like to share about something big which is yet to come?

Mac + Linux releases!

What do you think of Digsby becoming the ‘Firefox’ of instant-messaging applications?

We have seen that tag line in many reviews and are honored by it.  Firefox is a great browser and being put on the same level makes us smile and encourages us to push even harder to improve Digsby.

Do you have any opinions you would care to share on the latest Windows Live Messenger?

It’s a great IM client in my opinion.

So thanks to Steve.

If you haven’t tried Digsby out yet then I would very much recommend it!

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However, some of you will NOT see it yet as Gmail is doing their usual and rolling it out slowly to users.   So some of you will have it and some of you won’t.   So if you don’t have it yet, don’t despair.   You will see it eventually!

This new feature is a really big deal because along with also being able to put Google gadgets in the Gmail sidebar, this means that your Gmail inbox is no longer just for email.   Your Gmail inbox is now the center of your entire working life.  I hesitate to use the phrase “nerve center” as it is over-used and a bit of a cliche but that is basically what it has now become.   Everything you need to work with is now sitting on your Gmail page :

• Your email
• The Google Calendar gadget (enabled from the Gmail Labs section)
• The Google Docs gadget (enabled from the Gmail Labs section)
• Any other gadgets you may have installed.
• Remember The Milk “to do list” gadget or the Firefox extension.
• And now….video and voice chat!

You need to install a small plug-in which Google provides but right there, you see the first drawback. If you are working on different computers, you need to have the plugin installed on ALL of the computers for the video and voice chat to work. So if you are say in an internet cafe or on a computer where you don’t have the administrator rights then you won’t be able to use the video and voice features. Any feature that requires something installed is always going to have limited appeal and limited use.

You are also obviously going to need a webcam. Google “helpfully” gives you some suggestions (obviously they’ll get their commission if you follow their ideas!)

Once you have the plug-in installed and you’ve plugged in the webcam, go to your Gmail settings, then the “chat” tab. You’ll now see a new section:

Make sure that the settings are correct and that your webcam is showing up.

If you now look at your GTalk inside Gmail, you’ll now see yourself with a little camera icon next to your name:

If anyone sees that camera icon, they’ll know that you are able to speak to them via webcam inside Gmail’s GTalk and if you see cameras next to their name, you’ll know they can do the same.

Finally, here is Gmail’s official little YouTube video on the subject :

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With notifu you can send messages to individuals or groups, see if they were received, track who all responded and eventually use the replies to make decisions as a group just like a poll system.

Notifu allows you to send messages through email, SMS, phone and IM networks such as AIM, Gtalk, ICQ, MSN and Yahoo.

The interface is simple, clean and yet stylish. You can send messages as a registered user or an unregistered user (that way you won’t have access to your contacts and stored messages). Click on Send Messages, fill in the details, click send and off goes your message on its way through the path you chose for the delivery.

The “To Field” uses a special syntax to learn about the mode of delivery. Just type in:

NameOfContact <Keyword: AppropriateInformationDependingOnTheModeChosen>

So for example, if you would like to send a SMS to Bruce Wayne at +1-123-456-7890 you would type in “Bruce Wayne <sms:+1-123-456-7890>” in the To Field. Other Mode keywords available are: email, yahoo, icq, msn, gtalk and ph (for voice messages). Of course you would have to follow them up with the appropriate information like phone number in case of ph and gtalk id in case of gtalk.

Notifu offers single address (for individuals), Distribution Address (for groups) as well as escalating addresses. While single and distribution addresses are pretty straight forward, an escalating address lets you specify multiple ways of contacting the same person. All these ways will then be tried one after another until a successful delivery.

Another bit of detail that you can specify while sending a message are the response choices. Response Choices offer the recipients a set of responses with which they can quickly reply back to you. These are also excellent for conducting a poll in a group to reach a consensus.

As people reply to your sent message the poll count starts to accumulate irrespective of the fact whether the reply came from a cell phone or a IM application.

Notifu is great for group of friends trying to choose a place to meet as well as for the serious worker conveying a meeting re-schedule.

Have a go, test it, let us know how you like it. I personally like the interface and a widgety look to the whole scene and I also like that an OpenSocial application is currently under development. That would really spice up things by mixing notifu with social networks.

They mention it should work outside the US and Canada.  However I had problems with the SMS and voice messages.  Let us know your experience with notifu in the comments.

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Despite all that though, I continue to dislike the way Twitter works, or used to work. For a long time, you had to go to the website, log in, type your 140, submit it, and then leave. Getting to the update was often longer than the update itself.

That got me looking for faster, simpler ways to update my Twitter status and read others. In my searching, I found a pretty huge number, but narrowed it down to the eight fastest, simplest, and most robust ways to update my Twitter status without ever typing “twitter.com”.

Here they are :

1. BeTwittered

My homepage, in any of the browsers I use, is iGoogle. Especially with the new canvas view, which a lot of people aren’t fans of, I’m able to access Gmail, Reader, the news, and a bunch of other great things all in one place. One of my favorite iGoogle gadgets is BeTwittered, where you can update your status as well as see other people’s updates and replies.

2. Digsby

Digsby is my IM client of choice, for a whole bunch of reasons; not the least of those is the fact that I can update and view my Twitter info right from it. By creating a new account under the “Social Networks” menu in “Accounts”, I can update my own status, as well as see others and write and view replies, all from within Digsby.

3. The Twitlet – Post to Twitter Bookmarklet

This one’s probably the simplest of the bunch: Just drag Twitelt bookmarklet to your bookmarks bar, or bookmark it in any way you want. Then, anytime you want to tweet, click the bookmark. It brings up a tiny window asking what you’re doing. Type your 140, and then close the box. It really is that simple.

4. IMified

Even if you don’t have Digsby, you can still update your Twitter status from any IM client, by adding IMified as your friend (Mark did an article on Imified here). You can interact with IMified to do things like add to Google Calendar, your blog, your task list, and yes- Twitter. It’s as easy as sending an IM to either imified@imified.com or IMified, depending on your instant messaging program.

5. Your cell phone

With a simple text message, you can update your Twitter status. You’ll have to connect your phone to your account, which you can do in the “Settings” menu at the top of your Twitter page. Once you set it up, just send a text message from your phone to 40404, and update away! You can also send a direct message by typing “d whoyou’resendingitto your message”. I use this all the time, because I always have my cell phone on me.

Careful, though- this is an easy way to rack up big texting bills.

6. Twhirl

There are a ton of desktop applications out there for managing your Twitter account, but Twhirl seems to be the best and most popular. A free download, Twhirl lets you manage your Twitter account as well as several others, like Friendfeed and Seesmic. It offers several other features, which you can see on their website, but it does the basics- reading, writing, and following- really well. Being an Adobe Air app, it works on Windows, Mac and Linux computers.

7. Ping.fm

If you’re a social network heavyweight, Ping.fm ought to be a huge timesaver for you. You can use it from almost anywhere- phones, iPhones, IM, email, and their website, among others.

Ping.fm works with all your social networks, including Twitter, and you can post new stuff to one or all of the networks you choose. If you’ve got multiple micro-blogs, blogs or social networks, Ping.fm’s a great way to go.

8. Twitterbar

This one’s another easy one for someone looking to update Twitter without all the hassle involved. Using an extension called “TwitterBar,” you can tweet just by typing into your Firefox address bar. Instead of pressing enter, you click a green button the extension puts in your address bar, and off to Twitter it goes.

It’s also great for tweeting links- just click the green button, and the address of the page you’re on goes right to Twitter.

9. Twitterific

This one’s just for people with iPhones and iPod Touches, but it’s worth mentioning. There are several applications for the iPhone and Twitter, but Twitterific is definitely the best. Boot it up, and all your Twitter information is right there, presented in an easy and attractive way. You can tweet pictures and text, mark tweets as favorites and view user information, as well as send and view replies.

Typing your 140 should be the longest part of using Twitter – now, with any of these nine applications, it can be.

Which ones do YOU use? Or do you use one not seen here? Why do you like the one you use? What features make it a keeper?

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

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Imified basically allows you to connect with online services using your chat program. Whether you are a user of Google Talk, AIM, Windows Live or Jabber, information from these online services is securely passed back and forth, allowing you to do everything from your desktop. This can be anything from updating your Twitter stream to checking an IP address. One thing is for certain. Imified is going to be the most valuable friend on your IM contact list.

So the first step to setting up Imified is to get the bot onto your contact list. This is extremely simple. All you have to do is pick your chat service, take the associated email address and add it to your contact list :

AIM: IMified

MSN (Windows Live Messenger) : imified@imified.com

Google Talk: imified@imified.com

Jabber: imified@imified.com

Once it is on your contact list, send the Imified bot a message to wake it up. It should then be approved and brought online either right away or after a short period.

The first thing you will get is an activation link to the Imified website and a very small menu, one of which will say “My Account”. Ignore that for the moment. First, click on the activation link as this will activate your account and get you into the Imified website.

Once you are in, you will see 3 pages of widgets which you can add to your IM client :

All you need to do is just go through the lists, choose the ones you want and add them to your IM client.

How do you add them? It’s very easy. See those green plus signs in the top left hand corner of each widget? Just click on the green plus sign for the widget you want to install. That opens it up. You’ll be asked to give it a preferred name and depending on the app, you may also be asked for a username and password. Then click “enter” and suddenly your IM program will update!

It’s a bit hard to explain here. It’s one of those things where it’s easier if you just do it.

OK now this is basically what my Imified menu looks like on Google Talk. I’m sure I’ll add more later but right now, I’ve confined myself to these five apps.

If at any time I want to access my Imified account, all I have to do is hit “6″ and Imified will create an unique URL for me to get into the website.

Let’s take a look at some of the things on my menu to demonstrate how useful Imified is :

NetLookup :

By using certain commands, you can find out all kinds of information about a domain.

ping ********.com – Pings the given hostname five times and outputs results.
traceroute ********.com – Outputs a traceroute (orig. in Munich, Germany) to the given domain.
alexa *******.com – Prints Alexa info about the given domain name.
whois ********.com – Looks up information about the domain name in the WHOIS database.
enum +1-604-958-1212 – Looks up ENUM entries for a phone number at multiple ENUM registries.

Post to Delicious

We all know about Delicious, the bookmarking site. Well, using Imified, you can send bookmarks straight to Delicious. You can even add descriptions and tags.   There’s a slight delay before the bookmark gets added to your profile though so don’t expect an instantaneous addition. But it DOES work!

Post to Twitter / Jaiku

I’ll lump these two together since Twitter and Jaiku are essentially both microblogging services and do the same thing.

No delay with this one! My Twitter feed is updated instantly!

There are LOTS of widgets you can add to your Imified bot which can help you do things faster.   Which ones do you like?

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One app I like in particular is called Palringo (iTunes Link). The major difference between Palringo and other IM clients for the iPhone is that it is a multi-protocol client. That means you cannot only use your AIM account, but also your Yahoo!, Windows Live, and Google Talk accounts (and more, seen on the right). Palringo isn’t the only multi-protocol client, but compared to the other few I have seen thus far, it is definitely the most refined.

Another great feature is the interface. While Palringo is a multi-platform client (meaning it can run on multiple types of machines), this review will only cover the iPhone’s specific interface. To be brief: it’s great! It is not a simple “port” or recreation of the original interface (though it is somewhat similar). Instead, it was designed with the device in mind.

At the top of the screen there are three central buttons that let you switch between your accounts, your chat groups, and your contacts. The “accounts” pane is where account configuration takes place. The “chat groups” pane allows you to create chat rooms where multiple users can interact. The last pane, the “contacts” pane, is the most important. It lists all the people from your various buddy lists on one unified list. Unfortunately there are no “groups” like in other chat clients. Available users are listed at the top and offline users are shown below. There is a handy search box at the top to prevent massive scrolling, though.

Clicking any contact, as expected, brings up a new chat window. In the chat pane there are several options. The first is a simple chat window that brings up the keyboard. One critique here is that the text is very small and makes typing pretty difficult. The other options include sending an image, adding the other user as a contact, or sending a voice message.

The last option is one of the coolest things about Palringo. If you click the word-bubble icon, the App brings up a bar for you to hold down with your finger. While you’re holding it down, the iPhone’s mic turns on and records a short message. After you let go, it will immediately stop recording and send your message. In Palringo, the message shows as a “play” button, but your friend will likely see a link. After testing it a number of times, I can say that this feature works well, but sometimes it can cut off the last bit of your sentence unexpectedly.

Another neat feature is the ability to move in 4 directions through the interface. When scanning your buddy list, a standard up or down flick will scroll through it. If you have multiple chat windows open, though, flicking left or right (like in the iPhone’s picture viewer) will change from one chat window to another. It takes some getting used to because the difference between the motions is very slight for the first centimeter or so. Once you understand how Palringo responds, though, the convenience of the left-right flick more than makes up for any accidental scrolling.

There are more features in Palringo, but hopefully you get the gist of the app. It has some of the limitations inherent to all 3rd party apps. For instance, because the iPhone won’t run background processes, going to the home screen closes Palringo and signs you off. There is no logging feature (which I believe is possible under the iPhone SDK) so any chats you had before closing the app are lost. Even so, the client passes all of my general benchmarks for a good IM client and I will definitely use this one for any of my messaging needs.

[rating=3]

What are some of your favorite iPhone IM clients? Does this one do it for you or is there something else out there that’s better?

(By) Jimmy Rogers is a biology major at George Mason University and an avid freelance tech blogger. Check out his blog, Mason Tech Beat.

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Ultimately, the cloud will be able to replace a majority of everyday programs on local desktop computers. This brings freedom and convenience in that we don’t have to buy expensive software, we can access our data wherever we go, and we don’t have to worry about updates or security, since it’s all taken care of by the providers. The danger of course is loss of control over your privacy and data, and potential consequences are data piracy or identity theft. What if the service fails and data cannot be accessed? Imagine the internet went down, all hell would break loose. These are just some of the scenarios to be considered.

While at this point it may not be advisable to transfer your whole life to a cloud, detaching from a desktop computer may actually have great advantages, such as retaining a great deal of independence. So after starting with a somewhat lengthy introduction, let me provide you with a short list of online software alternatives to popular desktop applications.

Microsoft Word becomes Zoho

Zoho is, without a doubt, one of the most complete online office suites available to date. Zoho comes with a word processor, spreadsheets, presentation tool, note taker, organizer, project management, web conferencing and much, much more.

Other than that it provides plugins for MS Office, MS Outlook, Firefox, and IE to ensure you’re not locked up with this service, but can take your files out of the cloud to create backups or avoid online storage.

Microsoft PowerPoint becomes Preezo

If you don’t want to rely on Zoho to replace your whole office suite, here is an alternative for PowerPoint worth mentioning. Preezo is an Ajax-based web application to create and share professional presentations over the web without the need for software or plugins installed on your computer. It totally looks and works like PowerPoint and you can import or export .ppt files. Perfect.

Microsoft Excel becomes EditGrid or ChartAll

Not quite Excel but close. EditGrid is one of the most comprehensive online spreadsheet providers. Another possible alternative, much simpler but therefore not requiring you to sign up, is chartAll.

MS Outlook becomes Google Mail

What more do I need to say? At this point we are stuck with Google because to my knowledge there is not a worthy alternative to GMail.

If you would like to learn more about GMail, and let me tell you there is a lot you probably don’t know about it yet, search Make Use Of for some great articles! Or go directly to our Gmail tag.

Microsoft OneNote becomes LinoIt or Springnote

LinoIt is an online pinboard to which you can stick your notes to. You can have multiple canvases for multiple purposes, make them public or share them with specific users. The stickies can serve as reminders or to-to lists, organizing and customizing stickies is easy, and you can post new ones by eMail.

If you’re looking for more advanced note taking, give Springnote a try, which I reviewed in detail several weeks ago.

Adobe Photoshop becomes Splashup or PhotoShop Express

Websites like Photoshop Express or Splashup may not be a complete or worthy replacement for Adobe’s Photoshop. However, they provide a very familiar interface and cover more than just the most basic photo editing tools. Definitely better than fiddling with some crappy desktop application (e.g. the Windows default), when Photoshop is not available.

Instant Messengers become Meebo

Meebo allows instant messaging through all popular messengers via your browser. It supports AIM, Yahoo!, MSN, Google Talk, and more.

Simon wrote about Meebo and two more web-based IM clients back in July this year.

Your Desktop Online

Back in March I wrote about online desktops (aka Web Os). As pointed out in the comments, this may not make sense for most people. However, to retain a familiar desktop environment with shortcuts and wallpapers, it may be quite nice to have. It’s those seemingly superfluous things that make life great.

Now that you know some alternatives to desktop applications, let me say this: It may be convenient to use Google for everything, but unless there is absolutely no better alternative, don’t. Keep a variety and make your private cloud rest on more than just one foot. Last but not least, keep backups!

How far into Cloud Computing are you, and which services would you rather not trust anonymous providers with?

(By) Tina is a regular MUO author. In her offline life she’s a PhD student interested in unraveling signaling events that determine cartilage and bone development.

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So what else can you do? You could use an online IM client, like imo, eBuddy or meebo. By using one of these three websites, you can chat with your buddies without installing a single thing.

You may also want to check out Karl’s AIM Express article which also lets you chat via the web using AIM.

imo.im

imo.im is still in alpha phase, so it’s still a little bit behind on eBuddy and meebo. There is potential though. It looks pretty basic, stripped down, with nearly no images used, but that’s brought into perspective with a pretty neat interface. imo.im turns your browser into a little desktop, giving you the ability to open multiple chat windows and to drag and position them across the screen.

Through imo.im, you can connect to your MSN, Yahoo, AIM/ICQ and/or Google Talk account(s). Please notice the ‘and’ and the ‘(s)’, because you can connect to multiple accounts at the same time.

Imo.im also features ‘surf left’ and ‘surf right’ buttons. When you click this, a small new window is opened, containing your chat client. imo.im automatically adjusts the size and position of both your main and chat window, so they seamlessly fit besides each other. This enables you to chat on the right (or left) side, while continuing to surf on the left (or right) side of your screen.

Pros:

• Windowed interface
• Surf left/right buttons
• Webcam functionality
• Multiple account functionality

Cons:

• Very basic interface (chat completely text-based; no smileys)

Available networks:

• MSN, Yahoo, AIM/ICQ, Google Talk

eBuddy.com

eBuddy is much more detailed than imo.im. First of all: the interface. Though it lacks a windowed interface like imo.im, it’s highly graphical. It substitutes the use of windows by using tabs. Though this is very practical as well, it takes away the ability to multitask, or multi-chat, as some might say. Besides this, eBuddy brings many advantages, giving you the ability to choose user-pictures, personal messages, and much, much more (you can even send buzzers, when using the MSN Messenger network).

Just like imo.im, eBuddy supports the use of multiple IM-accounts simultaneously. The only downside is that you’ll have to register for an ‘eBuddy ID’. The connected pro is that you won’t have to add all your accounts every time you go online, as with imo.im.

Pros:

• Graphic interface
• Customizability
• Multiple account functionality

Cons:

• Lack of webcam functionality

Available networks:

MSN, Yahoo, AIM, Google Talk, MySpace IM

meebo.com

meebo seems to combine the pros of both imo.im and eBuddy into one site. It uses a similar windowed interface as imo.im, but less stripped down. meebo owns a pretty sleek interface, which visually resembles Linux. It isn’t as graphical as eBuddy, but makes it up with some extra functions.

meebo gives you the ability to use the webcam, using a very easy to use interface. When you sign up for a meebo account, you also get multiple account functionality and other meebo customizations. This includes the ability to choose between different color schemes and the keeping of chat logs.

Pros:

• Graphic interface
• Chat logs
• Multiple account functionality
• Webcam functionality

Cons:

• Some graphical aspects are still missing

Available networks:

MSN, Yahoo, AIM/ICQ, Google Talk, Jabber

Which web-based IM network do you swear by and why?

(By) Simon is a student from Belgium who wastes his time relaxing, watching anime and surfing the net. He would tell you to check out his blog, only he doesn’t have one yet!

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