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SubSonic (tested v3.6 Windows)
Personal music streaming server
Developer: Sindre Mehus
OS: Windows/Mac/Linux
Price: Free
Site: http://subsonic.sourceforge.net/index.php

Streaming music services have had a tough time of things over the past few years. Pandora, one of the darlings of internet radio, stopped broadcasting to Canadian listeners years ago citing copyright issues. More recently, Last.fm announced it would start charging international users, including Canadians, for its streaming radio stations (a move it has since postponed for the time being). But there is hope, especially if you've got a little DIY ethic in you.

People with large music collections of their own may soon discover that the best Internet radio station available is their own computer. SubSonic is a streaming music and media server that allows you to access your music collection from any internet connection via a web browser. And unlike most internet radio services, which allow little control over playlists and restrict the number of times a song or artist can be played within a certain time frame, SubSonic lets you play what you want, when you want.

The skinnable Web interface is packed with features, including a built-in Flash player and cover art displays. SubSonic is also very tweakable, allowing you to open the server to multiple users, set upload/download rates and add podcast and internet video feeds. The streamer does require a technically knowledgeable user, preferably one who sorts their music into file folders and knows how to open a port in a firewall. But those who can overcome both hurdles will find a feature-rich media server with a slick Web interface.

Friend Photos (tested v0.93)
Facebook photo screensaver
Developer: Doomlaser
OS: Mac (OS X 10.4 or greater)
Price: Free
Site: http://www.doomlaser.com/friendphotos/

Though Twitter has stolen its thunder as of late, Facebook is still the social network of choice for most Canadians. Chances are most of the people you know are on Facebook, and if you have an account you're probably already connected to all of them. One neat side effect of this critical mass of users is that Facebook has become a personal photo album of sorts, holding not only photos you've taken of your friends but also photos other people have taken of you and everyone you know.

Friend Photos is a screensaver that presents images in a slideshow format, but instead of pulling random images from a photo-sharing site like Flickr or using pictures stored on your computer, it displays photos of your Facebook friends. Friend Photos offers several options for filtering which friends you want to see and how often; aside from frequency settings, you can restrict the screensaver to a specific gender or relationship status as well as block out specific people in your friends list.

Because Friend Photos relies on user-provided tags to identify people in a photo, you'll occasionally find improperly tagged images. And though the transition effect is fairly slick, it does tend to bog down on very old systems (though anything remotely modern like a Macbook should work fine). Friend Photos offers an interesting new way to keep tabs on all your friends without having to lift a finger.

QuotePad (tested v2.0.2)
Notepad/reminder utility
Developer: QuotePad.info
OS: Windows
Price: Free
Site: http://quotepad.info/

If you're looking for a note-taking application, there are plenty of utilities that would like to make your acquaintance. Everything from humble text editors like Notepad to full-fledged notebook applications like Evernote can store the little crumbs of information you collect throughout the day, but have no other convenient place to file. Often it's not a question of which application is better, but which one best fits your needs. QuotePad has a few interesting features that may strike your fancy, especially if you find a lot of your notes are actually copied and pasted from other sources.

Instead of copying text from one place and pasting it into your repository of notes, QuotePad uses a single shortcut to grab whatever text you've selected and put it into a new note, which you can immediately edit to add context or clean up the quote. QuotePad can also keep track of where you've copied text from if you're quoting a website — it will automatically append the URL of the source page.

Another useful feature is the on-the-fly search, which narrows down the search results automatically as you type in your desired terms. QuotePad can also attach visual alarms to specific notes to remind you of events, though unfortunately there's no option to add a sound alarm as well. Though it's not an especially flashy application, QuotePad's feature set is well-chosen and it's nearly foolproof to boot.