Meebo
Web-based instant messenger
Developer: Meebo
OS: Web-based
Price: Free
Site:
http://www.meebo.com/
If you're often using computers that aren't your own, chances are you don't spend a lot of time on instant messaging services like Windows Live or ICQ. Most instant messenger clients are desktop-based, whether they be the official clients or third-party applications like Pidgin or Digsby. The rub, of course, is that you can't really take most desktop-based clients with you to new computers. You could install your favourite IM client on every new computer you encountered, or hijack their messenger temporarily with your login, but that can be a pain at best, and impossible at worst — think corporate or school environments that don't allow you to install new software.
Luckily, you don't have to. Meebo offers web access to several of the most popular IM networks, meaning staying in touch with your friends requires nothing more than a web browser. Meebo's approximation of a desktop IM client is eerily close; even the default sounds should make you feel right at home. Standard options like group chats and file transfers are all available as well. You can even pop chat windows and the friends list out into their own separate windows.
In nearly all the ways that matter, Meebo may as well be a full-fledged desktop IM client — one that just so happens to be available on any computer with an internet connection. Meebo is good enough that you might even decide to drop desktop clients altogether.
Secrets (tested v1.0.5)
OS X settings tweaking utility
Developer: Blacktree / Nicholas Jitkoff
OS: Mac (10.5 and up)
Price: Free
Site:
http://secrets.blacktree.com/
Tweak utilities are a dime a dozen for most operating systems. Even the most diehard of ideology-driven Windows or Mac fanatics have to admit that their chosen operating system isn't exactly perfect. Minor interface details or quirks in basic applications like file browsers are usually difficult to change without a utility to reveal the inner workings. Secrets is no different; it's a System Preferences panel that offers access to many of OS X's hidden preferences and settings.
You can tweak all sorts of options in Secrets — everything from changing the look of the Leopard dock to enabling debugging menus for various Apple applications. But Secrets has two neat tricks up its sleeve. First, Secrets grows more intelligent with each passing day, thanks to the online, user-editable database of preferences the utility draws upon. As people discover new settings to tweak and add them to the database, your local copy of Secrets will pick up the new options and display them to you.
Also, unlike most other tweak applications, Secrets also handles hidden preferences for both Apple and third-party applications. Everything from iTunes to Adium to BBEdit has editable preferences in Secrets. As existing applications get updated or new ones are released, they too can be added to the Secrets database. One problem with Secrets is that the descriptions of what the preferences control can be somewhat cryptic; less experienced users may wish for more detailed explanations, and may have to do a bit of Googling. But more experienced users may find Secrets an invaluable one-stop tweak shop.
AutoPager (tested v0.3.0.3)
Website page joiner
Developer: Wind Li
OS: Windows/Mac/Linux (via Firefox)
Price: Free
Site:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/49
and
http://www.teesoft.info/content/blogcategory/14/49/
One of the neat things about using Google Reader is that when it displays RSS feeds, it displays them as one very long page. There's no bothering with previous or next links, or figuring out what page you're on; instead, Google Reader simply detects when you're coming close to the bottom of the content you're reading, and loads the next "page" of content into the page automatically. Though in practice, scrolling down a very long list of feed items can be sluggish, it's a neat way of doing away with pagination entirely.
AutoPager is a Firefox extension that brings this interface feature to regular Google results, as well as the New York Times website, Digg, and several other major sites. When AutoPager detects that you've scrolled down close to the bottom of the current page, it fetches the next page and appends it to the current page you're on. This is especially handy for Google search results, when often you're just looking for a single site in a sea of results, and pagination just gets in the way.
For unsupported sites, AutoPager lets you define a new paging behaviour by asking for the elements on a web page that represent the page content and the "next page" link. This feature is great for those who know their way around HTML, but it's certainly not for the technically faint of heart or the easily frustrated. But even if you just use it for Google searches, AutoPager can save you quite a bit of clicking, and if you're the tinkering sort, you may never have to click a "next page" link ever again.
