Mozilla Prism, previously known as WebRunner, is a great application that splits the web applications from the browser and lets you run them from your desktop. Although in it’s infancy, Prism is already very useful for me and I use it for a variety of web applications that I need open throughout the day.

If you are new to Prism, you could read my brief Prism review. Here are a few links that can help you get started with Prism:

• What is Mozilla Prism? - a short review
  (with instructions to run from behind a proxy)
• Google Gadget for Mac/Linux with Prism

Prism probably won’t be all things to all people, but if your browsing style mimics remotely to my style you are probably already nodding your head. Prism lets me keep my usual web applications open or atleast be available on my desktop when I need to get to them. I don’t have to worry about signing back into every one of them when I have to restart my Firefox browser multiple times a day.

I have found in the past that when I share my ideas or the way I do things, most often, I usually receive better ones from you. In the same spirit, I am going to share the list of web applications I have started using on my Desktop. I am hoping to spur a discussion in the comments to find what other web applications would be best suited.

Top Prism Applications

• Google Reader - Although I miss the Greasemonkey scripts that add functionality, it is very convenient to open and close Google Reader like a desktop application.
• Remember the Milk - I use the Remember the Milk for Google Gadget url with Prism to get a desktop app that’s very functional and easy to access. Use this url to access Remember the Milk to get the Google gadget version. http://www.rememberthemilk.com/services/modules/googleig/ . You could even try the mobile version or the regular website interface of that’s your thing.
• Google Talk Gadget - I prefer the Google Talk gadget over the GChat option available within Gmail. If you have a preferred IM like Digsby, then you won’t need this. But, if you are stuck on a linux machine like me with the usual IM client’s proxy setting not working, then you’ll love this option.
• Evernote/Google Notebook - Evernote is one of my recent addition to Prism web apps. I like to have this running in a separate window so I can just copy and paste any notes into it. If you haven’t seen it yet, I have written a short Evernote review last week. If you are a Google Notebook user, you could use that in Prism too.
• Passpack: Passpack is an excellent online password manager and is a great candidate for me to run on Prism. I do miss the use of the PassPack bookmarklet when I run it in Prism but the convenience of having atleast the passwords anytime I need it is heavenly.
• Google Calendar: If you are a Google Calendar user, you can run the full version of it in Prism. Or, you could use the url from the Mini Google Calendar that you may be running in your sidebar.
• Mint: Mint is a personal finance application that can aggregate transactions from all your bank accounts and credit card accounts and show you in an easy to digest format. I find it another great tool to have it in my desktop check at various times of the day.
• Any Google app: Google has a suite of useful web applications available and you can create a Prism application for any of them and access them as if they were a desktop application.

As you can see depending on what web applications you use, you can create Prism application for it. The sky is the limit.

Prism, built on our favorite Firefox technology, doesn’t support installing extensions at the moment even though it is coming soon. I have found blog posts indicating that some folks have successfully installed some Firefox extensions in Prism but I haven’t been able to yet.

Why is Gmail missing in the list?

The moment you can add Firefox extensions like Greasemonkey to Prism, the range of web applications I can see myself using is increasing two-fold. That is exactly why you’ll find Gmail missing in this list. I have gotten too addicted with the Stylish script Gmail redesigned, that I have decided to keep it in my browser for now.

I am looking forward to suggestions and ideas for web applications best suited for Prism from you and very interested to hear what you run on Prism.

Hello newcomer, did I say welcome to ShanKri-la yet? Before you move on, just wanted to thank you for visiting and we hope you come back and see us again!

That’s right. Move over Meebo. Move over Yahoo Messenger, GTalk.

Digsby on the covers will look like one of the dozen multi-protocol Instant Messenger clients out there. But, this is by far the best integration I have seen among them. I am not just going to say that but actually tell you why. Garry Conn asked me on Twitter why I liked it so much and here you go, Garry!

Digsby integrates not just your IM accounts but also your email accounts and your social network accounts like Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.

Digsby Features

Instant messenger Features

• Support for multiple IM networks. Nothing new here. It supports Google, Yahoo, MSN, AIM, ICQ and Jabber.
• Tabbed conversations. You can chat with multiple buddies with just one window.
• If your buddy is on multiple IMs, you can merge their accounts into one in Digsby.
• Your buddy has a weird number in his/her name? Give him an alias.
• This is the best part. You can have Digsby minimized but new messages will popup and you can reply from within the popup and get back to what you were doing!
• Setup various alerts for individual buddies like a sound and/or a popup when a friend logs in or logs out.
• Video/Audio chat using TokBox

(picture credit: digsby.com) 

Email Features

• Supports Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, AOL/AIM Mail, IMAP and POP accounts
• On login, a InfoBox popup shows you new email messages and you can scroll within the popup to see all messages.
• A taskbar icon for the email account showing unread messages.
• Clicking on the icon, popups a box with latest message and you can Mark as read, delete, archive messages without ever opening up the browser. You could also go to the Inbox or the Compose screen right from here.
• You can send email directly from your Digsby Contact List from the IM window.

Social Network

• Get Facebook/MySpace news feed and updates on Digsby
• Best Twitter integration I have experienced so far - Timeline view, replies, direct messages. Plus, every contact looks just like the twitter web interface with the Favorite star, a reply icon, etc.
• Update your status easily and new Tweets popup (configurable) in a nice little window.
• Support for more networks coming soon.

Digsby has many more features to list here. And did I say it looks gorgeous with capital G in Vista?

Sometimes, applications gets overloaded with features and casual users will get lost. Not with Digsby. Every feature has been implemented very naturally and probably better than the app maker themselves in certain instances. Personalization options are another option you have to see it to appreciate it. Just the whole look and feel is very user friendly.

Download Digsby

With this software in beta, I haven’t had it crash even once in the last 2 days of full use. I installed it for my wife and she is in love with it too. I know I am writing this with rose-colored glasses but I haven’t found a single thing to complain about. But, again I have used it only for a couple of days and this is more like my first impressions and I have been known in the past to change my allegiance.

Nevertheless, this is a great piece of software that’s availabel for free. If you are a Mac/Linux user though, you’ll have to wait a little longer but they promise to have one for us nerds soon.

Thanks to all those who stopped by to wish me on my birthday. I have spent the last year learning, growing and having a lot of fun in the blogging world. Here are some great posts that I came across since my last roundup.

• Booking a hotel, the ProBargainHunter way - ProBargainHunter
  One of my favorite bargain sites shares ideas and tips when you are booking a hotel through sites such as Priceline, Hotwire, etc.
• 8 Characteristics of a Well Designed About Page - Tish of BloggingGal
  I have long neglected my about page and Tish has given me the motivation to sit down and re-work it. Check out her convincing reasons to see why you should do it too. Also, check out her monthly contest where she gives away a cool 125×125 ad space to one winner who subscribes to her RSS feed. She is giving away an ad space to read such quality content! No kidding.. just add the feed already!
• Check Pagerank of all Internal Pages on your Site - Fahad of Technodorm
  Fahad is sharing how you can see Google PR for links in your site live in a visual way. It even shows the nofollow links with a red cross. Check out this post on other options of doing this as well.
• Don’t Let Your CommentLuv Be Stolen Away! - Stephen of More Than Scratch the Surface
  I really enjoy reading Stephen’s well thought-out, incisive, to-the-point writing style. This time he is writing about the merits of CommentLuv WordPress plugin and how you could take advantage of it. Also, take note of the section where he mentiones how Feedburner url redirection could be hurting your Google juice in this context. Excellent post, Stephen!
• Passive Income, or How To Make Money Without Trying - RT of Untwisted Vortex
  I started blogging with monetizing my blog at the farthest corner of my mind but it has become a reality in a year. So, if you haven’t yet considered it atleast read this excellent post by RT and see if you are sitting on a gold mine. I am far from making a bunch but in the last couple of months I have made enough to more than cover the costs of hosting. My next goal is to see if it can cover maybe the cost of a nice dinner and a movie every month.
• Download BitTorrent Files Without A Client - My post at TechieBuzz
  BitTorrent is a great way to share and get files for legitimate reasons even though most often it is usually identified with illegal file sharing. Find out how you can download files ia BitTorrent from a browser without a bittorrent client. Also, check out Keith’s post on a call for help. Silki an author at TechieBuzz just like me, could use some for her brother who is ill.

Also, check Kontera’s Video contest where you could win some cool cash prizes ($500, $200 & $100). Thanks Matthew of Blog About Your Blog for the heads up.

Hope you enjoyed this week’s round up. Hope you found a couple of new blogs to add to your feed reader as well.

I delve a little bit into web development and WordPress theme customization as you can see right here. One tool I find indispensable is the Firebug Firefox extension. I can view/edit and play with live HTML/CSS code for any web page and see the possible results live for the tweak I am doing.

You can browse through the DOM tree of a webpage with Firebug. It also helps me to look up HTML & CSS code for various parts of a website using the ‘Inspect’ tool. This works great for troubleshooting or developing and viewing sites in a Firefox browser.

For those odd occasions when there is a problem in just Internet Explorer, I have always been at a loss of not having a tool like Firebug.

Until, I came across Developer Toolbar for IE developed by Microsoft recently. Even though this tool has been around for a while, it must be a well kept secret or I must have just gotten my head out of the sand.

I found it useful to troubleshoot some IE-only CSS bugs on some themes my wife and I were customizing. Let’s look at a few things this toolbar will you give after installation:

IE Developer Toolbar Quick Facts

• An easy access button to toggle the toolbar to view or hide
• Lets you view DOM for the current page in a tree view - similar to Firefox’s DOM Inspector
• Selecting an element in tree lets you view attribute and the current styles for the element
• You can disable images, javascripts and css
• Style Tracer - helps you find exactly where and which style sheet, a rule is effecting a particular element.
• Offers a View Source that lets you view source of the original page, currently rendered page or just the selected element. I like the way it shows the current styles associated with elements right in the view source.
• An Outline option outlines DIVs, images, tables, table cells, etc.
• A Validator tool cal validate HTML, CSS, Feed & Links in a webpage
• I like the Find & Cache options as well.

If you have used Firebug or Web Developer Toolbar for Firefox, a lot of these features will be very familiar to you.

Download IE Developer Toolbar

Even if you are not a web developer, if you occasionally tweak HTML & CSS for your website/blog, I highly recommend getting used to a tool such as this one. I use it as a learning tool to see how someone has coded something or used CSS to style an element that I find interesting when I am surfing the web.

Plus, I can make changes to fonts or any CSS code for my blog in Firebug without and have a preview without having to modify any code in the server.

What kind of tool do you use for your web development needs?

One gripe I have about the US cell phone companies is the exorbitant amount of money one gets charged if we ever go over the monthly minutes allowance.

I usually watch my minutes well and hardly ever go over my allocation. But, all it takes is once a year for a misstep and the overage bill could be as much as the monthly charge and if you were roaming or out of the country it could be a very fat figure.

WatchMyCell is a little freeware that is designed to run in your Windows computer and watch your cellphone balance minutes.

WatchMyCell Quick Facts

• Watches your balance minutes and sends an email or SMS alert if you are close to your limit
• Auto-starts and lets you configure the alerts
• Checks your minutes every 3 hours
• All information are sent by 1024 bit encrypted connection
• None of this information is stored ever in a website and all this information resides in your computer
• Works with AT&T/Cingular, Verizon, T-Mobile, Spint/Nextel.
• It is totally FREE!

I am not sure if you need a utility just for the sake of watching your cell phone minutes. But, in this busy life it is all too easy to lose track of your balance minutes and it might be worth your while to have this running atleast more towards the end of the month.

I am not sure how many of the cell phone carriers offer an alert when a subscriber is about to reach their minutes for the month. I am not surprised that most don’t because they make a big chunk of their money from the overage charges.

WatchMyCell

Download WatchMyCell

[via MakeUseOf]

A lot of programs we install in our computer end up making entries in our startup eventually slowing down the Windows startup. And some other programs sneak into the registry with malicious intent.

RunScanner is a freeware utility which scans your computer for all running programs, autostart locations, drivers, services and hijack points.

RunScanner Quick Facts

• Detects registry changes, misconfigurations caused by spyware, viruses or plain user error
• Operates in 3 modes - Beginner, Classic and Expert based on your level of comfort in troubleshooting
• Checks 100+ start/hijack locations
• Does an optional online malware analysis
• Powerful file filtering and MD5 checking with services like Castle Cops
• Analyzes loaded modules and file certificates
• Also has history backup/restore
• Offers import and import of .run files

I have used HijackThis! so far but this utility sounds very promising when it comes to battling startup and hijack problems.

One of the most appealing features I think is the ability to export a .run file and then importing to their support forum. Expert users there will analyze your .run file and delete the entries that shouldn’t be there and give you a new .run file. You can just import this and ‘Fix selected items’.

It is very useful for anyone who isn’t too comfortable deleting stuff off their computers. In fact, you can even get your aunt to use RunScanner and send you the .run file and you can fix her slow startup without even visiting her.

Sized at 1.758 KB, this tiny standalone (no installation required) application packs so many features and I can’t recommend it enough. You could even carry it in your USB drive all the time.

Download RunScanner

How often do you run such a utility? Weekly out of habit or just anytime you find your computer startup taking forever?

It’s no secret that everyone is developing a taste for free open source alternatives to traditional proprietary software. Mozilla Firefox as an alternative to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser is my favorite example when I explain ‘Open Source alternative’ to a friend or a family member.

Even if you haven’t actually stepped out of your way to find an open source alternative, you might be already using a couple of these. Some people consider open source versions to be inferior to proprietary software but in a lot of occasions that’s far from the truth.

I have shared many of my finds here and I have a bunch of these apps bookmarked in del.icio.us as well! A fellow open source lover has done something very useful with his collection of bookmarks. He created Open Source Living.

Welcome to Open Source Living, a collection of the Web’s best Open Source software, applications and references for a zero-cost / top quality digital experience.

Open Source Living has a great list of open source apps categorized based on their function so you can easily find an application you are looking for.

Each open source link comes with a short description and the site’s link. I browsed through various categories and found the listing to be quite extensive and features some of the best in the category. Here are some screenshots from Open Source Living for your viewing pleasure.

I like the simplistic interface and it makes it very easy to find an open source alternative you are looking for.

I am always looking for sites such as this one that makes finding the right app for the job at hand very easy. Where do you turn for your open source needs?