Here I go with another one of my favorite web applications. This one is a cross-over web/desktop application. Read on to find out why:

Anyone with multiple computers like a desktop, personal laptop and a work laptop would know the pains to find the right file you need for a task at hand from one of those computers.

It just adds to the complexity if you are sharing some of those documents with someone else. You probably find yourself continuously uploading, downloading files, syncing you folders with an online storage solution.

I have had the privilege of using DropBox (still in private beta) for the last few weeks and I am definitely amazed by the thoughtfulness of the developers. It is designed to be completely painless to use while consuming reasonable amount of resources - cpu & bandwidth.

DropBox

You just need to install the DropBox software (7 MB file) in your computer and it integrates with the file explorer and runs in the background. From your online account, you link your web account with the desktop software. From then on, anything you drop in the ‘My DropBox’ folder gets sync’ed with your online account.

• Access files in your home computer from anywhere via Internet in a web browser
• Synchronizes multiple computers if you linked them all with the same account instantly.
• Dropbox saves your previous revisions as backups online and you can revert to an older version very easily
• Delete a file by mistake? Restore a copy from online.
• No software interface to learn. Seamlessly integrates with your Windows/Mac native environment
• Share files with friends and family by sharing a folder with them.
• Sync is almost instantaneous. File changes are detected as incremental changes instead of uploading/downloading whole changed files.
• Blue icon on a file/folder indicates that the sync on that particular item is pending and green means it’s in sync.
• 5GB of free online storage while in private beta
• Even when you are away from your computer, just upload files (25MB max) to your online account and when you go home, it’ll be in your home computer. Ready for you.
• If all this isn’t enough, if you’d like to download a large folder from your online account, there is an option to download the contents of the folder as a zip file saving you precious time.
• You can share a url to your photos folder with friends and family. No more choosing photos to upload to special service.
• Works right now on Windows & Mac but a Linux version is promised in the future.
• Works seamlessly through proxies as well.

The real beauty of this solution is in the simplicity and how transparent it is to you once you start using. Since it’s in beta, it is free for 5GB but the developers have plans to add paid plans in the future. For such a cool service, I really wouldn’t mind paying as I have already been contemplating a reliable online storage system like Amazon S3.

I would love to see more features like profiles for different computers. It would be nice not to sync my personal files like Music, Photos, etc. to my work laptop. With the service in closed beta, I am sure there will be more features coming up before the public release.

Here are some screenshots for you to enjoy:

Green = In sync; Blue = Sync-ing

Online interface to your files/folders

Revisions of a file I was working on

I have a few invites for Dropbox. If you’d like to try it, leave me a comment and I’ll send it to your email.

What do you think of this service? How much is the comfort this service offers worth to you?

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!

I have been a little busy this week and sorry for the slow posting this week. As my regular readers know, I try to put quality before quantity and rather post 3 good posts a week than just regurgitating news that’s circulating everywhere. I hope that don’t put you off.

Alright, I won’t keep you waiting anymore and let’s look at the new and shiny Firefox add-ons I have found this week:

• Resizable TextArea - You can resize any textarea in a form while filing a complaint or while leaving a long-winded troll message in a blog. (please don’t use it here )
• Zemanta - A content suggestion engine in the form of a Firefox add-on. While you are compiling a blog post, it analyzes your post and suggests relevant article links, pictures, etc from the Internet so you can make your post even more valuable. I love the idea of this and giving it a shot this week. It supports WordPress, Blogger & Typepad. [via Weblog Tools Collection]
• OpenInWindow - If you are in the habit of separating your work by doing different kind of work in different Firefox Windows, you are probably copy and pasting links between each other. With this Firefox extension, you get a right-click context menu and you can choose to open your link in any of your open windows. [via Firefox Facts]
• Craigslist Image Preview - For the last few weeks I have been using this cool Craigslist alternative interface for surfing the list. If you still use the original one, this Firefox extension adds thumbnail images with the listing without actually clicking through to the listing. [via Download Squad]
• FavLoc - I use a folder named ‘Downloads’ to download everything and then organize things by moving portable apps to different folder and set up files to a folder to a ‘exe files’ folder, etc. With this cool extension, I can create different favorite locations and save directly to those! Wow, what a time saver. [via Firefox Facts again, thanks Mitch]
• Customize Google - If you are one of those types who loves all kinds of optiosn to tweak, tweak, tweak until you get it just right to your satisfaction, you’ll love this extension. You get tons of options to adjust Google Search results with this extension. It is not new but has seen a lot of improvements and maybe it’s time to revisit. I know I am. [via gHacks]

New Firefox Add-ons Site Open

I had mentioned earlier that the new Firefox Add-ons site will be out with Firefox 3 release. But, it’s already live for our use and if you had clicked on any of the add-ons link above, you’d have noticed that already. If not, here is the new add-ons site.

How do you like the changed interface?

I come across friends & family who are forking out big bucks for everyday software like anti-virus, Office, spyware, photo editing, etc. They do so, not because they like to spend the money but because they have no idea that there are excellent, free, open source alternatives available. Today. Right now.

I have nothing against paying for excellent software or services that provide value. But, if there is a quality free alternative for your everyday needs why not save that money you would have spent for a better product/equipment that you wouldn’t have been able to afford before?

In fact, one of the most popular (all time number 3 .. if you looked at the footer) posts here has been about Free Software for your Computer. I should update that post soon with my new finds.

I recently wrote in a guest post at Techie-Buzz about a very cool project called WinLibre. WinLibre was a project where they put together some of the best in breed open source software available for free into one downloadable package.

A reader (thanks MechMike) quickly pointed out that WinLibre hasn’t been updated in a while and told me about the OpenDisk project. Here is an excerpt from their About page which summarizes this cool project!

OpenDisc is a high quality collection of open source software (OSS) for the Microsoft Windows operating system.

The two main goals of the project are:

• To provide a free alternative to costly software, with equal or often better quality equivalents to proprietary, shareware or freeware software for Microsoft Windows.
• To educate users of Linux as an operating system for home, business and educational use.

OpenDisc project gathers some of the best free & open source software out there into one easily downloadable CD image. They also list the programs in the cd image with description and link to the individual software home page if you’d like to get them A la carte.

Here are the list of programs that are included in the OpenDesc project categorized by its function:

Design

• Blender - a 3D graphics modeling program
• Dia - a Visio like drawing program
• The Gimp - Adobe Photoshop alternative
• InkScape - Adobe Illustrator alternative
• Nvu - WYSIWIG Web page editor
• Srcibus - A professional desktop publishing program
• Tux Paint - Free drawing program for young children

Games

• The Battle of Wesnoth - Turn-based strategy game
• Enigma - A puzzle game
• Neverball - A fun game where you tilt the floor to get the ball in a puzzle
• Sokoban YASC - Yet Another Sokoban Clone

Internet

• Azureus - A cool bit-torrent client
• Filezilla - FTP client
• Firefox - An excellent Internet Explorer alternative
• Httrack - Offline web browser utility
• Pidgin - Multi-protocol IM client
• RSSOWL - A Feed reader client
• Seamonkey - Web browser, IRC client, newsgroup client and HTML editor in one
• Thunderbird - A modern email client
• TightVNC - A remote control software
• WinSCP - Full featured SFTP client

Multimedia

• Audacity - Sound editing program
• Celestia - Simulation of entire universe
• Really Slick Screensavers - Collection of some cool screensavers
• Stellarium - Planetarium in your computer
• Sumatra PDF - Lightweight alternative for Adobe Reader
• VLC Player - Media player supporting numerous audio & video formats

Productivity

• GnuCash - QuickBooks alternative
• MoinMoin Wiki Engine - A wiki building software
• NotePad2 - Windows Notepad alternative - with syntax highlighting and other features
• OpenOffice - Full featured alternative for Microsoft Office
• PDFCreator - Generate PDF documents from any Windows program with the Print button

Utilities

• 7-zip - Packing & unpacking archives tool with support for a lot of formats
• Abakt - A backup tool
• ClamWin - Powerful anti-virus program (misses an on-access scanner - so it can’t replace a full time scanner yet)
• GTK+ - Toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces
• HealthMonitor - System monitoring tool
• TrueCrypt - Powerful encryption software to protect your private data
• WorkRave - Protect yourself from Repetitive Strain Injury

Whew.. isn’t that an excellent collection of free software? There are a few in here like InkScape & WorkRave I haven’t tried yet.

Download OpenDisc iso image | bit-torrent

OpenDisc uses a K-Meleon interface in the cd image so far and is experimenting with a Kiwix interface that’s supposed to be leaner and better for the next release.

Also, OpenDisc has a pretty active forum if you have questions about any of these or if you’d like to see something included to this list. I have downloaded OpenDisc and I am going to make copies and give it to friends who have an open mind about trying new things. I am sure some of them are going to chase me away but hey it’s worth a try, isn’t it?

If you feel like I am preaching to the choir, I would love to hear about a (more the merrier) open source software that’s not on this list but that you feel should be.

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.

Today marks the Vernal Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere and Autumnal Equinox in the Southern Hemisphere. In layman’s terms, the Sun will cross exactly over the Earth’s equator today. This will mean that the night and day will be about the same length all over the world!

Now on to the main intent of this post. We have been seeing a lot of action lately with Firefox. Firefox 3 Beta 5 seems to be slated for release on Mar 27. While we await the release of Firefox 3, lets look at a few awesome extensions.

• FirefoxView - If you use IE and Firefox together for reasons like some websites just don’t work on Firefox but would still like to open your links in Internet Explorer in Firefox, this extension adds context menu option in IE. Earlier, I showed you how you can open a link in IE in whatever browser you have set as default. This one works well if Firefox is your default browser. (Thanks HitMeWithIt)
• Vertigo - If you have a widescreen monitor, you will love the extra few vertical pixels you can gain by having the tabs vertically in the side. It doesn’t seem to work well with the combination of Tree Style Tabs featured in last week’s picks but it could be some other add-on messing with it too.
• Prism for Firefox 3 - When we start using Firefox 3 (if you haven’t already), we can split web applications right from within Firefox 3 with a simple click with this handy extension. You can read my Mozilla Prism review and how I use it as a GTalk alternative for Linux/Mac.
• Wesabe Uploader - If you use the excellent personal finance tool, Wesabe, you’ll appreciate this Firefox uploader that works in Windows, mac & Linux. You can add accounts and use this extension to automatically update your account trabsactions in Wesabe. It provides a cool desktop sidebar dasboard to view your recent account balances, transactions, charts, etc in a quick glance. After a recent over-draft charge, I have gone back to using Wesabe & Mint side by side to keep a tight handle on my finances.
• Microsoft Activities for Firefox - Microsoft Activities is one of the much touted features in the upcoming Internet Explorer 8 release. It is similar to Operator extenion in Firefox with a bunch of differences. Read this post to get some more information on it. [Download version 0.3 here]
• WebSlices in Firefox - Another IE 8 feature that lets you see a custom tiny version of a website you are interested in and stay updated. This is now available in Firefox via this Firefox extension.

What is the world coming to? We are seeing Firefox extensions for features coming in Internet Explorer! I am not looking to start a flame war. But, if Firefox made Microsoft get up and start making its browser better after years of lethargy, I am all for it.

We are the winners, in this case.

It’s no secret GTalk client is for Windows only. Linux and Mac users have so far sought out other IM alternatives thanks to GTalk using Jabber protocol for their IM client. I use openSuSE 10.3 as my primary desktop and have had trouble getting some of the excellent IM clients like Pidgin to work behind a proxy.

Thanks to GChat in Gmail, I have been able to use IM even if it has to be within Gmail. I even used a Greasemonkey script for Gmail 2.0 to alert me with the tab flashing when there is a new IM. However, I did find this a little annoying to keep going back to Gmail to check on IM messages. Because, everytime I go into Gmail to see IM messages, I would also end up checking my Inbox and before I know 20-30 minutes would have vanished. This kind of goes against my goal of trying to increase productivity with all these web apps and hacks.

So, I started to run Google Talk gadget in my browser sidebar with a browser bookmarklet. This freed me up from using GChat in Gmail to GTalk in my browser sidebar.

You’d think I’d be content at this point. Not.

Run Google Talk (GTalk) gadget with Mozilla Prism

Mozilla Prism released their 0.9 version last week and I am smitten by the usefulness of it. If you haven’t heard of it, check out my Mozilla Prism review. In that post, I also show how you can run it from behind a proxy at work or school. Since it’s a beta version and a work in progress, they don’t have a straightforward setting for proxy in it’s options yet.

If you don’t want to click over, Prism is a prototype from Mozilla Labs which lets you split your web applications from the web and run it in your desktop as a standalone application. They even allow separate profiles for each Prism app which means you can have multiple Gmail accounts open in different Prism web apps in your desktop.

I have taken this idea and created a Prism web app for the Google Talk gadget and now I have a GTalk client like app running standalone in my desktop!

Here’s how you do it:

1. Install Mozilla Prism - Windows, Mac & Linux installers (v0.9 at the time of writing)
2. Create a new web app with url https://talkgadget.google.com/talkgadget/client
3. Give it a name and choose to save it on desktop
4. You are done!

If you are a Mac or a Linux user, you can now run GTalk standalone in your computer with Mozilla Prism. If you are already using Firefox 3, with this Prism Firefox extension you can just open this url (or any other web app) in Firefox 3 and then directly create a desktop application for GTalk right from your browser.

I see that Prism has an option to install extensions. It doesn’t look like it’ll accept Firefox extensions as it complains that they are not compatible. I even tried turning off compatibility checking but didn’t have much success. I would love to hear if someone has succeeded installing extensions with Prism as that would open up a whole new world of options to these Prism web apps. I am sure it will be obvious in the coming releases. But, I want to make it work today!

GTalk makes it the fourth web app I run in my Linux desktop with Prism after Gmail, Google Reader and Remember the Milk.

What other web application do you see yourself running on your desktop with Mozilla Prism?

Mozilla Prism is an open source initiative from Mozilla Labs which attempts to bring web applications from the browser to run directly from your desktop. In Mozilla’s words,

Prism is an open source cross-platform prototype of functionality that lets users split web applications out of the browser and run them directly on the desktop.

Web applications like Gmail, Google Reader, etc. are more and more mimicking the functionality we have gotten used to in desktop applications such as right click contxt menu, drag and drop interface, etc. But, you still need to fire up a browser, go to the website and login to use the web application. It does give you the flexibility to access from anywhere with a browser but takes a bit of time if you are using a desktop day in and day out to go through all these steps to get to your favorite web applications.

Mozilla Prism attempts to bridge that gap and splits the web application from the browser and lets you run a web application like Gmail straight from your desktop. It helps web applications act like desktop applications with the benefit of being on the web without the web application developer having to do anything to offer that to an user, you.

Prism is cross-platform and is availble for Windows, Linux and Mac. You will have the option of having a location bar, status bar or the location bar in the web application window. I just include the status bar alone to see the links when I am hovering and hide the other 2 to maximize my screen real estate.

New Features in Prism 0.9

Prism 0.9 was just released last week with some major updates and new features. A few of those are:

• Simpler installation and desktop integration capabilities
• Browser integration with Firefox 3 through an extension Prism for Firefox 3. This extension lets you split a web application you are on directly out of Firefox without installing and maintaining Prism as a separate application. You will get a ‘Convert Website to Application’ option in the Tools menu with this extension.
• Ability to pick an icon to represent the desktop application (or pick it from the web by default)
• Run each webapp in its own profile - in other words, you can have 2 desktop Gmail webapps for 2 accounts simultaneously (link to old post)

If you’d like to learn more about it, check out the Mozilla Prism Wiki. Here is a screenshot of creating a web application for my favorite online task manager.

Running Prism from behind a Proxy

At work, I was first unable to run it from behind our proxy and found a helpful tip in Ubuntu forums on how to do this. Here is what I did to get Prism working from behind the proxy. This involves editing a all.js file in the Prism installation.

1. Open the <install-directory>/prism/xulrunner/greprefs.js in your favorite editor
2. Find and edit this line from:
   pref(”network.proxy.type”, 5);
   to
   pref(”network.proxy.type”, 1);
3. Then add your proxy information in the following lines: (enter your own ip & port there)
   pref(”network.proxy.http”, “127.0.0.10″);
   pref(”network.proxy.http_port”, 80);
   pref(”network.proxy.ssl”, “127.0.0.10″);
   pref(”network.proxy.ssl_port”, 443);
4. That’s it!

I am already running my favorite web apps like Gmail, Google Reader, Remember the Milk via Prism from my desktop. One downside right now is that I am missing my Greasemonkey scripts for Gmail & Google Reader. But, with Prism being built on Mozilla’s platform, I wonder if there will support for Firefox extensions. If I find out how or if it’s even possible, I will write another post soon.

Also, I am yet to see how it affects cpu & memory usage by running multiple Prism applications. Although I am getting rather spoiled with our new addition of 2GB memory to our Windows XP desktop making it a 3GB RAM! Firefox can consume a gig of ram as fas as I am concerned and I can test even more extensions to share with you without affecting it’s performance.