Windows Live Photo Gallery
Windows Windows Live Photo Gallery
gives Picasa (above) a run for its money,
with many of the same photo-enhancing
and sharing features—red-eye reduction,
exposure adjustment, cropping,
color, sharpen, and auto-adjust. What’s
more, Microsoft serves up histogram adjustment,
panorama creation, and photo-
CD burning.
Splashup www.splashup.com
Web | Flash Another beauty with a Flash
interface, Splashup sets itself apart with
multi-image editing and a full-screen
mode.
Web | Flash With one of the best Web
interfaces yet—all in Flash—rsizr.com
incorporates smart resizing to avoid
distortion.
Web Another online pic editor, pikifx
.com emphasizes special effects such as
added text and borders.
Picnik www.picnik.com
Web | Flash Instantly edit pictures in this
Web site. Upload images from your computer,
Flickr, Picasa, or elsewhere.
Picasa www.picasa.com
Windows | Linux Google’s photo manager
makes it easy to get pictures off a digital
camera, organize them, and even edit
and share them.
Paint.NET www.getpaint.net
Windows This program is probably the
closest thing to Photoshop you can get
free, courtesy of a student project.
IrfanView www.irfanview.com
Windows IrfanView previews images (or
even audio and video) and then converts
or optimizes them without opening a
separate editor.
SightSpeed
Windows | MacOS SightSpeed has better
video quality than ooVoo, but in a
less attractive interface. More than two
video chatters will cost you, as will fi le
transfer and group chat.
ooVoo
Windows | MacOS ooVoo video chat is
more P2P than Skype (no supernodes!),
with a better picture. It supports up to
six co-videoconferencers, fi le transfers,
and group text chat.
Mail Redirect
Windows | MacOS | Linux This add-on for
Thunderbird lets you bounce a message
to the proper recipient without revealing
that you got the message fi rst.
Gmail
Web | Mobile What to do with nearly limitless
e-mail storage space—that’s the
enviable quandary of Gmail users, who
can store up to 5.5GB worth of e-mail
and chats. And the amount is constantly
growing. Other perks include advanced
search options, real-time updates, and
“conversations,” in which e-mail chains
are stored in one continuous thread for
easy perusal.
GizmoProject
Windows | MacOS | Linux Gizmo competes
with Skype to offer free, peer-to-peer,
over-the-Internet phone and video calls,
but uses open standards.
Trillian
http://www.ceruleanstudios.com
Windows Access all your IM accounts
(AIM, ICQ, Windows Messenger, Yahoo!,
and more) from a single interface
that also logs all your conversations, if
you desire.
Pidgin
Windows | Linux Open source tackles instant
messaging in this client, which
supports more IM networks than you’ve
ever heard of.
Meebo.com
Web This polished Web app aggregates
your AOL, Gmail, ICQ, Jabber, Windows,
and Yahoo! buddy lists into a single,
Web-based instant-messaging and chatroom
experience. Meebo is building in
extras, such as games you can play with
IM buddies, as well as video and audio
chat you’d fi nd with your regular IM client
software.
Netvibes
Web This is a handsome combination of
online RSS reader and podcast aggregator,
with some widget apps thrown in.
RSS Readers
Google Reader
Web | Mobile Google Reader is arguably
the best RSS/newsfeed reader on the
Internet. Read feeds while off-line or on
your mobile phone.
WordPress
Web It lacks the simplicity of Blogger
or Vox, but the commercial offshoot of
WordPress.org offers some of the best
tools of any hosted blogging service.
Windows Live Writer
Windows Live Writer is not a word processor,
but a universal, WYSIWYG blogposting
tool more powerful than most
blog services’ own tools.
w.bloggar
Windows This post and template editor
can handle multiple blogs, across multiple
blogging systems.
Blogger http://www.blogger.com
Web | Mobile Blogger was one of the
fi rst blog-publishing tools. Years after
Google bought it, it remains one of the
best, especially for newbies. Create a
brain-dead simple weblog and let Blogger
host it (with a blogspot.com name)
using the slew of provided templates,
or use it to publish a blog on your own
domain.
PrinterAnywhere
http://www.printeranywhere.com
Windows Share your printer with others
over the Web; in turn, send jobs to other
shared printers, no matter their location.
NetStumbler http://www.netstumbler.com
Windows Use it to detect any Wi-Fi network
in your vicinity and see if it’s open
for use, or just use it to troubleshoot
your own.
LogMeIn Hamachi http://secure.logmein.com
Windows | MacOS | Linux Instantly create
a free, peer-to-peer VPN connection
between your computer and other
people’s. Download the software, create
a network with a unique name, give it to
friends you want to join, and start sharing
fi les with them—even your iTunes
folder.
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