Seriously guys, we love you. Okay, fine, maybe not in the way your mom loves you, or your dog loves you, or your significant other loves you. But we definitely love you in that totally uncomfortable, care-free, "Hey, let us buy you a Red Bull and Pop Rocks next time we're at the convenience store" sort of way.

We don't just love you for your looks, or your superior intelligence, or because you can totally creep out little kids with that thing you do with your left eye. We will even go so far as to say the fact that you use Linux doesn't play into it one bit.

We love you because your suggestions rock. We scour the web ourselves daily, but you know, it's a big place, and we just can't know every single bit of software or tech goodness out there. We think it's way cool when we get suggestions from readers about applications for Linux (or Windows, or Mac, or Palm...) because you aren't only cluing us in on applications we may not be familiar with, but a lot of you are avid users, and can vouch that the application you are suggesting really works for every day use.

This week, we think it's only appropriate to wrap up the editors section of our Linux web tools discussion with a couple of reader suggested gems. So a big thanks to Tim for suggesting we look at Komodo Edit and kingkool68 for pointing us towards Aptana.

Tag clouds are a great way to visualize content. Sites like Flickr, del.icio.us as well as a little blog called Download Squad use clouds. The larger the word, the more popular it is compared to the rest.

Now what if you wanted a cloud of your very own? One way to go about this is to enlist the help of Wordle. Put in a bunch of words or enter your del.icio.us user name and based on the information you've provided Wordle will generate a cloud for you.

The clouds generated by Wordle are for display purposes only. You won't be able to click on a word and have it go to a particular site. It's just mainly for fun. And you got to admit, a bunch of words all mashed together looks rather interesting.

Microsoft isn't the only company releasing a point upgrade to its mobile software this week. Opera has released Opera Mini 4.1 beta, which is a minor update to its Opera Mini web browser for cellphones with Java virtual machines. For a minor update, Opera did manage to pack a few useful features into Opera Mini 4.1:

• Opera claims the new version is 50% faster than Opera Mini 4.0
• There's a new URL autocomplete feature based on your browsing history
• You can now search for text in a web page
• Web pages can be saved for offline viewing
• You can upload and download files from within the browser
• Google search has been integrated with the URL bar, allowing you to conduct a web search from any page.

Opera Mini 4.1 is available as a free download. If you've got an older version of Opera Mini on your device, note that Opera Mini 4.1 will install alongside it, not over it. So you will have to uninstall the older version manually.

[via jkOnTheRun]

Mozilla has released the 4th public beta version of Firefox 3. If it feels like the next generation of the Firefox web browser has been in beta for pretty much ever, that's because it has been. The first public alpha was released in 2006. But with each new test build, Firefox 3 gets a little more stable, and gets a few new features. Here are a few of the updates packed into Firefox 3 beta 4:

• Full page zoom - Up until now, Firefox would let you make text larger or smaller, but there was no way to increase or decrease the size of all the content on a web site (something you've been able to do with Opera for years). Now you can choose whether the zoom feature works for text or full pages.
• New download manager - The new download manager shows active time remaining, and the status of downloads. You can also search your downloads and see the site where your downloaded files are from.
• Improved OS integration - Firefox 3 beta 4 includes specific icons and themes for Windows Vista, OS X, and Linux (using the native GTK theme).
• Improved memory usage -
  

Firefox 3 beta 4 also includes a ton of other tweaks and bug fixes. The browser is also designed to use less memory, and there are major improvements to the JavaScript engine that should allow web based applications like Gmail and Zoho Office to run twice as fast in Firefox 3 as Firefox 2.

Have you ever needed to access an FTP site while using a friend or colleague's computer? In some cases you can just type the URL into Firefox or Internet Explorer, but life's always a lot easier when you're using a full featured FTP client, so your first impulse is probably to download and install a free client like Filezilla.

AnyClient presents another option. It's a browser-based FTP client that can be run from any computer with Java installed. Unlike FireFTP, which is a browser add-on that you need to install before running, you can fire up AnyClient just by visiting a web site.

You can choose to save profiles of sites you visit to your desktop if you want. But the beauty of AnyClient is that you can access it from anywhere. AnyClient supports FTP, FTPS, SFTP and WebDAV protocols. There's also a free cross-platform desktop version available for download.

[via Freeware Genius]

GmailAssistant 1.0 is a Java-coded, desktop-based, taskbar-seated notifier for multiple Gmail accounts.

We are always looking for ways to check Gmail without having to open a web browser. For one, it saves time. For two, it allows users who aren't comfortable with web-based email to feel more at home. For three, most desktop based Gmail checkers allow you to keep tabs on multiple Gmail accounts at one time. In these regards and more, GmailAssistant 1.0 is a new, and a nice, addition to the family.

The program uses a secure connection (IMAP over SSL) to connect to your Gmail accounts. GmailAssistant was written in Java, which gives it two advantages: it will run on pretty much any OS, and it doesn't require installation. Instead, a simple double-click on the JAR file will get the program up and running.

Customization of the GmailAssistant abounds. You can choose which alerts to use to notify you of new mail (popup, alert chime, etc...), which labels and inboxes to keep an eye on, colors to distinguish your different mail accounts, and more.

GmailAssistant is free, open source, and requires the Java Runtime Enivronment (JRE 6+).

[via Softpedia]

Yakkle is a collaboration tool that lets you communicate with friends or colleagues over the web. While there are plenty of free tools that let you chat, make VoIP calls, or send files over the internet, few of those tools pack a screen sharing application. And while there are plenty of commercial collaboration tools like WebEx or GoToMeeting, Yakkle has them all beat in one area: it's free.

For most day to day tasks, Yakkle doesn't offer much that you can't get from Skype, AIM, MSN Messenger, or Google Talk. But the screen sharing application can come in handy if you want to show someone files or running programs on your desktop. For example, if you want to talk someone through a PowerPoint presentation, you can just power up Yakkle, share your desktop and chat at the same time.

While Yakkle works fairly well for sending files, instant messages, or voice chat, it's can be a bit sluggish when it comes to screen sharing if you have a slow computer. We took it for a test spin by setting up a connection between a Toshiba PC with a 1.7MHz dual core processor and an Eee PC with a 900MHz celeron processor. When we used the Eee PC to remotely access the Toshiba, all was well. but when we used the Toshiba to access the underpowered Eee PC, our tiny little laptop pretty much screeched to a halt.

You can register for a Yakkle account for free, but you don't necessarily need one to use the application. You can also login using a Jabber or Gmail user name and ID.

Yakkle is Windows XP and Vista only for now, and requires Java to run.

[Thanks Eric!]

When I was in high school my physics teacher once told us, "All physics experiments work. They just may not work the way you want them to."

This encapsulates neatly what software development is all about. On one hand, it is science. It is deterministic. Each programming language statement performs exactly as stated (baring bugs in the compiler, or the SDK, or the OS). On the other hand, software development is closer to engineering where years of experience allows a software developer to spot patterns in the model and apply them to build a system.

Unfortunately, just as in physics, computer science courses do not prepare students for what comes after graduation. Skills that are considered crucial in almost all commercial software projects are either not taught in college or are only touched upon. This disparity between the skills graduates possess and what the industry is looking for means it generally takes one to two years of working in real life project for a graduate to become fully trained.

Halogenware has just released an update to their Retriever Download Manager, freeware designed to give you greater control over your downloads. Before you write it off as just another download manager, take a closer look; you'll find Retriever has a few tricks up its sleeve.

Retriever allows you to easily pause, resume, or schedule your downloads from the web. It can capture downloads directly from Internet Explorer or Opera through optional add-ons; or, if you're a Firefox user, you can configure the popular download tool FlashGot to use Retriever (you'll find a simple set of instructions on how to configure FlashGot here).

Retriever also includes support for BitTorrent transfers, and support for HTTP, FTP and SOCKS proxies with authentication.

Where Retriever really sets itself apart, however, is its support of Metalinks. Metalink is an Open Standard that bundles the various ways (FTP/HTTP/P2P) to get files into one format for easier downloads. Metalinks help your downloads in a number of ways:

• If a server goes down during a download, download programs can automatically switch to another mirror.
• Segments of a file can be downloaded from different places at the same time, automatically, which can make downloads much faster.
• It makes the download process simpler, as the user does not need to select or decide which Operating System, language, or download location they require.

Retriever was written completely in the Java programming language and will run on any operating system with a Java Runtime Environment installed (JRE 1.5 or higher).

Limewire is one of the most popular Peer to Peer file sharing applications around, and it's easy to see why. With its simple but powerful interface, it's the next best thing to old school Napster. One thing that cheapskates and teenagers don't like about it, however, is its tendency to nag the user to upgrade to Limewire Pro for a fee.

Enter Frostwire. virtually indiscernible from Limewire, this program works just fine. It allows the user to download just about any kind of file from a massive community of Limewire and Gnutella users. Hypothetically it's possible to get copyrighted music as well, but you'd never even think about such a thing, we're sure.

Frostwire is available for Windows, OS X, and Linux. Ubuntu and Debian users can grab it from Synaptic, and everyone else can check out the download site.

Google's previously developed in house Web Toolkit, has been taken out of beta mode and released into the wild for JAVA developers to pounce on and enjoy.

The new release is GWT 1.4, and if you aren't that familiar with what it is capable of, you can take a look at the GWT sample Mail application or KitchenSink application. The toolkit is an open source project that was developed by Google as a way to share the tools that they have created to build applications in house. It's aimed at Java developers to easily utilize the powers of AJAX in a cross platform and web friendly environment. No more countless hours of coding and debugging in the Java programming language, GWT speeds things up by helping to compile the code with you and guiding you along the way. At the end of it all, developers should walk away with clean, understandable code that any professional software engineering should be proud of.

If any DLS readers have created something using the Google Web Toolkit, please post a link in the comments, we would love to check it out.

Stanford University Network Workstation, more commonly known as Sun Microsystems, has decided to change its ticker symbol to something a little more meaningful and symbolic.

The SUNW symbol will be changed to the new trading symbol of JAVA as of next week. This marks a new step in the company's growth strategy, focusing on the power and brand strength of Java as a technology for the web.

Sun is not changing the company name, they will still remain a systems company, however they are simply not just a workstation company and they feel that Java does a better job of capturing what they do on the trading room floor.

Need to create your own connection test server for a project? MySpeed, a commercial Java product with a trial available, could be the solution you're looking for.

MySpeed, once installed, measures connection speeds and quality by timing actual data transfers between your server and end-users. Producing graphs that can show the consistency of connection, and even (in some versions) packet jitter and loss, the application logs to a database, giving you records of your connection quality between you and end users over time.

Opera has released a public beta of Opera Mini 4. Like previous versions of the Opera Mini web browser, it will run on any Java enabled phone, and it's probably a lot faster than the browser you're using right now. But there's one killer new feature: zoom.

Here's a little screencast we made demonstrating the zoom feature using a web-based Opera Mini 4 emulator.

Click To Play

Much like the Opera for the Nintendo Wii, Opera Mini 4 lets you see an entire web page at a glance, pretty much as it would look on a desktop. Since your standard definition TV and your mobile phone don't really support the same resolutions as your desktop, the text isn't really readable. So you can easily scroll over any part of the page and click to zoom in.

The thing is, the new desktop view works great if you're visiting sites you're already familiar with. But if you need to find the local news section of the New York Times, you had better know that you'll need to click on the left side of the page before you get there. Luckily, you can hit the 1 button to bring up a context menu that will let you choose to bypass the desktop view and use the "fit to width" view you've come to know and love.

If you're currently using DivShare to store, host and share files you should be pretty excited about this new feature. And if you don't use this DivShare's free service, it could make you want to start.

DivShare launched a Power Uploader application that adds simplicity to the whole uploading process. This new tool provides users with a drag and drop interface with folder tree and file previews for quick and effective uploading of up to 10 files at once.

The uploading tool is a Java Applet and ActiveX Control that provides a pipeline between your hard drive and your DivShare account. Setting for the uploader can be accessed in your main Account page.