Used to be desktop applications were essential to getting the job done, whatever the job may have been, large or small. Now, with all the nimble web apps to choose from, the idea of firing up a huge application for a small task seems almost, well, unproductive and wasteful.

Yeah, sure, no one is suggesting you do away with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Illustrator, Photoshop, Quickbooks and other heavy hitters. However, there are excellent tools on the web where less, in many ways, is actually more. Here are 10 of my favorites.

1. ScribeFire - essential Firefox add-on for bloggers. Allows you to to easily drag and drop formatted text from the Web into your blog(s), post entries, take notes, and optimize ad inventory, directly through the Firefox browser.

2. Firefox - great web browser whose charm lies in all those irresistible add ons that make the whole interwebs experience that much sweeter. Once you pimp out your Firefox, it seriously is difficult to function on anything else. Yes, there are the crashes and other peccadillos, but they're easy enough to overlook especially if you are truly in love.

3. Skitch - this is the best, quick image editor and photo sharing web app that is dead simple to use. For quick screenshots and sharing photos, you cannot beat it. For Mac only though. Sorry.

4. Gmail - I've done away with Outlook and Mail and rely on Gmail for several reasons: free, 7090 MB capacity, integration with Google calendar, Gtalk, great search functionality, and the portability is sweet.

5. Google Reader - free, powerful feed reader which allows you to share items with your friends and slog through all your news feeds as fast as your bleary eyes will let you. Bonus - I'm playing with Feedly (Firefox extension) which provides a magazine like start page of your feeds with complete Google Reader integration and Twitter and FriendFeed and more. So far I like, but Google Reader is still number one for now.

We are a little bit disturbed. Not in a "We just watched a David Lynch movie" sort of way, but still, it is a little unnerving to think that our last post on Ulteo hinted at a world domination plot... and now it seems that goal is within their reach.

It is also a little unsettling to eat our words. We read about Ulteo's Virtual Desktop and its claims to run Linux apps quickly and smoothly under Windows. And we thought, "Yeah, right." We've used embedded Linux on Windows before. It works in a pinch, but it's not terribly responsive. It's also a little disorienting to be working in Linux, and then need to manually perform some key combination or mouse gesture to get to a Windows application.

Like andLinux, Ulteo's Virtual Desktop (often referred to with the rather misfortunate name UlteoVD) runs off a coLinux base. There is no virtualization software involved. But we'd especially recommend UlteoVD for those pondering whether a Linux switch could work for them, for a number of reasons.

The "social networking" space is chock-full of applications, plug-ins and other bits and pieces designed to hopefully enhance the user's experience online and potentially in their real lives as well. Unfortunately, some of these applications or plug-ins are often uninspired and do little, if anything, to accomplish this goal.

Sometimes, however, an application or plug-in is able to provide user's with useful services and a forum to express themselves. Case in point, "Where I've Been," an application and a stand-alone website which can actually enhance the user's experience by providing useful tools such as travel-related tips, interactive maps and a forum to showcase and discuss where they've traveled to.

At the helm of "Where I've Been" is CEO Michael Dalesandro who, in a short time, has managed to transform "Where I've Been" from its humble beginnings into a very successful application in use by millions of users each day. Recently, I sat down with with him to discuss "Where I've Been," what it does and where its going.

CHRIS ULLRICH: Michael, thanks for taking the time to talk with me.

MICHAEL DALESANDRO: Not a problem.

CU: How and when did you first get involved with "Where I've been"?

MD: Craig Ulliott was working for Blueye.com as a developer when he brought me the concept for "Where I've Been." He wrote the application and then it launched on Facebook first. That's where it all started.

CU: For someone unfamiliar with "Where I've been", can you describe it?

MD: "Where I've Been" is a simple way for people to connect and express themselves primarily through their travel experiences. It allows the user to highlight their travels graphically and show what places, cities, countries they've been to.

The can share where they have been, where have lived and where they want to go with friends, family and others.

CU: How does "Where I've been" benefit the user? Why should someone use it?

For those who have hoped for less application madness on Facebook, an announcement on the Facebook Developers blog should be of interest to you: a reward system for applications that are "compelling."

So, instead of giving applications a limit of 40 notifications per user per day, the amount of notifications sent out will adjust in accordance with the feedback an application gets. The more an application gets ignored, reported as spam, or hidden, the less notifications users will receive. The aim of this little adjustment is to reduce notifications that users will find to be of a "spammy" nature, while encouraging developers to make applications that users will want their friends to know about.

Whether that means that notifications of friends adding or using applications that have gotten a "bad rep" will start disappearing, is still not clear. But, it's reasonable to think that some of the notification "noise" will be reduced.

In the meantime, until the update is put in place, developers will be provided with two new "Insight" statistics tabs, to give them a better understanding of how users are responding to their applications. Users can expect to start seeing changes as early as next week.

[via ReadWriteWeb]

Love them or hate them, Facebook applications are what makes the social networking site what it is. Back when MySpace, Friendster, and other sites let you connect with friends, leave messages, and maybe even play some music, Facebook let you send snowballs, play Scrabble, and graph your bestest friends.

The only problem with Facebook applications is that up until now, you've had to actually visit Facebook to access them. OK, sure, that makes sense. But as Google promotes its OpenSocial initiative which will let people develop applications that can run on any website, Facebook's approach was starting to look a bit antiquated.

Now Facebook has upped the ante by releasing a JavaScript client library that lets you add a Facebook application to any site. That means you can visit Joe Schmo's home page and still play a game of Scrabulous with your Facebook contacts. You know, if Hasbro and Mattel don't shut it down.

There appears to be some debate in the developer community about how significant this announcement was. Facebook had already released an API for writing applications. And some developers have created applications that can be hosted on other sites. But by releasing the JavaScript library, developers can create multi-site applications that do not require any server-side code, making it incredibly easy for anyone to embed an application on their site.

[via All Facebook]

It used to be that a USB thumb drive was used mainly for transporting files to and from computers. Now, however, more people are using thumb drives to house portable applications. When you sit down at a computer that doesn't have Firefox, for example, and you're simply unwilling to double-click that Internet Explorer icon, just pop in your thumb drive, double-click your portable Firefox application, and surf away--no installation necessary.

Lists of portable applications are as old as the applications themselves, but lists of portable Mac applications are more rare. Over at Web Worker Daily, they have counted up and listed eleven portable applications for your Mac. Favorites on the list include Adium, that ubiquitous multi-protocol chat client, Bean, a lean and mean text editor, and iStumbler, a small app designed to find all wireless signals in your area, including Bluetooth, Airport, and Bonjour.

No longer will we envy those Geek Squaders with their multi-toned VW bugs and their keychain of portable thumb drives. Now we too can carry our USB drives with purpose. But unlike the Geek Squad, we will use our thumb drives for good, not for evil.

[Via Web Worker Daily]

The wait is over, DocSyncer is out of beta and open for all to use. This downloadable application allows PC based users of Microsoft Office and Google Docs to seamlessly sync documents.

DocSyncer is a downloadable application that sits on your computer and automatically finds and syncs all of your document files to your Google Docs account. When it's running, it checks all of your documents and syncs them as they are updated to create a solid backup and work anywhere system. Word and Excel based files can be opened directly from the web interface, and there is support for TXT, CSV and RTF formats.

Perhaps one of the coolest features is the 'disconnected' mode. If you are disconnected from the internet, DocSyncer will auto recognize it and load the document locally in the default application without trying to connect to the internet.

Yahoo! has launched an updated version of the Yahoo! Widget Engine and gallery. Yahoo! Widget Engine 4.5 has the same look and feel on your desktop as version 4.0, but there are some changes in the way widgets are created and organized.

First, Yahoo! has retooled its online widget gallery to give you more information about what each widget does. Users now also have a quick view of the most downloaded, highest rated and newest widgets, and can share Widgets directly with friends on IM, email, a Yahoo! Widget badge, del.icio.us, Digg and Reddit.

Second, there's now support for Flash and HTML based widget design. Yahoo! has also teamed up with the NBA to vote on All Stars, RockYou to create and watch slideshows on the desktop, and the Netvibes UWA will now be available as a Yahoo! Desktop Widget from the Netvibes Ecosystem. And if you still aren't satisfied, Yahoo! Finance has also improved their powerful stock Widget.

Check out a screeenshot of the new RockYou Yahoo! Widget after the jump.

With more and more users building documents in web based applications, we were starting to think the market belonged to a handful of new companies like Zoho, ThinkFree, and a little upstart called Google. But it looks like there's another serious contender in the online Office space.

Live Documents has a strong pedigree. The service comes from the guy who created Hotmail before Microsoft purchased the webmail service. Live Documents are flash based office applications that have the ability for collaboration and online and offline syncing in a MS Office based environment. Applications are similar to Microsoft's traditional Word, Excel and Powerpoint, but are built using Flash and Flex so that any user on any system can view and edit at will in a richer multimedia environment. If the web portion doesn't do anything for you, the desktop client might with its offline abilities. It wraps up MS Office through a plug-in and embeds collaboration options into them as well, making it possible for multiple people to edit documents at the same time keeping them secure and allowing for revision controls.

Live Documents is not currently live, but you can request to try out their office solution on their website. We are awaiting an invite, and will report back if it's a worthwhile contender when we actually see it in action.

Here at Download Squad HQ, we install and uninstall a lot of applications, tweak a lot of settings, and do a whole bunch of other things that generally makes Windows unhappy with us.

When I brought home my shiny new laptop running Windows Vista Home Premium earlier this year, I didn't know how lucky I was. My new PC shut down when I asked it to, slept when I closed the lid, and didn't cause glitches every time I started playing audio.

After spending some time pulling my hair out trying to get to the bottom of things, I figured the easiest way to solve some of my problems would be just to do a clean install of Windows. While programs like CCleaner are great for dusting the cobwebs of your windows registry, nothing works as well as reformatting the hard drive.

Of course, this was also an excellent opportunity to make sure I have a good backup of all my important data files, and to download and install just the applications that are most important to me in daily life. So after the jump is a list of the applications I started loading on my PC after restoring Windows. We'd love to know what programs you can't live without and what are the first things you load on a new PC?

OutTwit
OutTwit makes it possible to read Twitters through Outlook. Your Twitter status can be updated straight from Outlook and you can set certain intervals at which your Twitter account is checked for new messages.

Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen says within 10 years, the company will be offering all of its applications online. His remarks come at a time when we see more and more companies offering online applications as an alternative to desktop products.

Google Docs, Zoho, Picnik, SnapLayout, Zude, just a few of the many successful online applications that can be accessed anywhere without the large cost of boxed versions. There might be some features missing, but this new breed of application has much to offer the user with free, portable, cross platform, accessible with no upgrades needed as a few of the benefits.

Major software development companies like Adobe are starting to take note and recognize their shrinking market share. The likes of Picnik and PikiFX are emerging and growing the free online image editing space and have forced Adobe to quickly rethink their software strategy pushing them to develop a version of their popular Photoshop for online usage. Adobe still has no release date for Photoshop Express but realizes that the future of software lies with online versions and is working to deliver all of their applications via the web.

Chizen says he believes that these new online applications will only appeal to a younger generation of users that would never think of paying $400 for a packaged software product. Dear Adobe, we think this will appeal to all users, young or old, just as long as they, along with the rest of the world will have access to broadband in 10 years. After all, what good is an online application if it can't be accessed properly?

Get ready for iPhone and iPod Touch applications to roll out of the pipes early next year, an SDK is coming!

We heard a rumor yesterday, but our friends over at TUAW have let us in on some exciting news from the Apple front. Apple has said that the much anticipated iPhone SDK will be released to developers by February 2008. This Software Developer Kit will allow developers to create applications for the iPhone, as well as the iPod Touch. Of course, hackers have been developing iPhone apps pretty much since the day the device was released, but now we're talking about applications that won't be deleted every time Apple issues firmware updates.

So start that special savings account now, things are going to get really interesting with Apple devices. Its not like it wasn't heavily expected by Apple developers and loyal fans, but it sure has been long overdue and will unfortunately take some time for the release of the kit. This is mainly to ensure a proper advanced open platform is built that will not only protect iPhone's from viruses but from associated privacy attacks made on users.

This vital and dynamic third party community that is about to be created will be able to grab the SDK after MacWorld San Francisco in February 2008, something Apple and their stockholders are genuinely excited about.

If you are a corporate Gmail user, get ready for double the email storage capacity and some new security tools.

Google has reworked some components to their online business application suite and doubling email is hot on the list. The current business users, hundreds of thousands of them in the public and private sectors, will see their 10 GB of space jump to 25 GB. The next exciting addition is the inclusion of security features through the recent Postini acquisition. Although Gmail's spam blocker and virus tools are pretty good, Postini's addition is sure to set a new standard in web based email solutions. The new security tools will be able to insulate email from viruses and spam, as well as recover lost data, and also ensure employees are not violating company policies.

Standard Gmail users can expect their storage to hover under the 3 GB point for a while, and as for the security features, no word on whether they will be integrated. The Standard Edition of Google Apps is free, while the Premier Edition with more storage is $50 per user, per year.

Stocks.us
This site filters, aggregates and sorts financial news to get a quick look at the US stock market. 20 stocks are shown from the Dow Jones, Nasdaq 100, and S&P 500 on the front page as deemed important by Stocks.us. The best part of the service is that information refreshes every 15 minutes for fresh news and quotes. One wish, let users pick their own stocks, make it a custom financial start page of sorts.