Do you have Gmail perma-tabbed in your browser window? Are you a Google Docs devotee? Is Facebook bookmarked as your home page?

If you nodded your head to any of the above questions (or blushed in embarrassment from your web 2.0 addictions), then Fluid is something you should take a look at.

Fluid, a beta download for Mac OS X Leopard, creates Site Specific Browsers that run as independent desktop applications. In other words, you can put a Gmail browser page on your desktop, complete with its own customizable dock icon and standard menu bar. The best thing is, if Firefox (or any web browser) should happen to crash, your desktop application is untouched.

So how does it work?

Launch Fluid to see a small display window where you can specify the URL of the webapp, give the window a name, and choose a customized or default icon (there's even a whole Flickr group of downloadable high-res icons). Click "create," and then launch your application. That's all there is to it.

Fluid gets its inspiration from Prism, a project by Mozilla labs. However, because Fluid is Mac only, and is based on Safari's WebKit rendering engine, it claims a more native look and feel over Prism.

Fluid is currently in beta (version 0.6), and requires Leopard.

There's a lot of you out there that use computers everywhere, making use of web-based services like Gmail, Google Reader, Pixenate, and Zoho. Here's something that'll help you organize your computing experience no matter what computer you use: Jooce, the online desktop. We covered the service back in August, but it's finally out of beta with old features refined and new ones to offer.

Jooce is web-based, meaning all you need is a computer with a web browser and a connection to the internet. Through Jooce, you can store unlimited files, share those files, access applications, email others, instant message, and more just like you would on a regular computer. The difference is that Jooce lets you do it anywhere on any computer and keeps the experience consistent. Other similar services exist from other companies such as Goowy and YouOS, which also emulate the desktop of a computer.

Jooce looks fairly easy to use and simulates the desktop computer experience pretty well. It's funded through the occasional, non-intrusive ad, so it's free to use. Future improvements include third party widgets from Widgetbox and Jooce's very own email client. The company was started by three friends from around the world who worked together at a Paris based NGO. The project took off in the wake of the United Nations sponsored World Summit on the Information Society.

[via TechCrunch]

On Friday, we wrote about the iPhoneChat application that allowed you to do AOL Instant Messaging from the iPhone. Today, however, we can go one better: AIM, Jabber (GTalk), MSN, Yahoo! and even ICQ for your iPhone.

Meebo offers an IM-aggregation service via the web, however what's great about this apparently new service is that you don't need to be registered with Meebo to be able to sign in. You simply visit the site, enter your sign-in details, and Meebo will log you in to the relevant service. Whilst the service isn't specifically for the iPhone, it works just fine (and once you've opened a chat window, you can simply take advantage of the zooming and enlarge the chat window) thanks to the iPhone's Safari browser.