Google Talk

Google Talk is a Windows and web-based application for voice over internet protocol (VOIP) and instant messaging, offered by Google Inc. It is a full-fledged IM client based on the open Jabber protocol with VoIP. Here's a quick run-down of what Google Talk has to offer:
• Basic IM capabilities,
• high-quality and easy to use VoIP
• complete integration with Gmail, and a simple, ads-free interface.
Read on for my preliminary review and a glimpse into Google Talk's future.

The download is tiny (about 900k, Link: http://www.google.com/talk/) and the install is a freeze. You sign in with your Gmail account and are immediately presented with your buddy list. There's an Add Friend button, a "Search all contacts" field which searches both your Google Talk and Gmail contacts, and a drop-down under your name that lets you set your available/unavailable status and messages. There's also an Inbox button which takes you to Gmail, plus Help and Settings.


Clicking on a friend in your buddy list will open an IM window for that person, and clicking on the phone icon to the right of their name will start a voice session. The buddy list allows you to rename contacts and tweak other settings, like whether Gmail-only contacts are shown. When you have multiple IM windows open, they show up in a neat sliding interface which you can dock to the buddy list, "roll up," or tear away. The whole affair is the picture of simplicity and intuitiveness we've come to expect of Google, and is downright attractive to boot.
There is a lot in store for Google Talk. Google is keenly interested in keeping the protocol open, and in fact you can access Google Talk's servers with any Jabber-compatible client like Trillian, Gaim, Adium X, and iChat. (If you have one of these, I'm told you can connect using server talk.google.com and port 5222.) Google tells us that SIP support is coming soon and are in talks with Skype, AOL, and Yahoo! concerning interoperability.



Another big feature they're working on is "joint search," which would allow two or more Google Talk buddies using Google and surfing the web together

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Spybot - Search & Destroy

Spybot - Search & Destroy can detect and remove a multitude of adware files and modules from your computer. Spybot also can clean program and Web-usage tracks from your system. it allows you to fix Registry inconsistencies related to adware and to malicious program installations.Here is the home page of the software to download

http://www.safer-networking.org/en/

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IrfanView

IMAGE VIEWING SOFTWARE

IrfanView is a fast and simple image viewer and editor that supports all major graphic formats, including BMP, DIB, JPEG, GIF, animated GIF, PNG, PCX, multipage TIFF, and TGA. In addition, it features drag-and-drop support, directory viewing, TWAIN support, slide shows, batch conversion, and modifications, such as color depth, crop, blur, and sharpen. Upon installation, the app attempts to install two Google programs, but if you don't want them, you can choose to opt out. The program lets you open and edit images, as well as multiple media formats. You can cut and crop images, apply batch conversions, add, sharpen, or blur effects, create panoramas, and change color modes easily. The program continues to add support for an array of file formats and has plug-in support for most image, video, and sound formats, including MP3, AVI, audio CD, and WMA. The interface is far from fancy but should be easy enough for most users to figure out. An IrfanView Thumbnails shortcut on the desktop offers an Explorer-like file tree that quickly displays all images in a particular folder. Though IrfanView works does what it does well, it's not going to replace a major paint program. IrfanView wraps a nice set of features for an image viewer in a free, compact download.
Some IrfanView features:

* Many supported file formats (click here the list of formats)
* Multi language support
* Thumbnail/preview option
* Paint option - to draw lines, circles, arrows, straighten image etc.
* Toolbar skins option
* Slideshow (save slideshow as EXE/SCR or burn it to CD)
* Show EXIF/IPTC/Comment text in Slideshow/Fullscreen etc.
* Support for Adobe Photoshop Filters
* Fast directory view (moving through directory)
* Batch conversion (with image processing)
* Multipage TIF editing
* File search
* Email option
* Multimedia player
* Print option
* Support for embedded color profiles in JPG/TIF
* Change color depth
* Scan (batch scan) support
* Cut/crop
* IPTC editing
* Effects (Sharpen, Blur, Adobe 8BF, Filter Factory, Filters Unlimited, etc.)
* Capturing
* Extract icons from EXE/DLL/ICLs
* Lossless JPG rotation
* Unicode support
* Many hotkeys
* Many command line options
* Many PlugIns
* Only one EXE-File, no DLLs, no Shareware messages like "I Agree" or
"Evaluation expired"
* No registry changes without user action/permission!
* and much much more

Download Link:
http://www.irfanview.com/main_download_engl.htm

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Google Chrome

Google Chrome - Web Browser

Latest in the armour of Browser application is Google Chrome. It is an open-source web browser built to support web applications and search with speed and stability. It's currently available for Windows XP and Windows Vista. Like most other browsers, Google Chrome has some special pages that show information about memory usage, cached files, plug-ins and more. The browser replicates the simplicity of Google's homepage that hides the complexity of the search engine. Installation instructions

1. Visit http://www.google.com/chrome
2. Click the Download Google Chrome button. Downloading the installer file from this location ensures that you'll be able to get updates, security fixes, and access to all of Google Chrome's features.
3. Click to accept the terms of service and click Install button to continue.
4. Once the installation finishes, the 'Welcome to Google Chrome' dialog box appears. Click the Start Google Chrome button to finish the default installation or click the Customize these settings link to choose specific installation options.
5. Google Chrome opens automatically after the importing process completes. Browse our Getting Started Guide to learn about Google Chrome's features.

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CCleaner

CCleaner is a freeware system optimization, privacy and cleaning tool. It removes unused files from one's system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of online activities such as Cache, cookies and Internet history. Additionally it contains a fully featured registry cleaner. But the best part is that it's fast and not memory hogging as it normally takes less than a second to run. Download the exe file and click it to install in the system. Here is the website link to download the application.http://www.ccleaner.com/download

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Preface

Now a days computer applications in varied fields are coming up in lot. Finding Applications that are needed for one's system to run properly is a difficult task. As blindly running a utility software without knowing its popularity or its implications in the system structure will many a times end with disastrous consequences. Many a times it will ended up the re installation of the operating system, losing the user settings and loss of valuable data/informationApart from utility software, many a applications are a must for a computer for the day to day usage, like Photography, web designing, data handling, music fields or simply web browsing and email handling.Hence for proper maintenance of a system and its maximum utilization, applications are must, apart from choosing its grade. Here are the few that must be installed in every system other than mac pc

1. Office applications like word processor, spread sheet, database software
2. Browser software like Opera, Mozilla Firefox etc
3. Anti virus, Anti spyware and firewall applications in standalone mode in suite like AVG, AVAST etc
4. Photo handling applications like IrfanView
5. System maintenance software to clean temp files, registry errors etc like Ccleaner, regcleaner.

This blog mainly serves the purpose of providing some applications of above kind.
Any moderation or suggestions are welcome. I am available at balakrishnan@aol.in

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