With so many web-based applications coming out lately, it makes me wonder what it all means for the future of the software operating system. There’s a new web-based application called Writely which fits an important niche: word processing. With Writely, you can create a new document, or edit an existing one, either tied to your account, or by uploading to their servers. Best of all, it supports Word-formatted files, so you no longer need Microsoft Word in order to edit documents. The application has a nice WYSIWYG editor, making it super easy to add tables, and various other formatting to your documents.

A few days ago I wrote about Meebo and people took an interest to the web-based IM client, so I decided to do a quick roundup of the available clients. You should have a somewhat modern browser for these to work (IE 5.5, Netscape 7.1, Mozilla 1.0 or higher) but that shouldn’t be a hurdle for anyone. If you can’t install an IM application at work or school, then these web-based solutions should get you your IM fix. This list is by no means definitive, particularly when it comes to Jabber clients, of which there are many, but covers some of the more popular solutions. I’ve decided to exclude any commercial (read: not free) solutions, or those that require you to run them on your own server. Read on for more information!

I’m a huge fan of live-CD Linux distros, particularly when I want to recommend Linux to someone who is unwilling to dual boot or completely get rid of Windows on their machine. One of the more popular live-CD distros available (probably behind Knoppix) is SLAX, based on the fantastic Slackware distro. One problem with live-CD distros though, is that once you reboot your system, you will lose any configuration changes you’ve made while running the system, since everything is running off a CD. Some live-CD distros let you save configuration files to a floppy drive or USB key, but what if you don’t have these devices available? SLAX now offers a new feature which lets you save the configuration files to the web, making them accessible from any computer with an internet connection. Trying out live-CDs just got much easier. You can check out the guide at the SLAX webconfig page.

Imeem is an interesting service/application which combines features of many different applications. At it’s heart, it’s similar to services like YouSendIt in that it allows you to share files with your friends, but it’s really much more. Imeem is a desktop application which uses P2P technology to create a network between you and people you trust so that you can swap documents or images with ease. Unlike P2P applications like Kazaa, not everyone can view what files you want to share. Imeem has 5 different user access levels ranging from private, where only you can access files, to world, where your data is free reign. The application is currently Windows only, but there is a Mac client on the way, so stay tuned. You can take a tour to learn a little bit more about how it all works.

There’s a new instant messaging client called Meebo, which is completely browser-based (read: no download) which lets you connect to the major 4 IM (AIM, ICQ, Yahoo and MSN) networks right from your web-browser. It’s currently in beta so there are many features available, all you can do is sign on and IM people, but it’s shaping up to be a pretty cool tool. If you need to log on to your IM network from a location which doesn’t allow it, like say a library or at your office, then Meebo will definitely get the job done.

About 2 weeks ago, I wrote about DotTunes an OSX application which let you stream your iTunes library to a PSP or any other computer with internet access. It seems the DotTunes developers got so many requests, they decided to port the application to Windows! DotTunes is extremely easy to use, and will automatically read your iTunes library and let you stream it with just a few clicks. The application is available as a working demo which lets you share up to 10 songs. A full retail copy will run you USD29.

A while back, we wrote about Mailinator, a free service which lets you create a disposable e-mail address which you can give to shady companies or spammers. As you can imagine, Mailinator gets tons of spam every day, but you can now track where all the spam is coming from with the help of an awesome Google Maps hack, the Mailinator Spam Map. The map shows, in real time, where spam is coming from. While not available for individual accounts (it’s system-wide), it’s an awesome hack and one you may want to check out. I’ve been itching to get the word out on this since our very own Brian Pipa is involved in the project, and I’ve know of it for some time now.