As regular readers to this site know, I’ve become exponentially busier over the past month or so due to real world responsabilities, and as a result, I’ve become more and more dependent on web calendars, and time management software. One pretty cool tool I’ve been testing for the past couple of days is called TaskBlaze, a free Windows application which makes tracking time spent on a project pretty easy. Simply fire up the application and start the timer. When you’re done, stop the timer, and the time spent gets exported to your Outlook schedule so you can use that information to bill clients, track expenses, or simply to make yourself more productive. The software works really well and is super easy to use. Now if only it supported other clients aside from Outlook (hear that, Brad?)…

I’m generally not very keen on using browser toolbars unless they really do provide well integrated features into services I use very often. The only toolbar I used for a while was the del.icio.us toolbar, though I no longer need to since I’m a big fan of Flock (HUGE. Yes, I am). Anyways, Google just announced on Monday an update to their Google Toolbar which has some pretty cool new features which anyone who uses mostly Google services should at least check out. Some of the key new features include the ability to add customized buttons, enhanced searching capabilities with built in search-as-you-type, the ability to send pages to friends and family via e-mail, blog, or SMS, and finally, integration with the just released Google Bookmarks (more on that one soon), yet another bookmarking service. The new toolbar is currently only available for Internet Explorer, but a Firefox version is coming soon.

Most people are used to hearing about overclocking a computer in order to make it run faster in order to better run certain CPU-intensive applications (usually games). What most people probably haven’t heard of, or even want to try, is underclocking a computer. Underclocking might not do much for desktop computers, but could provide longer battery life and cooler running temperatures for laptops, and after all, who doesn’t want to get the most out of those skimpy laptop batteries.

I’m a big fan of Google Talk (my username is ferrettim in case you want to get in touch), but didn’t really like how limited its VOIP capabilities are, so I’m stuck using Skype, at least for now. Today, I found a pretty cool tool called Jabphone which allows you to make outgoing calls directly from Google Talk! The service uses libjingle, Jabber, and Asterisk to work and looks quite promising. You get 15 free minutes of calling time and more minutes can be bought by creating an account at the Jabphone website.

One of the big Google announcements while TipMonkies was on that crazy hiatus was that Google Talk would now work with other Jabber servers, a term dubbed federation. As a result of this, it was only a matter of (short) time before people started trying to connect to other IM protocols through Google Talk. See, Jabber clients can connect to AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and other networks through server transports, which not many people may know about. BigBlueBall has put up a very easy to follow article on connecting Google Talk to AIM, MSN, and Yahoo using the free Jabber client, Psi. Once done, you’ll have your AIM buddies available right from Google Talk.

IE Snapshot is a cool little tool I happened upon today by mistake but which impressed me enough to want to write about it. IE Snapshot is a Windows application which lets you take screenshots of a webpage and save it into a PDF file, or an image format like JPG, BMP, or GIF. Sure, you could always hit the Print Screen on your keyboard and paste the image into your favorite image program (or just Paint), but with IE Snapshot, you can select a particular section of a page, and preview what you’re screenshot will look like as the application has a built in web browser (hence the IE part of the name). It’s totally free, though donations are accepted.

Ok, well not by me, but by PC Magazine. The PC Magazine site has a pretty nice writeup on BitTorrent including some information on the protocol, a little on its history, and even a short interview with its creator, Bram Cohen. The best parts of the article though are the short reviews of three popular BitTorrent clients. The three reviewed are the lightweight uTorrent (that’s a MU as in the Greek letter, not a U) which is my favorite at the moment, the ever popular and expandable Azureus, the brand new BitPump, and of course, the original BitTorrent client. It sure is nice to see BitTorrent get some positive media attention for once. Oh, and if you haven’t used uTorrent, trust me, you won’t be disappointed.

While I no longer run Linux as my main operating system, I did for many years and like to recommend it to almost everyone I come across. The one problem to getting other people to using an alternative operating system like Linux, is that many people (read that as nearly all non-techies) are not willing to get rid of Windows and try out something new. Sure, there are quite a few liveCD distros around which let you try an operating system without actually installing it onto your hard drive, but many people might not be willing to burn the CD and try it out. One other choice is using emulation software like QEMU or the recently released (and free) VMWare Player. If you’re looking to try out an alternative operating system, then check out this article for detailed instructions on how to acquire all the necessary software and running Linux (or any other x86 operating system) using VMWare Player. By default, VMWare Player will only run virtual images created by it’s commercial big brother VMWare, but the article will show you how to work around this little hindrance.

If there is one type of application that I really like, it is something small, doesn’t use up a lot of system resources, and does one thing very well and Brutus is definitely that type of application. Brutus provides easy, one-click access to the shutdown, restart, log off, and lock screen features of Windows by adding little icons to your Quick Launch toolbar. The application comes with a control panel through which you can manage all the various options. Brutus is available for Windows 98, ME, XP, and 2003 and is totally free.