A New Desktop

Ever get tired of dealing with crappy buggy programs? I did.

ICQ

For instant messaging I use ICQ, however ever since AOL bought ICQ it’s been infested with ads. Over the past year I have bounced between Trillan, Miranda and Easy Messenger. All did the job, but each one had drawbacks. I really wanted to use ICQ but I can’t stand the ads so after searching the net I came across a tool to remove the ads from ICQ. And just like promised, it removed all the ads.

RSS Reader

For those who don’t know RSS stands for Rich Site Summary. It uses XML to transfer posts between sites and RSS Readers. Of course this begs the question why would there be a need for such a thing?

I currently visit about a dozen sites a day to see if they have posted anything new. If I used a RSS Reader I wouldn’t have to visit any of them. The Reader downloads the new post and lets me know what sites have new posts and which ones don’t.

I tried 6 or 7 RSS Readers before I settled on Abilon, a small but powerful program which does most of what I want.

Desktop Wallpaper

Staring at Windows solid blue background gets old really fast. It was time to add some spice to the bland desktop. The only way I know of adding life to the desktop is downloading the Webshots application. But there is a catch, the program is free but the photos are not.. I haven’t decided if it’s worth buying the photos..

Google Deskbar

I posted yesterday, my thoughts on Google’s new Deskbar app. It’s day two and I still think it’s a great application. It fits nicely within my desktop.